Mary Fuller: Silent Movie Star

Washington, DC

Mary Fuller, star of stage and screen, performed in silent film productions for early studios such as Vitagraph and Edison. By the 19-teens she was among Hollywood's top stars. She played Elizabeth in the first-ever film adaptation of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, released in 1910. She was the lead in 1912's What Happened to Mary?, which may have been the first movie serial (Its popularity led to a sequel serial, Who Will Mary Marry?).

However, Fuller's film career was over by 1917, and a failed affair with a married opera singer led to a nervous breakdown. She moved to Washington, DC, to live with her mother; when her mother died, she suffered a second breakdown and in 1947 was admitted into St. Elizabeths Hospital, a psychiatric facility. She remained there until her death in 1973. Hailed in 1914 by Thomas Edison as having "undying fame," Fuller was buried in an unmarked grave for decades until a bench was placed atop her plot. Its front face displays a version of the star that Fuller still lacks on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and its epitaph calls her "A Personality of Eloquent Silence."

[Grave report by Kurt Deion]