38 Facts About Beatriz Michelena

Beatriz Michelena was a Venezuelan American actress and singer during the silent film era, known at the time for her operatic soprano voice and appearances in musical theatre.

Beatriz Michelena was one of the few Latina stars visible on the silver screen in the United States in the 1910s.

Beatriz Michelena was a leading lady in each film project she was involved in and, after the failure of California Motion Picture Company, co-founded a production company with her husband George E Middleton, producing four of her movies.

Beatriz Michelena wrote popular articles for newspapers, including an advice column for girls, describing what it was like to be an actress, and answering questions from readers.

Beatriz Michelena faded from historiography for many years, but her place in history has recently been re-examined; she was mentioned in 2002 in a presidential proclamation and her 1914 film Salomy Jane enjoyed a limited re-release in 2008.

Beatriz Michelena was born in New York City in 1890, six years after her sister Vera Michelena.

Beatriz Michelena's father was a noted tenor Fernando Michelena, whose Spanish parents had settled in Caracas, Venezuela, where he was born.

Beatriz Michelena's mother, Frances Lenord, was an operatic soprano and pianist.

Over much of her childhood, Beatriz Michelena's parents toured with the Emma Abbott Grand Opera Company a traveling theatre company that performed famous operas translated into English for American audiences.

Beatriz Michelena, too, performed with Princess Chic in 1901, taking chorus roles suitable for a child of 11.

Beatriz Michelena passed his stage experience to his daughter: the way to move as another person, the way to make simple but authoritative gestures, and the way to build intensity over the span of a performance.

On Sunday, March 3,1907, Michelena married George E Middleton, a prominent San Francisco automobile dealer, the "happy culmination" of a romance that had begun in their school days.

Beatriz Michelena introduced Michelena to his society friends and business partners, including the trustees of Charles Crocker's estate who had rebuilt the St Francis Hotel after the 1906 earthquake and fire.

Middleton and Beatriz Michelena gave an interview to Anthony after The White Hen was an established hit.

Beatriz Michelena said that she had so far spent her married life studying to perform three operatic roles: Carmen and Micaela in Carmen, and Violetta Valery in La traviata.

Beatriz Michelena said that prior to appearing at the Garrick Theater, she had been afraid that her stage training had been lost.

Beatriz Michelena said she had to overcome her fears as well as her husband's objections.

Beatriz Michelena said she refused to put her famous family name in second place.

Beatriz Michelena was good enough to have confidence in us and gave us positions in his 'Princess Chic' company, where we rose afterward, through his encouragement and help, to prima donna posts.

Beatriz Michelena excelled in a singing role in The Tik-Tok Man of Oz in 1913.

That year, during the autumn season, Beatriz Michelena was a featured star of the Mechanics' Fair, an engineering and auto show in San Francisco.

Beatriz Michelena determined that his pretty wife could star in movies made by his company.

Beatriz Michelena's role was Bret Harte's Salomy Jane Clay, an energetic daughter of an emigrant miner.

Beatriz Michelena is wooed by four men but prefers a fifth played by British heartthrob House Peters.

The movie saw limited nationwide distribution and was judged a hit by viewers who were impressed by the wild California scenery: giant redwood trees, winding roads hugging rocky bluffs and the Russian River Beatriz Michelena's dominant portrayal of the title role was an appeal.

Beatriz Michelena has rare beauty, vivacity, wit, intellectual attainments and athletic grace.

Unfortunately, Beatriz Michelena's ego expanded with the glowing reviews of her skill, and her demands for star treatment brought heavier expenses to productions that continued to lose money.

In 1915 and 1916, Beatriz Michelena wrote the regular newspaper column "Talks with Screen-struck Girls", carried at first by the San Rafael Independent on Tuesdays but then appeared on Sundays in other newspapers: San Francisco Examiner and the Prescott Journal-Miner.

Beatriz Michelena wrote about the ideal qualities found in an actress, and what girls might do to develop them.

On May 7,1916, Beatriz Michelena wrote to caution girls wishing for fame on the silver screen that many like themselves ended up "broken in spirit", with shattered expectations.

Beatriz Michelena advised them to stay home and avoid "bitter disappointment" in movie making.

Beatriz Michelena wrote in October 1916 about the history of the moving picture industry in a multiple-article series, beginning her account with a retelling of Eadweard Muybridge's action photograph of Governor Leland Stanford's racehorse named Occident.

Beatriz Michelena defined this high-speed image as essential to the development of moving pictures.

Middleton and Beatriz Michelena bought their bankrupt film company for "a few thousand dollars" in 1917 and renamed it Beatriz Michelena Studios.

Beatriz Michelena's lead character was a white woman raised by American Indians, a woman who does not realize her racial heritage until after she falls into forbidden love with a white man.

American audiences had grown more sophisticated, yet Beatriz Michelena Studios was still employing their earlier production techniques.

Beatriz Michelena returned to her singing performances and he returned to his car sales.

Every known copy of Beatriz Michelena's movies was destroyed, a loss that Middleton estimated at $200,000; worth about $4.1 million today.