15 Facts About Louise Lovely

Louise Lovely is credited by film historians for being the first Australian actress to have a successful career in Hollywood, signing a contract with Universal Pictures in the United States in 1914.

Louise Lovely was born Nellie Louise Carbasse in Paddington, Sydney to an Italian musician and composer father, Ferruccio Carlo Alberti, and a Swiss mother, Elise Louise Jeanne de Gruningen Lehmann, who had come to Australia in 1891, in the company of Sarah Bernhardt, and had decided to remain in Sydney once Bernhardt had left Australia.

Louise Lovely made her professional debut at age nine as Eva in a stage production of the classic Uncle Tom's Cabin, using the name Louise Carbasse.

Louise Lovely was acting with George Marlow's theatre company in Western Australia when she received a telegram from Gaston Mervale to appear in a series of movies for Australian Life Biograph Company.

In 1914, Louise Lovely moved to the United States with her husband, hoping to replicate her Australian success, settling in Los Angeles, California.

Louise Lovely made her American debut alongside the legendary Lon Chaney in Father and the Boys in 1915, receiving strong reviews.

Louise Lovely starred with Chaney again in several other films including her next release US film Stronger Than Death and The Gilded Spider and Tangled Hearts.

Louise Lovely became one of Universal's major early stars and a challenger to Mary Pickford's status as the golden girl of early silent cinema, but was dropped by the studio in 1918 following a contract dispute.

Louise Lovely had maintained a long-time interest in the behind-the-scenes aspects of film, and had collaborated with Welch on a successful short documentary feature, A Day at the Studio, but her plans for her return to Australia were far more ambitious.

Louise Lovely was offered no more roles and could not afford any further independent productions, and thus, Jewelled Nights was her last film.

Louise Lovely married fellow actor Wilton Welch in February 1912, when she was sixteen years old, and relocated to the United States with him.

Louise Lovely testified at the Royal Commission on the Moving Picture Industry in Australia, suggesting a number of measures that might stimulate the struggling local film industry.

Louise Lovely married Melbourne theatre manager Andrew Bertie Cowen, known as "Bert Cowan", at the Melbourne Registry Office on Monday, 26 November 1928; the same day as her divorce was granted in Sydney.

Louise Lovely was in turn manager of Hoyts' Regent, Plaza and Lyceum theatres in Melbourne before in 1934 taking on the Metro Theatre in Collins Street for MGM.

Louise Lovely managed the theatre's sweet shop, where she worked until her death in 1980.