1. Nellie McAleney Revell was an American journalist, novelist, publicist, vaudeville performer, screenwriter, and radio broadcaster.
16 Facts About Nellie Revell
1. 2.
Nellie Revell's father was an Irish-born Civil War veteran; Nellie Revell sometimes said he was a newspaper man, but there is little evidence for this claim.
3.
Nellie Revell worked in Chicago, Denver, Seattle, New York, and San Francisco as a young woman, building a reputation for covering nontraditional stories for women reporters at the time, such as a prize fight, the Haymarket Riot, and the Iroquois Theatre fire.
4.
Nellie Revell traveled to Russia in 1895 to cover Czar Nicholas II's coronation, to England for Queen Victoria's funeral in 1901, and the murder trial of Harry K Thaw in New York City in 1906.
5.
Nellie Revell became known for insisting that her work never be put on the women's page ; she was among the first women reporters to successfully have her work treated equally with her male colleagues.
6.
Nellie Revell moved into publicity work after 1906, with jobs promoting vaudeville shows, circuses, and movie theatres.
7.
Nellie Revell became the press agent for such performers as Al Jolson, Lillie Langtry, Lillian Russell, and Will Rogers, and had her own act, singing and performing monologues.
8.
In 1919 Nellie Revell became ill with a "spinal trouble" that kept her hospitalized in a plaster cast for several years, under the care of orthopedic surgeons Adolf Lorenz and Reginald Sayre.
9.
Nellie Revell wrote three books about her ordeal: Right Off the Chest, Fightin' Through, and Funny Side Out.
10.
Nellie Revell used a wheelchair afterward, but was able to walk again by 1925, when she was planning a lecture tour.
11.
Nellie Revell contributed to screenplays for The Beach Club and The Mighty, and wrote titles for several silent pictures, including The Magic Flame, The Golf Nut, Smith's Restaurant, and Smith's Farm Days.
12.
Nellie Revell wrote advice for an instructional manual, Writing for Vaudeville, and the introduction to a memoir by Sol Rothschild, It Can Be Done: A True Story.
13.
Nellie Revell worked in radio during the 1930s and 1940s, conducting celebrity interviews as host of a show called Neighbor Nell and Nellie Revell Presents, which ran for years on NBC radio.
14.
Nellie Revell retired in 1947, when cataracts began to interfere with her vision.
15.
Nellie Revell married her third husband, agent Arthur J Kellar, in 1913; some sources say 1915.
16.
Nellie Revell had twin daughters; daughter Dorothy died in 1935.