18 Facts About Vera Michelena

Vera Michelena was an American actress, contralto prima donna and dancer who appeared in light opera, musical comedy, vaudeville and silent film.

Vera Michelena was perhaps best remembered for her starring roles in the musicals The Princess Chic, Flo Flo and The Waltz Dream, her rendition of the vampire dance in the musical Take It from Me and as a Ziegfeld Follies performer.

Vera Michelena's half-sister, Teresa Michelena, was an actress known as Donna Borrell.

Vera Michelena attended school at a convent in San Miguel, California.

Vera 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.

Vera Michelena made her professional theatrical debut in the fall of 1902 playing a minor role in a national tour of the Kirke La Shelle comic opera, The Princess Chic.

Vera Michelena spent the following season in two road productions: The School Girl, an Edwardian musical comedy by Henry Hamilton, Paul Meredith Potter and Charles H Taylor in which she played Lillian Leigh, and The Yankee Consul, a musical comedy by Alfred George Robyn and Henry Blossom in which she played the role of Bonita.

On January 13,1908, Michelena opened at the Casino Theatre in Funabashi, a musical comedy by Irvin S Cobb and Safford Water that was inspired by a recent trip to Asia by the then American Secretary of War William H Taft.

On June 11,1908, Vera Michelena sailed for England aboard the steamship Blucher for an engagement at London's Palace Theatre and a later side trip to France.

Vera Michelena returned early that September after enduring a storm-plagued Atlantic crossing aboard the ocean liner New York, to prepare for a fall road tour with the Harry B Smith and Maurice Levy hit Broadway musical comedy, The Soul Kiss In the spring of 1910, Michelena played to record-breaking audiences at Chicago's LaSalle Theatre in the Mortimer Henry Singer farce musical The Flirting Princess.

Vera Michelena remained with the musical until it closed out its run at Boston's Colonial Theatre late in April 1911.

Vera Michelena remained with Alma into the spring of 1912, and then she toured with Lew Fields' popular vaudeville extravaganza Hanky Panky.

Vera Michelena was among the principal performers with the Ziegfeld Follies of 1914 during the musical revue's June to September run at the New Amsterdam Theatre, New York.

Vera Michelena starred in at least two silent films, both opposite her then husband Harry Spingler.

Vera Michelena played Helen Warner in Driftwood, a family drama produced in March 1916 by the Ocean Film Corporation.

Vera Michelena next appeared in The Devil's Playground, a social drama produced by Monmouth Films in 1917.

Vera Michelena first married Paul Schindler, a composer and orchestra director who composed music for such shows as Tiger Lilly, The Geezer of Geck, The Wizard of Oz and The Isle of Spice.

Vera Michelena divorced Schindler on May 16,1917, over alleged statutory offences.