20 Facts About Virginia Brissac

Virginia Brissac was a popular American stage actress who headlined theatre companies from Vancouver to San Diego during the heyday of West Coast Stock in the early 1900s.

An ingenue and leading lady known for her natural style and charm on stage, Brissac played with equal success in both comedies and dramas and went on to have a long second career as a character actress in film and television.

Virginia Brissac is probably best remembered for her role as the grandmother of Jim Stark, the troubled teenager played by James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause.

Virginia Brissac was introduced to the theatre as a young girl by her aunt and uncle, New York actress Mary Shaw and husband Norline Brissac, who was the stage manager for Sarah Bernhardt on her early tours in San Francisco and other American cities.

Virginia Brissac was a fan of author and poet Rudyard Kipling, and when she wrote asking for his signature, Kipling's secretary wrote back informing her that the writer would grant her request if she would be willing to donate $2.50 to a certain London charity.

Brissac, Travers saw talent in Virginia and convinced her father to let him give her lessons in elocution.

Virginia Brissac was a hit in both and eventually Travers convinced Brissac's parents to let her act professionally.

In July 1906, aged 23, Brissac married Eugene D Mockbee, an actor she had met while working with the Belasco players in Los Angeles.

Early in 1907, Virginia Brissac became pregnant and, awaiting the birth of her child, joined the Jessie Shirley Company, a local troupe in residence at the Auditorium Theatre in Spokane, appearing in productions of Lady Windermere's Fan, A Bachelor's Housekeeper, A Man of Her Choice, The Two Orphans and The Triumph of Betty.

Mockbee's career had been less successful and, after the arrival of their daughter, Ardel, in October 1907, Virginia Brissac continued working in Spokane for a second season.

Virginia Brissac appeared with Grant Churchill in a vaudeville act titled The Billionaire at the Pantages Theatre, and in May 1908 she and Mockbee opened Spokane's new Natatorium Park theatre.

Late in 1911, Virginia Brissac began a tour of Southern California theatres, appearing in productions at The Burbank Theatre in Los Angeles, the Boston Theatre in Long Beach and headlining for the opening of the Savoy and Grand Theatres in San Diego.

Virginia Brissac opened at Honolulu's Bijou Theatre in Brewster's Millions on December 21,1912, and closed with a final performance in Honolulu on October 21,1913 at the Grand Opera House.

Some time after the release of his silent film adaptation of Eugene O'Neill's Anna Christie in 1923, John Wray began a long affair with screenwriter Josephine McLaughlin, and Virginia Brissac divorced him in May 1927.

Virginia Brissac did encore performances in San Diego several years later and took roles in one or two theatre productions in the 1950s.

Virginia Brissac had to identify Colombo for the Los Angeles County Coroner's Office and testify about the accident at the inquest.

Virginia Brissac was 72 when she got the part of Jim Stark's grandmother in Rebel Without a Cause in 1955.

Virginia Brissac lived another 25 years and died on July 26,1979, aged 96, in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Virginia Brissac's ashes are interred with those of her parents and other Virginia Brissac family members in the columbarium at Mt.

Virginia Brissac was a contemporary of Theda Bara, Isadora Duncan, and Eleanor Roosevelt, and in a 1919 publicity stunt, she became the first air parcel post package in the United States, flown from San Diego to Los Angeles in a two-seater single engine plane wearing a helmet covered with postage stamps.