2013 Essays

Margery Wilson

Walker, Janet

By the time Margery Wilson reached her late twenties, she had completed her work as a film director. Prior to that, according to autobiographical accounts, she had received a seminary education supplemented in philosophy and literature by her father, actively pursued social-service work, and given one-woman public performances at clubs, schools, and churches in the Cincinnati area. She toured Ohio and south to Atlanta as a leading lady with the John Lawrence players, founded her own theatre company at sixteen years of age, and embarked to London with her sister Mary on an aborted world tour as musical entertainers (Wilson 1956). Then, in 1914, Margery Wilson traveled to Los Angeles and launched her Hollywood career. Today she is best remembered as Brown Eyes in D. W. Griffith’s Intolerance (1916), but her motion picture career was extensive, with three dozen roles including many starring performances to her credit.