Edith Ellis (playwright)

Edith Ellis (1876 - December 27, 1960) was an American actress and playwright.

Ellis was born in Coldwater, Branch County, Michigan. The daughter of Edward C Ellis, playwright and actor, and Ruth McCarty Ellis, an actress, she was 'born on the stage'. Her first part was at age 6, and by 10 she was a star. Two plays were written for her before her 12th birthday.

Several times Ellis was head of her own stock companies, travelling or stationary, and wrote, produced, directed, and acted in many plays. Her first writing attempt was out of necessity, when she and her brother, Edward, were stranded on the road by the unexpected disbanding of their theatrical company. The play was successful enough to pay their way home.

Ellis married Frank A Baker, and they leased the Park Theatre and the Criterion Theatre in Brooklyn, where she directed plays for many years. They later moved to the Berkely Lyceum in New York City where she directed her own play, The Point of View. She also wrote silent films scenarios for Samuel Goldwin. Their daughter, Ellis Baker, became an actress. Edith Ellis later married C. Becher Furness, a Canadian.

In 1936, Ellis began transcribing works about life after death which she said came from a New England farm boy who was killed by a British soldier in 1781. These works include: Incarnation: A Plea from the Masters, (1936), Open the Door!, (1935), We Knew These Men, (1943) and Love in the Afterlife, (1956)

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