Ella Margaret Gibson

Margaret Gibson
Margaret Gibson Promo Photo
Born	Ella Margaret Gibson (1894-09-14)September 14, 1894 Colorado Springs, Colorado, U.S.
Died	October 21, 1964(1964-10-21) (aged 70) Hollywood, California, U.S.
Cause of death	Heart attack
Other names	Margaret Gibson Margie Gibson Marguerite Gibson Helen Gibson Patricia Palmer Patsy Palmer Ella Margaret Arce Pat Lewis
Years active	1913–1929

Ella Margaret Gibson (September 14, 1894 – October 21, 1964) was an American stage and silent film actress who had leading roles in Vitagraph westerns, often opposite William Clifford. She also appeared with Charles Ray in The Coward (1915) and later worked in two Westerns with William S. Hart: The Money Corral and Sand!. In 1999 it was reported that on the afternoon of October 21, 1964 she made a dying confession to the murder of director William Desmond Taylor.

Gibson was sometimes credited or otherwise identified under at least seven other names, such as Patsy Palmer, Margie Gibson, Marguerite Gibson, Ella Margaret Lewis, Ella Margaret Arce or Pat Lewis. She appeared in 147 movies between 1913 and 1929.

By her own account Gibson's parents had worked in show business. She began her stage career at the age of 12, apparently when her father left and she remained as the sole means of support for her mother. Gibson appeared on the Pantages Vaudeville Circuit for over two years. In 1909 she became a member of the Theodore Lorch Stock Company in Denver where she was cast in a wide variety of roles. She entered the film industry in 1912, getting a job with Vitagraph in Santa Monica where she stayed for three years. For six months during this period Taylor was acting in the same studio and they made four films together: The Love of Tokiwa, The Riders of Petersham, The Kiss and A Little Madonna. An article in Variety magazine the following year noted that the 19-year-old budding film star had purchased a cliffside bungalow overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Santa Monica. In 1915 she left Vitagraph and went to the Thomas Ince Film Company where she played a small supporting role in The Coward, the film which made Charles Ray a star. She subsequently had supporting roles in many comedy shorts and was the subject of several promotional articles in fan magazines.

Her first starring role after Vitagraph was in Mutual Masterpicture's The Soul's Cycle (1916) in which she played both an attractive Roman maiden and a modern New York heiress. Other noted roles included leads in The Riders of Petersham, Back to Eden and The Outlaw.