Grace Cunard
| Grace Cunard | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
Harriet Mildred Jeffries April 8, 1893 Columbus, Ohio, U.S. |
| Died | January 19, 1967 (aged 73) Woodland Hills, California, U.S. |
| Occupation | Actress, screenwriter, director |
| Years active | 1910–1946 |
| Spouse(s) | Joe Moore (19??-19??; divorced) Jack Shannon (1925–1967; her death) |
Grace Cunard (April 8, 1893 – January 19, 1967) was an American actress, screenwriter and film director. Her sister was actress Mina Cunard.
Born Harriet Mildred Jeffries in Columbus, Ohio, by her late teens she was already acting on live theatre and in silent films using the stage name, Grace Cunard. Although not clearly documented, it appears Cunard made her motion picture debut in 1910 in an uncredited role in a D.W. Griffith production for Biograph Studios.
In 1911, she had a significant secondary role in the Thomas H. Ince western, Custer's Last Fight. After making a number of westerns, she continued to work with actor-director Francis Ford at Universal Studios in a variety of dramas, and came to considerable fame starring in serials. She starred in Universal Pictures' first serial, Lucille Love, Girl of Mystery (1914), and quickly became Universal's serial queen. The following year Cunard did a 20-episode adventure/mystery called The Broken Coin, and in 1916, the very successful The Adventures of Peg o' the Ring. A 1917 Ford/Cunard short, Unmasked, was selected to the U.S. National Film Registry in 2014.
In an era when the fledgling film industry saw actors and other film studio personnel frequently pitch in to do multiple tasks, Cunard was no exception, and wrote close to one hundred screenplays. As well, between 1914 and 1921, she directed 11 films and produced two others. With age, her career shifted to leads in B-movies and secondary roles or bit parts in others. Nonetheless, she worked regularly until the mid-1940s, mostly at her home studio, Universal.
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