Portrait of Pauline Frederick
Signature of Pauline Frederick


The Pauline Frederick Website


NOTE: This site is no longer being updated as of April 2024 as it's no longer easily accessible to me. It's long been impossible to keep up with the broken links. Remember that if you find a broken link that you wanted to follow, copy the URL and paste it into the Wayback Machine, and look at a cache from a few years back. And you might want to bookmark the URL for this page since it site itself will doubtless go offline at some point when Stanford pulls down the legacy webspace, so it may also only be available via the Wayback Machine


Pauline Frederick was regarded by audiences and, more notably, by her peers as one of the greatest and most powerful actresses of the screen. A well-known stage star, she was already in her 30s when she began making films. She specialized in playing commanding and authoritative women throughout her film career. Her stunning beauty stayed with her as she aged into her best remembered roles--sacrificing mothers and 40-something women having a last fling at youth and romance. She was one of the earliest stars to try talkies, and was successful there as well. The roles she received in the 1930s were not as important as her silent work, though she often still managed to steal the film--generally playing an angry matriarch. Frederick was a brave and honest actress who was willing to take on parts that other actresses feared and make them her own, and she created some of the most memorable portraits of the silent screen.

This website is a work in progress, and will be updated as I see more Frederick films and acquire more articles. Thanks to Gail Orwig for the picture above



What's new?


Pauline Frederick, Tragedienne of the Silent Screen

An article about Pauline Frederick's life and career


Filmography

with a listing of archival holdings, video availablity and links to new and vintage reviews


Films on Video



A Pauline Frederick Picture Gallery



A Pauline Frederick Scrapbook



Homes and Haunts
Addresses associated with Pauline Frederick



Pictures on the Web


Performer list on the Silent Film Still Archive

A Pauline Frederick Picture Postcard Gallery
courtesy of Mark Goffee

Dr. Macros's High Quality Movie Scans
(be sure to also check the annex)

Pictures of Frederick's home on Silents are Golden

Posing for the newsreel cameras in Australia from the Australian Screen website

, Onze filmsterren, tiende serie, a newsreel on the EYE youTube site

Several copies of Smouldering Fires (1925) can be found on youTube



Contemporary articles

The Story of My Life
By Pauline Frederick
Motion Picture Magazine, December 1918, pages 63-65 and 126

Film Star Sees Business Asset in Wifely Disaster
By Georgia G. Bordwell
The Oakland Tribune, April 21, 1919, p. 18

A Flyer in Pasts
By Adela Rogers St. John
Photoplay, January, 1920, p. 56-59, 130+

Girls of Today Fortunate, Declares Star
The Oakland Tribune, October 23, 1923, clipping courtesy of William Drew

"A Sketch of Pauline Frederick"
by Lillian Gish
Logansport Pharos-Tribune, Saturday, August 20, 1921

"What Happened to Pauline Frederick?"
By Adela Rogers St. John
Photoplay, September 1926, p. 62-63+

Various other Articles


Selected Bibliography


Other materials on the Web


"Pauline Says Hollywood is not Immoral" from the Seattle Union-Record, February 14, 1922, posted on Taylorogy

Pauline Frederick's Broadway appearances listed in the Internet Broadway Database


Links to other general silent film sites

Alt.movies.silent FAQ
Great source of basic information from the alt.movies.silent newsgroup, including links to other silent film sites
Lots of information on silent films, including star profiles, pictures, and video reviews

The American Film Institute catalog of motion pictures produced in the United States : Silent Films
The online version of the AFI catalog contains information about silent features, plus some short films up to 1911. There is also members' only access to catalog entries on sound features.

Media History Digital Library
Scans of extensive runs of several important trade journals and fan magagazines including Moving Picture World, Photoplay, Wids/Film Daily, and others.

The Women Film Pioneers Project
Articles on women filmmakers of the silent era, edited by Jane Gaines, Radha Vatsal, and Monica Dall’Asta,

Glen Pringle's Silent Movies
Silent star of the month, links to silent film interest groups, and lots of links to other silent film sites

Silents are Golden
Nice features, lots of vintage reviews, great list of silent films on video.

The Silent Film Still Archive
An ever-growing collection of fascinating film stills of the silent era

Silent Era
A new, but growing, site with information and reviews on silents on DVD and VHS, information about stars, book reviews, and Presumed Lost, a preliminary listing of lost films

Gilda's Blue Book of the Screen
Great articles on Silent Film, as well as lots of links

100 Years of Hollywood and the Stars of 1910 to 2010
A nice new site by film historian William Drew on the movie stars of the 1910s.

Welcome to Silent Movies
Features, calendars, and assorted facts on the silent film era

Pauline Frederick Young home
Unsung Divas

Created and maintained by Greta de Groat,
Photos from the author's collection unless otherwise noted
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License.
Special contents © 2002

Last revised, March 3, 2024