Edna Payne (December 5, 1891 – January 31, 1953) was an American

silent screen Silent Screen (1967–1993) was an American Champion Thoroughbred racehorse. Background Silent Screen was trained by J. Bowes Bond for owners Sonny and Leah Ray Werbin who raced under the ''nom de course'', Elberon Farm. Racing career Sil ...

motion picture

actress An actor (masculine/gender-neutral), or actress (feminine), is a person who portrays a character in a production. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such as film, radio, and television. ...

. She was not in any feature-length films, but is regarded as a "pioneer" in the film industry because she was in many short films from 1911 through 1917.

Career

Her parents were both stage actors, so Payne began her career as a child in

vaudeville Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment which began in France in the middle of the 19th century. A ''vaudeville'' was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a drama ...

, making her movie debut in ''Higgenses Versus Judsons'' (1911). She played the lead in reel dramas, and later in a few reel westerns including ''

The Girl Stage Driver ''The Girl Stage Driver'' is a 1914 American short silent Western film. It was directed by Webster Cullison and was thought to have been lost, but an incomplete 35mm positive print was found in 2009 in the New Zealand Film Archive. The film w ...

'' (1914). Although her film career was confined to the 1910s, she took part in countless productions.

Family

She was married to actor Jack Rollens, whom she divorced in 1925. She had two children, Edna J, born in 1919, and Jack A, born in 1921.

Notes

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Payne, Edna 1891 births 1953 deaths American silent film actresses Burials at Hollywood Forever Cemetery American vaudeville performers 20th-century American actresses