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Florence Lawrence (January 2, 1886 (her birth date
has also been reported as 1890) - December 28,
1938) was an inventor and actress, who was
referred to as "The First Movie star|Movie Star."

Born Florence Annie Bridgwood in Hamilton,
Ontario, she was the child of Charlotte Bridgwood,
a vaudeville actress who went by the name Lotta
Lawrence.  Florence's surname was changed at age
four to her mother's stage name. She was one of
several Canadian pioneers in early Hollywood who
made their way to Hollywood, attracted by the
rapid growth of the fledgling motion picture
business. In 1907, at twenty-one years of age, she
made her first motion picture. The next year, she
appeared in 38 movies for the Vitagraph
Studios|Vitagraph film company. In 1908 she met
and married film director, Harry Solter.

During these formative years in Hollywood, silent
screen actors were just faces because studio
owners refused to list the names of the film's
cast members, fearing that fame might lead to
demands for higher wages.  D.W. Griffith, the head
of Biograph Studios, saw one of Vitagraph's films
with a beautiful blonde-haired girl whose screen
presence captured his interest. Because the film's
actors received no mention, Griffith had to make
discreet enquiries to learn she was Florence
Lawrence and a meeting was arranged.  With the
Vitagraph Company, she had been earning $20 a week
but over and above acting, she was required to
work as a costume seamstress. Griffith offered her
a job acting only and with a raise to $25 a week
that Florence jumped at.

Ms. Lawrence quickly gained much popularity but
because her name was never publicized, fans began
writing the studio asking for her name. But, even
when her "anonymous" face had gained wide
recognition, particularly after starring in the
highly successful Resurrection
(movie)|Resurrection, Biograph Studios only
labeled her as "The Biograph Girl."

In 1910, Carl Laemmle, who later founded Universal
Studios|Universal Pictures, started his own motion
picture company. Needing a star, he lured Lawrence
away from Biograph by promising to give her a
marquee, making her the first performer to be
identified by name on screen and in film
advertising. First though, Carl Laemmle organized
a publicity stunt by starting a rumor that
Lawrence had been killed by a street car in New
York City. Then, after gaining much media
attention, he placed ads in the newspapers that
included a photo of Ms. Lawrence, declaring she
was alive and well and was making The Broken Oath,
a new movie for his IMP Film Company to be
directed by Harry Solter.

Laemmle then had Ms. Lawrence make a personal
appearance in St. Louis, Missouri with her leading
man to show her fans that she was very much alive.
As a result of Laemmle's ingenuity, the "star
system" was born and before long, Florence
Lawrence became a household name. However, her
fame was such that the studio executives who had
concerns over wage demands soon had their fears
proved correct. By late 1910, Lawrence left IMP to
work for Lubin Studios, advising her fellow young
Canada|Canadian, the 16-year-old Mary Pickford, to
take her place as IMP's star.

In 1912 she and husband Harry Solter created the
Victor Film Company. They established a film
studio in Fort Lee, New Jersey and made a number
of films starring Lawrence and Owen Moore before
selling out to the new Univeral Pictures in 1913.

During her lifetime, Lawrence appeared in more
than 270 films for various motion picture
companies. Nicknamed "The Girl of a Thousand
Faces", at the height of her career, she was
earning a great deal of money and could afford an
automobile, something that at the time was still a
luxury for most people. Born with a curious mind,
she invented the first turn signal, a device
attached to a motor vehicle's rear fender. Dubbed
as the "auto signaling arm", when a driver pressed
a button, an arm raised or lowered, with a sign
attached indicating the direction of the intended
turn. Following this, she developed a brake signal
based on the same concept where an arm with a sign
reading "STOP" was raised up whenever the driver
stepped on the brake pedal. However, Ms.
Lawrence's inventions were not patented, and
others in the rapidly expanding auto industry
developed their own versions.

In 1915, she was badly burned in a studio fire
after an attempt to rescue someone from the
flames. Although still only 29 years old, after
her recovery, she never regained her stature as a
leading film star. In 1920, her husband, Harry
Solter died. The following year she married
Charles Byrne Woodring, but he died in 1930, and
in 1933 she married for the third time to Henry
Bolton but this union lasted less than a year.

When Lawrence's mother died in 1929, she had an
expensive bust sculpted for her mother's tomb. By
then, in her mid-forties, demand for her in films
had long since disappeared and the stock market
crash and the ensuing Great Depression saw Ms.
Lawrence's fortune decline. Alone, discouraged,
and suffering with chronic pain from a rare bone
marrow disease, she committed suicide in Beverly
Hills, California. 

Just nine years after she had paid for an
expensive memorial for her mother, Florence
Lawrence was interred in an unmarked grave not far
from her mother in the Hollywood Cemetery, which
is now Hollywood Forever Cemetery, in Hollywood,
California.

She remained forgotten until 1991, when an unnamed
benefactor (actor Roddy McDowall) donated the
funds for a proper gravestone to be placed in her
memory that reads: "The First Movie Star."

In 1999, a biography written by Kelly R. Brown was
published under the title Florence Lawrence, the
Biograph Girl: America's First Movie Star (ISBN
0786406275) 

==Partial filmography==
*Daniel Boone (movie)|Daniel Boone
*Romeo and Juliet
*Julius Caesar
*Antony and Cleopatra
*Betrayed by a Handprint
*The Girl and the Outlaw
*The Heart of O'Yama
*Where the Breakers Roar
*The Stolen Jewels
*Ingomar, the Barbarian
*The Vaquero's Vow
*The Planter's Wife
*The Call of the Wild
*The Pirate's Gold
*The Taming of the Shrew
*The Song of the Shirt 
*The Ingrate 
*A Woman's Way 
*Mrs. Jones Entertains 
*The Reckoning 
*The Test of Friendship 
*An Awful Moment 
*Mr. Jones at the Ball 
*The Helping Hand 
*One Touch of Nature 
*The Honor of Thieves 
*The Sacrifice 
*Mr. Jones Has a Card Party 
*The Fascinating Mrs. Francis 
*The Girls and Daddy
*A Wreath in Time 
*The Politician's Love Story 
*The Golden Louis 
*His Wife's Mother 
*The Roue's Heart 
*The Lure of the Gown 
*The Deception 
*And a Little Child Shall Lead Them 
*The Medicine Bottle 
*Jones and His New Neighbors 
*The Road to the Heart 
*Confidence 
*Lady Helen's Escapade 
*The Drive for Life 
*The Note in the Shoe 
*Resurrection 
*Jones and the Lady Book Agent 
*Two Memories 
*Eloping with Auntie 
*Eradicating Auntie 
*The Necklace 
*The Country Doctor 
*The Cardinal's Conspiracy  
*The Slave 
*Mrs. Jones' Lover 
*The Hessian Renegades 
*The Awakening 
*The Broken Oath 
*The Forest Ranger's Daughter 
*The Angel of the Studio 
*Her Two Sons 
*A Good Turn 
*Flo's Discipline

See also: Canadian pioneers in early
Hollywood|Other Canadian pioneers in early
Hollywood