Alice Calhoun, a rare actress from Cleveland, Ohio, defied the conventional path to the film industry, which typically involved a background in stage performance. In fact, she had no interest whatsoever in performing on stage, but her passion lay in films. In the late 1910s, she traveled to New York to pursue her dream of breaking into the movies, as the East Coast was then the hub of the motion picture business.
Pathe Pictures took notice of the charming young Cleveland girl and expressed interest in her, but being a newcomer with no acting experience, the studio provided her with some dramatic training by casting her in several Broadway plays, including the 1917 production of "How Could You, Caroline?" This exposure eventually led to her being given film roles, and after playing smaller parts in several pictures, she was handed her own starring vehicle, "Princess Jones" (1921),which proved to be a massive success.
Throughout her career, Alice Calhoun appeared in nearly 50 films, but it was only her final picture, "Now I'll Tell" (1934),that was a talkie. She subsequently retired from the industry and passed away in Los Angeles in 1966, succumbing to cancer.
