Volume III: Biographies

GILROY, Barbara *

Actress (1915-1916)

Barbara Gilroy in a studio portrait. Courtesy of Dominick Bruzzese (P-135)

Thanhouser Career Synopsis: Barbara Gilroy appeared in Thanhouser films released in 1915 and 1916.

Biographical Notes: Barbara Gilroy was born in New York City on February 28, 1897 and was educated at St. Mary's Academy in Denver, Colorado. In her early career she was on stage in the West.

Barbara Gilroy appeared in numerous Thanhouser films, including Falstaff comedies and regular features. A note The New Rochelle Pioneer, August 28, 1915, stated that she had recently joined Thanhouser and had been on the stage on Broadway earlier.

Reel Life, February 19, 1916, told of the player: "Barbara Gilroy, the pretty Thanhouser actress who appears in the stellar role, with Harris Gordon, in The Oval Diamond, the Mutual Masterpicture, DeLuxe Edition, came out of the West about six months ago and 'jes' naturally' bumped right into pictures. Miss Gilroy had finished school about two years before. She was living at home and studying music, but all the time a definite ambition was crystallizing in her mind. She was fond of the motion picture screen. What she saw other girls do on screen she knew that she could do, and she longed for an opportunity to demonstrate her ability in this line to her friends.

"One day a friend asked her why she didn't try. And she did. She packed her trunk and hied it away from Denver. Colonel [sic] Edwin Thanhouser was the first picture man she went to see, after arriving in New York. He recognized in her, as he has done time and time before in other people, real talent, as yet undeveloped. And that is why it is that Barbara Gilroy is playing the leading role, with Harris Gordon, in The Oval Diamond. 'It just goes to show,' says the pretty star, 'what a girl can accomplish if she makes up her mind to do a thing.' You must agree with her."

The Sunday Times-Union, Jacksonville, Florida, March 19, 1916, told more: "When Edwin Thanhouser set to work collecting a company of motion picture players to act with the cameramen in his Jacksonville studio he realized the all important necessity of finding a star whose versatility would be great enough to effectively enact a variety of parts wherein the use of comedy, pathos and a wide range of emotional work is required. First one actress then another applied - some of them well known to the screen and others mere beginners. As each came, each was rejected - the producer had not found the one he wanted.

"Just as the company was about to leave for the South, after Mr. Thanhouser was almost ready to despair, someone called his attention to a young woman just arrived in New York from the West, where she had experience in stock. The producer, ready to try anything in that vital moment, sent for her. The fact that Barbara Gilroy became the star of the Thanhouser Company and is today living in Jacksonville indicates that he found exactly the type and talent he wanted. Although this remarkable young woman has been stopping at the Hotel Seminole ever since the Thanhouser studio opened, she is so exclusive that hardly half a dozen persons outside of her associates know her. Hence if you desire an introduction you will have to take it a la photo and see her first Jacksonville-made picture, The Oval Diamond, which will appear at the Savoy Theatre tomorrow.

"The story is centered about an oval diamond, a priceless gem, found by a South African miner on his claim. The scene of action is laid in the country, the principal scenes being typical of the South. Supported by a remarkable cast, Miss Gilroy appears at her best. Take a beautiful young woman, add a pair of soft, wistful eyes, a sensitive mouth about which ever plays a thousand compounded emotions, and instill within a large portion of elusiveness and you have Barbara Gilroy.

"Perhaps to say that she is elusive best describes her, because a deceptive atmosphere surrounds her at all times, one moment making you think you know her and the next taking her far, far away into the unsolvable, thus leaving you with a flat, disconsolate sensation that you do not know her at all. Back of the mobile expression on her countenance now and then gleams something of the pathetic, an unknown emotion which arouses your sympathies and makes you want to know her better, to be a confidant, if she would only have it so. And next it fades away and you feel the distance again and shuffle uncomfortable in your chair.

"It is the dramatic intensification of her inner self which has made Barbara Gilroy an actress for effective picturization. But is there one who can solve this mystery, who can bring to voice that which seems hidden back there behind the deceptive exterior and in the end know this maiden as she really is? Barbara Gilroy was born on a ranch in Colorado [sic; actually New York City!] 18 years ago, when a horse was the quickest mode of transportation in that prairie country. When she was eight she saw her first streetcar while on a trip to Denver with her brother, just as Jacksonville people can see her Monday, at 18 the principal star of a great motion picture organization. In those early days she learned to ride horseback, a necessity then, but now a pastime of which she is exceedingly fond.

"In her immediate family there were two brothers and two sisters, she being the youngest of the five. Her parents died when she was quite a little girl, and her eldest brother took charge of the ranch and his younger kin. It was probably in those childhood days when deprived of parental care that Barbara found the dramatic instinct coming to her over the broad open plains of Colorado. At 12 years of age she made her first public appearance at Cheyenne, Wyoming, whence her brother had taken her to participate in a frontier celebration as a horseback rider. She captured two purses and received applause from the hundreds in attendance. She liked it and three years later, when her brother moved to Denver, she saw her first play and determined to go upon the stage. That was just three years ago and Barbara found a chance to appear in stock at Elitch's Garden, which is known throughout the country as headquarters for the finest repertory companies that can be had. Such a hit did she make that a winter engagement with the Burns Stock Company at Colorado Springs was an easy matter. Here she remained for a season and finished with a determination to go to New York and try her fortune along the Rialto. It was here that Edwin Thanhouser found her.''

Barbara Gilroy remained with Thanhouser for less than a year. The New Rochelle Pioneer, June 3, 1916, announced that she was among nearly two dozen important players, directors, and cameramen who were dismissed by the studio on Saturday morning, May 27, 1916, as part of an economy move. In 1917 she was with Frohman and acted in God's Man, and in 1918 she was in the Bluebird-Universal release of Morgan's Raiders.

Thanhouser Filmography:

1915: Lulu's Lost Lotharios (Falstaff 11-8-1915), Clarence Cheats at Croquet (12-9-1915), Bill Bunks the Bandits (12-16-1916)

1916: Belinda's Bridal Breakfast (Falstaff 1-10-1916), Reforming Rubbering Rosie (Falstaff 1-13-1916), Beaten at the Bath (Falstaff 1-27-1916), The Oval Diamond (2-24-1916), The Weakling (5-2-1916), Her Father's Gold (5-11-1916), The Nymph (5-30-1916), Brothers Equal (6-13-1916), The Black Terror (9-29-1916)

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