Volume III: Biographies

LEE, Virginia *

Actress (1916)

Thanhouser Career Synopsis: Virginia Lee acted in a film made at Thanhouser's Jacksonville studio in 1916.

Biographical Notes: Virginia Lee engaged in a film career and worked for Metro (Blindness of Love), Famous Players (Destiny's Toy), World Film Corporation (Nathan Hale, The Romance of Marie), Thanhouser, Universal (The Killer, Raided 4 A.M., The Terror, Three Women of France), and Sunshine (Kruell Fate). In the spring of 1916 she worked with Thanhouser at the Jacksonville, Florida studio. Her roles were minor. In 1918 Miss Lee's home address was 1533 East 19th Street, Brooklyn, New York. Her pastimes included painting, motoring, horseback riding, dancing, swimming, and music. She was 5'4" tall, weighed 120 pounds, and had a fair complexion, blonde hair, and blue-gray eyes. The 1916 Motion Picture News Studio Directory gave two business addresses for her: her agent, Amalgamated Photoplay Service; and Vitagraph in Brooklyn. The 1918 version of the same work listed her home address as 705 West 170th Street, New York City. The Photoplay Journal, February 1919, stated that she was with Fox at the time, and was related on her mother's side to Robert E. Lee, the Confederate general. In April 1919 she married Lieut. William Boyer of the United States Navy.

Note: A different person named Virginia Lee was born in Mexico circa 1901 and was educated in New Orleans. At the age of 15, in 1916, she was described by illustrator Howard Chandler Christy as "the ideal Christy girl." At one time she was on the stage in New York City, including in The Greenwich Village Follies. By the time she was 21, she had nearly a dozen proposals of marriage. On August 21, 1921, at the age of 21, she married Carl Stedman Wheeler, son of wealthy Bostonian Harvey C. Wheeler.

Thanhouser Filmography:

1916: The Carriage of Death (4-29-1916)

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