Ethel Clayton

Ethel Clayton was a silent screen actress from the United States, born in Champaign, Illinois. She began her professional stage work in the chorus of a Chicago Opera House production, then joined stock companies in Milwaukee and Minneapolis. Her stage career leaned toward musicals and revues, including the Ziegfeld Follies of 1911, and Broadway appearances in shows such as His Name on the Door and The Red Canary. When the Earth Trembled gave her a first film part. Between 1909 and 1912 she appeared in short dramas, and in 1912 she took her first feature role, in For the Love of a Girl, which Barry O'Neil directed. Donald Crisp and George Melford were among the directors she later worked with, as were Robert G. Vignola and William Demille. The switch to sound harmed her career, and she played smaller film parts until she retired in 1948.