Olive Tell
Olive Tell was a stage and screen actress from New York City.
Biography
Tell was educated in several cities in Europe. She and her younger actress sister Alma graduated from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in 1915. The sisters began appearing in Broadway theaters around 1918. Olive made her New York debut in the drama Husband and Wife. At first, she preferred acting in theater and detested her work on screen.
She first appeared in motion pictures during World War I. Her early screen roles were in silent films, including The Silent Master, The Unforeseen, Her Sister, and National Red Cross Pageant. Tell appeared with popular film actors of the era such as Donald Gallaher, Karl Dane, Ann Little, Rod La Rocque, Ethel Barrymore and a young Tallulah Bankhead.
Her first husband was killed in World War I. Tell married George Willis Kreh in April 1923; he died four months later; she married First National Pictures movie producer Henry Morgan Hobart in 1926. Hobart and Tell moved to California in 1926 and stayed in Hollywood for 12 years.
Her final screen credits came in the late 1930s. She performed in In His Steps, Polo Joe with Joe E. Brown, Easy to Take, and Under Southern Stars. Tell's final screen appearance was in the drama Zaza, directed by George Cukor.
Olive Tell died in Bellevue Hospital in 1951 after suffering a fractured skull at the Dryden Hotel, 150 East Thirty-Ninth Street, New York City, where she resided. She was 56 years old.
Partial filmography
The Silent Master - Miss Virginia ArlenThe Unforseen - Margaret FieldingHer Sister - Eleanor AldersonNational Red Cross Pageant - Louvain - Flemish episodeThe Girl and the Judge - Winifred StantonTo Hell with the Kaiser! - Alice MonroeSecret Strings - Janet NewellThe Trap - Jean Carson - the Schoolteacher HeroineLove Without Question based on the novel "The Abandoned Room" by Charles Wadsworth Camp - KatherineA Woman's Business - BarbaraWings of Pride - Olive MuirClothes - Olivia SherwoodThe Wrong Woman - Viola SherwinWorlds Apart - Elinor AsheChickie - Ila MooreWomanhandled - Lucy ChathamPrince of Tempters - Duchess of ChatsfieldSummer Bachelors - Mrs. Preston SmithSlaves of Beauty - Anastasia JonesSailors' Wives - Careth LindseySoft Living - Mrs. Rodney S. BowenThe Trial of Mary Dugan - Mrs. Gertrude RiceHearts in Exile - Annna ReskovaThe Very Idea - Marion GreenCock o' the Walk - Rosa VallejoLawful Larceny - Vivan HepburnThe Right of Way - KathleenTen Cents a Dance - Mrs. CarltonWoman Hungry - Betty TempleLadies' Man - Mrs. FendleyDevotion - Mrs. TrentDelicious - Mrs. Van BerghFalse Faces - Mrs. Day Strictly Personal - Mrs. CastletonThe Witching Hour - Mrs. Helen ThorneThe Scarlet Empress - Princess Johanna ElizabethPrivate Scandal - Deborah LaneBaby Take a Bow - Mrs. CarsonFour Hours to Kill! - Mrs. MadisonShanghai - Mrs. HiltonBrilliant Marriage - Mrs. Jane TaylorYours for the Asking - Society Woman In His Steps - Elaine BrewsterPolo Joe - Mrs. HiltonEasy to Take - Announcer Zaza - Jeanne Liseron