Vola Vale
Also Known As: Violet Irene Smith, Viola Smith, Vola Smith
Biography: From Wikipedia She was born Vola Smith in Buffalo, New York. Vale was educated in Chevy Chase, Maryland. She began her career in amateur theatricals in Rochester, New York. Then she played in stock companies for a while. Her first movie experience was with Biograph, under the tutelage of the great film director D.W. Griffith. After a month of playing atmosphere parts, Vola was offered a genuine role. She wore a velvet gown with a train and a feathered hat. Soon she was appearing in short reel films for Biograph. Among the actors she was cast with were William S. Hart, Sessue Hayakawa, Tsuru Aoki, William Haines, Harry Carey, Tully Marshall and William Russell. She was adept in playing Spanish, Italian, French, and Gypsy roles. Aside from Biograph Vola worked for Fox Film, Famous Players-Lasky, Universal Pictures, and Paramount Pictures. Her ambition was to play Madame Butterfly with an actual Japanese company, as well as to act as Lorna Doone. She was most inspired by Hayakawa and hoped to learn to act inside, as he did. With Sessue Hayakawa she made Each To His Kind (1917). Before filming began it was decided that the name Smith was too common to be used by a motion picture star. She changed her professional name to Vola Vale.
Department: Acting
Place of Birth: Buffalo, New York, USA
Adult: No
Birthday: February 12, 1897
Age: 128 years old
Gender: Female
Deathday: October 17, 1970
Popularity:
Known For:
The Woman He Feared
Overview: Henry Clive, a wealthy widower, placed his small daughter, May, in a convent when she was a mere child, and now that her education is completed takes her home. Clive, alone, has amused himself according to his fancy, but now that his daughter has come to live with him he decides to reform.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1916-11-14
Popularity:
Perils of the Secret Service
Overview: A 9-part movie serial
Genres: Adventure Thriller
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1917-03-09
Popularity:
Good Men and True
Overview: J. Wesley Pringle and S. S. Thorpe are running against each other for sheriff. Unscrupulous Thorpe has his gang kidnap Pringle to prevent his win but Georgie Hibler, the daughter of Pringle's biggest supporter and her good friend, Fite, whom Pringle had saved from suicide, team up to saves him from the gang. Pringle wins the election and the girl!
Genres: Western
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1922-11-05
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Crashin' Thru
Overview: Gracia, a half-breed Indian girl, plots with Cons Saunders to steal cattle from Blake because he is oblivious to her charms. With his stock gone, he cannot repay the money he owes his Uncle Benedict, and when Benedict is murdered, Blake is suspected. Because Blake has taken care of Saunders (Cons's father) for the many years he has been without the use of his legs, the latter is finally conscience-stricken and confesses to the crime, thus freeing Blake to marry Diana.
Genres: Western
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1923-04-01
Popularity:
Overland Red
Overview: Overland Red, a tramp prospector, and Collie, the boy he has befriended, stumble across an aged miner in the last stages of starvation, whose pockets reveal the map of a secret mine and a bag of gold dust.
Genres: Western
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1920-03-22
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The Son of His Father
Overview: A young man with little ambition is given an opportunity to set himself up in business by means of financial support from his father. But the young man becomes involved in a shady railroad deal which threatens to destroy his own father.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1917-10-22
Popularity:
The Bond Between
Overview: Pierre Duval is a night watchman at a museum of art who dotes on his art student son, Jacques. One evening at the museum, Pierre finds a highly valuable painting missing, and since Jacques had just left, he believes his son stole it.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1917-04-02
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Liberty Belles
Overview: Liberty Belles, silent comedy film from 1914 starring Dorothy Gish, Jack Pickford, and Gertrude Bambrick.
Genres: Comedy Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1914-05-13
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The Silent Man
Overview: A hard-working prospector enters the town of Bakeoven to stake his claim, only to have his rights stolen and his face on "Wanted" posters. He plans reprisal.
Genres: Western
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1917-11-26
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Alias Jimmy Valentine
Overview: The saga of Alias Jimmy Valentine began with the O. Henry story "A Retrieved Reformation". This surprise-ending tale was adapted into a stage play by Paul Armstrong, which subsequently was adapted to film several times
Genres: Drama Crime
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1920-02-29
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Soul of the Beast
Overview: This northwoods comedy-drama, by way of a circus drama, was directed by John Griffith Wray for Thomas H. Ince, and stars Madge Bellamy.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1923-05-06
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White Oak
Overview: Gambler Oak Miller seeks revenge on the man who misused his sister Rose, who is ill and under the care of the woman Oak loves, Barbara. The man Oak seeks, Granger, is planning to rob a wagon train with the collusion of the Indians under Chief Long Knife. When Barbara is suspected of killing her lascivious stepfather, Oak takes the blame and is arrested just before he is needed to save the threatened wagon train.
Genres: Western
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1921-02-01
Popularity:
A Great Love
Overview: Kenneth Reynolds tells Nelly’s daughter the story of his love for Nelly. Kenneth was in love with Nelly, but the arrival of a stranger drove Nelly and Kenneth apart. Nelly and her lover absconded, and Nelly's father then died of grief. After some time, Nelly returned with a child, and took her last breath in Kenneth’s arms. The daughter had to cry upon hearing this story, told by the now somewhat older Kenneth, after all these years.
Genres: Drama Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1916-07-28
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The Lady in the Library
Overview: Mildred Vandeburg, an heiress who devotes her time to a hospital that she has built in the slums, breaks her engagement to her fiancé, T. Huntington Forbes, because Forbes is only interested in horses and sports. Meeda Jones, a nurse employed in Mildred's hospital, is married to a criminal named Spike, who steals some jewels and convinces his brother Dan to fence them for him. When Dan is killed as the police try to arrest him, his wife dies of shock, leaving their baby girl homeless. To help the baby, Mildred decides to take her to Forbes's home, where she informs her former fiancé that there is a "lady in the library" waiting for him.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1917-10-19
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Six Feet Four
Overview: A cowboy matches the description of the man who robbed the local hotel--both are 6'4". When a young woman is robbed, suspicion falls on the cowboy again. However, he discovers that the actual culprits are a local gang headed by the sheriff. He sets out to capture the robbers and clear his name.
Genres: Western
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1919-09-13
Popularity:
Little Annie Rooney
Overview: A feisty little girl, the daughter of a beat cop, faces the challenges of growing up in a tough city neighborhood. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive, in partnership with the Library of Congress. Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division, in 2014.
Genres: Comedy Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1925-10-18
Popularity:
Added Attractions: The Hollywood Shorts Story
Overview: The story of the short film from the beginning of the movies in the 1890s, when all movies were shorts, through the 1950s when short subjects virtually disappeared from theaters.
Genres: Documentary TV Movie
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2002-02-05
Popularity:
The Iron Rider
Overview: When law and order fade into distant memory in Angel City, the townspeople yearn for the era of the Iron Riders, a band of men who took justice into their own hands and brought order out of chaos. The organizer of the group was John Lannigan, whose son Larry decides to take up the mantle of the Riders once again.
Genres: Western
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1920-11-21
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The Midnight Flower
Overview: Mary is called the "Midnight Flower" because each evening at midnight she does a wild dance atop a gaming table in a local gambling den. A young Spaniard in love with Mary, who would rescue her, stages a holdup at the most profitable table and passes the money on to her. In attempting to escape, she is caught, arrested, and jailed. While she is in prison, she meets a young evangelist who runs a mission in the slums. They fall in love, and on her release Mary joins him in the missionary work. This sets the local tongues wagging and complicates the affair until it is revealed that Mary is the daughter of a wealthy family--lost to a kidnapper when she was an infant.
Genres: Drama Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1923-10-09
Popularity:
Common Sense
Overview: Dan Bowers, embittered and disillusioned by an unhappy marriage, seeks solitude in the Maine woods, with a lame dog as his only companion. One day he meets Violet Manners who, with her invalid mother Marion, is visiting in a nearby village. Marion is haunted by memories of the past, and one day when Violet takes Dan to meet her mother, she discovers that he is the husband who deserted her years ago. The shock causes Marion's death, but before she dies, she justifies her past behavior toward Dan. -From the AFI Catalog of Feature FIlms.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1920-06-01
Popularity:
Two Can Play
Overview: Dorothy Hammis (Bow), the daughter of wealthy financier John Hammis (Fawcett), has chosen as her fiance James Radley (Forrest), but her father disproves of him. He hires Robert McWorth (MacDonald), a former pilot, to discredit Radley by exposing indescretions in either his past or present contuct. McWorth leaves some valuable pearls for Radley to steal, but this plan fails, so he arranges for himself, Radley and Dorothy to become stranded on a desert island. Ultimately, Radley proves himself as the better man. After surviving both the elements and McWorth's scheming, he and Dorothy are married. This film is lost.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: xx
Release Date: 1926-02-21
Popularity:
Wolves of the Rail
Overview: Smoky Gap Railroad president Murray Lemantier is fed up with a bandit gang led by Buck Andrade constantly holding up his train and getting away with it. He hires ace detective David Cassidy to track down and get Buck, dead or alive. However, when Buck goes to see his dying mother she makes him promise to reform, and he does. Cassidy, though, doesn't care about that and tries to arrest him. Buck decides to do something that will once and for all show everyone that he has indeed reformed--especially Faith Lawson, a pretty station agent he's in love with.
Genres: Western
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1918-01-01
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The Eagle's Wings
Overview: A senator fights for the passage of a war-preparedness bill, while foreign spies conspire to plan an invasion.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1916-12-04
Popularity:
The Price of Silence
Overview: A woman gives up her illegitimate child, and then marries without telling her new husband about the child.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1916-12-11
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Home Sweet Home
Overview:
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1926-12-24
Popularity:
The Phantom of the Opera
Overview: The deformed Phantom who haunts the Paris Opera House causes murder and mayhem in an attempt to make the woman he loves a star.
Genres: Drama Horror Music
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1925-09-22
Popularity:
A Heart in Pawn
Overview: Toyama wants to go to college in America but his alcoholic father won't supply the funds. He gets the money to go, however, from Sada, whom he has married in secret. But Sada has a secret of her own -- she told Toyama that she got the money from a relative, but the truth is that she has signed up to do a four-year stint as a Geisha girl.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1919-03-20
Popularity:
Her Big Adventure
Overview: Ralph Merriwell (Herbert Rawlinson) has an argument with his wealthy father, Silas (William Turner), and decides to go live on his own terms. He finds work as a bellhop in a fancy Los Angeles hotel. Meanwhile, Silas' secretary, Betty Burton (Grace Darmond), wins a thousand dollars in a contest and uses the money to vacation in the very same hotel.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1926-01-05
Popularity:
The Iron Master
Overview: Between the wealth of the aristocrat and the fortune of the successful tradesman there is a great social difference, which is emphasized in this drama.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1914-10-13
Popularity:
The Soul of Pierre
Overview: Two tortured artists believe by committing suicide their souls will avail themselves on their ill friends and restore them to health. It appears to work but a harlot may prove the undoing of one until a steadfast doctor steps in.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1915-09-15
Popularity:
Zollenstein
Overview: Through negotiations with the neighboring monarch, the King of Zollenstein arranges for his son to marry the Princess of Saxonia, but later discovers that the prince already has wed Lady Maulfrey Le Fay in secret.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1917-11-21
Popularity:
The Duke of Chimney Butte
Overview: Lambert, a young man out to make his fortune, is out west trying to sell a gadget that can peel potatoes, open cans, pull out nails and perform other handy tasks. He comes to a cattle ranch and runs into a group of cowboys eating supper. He impresses the cowboys so much that they make him their leader, and it's not long before he's hired by pretty young ranch manager Vesta Philbrook as her aide and bodyguard. "The Duke", as he's now called, falls in love with her and sets out to help her get rid of a gang of vicious cattle rustlers that are constantly raiding her ranch.
Genres: Western Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1921-12-04
Popularity:
One Rainy Afternoon
Overview: Suave French actor Philippe Martin provokes a scandal when, in a darkened theater, he mistakes young Monique for his mistress, Yvonne, and tries to kiss her. Charged with assault, the quick-thinking Philippe claims it's French tradition to do as he did, and is let go. To his surprise, Philippe learns that Monique has paid his fine. As the tabloids exploit the situation, Monique dates Philippe, until a photo appears of him kissing Yvonne.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1936-05-13
Popularity:
Tomorrow and Tomorrow
Overview: A young wife wants to have children, but her husband neglects her. She confides her longings to a handsome brain surgeon. Complications ensue.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1932-02-05
Popularity:
Black Tears
Overview:
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1927-06-08
Popularity:
The Sky Pirate
Overview: Amateur criminologist is hired by the Secret Service to track down airplane thieves, who then kidnap his ex-fiancée, leading to a daring escape and a love story amidst aerial adventures.
Genres: Adventure
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1926-11-26
Popularity:
Heartless Husbands
Overview: Sordid story of an abusive husband who beats his pregnant wife so badly that the boy, Sonny is born with a disfiguring birthmark and abandoned. Growing up on the streets he is taken under the wing of safecracker James Carleton, who arranges for the kid to have a decent home and a good education. In time Sonny becomes a football hero at college, meeting and falling in love with Mary Kayne. When a nasty detective reveals to the girl that her sweetheart is the "foster son" of a notorious crook, Mary declares that she doesn't care and intends to love the hero to the end of her days. But there's still one obstacle to overcome when it turns out that Grey's own father may well be the no-good slug who gave the boy his permanent birthmark.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1925-10-05
Popularity:
Who Cares
Overview: Who Cares is a 1925 silent film produced and distributed by Columbia Pictures and starring Dorothy Devore. It is preserved in the Library of Congress's collection. It is based upon a novel by Cosmo Hamilton which had been previously filmed in 1919 as Who Cares? Real-life husband and wife, actors Vera and Ralph Lewis, play grandparents.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1925-02-01
Popularity:
The Mirage
Overview: Irene Martin, hoping to find fame as an opera singer, leaves her hometown for New York but ends up a chorus girl. She meets Henry Galt, a wealthy businessman, who asks her out on a date then sends her money the next day. Offended, she demands an apology, but Galt explains he often hires showgirls to entertain prospective clients on a strictly platonic basis. On those terms Irene accepts. Over time Galt falls in love with Irene and when he discovers her family has the impression she has become a fallen woman, marries her.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1924-12-28
Popularity:
Mothers-in-Law
Overview: Farmer's son David Wingate marries city girl Vianna Courtleigh over his parents' objections. Her father gives him a job with the company; a baby is born to the young couple; but their happiness is marred by David's desire for a quiet domestic life in opposition to Vianna's love of excitement. David's mother comes to live with them when her husband dies. She observes their unhappiness and, after deciding that Vianna is at fault, determines to teach her a lesson. Eventually Vianna sees the folly of her ways and seeks forgiveness from David.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1923-09-09
Popularity:
The Man Between
Overview:
Genres: Crime Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1923-07-15
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Singing River
Overview:
Genres: Western
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1920-11-21
Popularity:
Someone in the House
Overview: Alias "the Dancer," fashionable society crook Jimmy Burke is hot on the trail of the Brent diamonds. Upon learning that Molly Brent and her diamonds are the stars of an amateur play, Jimmy obtains the leading man's part and devises a plan to steal the jewels. Molly falls in love with her leading man, who plans to switch the gems with fakes during the performance. After the play, the police question the couple and Molly declares that the robbery was part of the drama. When she discovers Jimmy's deed, she begins to cry and "the Dancer," realizing that he is in love with his victim, renounces his profession.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1920-11-15
Popularity:
The Purple Cipher
Overview: Jeanne Baldwin, Leonard Staunton, Alan Fitzhugh and Jack Baldwin are guided on a tour of underground dens in Chinatown by Hop Lee. During their trip, Wang Foo abducts Jeanne, and she and her companions are rescued through the intervention of private detective Frank Condon. Three months later, Fitzhugh is missing, supposedly murdered by the Chinese. Jack Baldwin is threatened, poisoned and his body disappears. Next, a threat against Jeanne is received by Staunton. To save her life, he is to meet the blackmailers at a bay in the harbor. Enlisting the aid of a submarine, Staunton captures the three conspirators, who turn out to be the missing victims in the case, led by Condon. The three had planned the escapade to extort money from Staunton. The mystery thus resolved, Staunton and Jeanne are married. A lost film.
Genres: Crime Drama Mystery
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1920-10-11
Popularity:
A Master Stroke
Overview:
Genres: Comedy Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1920-06-01
Popularity:
Hornet's Nest
Overview:
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1919-07-01
Popularity:
Hearts Asleep
Overview:
Genres: Crime Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1919-03-31
Popularity:
Happy Though Married
Overview:
Genres: Comedy Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1919-02-23
Popularity:
The Locked Heart
Overview:
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1918-07-20
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The Secret of Black Mountain
Overview:
Genres: Western
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1917-09-21
Popularity:
The Topsy Turvy Twins
Overview:
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1917-04-19
Popularity:
The Last Cigarette
Overview:
Genres: Adventure Thriller
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1917-03-09
Popularity:
Mentioned in Confidence
Overview:
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1917-03-08
Popularity:
The Winning of Sally Temple
Overview:
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1917-02-19
Popularity:
Each to His Kind
Overview:
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1917-02-05
Popularity:
It Sounded Like a Kiss
Overview:
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1916-12-18
Popularity: