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Betty Bronson

Betty Bronson born Elizabeth Ada Bronson (November 17, 1907 Trenton, New Jersey - October 19, 1971 Pasadena, California) to Frank and Nellie Smith Bronson. She was a famous actress in silent and sound films.

Film career

Bronson's film career began at age of sixteen with a bit part in the film Anna Ascends. At seventeen, after she had pleaded with every friend she had at Paramount studios, she finally got an interview with J.M. Barrie, author of Peter Pan.J. M. Barrie personally chose her to play the lead in a film of his work Peter Pan which would be released in 1924. This film role had been sought by both Gloria Swanson and Mary Pickford, but Bronson won the role through her natural lightness and grace, probably refined through training with the Ballet Russes Company. Though she was with them for only a short time, perhaps a couple of weeks, it proved helpful in enhancing her graceful portrayal of Peter Pan, especially in the flight sequences. She starred with Mary Brian (Wendy Darling) and Esther Ralston (Mrs Darling), and the three of them became very close friends for the rest of their lives.

Betty Bronson became an instant success in the year following the release of Peter Pan. She had moderate success for the rest of her career. Bronson made a very successful transition into sound films. Her first sound film was in The Singing Fool with Al Jolson, in which she showed an excellent singing voice, an addition to her other talents.

She continued film roles until 1933 when she married Ludwig Lauerhass. Bronson did not appear in films again until 1937 in Jungle Menace. She resumed acting in the 1960s and her last film role was uncredited in the 1971 film biography Evel Knievel. She did some television, appearing in Dr. Kildare and her last television appearance was in Marcus Welby, M.D. in 1971. She had one child, Ludwig Lauerhass, Jr.

Bronson, the Media and Doug Fairbanks, Jr

Betty Bronson was always rather recluse with the press, but she did get some attention after being seen with Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. He had his first childish crush on her, and as he fondly remembered her in his autobiography,'The Salad Days' he stated that ' Another important picture had just started. It was Peter Pan directed by a clever caricature of a wildly temperamental movie director, Herbert Brenon. After exhaustive tests, Betty Bronson, a pretty and gifted girl in her middle teens, was given this famous role... I fell for Betty! It was my first intensely juvenile, deep-sighs-and-bad-sonnets love. It was not fully requited. She only flirted with me. My rival was a fellow in his twenties, a newspaperman who was to become one of New York's most respected theater critics, Richard Watts, Jr. ...In any event, I was so smitten with Betty, I could think of little else, except when I could call on her, even though her overprotective mother was always just in the next room.' In any case, it is known that Betty kept all of his letters, bad sonnets and all, and she spoke of him fondly until her dying day.