Pilar-Morin

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Pilar-Morin
Pilar Morin as clown/mime, in white baldcap and a large white collar: head and shoulders, facing slightly left; smiling
Pilar-Morin as a Pierrot (1895), from the Library of Congress.
Other namesPilar Morin, Madame Pilar-Morin

Madame Pilar-Morin (born about 1870, died after June 1935) was a Spanish-French actress on stage, in vaudeville, and in silent films.

Early life[edit]

Pilar-Morin recalled a childhood in Barcelona, a Catholic education, a brief early marriage to a French count, and training as an actress and singer at the Paris Conservatoire.[1][2][3]

A middle-aged white woman wearing a large plumed hat and a corseted dress with a high collar. Her dark hair is in an updo. She is not smiling, but looking at the camera sidelong.
Pilar Morin, from a 1910 publication.

Career[edit]

Pilar-Morin was a stage performer who specialized in "silent drama" in the mime tradition,[4] in shows including L'Enfant Prodigue,[5] In Old Japan, A Paris Model, Rachel, and Orange Blossoms.[6][7] She appeared in David Belasco's Madame Butterfly in London, and in vaudeville in the United States.[8] Her expressive face and gestural vocabulary were considered well-suited to the medium of silent film. "We do not think there is any other woman in the world more suited by training, talent and temperament to the opportunity of uplifting the moving picture by her art."[1]

Edison Company films featuring Pilar-Morin[9] as an actress include Comedy and Tragedy (1909), A Japanese Peach Boy (1910), The Cigarette Maker of Seville (1910, a short, silent version of Carmen), Carminella (1910), The Piece of Lace (1910), From Tyranny to Liberty (1910), The Key of Life (1910), and The Greater Love (1910).

After her film career, Pilar-Morin returned to giving live performances,[10] and had an acting studio in New York.[11] She invented a method, the "Key Note Waved Winged Clavier", for training singers and speakers in breath control.[12][13] She wrote and presented a short drama about the French Revolution, La Cordette (1913).[14][15] She also wrote and lectured on drama, breath control, and physical expression, for example in 1919 to the Society of Physical Education in New York.[16] She trained American opera singer Josephine Lucchese in her physical methods.[17]

Charges of impropriety[edit]

In 1896, Elizabeth Bartlett Grannis of the National Christian League for the Promotion of Purity charged a theatre manager, J. B. Doris, with "presenting an improper pantomime", specifically Pilar-Morin's Orange Blossoms.[18] Grannis explained that Pilar-Morin's "grimaces" and gestures in a disrobing scene were "suggestive" and "demoralizing." Pilar-Morin appeared before a New York magistrate to defend her show.[19] The case went before the New York State Supreme Court in 1897.[20] Her 1899 show, My Cousin (Ma Cousine) was also condemned as lewd and obscene.[21] "You Americans prate about purity in dramatics," she told an interviewer, "and there ends your opinions on the subject. You do not support pure plays, and naturally drive managers to seek what you really want."[22]

Personal life[edit]

Pilar-Morin seldom gave details of her personal life in interviews or lectures. She was married to French pianist and composer Aimé Lachaume (1871-1944) in 1891; he performed with her in Boston in 1893.[23] She testified that she was married and had a son in an 1896 hearing about 'Orange Blossoms'.[19] She and Lachaume divorced in 1908.[24] She was described as being married to "Prince de Matta of Egypt" in 1925,[25] when her terrier, Lalith, wakened the couple and their neighbors to alert them to a fire in their New York apartment building.[26] She was still married to A. Shibley de Matta in 1935.[27]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b "The Future of the Silent Drama". The Moving Picture World. 6: 84–85. January 22, 1910 – via Internet Archive.
  2. ^ "Countess Madame Pilar Morin". The Cornell Daily Sun. October 13, 1911. p. 7. Retrieved August 4, 2019 – via Cornell University Library.
  3. ^ West, Caroline (November 4, 1934). "Mme. Pilar-Morin, Creator of the Silent Drama, Comes to St. Petersburg to Visit". Tampa Bay Times. p. 20. Retrieved August 5, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  4. ^ "A Delightful Concert". The Caledonian. 21: 428. December 1921.
  5. ^ "Pilar-Morin to Continue Pantomime". The New York Times. October 7, 1910. p. 11 – via ProQuest.
  6. ^ "Among the Players". The Peterson Magazine. 113: 180. February 1898.
  7. ^ "Four New Pictures of Pilar Morin". Broadway Magazine. 1: 425. August 1898.
  8. ^ "Pilar-Morin for Vaudeville". The New York Times. December 24, 1906. p. 7 – via ProQuest.
  9. ^ DeCordova, Richard (2001). Picture Personalities: The Emergence of the Star System in America. University of Illinois Press. pp. 43–44. ISBN 9780252070167.
  10. ^ "Emerson Club of New York City, Program for 1913-1914". The Emerson College Magazine. 22: 45. November 1913.
  11. ^ R. L. Polk & Co.'s ... Trow New York Copartnership and Corporation Directory, Boroughs of Manhattan and Bronx. Trow Directory, Printing and Bookbinding Company. 1919.
  12. ^ "An Interesting Invention, by Pilar Morin". The Musical Monitor. 4: 157. January 1915.
  13. ^ Frasier, Scottie McKenzie (July 25, 1915). "Pilar Morin Perfects her Scientific Discovery of 'the Key-Note Waved Winged Clavier'". The Montgomery Advertiser. p. 13. Retrieved August 5, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  14. ^ Catalog of Copyright Entries. Part 1. [B] Group 2. Pamphlets, Etc. New Series. 1913. p. 382.
  15. ^ "Club Topics". New York Courier. 5: 14. June 5, 1915.
  16. ^ "Society of Physical Education of New York City and Vicinity, September 27, 1919". American Physical Education Review. 25: 11. January 1920.
  17. ^ Baker, Josephine Turck (November 1923). "What Shall We Talk About?". Correct English and Current Review. 24: 283.
  18. ^ Zacks, Richard (2012-03-13). Island of Vice: Theodore Roosevelt's Quest to Clean Up Sin-Loving New York. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. ISBN 9780385534024.
  19. ^ a b "Mme. Pilar Morin's Trial". The Watertown News. April 29, 1896. p. 2. Retrieved August 5, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  20. ^ "'Orange Blossoms' Up". The Topeka State Journal. June 17, 1897. p. 8. Retrieved August 5, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  21. ^ Cohen, Octavus (June 2, 1899). "Struggles of a Star". Logansport Pharos-Tribune. p. 18. Retrieved August 5, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  22. ^ "Between Scylla and Charybdis". Washington Times. May 21, 1899. p. 18. Retrieved August 5, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  23. ^ Orchestra, Boston Symphony (1910). Programme. The Orchestra. p. 816.
  24. ^ "Was Too Young to Marry; Divorced". The San Francisco Examiner. November 8, 1908. p. 4. Retrieved August 5, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  25. ^ "Madame Pilar Morin's Life Saved by Dog in Manhattan Fire". Brooklyn Daily Times. January 28, 1925. p. 1. Retrieved August 5, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  26. ^ "Terrier Heroine of Fire". The New York Times. January 29, 1925. p. 7 – via ProQuest.
  27. ^ "Woman Says Drama is Essential to Singers". Asheville Citizen-Times. June 9, 1935. p. 119. Retrieved August 5, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.

External links[edit]

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