American postcard by Kline Poster Co. Inc., Phila. Image: Triangle.
The equally lovely and long-suffering girl
Bessie Barriscale was born in 1884 in Hoboken, New Jersey as Elizabeth Barry Scale. Her parents were Irish immigrants and the actresses Edith and Mabel Taliaferro were her cousins.
Since the 1900s, Barriscale was a regular on theatre stages and starred on Broadway. Upon completing her first film in 1913, Barriscale left the legitimate stage for what would be a period of seven years.
She became widely known to film audiences in 1914 with her leading role in the Western Rose of the Rancho, directed by Cecil B. DeMille, which was a big box-office hit at the time.
According to Maria Fosheim Lund at Women's Film Pioneer Project, Barriscale’s film career started when producer Jesse L. Lasky bought the film rights to ten plays produced by theatre impresario David Belasco: "Barriscale, who had starred in the successful Belasco play 'Rose of the Rancho' and may have originated the part of Juanita, was invited to repeat the performance in the 1914 film of the same name".
In the following years, she cemented her status as a Hollywood star with leading roles in melodramas directed by Thomas H. (Harper) Ince for the New York Motion Picture Company, where she stayed for three years. She made her mark in a seemingly never-ending series of melodramas with titles like Plain Jane (Thomas H. Ince, 1916) and A Corner in Colleenes (Thomas H. Ince, 1916). Maria Fosheim Lund: "While Barriscale had quickly become a major star with Ince’s company, the films she acted in were easily forgettable."
Mostly, Barriscale played the role of the equally lovely and long-suffering girl who has to fight her way through bad circumstances. Because of her beautiful eyes, Hollywood marketed her, among other things, as 'the girl with the biggest eyes'. When her contract expired, she left the company, which had been sold to Triangle Film Corporation.
Swedish postcard by Förlag Nordisk Konst, Stockholm, no. 846. Photo: Triangle-Film.
American postcard. Photo: Evans.
A one million US dollars contract
In 1918 Bessie Barriscale signed a contract for 16 films with Bessie Barriscale Features. The company was to start work in a new state-of-the-art studio in Hollywood, where, according to the Moving Picture World, they hoped to produce six to eight features per year. The contract earned her at least one million US dollars and made her one of the highest-paid actresses of the time. B.B. Features' first project was Rose O’Paradise (James Young, 1918).
The Bessie Barriscale Feature Company released eight films in 1918. She abandoned the ingenue role with which she had been associated at Triangle in favor of more varied, mature, and challenging parts. Her husband, Howard C. Hickman acted alongside his wife, but also directed her in films such as The White Lie (Howard Hickman, 1918).
About a year and a half after the start with Paralta Plays, Barriscale withdrew from the Paralta program after the release of The Heart of Rachael (Howard Hickman, 1919). She changed distributors, continuing with the Robertson-Cole Company. Barriscale’s company underwent a slight name change, now to release pictures as B. B. Features.
According to Wikipedia, Bessie was an excellent swimmer. Her film The Woman Michael Married (Henry Kolker, 1919) was adapted from a novel by famous swimmer Annette Kellermann. For the film, Barriscale hired a swimming and diving instructor and took lessons in Venice, California. A 90-foot pool was constructed at Brunton Studios where the scenes were shot.
In 1919, she traveled with her husband and their small son on a world tour. They anticipated producing motion pictures during their journey and traveled with a cameraman. Between 1918 and 1921, B. B. Features produced and released a total of sixteen titles of which none are known to have survived. In the early 1920s, Barriscale's career slowly passed its zenith and she subsequently made fewer films.
Hans J. Wollstein writes at AllMovie that Barriscale was "really too Edwardian to fit into the Roaring 1920s". In 1921, she returned to the stage to play in 'The Skirt'. The play was to travel to Philadelphia and Boston after opening in Washington, D.C. Later the production appeared in New York City. In 1928, Barriscale returned to Broadway in the play 'Women Go On Forever'.
At the beginning of the talkies, Barriscale only played character roles, mostly as a mother or servant in supporting roles. Barriscale's most significant performance of the talkies was probably her portrayal of Mary Pickford's unfriendly daughter in Frank Borzage's epic Western Secrets (1933).
Her last film role was a bit part as a maid in The Man Who Reclaimed His Head (Edward Ludwig, 1934) alongside Claude Rains and Joan Bennett. Bessie was married to fellow actor Howard C. Hickman. They had met on the stage, and the two worked together as members of the same stock companies for years. The couple also worked together on many films. They remained together till his death in 1949 and had one son, born in 1908.
Bessie Barriscale passed away in 1965 in Kentfield, California. She was 80. She and her husband were buried in Mount Tamalpais Cemetery in San Rafael. In 1960, five years before her death, Bessie Barriscale received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her film work.
British postcard in the Pictures Portrait Gallery, London, no. 164.
British postcard in the Cinema Favourites series by Photochrom Co. Ltd., London in Conjunction with Triangle Plays, no. 101. Photo: Triangle.
Sources: Maria Fosheim Lund (Women Film Pioneers Project), Hans J. Wollstein (AllMovie), Wikipedia (German and English), and IMDb.
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