Silent Sunday – Photos of 4-Year-Old Ann Dvorak in “Ramona”
Year of Ann Dvorak: Day 314
I am going to once again break my loose rule of only posting photos from my personal collection because these are too magnificent. In 1915 a 4-year-old Ann Dvorak was cast in the feature film Ramona directed by Donald Crisp and produced by William H. Clune. It was an epic undertaking and the result was a movie comprised of 10-12 reels. Ann, credited as “Baby Anna Lehr” only appears in the first reel, portraying the title character as a child, and sadly that is not the reel that has survived.
At least we still have these photos, courtesy of Marc Wanamaker and his Bison Archives. For those of you not familiar with Marc, he is an absolute gem of a man and a incredible source for early Hollywood history. I relied on him a few times while trying to piece together “Mama” Anna Lehr’s chronology for the bio. He has been amassing a crazy collection of Hollywood photos for decades for the sole purpose of advocating film scholarship which he has done through his own writings and by allowing his photos to be used in other projects. He sold a large chunk of his collection to the Motion Picture Academy recently, but still retained a big portion of the images and is always working on a new book about local history.
When I first asked Marc if he had any photos from Ramona, I had little hope that he could actually produce. Boy was I wrong! I used the top image in Ann Dvorak: Hollywood’s Forgotten Rebel, which is a cropped close-up of one of the photos below.
I think this final photo looks freakishly like mini-Ann, but the shadows across her face were so pronounced that I thought it wouldn’t produce well in the book, so I went with that top photo.
Thanks again to Marc for giving me the thumbs up to share the images here.
Happy Sunday!
Really wonderful photos. Its a pity that the first reel is missing.
I like to think of if as misplaced and not lost!
In the ‘You learn something new every day, but especially here at AnnDvorak.com‘ department, I had had no idea that veteran character actor Donald Crisp had such a long list of credits as a director in silent films. With acting and directing, the guy had a career that lasted more than 50 years!
His last film as a director, “The Runaway Bride”, an early talkie made in 1930, was re-made 66 years later with Richard Gere and Julia Roberts.
Surprised to find that Ann Dvorak played the young Ramona. This 1915 film was shot on Rancho Casitas which my grandfather, Bob Clark, was leasing at the time. He invited the “principals” to stay in his de la Riva adobe. I have some stills of the film and would LOVE to find any film that survives. Bob Clark drove the six-in-hand in the movie and was offered a permanent job, but, as I state, in one article, he decided against exchanging the earth for the stars. He was elected Sheriff of Ventura County in 1922 and later appointed U.S. Marshal.
Hi Patricia,
Thanks for the additional info about the filming of Ramona which I was unaware of. If you have any photos of Ann from that film I would love to see them. My understanding is that the only existing film is a nitrate print of Reel 5, which is at the Library of Congress, though I was not able to locate it in their catalog, so it many not be accessible for viewing. www.silentera.com/PSFL/data/R/Ramona1916.html