Volume 14 , Issue 12

Pauline Garfield Bush - 1913 Suffragets

In The Day Book, dated 11 February 1913, Chicago, Illinois, page 20, there was a picture of a "Western girl you love in the movies was a sure-enough suffragette." Who was this western girl we loved in the movies? How and when did she become a suffragette? She was known other than Pauline Garfield Bush, in character and in life.

Santa Barbara, Ca., Feb. 11, 1913 -- Pauline Garfield Bush was an ardent suffragette, believing woman can and should do just anything a man can do. That is, she thinks a woman's brain and ability ranks right alongside, not a few feet behind a man's. It was reported this was "going some" for a real sure enough actress whose life had been spent wearing beautiful clothes and winning the plaudits of an admiring public.

Maybe this notion of hers was the reason Miss Bush left the Los Angeles Belasco stock company to join the American Film company at Santa Barbara, California. She was back then the leading lady doing pretty much everything the men in the company attempted to do. Any doubts of just hoe popular Miss Bush had grown, it was only necessary to listen to some of the comments of the young men and the exclamations of the girls when Miss Bush came into the picture at the nickel show, with shouts of "Oh, I just one her!" and "There's my girl!"

Pauline Garfield Bush was 5 feet 4-½ inches tall; weighed 130 pounds; had brown hair and grey eyes. Her parents were English, but Pauline proudly announced herself to be a Californian. In a recent picture of 1913, she played opposite to Warten Kerrigan, and Miss Bush dared a hazardous riding stunt. The way it looked was when Kerrigan, riding at full gallop, swept past her, grabbed her by one arm and swung her onto the saddle behind him, without slacking his speed.

In reality Kerrigan didn't do all the work or take all the chance. Miss Bush stood ready to leap, and the minute he caught her arm she jumped toward the horse, practically lifting herself into the saddle. It took the ability which she says women as well as men possess to play her part in the difficult scene.

That scene was in "The Road To Success." Some of her other picots were: "The Girl of the Mnaor," "The Power of Love," "Nell of the Pampus," and "Maiden and Men."   |  View or Add Comments (0 Comments)   |   Receive updates ( subscribers)  |   Unsubscribe

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