Martha Mansfield
Silents Are Golden
Martha Mansfield began acting at 18 and quickly rose to prominence, even performing with the Ziegfeld Follies for a time before she moved to the West Coast to pursue a Hollywood career. She held roles in several successful films, including Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde alongside John Barrymore in 1920.
Three years later, while on location in San Antonio, Texas filming The Warrens of Virginia, a fellow cast member happened to toss a match that caught Mansfield’s enormous dress of hoop-skirts and layers of fabric on fire.
Though the fire was doused before the flames reached her face and neck, she was rushed to the local hospital where she died less than 24 hours later. Mansfield was only 24 years old.
