Years active 1917-1938 Siblings Alma Tell | Role Actress Name Olive Tell | |
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Born September 27, 1894 ( 1894-09-27 ) New York City, New York, U.S. Died June 6, 1951, New York City, New York, United States Movies The Scarlet Empress, Baby Take a Bow, The Trial of Mary Dugan, To Hell with the Kaiser!, Hearts in Exile Similar People Alma Tell, Josef von Sternberg, Frank Craven, Frank Reicher, Lowell Sherman | ||
Olive Tell (September 27, 1894 – June 6, 1951) was a stage and screen actress from New York City.
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Biography
Tell graduated from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in 1915. Tell's sister, Alma Tell, was also a stage actress. The sisters began appearing in the Broadway (Manhattan) theaters at about the same time, around 1918. Olive made her New York debut in the drama Husband and Wife. At first she preferred acting in theater and detested her work on screen.
She first appeared in motion pictures during World War I. Her early screen roles were in silent films including The Silent Master (1917), The Unforeseen (1917), Her Sister (1917), and National Red Cross Pageant (1917). Tell appeared opposite such popular film actors of the era as: Donald Gallaher, Karl Dane, Ann Little, Rod La Rocque, Ethel Barrymore and a young Tallulah Bankhead.
Tell married First National Pictures movie producer, Henry M. Hobart, in 1926. Her first husband was killed in World War I. Hobart and Tell moved to California in 1926 and stayed in Hollywood for twelve years.
Her final screen credits came in the late 1930s. She performed in In His Steps (1936), Polo Joe (1936) with Joe E. Brown, Easy To Take (1936), Under Southern Stars (1937). Tell's final screen appearance was in the George Cukor directed drama Zaza (1939), starring Claudette Colbert.
Olive Tell died in Bellevue Hospital in 1951 after suffering a fractured skull at the Dryden Hotel, 150 East Thirty-Ninth Street, New York City, where she resided. She was fifty-six years old.