American silent-screen leading lady Kathleen Kirkham played Lady Greystoke, Tarzan's mother, in the ape-man's cinematic debut, Tarzan of the Apes (1918). But usually the dark-haired actress portrayed that early 20th century mainstay, the man-eating vamp. Theda Bara popularized the character in the 1914 A Fool There Was and imitators cropped up almost immediately, from the aging Virginia Pearson to prairie femme fatale Louise Glaum. Though perhaps one of the lesser practitioners of cinematic vamping, Kirkham was especially rotten to poor Colleen Moore in a family drama entitled When Dawn Came (1920) and mercilessly attempted to seduce her own stepson (Nigel Barrie) in Josslyn's Wife (1919). By the 1920s, she was increasingly playing mothers. "I've been the mother of many a young girl who was really older than myself," Kirkham complained publicly, ending her film career in 1926. The former silent-screen vamp was working as a cook in Santa Barbara, California, when she died on November 7, 1961.
| Title | Year | Editors' Rating | User Rating | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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The Isle of Retribution
Actor |
1926 | |||
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The King of the Turf
Actor |
1926 | |||
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A Regular Fellow
Actor |
1925 | |||
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Sackcloth and Scarlet
Actor |
1925 | |||
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White Moth
Actor |
1924 | |||
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The Lonely Road
Actor |
1923 | |||
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A Homespun Vamp
Actor |
1922 | |||
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Back to Yellow Jacket
Actor |
1922 | |||
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One-Eighth Apache
Actor |
1922 | |||
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Beau Revel
Actor |
1921 | |||
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Foolish Matrons
Actor |
1921 | |||
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Innocent Cheat
Actor |
1921 | |||
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Nobody's Kid
Actor |
1921 | |||
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Pilgrims of the Night
Actor |
1921 | |||
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The Sky Pilot
Actor |
1921 | |||
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Her Five-Foot Highness
Actor |
1920 | |||
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The Little 'fraid Lady
Actor |
1920 | |||
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Arizona
Actor |
1918 | |||
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Married Virgin
Actor |
1918 | |||
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Seal of Silence
Actor |
1918 | |||
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Tarzan of the Apes
Actor |
1918 | |||
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The Romance of Tarzan
Actor |
1918 | |||
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A Modern Musketeer
Actor |
1917 |