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A contest winner in her native Chicago, brunette silent screen ingenue Gertrude Olmstead (or, as it was sometimes spelled, "Olmsted") appeared opposite Greta Garbo in the Swedish star's first Hollywood film, The Torrent (1926). That role, along with the leading femme role in Lon Chaney's The Monster (1925), proved perhaps the highlights of a screen career that had begun in low-budget, two-reel Westerns opposite the likes of Hoot Gibson, Jack Perrin, and Roy Stewart. According to herself, Olmstead was "just possibly the world's worst actress," and she wisely retired to marry director Robert Z. Leonard right before the changeover to sound. She later spoke fondly of her early years in Westerns, crediting veteran stunt player Artie Ortego with teaching her how to perform a flying mount.