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A minor leading lady of the 1910s, blonde Adda Gleason played the title role in a 1915 version of the popular Native California melodrama Ramona and was a steel mill secretary innocently involved with anarchists in Fanatics (1917). That same year, she starred in perhaps her most noteworthy film, The Spirit of '76, a Revolutionary War melodrama undoubtedly inspired by Archibald McNeil Willard's famous painting. The film, in which Gleason portrayed Catherine Montour, the king of England's mistress (plotting to become "Queen of America"), was produced by Robert Goldstein, the owner of a costume company, who later served an injurious 3 years in prison for producing what was considered anti-British propaganda. The notoriety didn't do Gleason much good either and she was reduced to supporting roles in the 1920s. After the changeover to sound, Gleason worked as a dress extra and bit player until at least 1951.