B: April 27, 1888 in Montréal, Québec
D: October 13, 1917 in Ossining, New York
While many sources state that Florence La Badie was born in New York, according to an article published in the March 1914 issue of Photoplay Magazine and written by Jean Darnell, Florence La Badie was French-Canadian and was born in Montreal, Quebec. The article was written following an interview at La Badie’s home on Riverside Drive in New York. The article also states that she attended the Convent of Notre Dame in Montréal and “speaks both French and German fluently as well as being an excellent English scholar.” The article also says the actress was “a daring horsewoman, a great swimmer and expert rower.” It is generally accepted that she was born Florence Russ and adopted by Joseph LaBadie and Amanda Labadie on November 4, 1891. The correct spelling of her last name should be LaBadie, but somewhere along the way it became La Badie. Her career as an actress began when she joined the Chauncey Olcott stage production of Ragged Robin in 1908 when she was 20-years-old. She made her first film appearance one year later. On August 28, 1917, while driving her car near Ossining, New York, the brakes failed and the vehicle ran off the road and down a hill, overturning at the bottom. Her fiance, Daniel Carson Goodman suffered a broken leg, but La Badie had been thrown from the vehicle and suffered serious injuries, including a compound fracture of the pelvis. She clung to life for more than six weeks but died in hospital on October 13, from septicemia. These are her credits during the early silent era when most films would be considered shorts. The 1914 title, The Million Dollar Mystery was in fact a serial which ran for 23 episodes into 1915. La Badie’s character was named Florence Gray Hargreave. Her 1917 films including War and the Woman (Pathé ad above) were all released before she died in October of that year. Also see: Biograph’s Three Canadian Beauties. |
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