Miriam Nesbitt

Miriam Nesbitt (September 14, 1873, in Chicago – August 11, 1954, in Hollywood) was an American stage and film actress. Born Miriam Skanke, she studied at the Stanhope-Wheatcroft Dramatic School, before landing a part in Daniel Frohman's play The Tree of Knowledge under the stage name Miriam Nesbitt. She went on to perform on Broadway a number of times in the first decade of the twentieth century. She also acted in over 120 silent films, beginning in 1908 with Saved by Love. Fellow actor Marc McDermott appeared with her in many of these productions, among them Aida (1911), based on Verdi's opera with Mary Fuller and Marc McDermott, The Declaration of Independence (1911), in which she played Mrs. John Adams to McDermott's Thomas Jefferson; The Three Musketeers: Part 1 and Part 2 (1911), where she portrayed the Queen to his Cardinal Richelieu; the 1913 serial Who Will Marry Mary?; and The Man Who Disappeared, a 1914 serial. In 1904, she originated the role of Tiger Lily in J M Barrie's Peter Pan, or the Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up. On April 20, 1916, she married her frequent Edison Studios co-star Marc McDermott. She retired in 1917; her last film, A Builder of Castles, also starred her husband.