Today in Wheeling History: June 27--Silent film actress and singer Gladys Valerie (Gladys Valerie Hays), born in Wheeling (1890).
Gladys Valerie was born Gladys Valerie Hays on June 27, 1890, in Wheeling, Ohio County, West Virginia, to Rudolph A. Hays and Edith Ida Koon Hays. Her family later relocated to New York City, where she was raised and educated, positioning her close to the emerging American theatrical and motion picture industries. On June 30, 1914, she married teacher Mark Barth in Manhattan, a union that coincided with the beginning of her screen career in the silent era.
Valerie’s film work included leading and featured roles in productions such as "The Heart of a Girl" (1918), "Marie, Ltd." (1919), "Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch" (1919), and "The Mind the Paint Girl" (1919), where she was praised for her expressive presence. Contemporary coverage noted her operatic background and highlighted a 1919 benefit concert for blind soldiers, as well as her being voted the "Best Girl" of Company D, 105th Artillery, A.E.F., by soldiers overseas. In the early 1930s she wrote, produced, and performed multiple roles in radio sketches for WINS in New York, later working in advertising by the 1950 census.
She died on September 30, 1972, in New York and was buried in Mount Pleasant Cemetery, Hawthorne, Westchester County, New York, but her story begins in Wheeling, where she was born before rising to national prominence on stage and screen.
To learn more: Wikipedia - Gladys Valerie (https://tinyurl.com/476zfzne), Find a Grave - Gladys Valerie Hays Barth (https://tinyurl.com/4ec4n2uv), Everything Explained (https://tinyurl.com/4m6wnx8d), IMdb - Gladys Valerie [1890-1972] (https://tinyurl.com/s9mhxvtd)
Photo credits: Wikimedia Commons
Gladys Valerie was born Gladys Valerie Hays on June 27, 1890, in Wheeling, Ohio County, West Virginia, to Rudolph A. Hays and Edith Ida Koon Hays. Her family later relocated to New York City, where she was raised and educated, positioning her close to the emerging American theatrical and motion picture industries. On June 30, 1914, she married teacher Mark Barth in Manhattan, a union that coincided with the beginning of her screen career in the silent era.
Valerie’s film work included leading and featured roles in productions such as "The Heart of a Girl" (1918), "Marie, Ltd." (1919), "Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch" (1919), and "The Mind the Paint Girl" (1919), where she was praised for her expressive presence. Contemporary coverage noted her operatic background and highlighted a 1919 benefit concert for blind soldiers, as well as her being voted the "Best Girl" of Company D, 105th Artillery, A.E.F., by soldiers overseas. In the early 1930s she wrote, produced, and performed multiple roles in radio sketches for WINS in New York, later working in advertising by the 1950 census.
She died on September 30, 1972, in New York and was buried in Mount Pleasant Cemetery, Hawthorne, Westchester County, New York, but her story begins in Wheeling, where she was born before rising to national prominence on stage and screen.
To learn more: Wikipedia - Gladys Valerie (https://tinyurl.com/476zfzne), Find a Grave - Gladys Valerie Hays Barth (https://tinyurl.com/4ec4n2uv), Everything Explained (https://tinyurl.com/4m6wnx8d), IMdb - Gladys Valerie [1890-1972] (https://tinyurl.com/s9mhxvtd)
Photo credits: Wikimedia Commons
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