The Missionary and the Actress (1913)
John Vance, a missionary, is ordered by his physician to a quiet summer resort for rest and recuperation. There also comes Aileen Calvert, an idol of a burlesque theater, the toast of the so-called "bald-head row," likewise for the benefit of peace and change. Her antecedents are quite unknown, and she becomes interested in Vance, as a type of man quite new to her. She adopts the role of the artless maiden and leads the guileless man a chase for her own amusement. He becomes infatuated and she listens with quiet amusement to his talk of an ideal life in the service of the Master. On the day before departing on his long trip to the foreign fields, he tells her his love and places upon her finger a ring, given with the word "Mizpah," She is unwilling to disillusion him and allows him to depart in the belief that she is herself an innocent and simple soul, but she returns to the old life in the glare of the footlights and the fetid atmosphere of the burlesque stage. The year passes quickly and Vance returns from abroad sooner than he expected. By chance he sees her picture on a theater poster, learns her vocation, and eventually they come face to face. The shock and the disappointment is too much for the man. Real love flashes over her wasted, vacuous life, but it is too late. He leaves her and sails away to the South Seas to give the remainder of his life up to the care of the leper colony. The woman is stricken with remorse, gives up her gay and feverish career and devotes her time to the lowly in the city tenements. Eventually she contracts a malignant fever, and as the shadows darken about her she sends him the ring he gave her with a message of real love. As a memory of brighter days to sustain him in his work in the far-away islands of the sea.
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GenresDrama
Short
IMDbPro
See more details at IMDbPro
| Filmmakers | Role |
|---|---|
| Lem B. Parker | Director |
| Mrs. Owen Bronson | Writer |
| William Nicholas Selig | Producer |
| Cast | Role |
|---|---|
| Joe King | |
| Ethel Davis | |
| Al Ernest Garcia |
