Valeska Suratt
Valeska Suratt was born on June 28, 1882, in Owensville, Indiana, to Ralph and Anna Suratt. When Suratt was six years old, her family relocated to Terre Haute, Indiana. By 1899, she dropped out of school to work at a photography studio, later moving to Indianapolis, Indiana, to work as an assistant in a department store millinery.
Suratt had an interest in performing, and eventually began working as an actress onstage in Chicago, Illinois. She began by working in vaudeville and was part of a duo act with Billy Gould. The two of them had an Apache dance number. Gould and Suratt married in 1904.
Suratt made her Broadway debut in The Belle of Mayfair, followed by additional roles. In 1908, Suratt and her husband had separated and ultimately divorced in 1911. During this time, she started a solo singing act, wearing intricate gowns. In 1910, she gained notoriety for appearing in a show called The Girl with the Whooping Cough which was deemed “salacious” by New York City mayor William Jay Gaynor and was shut down due to its suggestive themes.
In the same year, she partnered with Fletcher Norton for another duo act. She and Norton married in 1911 and remained together for eight weeks before divorcing.
Suratt self-proclaimed herself as “Vaudeville’s Greatest Star” but was more known for the high-fashion clothing she wore onstage. For this reason, she was nicknamed “Empress of Fashions.” Moreover, she is purported to be one of the models for Gibson Girl sketches.
In 1915, she turned to film roles, signing with Fox. She was portrayed as a vamp, cast as a seductive character in her film roles. Her first film appearance occurred in The Soul of Broadway (1915), in which she reportedly wore more than 150 gowns. In 1916, she traveled internationally to France for the purpose of buying costumes and motion picture equipment; to Great Britain as a special representative of William Fox; and to Monte Carlo to select motion picture locations. Altogether, she performed in 11 silent films during her film career. Today, all of them are considered lost films.
In 1920, her career waned due to vaudeville’s decline and the vamp image no longer being popular among moviegoers. To complicate matters, she and scholar Mirza Ahmad Sohrab sued Cecil B. DeMille for purportedly stealing the scenario for The King of Kings (1927) from them. The case was ultimately settled without publicity and Suratt was unofficially blacklisted following the lawsuit.
In the 1930s, Suratt was living in a cheap New York City hotel, nearly destitute. Novelist Fannie Hurst discovered her situation and organized a benefit for her, raising $2000. Soon after receiving the funds, Suratt spent the funds while gambling and was penniless again.
Suratt tried to restore her career and funds by selling her life story to newspapers, but one reporter who read the manuscript noted that Suratt was writing about herself as the mother of God. Suratt’s career was never revived in any capacity.
Suratt died in a nursing home in Washington, D.C., on July 2, 1962. She was a member of the Bahai faith and her ashes were interred at Highland Lawn Cemetery in Terre Haute, Indiana. She was 80 years old.
Today, few places of relevance to Suratt remain. In 1910, she resided at 47 E. 44th St., New York, New York. This location no longer remains.
However, her 1925 home at 306 W. 76th, New York, New York, remains.
In addition, in 1931, she lived at 240 W. 98th St., New York, New York, which also stands.
For 60 years, Suratt’s grave was unmarked. A local fundraising campaign led to the grave finally being marked in 2022. In addition, Terre Haute Mayor Duke Bennett declared June 28 Valeska Suratt Day in Terre Haute during a proclamation. Presently, this is the most significant tribute to Suratt.
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–Annette Bochenek for Classic Movie Hub
Annette Bochenek pens our monthly Classic Movie Travels column. You can read all of Annette’s Classic Movie Travel articles here.
Annette Bochenek of Chicago, Illinois, is a PhD student at Dominican University and an independent scholar of Hollywood’s Golden Age. She manages the Hometowns to Hollywood blog, in which she writes about her trips exploring the legacies and hometowns of Golden Age stars. Annette also hosts the “Hometowns to Hollywood” film series throughout the Chicago area. She has been featured on Turner Classic Movies and is the president of TCM Backlot’s Chicago chapter. In addition to writing for Classic Movie Hub, she also writes for Silent Film Quarterly, Nostalgia Digest, and Chicago Art Deco SocietyMagazine.
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