Maria Ouspenskaya

Ouspenskaya died from a stroke several days after receiving severe burns in a house fire, which she had caused by falling asleep while smoking a cigarette. Chaplin had tremendous respect for her, both as an actress and as a person, and used her in his films whenever possible, beginning in 1916. After her retirement from filmmaking in 1926, she remained on Chaplin's payroll until she died in 1958. Despite her two Academy Award nominations her later films were inferior productions such as Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943) and Tarzan and the Amazons (1945). She frequently starred in Charlie Chaplin movies. Her other successes included The Rains Came (1939), Waterloo Bridge (1940), The Mortal Storm (1940), and Kings Row (1942). Edna Purviance (October 21, 1895 - January 11, 1958) was an actress during the silent movie era. She received a second nomination in 1939 for her role in Love Affair.

Her first Hollywood role, in Dodsworth (1936) brought her a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Although she had appeared in a few Russian silent films many years earlier, Ouspenskaya had avoided making a career in film, until the financial hardship of her school forced her to consider the possibilities of film to help her build her finances. One of Ouspenskaya's students at the school during this period was the then unknown teenager, Anne Baxter. She performed regularly on Broadway over the next decade, and in 1929 she founded the School of Dramatic Art in New York.

The Moscow Art Theatre travelled widely throughout Europe and when it arrived in New York in 1922 she decided to remain. A member of the Moscow Art Theatre, she was directed by Konstantin Stanislavski, and for the remainder of her life advocated and taught his method. Born in Tula, Russia, Ouspenskaya studied singing in Warsaw and acting in Moscow and performed extensively in Russian theater. Maria Ouspenskaya (July 29, 1876 - December 3, 1949) was a Russian born actress who achieved success as an stage actress as a young woman in Russia, and as an elderly woman in Hollywood films.