Beatriz Michelena (February 22, 1890 – October 10, 1942) was a Venezuelan American actress and singer during the silent film era, known at the time for her operatic soprano voice and appearances in musical theatre. She was one of the few Latina stars visible on the silver screen in the United States in the 1910s. She was a leading lady in each film project she was involved in and, after the failure of California Motion Picture Company, co-founded a production company with her husband George E. Middleton, producing four of her movies.
She wrote popular articles for newspapers, including an advice column for girls, describing what it was like to be an actress, and answering questions from readers. For adult readers, Michelena wrote other pieces such as a history of the moving picture industry. In 1920 when she stopped making films, she returned to her career as a singer.
Michelena faded from historiography for many years, but her place in history has recently been re-examined; she was mentioned in 2002 in a presidential proclamation and her 1914 film Salomy Jane enjoyed a limited re-release in 2008.
Early life
Beatriz Michelena was born in New York City in 1890, six years after her sister Vera Michelena. Her father was a noted tenor Fernando Michelena, whose Spanish parents had settled in Caracas, Venezuela, where he was born. Her mother, Frances Lenord, was an operatic soprano and pianist.
Over much of her childhood, Michelena’s parents toured with the Emma Abbott Grand Opera Company a traveling theatre company that performed famous operas translated into English for American audiences. Beatriz's father in later life taught music and worked as a vocal coach and, at the time of his death, was serving as president of Arrillaga Musical College, San Francisco. Beatriz and her sisters Vera and Teresa Luisa were trained by their father in classical voice and drama studies, and they followed in his footsteps by beginning singing careers of their own.
Vera first appeared onstage in the Princess Chic Opera company (1901) at 17, taking a leading role in The Man from China (1904). Beatriz, too, performed with Princess Chic in 1901, taking chorus roles suitable for a child of 11. By mid-1904, with Vera busy pursuing her career in New York, Fernando Michelena settled in San Francisco, California to teach voice. There, he raised Beatriz and continued to train her, a soprano, in operatic vocal techniques. He passed his stage experience to his daughter: the way to move as another person, the way to make simple but authoritative gestures, and the way to build intensity over the span of a performance. Maria Antonia Field, a Californian writer, would later chronicle her time as a student of Michelena’s father in her book, Five Years of Vocal Study under Fernando Michelena.
Marriage and stage career
On Sunday, March 3, 1907, Michelena married George E. Middleton, a prominent San Francisco automobile dealer, the "happy culmination" of a romance that had begun in their school days. The private wedding took place at 232 Divisadero Street, the home of the parents of bridesmaid Margaret McGovern, "a lifelong friend of the bride". Judge Thomas F. Graham performed the ceremony. The couple spent a few weeks in Los Angeles for their honeymoon.
Middleton was the manager of the local Middleton Motor Car Company and the son of a California timber baron. He introduced Michelena to his society friends and business partners, including the trustees of Charles Crocker's estate who had rebuilt the St. Francis Hotel after the 1906 earthquake and fire.
After two years spent absent from the stage, in October 1910, "Beatriz Michelena Middleton" received a "full ovation" at the Garrick Theater for her role in The White Hen, a musical comedy set in Austria. Rotund comedian Max Dill, leader of the acting company, was the star of the show, given 14 minutes of applause upon entering the stage. For her performance, Michelena was sent flowers worth "a small fortune", according to the San Francisco Call theater writer, Walter Anthony. Starring actress Lora Lieb, native to San Francisco but unknown as a performer, took less applause.