Cissy Fitzgerald

Cissy Fitzgerald (born Mary Kate Kipping; 1 February 1873 – 10 May 1941) was an English-American vaudeville actress, dancer, and singer who appeared in numerous silent and sound films. Fitzgerald acted in a popular Gaiety Girl show beginning in 1894 and was filmed in the role in 1896 in a self-titled short film shot by Thomas Edison's film company. She did not appear in films again until 1914 where she signed with the Vitagraph company and was quite popular in feature films and her own series of Cissy short films. Very little of Fitzgerald's silent material survives except her comic backup role in the 1928 Lon Chaney vehicle Laugh, Clown, Laugh. Fitzgerald claimed to have been the first woman in motion pictures, on 50 feet of film at the Edison labs in New Jersey in 1896. However, Annabelle Whitford had been filmed in 1894 by Edison engineer W. K. L. Dickson and the Lumières in France were shooting motion pictures, including men and women coming and going from a factory, by 1896. Fitzgerald married Oliver Mark Tucker and had two children, a son and a daughter. ()