Pauline Curley was born in Holyoke, Massachusetts.[4] Her mother, Rose Curley, brought her into show business at the age of 4, at first on stage in vaudeville shows.[2] In 1910 at 6 years old Rose brought Pauline to New York City to find her work in the newly established silent movie industry and on the stage, getting her bit parts in a variety of movies, as well as weekly stage performances in Uncle Tom's Cabin and Little Lord Fauntleroy for the Jack Packard Stock Company.[citation needed] In 1915, she appeared on Broadway in the role of Rhods in Polygamy[5] at the Park Theatre. Her mother gave different ages for Pauline depending on the requirements of the role, leaving her confused about her actual age, which she only learned in 1998 when she was 94.[2]
Acting career
Pauline Curley's acting career spanned the period of 1903 starting as a baby and finishing when she was 25 in 1929, after which she retired from acting[6] although she retained a connection to the movie business through her cinematographer husband.
Entry into movies
Curley's first motion picture was Tangled Relations (1912). She played one of the children in a movie which starred Florence Lawrence and Owen Moore. For an audition for The Straight Road in 1914, Pauline was dressed as a boy to land a part as an orphan; a variety of such roles followed, "cornering the market in orphans and waifs".[2]
In 1926 Curley played with Helen Chadwick, Jack Mulhall, and Emmett King, in The Naked Truth. It was a film about parents who failed to tell their children about the mysteries of life at the appropriate time. It deals with the consequences.
Personal life
She married cinematographer Kenneth Peach in 1922, taking his last name as Pauline Curley Peach and remaining married until his death in 1988. They were married for nearly 66 years. They had three children, two sons and one daughter.
Death
On December 16, 2000, Curley died 8 days before her 97th birthday of complications resulting from pneumonia at St. John's Hospital in Santa Monica.[8]
