CINEFILER

Seena Owen

Born
November 13, 1894
Died
August 15, 1966
From Wikipedia Seena Owen (November 14, 1894 – August 15, 1966) was a Danish-American silent film actress. Born Signe Auen at Spokane, Washington, the youngest of three children raised by Jens Christensen and Karen (née Sorensen) Auen. Her father and mother came from Denmark in the late 1880s and settled in Minnesota where they married in 1888. Within a short period of time they relocated to Portland and then Spokane, where her father became proprietor of the Columbia Pharmacy. Her first important film was A Yankee From the West (1915) under the name Signe Auen at the age of 21. She was later convinced to change her name and settled on Seena Owen, the phonetic spelling of her real name. In 1916 she performed in D. W. Griffith's Intolerance. The same year she married George Walsh whom she had met on the set of Intolerance. The marriage lasted until their divorce in 1924. A regular player for the rest of the silent era, Owen appeared in films such as Maurice Tourneur's Victory in 1919 where she was photographed to great effect by Tourneur's cameraman, Rene Guissart. In 1920, she appeared in "The Gift Supreme" with Lon Chaney, who appeared with her in Victory. She co-starred with Gloria Swanson and Walter Byron in the ill-fated Queen Kelly (1928), as the mad Queen who whips Swanson in one scene. With the arrival of sound in movies, Owen's weak voice became a problem and forced her to retire from the silver screen in 1933. After her retirement, she worked on a number of films in the 1930s/40s as a screenwriter including two starring Dorothy Lamour: Aloma of the South Seas and Rainbow Island, both in 1941. The former was written in part with her sister, Lillie Hayward, a successful Hollywood screenwriter, Seena Owen died on August 15, 1966 at Hollywood Presbyterian Hospital, aged 71, and was interred at Hollywood Forever Cemetery.
Known For
Intolerance: Love's Struggle Throughout the Ages
(1916)
Princess Beloved (Attarea) (Babylonian Story)
Full Filmography
Acting
The Better Way
(1914)
An Old-Fashioned Girl
(1915)
Bertha - the City Girl
The Lamb
(1915)
Mary
The Craven
(1915)
May Walton
A Yankee from the West
(1915)
Gunhild, a Norwegian Girl
The Fox Woman
(1915)
The Fox Woman, Alice Carroway, a.k.a. Ali-San
Intolerance: Love's Struggle Throughout the Ages
(1916)
Princess Beloved (Attarea) (Babylonian Story)
Martha's Vindication
(1916)
Dorothea
Madame Bo-Peep
(1917)
A Woman's Awakening
(1917)
Paula Letchworth
Branding Broadway
(1918)
Mary Lee
One of the Finest
(1919)
Frances Hudson
The Fall of Babylon
(1919)
Attarea
Riders of Vengeance
(1919)
The Girl
Victory
(1919)
Alma
The Sheriff's Son
(1919)
Beulah Rutherford
The Life Line
(1919)
Laura
A Man And His Money
(1919)
Betty Dalrymple
Breed of Men
(1919)
Ruth Fellows
The Gift Supreme
(1920)
Sylvia Alden
Sooner or Later
(1920)
Edna Ellis
The Cheater Reformed
(1921)
Carol McCall
The Woman God Changed
(1921)
Anna Janssen
Lavender and Old Lace
(1921)
Ruth Thorne
The Face in the Fog
(1922)
Grand Duchess Tatiana
Back Pay
(1922)
Hester Bevins
Unseeing Eyes
(1923)
Miriam Helston
The Great Well
(1924)
Camilla Challenor
I Am the Man
(1924)
Julia Calvert
For Woman's Favor
(1924)
June Paige
Faint Perfume
(1925)
Richmiel Crumb
The Hunted Woman
(1925)
Joanne Gray
Shipwrecked
(1926)
Lois Austin
The Flame of the Yukon
(1926)
The Flame
The Rush Hour
(1927)
Yvonne Dorée
The Blue Danube
(1928)
Helena Boursch
Man-Made Women
(1928)
Georgette
The Marriage Playground
(1929)
Rose Sellers
Officer Thirteen
(1932)
Trixi Du Bray
Queen Kelly
(1932)
Queen Regina V
Writing
Data provided by TMDB