Nell Craig

Craig was born in Princeton, New Jersey and raised in Philadelphia,^[2] the daughter of Charles Craig and Sarah J. Applegate Craig. Her father worked for the railroad; both of her parents were also born in New Jersey.^[3]

Craig made over 150 films. Unlike some of her peers, she successfully made the transition from the silent era into sound films.^[4] She was seen in westerns,^[5] historical romances,^[6] melodramas,^[7] and comedies. "I prefer emotional parts, not simpering ingenue parts," she told an interviewer in 1917.^[2] She was considered a screen beauty, with dark hair and eyes.^[2] After playing a blind character in In the Palace of the King (1916), she "suffered severely from inflamed eye balls" after holding her eyes wide open without blinking during filming.^[6] Later in her career she played "Nurse Nosey Parker" in the Dr. Kildare and Dr. Gillespie movies.^[8][9][10]

She married writer and director Fred E. Wright,^[11] who directed her in silent films for Pathé and Essanay studios. They moved to California in 1918, he left film work, and she supported them while he wrote his best-selling novel, Pandora La Croix (1924).^[12] Her husband died in 1936.^[13] She lived at the Motion Picture Country House and Hospital in her later years, and died in 1965, in Hollywood, at the age of 73.^[14]