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The Daughter of Niagara (1910)
The Daughter of Niagara depicts the tragic story of a
tribal chief’s daughter, played by the great serial star, Pearl White,
who is offered as a sacrifice to the gods. She is sent over the
thundering Niagara Falls in a canoe, followed by her lover who can not
bear to be without her.
Pearl White was born in 1889 in Missouri where she joined the Diemer
Theatre Company as a high school sophomore and began touring with a
stock company at the age of 18. She was signed by the Powers Film Co.
of New York in 1910 and began her fourteen-year film career that
included over two hundred titles. Best known for The Perils of Pauline,
with this serial, and others like it, White became an international
star, of extraordinary popularity. Her appeal was rooted in her blonde
good looks, her athletic stunts, and her earnest, charming
characterizations of determined women who could overcome villains of
all types. She did not do well in feature films and retired in 1923 to
France where she died 15 years later. Though less than half of her
prolific film output survives, White’s popularity endures with
historians as well as audiences.
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