Edna Marie Flugrath was the eldest of three sisters who found fame as silent film stars.
Flugrath in 1920
Flugath with her sisters Viola Dana and Shirley Mason in 1923.
Harold Marvin Shaw was an American stage performer, film actor, screenwriter, and director during the silent era. A native of Tennessee, he worked in theatrical plays and vaudeville for 16 years before he began acting in motion pictures for Edison Studios in New York City in 1910 and then started regularly directing shorts there two years later. Shaw next served briefly as a director for Independent Moving Pictures (IMP) in New York before moving to England in May 1913 to be "chief producer" for the newly established London Film Company. During World War I, he relocated to South Africa, where in 1916 he directed the film De Voortrekkers in cooperation with African Film Productions, Limited. Shaw also established his own production company while in South Africa, completing there two more releases, The Rose of Rhodesia in 1918 and the comedy Thoroughbreds All in 1919. After directing films once again in England under contract with Stoll Pictures, he finally returned to the United States in 1922 and later directed several screen projects for Metro Pictures in California before his death in Los Angeles in 1926. During his 15-year film career, Shaw worked on more than 125 films either as a director, actor, or screenwriter.
The Edison Kinetogram, 1912
Newspaper ad for vaudeville show with Shaw, 1908
Inside Edison's busy studio in the Bronx, c. 1912; Shaw is seated with paperwork numbered "26" tucked under his arm. Also present is fellow director Charles Brabin, seated while supervising the film being shot on the right-hand set.
De Voortrekkers (1916) includes battle scenes with several thousand extras costumed as Zulu warriors and as heavily armed Dutch settlers.