Stevens
Studio
Stevens
Studio
The information contained on this page pertains mainly to
Josephine Stevens Baird
(1897 - 1966)
Josephine was born, Edna W Stevens, on October 18, 1897 in New York. Her parents were Benjamin Dayton Stevens and Maude Edna Brown, although per the 1900 census she is found living with her grandmother, Mary McFillin Brown. I am unsure where her parents were at the time perhaps they were in the middle of some broadway production. Benjamin was a manager for Klaw and Erlanger and her mother was an actress and went by the name of "Helen Beresford", aka Edna Brown, aka Ellen B Stevens. After the death of Benjamin on October 22, 1933 (Obit) Helen dated a man by the name of Belmont Tiffany whom she later sued for leaving her the alter.
Mrs. Helen B. Stevens of Philadelphia, widow of Ben D. Stevens, formerly a manager for Klaw & Erlanger, has filed suit here for $50,000 damages against Belmont Tiffany on the ground that he courted her in Detroit during the summer of 1914 and promised marriage. She brought a similar suit a year ago in Alabama, where Tiffany was then living and the jury in the case after being out twenty-four hours divided, six to six. Mrs. Stevens filed her New York action after the Alabama disagreement, but the suit did not come to light until yesterday, when her attorney, John M. Quinn, got permission to file the complaint. Mrs. Stevens, who was Maude Edna Brown, noted in Philadelphia as a beauty, testified in the Alabama suit that when the time set for the wedding arrived the defendant failed to appear and in his place there came a lawyer who offered to buy several hundred letters of endearment. Belmont Tiffany is the son of the late George Tiffany and while in New York makes his home at the Knickerbocker Club. |
Helen later married Willam Creagh Heydecker.
Show business is something that seems to run in the family. Beside both of Josephine's parents she had an aunt, Francis A Brown, and an uncle, Henry C Brown, who were also actors. Plus it is worth mentioning a second uncle, A Seymour Brown, who became a well known songwriter. His wife, Pauline Thorne, was also a Broadway actress. He is known for such songs as "Oh You Beautiful Doll" and "King Chanticleer". Anyway, Josephine (who may have changed her name to that, for stage purposes of course), teamed up with Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle in 1915 for what appears to be her first silent short film, "Fatty's Plucky Pup". In 1917 she performed in a couple more shorts and then in 1919 she was in what is most likely her first feature film. "Oh, You Woman", a film directed by John Emerson, seems to be Josephine's last work on the silver screen. This could be due to her marriage to a Hollywood director (not proven) and the birth of her first daughter, Ruth Helen. It is not known who this director was or how this marriage ended but this is all assumed to have occurred between the years of 1919 and 1925.
Sometime around 1926 she married John Elmer Baird and they had their first child, Patricia October 23, 1927. They had another child, John, December 18, 1935. They were mostly likely living in the Bridgeport, CT area or possibly Long Island. They later relocated to Fallbrook, CA and this is where they both died. Josephine passed away October 16, 1966.
Filmography of Josephine Stevens
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