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The email:

Do I have an amazing story for you. Are you sitting down?

Many years ago I was working for a theatre company and a wooden trunk was discovered in the basement of a neighboring theatre, (which has since been torn down, I believe). My department, properties, was sent over to retrieve the trunk and salvage it's contents for use in our plays (the trunk contained letters, newspapers, etc, which we could copy for use on stage). We had no idea that the trunk would hold 100 years worth of memories belonging to the actress Maude Fealy, who

apparently never threw anything away, just kept adding it to the

trunk. It took several of us weeks to excavate the trunk, which had sustained some severe water and mildew damage.

The biggest find in the box were the publicity photos. Dozens of

them, and they had survived quite well as I recall. I don't remember any postcard sizes. They were all 8x10, and bigger! This is a true story. I think I organized and filed at least 50 images, all

beautiful, some from vaudeville and others from the early film years. In some she is dressed as a boy. There were also Christmas cards from Cecil and Cukor, pay stubs, news clippings, programs, you name it!

I never forgot Maude and am so excited that others are

interested in her too.

We could not trace any living relatives to share this trunk with at

the time. This was over 10 years ago and there was no "Google".

The collection is still safely archived away (I checked today) and is

under lock and key while it's future is to be decided upon. I think it should stay as an archive and be sold to the national film archives or a Broadway theatre museum perhaps.

I have requested that my former boss begin scanning in some of the images so that I can share them with you and the others out there who want to see them.

Please share this with the other Maude fans to let them know that

some exciting stuff should be happening in the coming months.

Above, left to right: Lasky Players; a movie still; B.F. Keith’s marquee in New York City; Maude dressed as a schoolboy

This site began with an email from a friend wondering if a Maude Fealy trunk the two of us had found still existed. When I confirmed that it did (I’m the “former boss” referred to at the right), he sent this email to a Maude postcard collector. I’ll let that email explain the story . . .

The old theatre was not, happily, torn down. A local bookstore purchased it and has opened a branch store there. View pictures here

NEW:

The guy who cleaned out the trunk years ago sent photos he took during the process. View them here.