Last year I did records research (FYI: the "gen" of my genplant29 username stands for "genealogy" or "genealogist") on Miss Friderici, in an effort to figure out why certain of her details don't properly add up. Since details involved are quite interesting (for anyone interested in genealogy, as well as a fan of early talkie films), it's just now occurred to me that presenting some of the discovered information here could make for a good post. Too, Miss Friderici is an actress who I've always liked, therefore this provides ideal opportunity to finally create a TMDb discussion thread about her.

Last November I carefully researched Blanche Friderici in an array of public records from throughout her lifetime. Her birth date definitely was 12 September 1873, rather than 21 January 1878 that both Wikipedia and IMDb erroneously indicate. Illustrating and confirming this, her actual birth record spells out the precise 12 September 1873 correct birth date, which the 1900 Federal Census subsequently further corroborates that she was, indeed, born in September of 1873 (the 1900 Census never indicates a person's birth day of the month, only the month and year). The 1892 Brooklyn Census (in which she is indicated to be a "Professional Reader" [her otherwise known occupation of back during those early years]) likewise presents her at an age (19) that calculates solidly back to the 1873 birth year. Other presented details in the various records further cross-substantiate and make abundantly evident that each consulted old record definitely does pertain to and document this one-and-the-same particular individual.

Presumably, for professional purposes, Miss Friderici at some point invented a 21 January 1878 birth date / age to publicly go by, in order to be thought younger than her actual/true age. (It appears that during her latter years she even made effort to shave off an additional five years, seemingly hoping to be believed to have been born in 1883. [This probably in large part, and perhaps primarily - maybe entirely - was because she had a substantially younger husband who was born in, apparently, either 1893 or 1894, thus who was several years her junior regardless of whether she had been born in 1873, 1878, or 1883.])

At any rate, I've seen Miss Friderici in a number of films of the late Silent era though (especially) the first four years of the 1930s (Blanche died on 23 December 1933, and her two final movies were released, posthumously, in 1934) and have always thought she not only did a very good job but that she had a unique interesting sort of presence, as well as look, to her that I like.

Some of Blanche's well-known films are Night Nurse (1931), Mata Hari (1931), Thirteen Women (1932), Three on a Match (1932), A Farewell to Arms (1932), Flying Down to Rio (1933), and It Happened One Night (1934) - that latter movie which proved to be her final one.

Please check out the following list of titles and celebrities I've created TMDb threads for: https://www.themoviedb.org/list/118052