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Ohioan
Elsie Janis on the Stage and in the Trenches
Elsie
Janis (1889-1956), born Elsie Jane Bierbower to Jennie and John
Bierbower in Columbus, Ohio, first entertained at the age of 2 ½ in
various church activities at Dr. Washington Gladden’s First
Congregational Church at the northwest corner of Broad and Third.
Janis’s career in the performing arts was long and varied
– from her childhood when she began doing imitations of
celebrities in vaudeville, to her starring roles on the stages of
New York, London, and Paris, to the battlefield where she
entertained troops in France and England during World War I, to
Hollywood where she acted, wrote for film, and supervised
productions. From her
teen years on, Janis wrote songs for herself and for others as well
as a number of books, magazine articles, and poems.
Janis’s mother Jennie was, until her death in 1930,
Elsie’s constant companion and manager, and was known as one of
show business’s most infamous stage mothers.
While her career took her away from Columbus,
Janis always had a fondness for Ohio and Columbus. The El-Jan Shack, the house that she herself owned was on the
northeast corner of 18th Avenue and High Street across
from The Ohio State University campus and, at that time in the early
1920s, the athletic field. She
signed her first contract as an adult with the great producer
Charles Dillingham on the porch of the El-Jan Shack.
Janis came back many summers to rest from her hectic
professional stage and travel schedules, and to visit with
relatives. Janis was
always proud to be an Ohioan. As
she often shouted to the troops she entertained in France in 1918,
“Do I come from Ohio? By Damn Yes!”
| Photograph
of Elsie Janis, 1903.
From the Elsie Janis Collection of the Laura M. Mueller
British and American Theatre and Film Collections. |
Click to Enlarge
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Elsie
Janis at the El-Jan Shack, Columbus, Ohio.
The Theatre Magazine (July 1911), 29. |
| “Prominent
Players in Their Homes: No. 8: Miss Elsie Janis.” The Theatre Magazine (October 1914), 181. |
Click to Enlarge
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Click to Enlarge
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“Biographical
Page – No. 19. Elsie
Janis.” Theatre
Magazine (May 1924), 21. |
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