Helen Bertram

Lula May Burt[1] was born in 1865 (some sources give 1869)[2] in Tuscola, Illinois,[3] the daughter of William Neal Burt and Caroline Burr Burt.[4] She was raised in Paris, Illinois and in Indianapolis, Indiana. She studied voice with Tecla Vigna[5] at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music.[6]

Bertram sang in comic opera[7] with the Emma Abbott Opera Company, the Heinrich Conried Opera Company, the Bostonians, the McCaull Comic Opera Company, Henry E. Abbey's English Opera Company, and the Carl Rosa Opera Company. Her roles included Selena in Mignon, Serpolette in The Chimes of Normandy, Arline in The Bohemian Girl, Adalgisa in Norma, Prince Julius in The King's Fool, Farina in The Tar and the Tartar (for which she danced barefoot),[8] and Stella in Clover.[9][5]

On Broadway, she appeared in musicals Robin Hood (1900), The Viceroy (1900), Foxy Quiller (1900), The Prince of Pilsen (1903), The Gingerbread Man (1905-1906), The Land of Nod and the Song Birds (1907), and again in Robin Hood (1932). Bertram appeared in two films, The Lightning Conductor (1914), a silent picture which included her daughter in the cast, and Rhythm on the River (1940), with Bing Crosby and Mary Martin. She also appeared in vaudeville shows.[10]

She and her daughter were both active in the suffrage movement in Los Angeles.[11]

Events in Helen Bertram's private life were regularly detailed in newspapers, including adultery, divorce, embezzlement, and bankruptcy.[12][13] Among her reported eccentricities, she wore a gold locket or chamois pouch containing her second husband's ashes, for several years after his death.[14][15][16]

Bertram married three times, to Italian musician Achille Tomasi (from 1888 to 1894), English actor Edward J. Henley, a younger brother of poet William Ernest Henley (from 1894 to 1897), and English actor Edward J. Morgan (from 1903 to 1906).[14][17] She divorced Tomasi; her other two husbands died.[18] She had one daughter with Tomasi, actress and screenwriter Rosina Henley (1890-1978), who took and kept her stepfather's name;[19] Rosina Henley married British film director Harley Knoles. Bertram moved to Los Angeles in 1910.[20] Helen Bertram died in 1953, aged 88 years, in Los Angeles.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Helen Bertram.

• Helen Bertram at IMDb
• Helen Bertram at the Internet Broadway Database
• Helen Bertram in the Library of Congress Newspaper Archives
• A cigarette card featuring Helen Bertram, in the George Arents Collection, New York Public Library Digital Collections.