Born 1904 in St. Louis, Missouri, American actress Laura La Plante made her acting debut at age 15, and in 1923 she was named as one of that year’s WAMPAS Baby Stars. During the 1920s, she appeared in more than 60 films.
The majority of the films starring La Plante (from 1921 to 1930) were made for Universal Pictures. During this period, she was the studio’s most popular star, “an accomplishment duplicated only by Deanna Durbin years later”, and almost always enjoyed top billing. Her best remembered film is arguably the silent classic The Cat and the Canary (1927), although she also achieved acclaim for Skinner’s Dress Suit (1926), with Reginald Denny, the part-sound The Love Trap (1929), directed by William Wyler, and the 1929 part-sound Show Boat (1929), adapted from the novel of the same name by Edna Ferber.
The advent of sound films effectively shortened her career. In her mid-20s, La Plante was a natural and appealing presence in early sound films, but the huge wave of new stars in these years overshadowed her. She made her last appearances for Universal in the Technicolor musical King of Jazz (1930). She retired from the screen in 1935, making only two later films, and 1957’s Spring Reunion was her last.
La Plante died in 1996 due to Alzheimer's disease in Woodland Hills, California, aged 91. Take a look at these vintage photos to see the beauty of young Laura La Plante in the 1920s and 1930s.
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