Carla Laemmle played the prima ballerina in the 1925 film of The Phantom of the Opera and she played the secretary who delivered the first line of dialogue in the 1931 classic, Dracula. She appeared in a number of other silent films and then in a few talkies before retiring from acting. She didn't appear in another movie until Pooltime in 2010 and she recently did a small part in a horror film that will be coming out later this year. So we're talking about a career that spanned 89 years.
She was born October 20, 1909, the niece of Carl Laemmle, one of the founders of Universal Pictures…so she was 104 when she passed away last night. I met her two or three times at autograph shows in the last decade or so and got to speak with her. I didn't learn much from her but there was still a thrill there to "connect" with so much history…especially since we are very close to the day when there will be no one alive from the silent era.