Albert Lawrence

(b. Becker, Minnesota, 27/08/1885 – d. **/**/****). Actor. Albert Olsen’s parents immigrated to the United States from Norway and though he was born in Minnesota, the family eventually settled in Canby, Oregon. He took to the stage as Albert Lawrence and, like Ray Brown, was one of the second group of actors who came out to South Africa to join the American Dramatic Company in February 1918. With Brown as Captain (later Commander) Good and H.J. Hamlin as Sir Henry Curtis, he was Allan Quatermain in H. Lisle Lucoque’s film versions of King Solomon’s Mines (1918) and Allan Quatermain (1919). In addition he played the villain in Joseph Albrecht’s sporting drama The Stolen Favourite (1919). He also had a role in the stage production of Daddy Long-Legs (1918) at His Majesty’s Theatre, but a projected part in Turn to the Right fell through because of his film commitments. He and Ray Brown arrived back in the United States via England and France in July 1919.

Before coming to South Africa he appeared in juvenile roles for a variety of stock companies and is known to have acted in The Miracle Man, The Spendthrift and A Gentleman from Mississippi (all 1916) at the Princess Theatre in Des Moines, Iowa. Upon his return to the United States he resumed his itinerant lifestyle, travelling throughout the United States and Canada. At some stage he may have legally changed his name to Albert Lawrence, for when his 1942 Draft Registration card was completed this was the name he gave. At that time he was living in Portland, Oregon, though he was not employed. It is not certain what became of him, but some of his papers were deposited in the Billy Rose Theatre Division of the New York Public Library. (FO)

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