Elise Hamilton

Elise Hamilton (b. **/**/**** - d. **/**/****) was a stage and film actress.

In January 1919, South African Pictorial announced that the actresses to take the parts of the two rival queens in H. Lisle Lucoque’s film version of H. Rider Haggard’s Allan Quartermain (1919) had been selected. Mabel May, the wife of I.W. Schlesinger, was to play Nyleptha, the Fair Queen, and Elise Hamilton “from Pretoria” was to be Sorais, the Dark Queen. They had been selected through the first national beauty contest in the country, organised by the magazine Stage and Cinema in 1918. Three women were chosen to star in films based on Rider Haggard’s books, these two and Edna Joyce, who had been chosen to play the Queen of Sheba in King Solomon's Mines.

Also known as Tommie Hamilton,Elise had previously appeared on the stage in The Pink Lady and Arlette (both 1918) and was subsequently cast in the role of the tragic Isabel Clayton in Joseph Albrecht’s Isban; or, The Mystery of the Great Zimbabwe (1919), based on the novel by George H. Cossins. In addition she appeared in at least two more plays, namely Palace, Bedroom and Bath (1919) at His Majesty’s Theatre (with Edith Cartwright, Hilda Attenboro, Florence Roberts and Harcourt Collett also in the cast), and Thumbs Up! (1920) at the Empire Palace of Varieties. (FO)

Sources

Stage & Cinema, 4 January 1919

http://www.ancestors.co.za/articles/famous-people/ancestor-beauty-queen/

Le Roux, André I. & Fourie, Lilla – Filmverlede: geskiedenis van die Suid-Afrikaanse speelfilm

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