Albert Lawrence

Albert Lawrence (b. Becker, Minnesota, 27/08/1885 – d. **/**/****) was an actor.

Biography

Albert Lawrence was originally Andrew Olsen. His father, though born in Sweden, immigrated to the United States from Christiana in Norway. Though he was born in Minnesota, the family eventually settled in Canby, Oregon. He adopted the surname of Lawrence at an early age and it was as Albert Lawrence that he studied at the Western Academy of Dramatic Art, Elocution and Music in Portland. Like Ray Brown, he 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, acting throughout the United States and Canada. At some stage he may have legally changed his name to Albert Lawrence, for when, in 1918, his Draft Registration card was completed, this was the name he gave. He was single and exempted from military service because he was “physically deficient”. At the time of the 1940 Census he was living with his brother James at the Eaton Hotel in Portland, but was not employed. We have not yet established when and where he died, but some of his papers were deposited in the Billy Rose Theatre Division of the New York Public Library by the children of his younger brother, William. Interestingly, James also adopted the surname Lawrence, but William stuck to Olsen. (FO)