29. A Deadly Frilly Dress
The Warrens of Virginia was a 1924 romantic drama from the silent film era. Its plot revolved around a love story in which a man leaves his Southern sweetheart to fight for the Union in the Civil War. No known prints survive, making it a lost movie. The film is best known today for the death of its star, Martha Mansfield (1899 – 1923), in a freak accident on set, caused by a frilly dress.
Martha Mansfield was a New Yorker who set her mind from an early age on becoming an actress. At age fourteen, she secured a role in a Broadway play, and took side gigs as an artists’ model and a dancer in musicals. In 1917, she was signed up by a forerunner of Warner Bros. Studios, and performed in three short movies.