For Anita Louise, film work was, happily, a thing of delight. Of the growing-up years she spent in the acting profession, Anita wrote:

People often ask me how it [felt] to be a child star, and they are always surprised when I answer 'fine'....[I]n addition to being treated like a normal being away from the studio I took acting as a game and enjoyed it immensely....The funny part of it is that in 'growing up' I have never lost the enjoyment I get out of making pictures.¹

Perhaps it was that joy in her work that caused Anita Louise to become an actress of sincerity, as well as a deceptive sublety, giving incisive performances even while the characters she played were most-often cast from the same mold. ("I've made more than 70 movies and I've always played a lady," was once her complaint.²) If many of these roles could be defined as "one-noted," Anita was adept at finding that variants and the nuances of that note, at becoming intricately and compellingly any one of the vast types of lady movie scripts required, so that never twice was a note played in quite the same way. Seen in retrospect, then, her filmography holds a veritable symphony of sweet young things and faithless wives; intended victims of murder, and those who held the gun; gentle heroines, thorned roses, a dumb blonde; even a fairy queen—her shimmering "Titania" of A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935), the film for which she is best remembered.

To remember Anita, to rediscover her work, is the purpose of this web site. As our knowledge grows, so will the site, to someday include information about Anita's performances on stage, radio and television, as well as in film. Throughout all its stages, we hope Rediscovering Anita Louise will prove a fitting tribute to an actress long-overlooked, and a lady very beautiful indeed.

Footnotes.