Profile of Juanita Hansen on Famous Like Me

Juanita Hansen (March 3, 1895 - September 26, 1961) was an American motion picture actress.

Born in Des Moines, Iowa, after finishing high school, in 1914 Juanita Hansen wanted to capitalize on her exceptional beauty and headed for Hollywood. There, she got her first acting job with L. Frank Baum's "Oz Film Manufacturing Company" appearing in the The Patchwork Girl of Oz, a film based on Baum's book. Given only a bit part, Hansen had a slightly better role in her next "Oz" film that same year titled The Magic Cloak of Oz.

In 1915, she appeared in six films with her first feature role opposite Tom Chatterton in "The Secret of the Submarine." The following year her good looks landed her work as one of the "Sennet Bathing Beauties" doing comedy shorts at Keystone/Triangle Studios. Although she told reporters she liked working for Mack Sennett, she wanted to do more than slapstick comedy and left Keystone. She was soon doing serious roles for Universal Studios and became famous as the star of the eighteen episode action/adventure serial called "The Brass Bullet." After making seven films in 1919, Hansen was cast in the starring role of "Princess Elyata" in a fifteen episode serial called "The Lost City." Produced by William Selig and the three Warner brothers, Harry, Jack, and Sam, the successful serial was edited down to seven reels and re-released in the form of a feature-length film with the title "The Jungle Princess." However, during this time Hansen's increasingly reckless lifestyle led to a cocaine addiction that would quickly overwhelm her life.

Hansen's performance in the Universal productions led to a 1920 deal with Pathé to star with Warner Oland and William N. Bailey in a fifteen episode serial titled "The Phantom Foe." In 1921 she made a second Pathé serial called "The Yellow Arm," again with Oland and Bailey plus Marguerite Courtot. However, behavioral problems as a result of Hansen's heavy drug addiction repeatedly disrupted filming and ended the Pathé relationship. She appeared in secondary roles in two more films but by 1923 her film career was over at the age of twenty-eight and her life became a series of constant ups and downs fighting her addictions. She began working in live theatre and in 1928 appeared in the short-lived Broadway production, "The High Hatters." Ten years after her last film, in 1933 she was given a secondary but important role in a Monogram Pictures B-movie. This, her first talkie, would be her last film and the ensuing years was marked by a continual struggle with her drug addiction. At one point, she attempted suicide with an overdose of sleeping pills. She survived and the experience helped turn her around. Although her acting career was long over, and her drug habit had left her penniless, she took a job as a clerk for a railroad company and eventually went public with her story and created the Juanita Hansen Foundation to raise awareness of the dangers of drugs. In 1938 she wrote the book, "The Conspiracy of Silence" that recounted how the Hollywood movie studios covered up stars' addictions in order to protect their profits.

Juanita Hansen died in 1961 in West Hollywood, California of heart failure and was interred in the Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California.

External link

• Juanita Hansen at the Internet Movie Database

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