Allison, May (1895–1989)

American actress and one of MGM's greatest box-office stars of the 1920s. Born on a farm in Rising Fawn, Georgia, on June 14, 1895; died in 1989; educated in Birmingham, Alabama; married Robert Ellis (divorced); married James R. Quirk (a Photoplay editor, who died in 1932); married Carl N. Osborne (a businessman).

Before working as a silent-screen actress, May Allison had a successful career on stage, starring in Everyman and The Quaker Girl on Broadway. In 1915, the 5'6" blue-eyed, Southern blonde beauty made her first film, A Fool There Was. That same year, Will Rogers convinced her to play a leading role in his movie David Harum. From 1915 to 1917, Allison and Harold Lockwood became a romantic duo on screen, shooting eight movies together. She also co-starred with her first husband Robert Ellis in Peggy Does Her Darndest and In for Thirty Days. A popular actress throughout the 1920s,

Allison's films include The Great Question (1915), The End of the Road (1915), One Increasing Purpose, The Testing of Mildred Vane (1918), Fair and Warmer (1919), The Woman Who Fooled Herself (1922), Flapper Wives (1924), I Want My Man (1925), Wreckage (1925), The Greater Glory (1926), Men of Steel (1926), The City (1926), and Mismates. Allison, whose other pursuits included flying her own plane, made her last movie, The Telephone Girl, in 1927. She retired to care for her ailing husband James R. Quirk, a Photoplay editor, who died five years later.