Elsie Leslie
American actress (1881-1966)
Elsie Leslie (August 14, 1881 – October 31, 1966) was an American actress. She was America's first child star and the highest paid and most popular child actress of her era.
Life and career
Leslie's first role in 1884 was Little Meenie in Joseph Jefferson's production of Rip Van Winkle. In 1887, she was recognized as a star with her performance in Editha's Burglar opposite E.H. Sothern at the Lyceum Theatre in New York. She achieved further fame with her roles in Little Lord Fauntleroy in 1888 and The Prince and the Pauper in 1890. The most enduring image of Leslie is the portrait of her, posing as Little Lord Fauntleroy, painted by William Merritt Chase.
Leslie had pen pals everywhere with whom she maintained a lively correspondence, including leading actors, actresses and statesmen. "I like to write letters," she once said, "but I like to get the answers still better." Two of her correspondents were young girls nearer her own age, one younger, the other a year older: Eleanor Roosevelt and Helen Keller. Keller and Leslie met in 1890 when the latter was starring in Mark Twain's The Prince and the Pauper. Both girls shared a friendship with Leslie's patron, John Spaulding, and he called them his "two darlings".
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Elsie Leslie” as american actress (1881-1966). Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as american actress (1881-1966). Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5367601. VIAF identifies the subject as 75440133. The Library of Congress control number is n89103604. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1881, 1966, 1884 and 1887.
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This entry incorporates text from “Elsie Leslie” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.