page_title: Miriam Battista
section_title: Early life and career
hierarchical_section_title: Miriam Battista / Early life and career
caption_attribution_description: English: Child star Miriam Battista pictured in 1916 at the age of four. The photo was published in 1916 in Moving Picture Stories.
context_page_description: Miriam Battista was an American actress known principally for her early career as a child star in silent films. After gaining notice in Broadway theatre at the age of four, she was cast in films the same year. Her most famous appearance was in the 1920 film Humoresque in which she played a little girl on crutches. As an adult, Battista acted in Italian-language films in the 1930s, and she appeared in Broadway productions. She wrote, sang, composed music, and co-hosted a television talk show with her second husband.
context_section_description: Miriam Caramella Josephine Battista was born in 1912 in New York City to Raphael Battista and Cleonice "Clara" Rufolo, both Italian immigrants. She began performing in 1916 at the age of four in A Kiss for Cinderella, a Broadway play starring Maude Adams, in which Battista had an uncredited role as the youngest of a group of war orphans. Other Broadway appearances followed, including small roles in Daddy Long Legs with Henry Miller in 1917, A Doll's House with Alla Nazimova in 1918, and Daddies with Jeanne Eagels in 1919.
  At the same time that Battista appeared on the stage, she began also to get work in silent films. She had an uncredited role in the Virginia Pearson vamp vehicle Blazing Love (1916), which resulted in Battista being featured, with a photo and brief biography, in an article entitled "Little Stars" in the film magazine Moving Picture Stories. Her first credited film role came in 1918 in Nazimova's Eye for Eye, playing an Arab sheik's daughter, the little sister of Nazimova's sultry character, which led to Battista being cast by director Frank Borzage as the physically disabled Minnie Ginsberg in Humoresque (1920). Author Elinor Glyn was so impressed by Battista's performance that she wrote an ultimately unproduced screenplay for this child star whom she called "the greatest actress of the screen." Reporters began to describe Battista as two years younger than she really was, saying that she was born in 1914.
  Motion Picture Magazine dedicated an article to Battista in December 1922, called "Woman of the World". In it, reporter Gladys Hall noted Battista's precocious maturity, a preference for jade jewelry over dolls, and characteristics of a vamp-in-the-making. In 1924, her photo appeared on the cover of Picture Show, a UK publication, showing her astride a tipped-over barrel with the story title "They really play in Pictures" and the caption "Miriam Battista enjoys a romp".
  After her success in Humoresque, Battista appeared in nine more silent films, often in roles that called for her to cry on camera, a skill for which she became noted. She made public appearances to promote her films and also toured the vaudeville circuit, playing Juliet in the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet with child actor Charles Eaton. After her mother's death in 1924, her career stalled.
caption: Battista in 1916
exif: {}