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Olive Tell

American actress

Wikipedia contributorsAdapted for Fathomly · View authors
3 min read
Source updated June 26, 2026
Image credit is listed at the end of this article.

Olive Tell (September 27, 1894, June 8, 1951) was a stage and screen actress from New York City.

01Biography

Tell was educated in several cities in Europe. She and her younger actress sister Alma graduated from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in 1915. In 1914 Olive starred as Mrs. Oliver in Anne Crawford Flexner's The Marriage Game at the Standard Theatre in Midtown Manhattan. In 1915 she was hired by Oliver Morosco as a member of the Manhattan Players, a repertory theatre company in New York. In August 1915 she starred with Julian Eltinge in the premiere of Charles Klein's Cousin Lucy, which was given on Broadway at George M. Cohan's Theatre. Later that year she portrayed Doris Baker in the Broadway production of Charles Kenyon's Husband and Wife at the 48th Street Theatre.

In 1919-1920 Tell portrayed Florence Lanham in the Broadway production of Thompson Buchanan's Civilian Clothes at the Morosco Theatre. In 1921 she starred as Marcia Kallan in Augustus Thomas's Nemesis at the Garrick Theatre in Philadelphia and on Broadway at the Hudson Theatre.

She first appeared in motion pictures during World War I. Her early screen roles were in silent films, including The Silent Master (1917), The Unforeseen (1917), Her Sister (1917), and National Red Cross Pageant (1917). Tell appeared with popular film actors of the era such as Donald Gallaher, Karl Dane, Ann Little, Rod La Rocque, Ethel Barrymore and a young Tallulah Bankhead.

Her first husband was killed in World War I. Tell married George Willis Kreh in April 1923; he died four months later; she married First National Pictures movie producer Henry Morgan Hobart in 1926. Hobart and Tell moved to California in 1926 and stayed in Hollywood for 12 years.

Her final screen credits came in the late 1930s. She performed in In His Steps (1936), Polo Joe (1936) with Joe E. Brown, Easy to Take (1936), and Under Southern Stars (1937). Tell's final screen appearance was in the drama Zaza (1939), directed by George Cukor.

Olive Tell died in Bellevue Hospital in 1951 after suffering a fractured skull at the Dryden Hotel, 150 East Thirty-Ninth Street, New York City, where she resided. She was 56 years old.

02Partial filmography

Watch videos about Olive TellExplainers and documentaries on YouTube (opens in a new tab)

Sources and credits

This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Olive Tell”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.

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