(1892-1970)
Born Leonora Ulrich in New Ulm, Minnesota, the actress spent some years in stock in Milwaukee and Chicago before making her Broadway debut in Richard Walton Tully's The Bird of Paradise (1912) with Laurette Taylor, after which she appeared in The Mark of the Beast (1915). Specializing in exotic, tempestuous roles, Ulric starred in David Belasco's The Heart of Wetona (1915) and had a long run in the Belasco-produced Tiger Rose (1917). Ulric stayed with Belasco for several hits, including The Son-Daughter (1919), Kiki (1921), The Harem (1924), and Mima (1928), and scored a particular triumph in blackface as a Harlem prostitute in the controversial Edward Sheldon-Charles MacArthur* melodrama, Lulu Belle (1926). After leaving Belasco, she appeared successfully, but with diminishing luster, in Pagan Lady (1930). The Social Register (1931), Nona (1932), Her Man of Wax (1933), The Fifth Column (1940), and, most effectively, as Charmian in Antony and Cleopatra, starring Katharine Cornell, in 1947. Ulric also appeared in several silent motion pictures, as well as half a dozen sound films, including Camille (1936).
The Historical Dictionary of the American Theater. James Fisher.