Alma Tell

Who was Alma Tell?

Alma Tell was an American stage and motion picture actress whose career in cinema began in 1915 and lasted into the talkie era of the early 1930s.

Tell was born in New York City, New York in 1898. She was the younger sister of stage and motion picture actress Olive Tell. She began her career as an actress on the stages of New York before making her screen debut in the Edward José-directed drama Simon, the Jester, released in September 1915. Tell's career never quite rivalled that of her older sister and she was most often cast in films as the second leading lady. Throughout the 1920s, Tell appeared opposite such leading silent film actresses as Mae Murray, Corinne Griffith and Madge Kennedy and would achieve leading lady status in 1923's J. Gordon Edwards-directed film The Silent Command, opposite actors Edmund Lowe, Martha Mansfield and Béla Lugosi in his first American film role.

Tell was married to actor Stanley Blystone. She made her last film appearance in the 1934 John M. Stahl-directed romantic-drama Imitation of Life, which starred Claudette Colbert.