Before Bill Finger and Shelly Moldoff created Batman sidekick, Bat-Girl (aka Batgirl) for DC Comics, another character named Bat Girl appeared as far back as 1927 as a vampire's sidekick in MGM's long-lost 1927 Lon Chaney film, LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT. The gossamer-gowned, shadow-eyed figure was played by Edna Tichenor.
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| Edna Tichenor in 1925. |
Edna Frances Tichenor was born on April 1, 1901 in St. Paul, Minnesota. Her father was a newspaperman and his work brought them to Los Angeles in 1904. It is not known if she took any acting or drama lessons as a young woman, but an article in MOTION PICTURE NEWS mentions her as a "new face in Hollywood", which would have made her 21-years-old at the time.
While she may have initially played in bit parts, Tichenor's first-known credited film role was in Tod Browning's DRIFTING with Anna May Wong in 1923. Because of her dark, alluring beauty, she began to be cast in "vamp" roles, and was credited just so, as "The Vamp" in at least two shorts. This is likely the reason why Browning cast her as Luna/Bat Girl in LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT.
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| As Arachnida, The Human Spider in Browning's The Show (1927). |
Tichenor played in only about a dozen films in her career, but she made her mark in horror cinema history when she played Luna/Bat Girl opposite Lon Chaney. Chaney made her up with a ghostly pallor and deep-set, dark eyes that gave her an unmistakably macabre allure. Her last known picture was in Tod Browning's WEST OF ZANZIBAR in 1928.
It appears she retired from acting after that and lived the rest of her life outside of Hollywood with her husband, Harry West. She died in Los Angeles on November 19, 1965 at the age of 64 after a botched surgery that caused an abdominal obstruction which led to blood poisoning.
On this page from MOTION PICTURE NEWS (June 1922), Edna is pictured in the feature, "Facing Facts: Concerning the New Faces in Hollywood":
MOTION PICTURE NEWS October, 1927:
Edna Tichenor as Luna/Bat Girl:
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