Nell Shipman (October 25, 1892 – January 23, 1970) was a Canadian actress, author and screenwriter, producer, director, and animal trainer. She was a Canadian pioneer in early Hollywood. She is best known for her work in James Oliver Curwood stories and for portraying strong, adventurous women. In 1919, she and her producer husband, Ernest Shipman, made the most successful silent film in Canadian history, Back to God's Country in which she did one of the first on-screen nude scenes.
Charles H. Austin Ayers – married to Nell from until his death; twin daughters born .
Children
Barry Shipman
Movies
Back to God's Country, The Grub-Stake, Wings in the Dark, Under the Crescent, The Black Wolf, One Hundred Years of Mormonism, My Fighting Gentleman, The Pine's Revenge, The Shepherd of the Southern Cross, Something New
Star Sign
Scorpio
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Fact
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Co-founder (w/Bert Van Tuyle) of Nell Shipman Productions Inc., formed in 1920.
She was the first actress in legitimate-film history to ever do a full frontal nude scene on film. It was in Back to God's Country (1919), which coincidentally (or perhaps because of the scene) became the most financially successful silent film ever made in Canada. The tagline in one of the posters for the movie was, "Is the Nude Rude?".
Two titles frequently appear in Shipman filmographies: "The Tiger of the Sea, The (1918)" and "The Eighth Great Grand-Parent." "Tiger" was advertised in 1918 by her husband Ernest Shipman as a seven-reel feature based on a Nell Shipman script and available to state rights distributors, but there is no evidence that this film was ever made. "The Eighth" is the title of the original story on which the Vitagraph production The Wild Strain (1918) was based. Furthermore, Lauritzen and Lundquist mention another Shipman-scripted seven-reel state rights offering for 1919, "The Coast Guard Patrol", but again she was never involved with this title.
$1.7 Million
