Background
Her father, Franz Xavier Ulrich, was a United States Army hospital steward.
Her father, Franz Xavier Ulrich, was a United States Army hospital steward.
She later dropped the "h" from her surname, using the name Lenore Ulric as her acting name. As a schoolgirl, Lenore obtained a job with a stock company in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She played with stock companies in Grand Rapids, Michigan and Chicago, Illinois.
She worked briefly as a film actress for Essanay Studios and joined another stock company in Schenectady, New New York
She found work in The First Manitoba (1911), A Polished Burglar (1911), Kilmeny (1915), and In 1915 she went to work for Pallas Pictures starring in several pictures that survive today at the Library of Congress.
Just before she was discovered by theatrical producer David Belasco, Mission Ulric toured in a road company of The Bird of Paradise. She wrote to Belasco and in the fall of 1915 she made her New York debut at the Princess Theater in The Mark of the Beast.
Soon she played the lead in The Heart of Wetona.
Under Belasco"s management Lenore played a variety of female roles. She was an Indian maid in Tiger Rose, a French-Canadian heroine in The Son-Daughter, and a Chinese girl in Kiki. One of Ulric"s biggest hits for Belasco was in 1926"s Lulu Belle where she played a prostitute, a genre that spawned several hits in the 1920s.
Lenore came to Hollywood in 1929 and appeared in Frozen Justice and South Sea Rose.
She signed with Fox Film Corporation to make several films with an approximate salary of $650,000. Frozen Justice was directed by Allan Dwan.
Some of the scenes were filmed in Alaska. She was successful in a supporting role in Camille, which starred Greta Garbo.
Ulric returned to in 1940, acting in The Fifth Column by Ernest Hemingway and again in 1947, in a revival of Antony and Cleopatra.