Film & TV
Julanne Johnston
1900–1988 · silent film actress, dancer
Silent-screen actress, the princess opposite Douglas Fairbanks in The Thief of Bagdad, who left Hollywood, married and lived out her life in Detroit and Grosse Pointe.
- Born
Indianapolis, Indiana- Died
Grosse Pointe, Michigan
aged 88- Detroit years
- 1930s–1988
- Field
- Film & TV
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Julanne Johnston was born in Indianapolis on May 1, 1900, and began her film career in 1917. She trained as a dancer, and it was her dancing that caught the eye of Douglas Fairbanks, who cast her as the princess, his leading lady, in the lavish fantasy The Thief of Bagdad (1924), the role that made her name. She went on to appear in King Vidor's war epic The Big Parade, Cecil B. DeMille's Madam Satan, Morning Glory with Katharine Hepburn and Josef von Sternberg's The Scarlet Empress before leaving the screen in 1934. She then married David W. Rust and made her home in Detroit, far from Hollywood. Her later years were marked by grief: she lost her husband and her only son, David Wendell Rust, within six years. She died in Grosse Pointe in December 1988, aged 88, and is buried in Detroit's Woodlawn Cemetery.
Highlights
- The princess in The Thief of Bagdad (1924) opposite Douglas Fairbanks
- Appeared in The Big Parade (1925)
- Madam Satan (1930) and The Scarlet Empress (1934)
- Film career 1917–1934, then a life in Detroit
- Buried in Woodlawn Cemetery, Detroit
02 / Their Detroit places
Their Detroit places 1
Where they lived, worked, performed and liked to hang out. Closed and demolished places stay here too, because they are part of the city's history.
Buried here · 1988
Woodlawn Cemetery
Johnston is buried in this historic Woodward Avenue cemetery, resting place of many Detroit notables.