A major turn-of-the-century Shakespearean actress, who had not only starred in but also produced Broadway versions of Romeo and Juliet and As You Like It, Julia Arthur condescended to recreate her art for the early Vitagraph cameras in Flatbush, Brooklyn. Starring in a 500-foot version of King Lear in 1909, Arthur went on to appear in a two-part presentation of The Life of Moses (1909) and a three-part version of Uncle Tom's Cabin (1910). Despite the limitations of the silent screen, Arthur was one of the few stage personalities to embrace the new art form, returning in 1918 to portray the doomed nurse Edith Clavell in the multi-reel propaganda piece The Woman the Germans Shot and the following year depicted a wounded "Italy" in the prologue to 1919's The Common Cause. Although she never filmed again (mainly, one suspects, due to her already advanced years), Arthur once again praised the movies in several articles in the early '20s.