Katherine Anne Porter(1890-1980)

Appeared in 1915 as an extra in several films for the Essannay Film Company at their studio in Chicago. She landed the gig haphazardly while working on a story for the Chicago Tribune. She had so much fun doing extra work that she kept missing work and the Tribune fired her. However, the studio kept her employed for the next six months, and by the end of her time there, she was making $12 a day.

I have written and destroyed manuscripts quite literally by the trunkful. I spent fifteen years wandering about, weighted horribly with masses of paper and little else.