(13 November 1897, Chicago, Illinois - 18 January 1975, Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, California)

Gertrude struck out early in the film world, appearing in her first motion picture, THE FOX in 1921, when she was just 17 years old. The following year she was in the hit production of THE ADVENTURES OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.

A contest winner in her native Chicago, brunette silent screen ingenue Gertrude Olmstead appeared opposite Greta Garbo in the Swedish star's first Hollywood film, The Torrent (1926). That role, along with the leading femme role in Lon Chaney's The Monster (1925), proved perhaps the highlights of a screen career that had begun in low-budget, two-reel Westerns opposite the likes of Hoot Gibson, Jack Perrin, and Roy Stewart.

She stayed busy throughout the twenties appearing in a total of 41 films. At the age of 25, Gertrude made her last picture in 1929's THE TIME, THE PLACE, AND THE GIRL.