Cleo Madison began her career with a theatrical company in Santa Barbara, California, in 1910. She stayed with the company for several years, and the troupe made the rounds of vaudeville and the theater circuit. Returning to California, and tired of touring, she decided to get into the motion picture business and secured work at Universal Pictures. After playing in numerous one- and two-reelers, Universal put her into a serial, The Trey o’ Hearts (1914), which achieved great success. She was given better parts, and was eventually teamed with director Otis Turner, and the films they made together were big hits. She even began to write and direct her own films, among the first women to do so, and she made everything from westerns to action pictures to tearjerkers. She eventually became a victim of her own success; she was in such demand, and put herself through such a heavy schedule, that she had a nervous breakdown in 1922, and was off the screen for more than a year. She returned, apparently fully recovered, in 1924 and made several films. Then, for reasons never explained, she simply left the business. She died in Burbank, California, in 1964 of a heart attack.

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