Early Life
Born Nellie Crawford in Louisville, Kentucky, USA, her parents were freed slaves. Her father, Silas Crawford, left the family early in Sul-Te-Wan's life and her mother, Cleo De Londa, became a laundress who found employment working for Louisville stage actresses. The young Nellie became enchanted by watching the young actresses rehearse when she delivered laundry for her mother. Nellie moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, and joined a theatrical company called Three Black Cloaks, and began billing herself as Creole Nell. She also formed her own theatrical companies and toured the East Coast. After moving to California, Madame Sul-Te-Wan began her acting career in uncredited roles in director D. W. Griffith's controversial 1915 drama Birth of a Nation and the colossal 1916 epic Intolerance. Sul-Te-Wan had allegedly written Griffith a letter of introduction after hearing that Griffith was shooting a film in her hometown in Kentucky.
Sul-Te-Wan married Robert Reed Conley during the early 1900s and had three sons. Conley, however, abandoned the family soon after the birth of their third son. Her sons, Odel Conley and Onest Conley, would become actors and appear in several films during their careers, occasionally in films featuring their mother.
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