As a daughter of a Texas pioneer, she would become an independent, fearless woman,[6][7] always pushing up against the usual domestic expectations of the era[8] and showing at an early age the talents that would carry her through a successful acting career.

[1][2] Following her return to Denison, she wed William Peter Countiss on 7 December 1892 at the Methodist Episcopal South Church in an event that was meticulously recounted in the local newspaper.

[20] The old Metropolitan Opera House at Broadway and 39th Street in New York City played host to the Actors' Fund Fair for six days beginning on 6 May 1907.

The extravagant charity bazaar replicated on stage Shakespeare's Stratford-on-Avon's village streets, complete with his home, Ann Hathaway's cottage, Guildhall, and the church.

Beginning the week of 18 May 1908, the Cathrine Countiss Stock Company, under the management of Price, began the Denver summer theatre season with Road to Yesterday at the Tabor Grand Opera House.

[24][25] The full season would be a 13-week engagement of 13 different plays starring Countiss in the lead roles, presented first at the Tabor and then moving in July to the Broadway Theatre and Garden, where symphony concerts and refreshments were served between the acts.

The following weeks would see productions of Graustark,[26] In the Bishop's Carriage, At Yale,[27] Prince Karl, Mrs. Dane's Defense,[28] Barbara Freitchie, Charley's Aunt,[29] The Three of Us, and Strongheart[30] among others.

Price would insure that publicity for the season would keep audiences coming to the theatre, employing such tactics as putting the car driven by Countiss onstage in a local department store window and having her personally award a pair of silver spurs to the winner of the Great Horse Race of 1908.

[35][36][37] After a number of successful years on the legitimate stage, Countiss made her formal debut in vaudeville on 30 March 1913 at B. F. Keith's Union Square Theatre in New York City in the one-act dramatic playlet The Birthday Present, playing the role of Gwendolyn.

[38][39] Written especially for her by Fannie Whitehouse, the playlet would continue a short out-of-town tryout tour that spring commencing in St. Louis on 21 April, after performing in Baltimore at the Maryland Theatre.

Her reviews of The Birthday Present proved so successful that Martin Beck engaged her to do a full 40-week tour on the Orpheum circuit with a premiere at the Brighton Beach Music Hall beginning in August.

[49] The tour would end in March the following year at the newly built Palace Theatre in New York City, which was considered the pinnacle of the vaudeville circuit.

[53] Beginning in late 1914, Countiss turned her acting talents and considerable stage experience to mastering the medium of silent feature films.

[54] Following this initial entry, Countiss joined the Life Photo Film Corporation under contract to play the lead in their next photoplay, The Avalanche.

[55] Adapted again from a well-known legitimate stage play, this time by Robert Hilliard and William A. Tremayne, production began 7 December 1914 on the five-part moving picture to be released the following year.

[65] The location of shooting of this final moving picture would prove pivotal in the life of Countiss, ending her professional career and starting a whole new chapter.

[67] The couple would settle into a comfortable life in Pasadena, California eventually living at the historic Hotel Green far removed from the frenetic pace and coast-to-coast travel of the stage world.