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Known today for a rare surviving 1913 Edison Kinetophone audition, this elusive early performer is remembered through a brief but fascinating piece of sound-film history.
by Bob Lett
Very little biographical information about Bob Lett appears to be publicly documented. Project Gutenberg credits him as the performer of Voice Trial - Kinetophone actor audition, and notes that the recording was made on June 24, 1913, at the Edison motion picture film studio in the Bronx, New York.
The same audition is also identified by the National Park Service as an Edison wax-cylinder master recording from 1913. That makes Lett part of the experimental moment when studios were testing synchronized sound years before feature-length talking pictures became standard.
Because reliable sources provide almost no confirmed personal background, Bob Lett is best understood as a little-known early screen or stage hopeful whose surviving audition offers a small, vivid glimpse into the beginnings of recorded performance.