From Meeteetse Sheep Ranch to Silver Screen: The Hollywood Story of Martha Sleeper

A century ago, William “Billy” Sleeper was known across Wyoming’s Big Horn Basin as a tireless promoter of the sheep and cattle industry, regularly riding trains to Chicago to tout Wyoming lambs and crops. Those business trips led him to rub elbows with artists and actors—connections that would ultimately steer his daughter from a Meeteetse sheep ranch to the bright lights of Hollywood.

Martha Sleeper spent her early childhood on the family ranch, one of 30 local children mentioned in the Meeteetse newspaper for attending the occasional party. Her mother, Minnie Akass, was an artist. Her father was a rancher who had ridden with Theodore Roosevelt and befriended Buffalo Bill Cody before serving in the Wyoming Legislature, where he was jokingly dubbed “Governor of Wyoming” by a Montana newspaper editor.

When Billy Sleeper moved his young family to New York City to pursue the theatrical circuit with his brother-in-law, Martha’s path shifted forever. She studied ballet with a Russian master and made her first public appearance at Carnegie Hall at age 10.

By 1924, the Meeteetse News reported that friends had traveled to Cody to see their “Greybull Valley young lady” star in her first movie. “The lady played the part of the mailman’s daughter in a fervent and thrilling manner,” the paper noted.

Martha was soon noticed by comedy maker Hal Roach, creator of the “Our Gang” shorts, but at 12 was already too old for the cast. At 16, she was named a “Wampas Baby Star”—an honor given to 13 actresses deemed most promising. She signed with FBO Studios, starred in six silent features, and transitioned smoothly to talkies with MGM.

Through the 1930s, the ranch girl from Wyoming played supporting roles in melodramas, often typecast as the society woman losing her man to the leading lady. By 1936, she left Hollywood for Broadway, where she landed leading roles. In 1945, she appeared in her final film, “The Bells of St. Mary’s,” with Bing Crosby, and that same year played Spencer Tracy’s wife in the Broadway play “The Rugged Path.”

Like her father, Martha had an entrepreneurial streak, starting a costume jewelry business while still acting. In 1949, a Caribbean cruise introduced her to Puerto Rico, where she spent two decades designing women’s clothing before retiring to South Carolina.

At 72, the Hollywood starlet who began life on a Wyoming sheep ranch died of a heart attack, leaving behind a legacy of grit and determination she learned from her father.