Cirrus@Austlit

The daughter of Italian musician Ferruccio Carlo Alberti, and his Swiss wife Elise Louise Jeanne de Gruningen Lehmann, Louise Alberti made her professional acting debut at age nine (billed as Loise Carbasse) in a production of Uncle Tom's Cabin (Lyceum Theatre, Sydney). By the age of 15 she had secured a contract with the George Marlow Dramatic Company and soon afterwards appeared in the first of nine films for the Life Biograph company. During this period she also briefly appeared in vaudeville with her husband, fellow actor Wilton Welch. The couple married when Carbasse was just sixteen.

Sometime during the years 1913-1914 Carbasse and Welch moved to the USA, where they undertook various theatrical opportunities, including vaudeville. In 1915 Carbasse secured a Hollywood contract with Universal Studios and made her American film debut (as Louise Carbasse) alongside Lon Chaney in Father and the Boys in 1915. She starred with Chaney again in several other films including her next release Stronger Than Death (1915) and The Gilded Spider and Tangled Hearts (both 1916). Briefly credited as Louise Welch (for Dolly's Scoop, 1916) Carbasse was given the new surname, Lovely, by the head of Universal, Carl Laemmle. It was with that name that she became an international star. In all she appeared in more than 50 Hollywood films between 1915 and 1921 - 36 for Universal (1915-1918) and the rest with Fox Studios (1918-1921).

In 1922 Lovely returned to Australia where she performed in vaudeville on the Tivoli circuit. She returned to the screen in 1926, co-writing, producing and directing her final film, Jewelled Nights. Around this time her marriage to Wilton Welch disintegrated, and the two eventually divorced. Lovely retired to Hobart, Tasmania, where she married cinema manager Bert Cowan in 1930.