Melbourne MacDowell | |
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| Born | Willet Melbourne MacDowell November 22, 1856 |
| Died | February 18, 1941 (aged 84) Decoto, California, U.S. |
| Occupation | Actor |
| Years active | 1877–1932 |
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| Relatives | Claire McDowell (niece) |
Willet Melbourne MacDowell (November 22, 1856 – February 18, 1941) was an American stage and screen actor. He was the second husband of famed stage actress Fanny Davenport. [1] He began on the legitimate stage in the 1870s and first appeared on the silent screen in 1917. [2]
Willet Melbourne MacDowell was born in Little Washington, New Jersey (now South River, New Jersey). He had an older brother named E. A. MacDowell, who was the father of future actress Claire McDowell. As a teen Melbourne went to sea in the Merchant Marines, eventually becoming a mate. [3] Back in the US he had his first acting experience in Montreal at a theatre where he was a ticket seller, assistant doorkeeper and where his brother was employed as an actor. MacDowell was occasionally asked upon to act. Here in Montreal he got a chance to act with Adelaide Neilson, a legend in her short life, in the Shakespeare play As You Like It. Neilson played one of the main characters Rosalind, and MacDowell was briefly on as Charles the wrestler. By 1877 MacDowell made his first professional acting appearance in the United States at the Boston Museum, where his brother E.A. was an actor. In 1888 MacDowell became acquainted with Fanny Davenport playing in La Tosca with her. In 1889 the two married. He continued to act with her in a series of emotional plays until her death in 1898.
After Davenport died MacDowell became associated professionally with her successor, Blanche Walsh, who continued playing Davenport's famous and emotional roles. A large man weighing over 200 pounds, MacDowell played the hero or distinct character in plays. [3]
MacDowell began appearing in silent feature films in 1917, by which time he was long a stage veteran. His costars were such actors as William S. Hart, Lon Chaney, Charles Ray, Enid Bennett and numerous others. Though he lived until the early 1940s, his film career ended in 1928 with the end of silent films. He returned for one sound film short in 1932, A Fool About Women with Andy Clyde and Vernon Dent.
Several films that Melbourne MacDowell appeared in survive today and can be found on DVD, particularly two of his outings with Lon Chaney, Nomads of the North and Outside the Law as well as the restored Bebe Daniels 1928 feature Feel My Pulse.
MacDowell was married several times, his most famous marriage was to the legendary Fanny Davenport. On February 18, 1941, MacDowell died at Decoto, California, from a clot on his brain. [4]
Wallace Fitzgerald Beery was an American film and stage actor. He is best known for his portrayal of Bill in Min and Bill (1930) opposite Marie Dressler, as General Director Preysing in Grand Hotel (1932), as the pirate Long John Silver in Treasure Island (1934), as Pancho Villa in Viva Villa! (1934), and his title role in The Champ (1931), for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor. Beery appeared in some 250 films during a 36-year career. His contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer stipulated in 1932 that he would be paid $1 more than any other contract player at the studio. This made Beery the highest-paid film actor in the world during the early 1930s. He was the brother of actor Noah Beery and uncle of actor Noah Beery Jr.
Noah Nicholas Beery was an American actor who appeared in films from 1913 until his death in 1946. He was the older brother of Academy Award-winning actor Wallace Beery as well as the father of prominent character actor Noah Beery Jr. He was billed as either Noah Beery or Noah Beery Sr. depending upon the film.
Charles Stanton Ogle was an American stage and silent-film actor and lawyer. He was the first actor to portray Frankenstein's monster in a motion picture in 1910 and played Long John Silver in Treasure Island in 1920.
Phyllis Maude Haver was an American actress of the silent film era.
Patsy Ruth Miller was an American film actress who played Esméralda in The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923) opposite Lon Chaney.
Seena Owen was an American silent film actress and screenwriter.
Jacqueline Medura Logan was an American actress and silent film star. Logan was a WAMPAS Baby Star of 1922.
Tom Forman was an American motion picture actor, director, writer, and producer of the early 1920s.
Wallace Archibald MacDonald was a Canadian silent film actor and film producer.
Sidney Bracey was an Australian-born American actor. After a stage career in Australia, on Broadway and in Britain, he performed in more than 320 films between 1909 and 1942.
Claire McDowell was an American actress of the silent era. She appeared in 350 films between 1908 and 1945.
Robert McKim was an American actor of the silent film era and a performer in vaudeville. He appeared in nearly 100 films between 1915 and 1927. He played the arch villain opposite Douglas Fairbanks's Zorro in The Mark of Zorro in 1920.
Nelson McDowell was an American actor. He appeared in more than 170 films between 1917 and 1945.
Ethel Grey Terry was an American actress of the silent era. She is best remembered for her role in The Penalty with Lon Chaney.
William Gillespie was a Scottish actor.
Outside the Law is a 1920 American pre-Code crime film produced, directed and co-written by Tod Browning and starring Priscilla Dean, Lon Chaney and Wheeler Oakman.
Walter L. Griffin was a founder of the American Society of Cinematographers. Griffin started working in pictures in 1912 and spent a year and a half in the lab before he first cranked a camera for Universal Pictures. In 1915, he joined the Exposition Players' Corporation, official cinematographers of the Panama–Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco, where he headed photographic and lab operations. When the exposition closed in 1916, he spent four months in Colorado, making scenic films for the Denver Tourist Bureau.
Arthur Shirley was an Australian actor, writer, producer, and director of theatre and film. He experienced some success as a film actor in Hollywood between 1914 and 1920.
Joseph Johnson Dowling was an American stage and silent film actor.
James Otis Barrows was an American stage and film actor. He spent much of his adult life in the legitimate theater from the Victorian to Edwardian to Georgian eras.
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