Dell Henderson

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Dell Henderson in a movie magazine (1920)

Dell Henderson (* 5. July 1877 in St. Thomas , Ontario as George Delbert Henderson ; † 2. December 1956 in Hollywood , California ) was a Canadian actor, director and screenwriter. As an actor, he was seen in mostly comedic supporting roles in over 300 films, and he was also the director of almost 200 silent films.

life and career

Dell Henderson began his career in show business as a stage actor before appearing in his first film Monday Morning in a Coney Island Police Court in 1908 . In 1909, Henderson and his wife, Florence, joined the acting troupe of director David Wark Griffith , who took them to Hollywood for the nascent film industry . In the following years he starred in numerous short films, including regularly directed by Griffith and Mack Sennett , with whom Henderson had first played as an actor before Sennett opened his own film business with Keystone Studios . From 1911 Henderson himself worked as a film director and made a total of almost 200 films by 1927 while he was still working as an actor. Silent movie stars such as Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle and Harry Carey senior played under his direction . In addition, Henderson was involved as a writer on around 35 scripts between 1910 and 1928. In 1927 he ended his career as a director and in the following year 1928 he played three of his most important roles in the silent films A Man of the Crowd , A Girl with Tempo and There is something going on in Hollywood, each directed by King Vidor .

The tall, stocky character actor succeeded in switching to sound film, but like many of his silent film colleagues, he had to be content with increasingly smaller roles. As a supporting actor, he supported numerous classic comedies with stars such as Laurel and Hardy , the little rascals , the Three Stooges and WC Fields . In the Laurel and Hardy film Without Furcht und Blame (1930), Henderson played a murderer disguised as an elderly housekeeper, and later he also appeared in two feature films by the comedian duo. In the 1932 little thief film Choo Choo, Henderson played an overstrained supervisor who, with little success, is supposed to look after the children during a train journey. In the sound film era, Henderson played mostly self-important judges, businessmen, officials or commissioners. At the end of his career in 1950 he often only played extras roles , his last of around 315 films was Louisa with Ronald Reagan and Charles Coburn in the leading roles.

Off the screen, Dell Henderson used the pseudonym Arthur Buchanan . He was married to the actress Florence Lee (1888–1962). Dell Henderson died of a heart attack in 1956 at the age of 79. Henderson was buried in Valhalla Memorial Park Cemetery, Hollywood.

Filmography (selection)

As an actor

As a director

  • 1913: Red Hicks Defies the World
  • 1913: Black and White
  • 1913: A Modest Hero
  • 1914: Our Country Cousin
  • 1914: Among the Mourners
  • 1915: Saved from the Vampire
  • 1917: The Beautiful Adventure
  • 1921: Dynamite Allen
  • 1925: One of the Seventh Horsemen (The Bad Lands)
  • 1925: Accused
  • 1925: The Bad Lands
  • 1927: The Rambling Ranger

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ according to IMDb however 1883
  2. ↑ Florence Lee at the Internet Movie Database
  3. ↑ Dell Henderson in the obituary in the New York Times
  4. ↑ Dell Henderson at Find A Grave
personal data
SURNAME Henderson, Dell
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Henderson, George Delbert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American director, actor and screenwriter
DATE OF BIRTH July 5, 1877
PLACE OF BIRTH St. Thomas , Ontario , Canada
DATE OF DEATH 2nd December 1956
Place of death Hollywood , California , USA