Wilfred Lucas

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Wilfred Lucas (1915)

Wilfred Van Norman Lucas (born January 30, 1871 in the Ontario area , † December 13, 1940 in Los Angeles , California ) was a Canadian - American theater and film actor, director and screenwriter.

Life

Wilfred Lucas was born the son of a pastor at Wesleyan Church, Canada. He attended McGill University and emigrated to the United States only a little later. Lucas began his show career in the late 1880s as a baritone singer, but then turned to acting and quickly achieved some success there. In 1904 he made his debut on Broadway in the comedy The Superstition of Sue , and by 1928 he would appear there in six more plays. As one of the first well-known theater actors, he made his first film The Greaser's Gauntlet as early as 1908 , when the majority of theater actors were still critical and disparaging of the film business. In the years that followed, Lucas directed David Wark Griffith several times , both in leading and supporting roles.

In 1912 the short film An Outcast Among Outcasts was Lucas' first directorial work, and by 1933 he was to direct more than 50 films, which are largely forgotten today. As a writer, he also took part in numerous films during the silent film era . In addition to several documentaries, Lucas also directed the short comedy The Speed ​​Kings (1913) with Mabel Normand , in which several racing stars of their time made guest appearances. In the silent film era, Lucas was a successful director, whose travels took him at times to Australia , where he made several films around 1920. With the beginning of the sound film in the 1920s, however, he concentrated more on his acting career. Luca's last independent directorial work was The Unwritten Law (1932) with Greta Nissen in the lead role, a year later he was still co-director of Phil Rosen in the horror film The Sphinx (1933). This ended his career behind the camera.

In addition to his work as a director, Lucas achieved greater success as a film actor, so he received good reviews for his leading role in the drama Acquitted (1916) and in the same year played Macduff in Herbert Beerbohm Tree's Macbeth version. From the 1920s onwards, due to his advancing age, he increasingly relocated to character roles, often as a respectable authority figure. When the talkies began, Lucas usually only got smaller roles, but occasionally he got even bigger appearances, for example in two feature films by Laurel and Hardy : In Hinter Schloss und Riegel (1930) he was the strict prison director and in Oxford (1940) he played the dean of Oxford, in whose bed Laurel and Hardy accidentally sleep. Lucas also had a supporting role as a heartless youth civil servant in Charlie Chaplin's tragic comedy Modern Times (1936). He worked as an actor until his death and appeared in over 400 films.

In 1917, Wilfred Lucas married the actress and screenwriter Bess Meredyth . Their son John Meredyth Lucas later also worked as a screenwriter. After his divorce from Bess in 1927, Lucas married a second time in 1929. He died in Los Angeles in December 1940, a month and a half before his 70th birthday.

Filmography (selection)

As a director (selection)

  • 1912: An Outcast Among Outcasts
  • 1913: The Speed ​​Kings
  • 1914: The Love Victorious
  • 1914: The Trey o 'Hearts
  • 1918: Morgan's Raiders
  • 1920: The Man from Kangaroo
  • 1921: The Shadow of Lightning Ridge
  • 1926: Her Sacrifice
  • 1932: The Unwritten Law
  • 1933: The Sphinx

As an actor

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Lucas, Wilfred
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Van Norman Lucas, Wilfred (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Canadian-American actor, director, and screenwriter
DATE OF BIRTH January 30, 1871
PLACE OF BIRTH Ontario area
DATE OF DEATH December 13, 1940
Place of death Los Angeles , California