Wallace Reid
Acting
- Born:
- 1891-04-14
- Died:
- 1923-01-18
- Place of birth:
- Saint Louis, Missouri, USA
Biography
Wallace Reid was an American actor in silent film referred to as "the screen's most perfect lover". Wallace Reid appeared in several films with his father, and as his career in film flourished, he was soon acting and directing with and for early film mogul Allan Dwan. In 1913, while at Universal Pictures, Reid met and married actress Dorothy Davenport. He was featured as Jeff, the blacksmith, in The Birth of a Nation (1915) and had an uncredited role in Intolerance (1916), both directed by D. W. Griffith; he worked with leading ladies such as Florence Turner, Gloria Swanson, Lillian Gish, Elsie Ferguson, and Geraldine Farrar en route to becoming one of Hollywood's major heartthrobs. Already involved with the creation of more than 100 motion picture shorts, Reid was signed by producer Jesse L. Lasky and starred in over 60 films for Lasky's Famous Players film company, which later became Paramount Pictures. Frequently paired with actress Ann Little, his action-hero role as the dashing race-car driver drew young girls and older women alike to theaters to see his daredevil auto thrillers such as The Roaring Road (1919), Double Speed (1920), Excuse My Dust (1920), and Too Much Speed (1921). While en route to a location in Oregon during filming of The Valley of the Giants (1919), Reid was injured in a train wreck near Arcata, California and needed six stitches to close a 3-inch (8 cm) scalp wound. To keep on filming, he was prescribed morphine for relief of his pain and Reid soon became addicted, but kept on working at a frantic pace in films that were growing more physically demanding, and changing from 15–20 minutes in duration to as much as an hour. Reid's morphine addiction worsened at a time when drug rehabilitation programs were non-existent. He died in a sanatorium while attempting to recover.
Known For
Filmography
The Legend of Rudolph Valentino
Screen Snapshots (Series 22, No. 10)
The Movie Album
The House That Shadows Built
Thirty Days
Night Life in Hollywood
Clarence
The Ghost Breaker
Nice People
A Trip to Paramountown
The Dictator
Across the Continent
The World's Champion
Rent Free
Don't Tell Everything
Forever
The Affairs of Anatol
The Hell Diggers
Too Much Speed
The Love Special
The Charm School
The Affairs of Anatol - Promo Reel
Always Audacious
What's Your Hurry?
Sick Abed
The Dancin' Fool
Excuse My Dust
Double Speed
Hawthorne of the U.S.A.
The Lottery Man
The Valley of the Giants
The Love Burglar
You're Fired
The Roaring Road
Alias Mike Moran
The Dub
Too Many Millions
The Man from Funeral Range
His Extra Bit
The Source
Less Than Kin
The Firefly of France
Believe Me, Xantippe
The House of Silence
The Thing We Love
Rimrock Jones
The Devil Stone
Nan of Music Mountain
The Woman God Forgot
The Hostage
The Squaw Man's Son
Big Timber
The World Apart
The Tell-Tale Arm
The Prison Without Walls
The Man Who Saved the Day
The Golden Fetter
Joan the Woman
The Wrong Heart
The Wall of Flame
The Yellow Pawn
Intolerance: Love's Struggle Throughout the Ages
The House with the Golden Windows
The Selfish Woman
Maria Rosa
The Love Mask
To Have and to Hold
The Golden Chance
Old Heidelberg
Carmen
The Chorus Lady
A Yankee from the West
Station Content
Enoch Arden
The Lost House
The Birth of a Nation
The Craven
The Three Brothers
Baby's Ride
The Exposure
The Joke on Yellentown
At Dawn
Over the Ledge
Another Chance
The Little Country Mouse
The Odalisque
The Niggard
A Mother's Influence
For Her Father's Sins
Her Doggy
Her Awakening
Down the Hill to Creditville
The High Grader
Sierra Jim's Reformation
The Second Mrs. Roebuck
Moonshine Molly
The Avenging Conscience
Down by the Sounding Sea
The City Beautiful
Arms and the Gringo
The Den of Thieves
'Cross the Mexican Line
A Wife on a Wager
Love's Western Flight
Passing of the Beast
The Man Within
The Siren
The Quack
Women and Roses
The Daughter of a Crook
The Fruit of Evil
The Skeleton
The Test
A Gypsy Romance
Cupid Incognito
The Spider and Her Web
The Way of a Woman
The Mountaineer
The Heart of the Hills
The Voice of the Viola
Regeneration
Breed o' the Mountains
A Flash in the Dark
The Greater Devotion
Fires of Conscience
The Wheel of Life
The Countess Betty's Mine
The Intruder
Whoso Diggeth a Pit
A Hopi Legend
The Lightning Bolt
A Cracksman Santa Claus
Retribution
Cross Purposes
The Fires of Fate
The Cracksman's Reformation
The Heart of a Cracksman
The Wall of Money
The Gratitude of Wanda
The Mystery of Yellow Aster Mine
The Spark of Manhood
The Harvest of Flame
The Animal
An Even Exchange
Man's Duty
Mental Suicide
The Picket Guard
A Foreign Spy
The Powder Flash of Death
Pride of Lonesome
Song Bird of the North
Calamity Anne Takes a Trip
The Guerilla Menace
Women and War
In Love and War
Hearts and Horses
Via Cabaret
The Spirit of the Flag
When Luck Changes
His Mother's Son
On the Border
Her Innocent Marriage
A Modern Snare
The Kiss
Youth and Jealousy
The Deerslayer
The Brothers
The Tattooed Arm
When Jim Returned
The Ways of Fate
The Eye of a God
Near To Earth
A Rose of Old Mexico
Pirate Gold
Their Masterpiece
Love and the Law
The Picture of Dorian Gray
The Hidden Treasure
An Indian Outcast
The Tribal Law
The Cowboy Guardians
A Daughter of the Redskins
Hunted Down
Early Days in the West
Every Inch a Man
His Only Son
The Indian Raiders
The Secret Service Man
Making Good
At Cripple Creek
A Man's Duty
Before the White Man Came
The Gamblers
Virginius
Kaintuck
Curfew Shall Not Ring Tonight
Diamond Cut Diamond
Fortunes of a Composer
The Hieroglyphic
The Victoria Cross
Brothers
At Scrogginses' Corner
The Illumination
The Seventh Son
The Telephone Girl
Playmates
Indian Romeo and Juliet
Jean Intervenes
Chumps
The Path of True Love
A Red Cross Martyr; or, on the Firing Lines of Tripoli
The Seepore Rebellion
War
The Mother of the Ranch
The Reporter
The Leading Lady
The Phoenix