
Harry Carey
Acting
Biography
Henry DeWitt Carey II (January 16, 1878 - September 21, 1947) was an American actor and one of silent film's earliest superstars, usually cast as a Western hero. One of his best known performances is as the president of the United States Senate in the drama film Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. He was the father of Harry Carey Jr., who was also a prominent actor. Born in New York City to a Judge of Special Sessions who was also president of a sewing machine company. Grew up on City Island, New York. Attended Hamilton Military Academy and turned down an appointment to West Point to attend New York University, where his law school classmates included future New York City mayor James J. Walker. After a boating accident which led to pneumonia, Carey wrote a play while recuperating and toured the country in it for three years, earning a great deal of money, all of which evaporated after his next play was a failure. In 1911, his friend Henry B. Walthall introduced him to director D.W. Griffith, for whom Carey was to make many films. Carey married twice, the second time to actress Olive Fuller Golden (aka Olive Carey, who introduced him to future director John Ford. Carey influenced Universal Studios head Carl Laemmle to use Ford as a director, and a partnership was born that lasted until a rift in the friendship in 1921. During this time, Carey grew into one of the most popular Western stars of the early motion picture, occasionally writing and directing films as well. In the '30s he moved slowly into character roles and was nominated for an Oscar for one of them, the President of the Senate in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939). He worked once more with Ford, in The Prisoner of Shark Island (1936), and appeared once with his son, Harry Carey Jr., in Howard Hawks' Red River (1948). He died after a protracted bout with emphysema and cancer. Ford dedicated his remake of 3 Godfathers (1948) "To Harry Carey--Bright Star Of The Early Western Sky."
Known For

Following the Civil War, headstrong rancher Thomas Dunson decides to lead a perilous cattle drive from Texas to Missouri. During the exhausting journey, his persistence becomes tyrannical in the eyes of Matthew Garth, his adopted son and protégé.
Red River

After the death of a United States Senator, idealistic Jefferson Smith is appointed as his replacement in Washington. Soon, the naive and earnest new senator has to battle political corruption.
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

Beautiful half-breed Pearl Chavez becomes the ward of her dead father's first love and finds herself torn between her sons, one good and the other bad.
Duel in the Sun

John Wesley Pringle, adventurer at large, returns home after making his strike and finds his old girl friend, Stella, engaged to Christopher Foy, who is running for sheriff. Pringle foils an attempt by incumbent sheriff Matt Lisner to kill Foy, but when Foy is accused of a murder, Pringle, in a clever ruse, captures Foy, holds the posse at gunpoint, and then releases him, explaining his motive.
The Wallop

Three outlaws on the run discover a dying woman and her baby. They swear to bring the infant to safety across the desert, even at the risk of their own lives.
3 Godfathers

When honest ship captain Roy Glennister gets swindled out of his mine claim, he turns to saloon singer Cherry Malotte for assistance in his battle with no-good town kingpin Alexander McNamara.
The Spoilers

Notorious shootist and womanizer Quirt Evans' horse collapses as he passes a Quaker family's home. Quirt has been wounded, and the kindly family takes him in to nurse him back to health against the advice of others. The handsome Evans quickly attracts the affections of their beautiful daughter, Penelope. He develops an affection for the family and their faith, but his troubled past follows him.
Angel and the Badman

Young Matt Matthews, an Ozark Mountains moonshiner, hates the father he has never seen, who apparently deserted Matt's mother and left her to die. His obsession contributes to the hatred rampant in the mountains. However, the arrival of a stranger, Daniel Howitt, begins to positively affect the mountain people, who learn to shed their hatred under his gentle influence.
The Shepherd of the Hills

The crew of an Air Force bomber arrives in Pearl Harbor in the aftermath of the Japanese attack and is sent on to Manila to help with the defense of the Philippines.
Air Force

The son of Sheriff Clay Hartley, of the frontier town Elder, has gotten into bad company and hangs out with an outlaw gang in which, Collins, owner of the Golden Rule Saloon, is the secret head. Sheriff Hartley suspects him, but has been unable to gather the needed evidence. Collins instructs his gang, including young Hartley, to hold up the stagecoach on its return trip from Missionary Flats and take the cargo of gold dust it is carrying. Sheriff Hartley is notified of the planned holdup by one of his deputies who has been spying on Collins, and organizes a posse. A deputy-sheriff is killed in the ensuing gunfight between the lawmen and the outlaws, but Deputy Joe Larkin, pursues and captures Clay Hartley Jr. The latter is quickly tried and convicted of the killing of the deputy, and sentenced to be hung. Sheriff Hartley has only a few hours to prove his son was not the killer. He enlists the aid of Collins' step-daughter, Joan, who is in love with Hartley's son.
Wagon Trail

Pete Marlan is a gambler with an unsavory past. Suspected of being an outlaw, Pete plays along with this misconception, the better to infiltrate a gang of smugglers. Along the way, he clears the name of the brother of Texas Ranger Mike Donovan, and helps patch up the romance between Donovan and heroine Bernice.
Without Honor

On America's frontier, a St. Louis woman marries a New Mexico cattleman who is seen as a tyrant by the locals.
The Sea of Grass

Three outlaws rescue a baby in the desert and with barely any water left try to return to the town in which they just robbed a bank. Lost film. A remake of 1916's "The Three Godfathers," which also starred Harry Carey.
Marked Men

When Silent Sanderson's brother kills himself over the rejection of a woman, Silent blames Judith Benson and leaves the family homestead to begin a new life in Alaska. He is later reunited with Judith Benson, only to discover that his brother didn't commit suicide at all but was murdered by the woman's jealous husband.
Silent Sanderson

Mr. Morris, the owner of a large metropolitan department store, gives jobs to paroled ex-convicts in an effort to help them reform and go straight. Among his 'employed-prison-graduates' are Helen Roberts and Joe Dennis, working as sales clerks. Joe is in love with Helen and asks her to marry him, but she is forbidden to marry as she is still on parole, but she says yes and they are married. In spite of their poverty-level life, their marriage is a happy one until Joe discovers she has lied about her past, in order to marry him. Disillusioned, he leaves, goes back to his old gang and plans to rob the department store.
You and Me

Irish immigrant meets returning war correspondent on a liner bound for New York. When she resists the amours of another passenger, charges result in her being detained at Ellis Island.
Gateway

A drifter hobo is falsely accused of killing a saloon owner
Driftin' Thru
Stern parents have ever been relentless obstacles in love's young dream, but it is perhaps quite doubtful if ever love could equal the accentuated bliss and anguish of these two. She refused to eat for her hero and for her he bore the marks of battle, an eye made black by a cruel parent's fist. Tired of such an unsympathetic world, they sought the wilderness, where, had it not been for Indian Charlie, these two "babes in the wood" would have ended their dream in a manner quite too disagreeable to think of.
My Hero

Mary Rutledge arrives from the east, finds her fiancé dead, and goes to work at the roulette wheel of Luis Chamalis' Bella Donna, a rowdy gambling house in San Francisco in the 1850s. She falls in love with miner Jim Carmichael and takes his gold dust at the wheel. She goes after him, Chamalis goes after her with intent to harm Carmichael.
Barbary Coast

A documentary about the life and films of director John Ford.