King Baggot
Acting
Biography
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia William King Baggot (November 7, 1879 – July 11, 1948) was an American actor, film director and screenwriter. He was an internationally famous movie star of the silent film era. The first individually publicized leading man in America, Baggot was referred to as "King of the Movies", "The Most Photographed Man in the World", and "The Man Whose Face Is As Familiar As The Man In The Moon". Baggot appeared in over 300 motion pictures from 1909 to 1947, wrote 18 screenplays, and directed 45 movies from 1912 to 1928, including The Lie (1912), Raffles: The Amateur Cracksman (1925), and The House of Scandal (1928). He also directed William S. Hart in his most famous western, Tumbleweeds (1925). Among his film appearances, Baggot was best known for The Scarlet Letter (1911), Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1913), and Ivanhoe (1913). Baggot began his career on the stage, in a Shakespearean stock company, and toured throughout the U.S. While acting in stock in St. Louis in 1909, he was cast as supporting player in the Schubert touring production of The Wishing Ring. When The Wishing Ring closed in Chicago, Baggot returned to New York to join another company. Upon a chance meeting with Harry Solter, who was directing movies for Carl Laemmle at Independent Moving Pictures Company (IMP), he was persuaded to go with Solter to the studio. Baggot became interested in the fledgling industry and decided to turn picture player. His first film was the romance short The Awakening of Bess (1909) opposite Florence Lawrence. It was directed by Harry Solter, her husband, at IMP in Fort Lee, New Jersey. At a time when screen actors worked anonymously, Baggot and Lawrence became the first "movie stars" to be given billing, a marquee, and promotion in advertising. Baggot starred in at least 42 movies opposite Lawrence from 1909 to 1911. In the latter year, he starred in at least 16 movies with Mary Pickford. He also began writing screenplays and directing, all the while becoming a major star internationally. When he appeared "in person" at theatres he was mobbed at stage doors. By 1912, he was so famous that when he took the leading part in forming the prestigious Screen Club in New York, the first organization of its kind strictly for movie people, he was the natural choice for its first president. King Baggot died in Los Angeles, California in 1948, age 68. For his contributions to the film industry, Baggot received a motion pictures star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960. His star is located at 6312 Hollywood Boulevard.
Known For
When a rich woman's ex-husband and a tabloid-type reporter turn up just before her planned remarriage, she begins to learn the truth about herself.
The Philadelphia Story
The young Austrian princess Marie Antoinette is arranged to marry Louis XVI, future king of France, in a politically advantageous marriage for the rival countries. The opulent Marie indulges in various whims and flirtations. When Louis XV passes and Louis XVI ascends the French throne, his queen's extravagant lifestyle earns the hatred of the French people, who despise her Austrian heritage.
Marie Antoinette
A married woman and a drifter fall in love, then plot to murder her husband.
The Postman Always Rings Twice
A beautiful singer and a battling priest try to reform a Barbary Coast saloon owner in the days before the great earthquake and subsequent fires in 1906.
San Francisco
A young pacifist, after refusing on principle to defend her sweetheart's honor and being banished in disgrace, joins a riverboat troupe as a singer, acquires a reputation as a crackshot after a saloon brawl in which the villain of the piece accidentally kills himself with his own gun, falls in love with his former fianceé's sister and finally bullies an apprehensive family into accepting him.
Mississippi
The Marx Brothers take on high society and the opera world to bring two lovers together. A sly business manager and two wacky friends of two opera singers help them achieve success while humiliating their stuffy and snobbish enemies.
A Night at the Opera
A once great stage and screen actor has fallen from fame because of his alcoholism; his young son is determined to see his father "make good" again.
Police Court
A law student poses as a fight promoter to catch a notorious gangster.
Sworn Enemy
A boozy former veterinarian and a teenage orphan team together with dreams of entering a broken-down horse in the big race.
Stablemates
Robert Gordon wants Donald, his son, to marry Sir Ralph Fisher's sister, but Donald loves Alice, a working-class girl, and weds her in secret.
The Suburban
Irish politician Charles Stewart Parnell struggles to free his country from English rule, but his relationship with married Katie O'Shea threatens to ruin all his dreams of freedom.
Parnell
Lovely Mary, an orphan girl, reluctantly takes charge of her sister's child when her sister Kate is jailed.
Lovey Mary
Police search for the killer of a man who misused $700,000 intended for the Chinese Communists.
Chinatown Squad
Hiram Ward, a cynical businessman, is having trouble with his employees when Caroline Weatherbee arrives and claims to be a distant relative. Her natural charm brings about a peaceful settlement of a strike, but she returns to her southern home for fear of bringing scandal to Hiram.
Gossip
William S. Hart stars in this 1925 silent film as a cowboy intent on claiming land during the 1889 land rush in the Oklahoma Territory. Though hardened from years of taming the new frontier, he falls in love with a beautiful woman. Before he settles down, however, he must contend with men who wish to bring him harm. In the prologue of the 1939 Astor Pictures revival of this film, Hart gives a moving eight-minute introduction-- the first and only time he appeared in a film accompanied by his striking voice.
Tumbleweeds
Discovery by Flo Ziegfeld changes a girl's life but not necessarily for the better, as three beautiful women find out when they join the spectacle on Broadway: Susan, the singer who must leave behind her ageing vaudevillian father; vulnerable Sheila, the working girl pursued both by a millionaire and by her loyal boyfriend from Flatbush; and the mysterious European beauty Sandra, whose concert violinist husband cannot endure the thought of their escaping from poverty by promenading her glamor in skimpy costumes.
Ziegfeld Girl
Penny Addams lives in a constant state of depression stemming from the trauma of her father's death when she was just a young girl. Her brother, Chase, and stepmother, Lee, work to help Penny process her grief through psychotherapy and revisiting their past, but only the revelation of long-buried family secrets -- including her mother's secret lover and the true nature of her father's death -- can bring Penny out of her intense despair.
The Secret Heart
A lost film. Gertrude Edgar is loved by Tom Moreland and Owen Jackson, and Gertrude, being a woman, is inclined to a mild flirtation with Jackson, while loving Moreland devotedly. Very soon Moreland is invited to join a party to discover the headwaters of the Amazon River. After reading reports of Tom's supposed death Gertrude promises Owen that she will marry him he if he can find and bring back Tom safely to her.
Second Sight
An elderly woman looks back on the special times in her life, thinking especially about her now-departed husband and the things they did together. Though it is sad that these times are now gone, she is comforted by her memories and by the hope of sharing in the lives of her child and grandchildren.
Sweet Memories
Americans arrive at their hotel in Cuba in a car, to make a movie. Romantic complications ensue while the cast and crew attempt to finish the movie.