1868-1931
Silent film and stage actor Robert Edeson was born on this date in New Orleans, Louisiana. Given that he was born so long before the actual invention of the narrative film, it is hardly surprising that he was much more of a stage legend than a film star. He was a major actor during his time on Broadway. He got into film acting relatively late in life. His first film dates from the year 1912 with the short western His Message, a Thomas Ince film. The first film that he acted in that has historical merit comes in the Cecil B. DeMille co-directed The Call Of The North (1914). He worked pretty steadily throughout the rest of the 1910's, all the while still managing stage appearances. The first film of the 1920's that he acted in came with Extravagance (1921), a Phil Rosen film. In 1922, he had a small role in Erich von Storheim's Foolish Wives; doubling for the star of the film Rudolph Christians after the star died of pneumonia during filming. In 1923, he landed a medium sized role in Cecil B. DeMille's The Ten Commandments. Throughout the 1920's his acting in film picked up notably--as he was by this time thoroughly a Hollywood performer and under contract to DeMille's company DeMille Pictures Corp. By 1928, his contract up, he appears to have become a type of free agent. He had a part, for example, in Frank Capra's The Power Of The Press (1928), which was made for Columbia and starred Douglas Fairbanks Jr.. His next film was an all mono film with sound by Vitaphone; The Home Towners (1928) was made for Warner Bros (the early sound comedy is a lost film). The first film that he made in the 1930's was produced by Fox, Cameo Kirby (1930) appears to have yet another victim of the Fox vault fire of 1937. The last film that he appeared in was Aloha (1931). Edeson died of a heart disease of some sort on the 24th of March 1931 in Hollywood, having worked right up to the day he passed. His remains were cremated and scattered at an unknown location in Hollywood Forever Cemetery. He was 62 years old.
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| His star on east side of the 1600 block on Vine St. |
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