Born Today June 6: George Hollister Jr.

1908-1976

George (and his sister Doris) was born surrounded by film fame, despite the industry's young age.  He was the son cinematographer George K. Hollister and his actress wife Alice.  Both George Jr. and Doris were born in New York City and were amongst the first recognizable child actors in film. Young George first appeared in film 1912 in the Sidney Olcott, shot on location, middle eastern themed drama An Arabian Tragedy (filmed in Egypt).  He was just 4 years old.  He also appeared in the epic Olcott directed relatively unsung masterpiece  From The Manger To The Cross; or, Jesus Of Nazareth, also released in 1912 and shot on location; where he played Jesus as a young child (his parents and his sister were also involved with the production in a big way!).  Between the ages of 4 and 7, he appeared in 12 films--most of them in 1912 and 1913.  A goodly number of them featured his mother, and all of them were for Kalem, who had his mother under contract as an actor and his father was the principle director of photography.  The last film that he made at the company as a child was the Kenean Buel directed melodrama The Swindler in 1915, which starred Guy Coombs and Alice Joyce.  Hollister appeared in just one film as an adult, a late silent in 1929 at the age of 21: The Arizona Kid.  This is all his work as it related to the film business.  Hollister lived until the age of 67, dying on the 22nd of January, 1976 in San Diego (outliving his mother Alice by just three years).  Both of his parents and his sister are interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, but even a search a cemetery records there don't reveal whether he too was also laid to rest there.  [Note: if you read the comment below, his granddaughter was so kind as to let me know that he is not buried with family member in Glendale; unfortunately, she states that his burial place is not known at this time; let's hope that is a temporary thing! 😇]

Most of the principle cast of From The Manger to The Cross aboard ship en route to the Holy Land, George Jr. is in the middle of the photograph; his sister Doris is the other child. Both of his parents as also pictured. 

IMDb