Born Today September 21: George Dewhurst

1889-1968

British writer, actor and director George Wilkinson Dewhurst was born on this day in Preston, England (located in Lancashire). He most likely made his film debut as an actor in the 1917 war drama The Man Who Made Good (on which he received a production credit).  It did not take him long to become a film maker himself. The Live Wire ( a film now sadly lost to us) was written, directed, shot and produced by Dewhurst; the film also served as the film acting debut of Ronald Coleman.  Despite that he was keen to direct his own projects, he did continue to act in films directed by others; though he generally had a hand in either writing and/or producing them.  He appeared several films by directors who have become legendary in film history, with Cecil M. Hepworth with out a doubt being the most important among them with whom he worked on several films, the first of which was Helen of Four Gates in 1920 (but he also worked with Lupino Lane, Henry Edwards and George Bellamy) In the end Dewhurst had almost as many credits as an actor as he did as a director, but it is as a writer that he had the most credits.  In fact, he had a for a time a writing partnership with Hepworth, with the vast majority of his scripts being adaptations from novels and plays.  As a director, the two most well known actors with whom he worked with were Irene Rich (see What the Butler Saw 1924) and Alice Joyce (see The Rising Generation 1928).  His last silent film with a writing credit was a short made for British Gaumont:  Bright Young Things in 1927.  In 1928, he directed The Rising Generation with prolific British silent director Harley Knoles .  He did work into the 1930's, with an all sound version of A Sister to Assist 'Er in 1930 (based on a play that he adapted for the screen, and first filmed in 1927 as a silent for Gaumont) representing his first film of the new decade. But Dewhurst went bankrupt in 1932 and he never fully recovered. From then on, only directed two more projects (both of them versions of A Sister to Assist 'Er) and only wrote six additional screenplays. His last film (and only film in the 1940's) was his 1948 version of A Sister to Assist 'Er.  He was then out of the film business, reportedly finding himself homeless at some point during the 1950's. Dewhurst died in South London on the 8th of the November in 1968 at the age of 79. I can find no information as to his burial.

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