Wallace Reid
Actor
Born April 14, 1891 in Saint Louis, Missouri, USA
Wallace Reid was an American actor in silent film referred to as "the screen's most perfect lover". Wallace Reid appeared in several films with his father, and as his career in film flourished, he was soon acting and directing with and for early film mogul Allan Dwan. In 1913, while at Universal Pictures, Reid met and married actress Dorothy Davenport. He was featured as Jeff, the blacksmith, in The Birth of a Nation (1915) and had an uncredited role in Intolerance (1916), both directed by D. W. Griffith; he worked with leading ladies such as Florence Turner, Gloria Swanson, Lillian Gish, Elsie Ferguson, and Geraldine Farrar en route to becoming one of Hollywood's major heartthrobs. Already involved with the creation of more than 100 motion picture shorts, Reid was signed by producer Jesse L. Lasky and starred in over 60 films for Lasky's Famous Players film company, which later became Paramount Pictures. Frequently paired with actress Ann Little, his action-hero role as the dashing race-car driver drew young girls and older women alike to theaters to see his daredevil auto thrillers such as The Roaring Road (1919), Double Speed (1920), Excuse My Dust (1920), and Too Much Speed (1921). While en route to a location in Oregon during filming of The Valley of the Giants (1919), Reid was injured in a train wreck near Arcata, California and needed six stitches to close a 3-inch (8 cm) scalp wound. To keep on filming, he was prescribed morphine for relief of his pain and Reid soon became addicted, but kept on working at a frantic pace in films that were growing more physically demanding, and changing from 15–20 minutes in duration to as much as an hour. Reid's morphine addiction worsened at a time when drug rehabilitation programs were non-existent. He died in a sanatorium while attempting to recover.
Filmography
The Legend of Rudolph Valentino
Self (archive footage)
Screen Snapshots (Series 22, No. 10)
Self (archive footage)
The Movie Album
(archive footage)
The House That Shadows Built
(archive footage)
Thirty Days
John Floyd
Night Life in Hollywood
Self
Clarence
Clarence Smith
The Ghost Breaker
Walter Jarvis, a Ghost Breaker
Nice People
Captain Billy Wade
A Trip to Paramountown
Self
The Dictator
Brooke Travers
Across the Continent
Jimmy Dent
The World's Champion
William Burroughs
Rent Free
Buell Arnister Jr
Don't Tell Everything
Cullen Dale
Forever
Peter Ibbetson
The Affairs of Anatol
Anatol Spencer
The Hell Diggers
Teddy Darman
Too Much Speed
'Dusty' Rhoades
The Love Special
Jim Glover
The Charm School
Austin Bevans
Always Audacious
Perry Dayton / 'Slim' Attucks
What's Your Hurry?
Dusty Rhoades
Sick Abed
Reginald Jay
The Dancin' Fool
Sylvester Tibble
Excuse My Dust
'Toodles' Walden
Double Speed
'Speed' Carr
Hawthorne of the U.S.A.
Anthony Hamilton Hawthorne
The Lottery Man
Jack Wright
The Valley of the Giants
Bryce Cardigan
The Love Burglar
David Strong
You're Fired
Billy Deering
The Roaring Road
Walter Thomas 'Toodles' Walden
Alias Mike Moran
Larry Young
The Dub
John Craig (The 'Dub')
Too Many Millions
Walsingham Van Doren
The Man from Funeral Range
Harry Webb
The Source
Van Twiller Yard
Less Than Kin
Hobart Lee / Lewis Vickers
The Firefly of France
Devereux Bayne
Believe Me, Xantippe
George MacFarland
The House of Silence
Marcel Levington
The Thing We Love
Rodney Sheridan
Rimrock Jones
Rimrock Jones
The Devil Stone
Guy Sterling
Nan of Music Mountain
Henry de Spain
The Woman God Forgot
Alvarado
The Hostage
Lieutenant Kemper
Big Timber
Jack Fife
The World Apart
Bob Fulton
The Prison Without Walls
Huntington Babbs
The Golden Fetter
James Roger Ralston
Joan the Woman
Eric Trent 1431 / Eric Trent 1917
The Yellow Pawn
James Weldon
Intolerance: Love's Struggle Throughout the Ages
Boy Killed in Battle (uncredited)
The House with the Golden Windows
Tom Wells
The Selfish Woman
Tom Morley
Maria Rosa
Andreas
The Love Mask
Dan Derring
To Have and to Hold
Captain Ralph Percy
The Golden Chance
Roger Manning
Old Heidelberg
Prince Karl Heinrich
Carmen
Don Jose
The Chorus Lady
Danny Mallory
Station Content
Jim Manning
Enoch Arden
Walter Fenn
The Lost House
Ford
The Birth of a Nation
Jeff, the Blacksmith
The Three Brothers
Jean Gaudet / Will
At Dawn
The Lieutenant
The Little Country Mouse
Lieutenant Hawkhurst
The Avenging Conscience
The Doctor (uncredited)
Arms and the Gringo
Sullivan
The Den of Thieves
Wallace
'Cross the Mexican Line
Lt. Wallace
The Spider and Her Web
The Heart of the Hills
Dave - the Woodsman
The Powder Flash of Death
Captain Bruce Douglas
The Spirit of the Flag
Dr. Reid
The Deerslayer
Chingachgook
Near To Earth
His Only Son
Bob Madden
At Cripple Creek
Joe Mayfield
Curfew Shall Not Ring Tonight
Basil Underwood
Diamond Cut Diamond
Clerk
The Victoria Cross
Lt. Cholmodeley
The Illumination
Giuseppe's Father
The Seventh Son
One of the Beecham Brothers
Playmates
Party Guest at Piano (uncredited)
Indian Romeo and Juliet
Oniatore / Romeo
Chumps
George - the Denouement
The Mother of the Ranch
The Mother's Friend Back East