Tweet Silent Leading Men Still Around in the 80s

I've been thinking about this recently since as far as I can remember all the silent stars who appeared on camera in Hollywood were actresses -- Gish, Swanson, Gaynor, Colleen Moore, Louise Brooks, Viola Dana, and others. It took me awhile to think of which leading men were still around about 1980. I have only come up with two so far, William Powell and George O'Brien. I am wondering if there were others though?

Charles "Buddy" Rogers, for one.

Martie

Douglas Fairbanks Jr. starred in the silent film Broken Hearts of Hollywood (1926). In the Hollywood documentary, he explained how his father slid down the sail using a knife in The Black Pirate. Ernest Borgnine, who turned 95 this January, is a rare exception for Hollywood actors. Many of those old time stars were lucky to live long enough to collect Social Security for a few years. As a side note, stunt man Harvey Parry (who claimed he doubled for Harold Lloyd) was a rare exception, doing stunts into his 80s, according to the IMDb. And I think Parry got more screen time than anyone else in Brownlow and Gill's Hollywood, with Byron Haskin even mentioning Parry's stunt driving during Haskin's interview.

Jackie Coogan. A little young to be a "leading man" in silents but as big a star as they came.

I'll give you one who was even still working in the 80's: Gilbert Roland.

And as far as comedians went: Clyde Cook and Jimmy Aubrey.


RICHARD M ROBERTS

Neil Hamilton, Eddie Quillan,

[Mike Gebert]

One who won an Oscar in the 80s: John Gielgud. Admittedly he only has one silent credit, but still.

Mickey Rooney was a child actor in the silent era. He's still alive.

Not a leading man, but Billy Barty was still working in the Eighties.

William Collier Jr., Harold Goodwin, Nils Asther, Arthur Lake, Robert Agnew, George Walsh, Richard Talmadge, Raymond McKee and George K. Arthur were around at least a little ways into the 80s.

-HA

Harold, if you are referring to the Fox silent Star, George Walsh, you are mistaken. He retired in the 1930's and never returned to acting.

How about his brother, director Raoul Walsh, who started out as an actor. His most famous early role was John Wilkes Booth in "Birth of a Nation."

I don't think that anyone has mentioned Charles Farrell yet. He lived until 1990.

Joel McCrea, who had a handful of silent credits at the end of the '20s, also lived until 1990.

Coy Watson, Lew Ayres...

I thought the question pertained to those who were still *alive* in the 80s, not necessarily those still acting. George Walsh lived until June of '81, so that's why I included him, even though he hadn't had a screen role for 45 years.

Also: Don Terry, David Rollins.

-HA

Thanks everyone, just the kind of interesting answers I thought there might be.

I was mainly asking who was still alive then since (as I mentioned) I mainly remembered seeing actresses interviewed in the Hollywood series. I realize that some of the men were probably not in good health. I did remember reading about Janet Gaynor and George O'Brien making an appearance at a showing of Sunrise, probably around that time.

Interesting to read that Gilbert Roland, for one, was still acting.

Interesting to read that Gilbert Roland, for one, was still acting.

I used to see him on television a bit during the '70s, usually guest starring in a series.

[silentfilm]

One of the interesting things about reading Kevin Brownlow's The Search for Charlie Chaplin, which is about the Unknown Chaplin TV documentary series, is the difficult time that he had getting people who worked with Chaplin to even talk to him, much less actually appear on camera. I have a feeling that he ran into the same kind of problem while filming the interviews for Hollywood.

I also think that people have more interest in seeing female stars. An old man is just an old man, but with a woman it's "Oh, doesn't she look good / well preserved / horrible"

George Jessel, of PRIVATE IZZY MURPHY and SAILOR IZZY MURPHY, died in 1981.

George Jessel, of PRIVATE IZZY MURPHY and SAILOR IZZY MURPHY, died in 1981.

Not to forget GINZBERG THE GREAT (1928)

So has anyone mentioned Ben Lyon? He is featured in several interview clips of Thames HOLLYWOOD.

Gee, there seems to have been more silent leading men around in the 1980s than there were in the actual silent era...

Jim

Maybe not a real "Leading Man", but William Bakewell was prominent in 2nd level roles in the silents.
He was working in TV in the 60s & 70s, & died in '93.

George O'Brien was around in the '80's, although he suffered a stroke in 1981 and was beyond being interviewed after that, he lived until 1985. It must have been a certain kind of hell for this self-professed and full-of-life "man of a few thousand words" to be laid up in bed. I had the privilege of meeting and interviewing George in 1976, and he was a great guy.

George O'Brien was around in the '80's, although he suffered a stroke in 1981 and was beyond being interviewed after that, he lived until 1985. It must have been a certain kind of hell for this self-professed and full-of-life "man of a few thousand words" to be laid up in bed. I had the privilege of meeting and interviewing George in 1976, and he was a great guy.

The tv station I worked at did a 100th birthday of Will Rogers documentary in '79. Since he was living in Tulsa at the time, they interviewed O'Brien but were unable to use any of it. He was already pretty out of it.

My feeling for the discrepancy is that for any particular year the silent era actresses were, on average, several years younger than their male counterparts. It's the old harsh lighting syndrome where wrinkles were more disastrous for a female and only young actresses with perfect compexions filmed well. Add in the fact that females typically outlive males and it's not surprsing that there were more silent film actresses still living in the 1980s.

By the way, you could also add Edmund Burns to the list, but you'd have to remove Ben Lyon. He didn't quite make it, according to my sources.