Douglas Fairbanks - Biography, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Filmography (Read)

Douglas Fairbanks - biography, date of birth, place of birth, filmography, clips, Actor, Producer, Writer, Director.
May 23, 1883 - December 12, 1939 - American actor, one of the biggest stars of the silent film era. Born into the family of a successful businessman and lawyer. He was a Jew by his father, from the age of 5 he lived with his mother, since the parents, due to cold relations with each other, parted (but did not divorce) and lived separately. From childhood, Douglas was engaged in horse riding, fencing, athletics, and was fond of theater. After leaving school, he entered Harvard University, but soon announced to his father that he was going to become an actor, was deprived of financial support and went to Europe with his own savings. He worked as a digger on the construction of the Paris subway, then as a loader in the port of London, then he was hired as a sailor on a cargo ship and in 1900 returned to America on it, where he worked for a time as a salesman in a hardware store and an employee in a company on Wall Street, while trying to get a job in theater.
In 1902 he successfully debuted as a stage actor on Broadway, adopting the pseudonym "Douglas Fairbanks". In 1907, he married the heiress of big business Anna Beth Sully and left the stage. In 1909, they had a son, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. In the same year, the company, which was owned by his wife, went bankrupt, and Fairbanks returned to acting and by 1912 had achieved considerable fame. In 1915, he was, among other theatrical actors, invited to star in films by Triangle Pictures.
Fairbanks' first film was The Lamb (1915), directed by William Christie Cabanne and written by D.W. Griffith, in which the actor played the lead role. The film was warmly received by the audience and in subsequent films for Fairbanks was fixed the role of the hero of romantic comedies. Especially "for Fairbanks" was created a whole series of films directed by John Emerson based on scripts by Anita Luz, in which Fairbanks' charm was successfully combined with his ironic attitude to his characters. One of the most famous films of this period was The Americano (1916), in which Fairbanks, in the words of Georges Sadoul, "suppresses an armed uprising in South America with his characteristic complacency." In February 1917, Douglas Fairbanks leaves Triangle and founds his own company, Douglas Fairbanks Film Corporation, under the umbrella of Paramount Pictures.
Poster for the film "The Sign of Zorro" (1920) In 1919 he divorced his wife and soon married actress Mary Pickford. In the same year, trying to get out of the control of major Hollywood studios, Fairbanks, Pickford, Chaplin and Griffith founded the United Artists company, which gives them, in addition to creative freedom, the opportunity to distribute their films themselves. In addition, in 1921, they helped organize the Motion Picture Fund (still existing), whose task was to help filmmakers in need. In 1920, Fairbanks released one of his most famous films "The Sign of Zorro", the success of which makes the actor even more popular and paves the way for a whole series of cloak and sword films - "The Three Musketeers" (1921), "Robin Hood" (1922), The Baghdad Thief (1924), The Black Pirate (1926) and others.
Fairbanks and Pickford were the first filmmakers to leave their handprints in wet cement on the Hollywood Walk of Fame during the opening ceremony of the Grauman Film Center on April 30, 1927. In the same year, Fairbanks becomes the first president of the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and holds the first Academy Awards. A group of major American film actors, led by D. Fairbanks, actively funded the Technicolor society - their experiences in the field of obtaining color films. The last silent film with the participation of Fairbanks was "The Iron Mask" (The Iron Mask, 1929), after which they, together with Pickford, starred in the film "The Taming of the Shrew" (1929). The film, however, did not have the expected success, and Fairbanks began to gradually retire. The last film with his participation was "The Private Life of Don Juan" (The Private Life of Don Juan, 1934) .
In 1933, Fairbanks begins an affair with Sylvia Ashley. In 1936 he divorced Mary Pickford and married Ashley, with whom he settled in seclusion in Santa Monica. Douglas Fairbanks died on December 12, 1939 of a heart attack.

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Author: Jane Watson