Another discovery

One of the marvelous things about silent film is that I'm always discovering a performer I'd never heard of before, but who is a joy to watch. Currently, my discovery is Elliott Dexter.

I ran across him when I was watching A Romance of the Redwoods on DVD. It's a vehicle for Mary Pickford (as Jenny), of course - it seems that most, if not all, of her films were - but he walks away with the show as a rough, dirty stagecoach robber who has stolen the identity of Jenny's murdered uncle. He walks with a menacing air; he casually burns his girlfriend's hand with the back of a cigarette when she reaches for his wallet; he coolly takes care of a fellow robber who has tried to cheat him; he threatens Jenny with a whip to intimidate her into maintaining the fiction that he is her late uncle, John Lawrence.

Jenny, of course, "tames" him; less than twenty-four hours later, he is clean, hair combed, and already showing signs of jealousy when she talks to another man. The transformation from hard-living, fast-shooting bandit to yes-dear character who decides to go straight is only believable thanks to Dexter's performance.

He looks to be about thirty in this film, which was released in 1917. This made it all the more surprising to discover - from the scant information I found on the Internet - that he was born in 1870. He must have been doing something right; even in the closeups, and in later films I've seen, he still looked much younger than he really was.

I watched Don't Change Your Husband, in which he played Jim, a loving but clueless, sloppy, scallion-scarfing husband whose wife decides to divorce him for a sweet talker who turns out to be a real jerk. Jim, desolate at his loss, starts working out, shaves off his mustache, and becomes far more presentable to his ex - but the real surprise, for her and for the audience, is the fact that Jim has far more character and determination than he has shown before. In The Whispering Chorus, he is an upstanding district attorney. Every time I see him, he's perfect for the role, but my favorite performance is still the one he gives in A Romance of the Redwoods.

I couldn't find much about him. Like so many other actors, he came to film from the theatre; he was married in 1916 and had a son, but the marriage didn't last; he made his first film in 1915, and his last in 1925; he died in 1941.

One taunting piece of information I did find, is that in 1916, he made a film called Daphne and the Pirate. I think you'll know which character he played. The other character was played by Lillian Gish. Anyone know where I can get a copy of it?