Arthur Johnson

Johnson is another in the "forever silent" category. According to the IMDb, he made his first movie in 1905. He would die of tuberculosis eleven years later, just shy of his fortieth birthday.

I just watched a short feature he made in 1909, directed by none other than D.W. Griffith. There is some of the posturing that was a trademark of those early films - arms flung wide, fists pressed to foreheads - but the actors are all very watchable.

The story's a bit lame; violin teacher falls for his rich pupil, then almost immediately joins a group of anarchists (Down with the Rich!) when she rejects him. When he discovers he's been sent to blow up her house, he regrets his hasty action and saves the day.

In her autobiography, Lillian Gish claimed that Griffith "discovered" Johnson, which may well have been true. Bobby Harron, for one,got his start first as a message boy, then as an actor, at Biograph. Johnson, however, never reached the fame of his fellow actors - certainly not the enduring fame of Lillian Gish, not the fleeting fame (and later, constant character roles) of Henry B. Walthall, and not the fame cut short of Bobby Harron.

The IMDb lists his final films as being directed by Johnson, as well as starring him; the production company was the "Lubin Manufacturing Company", which is a new one on me.

What intrigues me about this actor is not only that he died before the advent of sound, but that he didn't achieve any type of fame - at least, nothing that has lasted. Was it his health? Possibly. Tuberculosis is a particularly nasty disease. He wasn't lacking in the looks department, and if he improved his acting style, then I can see him being a very effective leading man, as was the younger Walthall.

Maybe we'll never know.

Click here to see one of his films.