Sam De Grasse

Sam De Grasse
De Grasse in Heart o' the Hills (1919)
Born	June 12, 1875 Bathurst, New Brunswick, Canada
Died	November 29, 1953 (aged 78) Hollywood, California, U.S.
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1914–1930

Samuel Alfred De Grasse (June 12, 1875 – November 29, 1953) was a Canadian actor.

Biography

De Grasse was born in Bathurst, New Brunswick, and he trained to be a dentist. He married Annie McDonnell in 1904. Their daughter, Clementine Bell, was born in 1906. Annie died in 1909, probably in childbirth with another daughter, Olive. In 1910, Samuel was practicing dentistry and he and Clementine were living in Providence, Rhode Island along with his older sister (also named Clementine) and her 14-year-old son, Jerome Fauchy.

Sam married British actress Ada Fuller Golden and became a step-father to her three children. His older brother Joe went into the fledgling movie business and Sam decided to also give it a try. He traveled to New York City and in 1912 he appeared in his first motion picture.

At first he played standard secondary characters but when fellow Canadian Mary Pickford set up her own studio with her husband Douglas Fairbanks, he joined them. He portrayed the villainous Prince John in Fairbanks' 1922 Robin Hood. Afterward, he began to specialize in villainous roles. Mary Pickford named him as one of her favorite stars.^[1] He was the uncle of successful cinematographer Robert De Grasse. He lived on the west coast until his death in Hollywood. He is interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.

Selected filmography

• The Birth of a Nation (1915)
• The Good Bad Man (1916)
• "Half-Breed" (1916)
• An Innocent Magdalene (1916)
• Intolerance (1916)
• Diane of the Follies (1916)
• Jim Bludso (1917)
• Wild and Woolly (1917)
• The Empty Gun (1917)
• An Old-Fashioned Young Man (1917)
• Anything Once (1917)
• The Scarlet Car (1917)
• A Woman's Fool (1918)
• The Hope Chest (1918)
• The Exquisite Thief (1919)
• Heart o' the Hills (1919)
• Blind Husbands (1919)
• The Devil's Pass Key (1920)
• The Skywayman (1920)
• Robin Hood (1922)
• The Spoilers (1922)
• Forsaking All Others (1922)
• The Courtship of Miles Standish (1923)
• Slippy McGee (1923)
• Painted People (1924)
• A Self-Made Failure (1924)
• The Black Pirate (1926)
• Her Second Chance (1926)
• The Eagle of the Sea (1926)
• When a Man Loves (1927)
• King of Kings (1927)
• The Fighting Eagle (1927)
• The Wreck of the Hesperus (1927)
• Our Dancing Daughters (1928)
• The Man Who Laughs (1928)
• Wall Street (1929)
• Captain of the Guard (1930)

See also

• Other Canadian pioneers in early Hollywood

References

1. Howe, Herbert (January 1924). "Mary Pickford's Favorite Stars and Films". Photoplay. New York: Photoplay Publishing Company. Retrieved September 4, 2015.

• Charles Foster, Stardust and Shadows: Canadians in Early Hollywood, 2000, ISBN 1-55002-348-9

External links

• Sam De Grasse at the Internet Movie Database
• De Grasse at Northernstars.ca