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J. Gordon Edwards (director)

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{{short description|Canadian born American film and stage director, producer, stage actor and writer}}

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{{Infobox person

|name = J. Gordon Edwards

|image = J Gordon Edwards - Aug 1920 EH.jpg

|caption = Edwards {{circa|1920}}

|birth_name = James Gordon Edwards

|birth_date = {{Birth date|1867|6|24}}

|birth_place = Montreal, Province of Canada

|death_date = {{death date and age|1925|12|31|1867|6|24}}

|death_place = New York City, U.S.

|occupation = Film director, film producer, screenwriter

|yearsactive = 1914–1924

| relatives = Blake Edwards (step-grandson)

}}

File:J. Gordon Edwards Tomb with Minarets 2011.JPG

James Gordon Edwards (June 24, 1867 – December 31, 1925) was a Canadian-born film director, producer, and writer who began his career as a stage actor and stage director.

Biography

James Gordon Edwards was born in Montreal in 1867 to parents of Scotch-French ancestry.{{cite magazine|title=The Master Mind of the Movies|first= A. L.|last= Selig|magazine= Canadian Home Journal|volume=15|issue=8|date=December 1918|url=https://archive.org/details/canhomejournal1919toro/page/n307/mode/2up|pages=8– }}{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VjkgAgAAQBAJ&q=%22James+Gordon+Edwards%22&pg=PA187|title=Rex Ingram: Hollywood's Rebel of the Silver Screen|last=Gmür|first=Leonhard|date=2013|publisher=epubli|isbn=9783844246018|pages=187|language=en}}{{Dead link|date=September 2024 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} He made his directorial debut with the 1914 film St. Elmo.

Edwards went on directing all of the Fox Film Corporation's mega-budget spectacles, including all of actress Theda Bara's productions between 1916 and 1919. Later, he became the production supervisor at Fox, and continued to direct until he died in 1925. One of his biggest projects was The Queen of Sheba (1921), a lost silent film which contained a huge chariot race, four years before Ben-Hur (1925). Essentially all of his films (other than a few low quality prints) for Fox Studios were lost in the 1937 Fox vault fire, which claimed 75% of all Fox films made before 1930. He was the stepgrandfather of director Blake Edwards.

He was married to actress Angela McCaull, daughter of opera impresario John A. McCaull.{{cite news |title=J. Gordon Edwards Dies |url=https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn92073229/1926-01-22/ed-1/seq-2/ |work=The Chapel Hill Weekly |date=22 January 1926 |location=Chapel Hill, NC |page=2}} Edwards died of pneumonia at age 58 in New York City.{{cite journal |title=J. Gordon Edwards |journal=Variety |date=January 6, 1926 |page=46 |url=https://archive.org/details/variety81-1926-01/page/n45/mode/1up}} His widow later commissioned a mausoleum in his honor at Kensico Cemetery, where both of their ashes reside.{{cite book |last1=Keister |first1=Doug |title=Stories in Stone New York: A Field Guide to New York City Area Cemeteries and Their Residents |date=2011 |publisher=Gibbs Smith |isbn=978-1-4236-2102-7 |page=91 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AkNldfGIyCcC&pg=PA91 |language=en}}

Filmography

{{main|J. Gordon Edwards filmography}}

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References

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External links

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  • {{IMDb name|250053}}
  • {{IBDB name|39287}}

{{J. Gordon Edwards}}

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Category:1867 births

Category:1925 deaths

Category:Burials at Kensico Cemetery

Category:Canadian emigrants to the United States

J. Gordon

Category:Film directors from Montreal

Category:Writers from Montreal

Category:Deaths from pneumonia in New York City