Wallace Reid

Reid was born in St. Louis, Missouri, into a showbusiness family. His mother, Bertha Westbrook, was an actress, and his father, James Halleck "Hal" Reid, worked successfully in a variety of theatrical jobs, mainly as playwright and actor, traveling the country. As a boy, Wallace Reid was performing on stage at an early age, but acting was put on hold while he obtained an education at Freehold Military School in Freehold Township, New Jersey. He later graduated from Perkiomen Seminary in Pennsburg, Pennsylvania in 1909. A gifted all-around athlete, Reid participated in a number of sports while also following an interest in music, learning to play the piano, banjo, drums, and violin. As a teenager, he spent time in Wyoming, where he learned to be an outdoorsman.

Reid was drawn to the burgeoning movie industry by his father, who shifted from the theater to writing films, directing them, and acting in them. In 1910, Reid appeared in his first film, The Phoenix, an adaptation of a Milton Nobles play, filmed at Selig Polyscope Studios in Chicago. Reid used the script from a play his father had written and approached the very successful Vitagraph Studios, hoping to be given the opportunity to direct. Instead, Vitagraph executives capitalized on his sex appeal, and in addition to having him direct, cast him in a major role. Although Reid's good looks and powerful physique made him the perfect ‘matinée idol’, he was equally happy with roles behind the scenes and often worked as a writer, cameraman, and director.

Reid was arrested in Portland, Oregon in 1921 for violating Prohibition law.

{{cite book

|last1=Chandler |first1=J.D.

|last2=Kennedy |first2=Theresa Griffin

|year=2016

|chapter=Introduction: The liquor question

|title=Murder & Scandal in Prohibition Portland: Sex, vice & misdeeds in mayor Baker's reign

|place=Charleston, SC

|lccn=2015956821 |isbn=978-1-4671-1953-5

|page=11

|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lGxBCwAAQBAJ

|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lGxBCwAAQBAJ&pg=PT8

|via=Google Books

}}

File:Wallace Reid in Picture-Play Magazine.jpg.}}

{{cite magazine

|title=Favorite picture players

|date = December 1918

|magazine = Picture-Play Magazine

|volume = IX |issue = 4 |page = 172

|lccn=2005210253

|url=https://www.archive.org/details/pictureplaymagaz09unse/page/n507/mode/2up?view=theater

|access-date=31 January 2022 |via=Internet Archive (archive.org)

}}

]]

Wallace Reid appeared in several films with his father, and as his career in film flourished, he was soon acting and directing with and for early film mogul Allan Dwan. In 1913, while at Universal Pictures, Reid met and married actress Dorothy Davenport. He was featured as Jeff, the blacksmith, in The Birth of a Nation (1915), and he had an uncredited role in Intolerance (1916),

{{cite web

|title = Cast

|department = Intolerance (1916)

|series = Film review

|website = TV Guide

|url = https://www.tvguide.com/movies/intolerance/cast/132137/

|access-date = 6 January 2021

}}

both directed by D. W. Griffith; he worked with leading ladies such as Florence Turner, Gloria Swanson, Lillian Gish, Elsie Ferguson, and Geraldine Farrar, becoming one of Hollywood's major heartthrobs.{{Citation needed |date=May 2024}}

Already involved with the creation of more than 100 motion picture shorts, Reid was signed by producer Jesse L. Lasky and starred in over 60 films for Lasky's Famous Players film company, which later became Paramount Pictures. Frequently paired with actress Ann Little, his action-hero role as the dashing race-car driver drew fans to theaters to see his daredevil auto thrillers such as The Roaring Road (1919), Double Speed (1920), Excuse My Dust (1920), and Too Much Speed (1921). Across the Continent (1922), one of his auto-racing films, was chosen as the opening night film for San Francisco's Castro Theatre, which opened on 22 June 1922.{{Citation needed |date=May 2024}}

Reid loved racing so much that he even entered a vehicle into the 1922 Indianapolis 500; he eventually withdrew before qualifying.

{{cite web

|title = Wallace Reid

|department = drivers

|website = oldracingcars.com

|url = http://www.oldracingcars.com/driver/Wallace_Reid

}}

{{cite web

|title=Wallace Reid

|department = drivers

|website = champcarstats.com

|url = http://www.champcarstats.com/drivers/ReidWallace.htm

|access-date = 2024-01-16

}}

File:Wallace Reid Urn.JPG, Forest Lawn, Glendale, CA]]

While en route to a location in California during filming of The Valley of the Giants (1919), Reid was injured in a train wreck near Arcata, California, and he needed six stitches to close a {{convert|3|in|cm|0|adj=on}} scalp wound.{{cite magazine |title=Reid company in wreck |date=15 March 1919 |magazine = The Moving Picture World |volume = 39 |issue = 11 |page = 1474 |url=https://www.archive.org/details/movwor39chal?view=theater#page/1474/mode/2up |access-date=31 January 2022 |via=Internet Archive (archive.org)}}{{sfnp|Fleming|2007|loc=[https://books.google.com/books?id=OZWiCAAAQBAJ&pg=PA134 Chapter 10. Accident and addiction]|p=134-151}} To continue filming, he was prescribed morphine for relief of his pain, and Reid soon became addicted.{{cite book |first=Barry |last=Spunt |year=2017 |title=Heroin, Acting, and Comedy in New York City |chapter = Chapter 2. Mainstream Actors |page=69 |place=New York, NY |publisher=Springer Nature |doi=10.1057/978-1-137-59972-8 |isbn=978-1-137-59971-1 |lccn=2017948081 |via=Google Books |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PtYtDwAAQBAJ

|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PtYtDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA69 }} He continued working at a frantic pace in films that were growing more physically demanding, and changing from 15–20 minutes in duration to as much as an hour.{{cite book |title = Assassin of Youth: A kaleidoscopic history of Harry J. Anslinger's war on drugs |chapter = Chapter 23. Human wreckage: Wally Reid |date = 30 September 2016 |publisher=University of Chicago Press |place=Chicago, IL |isbn=978-0-226-27697-7 |lccn=2016011027 |pages = 124–134 |doi = 10.7208/9780226277028-023 |doi-broken-date=November 1, 2024 |via=Google Books |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=imUpDQAAQBAJ |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=imUpDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA124}} Reid's morphine addiction worsened at a time when rehabilitation programs were non-existent.{{cite journal |first=Michael C. |last=Gerald |year = 2006 |title=Drugs and alcohol go to Hollywood |journal=Pharmacy in History |volume = 48 |issue = 3 |pages = 116–138 |jstor=41112318 |issn=0031-7047}}{{sfnp|Fleming|2007|loc=[https://books.google.com/books?id=OZWiCAAAQBAJ&pg=PA134 Chapter 10. Accident and addiction] |p=134-151}}

On January 18, 1923, he died from influenza in a sanatorium, aged 31, while attempting to recover from his addiction.{{sfnp|Fleming|2007|loc=[https://books.google.com/books?id=OZWiCAAAQBAJ&pg=PA210 Chapter 14. The curtain falls on a tragedy]|pp=210-225}}{{cite book |first = Gwendolyn Audrey |last = Foster |year = 2000 |chapter = Chapter 9. Early women filmmakers as social arbiters: “The gaze of correction” |title = Troping the Body: Gender, etiquette, and performance |series = Women's Studies / Cultural Studies |publisher = Southern Illinois University Press |place = Carbondale, IL |isbn = 978-0-8093-2286-2 |page = 108 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ga35r1F1JdcC |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ga35r1F1JdcC&pg=PA108 |via=Google Books}}{{cite book |first = Mary Lynn |last = Anderson |date = 18 April 2011 |chapter = Chapter 1. The early Hollywood scandals and the death of Wallace Reid |title = Twilight of the Idols |publisher = University of California Press |doi=10.1525/9780520949423-004 |pages=15–48 |place = Berkeley, CA |isbn = 978-0-520-94942-3 |s2cid = 242854678 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jidtDwAAQBAJ |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jidtDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA15 |via=Google Books}}

Wallace Reid was interred in the Azalea Terrace of the Great Mausoleum at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.{{sfnp|Fleming|2007|loc=[https://books.google.com/books?id=OZWiCAAAQBAJ&pg=PA223 Chapter 14. The Curtain Falls on a Tragedy]|p=223}}

His widow, Dorothy Davenport (billed as Mrs. Wallace Reid), co-produced and appeared in Human Wreckage (1923), making a national tour with the film to publicize the dangers of drug addiction. She and Reid had two children: a son, Wallace Reid Jr., born in 1917; and a daughter, Betty Mummert, whom they adopted in 1922 as a three-year-old.

{{cite web

|last = Mercedes

|year = 2000

|title = Wallace Reid

|website = artfuljesus.0catch.com/artists

|url=http://artfuljesus.0catch.com/artists/reid.html

|url-status=dead |access-date=September 21, 2010

|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100211153658/http://artfuljesus.0catch.com/artists/reid.html

|archive-date=February 11, 2010

}}

Wallace Reid's contribution to the movie industry has been recognized with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

{{cite book

|first = Lisa |last = Bode

|year = 2016

|chapter = Chapter 12. The afterlives of Rudolph Valentino and Wallace Reid in the 1920s and 1930s

|editor1-last = Bolton |editor1-first = Lucy

|editor2-last = Wright |editor2-first = Julie Lobazo

|title = Lasting Screen Stars: Images that fade and personas that endure

|place = London, UK

|publisher = Palgrave Macmillan

|isbn = 978-1-137-40732-0

|doi = 10.1057/978-1-137-40733-7_12

|lccn = 2016936089

|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=EFxBDAAAQBAJ

|via = Google Books

|chapter-url = https://books.google.com/books?id=EFxBDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA159

|pages = 159–172

}}

In the biopic Valentino (1977), Reid is portrayed as a bicycle-riding, childish movie star. In the 1980 documentary Hollywood episode "Single Beds and Double Standards", Reid's story is recalled by people who worked with him: Karl Brown, Henry Hathaway, Gloria Swanson,and stuntman Bob Rose.

A biography appeared in 2007,{{sfnp|Fleming|2007}} the first work on Reid's life since his mother's personal recollections were published shortly after the actor's death.

An episode of Hollywood Babylon that gave a biographic sketch of Reid was criticized in a 2018 podcast by Karina Longworth.

{{cite podcast

|title = Wallace Reid (Fake news: Fact checking Hollywood Babylon episode 6)

|date = 6 August 2018

|website = You Must Remember This

|host = Longworth, K.

|editor-first = Lindsey D. |editor-last = Schoenholtz

|url = http://www.youmustrememberthispodcast.com/episodes/2018/7/26/wallace-reid-fake-news-fact-checking-hollywood-babylon-episode-6

}}

{{main|Wallace Reid filmography}}

{{notelist}}

{{clear}}

{{reflist|25em}}

{{refbegin|25em|small=yes}}

• {{cite book

|first = D.W. |last = Menefee |author-link = David W. Menefee

|year = 2007

|title = The First Male Stars: Men of the Silent Era

|place = Albany GA

|publisher = Bear Manor Media

}}

• {{cite book

|title = Wallace Reid

|date = April 1923

|series = Col. Selig’s Stories of Movie Life

|place = Chicago, IL

|publisher = Screenland Publishing Company

}}

• {{cite book

|first1 = C.B. |last1 = DeMille |author1-link = Cecil B. DeMille

|year = 1959

|title =The Autobiography of Cecil B. DeMille

|place = Jersey

|publisher = Prentice-Hall

}}

• {{cite book

|first1 = J.L. |last1 = Lasky |author1-link = Jesse L. Lasky

|year = 1957

|title = I Blow My Own Horn

|place = New York, NY

|publisher = Doubleday & Company

}}

• {{cite book

|first = Albert E. |last = Smith

|year = 1952

|title = Two Reels and a Crank

|place = New York, NY

|publisher = Doubleday & Company

}}

• {{cite book

|first = Seymour |last = Stern

|year = 1965

|title = Griffith: The Birth of a Nation part 1

|place = New York, NY

|publisher = Film Culture

}}

• {{cite book

|first1 = G. |last1 = Swanson |author1-link = Gloria Swanson

|year = 1980

|title = Swanson on Swanson

|place = New York, NY

|publisher = Random House

}}

• {{cite news

|title = Wallace Reid dies in fight on drugs

|date = 19 January 1923

|newspaper = The New York Times

|type = obituary

}}

• {{cite magazine

|first = Maude S. |last = Cheatham

|date = October 1920

|title = Wally, the genial

|magazine = Motion Picture Magazine

}}

• {{cite book

|first=E.J. |last=Fleming

|year=2007

|title=Wallace Reid: The life and death of a Hollywood idol

|place=Jefferson, NC

|publisher=McFarland & Company

|isbn=978-0-7864-7725-8

|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OZWiCAAAQBAJ

|via=Google Books

}}

{{refend}}

{{portal|Biography|United States|Film}}

{{Commons category|Wallace Reid}}

• {{AFI person | 153019-Wallace-Reid }}
• {{IMDb name | 717468 }}
• {{Tcmdb name }}
• [http://www.virtual-history.com/movie/person/1796/wallace-reid Literature on Wallace Reid]
• [https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/search/index?utf8=%E2%9C%93&keywords=berthabelle+westbrook portrait of Reid's mother, Berthabelle Westbrook]
• [http://kinotv.com/page/bio.php?namecode=84672&q=0&l=en Wallace Reid] (Kino TV)

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Reid, Wallace}}

Category:1891 births

Category:1923 deaths

Category:20th-century American male actors

Category:American male film actors

Category:American male silent film actors

Category:Burials at Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Glendale)

Category:Deaths from influenza in the United States

Category:Drug-related deaths in California

Category:Infectious disease deaths in California

Category:Male actors from St. Louis

Category:Paramount Pictures contract players

Category:American vaudeville performers