Wallace Worsley
{{short description|American actor and film director}}
{{Infobox person
| image = Holt-Worsley-Schoenbaum in Nobody's Money.jpg
| caption = Jack Holt, Wallace Worsley, and Charles Schoenbaum on the set of Nobody's Money (1923)
| birth_name = Wallace Ashley Worsley
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1878|12|8}}
| birth_place = Wappingers Falls, New York
| death_date = {{Death date and age|1944|3|26|1878|12|8}}
| death_place = Hollywood, California
| resting_place = Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale
| years_active = 1901–1928
| occupation = Stage actor, film actor, film director
| spouse = Julia Marie Taylor (1878–1976)
| children = {{hlist|Paul Brackenride Worsley|Wallace Worsley Jr.}}
}}
File:The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923) 3.jpg during making of The Hunchback of Notre Dame.]]
Wallace Ashley Worsley (December 8, 1878 – March 26, 1944) was an American stage actor who became a film actor and film director during the silent era. Over the course of his career, Worsley directed 29 films and acted in 7. He directed several movies starring Lon Chaney Sr., and his professional relationship with the actor was the best Chaney had, second to his partnership with Tod Browning.
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923) is one of his better-known works, along with The Penalty (1920). Worsley's 1922 horror film A Blind Bargain with Chaney is one of the more sought after lost films.[http://www.lonchaney.org/filmography/132.html Lon Chaney Archive]
Acting
In April 1901, Worsely appeared at the Empire Theatre (41st Street) as Lt. Earl of Hunstanton in a revival of Leo Trevor's comedy Brother Officers. It ran for eight performances.[https://www.ibdb.com/broadway-production/brother-officers-5076 "Brother Officers", 1901, IDBD] He followed this immediately with Diplomacy, which ran for about six weeks.[https://www.ibdb.com/broadway-production/diplomacy-5469#OpeningNightCast Diplomacy, IBDB] Between 1903 and 1915, Worsley was in nine more plays, most of them short-lived.[https://www.ibdb.com/broadway-cast-staff/wallace-worsley-65656 "Wallace Worsley", IBDB] One play which was particularly successful was Philip Bartholomae Over Night (1911) in which Worsley portrayed Al Rivers.{{cite news|title=STAGE FRIGHT SEALS YOUNG AUTHOR'S LIPS; Bartholomae Is Dumb Before Plaudits Marking the Success of "Overnight" at Hackett|work=The New York Times|date=January 3, 1911|page=12|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1911/01/03/archives/stage-fright-seals-young-authors-lips-bartholomae-is-dumb-before.html}}{{cite book|title=The A to Z of American Theater: Modernism|author=James Fisher, Felicia Hardison Londré|year=2009|publisher=Scarecrow Press|isbn=9780810868847|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=y7OCKIf0LH4C|page=49}}
In 1916, Worsley left Broadway for Hollywood and acted for two years, then he started directing.[https://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/c8zc8520/entire_text/ "Wallace Worsley Sr. papers", Margaret Herrick Library, AMPAS]
''The Hunchback of Notre Dame''
This movie was to be the first big-screen adaptation of Hugo's novel[https://americancinemathequecalendar.com/category/director/wallace-worsley "The Hunchback of Notre Dame", American Cinematheque] and Universal's major production of 1923. Chaney owned the rights, and reportedly, his first choice for director was Erich von Stroheim. However, Irving Thalberg recently fired von Stroheim due to conflicts over Merry-Go-Round.Blake, Michael F. A Thousand Faces: Lon Chaney's Unique Artistry in Motion Pictures. Vestal, New York: Vestal Press, 1997. {{ISBN| 978-1-8795-1121-7}} Worsley, who had already worked on four films with Chaney, directed on loan from Paramount.
The cast of extras was so large that Worsley set aside his megaphone in favor of a radio and loudspeaker.{{cite journal | url=https://archive.org/stream/filmdaily2324newy#page/n492/mode/1up/search/hunchback | title=Radio Replaces Megaphone | journal=The Film Daily |date=March 1923 | volume=23-24 | pages=493}} The film was Universal's most successful silent film.{{cite web|url=https://archive.org/stream/variety106-1932-06#page/n120/mode/1up|title=Biggest Money Pictures|work=Variety|date=June 21, 1932|page=1}}
Personal life
Worsley married Indiana-born actress, Julia Marie Taylor, on September 18, 1904. Among Julia's film credits is the title role of Juliet in the 1911 short Romeo and Juliet, directed by Barry O'Neil, considered to be the first attempt to distill the entire Shakespeare narrative into a single film. Together, they had two sons, Wallace Worsley Jr. (1908-1991), an assistant director and production manager, whose career spanned nearly six decades and included The Wizard of Oz and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, and Paul Brackenride Worsley (1920-1933). He died in 1944 at the age of 65.
Selected filmography
| class="wikitable sortable" |
| Year
! Title ! Role |
|---|
| 1917
| Sir Charles Broome |
| 1917
| Curt Schrieber |
| 1917
| Alimony | John Flint |
| 1918
| Henry Jenks |
| 1918
| Albert Lockhart |
| 1918
| director |
| 1918
| director |
| 1919
| Adele | director |
| 1919
| director |
| 1919
| director |
| 1919
| director |
| 1920/I
| director |
| 1921
| director |
| 1921
| director |
| 1921
| director |
| 1922
| director |
| 1922
|director |
| 1922
| director |
| 1922
|Rags to Riches |director |
| 1923
| Henry Jenks |
| 1923
| director |
| 1923
| director |
| 1923
| director |
| 1924
| director |
| 1926
| director |
| 1928
| director |
References
{{Reflist|2}}
External links
{{commons category}}
- {{IMDb name|0941637}}
- {{IBDB name|65656}}
- {{Find a Grave|7966893}}
- [https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/search/index?utf8=%E2%9C%93&keywords=wallace+worsley Wallace Worsley] as an actor on Broadway; photo from NYP Library
- [http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GS|n=worsley&GSfn=wallace&GSbyrel=in&GSdyrel=in&GSob=n&GRid=7966893& Wallace Worsley] gravesite at Findagrave
- [http://collections.mcny.org/CS.aspx?VP3=SearchResult&VBID=24UP1GK7Q6Y5&SMLS=1&RW=1165&RH=900 Wallace Worsley] on Broadway, 1914, in the play "Don't Weaken" with Marion Lorne(City Museum of NY)
{{Wallace Worsley}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Worsley, Wallace}}
Category:20th-century American male actors
Category:American male stage actors
Category:People from Wappingers Falls, New York
Category:Male actors from New York (state)
Category:Film directors from New York (state)