William S. Hart
Birthday: 1864-12-06
Place of Birth: Newburgh, New York, USA
Biography: The first Western superstar, the taciturn Hart actually was a successful Shakespearean actor who played Messala in “Ben-Hur” on Broadway in 1899 before riding the range in movies. A longtime fan of the Old West, Hart was friends with Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson. His film career began in 1914. After two supporting roles he gained fame as the lead in the feature-length western “The Bargain” shot on location at the Grand Canyon. Hart strove to make his westerns realistic with detailed attention played to costumes and props. Though Hart could be cast as a villain, he imbued all of his characters with honor and integrity. After making western shorts for producer Thomas Ince, he went to Famous Players-Lasky, which merged with Paramount Pictures in 1917. At Paramount he made such gritty feature westerns as “Square Deal Sanderson” and “The Toll Gate.” His star began to fade in the early 1920s when audiences grew tired of his moralistic Western tales. Not helping his career was his 1923 divorce from his wife, Winifred, who accused him of having two children by another woman. He made one last film, 1925’s “Tumbleweeds, which he financed himself. In 1939, the film was reissued this time with a prologue featuring a 75-year-old Hart shot on location at his ranch in Newhall talking about the West and his days in films. He died in 1946 at age 81. His home and ranch were turned into William S. Hart Park in Newhall.
Movies
Hollywood
Angela comes to Hollywood with only two things: Her dream to become a movie star, and Grandpa. She l...
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Yesterday and Today
A compilation of early-day silent films that serves as a glimpse back to the formative days of the m...
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His Hour of Manhood
Pete Larson is a brute whose battered wife, Anne, finally finds courage to leave. The woman gets los...
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Jim Cameron's Wife
Jim Cameron becomes desperate at his failure to get work, and resolves to hold up the stage in order...
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The Roughneck
Avis and Franklin Hilliard are the spoiled, overbearing children of a wealthy father who has just di...
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Pinto Ben
Pinto Ben is a pink-nosed cow-pony. A hundred head of cattle are rounded up for beef to be shipped a...
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The Scourge of the Desert
Bill Evers, a gambling house keeper, is in reality the "Desert Scourge," an outlaw....
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Mr. 'Silent' Haskins
Lon 'Silent' Haskins competes for the affection of a woman who recently inherited ownership of the l...
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The Conversion of Frosty Blake
Rev. Horace Brightray, pastor of a New England village church, is ordered by his physician to seek a...
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Cash Parrish's Pal
Cash Parrish, a bandit, is betrayed to the sheriff by his pal, Jud Ross, who covets Parrish's treasu...
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The Devil's Double
"Bowie" Blake is a gambler in a mining camp. One day, an artist, Van Dyke Tarleton comes to town wit...
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The Border Wireless
Cowhand Steve Ransom discovers that German spies are operating along Mexican border, relaying their ...
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Staking His Life
In this re-edited, re-titled version of 'Conversion of Frosty Blake, The (1915)', some character nam...
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The Legend of Rudolph Valentino
A documentary of Hollywood's first great Latin Lover, the contradictions in his personal life, and h...
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Hell's Hinges
When Reverend Robert Henley and his sister Faith arrive in the town of Hell's Hinges, saloon owner S...
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Tumbleweeds
William S. Hart stars in this 1925 silent film as a cowboy intent on claiming land during the 1889 l...
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The Narrow Trail
Ice Harding, outlaw, tames a wild horse and names it King. Ice and his gang hold up a stagecoach and...
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The Return of Draw Egan
A small town marshal’s secret past as an outlaw comes back to haunt him when an old associate shows ...
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Sand
Railroad station agent Dan Kurrie is fired from his job by his rival in love, Joseph Garber. Believe...
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The Toll Gate
Outlaw Black Deering leads a band of desperadoes, but decides to give up the bandit life. Agreeing t...
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Wagon Tracks
Buckskin Hamilton guides a wagon train across the wasteland, caring well for the pioneers he escorts...
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The Bargain
After the bandit known as the Two-Gun Man Jim Stokes robs the stage, he is wounded in his flight fro...
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The Cold Deck
Gambler "On-the Level" Leigh (William S. Hart) is forced to leave his high rolling lifestyle to move...
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Keno Bates, Liar
Jim Maitland loses his last cent gambling the Double Stamp saloon and gambling hall, and shortly aft...
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The Ruse
"Bat" Peters, reformed gunfighter turned prospector, travels to Chicago to collect on a business dea...
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The Cradle of Courage
Former crook 'Square' Kelly serves in the First World War. When he returns from the war, one of his ...
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Travelin' On
A Western involving William S Hart as an outlaw who comes to the aid of a preacher in a small town t...
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The Taking of Luke McVane
Luke McVane (William S. Hart) shoots a card-cheat in self-defense and has to make a run for it befor...
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The Silent Man
A hard-working prospector enters the town of Bakeoven to stake his claim, only to have his rights st...
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Shark Monroe
In this 1918 film, newly restored by MoMA, Hart is a ship's captain in the Pacific Northwest who aba...
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Between Men
When Ashley Hampdon becomes the target of a scheme to ruin him by his daughter's suitor, Hampdon sen...
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Knight of the Trail
Jim and Molly are set to get married when Molly finds out about her fiancé's criminal past. Bill Car...
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On the Night Stage
A stagecoach robber falls in love with a saloon girl. However, she falls for a pastor, who converts ...
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The Dawn Maker
Half-breed Joe Elk wavers between the "civilized" nature of his white father and the passion of his ...
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The Darkening Trail
Yukon Ed has asked saloon owner Ruby McGraw to marry him several times, and has been turned down eac...
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Three Word Brand
Ben Trego dies defending his twin sons from Indian attack. Separated, the two boys grow up very diff...
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'Blue Blazes' Rawden
Rawden, a lumberjack in the North woods, fights with crooked dance hall owner 'Ladyfingers' Hilgard ...
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White Oak
Gambler Oak Miller seeks revenge on the man who misused his sister Rose, who is ill and under the ca...
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The Gun Fighter
Cliff Hudspeth, the leader of a band of outlaws in Arizona, has won his place by the killing of noto...
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Wild Bill Hickok
The former gambler turned upholder of law and order after a run-in with a gang of stage robbers....
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The Captive God
A Spanish boy is shipwrecked and cast ashore in Mexico in the sixteenth century. He is raised as a g...
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The Disciple
Jim Houston, the "Shootin' Iron" Parson, comes to Barren Gulch to reform the morals of the frontier ...
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All-Star Production of Patriotic Episodes for the Second Liberty Loan
Short film with Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford & W.S. Hart promoting war bonds....
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Bad Buck of Santa Ynez
An outlaw on the run comes upon a widow and her small child. When the child is bitten by a snake, th...
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Tools of Providence
Dakota Dan, who runs the saloon and gambling hall, is refusing to take another drink with the boys, ...
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Hedda Hopper's Hollywood No. 1
Hedda Hopper guides us through some of Hollywood's sights; the home of William S. Hart and a Kay Kys...
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The Square Deal Man
A gambler decides to play one last game before he turns over a new leaf. However, during the game o...
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The Sheriff's Streak of Yellow
One of the earliest westerns directed by William S. Hart. In this film Sferiff Hale (Hart) lets a vi...
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The Aryan
Steve Denton, rich from years of prospecting, is fleeced by the citizens of Yellow Ridge. In his rag...
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Show People
Hollywood hopeful Peggy Pepper arrives at a major studio, from Georgia, to become a great dramatic s...
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Branding Broadway
Drunk and disorderly cowpoke Robert Sands is banished from an Arizona frontier town and hops on a fr...
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The Desert Man
William S. Hart directs and stars in a film that is a typical Western of the era. He plays Jim, a pr...
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The Testing Block
The tough outlaw 'Sierra' Bill falls in love with the traveling girl violinist Nelly Gray. Sierra fo...
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The Hollywood Gad-About
A parade highlights the Screen Actors Guild's Film Stars Frolic, hosted by Walter Winchell as Master...
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Wolves of the Rail
Smoky Gap Railroad president Murray Lemantier is fed up with a bandit gang led by Buck Andrade const...
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The Tiger Man
Outlaw Hawk Parsons, notoriously successful in his pursuits, has been caught by the local sherif of ...
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Selfish Yates
The story is set in Arizona, where the aptly nicknamed Yates is the proprietor of the local saloon. ...
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Breed of Men
Boss rider "Careless" Carmody is made sheriff of an Arizona frontier town by Chicago swindler Prenti...
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Riddle Gawne
When Gawne finds his brother dying and hears that the killer has run off with his brother's wife, he...
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O'Malley of the Mounted
Sergeant O'Malley of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police gets himself into a gang of outlaws in order ...
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Truthful Tulliver
Truthful Tulliver, a Westerner and a journeying newspaperman, followed by Silver Lode Thompson, prin...
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John Petticoats
John Haynes is known as "Hardwood" in the Northwoods town where he is the boss lumberjack. But his u...
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Singer Jim Mckee
Jim McKee and his friend Buck rob a stagecoach to get money to support Buck's daughter. Buck is kill...
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Wolf Lowry
William S. Hart was the great solitary Western hero of silent film who rode his horse off to new adv...
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Square Deal Sanderson
Square Deal Sanderson is in pursuit of a horse thief, but someone else shoots the varmint before San...
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The House That Shadows Built
The House That Shadows Built (1931) is a short feature, roughly 48 minutes long, from Paramount Pict...
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The Man from Nowhere
In Snake River, Buck Farley breaks up a fight staged by crooked Chicago Saloon owner Johnson, who se...
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In the Sage Brush Country
In what scenarist C. Gardner Sullivan misleadingly called “The Romantic Adventures of a Woman of the...
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The Patriot
Family relationships of a New Mexico family are just one part of this silent cowboy western about a...
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The Poppy Girl's Husband
A silent romantic love triangle crime melodrama about a man who gets out of prison after ten years a...
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The Money Corral
Cowhand Lem Beason wins a shooting contest at a Western rodeo, and as a result is hired by railroad ...
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The Apostle of Vengeance
1916 American silent drama film directed by Clifford Smith and starring William S. Hart, Nona Thomas...
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The Great Chase
A rollicking compendium of the greatest hits of silent-cinema chase sequences...
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