Douglas Elton Fairbanks Sr.[1] (born Douglas Elton Thomas Ullman; May 23, 1883 – December 12, 1939) was an American actor and filmmaker,[2] best known for his swashbuckling roles in silent films. One of the biggest stars of the silent era, Fairbanks was referred to as "The King of Hollywood",.[3] He was also a founding member of United Artists as well as the Motion Picture Academy and hosted the 1st Academy Awards in 1929.
Born in Denver, Colorado, Fairbanks started acting from an early age and established himself as an accomplished stage actor on Broadway by the late 1900s. He made his film debut in 1915 and quickly became one of the most popular and highest paid actors in Hollywood. In 1919, he co-founded United Artists alongside Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford and D. W. Griffith. Fairbanks married Pickford in 1920 and the couple came to be regarded as "Hollywood royalty". Primarily a comedic actor early in his career, he moved into the adventure genre with the 1920 film The Mark of Zorro and found further success in films including Robin Hood (1922) and The Thief of Bagdad (1924).
Fairbanks' career rapidly declined with the advent of the "talkies" in the late 1920s. His final film was The Private Life of Don Juan (1934), after which he retired from acting but continued to be marginally involved in the film industry and United Artists. He died in 1939 at the age of 56.
^Vance, Jeffrey (2008). Cushman, Robert (ed.). Douglas Fairbanks. University of California Press. p. 13. ISBN 978-0520256675.
^Obituary, Variety, December 13, 1939, p. 54.
^"Douglas Fairbanks Sr. Biography". The Douglas Fairbanks Museum. Archived from the original on May 15, 2008.
Douglas Elton Fairbanks Sr. (born Douglas Elton Thomas Ullman; May 23, 1883 – December 12, 1939) was an American actor and filmmaker, best known for his...
Robin Hood is a 1922 silent adventure film starring DouglasFairbanks and Wallace Beery. It was the first motion picture ever to have a Hollywood premiere...
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decades. Alongside her future husband, actor-producer DouglasFairbanks, Pickford founded Pickford–Fairbanks Studios and United Artists, and was one of the 36...
swashbucklers.[citation needed] The most famous of those were the films of DouglasFairbanks, such as The Mark of Zorro (1920), which defined the genre. The stories...
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reclusive with the press, but received attention after being seen with DouglasFairbanks, Jr. He had his first boyhood crush on her, as he remembered in his...
adventurer and a "company" of pirates. Directed by Albert Parker, it stars DouglasFairbanks, Donald Crisp, Sam De Grasse, and Billie Dove. In 1993, The Black...
was Catholic. Fairbanks was the son of DouglasFairbanks and the stepson of Mary Pickford, who were considered Hollywood royalty. Fairbanks Sr. and Pickford...
DouglasFairbanks Presents is a 1953–1956 syndicated half-hour dramatic anthology series. DouglasFairbanks Jr. was the host, and he sometimes starred...
writes that DouglasFairbanks and Mary Pickford were aboard the same ship, returning from their honeymoon; Grant played shuffleboard with Fairbanks, who became...
full title of the film is DouglasFairbanks as The Gaucho) is a 1927 American silent adventure film starring DouglasFairbanks and Lupe Vélez that is set...
the World in 80 Minutes with DouglasFairbanks is a 1931 American Pre-Code documentary film directed by DouglasFairbanks and Victor Fleming and written...
and devil-may-care attitude were influenced by the characters of DouglasFairbanks, who starred in adventure films such as The Mark of Zorro and Robin...
Inspired by such silent film personalities as Charlie Chaplin and DouglasFairbanks, Mickey is traditionally characterized as a sympathetic underdog who...
Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) and hosted by AMPAS president DouglasFairbanks, honored the best films from 1 August 1927 to 31 July 1928 and took...
Berkeley Square as a country home. Phillips sold the property to actor DouglasFairbanks in 1918. Coined "Pickfair" by the press, it became one of the most...
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