Robert Warwick: 60 Years in Spotlights

Most who remember actor Robert Warwick (Robert Bien, 1878-1964) probably know him best as a supporting player of the sound era. His over 250 credits include nearly all of the Preston Sturges classics, as well as familiar films like Dr. X (1932), Cleopatra (1934), Anna Karenina (1935), The Little Colonel (1935), Romeo and Juliet (1936), Mary of Scotland (1936), The Prince and the Pauper (1937), The Life of Emil Zola (1937), The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), Juarez (1939), The Sea Hawk (1940), Louisiana Purchase (1941), I Married a Witch (1942), The Deerslayer (1943), The Three Musketeers (1948), The Buccaneer (1958) and scores of others. Lots of historical costume pictures, eh?

Most of Warwick’s films from those latter decades were smallish. Prior to this, however, he had been a major star of Broadway and silent films. Originally from California, he studied music in France, the country of ancestors and hoped to become an opera singer, but quickly settled on a career in the drama. His Broadway debut was in Glad of It (1903) with John Barrymore. He was to appear on Broadway in nearly three dozen productions, in such plays as Anna Karenina (1906, as Vronsky), Two Women (1910) with Mrs. Leslie Carter, The Princess (1912, with his wife Josephine Whittell) and Drifting (1922) with Alice Brady.

Warwick’s screen career began with the 1914 William Brady production The Dollar Mark. Of his dozens of silent films the best remembered may be Alias Jimmy Valentine (1915), directed by Maurice Tourneur, in which he played the title character. He also played Nathan Hale in The Heart of a Hero (1916), starred in a 1919 screen version of William Gillette’sSecret Service, and played the title role in William de Mille’s Jack Straw (1920). In the middle of that period, he served bravely at the front for a year and a half in World War One. In 1930 he married Stella Larrimore of the distinguished Adler family of actors.

In his later years, Warwick frequently portrayed Native American characters in westerns in both film and television, among his many characters. From the ’50s, tv took up an increasing amount of his output and you can see him in memorable episodes of The Loretta Young Show,The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin, The Twilight Zone, Wagon Train, and many others. His last credit was a 1962 episode of Dr. Kildare.

For more on silent and early film comedy read  Chain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickelodeons to Youtube.