The World of William Russell

Just a few brief lines about major silent screen star William Russell (William Lerche, 1884-1929) who appeared in over 200 films over the course of two decades.

The son of stage actress Clara Russell (a different one from Rosalind Russell’s mother), Russell had first acted on stage as a child. Illness the early period of his career. Later he built himself up as an amateur boxer, and practiced law for a time, before returning to the theatre as a young man. For a few years he acted in stock and on Broadway opposite stars like Ethel Barrymore and Chauncey Olcott. His screen career began in 1910. For the first first few years he kept bouncing back and forth between Biograph and Thanhouser. Later he worked at Fox, MGM, Flying A, and even his own studio William Russell Productions.

Just a few of Russell’s more notable films: one of the screen’s first versions of A Doll’s House (1911), an early version of Robin Hood (1913), one of the first cinematic treatments of Boston Blackie (1923), the first film of O’Neill’s Anna Christie (1923), and John Ford’s The Blue Eagle (1926). He personally directed several of his own starring vehicles in 1916. Over the years he co-starred with actors like Betty Bronson, Conrad Nagel, Myrna Loy, Renée Adorée, Irene Rich,Victor McLaglen,Matt and Tom Moore, and his two wives Charlotte Burton and Helen Ferguson. Girl’s GoneWild (1929), a talkie for Fox, was his last film.

Pneumonia took him at the young age of 44.

For more on silent movies please read  Chain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickelodeons to Youtube.