Warner, H. B.

(1875-1958)

   Born Henry Byron Lickfold in London, the son of actor Charles Warner, H. B. Warner took his father's stage surname and began an acting career with important roles in London's West End. Arriving in the United States in 1905, Warner was hired by Theodore A. Liebler to play opposite Eleanor Robson in a series of plays, including Israel Zangwill's Nurse Marjorie (1906). His first great success came in Paul Armstrong's Alias Jimmy Valentine (1910), after which he appeared with distinction in a number of lesser works, including Blackbirds (1913), The Ghost Breaker (1913), a revival of Out There (1918), Sleeping Partners (1918), and Danger (1921). Warner began a motion picture career in 1914 and became a major star during the silent era in The King of Kings (1927), playing Jesus Christ. Warner returned to Broadway on occasion after 1920, notably to play Maitland White, the businessman who gives up his career to be a painter, in Philip Barry's You and I (1923), and then Jim Warren, a murder suspect who cannot defend himself to save his daughter from blackmail, in Max Marcin 's Silence (1924). This was Warner's final stage role and he spent the remainder of his long career acting in more than 100 films, including such classics as A Tale of Two Cities (1935), Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936), Lost Horizon (1937),Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), It's a Wonderful Life (1946), and The Ten Commandments (1956). In the 1950s, he was one of Hollywood's most beloved character actors.