Fairbanks, Douglas

(1883-1939)

   Although best known as a motion picture actor, Fairbanks performed for about 12 years in legitimate theatre as well as two years in vaudeville. He was born Douglas Elton Ulman in Denver, Colorado, the son of a New York lawyer whose unfortunate investment in a silver mine turned him to drink and ruined his marriage in 1889. The boy's mother, Ella Marsh Fairbanks, provided for her three sons by running a boarding house, and insisted that Douglas swear he would never drink. Eventually the family moved back east. Under the name Elton Thomas, Fairbanks first tried acting in 1892 in Richmond, Virginia. By 1898, he was a supernumerary in the company of Frederick Warde and Louis James, and in 1900, he acted in support of Herbert Kelcey. After a hiatus, during which he tried other pursuits, he returned to the stage and earned his first mention in the New York Times for a supporting role in The Pit (11 February 1904).

   William A. Brady cast Fairbanks in support of Grace George in Clothes (1906) and recalled the physical energy that characterized Fairbanks's work on stage as well as in film: "One of the sets for Clothes included a long flight of steps to a high platform. During rehearsals, which always wear everybody else to a frazzle, Fairbanks' idea of resting up was to walk up and down that flight of steps on his hands" (Brady 1937, 262). Audiences, especially women, loved Fairbanks, who sustained The Man of the Hour for a run of over a year. According to the review (New York Times, 5 December 1906): "Douglas Fairbanks played his now familiar, breezy, attractive youth, and his opportunities to score were frequent in a part of many well directed lines." After 1914, he made his career in Hollywood as one of the legends of silent cinema.