Wallace Reid

Known for ActingBorn 1891-04-14Died 1923-01-18Saint Louis, Missouri, USA

Wallace Reid was an American actor in silent film referred to as "the screen's most perfect lover". Wallace Reid appeared in several films with his father, and as his career in film flourished, he was soon acting and directing with and for early film mogul Allan Dwan. In 1913, while at Universal Pictures, Reid met and married actress Dorothy Davenport. He was featured as Jeff, the blacksmith, in The Birth of a Nation (1915) and had an uncredited role in Intolerance (1916), both directed by D. W. Griffith; he worked with leading ladies such as Florence Turner, Gloria Swanson, Lillian Gish, Elsie Ferguson, and Geraldine Farrar en route to becoming one of Hollywood's major heartthrobs. Already involved with the creation of more than 100 motion picture shorts, Reid was signed by producer Jesse L. Lasky and starred in over 60 films for Lasky's Famous Players film company, which later became Paramount Pictures. Frequently paired with actress Ann Little, his action-hero role as the dashing race-car driver drew young girls and older women alike to theaters to see his daredevil auto thrillers such as The Roaring Road (1919), Double Speed (1920), Excuse My Dust (1920), and Too Much Speed (1921). While en route to a location in Oregon during filming of The Valley of the Giants (1919), Reid was injured in a train wreck near Arcata, California and needed six stitches to close a 3-inch (8 cm) scalp wound. To keep on filming, he was prescribed morphine for relief of his pain and Reid soon became addicted, but kept on working at a frantic pace in films that were growing more physically demanding, and changing from 15–20 minutes in duration to as much as an hour. Reid's morphine addiction worsened at a time when drug rehabilitation programs were non-existent. He died in a sanatorium while attempting to recover.Read more

Movies & web series

The Ghost Breaker

The Lottery Man

The Guerilla Menace

The Hidden Treasure

War

The Movie Album

Rent Free

Clarence

What's Your Hurry?

Always Audacious

The Dub

You're Fired

Virginius

Hunted Down

The House That Shadows Built

Thirty Days

Nice People

The World's Champion

The Dictator

Night Life in Hollywood

Across the Continent

Too Much Speed

The Love Special

Forever

Don't Tell Everything

The Dancin' Fool

Double Speed

The Love Burglar

His Extra Bit

The Tell-Tale Arm

The High Grader

His Mother's Son

Calamity Anne Takes a Trip

A Red Cross Martyr; or, on the Firing Lines of Tripoli

The Seepore Rebellion

A Daughter of the Redskins

A Trip to Paramountown

The Legend of Rudolph Valentino

Intolerance: Love's Struggle Throughout the Ages

The Charm School

Sick Abed

The Wall of Flame

The Wrong Heart

The Daughter of a Crook

The Joke on Yellentown

Their Masterpiece

The Eye of a God

The Path of True Love