Carlyle Blackwell


Carlyle Blackwell was an American silent film actor, director and producer.
He made his film debut in the 1910 Vitagraph Studios production of Uncle Tom's Cabin directed by J. Stuart Blackton. Between then and 1930, when talkies ended his acting career, he appeared in more than 180 films. For his contributions to the film industry, Blackwell has a motion pictures star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6340 Hollywood Boulevard. In his later years he was also active as a producer and writer. After his final film in 1930, Blackwell turned to performing on stage in live theatre.

Life

Blackwell was born in Syracuse, New York. He was married three times, first to actress Ruth Hartman, who was the mother of his daughter and son. In 1923, he divorced Hartman for desertion. In 1926, he married his second wife Leah Barnato, known as the "Queen of Diamonds," the daughter of a South African diamond millionaire and sister of Woolf Barnato. His third wife was former Ziegfeld girl Avonne Taylor, whom he met on a transatlantic crossing and married in 1933 after divorcing Leah Blackwell in 1932. In 1934, the couple purchased a farmhouse estate in Brookfield, Connecticut. He died in Miami, Florida in 1955, aged 71. His son, Carlyle Blackwell, Jr., an actor also, died in Hollywood, California in 1974.

Filmography

Partial filmography

Carlyle Blackwell went to England in 1921 and played the first Bulldog Drummond in film, in a movie called Bulldog Drummond.
On Page 18, Chapter 2, in ' A Notable Woman ', , the English Diarist, Jean Lucey Pratt , is quoted as having seen Blackwell filming : Saturday, Sept. 11th., 1927 : " On the rocks, just below the Mullion Hotel...we discovered...he is Carlyle Blackwell ". He was filming ' The Rolling Road '.
He stayed and worked in England until 1931, both in the theater and in movies.

Main roles

He took part in many other productions which increased his popularity. To his numerous appearances in front of the camera belong among others: