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“The Edwin Booth of the Screen”
Henry B. Walthall Has Earned That Title for Himself, and Has But Few Competitors
By RICHARD WILLIS
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s there a photoplay fan who does not know the expressive face or the earnest work of Henry Walthall on the screen? It ^ 1^3 would seem impossible that such Yes, I believe that
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could be the case.
about every one, and his wife, knows the screen-Walthall, but there are mighty few people who know Walthall the everyday man.
To know Walthall, the man, is a privilege enjoyed by the few. This is not because “Wally” thinks himself above having many acquaintances, or that he has a very high estimate of himself and his own abilities. On the other hand, one of his greatest drawbacks in the past was that he underestimated himself and was more inclined to discourage praise than to court it. In fact, it was only after some of his best friends had gone to him and talked to and at him that it dawned upon him that he. might, after all, be a person of some great importance.
He presents one of the exceptions to a general rule. It is said that a man is taken at his own estimate ; in Walthall’s case he was, and is, taken at other people’s estimate/ and all the modesty in the world could not prevent his being placed on a pedestal and receiving the recognition due to the man who is said by the best experts to be the greatest actor of them all.
Walthall is not a man who can be successfully interviewed. The best a writer could expect from him would be a short talk, forever being hedged away from the subject of himself and his doings. The padding would have to come from references to other interviews and from talks to those about him. My data have come from the memories of quiet evenings, of talks of many things, and from the careful mind-storage of details which he has dropped from time to time concerning his ambitions, his friends and his past. When he does refer to his birthplace, it is to recount amusing
(Fifty -five)
HENRY B. “WALTHALL
tales of childhood’s ambitions, joys or woes. The love of the plantation where he was born is very evident, and one easily understands how tenaciously he and his brothers and sisters are holding on to the place o’ memories. Walthall says he is going to return there when he is thru with art and work, and that he hopes to
end his days on the place where they started.
Walthall retains the most grateful appreciation of his association with David W. Griffith, and never hesitates to give that great director the full credit of presenting him to screen audiences. It was Griffith who discovered Walthall ; that is, so far as