Conway Tearle

Conway Tearle, born Frederick Conway Levy on May 17, 1878, in New York City, was an American stage and film actor whose Broadway career spanned from 1905 to 1937. He was the son of Jules Levy, a British-born cornetist of considerable reputation, and Marianne "Minnie" Conway, an American actress. His maternal grandmother, Sarah Crocker Conway, was also a stage actress, and his maternal lineage traced back to William Augustus Conway, a British Shakespearean actor who gained popularity in America during the 1820s. Minnie's father, proprietor of the Brooklyn Theatre, was credited with organizing the first stock company in America. Tearle had a sister and a half-brother, Jules Levy Jr., a musician from his father's previous marriage. After his parents separated, his mother married Osmond Tearle, a British Shakespearean actor, and two additional half-brothers, Godfrey and Malcolm Tearle, were born from that union. As an adult, Frederick Conway Levy adopted his stepfather's surname, becoming Conway Tearle.

Tearle received his education in both England and America and showed an early aptitude for the stage. By the age of ten he had committed twelve Shakespearean plays to memory. At twenty-one, while in Manchester, England, he was called upon without preparation to replace an ailing lead actor and performed the role of Hamlet on the night of the first act. That performance led directly to his London stage debut on April 27, 1901, at the Garrick Theatre, where he played the Viscomte de Chauvin, the lead role in The Queen's Double. He subsequently toured Australia for several months in the title role of Ben Hur before returning to London to appear in The Best of Friends at the Theatre Royal. Over the following four seasons he divided his time between companies led by Ellen Terry and Sir Charles Wyndham. In 1901, also in Sunderland, England, Tearle married for the first time.

Tearle returned to America in 1905 to appear opposite Grace George in Abigail, his first Broadway production. Over the next several years he performed in a number of Broadway productions, earning particular notice for his work in The New York Idea, The Truth, and Major Barbara, among others. During the 1908–09 season he reprised his title role in a Klaw and Erlanger road production of Ben Hur. In 1908 he filed for divorce in Reno, Nevada, from his first wife, Gertrude Tearle, citing desertion. His second wife, actress Josephine Park, sued for divorce in March 1912 after Tearle sailed for Italy aboard the S.S. Amerika with actress Roberta Hill, whose name had previously appeared as a co-respondent in a divorce suit filed by the wife of John Jacob Astor. Tearle subsequently married Hill, his third wife, though she filed for divorce in 1916 after detectives she hired discovered him in a hotel room with Adele Rowland, a musical-comedy actress and singer. Tearle and Rowland wed in February 1918 and remained together until his death.

Tearle transitioned to Hollywood in 1914, where he built a substantial film career playing romantic leads. His first film was The Nightingale, based on a story by Augustus Thomas and starring Ethel Barrymore. He appeared in approximately 93 films over the course of his career and was at one point considered the highest-paid actor in America. On December 16, 1931, he appeared with co-star Kay Francis at the grand opening of the Paramount Theater in Oakland, California, which hosted the premiere of their film The False Madonna, released by Paramount Pictures. His final film was a 1936 adaptation of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet featuring John Barrymore.

Tearle returned to Broadway with considerable success in 1932, originating the role of Larry Renault, a fading screen idol, in the production of Dinner at Eight. The role was later portrayed on film by John Barrymore. His subsequent Broadway appearances included Living Dangerously in 1935 and Antony and Cleopatra in 1937. Around the same period, Tearle was involved with Hey Diddle Diddle, a comedy written by Bartlett Cormack that also featured Lucille Ball. The play premiered in Princeton, New Jersey, on January 21, 1937, and was scheduled to open at the Vanderbilt Theatre on Broadway, but closed after one week in Washington, D.C., due in part to Tearle's deteriorating health. Playwright Cormack sought to replace him, while producer Anne Nichols maintained that the character itself required revision; the two could not reach an agreement.

Conway Tearle died of a heart attack on October 1, 1938, in the Hollywood district of Los Angeles.