Franklyn Farnum

Franklyn Farnum, born William Smith on June 5, 1878, in Boston, Massachusetts, was an American actor whose career spanned stage, silent film, sound film, and television. He died on July 4, 1961, of cancer at the Motion Picture and Television Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, California, at the age of 83. He was also credited in some productions as Frank Farnum.

Farnum's Broadway career ran from 1913 to 1929 and included four productions. His earliest stage credit was the musical Somewhere Else in 1913. He later appeared in the Ziegfeld 9 O'clock Frolic and the Ziegfeld Midnight Frolic, both in 1921, and closed his Broadway career with the revue Keep It Clean in 1929.

His screen career was built largely on westerns. Among his silent film work were the serial Vanishing Trails in 1920 and features including The Clock in 1917, The Firebrand in 1922, The Drug Store Cowboy in 1925, and The Gambling Fool in 1925. Farnum stepped away from films in 1925 but returned five years later with the arrival of sound. In the sound era he found himself receiving lower billing or no screen credit at all, yet he continued working in these smaller roles well into the 1950s, accumulating appearances in at least 1,100 films over the course of his career.

A notable distinction of Farnum's film work is that he appeared in more Academy Award for Best Picture winners than any other performer in American film history. Those films included The Life of Emile Zola in 1937, Going My Way in 1944, The Lost Weekend in 1945, Gentleman's Agreement in 1947, All About Eve in 1950, The Greatest Show on Earth in 1952, and Around the World in 80 Days in 1956.

In his personal life, Farnum was married three times. One of his wives was actress Alma Rubens, whom he married in 1918 and divorced in 1919. With his third wife, Edith Goodwin Farnum née Walker, he had one daughter, actress Geraldine Rose Farnum, born in 1924.