Fred Niblo

Fred Niblo, born Frederick Liedtke on January 6, 1874, in York, Nebraska, was an American actor, director, and producer whose career spanned vaudeville, Broadway, and Hollywood. His father had served as a captain in the Union Army and sustained wounds at the Battle of Gettysburg, while his mother was of French descent. Adopting the stage name Fred Niblo, Liedtke launched his entertainment career as a monologist in vaudeville and live theater, a phase of his professional life that lasted more than two decades and included extensive travel around the world.

Niblo's Broadway career ran from 1900 to 1940 and encompassed a range of productions. Among his stage credits were the burlesque The Giddy Throng, the musical The Rogers Brothers in Panama, Hit-the-Trail-Holiday, The Love Drive, and Quiet, Please. The external record also places him in The Rogers Brothers in Paris from 1904 to 1905, where he appeared as the character Walter Lee Leonard, before returning once again to vaudeville. On June 2, 1901, he married Broadway actress Josephine Cohan, the older sister of George M. Cohan, and took on the management of the Four Cohans during their productions of The Governor's Son and Running for Office.

Josephine Cohan died in 1916, the same year Niblo began directing motion pictures. During an earlier period working in Australia from 1912 through 1915, he had encountered the growing film industry and made his first two films, also meeting actress Enid Bennett, who would become his second wife. The couple later commissioned architect Wallace Neff to design a home on Angelo Drive, which they named Misty Mountain; the house was completed in 1926 and sold by Niblo to Jules C. Stein in 1940.

As a Hollywood director, Niblo built a substantial body of work beginning with the 1920 Douglas Fairbanks vehicle The Mark of Zorro. He reteamed with Fairbanks the following year on The Three Musketeers and then directed Rudolph Valentino in Blood and Sand. In 1924 he directed Thy Name Is Woman, and in 1925 he served as principal director on Ben-Hur, one of the most expensive productions of its era and ultimately the third highest-grossing silent film in cinema history. The following year brought two additional major projects: The Temptress, which featured Greta Garbo in her second American film, and Camille, starring Norma Talmadge. His directorial work also included films with Joan Crawford, Lillian Gish, and Ronald Colman. In 1930 he directed his first sound film, Redemption, featuring John Gilbert and Renée Adorée.

Niblo was one of the original founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. His son with Josephine Cohan, Fred Niblo Jr. (1903–1973), became an Academy Award-nominated screenwriter. Niblo retired in 1933 after more than forty years in show business, during the last sixteen of which he produced more than forty films. His 1925 Ben-Hur has been selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry, and he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7014 Hollywood Boulevard on February 8, 1960. He died in New Orleans, Louisiana, and is interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California, near his wife Enid Bennett, with whom he had three children.