Gareth Hughes

Gareth Hughes, born William John Hughes on 23 August 1894 in Dafen, Carmarthenshire, Wales, was a stage and silent screen actor whose career spanned Broadway, Hollywood, and the theatre. He died on 1 October 1965. Raised in a working-class family, Hughes began performing during childhood and went on to establish himself as a recognizable presence in both American theatre and silent film.

Hughes's path to the United States began when he joined a group of Welsh players after working with several touring companies in the United Kingdom. The group traveled to America, and although the tour itself was not a commercial success, Hughes was noticed while performing in Chicago. He chose to remain in the country to continue his acting career, and by the end of 1915 had achieved recognition on Broadway. His Broadway appearances ran from 1914 to 1925 and included productions such as The Dunce Boy, The New Word, The Guilty Man, Caliban of the Yellow Sands, and Margaret Schiller, among others. His stage work consistently placed him in youthful leading roles, a type he would carry into his film career as well.

His success on Broadway opened the door to motion pictures. Hughes made forty-five films between 1918 and 1931, with early screen appearances alongside Clara Kimball Young in Eyes of Youth (1919) and Marguerite Clark in Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch (1920). He was paired with Viola Dana in The Chorus Girl's Romance (1920). After signing with Metro Pictures, he was loaned to Famous Players-Lasky for Sentimental Tommy (1921), a production he considered both his favorite and most successful film role. In 1945, he served as Welsh dialect coach on The Corn Is Green, starring Bette Davis.

The Wall Street crash of 1929 left Hughes without the fortune he had accumulated, though he continued making films through 1931, with Scareheads serving as his final screen appearance. He then returned to the stage, and his last theatrical role was an eighteen-week run at the Hollywood Playhouse in 1938, in which he played Shylock in The Merchant of Venice.

In the early 1940s, Hughes experienced a religious calling and adopted the name Brother David. In 1944, he became a Christian missionary to the Paiute Indians on the Pyramid Lake Reservation in Nevada, where he spent nearly fourteen years. He referred to the people there as his children. During this period, he sorted donated clothing at Pyramid Lake, work that exposed him to lint particles and led to his contracting byssinosis, a respiratory disease that would ultimately contribute to his death.

In 1958, Hughes returned to Llanelli, Wales, intending to spend his remaining years there, but after five months he went back to California. He later moved into the Motion Picture Country Home in Woodland Hills, where he had his own cottage. Prior to her death, he baptized silent film actress Clara Kimball Young. Hughes died on 1 October 1965 from complications of byssinosis, and his cremated remains were interred at the Masonic Memorial Gardens cemetery in Reno, Nevada.

In 2000, a bronze plaque in Hughes's memory was installed at Parc Howard Museum in Llanelli, and a blue plaque was unveiled at his boyhood home on Princess Street in Llanelli by members of his family. That same year, Nant Films produced the first television documentary on his life in collaboration with Stephen Lyons, Hughes's biographer; the program was broadcast in Welsh on S4C. In 2008, his relative Kelvin Guy completed a film titled In Search of Gareth Hughes, which has received limited release and has not been broadcast or made available for general public viewing. The National Library of Wales has designated Lyons's biographical website as part of Wales's documentary heritage.