King Baggot

William King Baggot was born on November 7, 1879, in St. Louis, Missouri, the son of William Baggot, an Irish immigrant from County Limerick who became a prominent St. Louis real estate agent, and Harriet M. King. He grew up alongside six siblings and attended Christian Brothers College High School, where he was a star soccer and baseball player and served as captain of the soccer team. In 1894, he left St. Louis for Chicago, where he worked as a clerk for his uncle, Edward Baggot, whose business dealt in plumbing, gas, and electric fixtures. He returned to St. Louis in 1899, played on a semi-professional soccer team, and became involved in amateur theatrics through a Catholic church group. His interest in performance led him to help found the Players Club of St. Louis. During this period he also sold tickets for the St. Louis Browns and worked as a clerk in his father's real estate business before committing to a professional acting career.

Baggot launched his professional stage career with a Shakespearean stock company, touring throughout the United States. He subsequently performed under the management of Liebler and Company, and also toured under the management of Frohman and the Shuberts. He played five weeks in New York in The Queen of the Highway and appeared in productions including Salomy Jane and In the Bishop's Carriage. Among his Broadway credits, he appeared in the comedy revival Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch, which ran on Broadway in 1906. While acting in stock in St. Louis during the summer of 1909, he worked with Marguerite Clark in Peter Pan and The Golden Garter, and later appeared in small roles in Frou Frou and Jenny, both starring Countess Venturini. He then joined a Shubert touring production of The Wishing Ring, adapted by Owen Davis from a Dorothea Deakin story, in which fellow cast member Cecil B. DeMille also served as the play's stager.

When The Wishing Ring closed in Chicago, Baggot returned to New York, where a chance encounter with director Harry Solter led him toward the film industry. Solter was directing movies for Carl Laemmle at the Independent Moving Pictures Company in Fort Lee, New Jersey, and persuaded Baggot to visit the studio. Baggot's first film was the 1909 romance short The Awakening of Bess, opposite Florence Lawrence and directed by Solter. At a time when screen actors received no individual recognition, Baggot and Lawrence became the first performers to receive billing, a marquee, and promotional advertising. He starred in at least 42 films opposite Lawrence between 1909 and 1911, and in at least 16 films with Mary Pickford in 1911, including Pictureland and the one-reel drama Sweet Memories, directed by Thomas H. Ince.

Baggot became one of the most recognizable figures of the silent film era, earning the designations "King of the Movies," "The Most Photographed Man in the World," and "The Man Whose Face Is as Familiar as the Man in the Moon." He was considered the first individually publicized leading man in America. By 1912, his prominence was such that he took the leading role in founding the Screen Club in New York, the first organization of its kind exclusively for film professionals, and served as its first president. Over the course of his career he appeared in more than 300 motion pictures between 1909 and 1947, wrote 18 screenplays, and directed 45 films between 1912 and 1928.

His best-known film performances included The Scarlet Letter in 1911, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in 1913, and Ivanhoe in 1913, in which he played Wilfred of Ivanhoe in a feature-length production filmed on location in England and at Chepstow Castle in Wales. He played Jean Dumas in the drama Absinthe in 1914, filmed in Paris, and in his 1914 two-reel film Shadows he both directed and portrayed ten separate characters. He starred as Harrison Grant in the 20-part spy thriller The Eagle's Eye in 1918, opposite Marguerite Snow, an adaptation of former FBI Director William J. Flynn's experiences produced by Leopold and Theodore Wharton. He also starred as Sheldon Steele in the 1919 crime drama The Hawk's Trail, opposite Grace Darmond.

As a director, Baggot gave Marie Prevost her first starring role in the 1922 romantic comedy Kissed and directed Mary Philbin and William Haines in the 1924 romance The Gaiety Girl. He formed King Baggot Productions and produced and directed The Home Maker in 1925, a drama starring Clive Brook and Alice Joyce about the reversal of traditional domestic roles between a husband and wife, released through Universal. That same year he directed William S. Hart in Tumbleweeds, a drama about the Oklahoma land rush of 1893, which became Hart's most celebrated western. His other directorial credits include The Lie in 1912, Raffles, the Amateur Cracksman in 1925, and The House of Scandal in 1928.

On December 3, 1912, Baggot married Ruth Considine in Fort Lee, New Jersey. The couple had one son, Robert King Baggot, born July 11, 1914, who became a cameraman and died in Hawaii while working on a film. Robert had two sons, cinematographer Stephen King Baggot, born 1943, and Bruce Baggot, born 1947. King Baggot and Ruth separated in August 1926 and divorced in 1930, with Ruth citing desertion as grounds for the dissolution.

Alcoholism and conflicts with studio executives brought Baggot's directing career to an end. He transitioned to character roles, bit parts, and work as an extra, appearing in numerous films through the 1930s and 1940s, including Mississippi in 1935. He played an uncredited role as a street policeman in Bad Sister in 1931, which featured Bette Davis in her first film appearance. He also appeared in the Monogram Pictures drama Police Court in 1932, co-starring Henry B. Walthall. King Baggot died on July 11, 1948.