Melbourne MacDowell

Willet Melbourne MacDowell was born on November 22, 1856, in Little Washington, New Jersey, a community now known as South River. He died on February 18, 1941, in Decoto, California, from a clot on the brain. An American actor who worked in both stage and screen, MacDowell maintained a career spanning from the 1870s through 1932. His older brother, E. A. MacDowell, was himself an actor and the father of actress Claire McDowell.

Before pursuing acting professionally, MacDowell went to sea as a young man, serving in the Merchant Marines and rising to the rank of mate. His introduction to the theatre came not through performance but through employment at a Montreal theatre, where he worked as a ticket seller and assistant doorkeeper while his brother acted there. He was occasionally called upon to perform, and it was in Montreal that he had the opportunity to appear alongside Adelaide Neilson in Shakespeare's As You Like It, with Neilson in the role of Rosalind and MacDowell briefly on as Charles the wrestler. By 1877 he had made his first professional acting appearance in the United States at the Boston Museum, where his brother E. A. was also employed as an actor. A large man weighing over 200 pounds, MacDowell was typically cast as the hero or a distinct character in plays.

In 1888 MacDowell began working with stage actress Fanny Davenport, appearing with her in La Tosca. The two married in 1889, and he continued acting alongside her in a series of dramatic productions until her death in 1898. His Broadway career ran from 1894 to 1906 and included appearances in Gismonda and The Law and the Man. Following Davenport's death, MacDowell became professionally associated with Blanche Walsh, who took on many of the same emotionally demanding roles that Davenport had made famous.

MacDowell transitioned to silent film in 1917, by which point he was already a long-established stage veteran. His screen work brought him into productions alongside actors including William S. Hart, Lon Chaney, Charles Ray, and Enid Bennett. Among his notable film appearances were two pictures with Lon Chaney, Nomads of the North and Outside the Law, both released in 1920, as well as the 1928 Bebe Daniels feature Feel My Pulse. His silent film career concluded in 1928 with the industry's shift to sound, though he returned for one sound short in 1932, A Fool About Women, featuring Andy Clyde and Vernon Dent. Several of the films in which MacDowell appeared have survived and are available on DVD.