Wayland Trask

Wayland Trask Jr. (July 16, 1887 – November 18, 1918) was an American actor who worked in both theater and silent film, building a career that spanned Broadway productions and screen comedy before his early death at the age of thirty-one.

Trask established his theatrical credentials during the early 1910s, appearing in at least two Broadway productions between 1910 and 1912. His stage credits included The Truth Wagon and Welcome to Our City, which provided him with a foundation in live performance before he transitioned to motion pictures.

He subsequently became a member of Mack Sennett's stock company of actors, working within the prolific comedy operation that defined much of the silent film era. Among his surviving screen appearances is the 1916 Sennett comedy Bombs, also known as Bombs and Brides. Physically, Trask was tall, a build that drew comparisons to Eric Campbell, the imposing co-star of Charlie Chaplin, and to the later Sennett comedian Kewpie Morgan.

Trask was born into a family that included his father, a stockbroker who died in 1905, and two sisters. His death in November 1918 came during the Spanish Influenza pandemic, the same disease that had claimed his mother eleven months earlier.