Weldon Heyburn

Weldon Heyburn, born Weldon Heyburn Franks on September 19, 1903, was an American character actor whose career spanned stage, film, and military service. His birthplace is uncertain, with various sources citing Washington, D.C., Selma, Alabama, and Delaware City, Delaware. He died on May 18, 1951.

Heyburn received his early education at Central High School and Emerson Institute in Washington, D.C., and later attended the University of Alabama. In the mid-1920s he worked as a leading man in a stock company based in Lansing, Michigan, and during that same period he performed alongside stage stars including Jeanne Eagels, Lenore Ulric, and Mary Boland. His Broadway career extended from 1927 to 1936 and encompassed four productions: The Mystery Man (1927), Troyka (1930), Good Men and True (1935), and I Want a Policeman (1936).

Heyburn transitioned to film in 1931, and a newspaper article from August 31 of that year noted his decision to leave the stage in order to pursue a career as a feature screen player. He appeared in approximately 65 films between 1930 and 1950. One of his film appearances was in The Silent Witness (1932), in which he appeared as an unbilled player opposite Norwegian actress Greta Nissen, who played the female lead.

During the 1920s, Heyburn represented himself as the son of a United States Supreme Court judge named Charles Heyburn and the nephew of the late Senator Weldon Heyburn of Iowa. In 1925, the senator's niece publicly called him an impostor, a characterization supported by other members of the family.

Heyburn married four times. His first marriage, to actress Phyllis Connard in 1924, ended in divorce on October 15, 1926. He married Greta Nissen on March 30, 1932, in Tijuana, Mexico, but Nissen sought an annulment in October 1935, citing illegal marriage procedures related to witness and residence requirements; the annulment was granted on April 30, 1936. On May 5, 1936, he married Jane Eichelberger at his home in Brentwood, California; that marriage ended in divorce in 1939. His fourth marriage, to socialite Virginia Maggard, took place in September 1939, and he was divorced from her when he enlisted in the U.S. Army in May 1942.

During World War II, Heyburn served in the U.S. Army Signal Corps. A drinking problem effectively ended his career in the mid-1940s, and his health declined steadily thereafter. He entered the Veterans Administration Hospital in Los Angeles suffering from cancer of the mouth, right adrenal gland, and kidney, and died there of pneumonia. He was interred at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington County, Virginia.