William Farnum

William Farnum (July 4, 1876 – June 5, 1953) was an American actor born in Boston, Massachusetts, who grew up in Bucksport, Maine. He came from a family of actors, with two brothers who also pursued careers in the industry: Dustin Farnum, a film actor, and Marshall Farnum, a silent film director. Farnum made his acting debut at age ten in Richmond, Virginia, appearing in a production of Julius Caesar alongside Edwin Booth, who played the title role.

Farnum's Broadway career spanned from 1900 to 1929 and included a range of productions. He portrayed the title character in Ben-Hur on Broadway in 1900, and his subsequent stage credits included The Prince of India in 1906, The White Sister in 1909, and The Littlest Rebel in 1911, the latter co-starring his brother Dustin and Viola Savoy. Additional Broadway appearances included Arizona in 1913, again alongside Dustin, as well as Headquarters, Macbeth, The Buccaneer, and The Battle Cry, among other productions.

From 1915 onward, Farnum concentrated primarily on motion pictures, becoming one of the highest-paid actors in Hollywood and earning $10,000 per week during the silent film era. Among his surviving silent films from his years under contract to Fox Films are Drag Harlan (1920) and If I Were King (1921). The majority of Fox's silent productions made before 1932 were lost in the 1937 Fox vault fire. In 1914, Farnum and actor Tom Santschi performed a fight scene in The Spoilers that extended for a full reel of film. The sequence proved influential: Milton Sills and Noah Beery recreated a version of it in 1923, and Randolph Scott and John Wayne did the same in 1942. In 1930, Farnum and Santschi coached Gary Cooper and William Boyd in the fight scene for that year's remake of The Spoilers. Farnum continued working in motion pictures through 1952.

Farnum was married three times. With his first wife, Mabel Eaton, he fathered screenwriter Dorothy Farnum. His second wife, Olive White, was the mother of his daughter Sara Adele. He had three children with his third wife, Isabelle. Farnum died on June 5, 1953, from uremia and cancer at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital and is interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California. On February 8, 1960, he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6322 Hollywood Boulevard, honoring his contributions to the motion-picture industry.