Robert Warwick

Infobox Actor
name = Robert Warwick


imagesize = 173px
caption =
birthname = Robert Taylor Bien
birthdate = 9 October 1878
birthplace = Sacremento, California U.S.
deathdate = 6 June 1964 (aged 85)
deathplace = West Los Angeles, California U.S.
othername =
occupation = actor
yearsactive = 1903-fy|1960
spouse = Stella Lattimore (?-? "divorced")
Josephine Whittell (?-? "divor.")
Arline Peck (?-1909 "divorced")
domesticpartner =

Robert Warwick (9 October 1878–6 June 1964) was an American stage, film and television actor with over 200 film appearances.

Early life and career

Warwick was born "Robert Taylor Bien" in 1878. Handsome and with a booming voice Warwick trained to be an operatic singer but acting proved his greater calling. He made his Broadway debut in 1903 in the play "Glad of It". One of his co-stars in this play was a young actor named John Barrymore, also making his Broadway debut. Both men quickly became matinee idols. For the next twenty years Warwick appeared in such plays as "Anna Karenina" (1906), "Two Women" (1910), with Mrs. Leslie Carter, "The Kiss Waltz" (1911), "Miss Prince" (1912), in both of which he was able to display his opera-trained singing voice, "The Secret" (1913), "A Celebrated Case" (1915) and "Drifting" (1922) with Alice Brady, not to mention several other plays through the end of the 1920s.

Film career

Warwick started making silent films in fy|1914. He made numerous productions in the 1910s primarily in Fort Lee, New Jersey. Two films, "Alias Jimmy Valentine" and "A Girl's Folly", both directed by Maurice Tourneur have been preserved, and showcase Warwick as a silent actor, as well as Tourneur's directing talent, and both are available on home video. From the 1920s on Warwick alternated doing plays and silent films. He was fifty when sound films arrived, and now middle aged with his matinee idol appeal fading, he found plenty of work in character roles where his splendid voice recorded well. This eventually necessitated his moving permanently to California to be near the film studios when they moved to Los Angeles. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s Warwick's dependable acting and resonant voice ensured that he was seldom out of work. His immense filmography includes such classics as "The Little Colonel" (fy|1935) with Shirley Temple, "Anna Karenina" (fy|1936) with Greta Garbo – which he had played on stage in 1906 – "The Adventures of Robin Hood" (fy|1938 with Errol Flynn, and the movie for which he's probably best remembered and most beloved, Preston Sturges' "Sullivan's Travels" (fy|1941).

Television and later life

Warwick made numerous appearances on television almost from it's initial popularity in the late 1940s. In his seventies he was still hard at work and made appearances on every type of television show from westerns like "Broken Arrow" to the "Loretta Young Show". After a 60 year career Robert Warwick died in Los Angeles in June fy|1964 at the age of 86. Warwick was married several times and it is not known if he had children.

External links

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