Sam De Grasse
Samuel Alfred De Grace (
June 12,
1875 -
November 29,
1953. ) was a
Canadian actor. Born in
Bathurst, New Brunswick, he trained to be a dentist. After his older brother
Joe had gone into the fledgling movie business, Samuel decided to also give it a try. He traveled to
New York City and in
1912 he acted in his first motion picture.
At first, Sam De Grasse played standard secondary characters but when fellow Canadian Mary Pickford set up her own studio with her husband Douglas Fairbanks, he joined them. Skillfully cast as a shifty-eyed villain, after this, De Grasse began to specialize in the role of the "bad guy".
Sam de Grasse married actress Ada Fuller Golden and had a daughter, Clementine. He lived on the west coast until his death in Hollywood. He is interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.
During his career, Sam De Grasse appeared in 107 films. A few of them are:
- The Birth of a Nation - (1915)
- The Good Bad Man - (1915)
- Intolerance - (1916)
- Wild and Woolly - (1917)
- An Old Fashioned Young Man - (1917)
- Blind Husbands - (1919)
- Robin Hood - (1922)
- The Spoilers - (1922)
- Forsaking All Others - (1922)
- Slippy McGee - (1923)
- Painted People - (1924)
- The Black Pirate (1926)
- The Fighting Eagle - (1927)
- King of Kings - (1927)
- Our Dancing Daughters - (1928)
- The Man Who Laughs - (1928)
- Wall Street - (1929)
- Captain of the Guard - (1930)
See also: Other Canadian pioneers in early Hollywood