A Tale of Two Cities
1935
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Henry Brazeale Walthall (March 16, 1878 – June 17, 1936) was an American stage and film actor. He appeared as the Little Colonel in D. W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation (1915).
Henry B. Walthall was a respected stage actor who became a favorite of pioneering film director D.W. Griffith. Born in 1878 in Alabama, Walthall was initially interested in pursuing a law career but he quit law school in 1898 to enlist in the US Army in order to fight in the Spanish-American War.
Henry B. Walthall was a respected stage actor who became a favorite of pioneering film director D.W. Griffith. Born in 1878 in Alabama, Walthall embarked on a law career but quit law school in 1898 to enlist in the US Army in order to fight in the Spanish-American War.
Henry Brazeale Walthall (March 16, 1878 – June 17, 1936) was an American stage and film actor. He appeared as the Little Colonel in D. W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation (1915). In New York in 1901, Walthall won a role in Under Southern Skies by Charlotte Blair Parker.
The years 1917 and 1918 were pivotal for Henry B. Walthall, both professionally and personally. After a two-year stint in Chicago with Essanay, Walthall vowed to move away from the bizarre, morbid roles that made him famous beyond the "Little Colonel."
Find the location of Henry B. Walthall's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, read a biography, see related stars and browse a map of important places in their career. Born Henry Brazeale...
Walthall’s portrayal of a Confederate veteran rounding up the Ku Klux Klan won him large-scale fame, and Walthall was soon able to emerge as a leading actor in the years leading up to the 1920s, parting ways with Griffith.
Henry Brazeale Walthall (born March 16, 1878 at Mallory Station in Shelby County; died June 17, 1936 in Monrovia, California) was a silent film actor, appearing in dozens of films between 1909 and 1936. He was best known for playing Colonel Ben Cameron in D. W. Griffith's epic The Birth of a Nation.
In D.W. Griffith, Walthall found the premiere artist of this "new medium" to guide him. Soon, he would be in scores of Griffith shorts, developing the emotional, yet restrained style of acting that would make him one of the most popular stars of the silent screen.
Writer Ben Hecht never thought much of Hollywood or screenplays in general, but had few peers for this kind of scene, with Wallace Beery as the bandit title character meeting the scholarly revolutionary Madero (Henry B. Walthall), in MGM’s Viva Villa!, 1934.
