Raoul Walsh (March 11, 1887, New York City – December 31, 1980, Simi Valley, CA) was an American film director, actor, founding member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) and the brother of silent screen actor George Walsh. As a young man he was a close friend of Virginia O'Hanlon of "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus" fame.
Walsh began as a stage actor in New York City, quickly progressing into film acting. Walsh was e...
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Raoul Walsh (March 11, 1887, New York City – December 31, 1980, Simi Valley, CA) was an American film director, actor, founding member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) and the brother of silent screen actor George Walsh. As a young man he was a close friend of Virginia O'Hanlon of "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus" fame.
Walsh began as a stage actor in New York City, quickly progressing into film acting. Walsh was educated at Seton Hall College and began acting in 1909. In 1914, he became an assistant to D.W. Griffith and made his first full-length feature film The Life of General Villa, followed by the critically-acclaimed Regeneration in 1915, possibly the earliest gangster film. Walsh played John Wilkes Booth in Griffith's epic The Birth of a Nation (1915) for which he was also Assistant Director. Walsh later directed The Thief of Bagdad (1924), starring Douglas Fairbanks and Anna May Wong.
In Sadie Thompson (1928) starring Gloria Swanson as a...
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