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Eugene O'Brien, the silent screen matinée idol, was born Louis O'Brien in Boulder, Colorado in 1881, to police marshal John O'Brien and his wife Kate. He studied medicine at the University of Colorado in order to realize his family's ambition that he should become a physician. O'Brien's first love, however, was the stage, but his family disapproved of acting as a profession. He was not keen on becoming a doctor, so he proved to be an unenthusiastic student. After flunking pre-med, O'Brien switched to civil engineering under his family's guidance, but his heart was still set on becoming an actor.
Elitch's Gardens in Denver, a
Eugene O'Brien, the silent screen matinée idol, was born Louis O'Brien in Boulder, Colorado in 1881, to police marshal John O'Brien and his wife Kate. He studied medicine at the University of Colorado in order to realize his family's ambition that he should become a physician. O'Brien's first love, however, was the stage, but his family disapproved of acting as a profession. He was not keen on becoming a doctor, so he proved to be an unenthusiastic student. After flunking pre-med, O'Brien switched to civil engineering under his family's guidance, but his heart was still set on becoming an actor.
Elitch's Gardens in Denver, a minor stock company, hired the handsome, 21-year-old college-dropout for a minor acting role in 1902, and Louis O'Brien became a professional actor (he later changed his name to Eugene). He moved to New York City, where he was hired by a vaudeville house to be part of a singing quartet in a play, in the role of a Hungarian soldier. After his stint as a chorus boy, his rich baritone voice enabled him to work his way up in the musical comedy genre to small, singing roles. As he learned the ropes of the Broadway stage, he began to make a name for himself as a dramatic actor as well.
Paradoxical, he was "discovered" by theatrical impresario Charles Frohman four years after he had appeared in Frohman's 1905 Broadway musical "The Rollicking Girl". Frohman, one of the great theatrical managers of the times, signed O'Brien to a three-year contract and put him in "The Builder of Bridges," which opened on Broadway at the Hudson Theatre on October 26, 1909.
A New York critic, commenting on his progress in 1909, wrote, "Less than three months ago, the name of Eugene O'Brien had about as much significance for Broadway theatergoers as that of the most obscure actor in some far-off rural community. Yet, in one single night, he achieved a success, the glory of which must ring in his ears yet." Frohman co-starred O'Brien opposite one of the greatest actresses of all times, Ethel Barrymore, in a revival of Sir Arthur Wing Pinero's play "Trelawny of the "Wells," which opened at the Empire Theatre on New Year's day, 1911, He had reached the pinnacle of the acting profession in the theater.
O'Brien's first film, Essanay Films "The Lieutenant Governor," in which he had the starring role, played in Boulder's Currant Theater in February 1915, giving his family its first opportunity to see him act. Then, World Film Corp. chief executive Lewis J. Selznick made O'Brien a screen star, putting him in an adaptation of Wilkie Collins' "The Moonstone" for his next movie, and then producing or releasing many of his subsequent pictures.
Very handsome, with a thick head of light brown hair, the blue-eyed O'Brien became a leading man opposite some of the leading female stars of the day, including Mary Pickford, Norma Talamadge, and Gloria Swanson. A female reporter who interviewed the six-foot, 160-lb. star on the set of Selznick Pictures' "The Perfect Lover" (1919), in which he co-starred with Martha Mansfield and three other actresses, declared that he was "only a bit better looking than I ever imagined any man could be."
He appeared in the Mary Pickford classic "Rebecca Of Sunnybrook Farm 1917), for Pickford's own company and Paramount, as well as in her earlier "Poor Little Peppina" (1916), of which it was said in the hyperbolic bombast of the times "Film has not been seen since its release date." But it was as Talmadge's co-star that he was most remembered, making 11 pictures with her between "Poppy" in 1917 and "Graustark" in 1925. Typically, the Talmadge-O'Brien pictures were made by Talmadge's own company (either Norma Talmadge Film Corp. or Joseph M. Schenck Productions, both of which were run by her husband, Joe Schenck) and released through one of Selznick's companies, or First National after Selznick's bankruptcy.
In the enviable position of being both The Boss and Married to the Boss, Talmadge was featured in strong roles in first-rate pictures, so O'Brien got to prove his acting chops and his versatility. The rumor in the industry was that Talmadge's husband Joe, jealous and anxious about being cuckolded, preferred to hire gay leading men for Talmadge's films. O'Brien and four-time costar Harrison Ford were the prominent names on this rumored "pink-list." Indeed, Shenck's fear of cuckoldry was not unfounded, as his wife did fall in love with Gilbert Roland, whom Schenck had hired to co-star as young-lover Armand Duval opposite her "Camille" (1926).
Eventually, O'Brien reached silent screen superstar status. His life was insured for a million dollars, and he made "an almost unbelievable salary." While he told the press that he preferred acting for a live audience than acting in the movies, and that he longed to return to the legitimate theater, he retired from acting for good, both movies and the stage, when the talkies came in. He made his last film, "Faithless Lover," in 1928. He was 47 years old.
The next year, the former star bought a Hollywood hacienda and moved in. A private man, he told a reporter that he liked his new life as he could do as he pleased whenever he wanted to do, and enjoyed his mornings being alone as opposed to being on a movie set. O'Brien, who said he'd never get married as women were too possessive, declared that he was "untroubled by girls and reveling in athletics, gardening, and most of all in bachelorhood."
Eugene O'Brien made a final visit to his hometown of Boulder, where he was thought of as a hometown hero, in 1952, to attend the funeral of his brother George. He died in 1966 at the age of 85, and although his funeral was held in Hollywood, his body was interred in the family plot in Boulder's Green Mountain Cemetery, next to next to his parents and brothers. The Prodigal son had returned home at last.
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