Raoul Walsh was an American film director, actor, founding member of the Academy of Motion
Picture Arts and Sciences and the brother of silent screen actor George Walsh. He was
known for portraying John Wilkes Booth in the silent classic The Birth of a Nation and
for directing such films as The Big Trail starring John Wayne, High Sierra starring
Ida Lupino and Humphrey Bogart, and White Heat with James Cagney and Edmond O'Brien.
His last directorial effort came in 1964.
Biography Early life
Walsh was born in New York as Albert Edward Walsh to Elizabeth T. Bruff, the daughter
of Irish Catholic immigrants and Thomas W. Walsh, an Englishman of Irish descent. Like
his younger brother, he was part of Omega Gamma Delta during his high school days. Growing
up in New York, Walsh was also a friend of the Barrymore family. John Barrymore recalled
spending time reading in the Walsh family library as a youth.
Film career 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, shot on location in Mexico with Pancho Villa playing
the lead and with actual ongoing battles filmed in progress as well as recreations. Walsh
played John Wilkes Booth in Griffith's epic The Birth of a Nation for which he was also
Assistant Director. This was followed by the critically acclaimed Regeneration in 1915,
possibly the earliest feature gangster film, shot on location in Manhattan's Bowery district.
Walsh later directed The Thief of Bagdad starring Douglas Fairbanks and Anna May Wong and What
Price Glory? starring Victor McLaglen and Dolores del Río.
In Sadie Thompson starring Gloria Swanson as a prostitute seeking a new life in Samoa,
Walsh starred as Swanson's boyfriend in his first acting role since 1915; he also directed
the film. Walsh was then hired to direct and star in In Old Arizona, a film about O. Henry's
character the Cisco Kid. While on location for that film Walsh suffered a car accident
in which he lost his right eye when a jackrabbit jumped through a windshield as he was driving.
He gave up the part, and never acted again; Warner Baxter won an Oscar for the role Walsh
was originally slated to play. Walsh would wear an eyepatch for the rest of his life.
In the early days of sound with Fox, Walsh directed the first widescreen spectacle, The
Big Trail, an epic wagon train western shot on location across the West. The movie starred
then unknown John Wayne, whom Walsh discovered as prop boy Marion Morrison and renamed after
Revolutionary War general Mad Anthony Wayne, about whom Walsh happened to be reading in
a book at the time. Walsh directed The Bowery, featuring Wallace Beery, George Raft, Fay
Wray and Pert Kelton; the energetic movie recounts the story of Steve Brodie, the first
man to supposedly jump off the Brooklyn Bridge and live to brag about it.
An undistinguished period followed with Paramount Pictures from 1935 to 1939, but Walsh's career
rose to new heights soon after moving to Warner Brothers, with The Roaring Twenties featuring
James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart; Dark Command with John Wayne and Roy Rogers; They Drive
By Night with George Raft, Ann Sheridan, Ida Lupino, and Bogart; High Sierra with Lupino
and Bogart again; They Died with Their Boots On with Errol Flynn as Custer; The Strawberry
Blonde with James Cagney and Olivia de Havilland; Manpower with Edward G. Robinson, Marlene
Dietrich, and George Raft; and White Heat with Cagney. Walsh's contract at Warners expired
in 1953. He directed several films afterwards, including
three with Clark Gable: The Tall Men, The King and Four Queens, and Band of Angels.
Walsh retired in 1964. Certain of Raoul Walsh's film related material
and personal papers are contained in the Wesleyan University Cinema Archives to which scholars
and media experts from around the world may have full access.
Selected filmography
Walsh replaced director Bretaigne Windust on The Enforcer and shot over half the film,
but did not receive screen credit. References
Further reading Moss. Marilyn Ann. Raoul Walsh: The True Adventures
of Hollywood's Legendary Director pp. 528 Smith, Renee D. The Films of Raoul Walsh:
A Critical Approach excerpt and text search Paolo Bachmann, Raoul Walsh, Turin: Quaderni
del Movie Club di Torino, 1977. Jean-Louis Comolli, "L'esprit d'aventure",
Cahiers du cinéma, n. 154, April 1964. Toni D'Angela, Raoul Walsh o dell'avventura
singolare, Rome: Bulzoni, 2008. "Trafic", n. 28, Winter 1998.
"La furia umana", n. 1. 2009, http:www.lafuriaumana.it External links
Raoul Walsh at the Internet Movie Database Raoul Walsh at AllMovie
Senses of Cinema: Great Directors Critical Database
Raoul Walsh at Virtual History