13 Facts About Cecil Hepworth

Cecil Milton Hepworth was a British film director, producer and screenwriter.

Cecil Hepworth was among the founders of the British film industry and continued making films into the 1920s at his Hepworth Studios.

In 1923 his company Hepworth Picture Plays went into receivership.

Cecil Hepworth's works include Alice in Wonderland, the first film adaptation of Lewis Carroll's children's book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

Cecil Hepworth's father, Thomas Cradock Hepworth, was a famous magic lantern showman and author.

Cecil Hepworth became involved in the early stages of British filmmaking, working for both Birt Acres and Charles Urban, and wrote the first British book on the subject in 1897.

Cecil Hepworth produced about three films a week, sometimes with Hepworth directing.

Cecil Hepworth's film Rescued by Rover, co-directed with Lewin Fitzhamon and starring a collie in the title role, was a huge financial success.

Cecil Hepworth was one of the first to recognize the potential of film stars, both animal and human, with several recurring characters appearing in his films.

Cecil Hepworth's Vivaphone was distributed in Britain and in the United States and Canada.

Cecil Hepworth continued making popular films into the 1920s, despite Hepworth's now unchanging and increasingly old-fashioned film style.

Cecil Hepworth failed to raise the necessary capital and, suffering the box office failure of Comin' Thro the Rye, the company went into receivership the next year.

All of the original film negatives in Cecil Hepworth's possession were melted down by the receiver in order to sell the silver, and his feature films have been considered lost for many decades.