16 Facts About Milton Sills

Milton George Gustavus Sills was an American stage and film actor of the early twentieth century.

Milton Sills was the son of William Henry Sills, a successful mineral dealer, and Josephine Antoinette Troost Sills, an heiress from a prosperous banking family.

Milton Sills joined Robertson's stock theater company and began touring the country.

In 1908, while Milton Sills was performing in New York City, he attracted the notice of Broadway producers such as David Belasco and Charles Frohman.

From 1908 to 1914, Milton Sills appeared in about a dozen Broadway shows.

In 1912, Milton Sills joined the summer stock cast at the Elitch Theatre.

In 1910, Milton Sills married English stage actress Gladys Edith Wynne, a niece of actress Edith Wynne Matthison.

The union produced one child, Dorothy Milton Sills; Gladys filed for divorce in 1925.

In 1926, Milton Sills married silent film actress Doris Kenyon with whom he had a son, Kenyon Clarence Milton Sills, born in 1927.

In 1914, Sills made his film debut in the big-budget drama The Pit for the World Film Company and was signed to a contract with film producer William A Brady.

Milton Sills made three more films for the company, including The Deep Purple opposite Clara Kimball Young.

Milton Sills had begun to make the transition to sound pictures as early as 1928 with the part-talking The Barker.

Milton Sills died of a heart attack in 1930 while playing tennis with his wife at his Brentwood home at the age of 48.

Milton Sills was interred at Rosehill Cemetery and Mausoleum in Chicago.

Milton Sills was a founding member in 1913 of Actors' Equity.

Milton Sills was the favorite actor of poet Weldon Kees as a child, and Milton Sills' Men of Steel influenced Kees' poem "1926".