16 Facts About Wallace Reid

William Wallace Halleck Reid was an American actor in silent film, referred to as "the screen's most perfect lover".

Wallace Reid had a brief career as a racing driver.

Wallace Reid's mother, Bertha Westbrook, was an actress, and his father, James Halleck "Hal" Reid, worked successfully in a variety of theatrical jobs, mainly as playwright and actor, traveling the country.

Wallace Reid later graduated from Perkiomen Seminary in Pennsburg, Pennsylvania in 1909.

Wallace Reid was drawn to the burgeoning movie industry by his father, who shifted from the theatre to writing films, directing them, and acting in them.

In 1910, Wallace Reid appeared in his first film, The Phoenix, an adaptation of a Milton Nobles play, filmed at Selig Polyscope Studios in Chicago.

Wallace Reid used the script from a play his father had written and approached the very successful Vitagraph Studios, hoping to be given the opportunity to direct.

Wallace Reid was arrested in Portland, Oregon in 1921 for violating prohibition law.

Wallace Reid appeared in several films with his father, and as his career in film flourished, he was acting and directing with and for early film mogul Allan Dwan.

In 1913, while at Universal Pictures, Wallace Reid met and married actress Dorothy Davenport.

Already involved with the creation of more than 100 motion picture shorts, Reid was signed by producer Jesse L Lasky and starred in over 60 films for Lasky's Famous Players film company, which later became Paramount Pictures.

Wallace Reid loved racing so much that he even made an attempt to qualify for the 1922 Indianapolis 500.

Wallace Reid died in a sanatorium while attempting to recover.

Wallace Reid was interred in the Azalea Terrace of the Great Mausoleum at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.

In Ken Russell's 1977 film Valentino, Wallace Reid is portrayed briefly and inaccurately as a bicycle-riding, childish movie star, and he is made to look like a cross among the character he played in Clarence, Harold Lloyd, and the comic actors Jimmie Adams and Churchill Ross.

In 2018, a biography of Wallace Reid was the subject of Karina Longworth's Podcast "You Must Remember This".