Edwin McKim
actor, director, writer
- Birth name:
- Samuel McKim
- Born:
- 1869-10-31, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
- Died:
- 1942-03-31, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
- Professions:
- actor, director, writer
Biography
Halloween Eve, 1869: the smoky river city of Pittsburgh welcomed Edwin McKim, a boy who would trade its sooty skylines for the flicker of silver screens. Two decades later he was conjuring stories at lightning speed—first scripting, then steering the camera itself. In 1912 he breathed new life into Dickens, sending Oliver Twist twisting through alleyways of celluloid; two years later he prodded audiences to debate marital vows in Should a Woman Divorce?; and come 1916 he turned a mundane soak into A Bath Tub Mystery, sudsing suspense into the nickelodeon era. Off-set he claimed Broadway darling Anna Lehr as his leading lady in real life. The curtain fell for good on 31 March 1942 in Philadelphia, but the reels he spun keep winding through projectors somewhere, forever coaxing shadows into story.
