Maurice Costello

Biography

A Pittsburgh winter brought Maurice Costello into the world on 22 February 1877, and by the flicker of early silent film he would help shape the new art form. In front of the camera he became the tortured soul of *The Man Who Couldn't Beat God* (1915), the determined dreamer of *The Golden Pathway* (1913), and the hardened laborer in *Iron and Steel* (1914); behind it he directed stories that moved without words. Along the way he shared his life with two wives—Ruth Reeves and later Mae Costello—before the lights dimmed for good in Hollywood, California, on 28 October 1950.