O
Olaf Skavlan
actor, director
- Born:
- 1884-09-02, Minnesota, USA
- Died:
- 1949-06-02, San Francisco, California, USA
- Professions:
- actor, director
Biography
A Minnesotan autumn brought Olaf Skavlan into the world on 2 September 1884, and by his early thirties he had traded prairie winds for klieg lights. In 1914 he stepped in front of the camera for The Yellow Traffic, then turned bard-adjacent to play in the 1916 Romeo and Juliet before rallying wartime spirits with Why America Will Win in 1918. Whether calling action from the director’s chair or embodying characters on-screen, Skavlan shaped silent-era cinema until the curtain rang down. He took his final bow in San Francisco on 2 June 1949, leaving behind three surviving reels and a legacy etched in flickering nitrate.
