Andrew Mack

Biography

Boston rang in the summer of 1863 with firecrackers and Civil War news; on July 25, amid the noise, Andrew Mack drew his first breath. The city’s rough-and-tumble stages soon shaped him into a quick-witted actor-playwright who could make audiences laugh, gasp, and weep in a single evening. By 1914 he had traded footlights for klieg lights, penning and starring in the sprightly comedy *The Ragged Earl*, followed a year later by the scandal-driven melodrama *The Unpardonable Sin*. A decade later he returned to scenarios—this time the darkly comic *Bluebeard’s Seven Wives*—proving that his gift for twisting marriage into mischief survived the silent era. Off-screen he shared his life with two leading ladies: actress Katherine Humphrey and, later, Alice V. McAloon. On 21 May 1931, the tides of Long Island claimed him; he died in Bayshore at 67, leaving behind a trail of flickering images and fast-talking characters that refused to fade to black.