Clarence Arper

Biography

Gilroy, California welcomed Clarence Arper on 27 March 1864, and by the time silent film began to flicker he had already traded ranch dust for greasepaint. Between 1916 and 1919 he stalked the screen’s early shadows—masterminding mayhem in *Jinx*, testing society’s limits in *The Woman Who Dared*, and exposing justice’s twisted twin in *The Unwritten Law*. Forty-nine summers later, on 13 July 1943, the lights dimmed for good in Los Angeles, the city that had become his final set.