David Higgins

Biography

Chicago greeted David Higgins with its newborn summer light on 21 June 1858. By the time the silent camera began to turn, he had already sharpened twin talents: stepping into a character’s skin and spinning the words that let others do the same. Audiences first noticed him clutching His Last Dollar in 1914; two years later he strode through the biblical sweep of The Conquest of Canaan and the backwoods hush of At Piney Ridge, scripts and performances alike bearing his unmistakable signature. Off-screen he shared his life with actress Bliss Milford. The final curtain fell on 29 June 1936 in Brooklyn, New York, closing a story that had traveled from a Midwestern birthplace to the flickering dawn of American cinema.