E. Holman Clark

Biography

A son of Sussex countryside, E. Holman Clark first drew breath on 22 April 1864 in the quiet hamlet of East Hothley. Footlights soon beckoned him away from farm lanes, and he built a career trading lines across the stage and, later, the flickering silent screen. Modern viewers still recognise his angular profile from three surviving films: he played the sceptical homeowner in 1914’s *The Brass Bottle*, the bewildered earthling receiving *A Message from Mars* the previous year, and the lovesick sailor in 1920’s *Once Aboard the Lugger*. Half a century after that rural spring birth, the curtain fell for good when Clark died in London on 7 September 1925.