Edgar Lewis

Biography

Edgar Lewis first trod the boards as a stage actor before stepping in front of a camera in 1911. Two swift years later he traded greasepaint for a megaphone, launching a directing streak that delivered rugged westerns and cliff-hanging adventures from 1913 to 1930. When talkies arrived he surrendered the director’s chair, slipped back into character roles—often fleeting, sometimes nameless—and kept working until the 1935 oater Riding Wild marked his final screen appearance. Three quiet years later he died in Los Angeles, leaving behind a body of work that spanned the silent brawny days to the dawn of sound.