Hal Salter

Biography

American actor who entered pictures when ill health forced him to reduce his active stage career. He was raised in Williamstown, Massachusetts, where his father was a department chairman at Williams College. His mother was the well-known classical composer Mary Turner Salter. He spent many years in vaudeville and stock, and made his Broadway debut in 1912. During a 1926 tour in which he played one of the leading roles in "What Price Glory?" Salter was stricken with influenza and forced to leave the show. His health did not allow him to return to the stage as actively as before, but he did manage a play in Australia, before returning to America and making a few pictures, primarily Westerns. But his health had declined drastically since the 1926 influenza bout. He died at 42 from complications of influenza.