John St. Polis

Biography

New Orleans gave the world John St. Polis on November 24, 1873, and the stage lights claimed him almost immediately. Between silent-era landmarks—The Hero in 1923, the scandal-driven Three Weeks a year later, and the jazz-age sparkle of Why Be Good? in 1929—he moved from brooding leads to silver-haired authority with effortless grace. Off-screen, two marriages wrote their own scripts: first to Angela M. Grimaldi, later to Rachel Amelia Ryan. The final curtain fell in Los Angeles on October 8, 1946, but the flicker of his performances keeps the name John St. Polis alive in the glow of the projector’s beam.