Langhorn Burton

Biography

Somersby delivered Langhorne Burton in 1872, and by the turn of the century the boards of London were his playground. In 1908 he steamed up Daly’s Theatre as the passionate lead in Olga Nethersole’s scandal-hit *Sapho*, sending matinee audiences into daily swoons. When cameras replaced footlights, Burton’s profile leapt to the screen. Signed by the London (Globe) Film Company in 1914, he became the era’s velvet-jawed crime-drama heart-throb. Three years later he donned a tricorn and roguish grin to headline Edwin J. Collins’s *Tom Jones* opposite Sybil Arundale, a performance that still flickers in silent-film memory. He slipped next into Arthur Clenham’s weary shoes for Sidney Morgan’s 1920 adaptation of *Little Dorrit*, sharing the frame with Joan Morgan and proving his range reached beyond swashbuckling charm. Talkies eventually arrived; Burton quietly bowed out, his final flicker the measured counsel of *The Lawyer* in 1930’s *Cross Roads* alongside Percy Marmont. The curtain fell for good in 1949 when the 77-year-old actor died in Weymouth, leaving behind a reel legacy of romance, intrigue, and Victorian dash.