Lawrence Grattan

Biography

Concord, New Hampshire, greeted Lawrence Grattan’s arrival in 1870, and by the early 1910s he had traded New England quiet for the flicker of silent-film sets. Between 1915’s twin releases—Her Great Match and Greater Love Hath No Man—he honed a screen presence that tempered swagger with tenderness, then capped the decade co-writing 1929’s Gossip, a talkie that let audiences hear the wit they’d already seen in his eyes. Off-camera he shared life with fellow player Eva Taylor, the actress born in 1886 who became his wife and most dependable scene partner. Grattan’s final curtain fell on 9 December 1941 in New York City, leaving behind a compact body of work that still whispers across the reels.