Phillips Smalley
actor, director, producer
- Birth name:
- Phillips Wendell Smalley
- Born:
- 1865-08-07, Brooklyn, New York, USA
- Died:
- 1939-05-02, Hollywood, California, USA
- Professions:
- actor, director, producer
Biography
Brooklyn welcomed Phillips Smalley on 7 August 1865, and from that East-Coast starting block he sprinted into the new century’s most volatile art form. Behind the camera he shaped narratives that still echo—most famously the fiercely topical melodrama The Hand That Rocks the Cradle (1917), but also the earliest American screen Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice (1914), and the civility-vs.-chaos western Captain Courtesy (1915). Between takes he stepped in front of the lens, adding actor to his résumé. Two marriages—first to Phyllis Lorraine Ephlin, later to pioneering filmmaker Lois Weber—shared the spotlight with his expanding body of work. The final curtain fell in Hollywood on 2 May 1939, closing a life spent guiding the young medium toward maturity.
