William C. Dowlan
actor, director
- Birth name:
- William Christopher Dowlan
- Born:
- 1882-09-21, St. Paul, Minnesota, USA
- Died:
- 1947-11-06, Los Angeles, California, USA
- Professions:
- actor, director
Biography
St. Paul, Minnesota, greeted William C. Dowlan on 21 September 1882, and by his early thirties he had traded the northern chill for California sunshine, stepping in front of and behind early movie cameras. Between 1915 and 1916 he guided—and starred in—three brisk one-reelers that kept nickelodeons humming: the addiction-cautionary Drugged Waters, the morality fable The Devil and Idle Hands, and the campus comedy The College Orphan. Off-screen, he shared life’s reels with Leonora Ainsworth; their story ran until the final fade-out in Los Angeles on 6 November 1947.
