Robert Hilliard
actor, writer
- Birth name:
- Robert Cochran Hilliard
- Born:
- 1857-05-28, New York City, New York, USA
- Died:
- 1927-06-06, New York City, New York, USA
- Professions:
- actor, writer
Biography
Born in the clang and clamor of 1857 Manhattan, Robert Hilliard grew up where Broadway’s gaslights met the flicker of the first movie houses. By 1904 he had stepped before the camera as the tormented lead of *The Ex-Convict*, and eleven years later he courted danger again in *The Avalanche*. Between these screen appearances he slipped behind the scenes, scripting the mischievous romance *Artistic Interference* (1916) and polishing a stage résumé that spanned four decades. Offstage, his heart proved as restless as his art: marriages to Olga Everard Williams, Nellie R. W. Murphy, and Cora Bell traced three separate acts of a very private drama. Hilliard’s final curtain fell on 6 June 1927, just blocks from where his story began, leaving New York the same restless city that had shaped him.
