Sam De Grasse

Samuel Alfred De Grasse (June 12, 1875 – November 29, 1953) was a Canadian actor.

Biography

De Grasse was born in Bathurst, New Brunswick, and he trained to be a dentist. He married Annie McDonnell in 1904. Their daughter, Clementine Bell, was born in 1906. Annie died in 1909, probably in childbirth with another daughter, Olive. In 1910, Samuel was practicing dentistry and he and Clementine were living in Providence, Rhode Island along with his older sister (also named Clementine) and her 14-year-old son, Jerome Fauchy.

Sam married British actress Ada Fuller Golden and became a step-father to her three children. His older brother Joe went into the fledgling movie business and Sam decided to also give it a try. He traveled to New York City and in 1912 he appeared in his first motion picture.

At first he played standard secondary characters but when fellow Canadian Mary Pickford set up her own studio with her husband Douglas Fairbanks, he joined them. He portrayed the villainous Prince John in Douglas Fairbanks' 1922 Robin Hood. Afterward, he began to specialize in crafty or slimy villainous roles, such as Senator Charles Summer in Birth of a Nation (1915), the mill owner Arthur Jenkins in Intolerance (1916), Dr. Robert Armstrong in Blind Husbands (1919), John Carver in The Courtship of Miles Standish (1923), Colonel Lestron in The Eagle of the Sea (1926), a pirate lieutenant in The Black Pirate (1926), a Pharisee in The King of Kings (1927) and King James in The Man Who Laughs (1928). Mary Pickford named him as one of her favorite stars. He was the uncle of successful cinematographer Robert De Grasse. He lived on the west coast until his death in Hollywood; he died of a heart attack during his sleep. He is interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.

Selected filmography