HART, WILLIAM S.

born Dec. 6, 1870, Newburgh, N.Y., U.S. died June 23, 1946, Newhall, Calif. U.S. stage and silent motion-picture actor who was the leading hero of the early westerns. Hart was brought up in the Dakotas, where he lived until he was 16. He made his first appearance on the stage in 1889. Sixteen years later his role in the play The Squaw Man (1905) made him a western hero. After playing in The Virginian (1907) and The Trail of the Lonesome Pine (1912/14), he went to Hollywood, where his portrayals of stern, taciturn Westerners became enormously successful. Working under the director Thomas H. Ince, Hart created harshly realistic films of frontier life that were popular throughout the world. Among his many pictures were The Passing of Two-Gun Hicks (191415), Hell's Hinges (1916), The Captive God (1916), The Dawnmaker (1916), Truthful Tulliver (1917), and The Square-Deal Man (1917). After a brief retirement, he returned to films in 1923 and made nine more pictures, including Wild Bill Hickok (1923), Singer Jim McKee (1924), Tumbleweeds (1925), Desert Dust (1927), and A Lighter of Flames (1923). Later, Hart turned to writing, producing several volumes of fiction and an autobiography, My Life East and West (1929).