Warner Baxter

Warner Baxter
Warner Baxter publicity photo
Born	(1889-03-29)March 29, 1889 Columbus, Ohio, U.S.
Died	May 7, 1951(1951-05-07) (aged 62) Beverly Hills, California, U.S.
Cause of death	pneumonia
Resting place	Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1914–1950
Spouse(s)	Viola Caldwell (1911-1913) Winifried Bryson (1918–1951) (his death)

Warner Leroy Baxter (March 29, 1889 – May 7, 1951) was an American actor, known for his role as The Cisco Kid in In Old Arizona (1929), for which he won the second Academy Award for Best Actor in the 1928–1929 Academy Awards. He frequently played womanizing, charismatic Latin bandit types in westerns, and played The Cisco Kid or a similar character throughout the 1930s, but had a range of other roles throughout his career. Warner Baxter started his movie career in silent film. Baxter's most notable silent films are The Great Gatsby (1926) and The Awful Truth (1925). When talkies came out, Baxter became even more famous. Baxter's most notable talkies are In Old Arizona (1929) 42nd Street (1932), Slave Ship (1937), Kidnapped (1938), and the 1931 20 minute all-star ensemble short film, The Stolen Jools. In the 1940s he was well known for his recurring role as Dr. Robert Ordway in the Crime Doctor series of 10 films.

Background

Baxter was born in Columbus, Ohio to Edwin F. Baxter (October 1, 1867 – September 16, 1889) and Jane Barrett (December 29, 1869 Columbus, Ohio – March 29, 1962 Beverly Hills, California), and moved to San Francisco, California with his widowed mother Jane in 1898, when he was nine. Following the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, he and his family lived in a tent for two weeks. By 1910 Baxter was in vaudeville, and from there began acting on the stage.

Career

With June Lang and Fredric March

Baxter originally worked as an insurance agent, sales manager and commercial traveller. Baxter began his movie career as an extra in 1914 in a stock company and quickly rose to become a star. He had his first starring role in 1921, in a film called Sheltered Daughters, before starring in 48 features during the 1920s. His most notable silent roles were in The Great Gatsby (1926), Aloma of the South Seas (1926) as an island love interest opposite the famous dancer Gilda Gray and a handsome but alcoholic doctor in West of Zanzibar with Lon Chaney.

Baxter's most famous starring role was as the Cisco Kid in In Old Arizona (1929), the first all-talking western, for which he won the second Academy Award for Best Actor. He also starred in 42nd Street (1933), Grand Canary (1934), Broadway Bill (1934) and Kidnapped (1938).

By 1936, Baxter was the highest paid actor in Hollywood, but by 1943 he had slipped to B movie roles, and he starred in a series of "Crime Doctor" films for Columbia Pictures. Baxter made over 100 films between 1914 and 1950.

Personal life

Baxter married actress Winifred Bryson in 1918, remaining married until his death in 1951. He suffered for several years from arthritis, and in 1951 he underwent a lobotomy to ease the pain. He died shortly after of pneumonia and was interred in Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California. He was survived by his second wife and his mother.

Baxter was a close friend of William Powell, with whom he starred in three films, and was at Powell's side when Jean Harlow died in 1937.

He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6290 Hollywood Boulevard.

When not acting, Baxter was an inventor and in 1935 co-created a revolver searchlight which would illuminate a target and allow a gunman to shoot at it in the dark. He later developed a radio device that would allow emergency crews to change traffic signals from two blocks away and allow them to safely pass through intersections. He financed its installation at an intersection in Beverly Hills in 1940.

Filmography

Year	Film	Role	Notes
1914	Her Own Money	Lew Alden	uncredited
1918	All Woman		uncredited
1919	Lombardi, Ltd.		uncredited
1921	First Love	Donald Halliday	Incomplete; Museum of Modern Art (New York)
	Cheated Hearts	Tom Gordon
	The Love Charm	Thomas Morgan
	Sheltered Daughters	Pep Mullins
1922	If I Were Queen	Vladimir
	A Girl's Desire	Jones/Lord Dysart
	The Ninety and Nine	Tom Silverton/Phil Bradbury
	The Girl in His Room	Kirk Waring
	Her Own Money	Lew Alden
1923	St. Elmo	Murray Hammond	Lost
	Blow Your Own Horn	Jack Dunbar
	In Search of a Thrill	Adrian Torrens
	Those Who Dance	Bob Kane	Extant; Library of Congress (per Tave/IMDb review)
1924	Christine of the Hungry Heart	Stuart Knight	Extant; Library of Congress (per Tave/IMDb review)
	The Female	Col. Valentia
	His Forgotten Wife	Donald Allen/John Rolfe	Extant; Library of Congress
	Alimony	Jimmy Mason
	The Garden of Weeds	Douglas Crawford
1925	The Best People	Henry Morgan	Lost
	A Son of His Father	Big Boy Morgan
	Rugged Water	Calvin Horner	Lost
	Welcome Home	Fred Prouty	Extant
	The Awful Truth	Norman Satterlee	print preserved at UCLA Film and Television (per IMDb)
	The Air Mail	Russ Kane	Incomplete
	The Golden Bed	Bunny O'Neill	'Extant'
	Mismates	Ted Carroll	Lost
1926	Aloma of the South Seas	Nuitane	Lost
	The Runaway	Wade Murrell	Lost
	Mannequin	John Herrick	Extant
	The Great Gatsby	Jay Gatsby	now a lost film
	Miss Brewster's Millions	Thomas B. Hancock Jr	Lost
1927	The Coward	Clinton Philbrook
	Singed	Royce Wingate	Lost
	Drums of the Desert	John Curry	Lost
	The Telephone Girl	Matthew Standish	Lost
	Craig's Wife	Walter Craig	Lost
1928	Danger Street	Rolly Sigsby
	Ramona	Alessandro	Extant
	Three Sinners	James Harris	Lost
	The Tragedy of Youth	Frank Gordon	Lost
	West of Zanzibar	Doc	directed by Tod Browning; Extant
	A Woman's Way	Tony	Lost
	In Old Arizona	The Cisco Kid	Academy Award for Best Actor - Extant
1929	Romance of the Rio Grande	Pablo Wharton Cameron
	Behind That Curtain	Col. John Beetham	Extant
	The Far Call	?	Lost
	Thru Different Eyes	Jack Winfield	Extant (special silent version only, incomplete)
	Linda	Dr. Paul Randall	Extant
1930	Renegades	Deucalion	Extant
	Such Men Are Dangerous	Ludwig Kranz	Extant; Library of Congress
	The Arizona Kid	The Cisco Kid	Extant; Library of Congress
	The Squaw Man	James 'Jim' Wingate, aka Jim Carston	Extant
1931	Their Mad Moment	Esteban Cristera
	Doctors' Wives	Dr. Judson Penning
	The Stolen Jools	The Cisco Kid
	Daddy Long Legs	Jervis Pendleton
	The Cisco Kid	The Cisco Kid
	Surrender	Sgt. Dumaine
1932	Six Hours to Live	Capt. Paul Onslow
	Man About Town	Stephen Morrow
	Amateur Daddy	Jim Gladden
1933	Dangerously Yours	Andrew Burke
	42nd Street	Julian Marsh
	I Loved You Wednesday	Philip Fletcher
	Paddy the Next Best Thing	Lawrence Blake
	Penthouse	Jackson 'Jack' Durant
1934	Hell in the Heavens	Lt. Steve Warner
	As Husbands Go	Charles Lingard
	Grand Canary	Dr. Harvey Leith
	Stand Up and Cheer!	Lawrence Cromwell
	Such Women Are Dangerous	Michael Shawn
	Broadway Bill	Dan Brooks
1935	Under the Pampas Moon	Cesar Campo
	One More Spring	Jaret Otkar
	La Fiesta de Santa Barbara	Himself	Short film
1936	White Hunter	Capt. Clark Rutledge
	To Mary - with Love	Jack Wallace
	The Road to Glory	Captain Paul La Roche
	The Prisoner of Shark Island	Dr. Samuel Mudd
	King of Burlesque	Kerry Bolton
	The Robin Hood of El Dorado	Joaquin Murrieta
1937	Wife, Doctor and Nurse	Dr. Judd Lewis
	Vogues of 1938	George Curson
	Slave Ship	Jim Lovett
1938	I'll Give a Million	Tony Newlander
	Kidnapped	Alan Breck
1939	Barricade	Hank Topping
	Wife, Husband and Friend	Leonard Borland aka Logan Bennett
	The Return of the Cisco Kid	The Cisco Kid
1940	Earthbound	Nick Desborough
1941	Adam Had Four Sons	Adam Stoddard
1943	Crime Doctor	Dr. Robert Ordway/Phil Morgan	first of 10 films in the Crime Doctor B-film series
	Crime Doctor's Strangest Case	Dr. Robert Ordway
1944	Shadows in the Night	Dr. Robert Ordway
	Lady in the Dark	Kendall Nesbitt
1945	Crime Doctor's Warning	Dr. Robert Ordway
	The Crime Doctor's Courage	Dr. Robert Ordway
1946	Crime Doctor's Man Hunt	Dr. Robert Ordway
	Just Before Dawn	Dr. Robert Ordway
1947	Crime Doctor's Gamble	Dr. Robert Ordway
	The Millerson Case	Dr. Robert Ordway
1948	The Gentleman from Nowhere	Earl Donovan/Robert Ashton
1949	The Crime Doctor's Diary	Dr. Robert Ordway	last of the Crime Doctor series
	The Devil's Henchman	Jess Arno
	Prison Warden	Warden Victor Burnell
1950	State Penitentiary	Rodger Manners
1952	O. Henry's Full House		clip of Baxter from The Cisco Kid

External links

• Warner Baxter at IMDb
• Warner Baxter at the Internet Broadway Database
• Warner Baxter at AllMovie
• Warner Baxter, Find A Grave
• Photographs of Warner Baxter
• Warner Baxter and his mother Jane tour the Fox lot in Hollywood: #1...#2