Cast

Milton Sills

Acting

Cast

Milton Sills

Known for

Acting

Born

1882-01-11

From

Chicago, Illinois, USA

Died

1930-09-15

Biography

From Wikipedia Milton George Gustavus Sills (January 12, 1882 – September 15, 1930) was an American stage and film actor of the early twentieth century. Sills was born in Chicago, Illinois into a wealthy family. He was the son of William Henry Sills, a successful mineral dealer, and Josephine Antoinette Troost Sills, an heiress from a prosperous banking family. Upon completing high school, Sills was offered a one-year scholarship to the University of Chicago, where he studied psychology and philosophy. After graduating, he was offered a position at the university as a researcher and within several years worked his way up to become a professor at the school. In 1905, stage actor Donald Robertson visited the school to lecture on author and playwright Henrik Ibsen and suggested to Sills that he try his hand at acting. On a whim, Sills agreed and left his prestigious teaching career to embark on a stint in acting. Sills joined Robertson's stock theater company and began touring the country. In 1914, Sills decided to conquer the new medium of motion pictures. He made his film debut the same year in the big-budget drama The Pit for the World Film Company and was signed to a contract with film producer William A. Brady. The film was enormously successful, and Sills made three more films for the company, including another huge box-office draw The Deep Purple opposite silent screen star Clara Kimball Young. By the late 1910s, Sills had reached leading man status and parted ways with World Film, taking the then unusual path of freelancing as an actor. By the early 1920s, Sills was enjoying a highly successful acting career and working for such prominent film studios as MGM, Paramount Pictures, and Pathé Exchange. He was often paired with the most popular leading ladies of the era, including: Geraldine Farrar, Gloria Swanson and Viola Dana. His greatest public and commercial successes came with the now lost Flaming Youth (1923) opposite Colleen Moore, and the enormous box-office hit The Sea Hawk (1924). Sills made two sound pictures, showing that he had an excellent voice. Many may have forgotten that Sills had extensive stage training before embarking on his career before the cameras. Sills died unexpectedly of a heart attack in 1930 while playing tennis with his wife at his Santa Barbara, California home at the age of 48. He was interred at the Rosehill Cemetery and Mausoleum in Chicago, Illinois.

Milton Sills

Milton Sills

Biography

Salvage

The Rack

Miss Lulu Bett

Environment

The Arrival of Perpetua

Single Wives

The Little Fool

Souls for Sale

The Valley of the Giants

The Fear Woman

The Legend of Rudolph Valentino

The Heart Bandit

Behold My Wife

Men of Steel

The Pit

The Barker

Puppets

The Woman Who Lied

What Every Woman Learns

Hard-Boiled Haggerty

The Sea Tiger

I Want My Man

The Savage Woman

The Silent Lover

Seeing Stars

One Clear Call

Dangerous to Men

The Unguarded Hour

The Taming of Mary

The Sea Wolf

The Inferior Sex

A Trip to Paramountown

Married in Name Only

The Circus: Premiere

The Great Moment

Love and the Devil

His Captive Woman

Flowing Gold

The Sea Hawk

Burning Daylight

The Woman Who Walked Alone

The Hawk's Nest

The Stronger Vow

Adam's Rib

Patria

Eyes of Youth

Burning Sands

The Knockout

The Spoilers

The Faith Healer

The Honor System

As Man Desires

Skin Deep

Man Trouble

Paradise

Madonna of the Streets

The Crash

The Isle of Lost Ships

Sweet Lavender

The Forgotten Law

The Hushed Hour

The Last Hour

The Hell Cat

The Woman Thou Gavest Me

At the End of the World

Framed

A Lady of Quality

The Claw

The Furnace

Making Monkey Business

Flaming Youth

Satan Junior

The Making of O'Malley

Under Southern Skies

The Street Called Straight

Legally Dead

What a Wife Learned