Frederick Warde

Frederick Barkham Warde (23 February 1851, Wardington, Oxfordshire, England - 7 February 1935, Brooklyn, New York) was a Shakesperian actor who moved from Britain to the United States in the late 1800s. In the late 1870s he partnered with actor Maurice Barrymore and the two agreed to tour plays around the United States. Warde would have one section of the country while Barrymore and his company toured the other. For a time the venture was very successful.

Warde had two notable film achievements, one being the "discovery" of Douglas Fairbanks Sr. and persuading him to move from Denver to join Warde's New York City actors troupe. The second achievement was as the star of Richard III (1912), based on the play by William Shakespeare. This 55-minute film was re-discovered in 1996 by a private film collector who donated it to the American Film Institute archive. The film is thought to be the earliest surviving American feature film. Another of his films was A Lover's Oath (filmed in 1921 and premiered four years later), opposite Ramon Novarro, in which he portrayed Omar Khayyám. It is regarded as a lost film.

Warde also recorded an early sound film Frederick Warde Reads Poem, A Sunset Reverie (1921) which was made in the short-lived sound-on-disc Phono-Kinema process.

External links

• Frederick Warde at the Internet Movie Database

This article about an English stage actor or actress is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v • d • e

Warde, Frederick, The Fools of Shakespeare: An Interpretation of Their Wit, Wisdom and Personalities, New York: McBride, Nast & Company, 1913, 214 pages he died of a 2-year long illness sadly.