William Mason

• Born: 1888 in South Dakota
• Died: Jan 24, 1941 in Orange, New Jersey
• Occupation: Actor
• Active: teens
• Major Genres: Drama, Comedy Drama

Biography

Of Danish extraction, dimpled silent screen comedian "Smiling Billy" Mason (sometimes given as William Mason) had appeared in the chorus of The Shepherd King and Girl of My Dreams and worked as a circus clown prior to entering films with the Pathé company in 1912. He became a star for the Essanay company in Chicago, however, appearing in comedy shorts opposite the likes of Beverly Bayne and a very young Gloria Swanson. Later he did a series of popular baseball comedies for Universal. Mason made his feature film debut playing a cub reporter battling jewel thieves in A Prince of India (1914), an action melodrama filmed by the Wharton brothers in Ithaca, NY, and later also starred in a cheap exploitation film, It Might Happen to You (1919), but his other non-comedy roles were supporting. Even they dried up in the early '20s and he spent the remainder of his career in vaudeville. Today, Mason is probably best remembered for his one Keystone comedy, A Dash of Courage, which also featured the then-husband-and-wife team of Wallace Beery and Gloria Swanson. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

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