Wallace Reid

Wallace Reid was an American actor in silent film referred to as the screens most perfect lover Wallace Reid appeared in several films with his father and as his career in film flourished he was soon acting and directing with and for early film mogul Allan Dwan In 1913 while at Universal Pictures Reid met and married actress Dorothy Davenport He was featured as Jeff the blacksmith in The Birth of a Nation 1915 and had an uncredited role in Intolerance 1916 both directed by D W Griffith he worked with leading ladies such as Florence Turner Gloria Swanson Lillian Gish Elsie Ferguson and Geraldine Farrar en route to becoming one of Hollywoods major heartthrobs Already involved with the creation of more than 100 motion picture shorts Reid was signed by producer Jesse L Lasky and starred in over 60 films for Laskys Famous Players film company which later became Paramount Pictures Frequently paired with actress Ann Little his actionhero role as the dashing racecar driver drew young girls and older women alike to theaters to see his daredevil auto thrillers such as The Roaring Road 1919 Double Speed 1920 Excuse My Dust 1920 and Too Much Speed 1921 While en route to a location in Oregon during filming of The Valley of the Giants 1919 Reid was injured in a train wreck near Arcata California and needed six stitches to close a 3inch 8 cm scalp wound To keep on filming he was prescribed morphine for relief of his pain and Reid soon became addicted but kept on working at a frantic pace in films that were growing more physically demanding and changing from 1520 minutes in duration to as much as an hour Reids morphine addiction worsened at a time when drug rehabilitation programs were nonexistent He died in a sanatorium while attempting to recover