Sidney Blackmer

Sidney Alderman Blackmer 13 July 1895 6 October 1973 was an American actor Blackmer was born and raised in Salisbury North Carolina He started off in an insurance and financial business but gave up on it While working as a builders laborer on a new building he saw a Pearl White serial being filmed and immediately decided to go into acting Blackmer went to New York hoping to act on the stage While in the city he took jobs and extra work at various film studios at the then motion picture capital Fort Lee New Jersey including a bit part in the highly popular serial The Perils of Pauline 1914 He made his Broadway debut in 1917 but his career was interrupted by service in the US military in World War I After the war he returned to the theatre and in 1929 returned to motion pictures and went on to be a major character actor in more than 120 films He won the 1950 Tony Award for Best Actor Drama for his role in the Broadway play Come Back Little Sheba In film Blackmer is remembered for his more than a dozen portrayals of US President Theodore Roosevelt and for his role in the Academy Awardwinning 1968 Roman Polanski film about urban New York witches Rosemarys Baby in which he played an oversolicitous neighbor A humanitarian Blackmer served as the national vice president of the United States Muscular Dystrophy Association In 1972 he was honored with the North Carolina Award in the Fine Arts category It is the state of North Carolinas highest civilian award On his passing in 1973 Blackmer was interred in the Chestnut Hill Cemetery in his hometown of Salisbury North Carolina Description above from the Wikipedia article Sidney Blackmer licensed under CCBYSA full list of contributors on Wikipedia