Film & TV / Theatre & dance
Frank Campeau
1864–1943 · actor
Detroit-born stage actor turned silent-film character player, a frequent screen partner of Douglas Fairbanks in more than 90 films.
- Born
Detroit, Michigan- Died
Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California
aged 78- Detroit years
- 1864
- Field
- Film & TV, Theatre & dance
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Frank Campeau was born in Detroit in December 1864, when the city was still a mid-sized river port. He made his name on the stage first, appearing on Broadway in the original production of The Virginian (1904) and in The Ghost Breaker and Believe Me, Xantippe (both 1913). He moved into motion pictures in the early 1910s, beginning with the one-reel western Kit Carson's Wooing, and between 1911 and 1940 he appeared in more than 90 films. He became a familiar heavy and character actor in the silent era, often cast opposite Douglas Fairbanks, and he also appeared in D. W. Griffith's Intolerance (1916) and played General Philip Sheridan in Griffith's Abraham Lincoln (1930). He died in 1943 at the Motion Picture & Television Country House in Woodland Hills and is buried at Valhalla Memorial Park Cemetery in North Hollywood.
Highlights
- More than 90 films between 1911 and 1940
- Frequent co-star of Douglas Fairbanks in silent films
- Appeared in D. W. Griffith's Intolerance (1916)
- General Philip Sheridan in Abraham Lincoln (1930)
- Broadway in the original The Virginian (1904)