John Faulkner (actor)
| John Faulkner | |
|---|---|
| Born |
13 July 1872 Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Leicestershire, England, UK |
| Died | 13 September 1934 (aged 62) Manly, NSW, Australia |
| Occupation | Actor |
John Faulkner (13 July 1872 - 13 September 1934) was a British-Australian inventor and actor of theatre and film. He appeared in two early vehicles for sports star Snowy Baker, The Enemy Within (1918) and The Lure of the Bush (1918), as well as movies from directors Raymond Longford, Franklyn Barrett, Paulette McDonagh and Beaumont Smith.
Faulkner was born in Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Leicestershire, England, the 5th of ten children. He was a descendant of Warren Hastings, the first Governor General of Bengal. When he was 13 he was sent to live with relatives in Ontario, Canada. In 1893 he returned to England and worked for several years as a traveller for a brewery. He befriended a young Oscar Asche and the two of them travelled the English countryside selling a fridge that Faulkner had invented. In the early 1900s he was a drinking companion to John Barrymore.
He started to act, formed his own theatre company and toured South America and North America. While in New York he received an offer to act opposite Ethel Barrymore but turned it down to return to England, where he started making films. He continued to make money on the side by inventing things, such as an elastic-sided shoe. A meeting with Roy Redgrave who had just toured Australia successfully prompted him to move to that country in 1914. He settled in Australia for the next few years, apart from a 1916 visit to Hollywood where he befriended Charlie Chaplin.
Faulkner began acting in Australian silent films, starting with The Enemy Within (1918). Historian Graham Shirley wrote that "as an actor, his most distinctive roles were those of the refined heavy, but he also played a gallery of indulgent or put-upon fathers. His appearance was more suited to the villains than fathers."
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