Erik Visits an American Grave, Part 1,348
By This is the grave of Harold Lockwood.
Born in 1887 in Brooklyn, Lockwood grew up middle class in Newark. He started his work life in the import-export business, but hated it, as one might if you were young and wanted something reasonably interesting to do. It wasn’t that hard to find something else to do at this time if you wanted to be on the stage. This was the vaudeville era and there was no shortage of opportunities for people with some sort of skill–handsome, good voice, funny, etc–to get some role on the stage. Lockwood was one of those and he started having success.
By 1910, Lockwood began to be targeted for the growing film industry. We have to remember how different the film industry was then compared even to what it would be in 1925. First, it was still pretty much New York based, which meant almost inherently a greater emphasis on urban and ethnic-based stories. Second, the films were basically an extension of vaudeville. No one thought much of any of these things. They were considered expendable entertainment, basically one-act vaudeville stunts presented in a different way, including without sound, though that was strictly out of necessity and people tried to figure out ways to bring sound into the movies from nearly the beginning. This is why so few of them survive; no one thought to keep them except for D.W. Griffith, who was sure to send all of his work to the Library of Congress. Third, the films were mass-produced. Get an even passably decent take and move on. Given that most of these were 12-15 minutes, actors might be doing 3 or 4 a week.
That was Lockwood. In an eight-year film career that started in 1911, he was in a mere 135 movies. That started in 1911 with something called The White Red Man. I am sure that’s just jiffy….The western was immediately the most popular genre and so titles like this make up most of Lockwood’s career–other early films include The White Medicine Man, The Law of the Range, The New Ranch Owner, A True Westerner. But Lockwood was popular enough to avoid being totally caught as a western typecast actor. He became a key person in the Famous Players group of actors and started working frequently with May Allison in major films with major directors such as Allan Dwan and Edwin S. Porter.
Among Lockwood’s most important films were 1914’s Hearts Adrift, a Porter film starring Lockwood and Mary Pickford, a Blue Lagoon ripoff that actually led to a lawsuit. Yep, same source material as the 1980 film exploiting Brooke Shields. This film was a big hit, though more for Pickford, whose salary went way up after it. He had a small role in Griffith’s Intolerance. The films with Allison and Lockwood made them one of the nation’s favorite movie couples during World War I, though Lockwood was married with a child and they had no romantic interest in each other in real life.
Lockwood was still a huge star in 1918. Unfortunately, disease doesn’t care about your stardom. This was the era of the so-called Spanish Flu, but which in fact came out of a disgusting American military camp in Kansas, and Lockwood was one of the victims. He was the perfect age for this virus that heavily impacted adults in their 20s and 30s. He was filming Shadows of Suspicion, where he played a spy for the British secret service taking out a German spy ring under the cover of being too cowardly to fight in the military. Some quality anti-German propaganda there, which was very common. But there’s not much to tell about his death. Like everyone, he got the flu. Unlike most other people but most certainly not all, he died of it. He was 31 years old. The studio hired a body double to complete the film. Easy enough since there’s no voice to worry about.
Harold Lockwood is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery, The Bronx, New York.
If you would like this series to visit other victims of the 1918-19 flu epidemic, you can donate to cover the required expenses here. George Freeth, the surfing pioneer, is in Honolulu, Hawaii and the writer Randolph Bourne is in Bloomfield, New Jersey. Previous posts in this series are archived here and here.