Josef Swickard

Josef Swickard

Swickard in 1921
Born June 26, 1866
Coblenz, Germany
Died February 29, 1940 (aged 73)
Hollywood, Los Angeles, California
Other names Joe Swickard
Joseph Swickard
Spouse(s) Margaret Campbell

Josef Swickard (26 June 1866 29 February 1940) was a German-born veteran stage and screen character actor, who had toured with stock companies in Europe, South Africa, and South America.

Career

Swickard entered films with D.W. Griffith in 1912 and by 1914 was playing supporting roles for Mack Sennett. He appeared in Charles Chaplin's Laughing Gas and Caught in a Cabaret. He remained with Sennett until 1917, when he settled into his prolific career of playing mostly aristocratic characters. Modern audiences are perhaps most familiar with his role of Marcelo Desnoyers, the well-intentioned but impractical French upper class father in Rex Ingram's 1921 film The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. His career in sound films was somewhat limited and he played in low-budget and action serial type films. He played the villainous Prime Minister Kruel in 1925 film version of Wizard of Oz.

Family & Death

Swickard was the brother of actor Charles Swickard, and the husband of Broadway actress Margaret Campbell, who on June 27, 1939 was brutally murdered by their adult son. Nearly seven months to-the-day after his ex-wife's murder, Swickard died on February 29, 1940. He was 73.

Despite rumors that Swickard committed suicide by jumping from the Hollywood sign, in fact he died from natural causes.[1]

Swickard was buried in under a simple headstone at Hollywood Forever Cemetery.

Selected filmography

Year Title Role Other notes
1913 Cupid in a Dental Parlor
1914 Twenty Minutes of Love Victim
Caught in a Cabaret Father
A Rowboat Romance
Laughing Gas Patient
The Property Man Old Stagehand Uncredited
The Face on the Bar Room Floor Drinker Uncredited
Lover's Luck The Girl's Father
Hello, Mabel
Tillie's Punctured Romance Cinema spectator Uncredited
Fatty and Minnie He-Haw Minta's father
1915 Mabel and Fatty's Simple Life Mabel's father
Mabel, Fatty and the Law
Mabel and Fatty's Married Life Uncredited
Hogan's Romance Upset
Love, Loot and Crash Mary's Father, a Banker
1916 A Social Cub
Haystacks and Steeples
1918 When a Woman Sins Mortimer West
The Light of Western Stars Padre Marcos
1921 The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse Marcelo Desnoyers
No Woman Knows The Great Schabelitz
Cheated Hearts Colonel Fairfax Gordon
1922 The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe
My American Wife
1923 Maytime Colonel Van Zandt
1924 The Shadow of the Desert
Men Cleo's Father
1925 Wizard of Oz Prime Minister Kruel
1926 Stop, Look and Listen Old Actor
Desert Gold
1927 The Golden Stallion John Forsythe
Old San Francisco Don Hernandez de Vasquez
1928 Sharp Shooters Grandpère
Eagle of the Night
1929 The Phantom of the North Colonel Rayburn
Street Corner short film
1933 The Perils of Pauline Haggins, Foreign Consul Chapter 9
1935 The Lost City Dr. Manyus
1938 The Secret of Treasure Island Passenger Ship Doctor Uncredited, chapter 1
You Can't Take It with You Professor
1939 Dick Tracy's G-Men Presidente Huenemo Mendoza Chapter 3

See also

References

  1. Wollstein, Hans J. "Josef Swickard: Biography". allmovie.com. Retrieved 2008-07-16.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Josef Swickard.