"Stagecoach" Actor George Bancroft 1956 Woodlawn Cemetery

George Bancroft (September 30, 1882 – October 2, 1956) was an American Hollywood film actor of the 1920s and 1930s.

Biography

Bancroft was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1882. During his early days as a sailor, he staged plays onboard ship. He graduated from the United States Naval Academy as a commissioned officer, but left the Navy after his enlistment was completed to become a blackface song and dance comedian in revue.

After that, he turned to melodrama and musical comedy. He later became one of the top Hollywood stars of the 1920s. Bancroft's first starring role was in The Pony Express (1925), and the next year he played an important supporting role in a cast including Wallace Beery and Charles Farrell in the period naval widescreen epic Old Ironsides (1926), then went from historical pictures to the gritty world of the underground in Paramount Pictures productions such as von Sternberg's Underworld (1927) and The Docks of New York (1928). 

He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1929 for Thunderbolt, played the title role in The Wolf of Wall Street (1929, released just prior to the Wall Street Crash),[1] and appeared in Paramount's all-star revue Paramount on Parade (1930) and Rowland Brown's Blood Money (1933), condemned by the censors because they feared the film would "incite law-abiding citizens to crime."

Those who knew him, such as Budd Schulberg, said that he developed an inflated ego. Reportedly, he refused to fall down on set after a prop revolver was fired at him, saying "Just one bullet can't stop Bancroft!" 

By 1934, he had slipped to being a supporting actor, although he still appeared in reduced roles in such classics as Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936) with Gary Cooper, Angels with Dirty Faces (1938) with James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart, Each Dawn I Die (1939) with Cagney and George Raft, and Stagecoach (1939) with John Wayne. 

In 1942, he left Hollywood to be a rancher. 

George Bancroft died in 1956 in Santa Monica, California, and was interred there in the Woodlawn Memorial Cemetery.

Selected filmography

The Pony Express (1925) (with Wallace Beery)
The Rainbow Trail (1925) (with Tom Mix)
Code of the West (1925) (with Constance Bennett)
Old Ironsides (1926) (with Wallace Beery)
The Runaway (1926) (with Clara Bow)
White Gold (1927) (with Jetta Goudal)
Underworld (1927) (with Evelyn Brent)
The Rough Riders (1927) (with Noah Beery, Sr.)
The Drag Net (1928) (with William Powell)
The Docks of New York (1928) (with Olga Baclanova)

The Wolf of Wall Street (1929) (with Olga Baclanova)

Thunderbolt (1929) (with Fay Wray)
Paramount on Parade (1930) (with Maurice Chevalier)
Ladies Love Brutes (1930) (with Fredric March)
Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936) as MacWade (with Gary Cooper)
Wedding Present (1936) (with Cary Grant)
Hell-Ship Morgan (1936)
Racketeers in Exile (1937)
Angels with Dirty Faces (1938) (with Cagney and Bogart)
Stagecoach (1939) (with John Wayne)

Each Dawn I Die (1939)

Rulers of the Sea (1939) (with Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.)

When the Daltons Rode (1940) (with Randolph Scott)

Young Tom Edison (1940) (with Mickey Rooney and Fay Bainter)
Northwest Mounted Police (1940) (with Gary Cooper)
Little Men (1940) (with Jack Oakie)

Texas (1941) (with William Holden)

Whistling in Dixie (1942) (with Red Skelton)
The Bugle Sounds (1942) (with Wallace Beery)

References

1. https://movies.nytimes.com/movie/117365/The-Wolf-of-Wall-Street/overview