Walsh was born in New York as Albert Edward Walsh to Elizabeth T. Bruff, the daughter of Irish Catholic immigrants,[citation needed] and Thomas W. Walsh, an Englishman. Walsh was part of Omega Gamma Delta in high school, as was his younger brother. Growing up in New York, Walsh was also a friend of the Barrymore family. John Barrymore recalled spending time reading in the Walsh family library as a youth. After his mother died, he left home when he was fifteen years old and traveled through Texas, Montana and Cuba, also working in Mexico as a cowboy.[6] Later in life, Walsh lived in Palm Springs, California.[7] He was buried at Assumption Cemetery Simi Valley, Ventura County, California.
Film career
Walsh was educated at Seton Hall College. He began acting in 1909, first as a stage actor in New York City and later as a film actor. In 1913 he changed his name to Raoul Walsh. In 1914 he became an assistant to D. W. Griffith and made his first full-length feature film as an actor, The Life of General Villa, shot on location in Mexico with Pancho Villa playing the lead, and with actual ongoing battles filmed in progress as well as battle recreations. Walsh played Villa as a younger man.
In Sadie Thompson (1928), starring Gloria Swanson as a prostitute seeking a new life in Samoa, Walsh starred as Swanson's boyfriend in his first acting role since 1915; he also directed the film. He was then hired to direct and star in In Old Arizona, a film about O. Henry's character the Cisco Kid. While on location for that film Walsh was in a car crash when a jackrabbit jumped through the windshield as he was driving through the desert; he lost his right eye as a result. He gave up the part and never acted again. Warner Baxter won an Oscar for the role Walsh was originally slated to play. Walsh would wear an eyepatch for the rest of his life.
In the early days of sound with Fox, Walsh directed the first widescreen spectacle, The Big Trail (1930), an epic wagon train western shot on location, across the West. The movie starred John Wayne, then unknown, whom Walsh discovered as prop man named Marion Morrison, and he was renamed after the Revolutionary War general Mad Anthony Wayne; Walsh happened to be reading a book about him at the time. Walsh directed The Bowery (1933), featuring Wallace Beery, George Raft, Fay Wray and Pert Kelton; the energetic movie recounts the story of Steve Brodie (Raft), supposedly the first man to jump off the Brooklyn Bridge and live to brag about it.
Raoul Walsh was a breeder and owner of Thoroughbred racehorses.[9][10] For a time, his brother George Walsh trained his stable of horses.[11] Their horse Sunset Trail competed in the 1937 Kentucky Derby won by War Admiral who went on to win the U.S. Triple Crown. Sunset Trail finished sixteenth in a field of twenty runners.[12]
Some of Walsh's film-related material and personal papers are contained in the Wesleyan University Cinema Archives.[13]
Selected filmography
The Pseudo Prodigal (1913 short, director, directorial debut)
The Mystery of the Hindu Image (1914, director, uncredited)
The Men Who Made the Movies: Raoul Walsh (TV documentary)
Himself (1973)
Notes
^Walsh replaced director Bretaigne Windust, who fell severely ill, on The Enforcer and shot over half the film, but refused to take screen credit.
References
^Billiter, Bill (January 3, 1981). "Famed Motion Picture Director Raoul Walsh Dies at 93". The Washington Post. Retrieved February 16, 2022.
^Ellenberger, Allan R. (2001). Celebrities in Los Angeles Cemeteries: A Directory. McFarland & Company. p. 232. ISBN 0-7864-0983-5.
^Perlmutter, Ruth (1989). "Real Feelings, Hollywood Melodrama and the Bitter Tears of Fassbinder's Petra von Kant". Minnesota Review. 33 (1): 79–98. ISSN 2157-4189.
^Jack Hill on WHITE HEAT, February 13, 2014, retrieved October 29, 2022
^"ISS 2017 Annual Meeting New York, New York". Skeletal Radiology. 46 (9): 1305–1314. June 28, 2017. doi:10.1007/s00256-017-2691-9. ISSN 0364-2348. PMID 30357500.
^Schneider, Steven Jay, ed. (2007). 501 Movie Directors. London: Cassell Illustrated. p. 39. ISBN 9781844035731. OCLC 1347156402.
^Meeks, Eric G. (2012). The Best Guide Ever to Palm Springs Celebrity Homes. Horatio Limburger Oglethorpe. p. 145. ISBN 978-1479328598.
^Peter B. Flint (January 3, 1981). "Raoul Walsh, 93, Dead; Early Director of Movies". The New York Times. p. 26.
^"Rockingham Park Notes". Daily Racing Form at University of Kentucky Archives. July 9, 1934. Retrieved June 4, 2021.
^"Raoul Walsh's New Trainer". Daily Racing Form at University of Kentucky Archives. April 22, 1939. Retrieved June 4, 2021.
^"Plans for Walsh Stable". Daily Racing Form at University of Kentucky Archives. April 21, 1937. Archived from the original on May 6, 2020. Retrieved June 4, 2021.
^"Kentucky Derby History". Kentucky Derby Info. Archived from the original on October 29, 2012. Retrieved December 29, 2011.
^"Cinema Archives". Wesleyan University. Retrieved August 21, 2019.
Further reading
Moss. Marilyn Ann (2011). Raoul Walsh: The True Adventures of Hollywood's Legendary Director. University Press of Kentucky.[ISBN missing]
Smith, Renee D. (2013). The Films of Raoul Walsh: A Critical Approach[ISBN missing]