Chats with the Players — Henry King, of the Balboa Company (1915) 🇺🇸
Henry King, handsome young leading man of the Balboa Amusement Producing Company’s big studios at Long Beach, Cal, is familiarly known to his hosts of friends as “the man from Virginia,” this complimentary title identifying him as a scion of one of the most distinguished families in that State. He is a native of Roanoke, near which historic city his mother still resides, as the proprietor of the family estate of four hundred acres.
During the last year Mr. King’s popularity has grown constantly, his meritorious work steadily winning him more and more admirers. Always cast as the hero, his genius and talents as a leading man are given wide scope, and he invests his characterizations with manliness, dash and weight. One of his most successful roles was that of Larry Thorn, a novelist, in the big Balboa four-reeler, “A Will-o’-the-Wisp,” which was produced in the storm-flooded lowlands of Southern California following a heavy rain that lasted a week.
While a boy he made his theatrical debut with a road show then touring Virginia, receiving fifteen dollars a week. Three months later, the manager rewarded his earnest work by making him the “juvenile lead” of the company, which position he held for a year. Mr. King then accepted an engagement with the Arnold stock company, touring the Southern States, learning to dance, sing, manage the stage productions, and otherwise acquiring a knowledge of theatrical art. During the next year Dame Fortune did not deign to smile on his efforts, and he had the trying experience of being connected with eleven different companies in nine months.
At the age of nineteen he enacted Shakespearean roles with the company headed by Anna Boyne Moore, and his stellar work with the organization made him prosperous to an extent that enabled him to go to New York, where he soon was given the role of Jefferson Ryder in “The Lion and the Mouse,” under the management of Henry B. Harris. Following a long and successful engagement with the Harris company, he enacted leading parts in the big New York productions of “Graustark,” “The Devil,” The Common Law,” “The House of a Thousand Candles,” and other popular plays.
The call of the movies then came to Mr. King from the lips of a noted producer, Wilbert Melville, manager of the Lubin Western studios, who, during a trip to Gotham, was attracted by the young man ‘s stage work and offered him a handsome salary to go to Los Angeles and play leading roles at the Lubin studios. After many months of work for Lubin, he resigned his position there, and more than a year ago began his present services as leading man of the Balboa forces. His director is Bertram Bracken, a veteran producer, who for many years was director for Gaston Méliès and other pioneer impresarios of the silent drama.
One of the most reassuring things about Mr. King’s work during the last year is that it has broadened; he has grown more manfully robust, and — sh-s-s-s-s-h! breathe it softly — he has steadily become more handsome. There is all the dash of youth with him, but the restraining hand of experience, too. Youth apparently is to be his portion for many years to come, and the next generation of matinee girls at the photoplay doubtless will cut his picture out of the magazine and put it in a frame on the dresser, as many of the younger set do today.
Virginia West.
Collection: Motion Picture Magazine, April 1915
—
see also