Elmo Lincoln — A Yankee Maciste (1919) 🇺🇸
Perhaps you saw him in Intolerance — the Chaldean warrior who stood with two-edged sword and cut down his adversaries like Ty Cobb batting out base hits; only he had a better average even than the redoubtable Tyrus when he batted against the invincible Cyrus.
Or maybe you saw him as Tarzan of the Apes, that novel picturization of Mr. Burroughs’ fantastic novel of the same name. Here he swung from limb to limb in the monkey-infested jungles of Hollywood and Louisiana and did feats of strength that every kid who saw the film has been trying to ape — yes, that’s the word — ever since.
He’s the American Maciste [Bartolomeo Pagano], if any American screen player has the right to be called a rival to the famous Italian strong man of Cabiria fame.
It was the powerful, bulgy, hirsute chest of Elmo Lincoln that made him a film star.
Born in Rochester, Ind., Lincoln went to the Southwest with his parents at an early age and grew to manhood in Texas. There he worked at railroading and for a time was a peace officer in Arkansas.
While living in that state Lincoln married and it was his wife’s ill health that brought them to California. Of course folks who go to California, particularly the vicinity of Los Angeles, always get into the movies eventually, and Elmo was no exception. Some of the old timers, as film history runs, will recall one of the greatest of the early Griffiths [D. W. Griffith], “The Battle of Elderbush Gulch.” Well, it was this picture that gave Lincoln his chance six ago. He played the sergeant in that stirring photodrama and during the course of the fighting his shirt was torn partially off, displaying his powerful chest. The great Griffith spied the aforementioned treasure chest and Lincoln was destined for better things than the extra’s lot. By the way that same chest was prominently displayed more recently in The Greatest Thing in Life. Do you recall the soldier in the trench with Bobby Harron [Robert Harron] who wanted to “trade two little ones for a big one”? That was Elmo again. D. W. never forgot that chest.
Lincoln also played in The Birth of a Nation and in many other subsequent dramas made on the Griffith lot. He left it for the first time when he was engaged to play the title role in Tarzan.
At the present time Lincoln is one of the stars in a serial which is being made by Director Henry McRae [Henry MacRae] for the Great Western Producing Company of which Julius Stern is the “big noise.” The other star is Grace Cunard. In every episode of the thriller, Lincoln is made to perform at least a half dozen feats of strength, either in strenuous fights, making escapes from what seems to be certain death or lifting buildings or locomotives from the hapless heroine.
—
Above — Mr. Lincoln in a walking suit.
Below — in climbing garb, used in Tarzan of the Apes.
Collection: Photoplay Magazine, July 1919