J. Farrell MacDonald — He Has Seen Life (1927) 🇺🇸

If the story of J. Farrell MacDonald were told in book form, it would make several very large volumes.

This may not be a new thought, but it applies exactly to the man who made such a hit as the big Irishman in The Iron Horse, and more recently in Three Bad Men. MacDonald’s career has been, not like the career of one man, but of several.

His success has been reached by the long way round, rather than by short cuts. He has been in the movies since their very earliest toddlings. First and chiefly as a director. Acting is a much more recent digression for him — that is, acting that has brought him any sort of notice.

In the very beginning, he set out to be a civil engineer, and went to Yale. After a year or two there, he grew tired of the steady grind of study, and set out to look the world over. In New York, Baltimore, Denver, and San Francisco he worked as a newspaper reporter, but eventually that, too, began to pall. Then his life took a strange turn, and he studied for the priesthood. Before he had taken his final vows, however, he realized that that vocation would be a serious mistake for him. Wanderlust had again overcome him.

This time it led to the stage. He had a good voice, which had been trained during his year or so of study, and so he secured opera engagements both in this country and abroad. Again, after this, he went through a period of restlessness — trying reporting, engineering, and stage acting in quick succession. It was about this time that he heard about the movies. He landed as a movie actor when there were few of them, and consequently made good almost immediately. He got a chance as a director very shortly afterward.

If there is anything lacking in any of MacDonald’s screen interpretations, it is not because of any want of experience. He knows virtually all phases of life, and the vigor of the portrayals that he has given goes to prove this. He has, however, such a definite place as a type, that nearly all his roles border on rough-and-ready comedy, or a very robust and somewhat amusing dignity.

Photo by: Max Munn Autrey (1891–1971)

Collection: Picture Play Magazine, January 1927