J. Warren Kerrigan — Blue Book of the Screen (1923) 🇺🇸

J. Warren Kerrigan’s father planned to put him in business. He himself was superintendent of a large warehouse in Louisville, Ky., and thought his son might do well to follow in his footsteps. So, when J. Warren graduated from the University of Illinois, Dad obtained for him a clerkship in the warehouse. Meantime the young man’s brother, animated solely by consideration of his splendid physique, wanted him to become a prize fighter, but his mother favored the ministry.

But Kerrigan desired to be an actor. Fortunately for him, his brother-in-law, Clay Clement, was a member of the theatrical profession, and through him Kerrigan got his first stage experience. This was in the play, Sam Houston, which opened at the Garden Theater, New York City, and after a successful run went on the road. Kerrigan, then only eighteen years old, had the juvenile lead.

He returned to New York City and joined the Spooner Stock Company. Later he played the juvenile lead in Brown of Harvard. Then he was in the cast of Brady’s production, The Master Key, following which he joined the Shuberts, remaining with them three years. It was while he was with the latter that he played in The Road to Yesterday, a production in which he won high praise from the critics.

Then the opportunity came to go into motion pictures and he took advantage of it. This was in 1911. Essanay made him a star at once, his first picture being “The Voice from the Fireplace.” Afterward he joined the American Film Company and for two years played the lead in every picture in which he appeared. Then he went to Universal which provided him with even greater vehicles than he had had before, one of his notable roles being that of Samson in “Samson and Delilah.”

This was in 1915. Among his following successes were “Langdon’s Legacy,” “The Magic Skin,” “Dread Inheritance,” “Rory O’ the Bogs.”

Then, after two years off the screen, he was induced to return to play Will Banion, one of the two featured roles in Paramount’s The Covered Wagon. Lois Wilson had the feminine featured role. In this epic of the West, Kerrigan did some of the finest work of his career, and lived like the others in the company, the life of a pioneer, almost, undergoing severe hardships in Utah, miles from a town or railroad.

In appearance Kerrigan is one of the picturesque actors on the screen. He was born in Louisville, Ky., on July 25, 1882, is six feet, one inch in height, and weighs 183 pounds. His hair is black, and his eyes are gray. His name in private life is the same as on the screen.

One of his hobbies is, as he puts it, motion pictures. In addition to being a screen actor, he is an enthusiastic advocate of the silent drama itself.

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The home of J. Warren Kerrigan in the hills of Hollywood

Collection: The Blue Book of the Screen (1923)