Lloyd Hughes — Blue Book of the Screen (1923) 🇺🇸

One seldom hears of a leading man on the screen today who wasn’t formerly a stage star or who hadn’t started in motion pictures in the early days. There are many women stars who started as extra girls, but they had beauty to attract the attention of film producers. It is very rarely that one hears of a male star who started as an extra man, and it takes real acting ability to gain such recognition.

In 1917 Lloyd Hughes was an extra man. He started without any stage experience, at the bottom of the ladder of filmdom, and two years later he made his first starring picture for Thomas H. Ince. It was titled “Homespun Folks.”

It was just at the time that Charles Ray left the organization that Mr. Ince discovered Mr. Hughes and starred him in a story that was of rural “Ray” type. He made an immediate success, and his first picture was followed by “Mother O’Mine,” “Love Never Dies” and “Scars of Jealousy,” all under the Ince banner.

After becoming established as a star, Mary Pickford decided to use him as her leading man in Tess of the Storm Country. Then Hughes accepted another starring role in an independent production, “Are You a Failure?”

Mr. Hughes was born in Bisbee, Arizona, twenty-six years ago. Soon he came to California and settled in Los Angeles, where he went to school. It was amateur theatricals from the stage of the Polytechnic High School that probably led him to strive for a career before the camera.

In two years preceding his recognition as a star, he played bits and small parts in many films.

Mr. Hughes is married to Gloria Hope, who is a screen star herself, and they live in one of the beautiful hillside homes of Hollywood.

Motoring, hiking, tennis, handball and other outdoor recreations are Mr. Hughes’ hobbies.

He has a tanned complexion, with dark brown hair and gray eyes. He weighs 155 pounds and is six feet tall.

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Portrait by Evans • Los Angeles

Collection: The Blue Book of the Screen (1923)