Creighton Hale

Creighton Hale
File:Creightonhale.jpg 1916
Born	Patrick Fitzgerald (1882-05-24)24 May 1882 County Cork, Ireland
Died	South Pasadena, California, U.S.
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1914–1959
Spouse(s)	Victoire Lowe (1912–1926; divorced); 2 children Kathleen Bering (1931–1965)
Children	2

Creighton Hale (24 May 1882 — 9 August 1965) was an Irish-American theatre, film, and television actor whose career extended more than a half-century, from the early 1900s to the end of the 1950s.

Career

Born Patrick Fitzgerald in County Cork, Ireland, he was educated in Dublin and London, and later attended Ardingly College in Sussex. He immigrated to America in his early twenties, traveling with a troupe of actors. While starring in Charles Frohman's Broadway production of Indian Summer, Hale was spotted by a representative of the Pathe Film Company. He eventually became known professionally as Creighton Hale, although the derivation of those names remains unknown. His first movie was The Exploits of Elaine in 1914. He starred in hit films such as Way Down East, Orphans of the Storm, and The Cat and the Canary.

It was generally thought that in 1923 Hale starred in an early pornographic "stag" film On the Beach (a.k.a. Getting His Goat and The Goat Man). In the film, three nude women agree to have sex with him, but only through a hole in the fence. However, photographs of the scene clearly show that the man in the film is not Hale, but another actor who also wore glasses.

However, when talkies came about, his career declined. He made several appearances in Hal Roach's Our Gang series (School's Out, Big Ears, Free Wheeling), and also played unbilled bits in major talking films such as Larceny, Inc., The Maltese Falcon, and Casablanca.

Personal life

His two sons, Creighton Hale Jr. and Robert Lowe Hale, from his first marriage to Victoire Lowe were adopted by Lowe's second husband, actor John Miljan. After his divorce, Hale married Kathleen Bering in Los Angeles in 1931. He died in the Los Angeles County city of South Pasadena at age 83 and was buried at Duncans Mills Cemetery in Northern California.

Partial filmography

• The Stain (1914)
• The Three of Us (1914)
• The Exploits of Elaine (1914)
• The New Exploits of Elaine (1915)
• The Romance of Elaine (1915)
• The Iron Claw (1916)
• Snow White (1916)
• The Seven Pearls (1917)
• The Woman the Germans Shot (1918)
• The Idol Dancer (1920)
• A Child for Sale (1920)
• Way Down East (1920)
• Orphans of the Storm (1921)
• Fascination (1922)
• Mary of the Movies (1923)
• Broken Hearts of Broadway (1923)
• Three Wise Fools (1923)
• Wine of Youth (1924)
• The Mine with the Iron Door (1924)
• The Circle (1925)
• Exchange of Wives (1925)
• Time, the Comedian (1925)
• Beverly of Graustark (1926)
• The Midnight Message (1926)
• Should Men Walk Home? (1927)
• Why Girls Say No (1927)
• One Hour Married (1927)
• Annie Laurie (1927)
• The Cat and the Canary (1927)
• Rose-Marie (1928)
• The House of Shame (1928)
• Seven Footprints to Satan (1929)
• The Great Divide (1929)
• Holiday (1930)
• School's Out (1930)
• Big Ears (1931)
• Grief Street (1931)
• Free Wheeling (1932)
• Sensation Hunters (1933)
• The Thin Man (1934) (uncredited)
• The Millionaire Kid (1936)
• Hollywood Boulevard (1936)
• The Roaring Twenties (1939) as Customer (uncredited)
• The Return of Doctor X (1939)
• Calling Philo Vance (1940)
• Affectionately Yours (1941) (uncredited)
• Bullet Scars (1942)
• Murder in the Big House
• Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) as Telegraph Operator (uncredited)
• The Gorilla Man (1943)
• Action in the North Atlantic (1943) as Sparks (uncredited)
• The Perils of Pauline (1947)
• Johnny Belinda (1948)
• Starlift (1951) (uncredited)
• The Steel Jungle (1956)
• Serenade (1956) (uncredited)
• Top Secret Affair (1957) (uncredited)
• The Spirit of St. Louis (uncredited)
• The Helen Morgan Story (1957) (uncredited)
• The Story of Mankind (1957) (uncredited)
• Westbound (1959) (uncredited)

External links

• Creighton Hale at the Internet Movie Database
• Creighton Hale at the Internet Broadway Database
• Creighton Hale at Find a Grave