American Arcade card by Ex. Sup. Co, Chicago. Photo: First National. Jack Mulhall in Man Crazy (John Francis Dillon, 1927).
British postcard. in the "Pictures" Portrait Gallery, London, no. 25. Photo: The Trans-Atlantic Film Co. (Universal's European distribution brand).
A film star of the Roaring Twenties
Jack Mulhall was born John Joseph Francis Mulhall in 1887 in Wappingers Falls, New York. Mulhall began his career as a singer in the circus as a teenager, after which he worked his way up to become a serious actor with appearances in Vaudeville shows and travelling theatre groups.
The first film appearances of Mulhall, then in his early twenties, are documented for the year 1910 at the Biograph Company. There, David Wark Griffith was making films that were groundbreaking in terms of film technology at the time. Mulhall acted e.g. in a minor part in his The Fugitive (David Wark Griffith, 1910). From the mid-1910s, Mulhall was established as a leading actor in films and achieved corresponding popularity.
Around 1916 he started at Universal. There he starred in various films with Lon Chaney and Dorothy Phillips, such as The Place Beyond the Winds (Joe De Grasse, 1916) and The Price of Silence (Joe De Grasse, 1916). He also co-starred with Ruth Stonehouse in such films as Love Aflame (James Vincent, Raymond Wells, 1917) and The Saintly Sinner (Raymond Wells, 1917). In addition to drama, Mulhall also starred in Westerns and comedy, fantasy, and crime films. In 1918 he starred opposite Juanita Hansen in the Universal serial The Brassed Bullet (Ben F. Wilson, 1918).
From 1919, Jack Mulhall filmed for several years for the Metro Pictures Corporation, from which Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer later emerged. He also worked for Paramount, First National, Universal, and several minor companies. He increasingly appeared in elaborately produced feature films instead of short films. Examples are the Metro production Fools and Their Money (Herbert Blaché, 1919), and the Paramount film You Never Can Tell (Chester Franklin, 1920) with Bebe Daniels.
Mulhall became a film star of the Roaring Twenties with popular films such as the Universal serial The Social Buccaneer (Robert F. Hill, 1923) with Margaret Livingston, Universal's jazz age feature The Mad Whirl (William Seiter, 1925) with Mae McAvoy, and the Colleen Moore comedies We Moderns (John Francis Dillon, 1925) and Orchids and Ermine (Alfred Santell, 1925) for First National.
British postcard in the Picturegoer series, London, no. 164.
British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. 164b.
The elegant man of the world
Jack Mulhall often played the elegant man of the world, particularly in several light comedies with Dorothy Mackaill as his film partner. These included the First National comedies Joanna (Edwin Carewe, 1925), Man Crazy (John Francis Dillon, 1927), and Lady Be Good (Richard Wallace, 1928). He also appeared in dramas like Waterfront (William A. Seiter, 1928). Mulhall's other film partners of the 1920s included Constance Binney, Florence Vidor, Lois Wilson, Constance Talmadge, Norma Talmadge, Alma Rubens, Lois Moran, Greta Nissen, Lila Lee, Alice White, Billie Dove and Corinne Griffith. According to his obituary in The New York Times, he was the first male actor in Hollywood to earn $1,000 a week. He also appeared in several Westerns. He was the lead actor in the Jack London film The Call of the Wild (Fred Jackman, 1923) and starred in the Western serial, Wild West (Robert F. Hill, 1925).
With the advent of sound film at the end of the 1920s, Jack Mulhall was initially cast in leading roles thanks to his pleasant voice. He appeared in such musicals as Show Girl in Hollywood (Mervyn LeRoy, 1930) with Alice White, The Fall Guy (Leslie Pearce, 1930) with Mae Clarke, and Lover Come Back To Me (Erle C. Kenton, 1931) with Constance Cummings and Betty Bronson.
Yet, his popularity waned just a few years later. From the mid-1930s onwards, he only made major appearances in B movies and film serials. He often remained unnamed in the credits for his small supporting roles in high-calibre film productions. He lost large parts of his fortune, estimated at over a million dollars, in the stock market crash of 1929 and the subsequent Great Depression. Mulhall took the fall of his career in stride but is said to have been puzzled by it until his death. ‘I guess actors can't be good businessmen’, he once commented on his bad investments.
Jack Mulhall's more notable roles in the sound film era include his appearances in film serials. He played the lead role in Burn ‘Em Up Barnes (Colbert Clark, Armand Schaefer, 1934) and subsequently had supporting roles in the Buster Crabbe serials Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars (Ford Beebe, Robert F. Hill, Frederick Stephani, 1938) and Buck Rogers (Ford Beebe, Saul A. Goodkind, 1939). However, in most of his later films, he only made brief appearances. He was often cast as a policeman, reporter or doctor. he was also heard on US radio from the 1930s onward and appeared in 'Blackouts', a successful stage revue by Ken Murray, in the late 1940s.
After appearing in the new medium of television, Mulhall, now over 70 years old, retired from the film business after the film The Atomic Submarine (Spencer Gordon Bennett, 1959). The film veteran remained active as a contract negotiator and representative for the Screen Actors Guild until 1974. Mulhall married his first wife Bertha Vuillot in 1909, but she died young. He married his second wife Laura Bunton in 1916 and they had a son, John. Laura committed suicide in 1921. He married his third wife Evelyn Mulhall in 1922. Mulhall died in 1979 at the age of 91 in the Motion Picture & Television Country House, where he had moved two years before his death. In 1960, a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame was dedicated to him.
Spanish collector card by Chocolate Pi, Barcelona, no. 7 of 54. Photo: Trans-Atlantic Film Co. / Distr. J. Verdaguer, Barcelona. Scene from the American serial The Brass Bullet (Ben F. Wilson, Universal 1918), starring Jack Mulhall and Juanita Hansen. Spanish release title: La Bala de Bronce.
Spanish collector card by Chocolate Pi, Barcelona, no. 23 of 54. Photo: Trans-Atlantic Film Co. / Distr. J. Verdaguer, Barcelona. Jack Mulhall and Juanita Hansen in The Brass Bullet (Ben F. Wilson, 1918). Spanish release title: La Bala de Bronce.
Spanish collector card by Chocolate Pi, Barcelona, no. 32 of 54. Photo: Trans-Atlantic Film Co. / Distr. J. Verdaguer, Barcelona. Scene from the American serial The Brass Bullet (Ben F. Wilson, 1918).Spanish release title: La Bala de Bronce. Here, left of Jack Mulhall, possibly Joseph W. Girard as Spring Gilbert. The minister left of him was played by Charles Force. The man on the right may be Ashton Dearholt, who plays Victor King.
Sources: Wikipedia (German and English) and IMDb.
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