A weekly feature in which my five-year-old son is let loose on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, one of the most popular tourist attractions in Los Angeles, and chooses a star from among the more than 2,500 honorees. His “random” picks sometimes reveal unexplained connections such as the summer day in 2012 when he sat down on the star of actress Celeste Holm and refused to budge. We later learned that the Oscar-winning actress had died only hours earlier. There are five categories on the Walk of Fame: motion pictures, television, radio, music and theater but Charlie tends to favor the movies.
Charlie returned to the world of the obscure this week on the Walk of Fame. I imagine if I did an informal study traversing the length of Hollywood Boulevard, it would be difficult to find a single tourist, resident, or possibly even film historian who could identify Charlie’s pick: Robert Edeson. Not to take anything away from the one-time star of stage and screen who was an early favorite of director Cecil B. DeMille’s. But, for goodness sake’s, the man died in 1931, almost three decades before the Hollywood Walk of Fame was even created. When you think of all the A-list movie stars who never got a star, it’s pretty remarkable that Edeson’s name was included in that first batch of celebrities. Or maybe not — the first group of people to make it onto the Walk of Fame were chosen by committees representing the different branches of the entertainment community. Cecil B. DeMille was one of the leaders of the motion picture committee along with Hal Roach, Mack Sennett, Jesse L. Lasky, and Samuel Goldwyn.
Born on June 3, 1868, in New Orleans, Robert Edeson grew up in front of the footlights. His father, George E. Edeson, was a well-known actor and Robert was always fascinated by the theater. His first professional appearance on the stage was in 1887 at the Park Theater in Brooklyn at the age of 19, and he soon conquered Broadway, appearing in over two dozen hits including The Little Minister, Soldiers of Fortune, Strongheart, and The Call of the North, which he also directed. That play was such a sensation that Cecil B. DeMille brought Edeson to Hollywood to make the movie version in 1914. Unlike many of his theater contemporaries, Edeson did not look down on the newfangled motion picture industry, and he welcomed the opportunity to bring the stage play to wider audiences. Edeson proved a big hit in the juicy double role of a father who was unjustly accused of adultery and killed, and the son who avenges his death years later.
Robert Edeson worked for Vitagraph and other fledgling studios throughout the teens, starring in films such as The Girl I Left Behind Me, A Man’s Prerogative, The Cave Man, and The Light That Failed. He then returned to work with his friend DeMille in the 1920s in big films such as the silent verison of The Ten Commandments, The King of Kings, and The Volga Boatman. Edeson also appeared in The Prisoner of Zenda with Lewis Stone and Ramon Novarro, Braveheart with Rod LaRocque and Tyrone Power, Sr., and he was the first actor to play corrupt lawyer Billy Flynn in the 1927 version of Chicago with Phyllis Haver as Roxie Hart and Julia Faye as Velma Kelly.
Robert Edeson made it into several early talkies including DeMille’s first sound picture, Dynamite, along with A Devil With Women featuring a young Humphrey Bogart, Danger Lights with Jean Arthur, and The Lash with Richard Barthelmess and Mary Astor. Sadly, Edeson’s career was cut short when he died of heart failure at the age of 62 on March 24, 1931.