Douglas Fairbanks

Between 1915 and 1934, actor Douglas Fairbanks displayed unparalleled athletic prowess marked by a naturally optimistic zest for life in over 40 films that turned him into one of Hollywood's biggest silent era stars. During the height of his fame in the 1920s, Fairbanks portrayed historical characters of incredible exuberance and unbounded energy, as he jumped, swung, leaped and, most importantly, smiled his way across American movie screens. After a successful New York stage career, he entered the film business as one of D.W. Griffith's stars in films like "The Lamb" (1915) and "Double Trouble" (1915), but soon found himself put to better use under different directors as an upper class dynamo in "American Aristocracy" (1916), "Wild and Woolly" (1917) and "Reaching for the Moon" (1917). After a brief hiatus to sell war bonds for World War I, Fairbanks returned to Hollywood and dropped his aristocratic persona in favor of playing cheery swashbucklers in the day's most popular movies, like "The Mark of Zorro" (1920), "Robin Hood" (1922) and "The Thief of Baghdad" (1924), all of which featured the actor performing his own elaborate stunts. At the same time, he married star Mary Pickford and the two became Hollywood's first celebrated couple. Meanwhile, he formed United Artists with Griffith, Pickford and Charlie Chaplin to distribute movies and exercise creative control over their films. He went on to star in hits like "The Black Pirate" (1926) and "The Guacho" (1927), before entering the talkie era with the partial sound film, "The Iron Mask" (1929). But with his declining health - not to mention his divorce from Pickford - Fairbanks retired from acting after making "The Private Life of Don Juan" (1934) and died five years later. Remembered for his groundbreaking movies, elaborate stunts and always sunny optimism, Fairbanks remained one of early Hollywood's most enduring stars.