Rod La Rocque

Tall, handsome, extremely well-built leading man of the silent and early sound eras, typically cast as devil-may-care heros in adventures and dapper, well-dressed romancers in drawing room comedies and dramas. La Rocque began making films in 1915 and was soon a prominent leading man. Most of his starring roles are in enjoyable if standardized silent film fare, but he did act in Cecil B. DeMille's first screen version of "The Ten Commandments" (1923) and worked for Ernst Lubitsch in "Forbidden Paradise" (1924). One of his most enjoyable films lampooned aspects of his screen persona, the hilarious proto-screwball comedy "The Cruise of the Jasper B" (1926), with La Rocque, frequently stripped to the waist, in very suitably dashing, tongue-in-cheek form. He continued playing leads for several years in talkies but a number of his films were lurid, improbable melodramas, and his exotic allure seemed somewhat out of place with the move from the Roaring 20s to the Great Depression. La Rocque later kept busy in character roles, often as villains, into the 1940s. Married actress Vilma Banky in 1927.