Wallace Reid Height, Weight, Age, Facts, Biography

Wallace Reid was an American actor, singer, director, writer, and race car driver who is described as “the screen’s most perfect lover”. One of the actors of the silent film era, he also had a brief career as a racing driver and he made an unsuccessful attempt to qualify for the 1922 Indianapolis 500. He worked in a number of films including The Birth of a Nation, The Lost House, The Golden Chance, Carmen, The Chorus Lady, Down the Hill to Creditville, A Mother’s Influence, The Joke on Yellentown, To Have and to Hold, The House with the Golden Windows, Maria Rosa, The Yellow Pawn, The Selfish Woman, The Golden Fetter, The Prison Without Walls, The Woman God Forgot, Nan of Music Mountain, Hawthorne of the U.S.A., The Dub, The Valley of the Giants, You’re Fired, The Love Burglar, Night Life in Hollywood, The World’s Champion, Clarence, Rent Free, A Trip to Paramountown, The Ghost Breaker, Thirty Days, The Affairs of Anatol, Too Much Speed, and Believe Me, Xantippe.

Born Name

William Wallace Halleck Reid

Nick Name

Wally

Age

He was born on April 15, 1891.

Died

On January 18, 1923, Wallace Reid died at 31 due to complications from morphine addiction in Los Angeles, California, United States.

Sun Sign

Aries

Born Place

St. Louis, Missouri, United States

Nationality

Education

Wallace Reid studied at Freehold Military School in Freehold Township, New Jersey. Afterward, he enrolled at Perkiomen Seminary in Pennsburg, Pennsylvania, and graduated in 1909.

Occupation

Actor, Singer, Director, Writer, Race Car Driver

Family

• Father – James Halleck “Hal” Reid (Playwright, Stage and Screen Actor, Director)
• Mother – Bertha Westbrook (Actor)
• Siblings – Hazel Withers Reid (Paternal Half-Sister), James Hillock Reid (Paternal Half-Brother)
• Others – Hugh McMillan Reid (Paternal Grandfather), America Elizabeth Reid (Paternal Grandmother), Harry Davenport (Father-In-Law) (Actor, Director), Alice Davenport (Mother-In-Law) (Actor)

Genre

Soundtrack

Instruments

Vocals, Piano, Banjo, Drums, Violin

Build

Slim

Height

6 ft 1 in or 185.5 cm

Weight

72 kg or 158.5 lbs

Girlfriend / Spouse

Wallace Reid had dated –

1. Dorothy Davenport (1913-1923) – He met actor Dorothy Davenport in 1913 while at Universal Pictures and the duo married the same year. Their son named William Wallace Reid Jr. was born on June 18, 1917. In 1922, the couple adopted their daughter Betty Mummert when she was 3-year old. Betty Mummert was Reid’s child from an affair. Wallace Reid and Dorothy Davenport remained together until his death in 1923 and she never remarried.

Race / Ethnicity

White

Sexual Orientation

Straight

Distinctive Features

• Charming appearance
• Often played a clean-cut, well-groomed American go-getter

Wallace Reid Facts

1. He came from a family active in show business.
2. Wallace Reid played Jeff, the blacksmith in the 1915 silent epic drama film The Birth of a Nation. The film was directed by D. W. Griffith and starred Lillian Gish.
3. He was injured in a train wreck near Arcata, California while en route to a location in Oregon during the filming of the silent romantic drama film The Valley of the Giants (1919). In the aftermath, Reid required 6 stitches to close a 3-inch (8 cm) scalp wound and was prescribed morphine for relief from his pain in order to continue filming.
4. He soon became addicted to morphine and continued working at a frantic pace on projects that were growing more physically demanding. As the drug rehabilitation programs were non-existent at the time, his morphine addiction worsened. He entered a sanitarium to cure his addiction and eventually died there.
5. Before entering the sanitarium, Wallace Reid said to director Cecil B. DeMille, “Either I’ll come out cured, or I won’t come out.”
6. He was interred in the Azalea Terrace of the Great Mausoleum at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.

Featured Image by Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research / wisconsinhistory.org / Public Domain