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In Memoriam · 1883 – 1939
Douglas Fairbanks

Person · Actor

Douglas Fairbanks

Born
May 22, 1883
Died
Dec 12, 1939
From
Denver, Colorado, USA·Santa Monica, California, USA
Height
1.70 m (5'7")
  • Also:
  • Writer
  • Producer
115
Credits on file
12
Decades active
2
Awards

In short · Acted for 12 decades — 115 credits, 2 Academy Honorary Award wins.

Recent & in release

  1. In release

    Charmed Lives: A Family Romance

  2. Award win

    Academy Honorary Award — Academy Honorary Award

  3. Award win

    Academy Awards — Oscar — Special Award

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Biography

Douglas Fairbanks was born Douglas Elton Thomas Ullman in Denver, Colorado, the son of Ella Adelaide (née Marsh) and Hezekiah Charles Ullman, a Pennsylvania-born attorney who had served as a Union captain during the Civil War. His paternal grandparents were German Jewish immigrants, while his mother, of British Isles descent, had Southern roots in Louisiana and Georgia. From age five, Fairbanks was raised by his mother after his father abandoned the family. She changed the children's surname to Fairbanks, her former husband's name, and concealed their Jewish heritage. Fairbanks began amateur theater at age 12 and continued while attending the Colorado School of Mines. In 1900, the family moved to New York, where he enrolled at Harvard, traveled in Europe, and worked various jobs, including on a cattle freighter, in a hardware store, and as a Wall Street clerk. He made his Broadway debut in 1902 and left theater five years later to marry the daughter of an industrialist. He returned to the stage after his father-in-law lost his fortune the following year. In 1915, Fairbanks moved to Hollywood and worked with a reluctant D.W. Griffith. The next year, he established his own production company. During a Liberty Bond tour with Charles Chaplin, he fell in love with Mary Pickford, and together with her, Chaplin, and Griffith, they founded United Artists in 1919. He achieved success with early social comedies and later with popular swashbuckler films in the 1920s. Fairbanks and Pickford, who lived at Hollywood's Pickfair Mansion, separated in 1933 and divorced in 1936. In March 1936, he married again and retired from acting.

Family & relationships

Spouse
Sylvia Ashley
Parents
Hezekiah Charles Douglas Ullman

Filmography · 80 of 80

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Writer

1 credit

Actor

67 credits

Editor

1 credit

Other crew

11 credits

Awards & Nominations

2 wins

Academy Honorary Award

  • Won1939Academy Honorary Award

Academy Awards

  • Won1939Oscar — Special Award

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Additional credits35Show

Non-headline appearances — talk-show, awards-show, panel, and archive-footage credits, kept separate from the main filmography.

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