Frank McGlynn Sr.

Frank McGlynn Sr. (October 26, 1866 – May 18, 1951) was an American stage and screen actor who, in a career that spanned more than half a century, is best known for his convincing impersonations and performances as Abraham Lincoln in both plays and films.

Early life McGlynn was born in 1866 in San Francisco, the eldest of four children of Mary and Frank McGlynn. Federal census records indicate that McGlynn, in addition to having two younger sisters, had a younger brother, George, who died sometime between 1870 and 1880. Those records show too that McGlynn's mother, a native of Australia, immigrated to the United States with her Irish parents around the time of the California Gold Rush. His father, also of Irish ancestry, moved to California and supported the family there as a carpenter and later by working in real estate. Later that year McGlynn toured in a road production of Under the Red Robe, a story based on Stanley Weyman's novel that was adapted for the stage by Edward Everett Rose. Over the next two decades McGlynn performed mostly in supporting roles with stock companies and in early silent films.

Film still of McGlynn as Lincoln in De Forest's 1924 shortMcGlynn's first film role in which he impersonated Abraham Lincoln was in 1915 in The Life of Abraham Lincoln directed by Langdon West for the Edison Studios in New York. Four years later the actor's big break came when, at age fifty-three, the six-foot four-inch actor earned the starring role to portray the former president again in the Broadway production of John Drinkwater's play Abraham Lincoln. That stage production had a run of 193 performances at the Cort Theatre in Manhattan and then toured the country for over two years. In 1924, McGlynn also performed in an excerpt from Drinkwater's play that was actually recorded. Lee de Forest and J. Searle Dawley produced a two-reel short of Abraham Lincoln using De Forest's Phonofilm sound-on-film process. Unfortunately, with the exceptions of some film stills that survive, no full copy or partial reels of that motion picture have been found.

McGlynn went on to play in seven more Broadway plays; his last as Johnnie, in Frankie and Johnnie at the Theatre Republic in 1930. McGlynn's 1919 performance as Lincoln had rejuvenated his film career, which lasted into the late 1940s. Love Affair (1939) - Orphanage Superintendent (uncredited) Second Fiddle (1939) - Lincolnesque Actor (uncredited) The Honeymoon's Over (1939) - Thin Man The Mad Empress (1939) - President Abraham Lincoln Boom Town (1940) - Deacon Third Finger, Left Hand (1940) - Judge Holman (uncredited) A Girl, a Guy and a Gob (1941) - Panky Sergeant York (1941) - Mountaineer (uncredited) Three Girls About Town (1941) - Josephus Wiegal Marry the Boss's Daughter (1941) - Hoffman Syncopation (1942) - Simon Goodwill (uncredited) In Old California (1942) - Old Miner (uncredited) Delinquent Daughters (1944) - Judge Craig Rogues' Gallery (1944) - Blake I Was a Criminal (1945) - Prison Warden Slightly Scandalous (1946) - Graves (uncredited) Trail Street (1947) - Tim McKeon (uncredited) Hollywood Barn Dance (1947) - Pa (Hiram) Tubb