Walter Long

Walter Huntley Long (March 5, 1879 – July 4, 1952) was an American stage and film character actor who between 1909 and the late 1940s performed in nearly 200 screen productions. He appeared in blackface in The Birth of a Nation, a film depicting black characters, such as the one portrayed by Long, as savage sexual predators and the Ku Klux Klan as society’s righteous protector.

Among his many other roles in both the silent and sound eras, he portrayed mostly crooks, tough guys, and comic villains, including in four short comedies with Laurel and Hardy. He played Miles Archer, Sam Spade's partner, in the first film of The Maltese Falcon (1931).

Early life and career Born in Nashua, New Hampshire, in 1879, Long was the youngest of six children of Catherine Lucia Jane (née Phillips) and Francis Long, who was a farmer.

After acting on stage for years, Long debuted in motion pictures in 1909 with Broncho Billy Anderson. He disliked the working conditions in film production, so after that screen project he returned to the stage.

Long soon began to act again in motion pictures, over the years gaining recognition among theater audiences for being a popular "hissed-at villain". He can be seen in some of D. W. Griffith's early films, as well as Griffith's later, far more elaborate productions, most notably The Birth of a Nation (1915) and Intolerance (1916). In The Birth of a Nation, Long appears in blackface make-up as the African American character "Gus", and in Intolerance he portrays the "Musketeer", who operates within the crime-ridden slums of a modern American city. He was also cast as a supporting character for Rudolph Valentino in the films The Sheik (1921), Moran of the Lady Letty (1922), and Blood and Sand (1922). He also appears as a comic villain in four Laurel and Hardy shorts released in the early 1930s: as an abusive prisoner in Pardon Us (1931), a dissolute hotel owner and boxer in Any Old Port! (1932), an escaped convict in Going Bye-Bye! (1933), and as a gruff sea captain in The Live Ghost (1934).

On Broadway, Long performed in Adonis (1899), Leave It to Me! (1938), Very Warm for May (1939), Boys and Girls Together (1940), Follow the Girls (1944),

Military service Long served in the United States Army during both world wars. During World War I, he was a first lieutenant of Coast Artillery and then promoted in rank to captain by the time the conflict ended in November 1918. She died at the Pacific Hospital in downtown Los Angeles in 1919, at age 29, due to bronchial pneumonia contracted during the global "Spanish flu" epidemic. Over four years later in Los Angeles, on October 16, 1923, Long married California native Leta Amanda Held. The couple adopted a son whom they named John Huntley Long.

Long died of a heart attack in California on July 4, 1952, after watching the Independence Day fireworks display at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. In its obituary for the actor published two days after his death, the Los Angeles Times notes, "Long and his wife, Leta, both of 632 North Cahuenga Blvd., had just left the Coliseum when he was stricken." Long's grave is located in the "Garden of Memory" at Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Los Angeles.

Filmography