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Henry Kolker

Nov 12, 1874 - Jul 15, 1947 (72 years old) in Berlin, Germany

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Joseph Henry Kolker (November 13, 1874) [some sources 1870] Berlin, Prussia, Germany – July 15, 1947, Los Angeles, California) was an American stage and film actor and director.

Kolker came to America at the age of five and his family settled in Quincy, Illinois. Kolker, like fellow actors Richard Bennett and Robert Warwick, had a substantial stage career behind him before entering silent films.

On stage he appeared opposite such leading ladies as Edith Wynne Matthison, Bertha Kalich and Ruth Chatterton. Kolker is best remembered for his motion picture appearances and for appearing with Barbara Stanwyck in the ground-breaking Pre-Code film Baby Face (1933) as the elderly CEO of the company whom Stanwyck's character seduces. Another well remembered part is as Mr. Seton, father of Katharine Hepburn and Lew Ayres in the 1938 film Holiday directed by George Cukor.

Kolker entered films as an actor in 1915 and eventually ended up trying his hand at directing. Kolker's best known directorial effort is Disraeli (1921), starring George Arliss which is now a lost film with only one reel remaining. Prints however exist in Europe and Russia.

Known For

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Baby Face
J.R. Carter
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Abraham Lincoln
New Englander (uncredited)
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Bluebeard
Deschamps
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Union Pacific
Asa M. Barrows
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Indiscreet
Mr. Woodward
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Imitation of Life
Dr. Preston (uncredited)
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Marie Antoinette
Court Aide (uncredited)
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The Black Room
Baron de Berghman
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Too Hot to Handle
Pearly Todd
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Sitting on the Moon
Worthington

Credits