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(2 April 1886, Winnipeg, Manitoba,
Canada - 23 February 1945, Los Angeles, California)
 Reginald
C. Barker was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada his family moved to
Scotland when he was an infant and then to the United States. Living
in California, Barker wrote, produced, and acted in his first play
at the age of sixteen following which he acted and handled stage
manager duties with a traveling stock company. At age nineteen, he
went to New York City where he worked as a stage manager for Henry
Miller. Barker made his Broadway acting debut in 1910 in the Shubert
brothers production of "Mary Magdalene" written by Maurice
Maeterlinck.
Fascinated by the fledgling film business, Barker soon joined the
Bison Motion Pictures division of the New York Motion Picture
Company. At the company's studio/ranch in California, he worked
under film producer and screenwriter Thomas H. Ince.
Acting was not Barker's forte and he trained as an assistant
director until 1912 when he directed his first film, a twenty minute
western titled "On the Warpath" starring Art Acord. Barker went on
to direct more than eighty films, including the acclaimed 1915
American Civil War drama The Coward. That same year he directed The
Italian but because Thomas H. Ince was notorious for
credit-grabbing, Barker originally went uncredited on this film.
"The Italian" has been selected for preservation in the United
States National Film Registry. The following year, with the United
States still not involved in World War I, Barker co-directed the
famous anti-war feature, Civilization.
During his career, Reginald Barker directed early stars such as
Geraldine Farrar, William S. Hart, Sessue Hayakawa, Gladys Brockwell,
Hoot Gibson, Willard Mack, and Myrna Loy. In his first talkie, "The
Toilers" (1928) he directed Douglas Fairbanks Jr.. Barker made his
last film in 1935. Titled "The Healer," it starred Ralph Bellamy,
Karen Morley and Mickey Rooney.
Reginald Barker retired to Pasadena, California where he and his
wife operated a gift shop until his passing from a heart attack in
1945. |
