Anecdotes

During his European honeymoon with Mary Pickford, the couple was greeted by crowds of up to 300,000 people in London and Paris, which made them Hollywood's first celebrity couple.

Hosted the very first Academy Awards in 1929 alongside William C. de Mille

His portrayal of Zorro was the inspiration for the iconic DC Comics hero Batman.

He was the visual inspiration for the original illustrations of the superhero Superman (created in 1938, when Fairbanks was fifty-five years old). Clark Kent's identity was modeled after Harold Lloyd).

Founder of United Artists along with Mary Pickford, Charles Chaplin and D.W. Griffith.

Performed most of the stunts in his films himself. He was an excellent athlete and used his physical abilities to his best advantage. However, there were instances when a stuntman was used (as proved by outtakes from Le Gaucho (1927)), as these types of stunts were deemed too risky for the star.

(1929-1933) father-in-law of Joan Crawford.

One of the 36 founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS)

Although he had met Mary Pickford and her husband Owen Moore at Elsie Janis' Tarrytown (NY) home in 1914, the actress considered him brash. However, it was at a dinner dance at New York's Algonquin Hotel the following year that they danced and fell in love. It was not until 1920 that Pickford divorced Moore and married the swashbuckling star.

Fairbanks presented movie-fan President Woodrow Wilson with an early film projector, which Wilson used to watch a movie almost every afternoon in the White House when he was recuperating from a stroke in 1919. Soon after, Wilson's son-in-law, William Gibbs McAdoo Jr., a lawyer, would serve as chief counsel to Fairbanks' fledgling United Artists company.

Suffered from depression as a child.

He frequently requested that his name be listed last in the film credits.

After receiving bad French press for his role in the American version of Les trois mousquetaires (1921), he vowed "never to put a foot in France again" (July 1st 1921).

The Hollywood mansion he and Mary Pickford owned was called Pickfair.

The first time he appeared on the stage, he had one line: "Stand back, my lord, and let the coffin pass," which he erroneously spoke as "and let the passon cough.".

Was Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel's basis for the overall physical look of Superman.

Interred at Hollywood Memorial Cemetery (now called Hollywood Forever), Hollywood, California, USA.

Lived in retirement with Sylvia Ashley at 705 Ocean Front (now Pacific Coast Highway) in Santa Monica, California.

In 1908 on holiday he hiked across Cuba and made a walking tour of Yucatan.

According to legend, the thing that sparked his interest in acting occurred when he fell off of a roof, as a young child, and hurt himself.

Pictured on a 20¢ US commemorative postage stamp in the Performing Arts USA series, issued 23 May 1984.

Son of Hezekiah Charles Ullman, a New York attorney, and Ella Adelaide Marsh, who was previously married to a man named John Fairbanks. Ullman left the family when Douglas was five years old.

First president of the AMPAS from 1927 to 1929

His paternal grandparents, Lazarus Ullman and Lydia Abrahams, were German Jewish immigrants. His mother had British Isles ancestry.

Father of Douglas Fairbanks Jr.

He has appeared in six films that have been selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant: Intolérance (1916), Le signe de Zorro (1920), Le voleur de Bagdad (1924), Ben-Hur (1925), Le pirate noir (1926) and Mirages (1928).

He grew a moustache for the role of D'Artagnan in Les trois mousquetaires (1921) and retained it for the rest of his life.

Among those in attendance at his funeral in 1939 were Viola Dana, Antonio Moreno, Ramon Novarro, Francis X. Bushman, May McAvoy, and his son Douglas Fairbanks Jr..

President of Douglas Fairbanks Pictures Corp., formed in 1918.

He engaged a world champion fencer to coach him in sword play.

In 1938 he formed a new company, Fairbanks-International, and announced his first production, "The Californian" would star his son, Douglas Fairbanks Jr. The film was never made.

He had two roles in common with Errol Flynn: (1) Fairbanks played Robin Hood in Robin des Bois (1922) while Flynn played him in Les aventures de Robin des Bois (1938) and (2) Fairbanks played Don Juan de Maraña in La dernière aventure de Don Juan (1934) while Flynn played him in Les aventures de Don Juan (1948).

He wrote under the name Elton Thomas which were his middle names.

Uncle of Lucile Fairbanks

(1920-1936) brother-in-law of Lottie Pickford and Jack Pickford.

(1920-1936) son-in-law of Charlotte Smith.

Brother of Robert Fairbanks, John Fairbanks.

Born at 9:00am-LMT- (MST).

Lady Sylvia Ashley was Fairbanks' last wife (and his widow). Years later, she married another major movie star, Clark Gable, but that marriage ended in divorce.

Fairbanks' burial place at Hollywood Forever cemetery, featuring a marble catafalque and a large reflecting pool, is among the showiest in all Tinsel Town. But it is topped by that of Al Jolson, whose grave features a statue of himself kneeling in song, a tall copper cupola and a cascading waterfall running down a hillside adjacent to the 405 freeway.