Gareth Hughes(1894-1965)
- Actor
- Additional Crew
William John Hughes was Wales' first Broadway and
Hollywood star! He began acting at a very young age, first in Wales,
then later at 17 years of age he went to London to pursue his passion
for acting. He later joined the Welsh Players and traveled on tour with
them to America. When they returned to the UK (the tour was a flop) he
decided to stay on in America and eventually became very successful on
Broadway. He appeared in many productions such as "Little Miss
Llewellyn", "Change" and a play by
J.M. Barrie called "The New Word", and later
went on to star in a film based on another book written by Barrie,
Sentimental Tommy (1921). Even
though he had already appeared in many films before, he always regarded
"Sentimental Tommy" as his favorite and most successful. He made 45
films altogether, spanning 1918 to 1931, and was also the Welsh dialect
coach on
Le blé est vert (1945) with
Bette Davis (another Welsh connection). His
stage name was Gareth Hughes, and at the height of his popularity he
was earning as much as $2000 a week. He was under contract to such
major studios of the time as Fox and MGM. He, like millions of others,
lost his fortune in the 1929 Wall Street crash and was left penniless.
He continued to make films, though, until 1931 when, after finishing
Scareheads (1931), he decided to leave
Hollywood and return to his first love, the theater. His last
performance ran for 18 weeks in 1938 at the Hollywood Playhouse and
University of Michigan, where he starred as Shylock in "The Merchant of
Venice". In the early 1940s he decided it was time to leave acting and
the secular life altogether--he had come to the conclusion that, having
led a full and exciting but also lavish and selfish life, he now wanted
to change and give something back to others. Adopting the name of
Brother David, he became a missionary to the Paiute Indians on the
Pyramid Lake Reservation of Nevada. He spent almost 14 years (1944 to
1958) with his "children", as he liked to call them, and is still loved
and remembered as Bro to this day. In 1958 he decided to return to
Llanelli to spend his last years there. He longed for the sunshine of
California, however, and after five months he returned to the US. He
went on to spend his retirement at the Motion Picture Home in Woodland
Hills, California, where he died on October 1, 1965, after a long
illness. His remains are at the Masonic garden of remembrance in Reno,
Nevada.
