Rupert Julian(1879-1943)
- Actor
- Director
- Writer
Coming to the US at the age of 34, New Zealand-born Rupert Julian
started his career as a stage and screen actor touring Australia and
New Zealand. Having made his name (and a cool million for Universal) as
a dead ringer for Kaiser Wilhelm II in
the 1918 film
The Kaiser, the Beast of Berlin (1918),
he turned director. His output was mostly routine until he was assigned
to complete Chevaux de bois (1923)
when director Erich von Stroheim was
fired from it. His best-known picture was
Lon Chaney's
Le Fantôme de l'opéra (1925)
(though he in turn was fired and replaced before filming was
completed), but he soon fell into a professional decline, and after
directing only two films after the advent of sound, his career fizzled
out.
