Biography

October 28, 1872 · Englewood, Illinois, USA

December 4, 1937 · Los Angeles, California, USA (auto accident)

Ralph Percy Lewis

1.78 m

Director David Butler recalled when he was just starting out as an actor he watched Lewis rehearse a scene with director T. Hayes Hunter, in which Lewis was to be playing a violin. They would rehearse with a cheap violin, but when it came time to shoot, Lewis was given a rare and expensive Stradivarius that the studio had rented for the day. Lewis and Hunter got into an argument about how to play the violin, and Lewis got so angry he picked up the Stradivariius and smashed it over Hunter's head, destroying it. Lewis was fired from the picture and thrown off the lot, and the company found itself liable for replacing a Stradivarius worth several hundred thousand dollars.

A stage actor prior to going to Hollywood and making his film debut in 1912, Lewis joined up with D.W. Griffith and had a healthy career thereafter. He was married to actress Vera Lewis. Lewis died in an auto accident, after being hit by a car driven by Jack L. Warner's chauffeur.

During the filming of The Failure (1915), Christy Cabanne deliberately failed to call for extras at the appropriate time so that when they were required he had none, thereby forcing Frank E. Woods to call everyone on the lot to take part, resulting in Lewis, Henry B. Walthall, Charles Clary, Jack Conway, Sam De Grasse, Spottiswoode Aitken, George Siegmann, George Beranger and around twenty other leading men and directors appearing in the movie as barflies.