Trivia

Sometimes confused with black American actor Rex Ingram.

In 1921 Yale conferred the Bachelor of Fine Arts degree on him for his motion picture work. This was the first academic recognition of film as one of the fine arts.

Quarrelled with MGM chief Louis B. Mayer soon after joining the studio. Subsequently he just put "Metro-Goldwyn presents" . . . : on his pictures with no mention of Mayer.

He and Alice Terry were married in Adobe Flores in South Pasadena, CA, on Nov. 5, 1921--a Saturday--sneaking off the set of Le roman d'un Roi (1922) without telling anyone. The next day they saw three movies and went back to work on Monday. When the film was completed, they went to San Francisco for their honeymoon.

Long fascinated with Islam, Ingram converted to the faith in 1933. His father, a Church of Ireland rector, was not pleased.

In his last years he planned a biography on the life of Haitian leader Toussaint, but it was never filmed. Ironically, Sergei Eisenstein, who was planning a biopic on Toussaint, also didn't make his film.

Studied sculpture at the Yale School of Fine Arts.

According to David Lean, who admired him, Ingram was more handsome than the male screen idols he directed in the 1920s. They included Rudolph Valentino and Ramon Novarro.

Scaramouche (1923) began production on March 17 (St. Patrick's Day) and Ingram, being a good Irishman, reportedly celebrated by getting drunk and continued celebrating for 12 days, shutting down production before it even began.

Biography in: John Wakeman, editor. "World Film Directors, Volume One, 1890-1945." Pages 493-499. New York: The H.W. Wilson Company, 1987.

Ingram is interred at Forest Lawn in Glendale, CA, in the Great Mausoleum, Columbarium of Memory, Niche #20397. The blank space on his companion marker was reserved for when his widow, actress Alice Terry, would eventually join him there. Terry never remarried, but when she died in 1987 she was buried next to her sister at Valhalla Memorial Park in North Hollywood, CA.