Mr. Harold Lockwood

Pretty interesting to think that the stars of today could be completely forgotten years from now. Brad Pitt, George Clooney...in 100 years from now, maybe they will just seep into the cracks of Hollywood Blvd. with stars of the silent screen. Case in point, Harold Lockwood.

Harold Lockwood was born April 12, 1887 in Newark, New Jersey. I cannot find a census record for him in the databases I have...and that really annoys me. What I do know is that his father was a horse trainer and that is about all I know. Grrrr!!

He got a love of horses from his father and he became quite the horseman in his own right. He also excelled in track, swimming, and football. After high school, Harold moved to New York where he got involved in the theater. He wanted to continue pursuing acting, but his father pushed him towards a business career. So, Harold enrolled in a business college, got a job in a store and seemed to be living the life his father had wanted for him. However, Harold was still craving the stage, so he joined up with a vaudeville company and began touring. 

 He made his screen debut in 1911 in the short, The White Red Man. It wasn't until the following year that he appeared in a full length feature, The Sergeant's Boy.

Harold was often partnered on screen with May Allison as the two were seen as quite the cute couple. And as much as the public would have loved if these two had hit it off OFF screen, alas, they never did. They did however appear in about 20 features together though.

From 1911 to  1919, Harold appeared in 132 films which is a huge number if you consider that it was just in a span of eight years. His more well known films include Tess of the Storm Country (1914) with Mary Pickford, The Crucible (1914) with Marguerite Clark, and he is supposed to have been one of the three billion people in Griffith's 1916 epic, Intolerance.

His last film appearance was in Shadows of Suspicion. It was during the filming of this that he became ill with the flu. 

Harold Lockwood passed away on October 19, 1918 at age 31. He, like many others was a victim of the Spanish flu pandemic. 

He was buried at the Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, New York.

Harold was married once, to a woman named Alma Jones in 1906. They had a son, William, two years later. William went on to become an actor, using the name Harold Lockwood Jr. Unfortunately, the marriage ended up deteriorating pretty quickly. Harold didn't want to abandon his son, so he stuck with Alma even though the two were not getting along.  They kept splitting up and getting back together before finally divorcing in 1917. 

During the year of his death Harold was quite busy. He was given a monthly column for Motion Picture magazine called "Funny Happenings in the Studio and on Lockwood." He also was out with other stars selling War Bonds to the crowds and was said to have had some of the highest sales. The ladies (and even some guys) just loved him! It is assumed that while selling bonds, Harold caught the flu from the hundreds of people he came in contact with.

"...Away from the studio, Lockwood was a clean, wholesome, worthy young American citizen in the very best sense of the term." ~~ Photoplay - January 1919