Rex Ingram was born in Dublin, lived in Nenagh, Co. Tipperary (see my previous post), and went onto take Hollywood by storm and discover one the biggest stars, Rudolph Valentino. He was an unknown actor cast by Ingram in the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921) and the rest is history.
Rex Ingram was one of the most influential film directors at the start of the golden era of Hollywood-and he was Irish. He was born in 1892 in Dublin, then moved to Nenagh, Co. Tipperary in 1897 when Rex was 5 years old. When Clearys Circus came to town, Rex had his first encounter with moving image. He described seeing grainy, black and white images of men running a race and a train.
He moved to America in 1911. By 1914 he was directing his first film ( a short), then a full feature film in 1916.
Most famous for his film The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921). He left Hollywood to start a mini studio in Nice, France. After ‘talkies’ became the norm, he decided to retire from film making and take up his first love, art (he studied at Yale when first in America), just 16 years after directing his first film. He died in 1950 in Hollywood.
He influenced many directors, including David Lean, and was mentioned in James Joyces’. Finnegan’s Wake (1939) which contains the line: “his scaffold is there set up, as to edify, by Rex Ingram, pageant-master.
IrishDaily.Org 