William Wadsworth

William Norwood Wadsworth (7 June 1874–6 June 1950) was an American actor of the silent era best known for his roles in early Westerns, playing the villain in What Happened to Mary? (1912), the first Western film serial and for playing Samuel Pickwick in Mr Pickwick's Predicament (1912), an early screen adaptation of The Pickwick Papers. Wadsworth was born in Pigeon Cove in Massachusetts in 1874, the son of William Wadsworth (born 1842) and Adelia K Leonard (born 1846). Originally a theatrical producer, the chubby and prematurely bald Wadsworth became an actor of the silent era in 1909 in Why Girls Leave Home. Among the more than 60 films he made for the Edison Manufacturing Company and others are The Daisy Cowboys (1911), How the Boys Fought the Indians (1912), A Christmas Accident (1912), Madame de Mode (1912), Samuel Pickwick in Mr. Pickwick's Predicament (1912), Billy Pearl in What Happened to Mary? (1912), Wood B. Weed (comedy series, 1913–14), The Prime Minister in How They Got the Vote (1913), Lo, the Poor I... ()