Earl Metcalfe on AllMovie

A handsome stock company actor who had toured with Willard Mack and as a member of the famous Forepaugh Stock Company, Earl Metcalfe became a star for the pioneer Lubin Mfg. Company of Philadelphia, PA, in 1911. After five years with the company, he enlisted with the famous 165th U. S. Infantry, aka "The Fighting Irish," and was subsequently decorated five times for bravery during World War I. Returning to film work after the Armistice, Metcalfe starred in several programmers opposite blonde June Elvidge, but he never regained his pre-war popularity and was little more than an extra in Cecil B. DeMille's King of Kings (1927). Metcalfe's sudden death at the age of 39 in January 1928 was as dramatic as it was mysterious: he fell from an airplane during what reportedly was a flying lesson! "Police at first were led to believe in a suicide theory on account of disappointing events in Metcalfe's life," the trade paper Variety reported. Lacking any substantial proof, however, the coroner eventually labeled the death an accident. Ironically, the actor's final film was the aviation melodrama, The Air Mail Pilot (1928).