The pioneering Vitagraph company's top leading man in the 1910s, former stage juvenile Earle Williams was voted America's number one star in 1915, the year he made perhaps his most popular film of all, The Juggernaut, in which he stopped greedy railroad tycoon Frank Currier from endangering the lives of hundreds of passengers. Vitagraph wrecked a real train in this action melodrama, which co-starred Williams with his most frequent leading lady, Anita Stewart. They were also teamed in the studio's earliest and perhaps most famous entry in the then-popular serial genre, The Goddess (1915), and Williams made a dashing gentleman thief in Vitagraph's 1917 version of the ever popular Arsene Lupin. He continued his popularity streak into the 1920s, often portraying stalwart military heroes. Williams' early death was attributed to bronchial pneumonia.
by Hans J. Wollstein
biography
