Louis Bennison on AllMovie

Forgotten today by even the most ardent of silent film buffs, in the late 1910s, handsome, dark-haired Louis Bennison was at one point favorably compared to Douglas Fairbanks. Working on a western ranch as a young boy, Bennison later appeared in vaudeville and toured with various stock companies with the playlet Johnny Got His Gun. By 1913, he was on Broadway supporting Richard Bennett in the controversial drama Damaged Goods, a cautionary tale about venereal disease and its aftereffects. Bennison retained his role as Dr. Clifford in the even more controversial 1914 screen version and remained in films for seven years. Finding a berth with the Philadelphia-based Betzwood company, a successor to Lubin, Bennison was one of the last East Coast actors to make Westerns, usually stressing comedy over melodramatics just like Fairbanks. Wrote one enraptured reviewer, "Picture him -- with eyes faintly blue from long gazing away off into dim distance across the purple mesas. He is shy, almost innocent, and quiet in manner, but oh, boy! When he's mad, those blue eyes squint sparks of steely fire." At least three of Bennison's Westerns from Betzwood are extant, including the widely circulating Sandy Burke of the U-Bar-U (1919), and the aforementioned reviewer's opinion notwithstanding, Bennison in sheepskin and a ridiculously high Stetson could not have been much of a match for his California rivals. He returned to the stage after the relatively brief sojourn with Betzwood, but an increasing dependency on alcohol and drugs curtailed what may have become an important career. By 1929, he was appearing in a vaudeville sketch with actress Margaret Lawrence, but the ultimate failure of the venture caused a split between the two. In the evening of June 9, 1929, a despondent Bennison shot and killed his former partner in her Manhattan home, after which he turned the gun on himself.