Walter Edwin on AllMovie

A pioneering director for the equally pioneering Edison Company, Walter Edwin began his screen career as an actor around 1911 but the following year directed what would become his legacy, the 12-chapter series What Happened to Mary? starring Mary Fuller. Not exactly a continuing story like the later serials, What Happened to Mary? was rather 12 stories, each one reel in length, detailing how Mary made a life for herself despite the threats of a dastardly villain. It should correctly be categorized a "series" rather than a "serial" (much like the later and equally famous The Hazards of Helen [1915]) but did pave the way for the later chapterplays with their cliffhanger appeal. Edwin shared directorial duties with J. Searle Dawley on What Happened to Mary but he was the sole credited director on the six-chapter sequel Who Will Marry Mary? (1913) and also guided Mary Fuller through the more loosely connected Dolly adventures (e.g., Dolly at the Helm [1914]). Like so many of the early directors, Edwin's career waned in the mid- to late 1910s and was apparently over by 1917.