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A tall, dark-haired stage juvenile who had appeared opposite the likes of Billie Burke and Richard Bennett, Barton Hepburn was signed to a personal contract by screen director Cecil B. DeMille while performing in the Los Angeles production of the stage play Tarnish. On loan to Tiffany-Stahl, Hepburn co-starred in Painted Faces (1929), a melodrama set in the world of vaudeville in which he portrayed a young performer wrongly accused of murder. Unfortunately, Painted Faces, a rather primitive "talkie," was lost in the shuffle in that hectic year of transition and Hepburn's once so promising screen career came to a dead halt. On-stage for most of the following decade, Hepburn was back in Hollywood during the war years, appearing in supporting roles in such disparate films as Hi Diddle Diddle (1943) and The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1944).