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Stage actor Tyler Brooke was signed to a movie contract by Hollywood producer Hal Roach in 1926. One of Brooke's first assignments was a role opposite fading movie queen Theda Bara in the nonsensical two-reeler Madame Mystery. He ended his association with Roach on a discordant note, suing fellow contractee Oliver Hardy for $100,000 in 1929, claiming that Hardy had fractured his arm during an overzealous game of pool. Brooke made the transition to talkies as a society rake in Cecil B. DeMille's first sound films, Dynamite (1929) and Madam Satan (1930). Throughout the 1930s, Brooke showed up in several period pictures like Belle of the Nineties (1934) and Alexander Graham Bell (1939), usually cast as a handlebar-mustached quartet singer or musical hall comedian. He was quite amusing as the young Gay-90s swain in the prologue of 1940's Kitty Foyle. Tyler Brooke was 51 when he died of self-inflicted carbon monoxide poisoning.