Tom Terriss

Active - 1914 - 1931  |   Born - Sep 28, 1872   |   Died - Feb 8, 1964   |   Genres - Drama, Romance, Adventure

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Biography by AllMovie

Multi-talented director/writer/actor Tom Terriss (formerly Theodore Herbert Lewin) is perhaps best remembered today for playing the "Young Man from the City" in Charles Chaplin's third film for First National, Sunnyside. But in his day, Terris was more famous for directing and starring in an early version of Charles Dickens' The Mystery of Edwin Drood, filmed in England in 1914, and for helming such diverse Hollywood productions as The Desert Sheik (1924) and Temptations of a Shop Girl (1927). Terriss filmed Fires of Fate (1923) in Egypt with his favorite leading lady Wanda Hawley and wrote about his experiences for the Film Yearbook. The adventure-drama was inspired by Arthur Conan Doyle's Tragedy of the Korosko and was a major success. Leaving films at the changeover to sound, Terriss appeared in May of 1938 in the very first drama to be televised by RCA/NBC, The Mummy Case.