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Thomas Hardy was born on 2 June 1840 in Upper Bockhampton, Dorset, England, UK. He was a writer, known for Far from the Madding Crowd (2015), Tess (1979) and Maiden No More. He was married to Florence Emily Dugdale and Emma Lavinia Gifford. He died on 11 January 1928 in Dorchester, Dorset, England, UK.

American stage actor, musical comedy star, and vaudevillian who was a legendary figure of his time and who fathered a family of performers who went on to notable careers in motion pictures. Born Edward Fitzgerald at 23 8th Avenue in New York City, March 9, 1856, to an Irish-immigrant tailor, Richard Fitzgerald, and his wife Mary, Eddie moved to Chicago with his family after his father's death in an insane asylum from syphilis in 1862. His mother reportedly cared for Mary Todd Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln's widow, during Mrs. Lincoln's mental illness. At the age of 8, Eddie began entertaining on the street for tips, doing acrobatic dances. He changed his name to Foy when he was 15, and he and partner Jack Finnigan went on the road, dancing for meals in bars. They got work as supernumeraries in dramatic productions and Foy claimed to have worked in such a capacity with the leading actor of his day, Edwin Booth. With another partner, Jim Thompson, Foy traveled for three years in a saloon/theatre circuit through the West, including an extended stay in Dodge City, Kansas, where he met Doc Holliday, 'William Barclay 'Bat' Masterson', and Wyatt Earp. Also on the circuit was a girl singer act, the Howland Sisters. Eddie fell for one of them, Rose Howland, and they married in 1879. In 1882, the four (Thompson had married another singer) returned East, joining the Carncross Minstrels in Philadelphia. Shortly thereafter, however, Rose Foy and her newborn died in childbirth. By 1887, Foy was back in the West, touring with David Henderson's troupe across the country. He met Lola Sefton in San Francisco and they were a couple for the next decade until her death. (Many sources described them as husband and wife, though no record of a marriage has been found.) After Sefton's death, Foy started his own company and two years later married one of his dancers, Madeline Morando. She gave him eleven children, the seven surviving ones becoming world-famous in their father's act as The Seven Little Foys. In 1903, while playing the Iroquois Theatre, Foy heroically attempted to calm the crowd after fire broke out. Six hundred people died. Foy escaped by crawling through a sewer. Three years after bringing his children into the act, Foy and his family appeared in a film for Mack Sennett, one of only a handful the senior Foy would do. However, his children, in particular Bryan Foy and Eddie Foy Jr., would enjoy substantial careers in the movies. Eddie Sr. continued to headline in vaudeville and musical theatre until his death from a heart attack in 1928 while performing in vaudeville in Kansas City, Missouri.

Slapstick comedian known for his charming, white-painted face and clownish smile, mugged his way to being a very highly paid and popular actor. His career was marred by personal problems, and his fortune was lost to high spending. By the time he died, he'd already been hospitalized for a nervous breakdown and was penniless. He was 39 years old.

Moshe "Mauritz" Stiller, born July 17, 1883, in Helsinki, Finland, was a director, writer and actor. He began his artistic activity in the theatre, as an actor at 16. Mauritz Stiller portrayed 87 roles from 1899-1916 and directed 16 productions 1911-28. Together with Viktor Sjöström ( director, actor, writer) he was recruited in 1912 as director/actor to the Swedish film industry by Charles Magnusson at AB Svenska Biografteatern. Mauritz Stiller's films was instantly successful. During his first year he directed six feature films. "Herr Arnes pengar" (1919), "Erotikon" (1920) and "Gösta Berlings saga" (1923) are three cornerstones of Swedish film production. In "Gösta Berlings saga" Greta Garbo, 18 years old, made her first major role. Greta Garbo and Mauritz Stiller came to be best friends and allies forever. Stiller introduced Garbo to the German audience in 1925, before the two sailed of to the USA to make "The Temptress" for Paramount/Irving Thalberg in 1926. Mauritz Stiller directed 51 feature films and appeared as an actor in seven productions from 1912-1927. At 1:05 am Nov 8, 1928, Mauritz Stiller died in Stockholm, after undergoing numerous surgeries, an abscess of a lung ended a great artist's life.

George Siegmann was born on 8 February 1882 in New York, USA. He was an actor and director, known for The Birth of a Nation (1915), Should She Obey? (1917) and The Three Musketeers (1921). He was married to Maude Darby. He died on 22 June 1928 in Hollywood, California, USA.

Vicente Blasco Ibáñez was born on 29 January 1867 in Valencia, Spain. He was a writer and director, known for Sangre y arena (1917), Torrent (1926) and Blood and Sand (1922). He was married to Elena Ortuzar and Maria Blasco. He died on 28 January 1928 in Menton, France.

All but forgotten today, Fred Thomson was a silent movie westerner who at one time rivaled 1920s heroes Tom Mix and Hoot Gibson in popularity. Unlike the early, myth-inducing demise of a Rudolph Valentino or Jean Harlow, Fred's untimely death of tetanus prevented the actor, who was at one time billed "The World's Greatest Western Star," from creating a durable Hollywood legacy. Christened Frederick Clifton Thomson, he was born in Pasadena, California, in 1890 and proved a natural athlete, playing football at Occidental College in Los Angeles, and then at Princeton Theological Seminary, and breaking all sorts of various records while a student. Initially interested in the ministry, he became a pastor in both Washington, DC, and in Los Angeles, and subsequently married his college sweetheart, Gail Jepson, in 1913. Following her tragic death of tuberculosis in 1916, he left his fellowship and enlisted in the military.

During his duty as a serviceman, he served as a technical adviser for the film Johanna Enlists (1918), a Mary Pickford war feature. It was through Pickford that he met his second wife, pioneer screenwriter/director Frances Marion. They married in 1919 following his WWI overseas duty as an Army chaplain. Initially interested in directing, he ended up standing in front of the camera for one of Frances' films Just Around the Corner (1921) when an actor failed to show up for a shoot. The movie was a hit, and the handsome, highly appealing Fred was signed. Following a co-starring role in another Pickford movie, The Love Light (1921), which was also directed and written by Frances, Fred was off and running with his own action serial The Eagle's Talons (1923), in which he performed his own stunts. Over the years, he provided heroics in such oaters as The Dangerous Coward (1924), Ridin' the Wind (1925), The Lone Hand Texan (1924) and the title role in Lone Hand Saunders (1926). Towards the end of his career, he was seen playing the legendary Jesse James and Kit Carson. With his cowboy reputation solidified alongside faithful horse Silver King, Fred became the No. 2 box office star for 1926 and 1927.

In 1928, the unthinkable happened. Fred, who was in his movie prime at age 38, was just making his the transition into talkies. He apparently broke the skin of his foot stepping on a nail while working at his stables. Contracting tetanus, which the doctors initially misdiagnosed, he died in Los Angeles on Christmas Day in 1928. His wife and two young sons survived him.

American character actor of silent films, Edward Connelly, a native New Yorker, was a newspaperman before he became an actor, being a reporter for the New York Sunl. At 25 he joined a theatrical stock company in Kansas City and appeared subsequently on Broadway in such plays as "Shore Acres," "The Belle of New York," "Babbitt," "The Wild Duck," and his own production of "Marse Covington," which he later filmed (Marse Covington (1915)). Moving to Hollywood, he became a contract player at MGM, where he remained until his death from influenza in 1928.

American actor of silent films. A native of Albany, New York, the son of a railroad engineer, he began a career in government, serving as confidential stenographer and then secretary to Governor William Sulzer of New York. Sulzer's impeachment and removal from office left Crane without a job, and he obtained a commission in the U.S. Navy. While stationed at the Navy's San Diego, California submarine base, Crane met a number of visiting movie personalities including Allan Dwan, who suggested the handsome young officer try the movies. Following the war, he did so, making his debut in 1919. He gained work as a leading man, but more frequently played darker roles. An attack of pleurisy led him to a rest cure in the resort of Saranac Lake, New York. Pneumonia developed and he died three months later, aged 37.

Legendary British stage actress who made a few silent film appearances. The daughter of strolling players, she was born in Coventry into an almost exclusively theatrical family. Her grandparents were actors, as were all six of her siblings. But only her son, Edward Gordon Craig, would in any way approach her fame in the theatre, albeit as a designer rather than as an actor. She made her debut in 1856 at the age of 8 before an audience which included Queen Victoria. By age 11, she had played a dozen roles including Puck. At 16, after showing early brilliance, she played "An American Cousin" (a year before the famed American production clouded by Lincoln's assassination) and then retired. After six years, still only 22, she returned to the stage and in 1875 played a landmark Portia in "The Merchant of Venice." For the next three decades, she played every major Shakespearean role opposite the greatest British tragedians, in England and in America. Her long association with theatrical giant Henry Irving ended with his death, but a year later, in 1906, she began a long professional and personal relationship with George Bernard Shaw. After more than half a century onstage, she undertook a tour of England, America, and Australia, lecturing on the theatre and on Shakespeare. She was coaxed into a film appearance in 1916 and played in a handful of additional pictures through 1922. Created a Dame by George V in 1925, she was the recipient of virtually every honor available to a figure of the English-speaking stage. After a long illness, she died at 81 from a combination of stroke and heart attack at her home in Smallhythe Place, Tenterdon, Kent, England. Her long estranged husband, James Carew, survived her.

The son of a sea captain, Theodore Roberts was a veteran stage actor, making his first appearance in 1880. Often referred to as the "Grand Duke of Hollywood," Roberts was a regular on the Cecil B. DeMille team and appeared in 23 of DeMille's films. He is best remembered for his role as Moses in DeMille's The Ten Commandments (1923). A well-known and well-loved actor, his funeral in Westlake Park (he died from uremic poisoning) was attended by nearly 2,000 people. However, Roberts felt so much bitterness in his heart for his immediate relatives that he bequeathed his estate to a nephew (a commercial illustrator) in New York. The estate was valued at nearly $20,000, including a yacht valued at $10,000. Several of Roberts' personal items were left to his friends William C. de Mille and his brother Cecil. Roberts claimed that during the worst times of his life, no one in his family offered a word of sympathy or any help at all. His only request was that he be laid to rest next to his beloved wife Florence Smythe, who passed away in 1925.

H.H. Asquith, considered the founder of the British welfare state, was the prime minister of the United Kingdom who led the British Empire into the monumental debacle that was World War I.

The son of a cloth merchant, Henry Herbert Asquith was born in Morley, Leeds, West Yorkshire, England and attended Balliol College, Oxford, Oxfordshire, England. After graduation he became a barrister and was called to the bar in 1876. He married Helen Kelsall Melland, the daughter of a Manchester physician, in 1877. By the early 1880s he had become financially well-off from his law practice, enough so to consider politics (members of Parliament were not paid a real salary until the 1970s). He was first elected to Parliament in 1886, standing as the Liberal candidate for East Fife, Scotland.

His first wife gave him four sons and one daughter before dying from typhoid in 1891. He remarried in 1894, taking Margot Tennant, the daughter of Sir Charles Tennant, 1st Baronet, as his second wife. She bore several children, but only a son and daughter survived into adulthood. Asquith was called Herbert by his family, but his second wife called him Henry, and those who called him by his Christian name made the switch. However, in public he was addressed only as H.H. Asquith.

In 1892 he became Home Secretary during William Gladstone's last government (as Home Secretary Asquith signed the arrest order for Oscar Wilde, who was eventually incarcerated for lewd behavior). Three years after the Liberals went out of power in 1895, he was offered the party leadership but turned it down. After the Liberals' landslide victory in the 1906 general election, he became Chancellor of the Exchequer under Campbell Bannerman, a post in which he proved a stalwart proponent of free trade. Bannerman resigned the premiership due to illness in April 1908 and Asquith succeeded him, becoming the first member of the professional middle class to serve as Prime Minister.

His first government launched a guns-and-butter legislative programme, building up the British Navy in an arms race with Germany while introducing social welfare programmes. Asquith can be considered the father of the British welfare state, as his government introduced government pensions in 1908. The programme was fiercely resisted by the Tories, which provoked a constitutional crisis in 1909 when the Conservative majority in the House of Lords rejected the government's "People's Budget." Traditionally finance was the province of the House of Commons, and the resulting constitutional crisis forced a general election in January 1910. Though the Liberals were returned to government with a majority, their numbers in the Commons were much reduced, and the crisis continued.

King Edward VII consented to filling the House of Lords with freshly-minted Liberal peers, who would override the Lords' veto, if Asquith agreed to hold another general election, after which he would act if the impasse continued. However, Edward VII died in May 1910, before the second general election. Asquith had to use his considerable powers of persuasion to get Edward's successor, King George V, to agree to the plan. The new king was hesitant, as packing the Lords would undermine the power of the hereditary aristocracy. Before the December 1910 general election (the last held for eight years), Asquith's persuasion paid off, and George V agreed to pack the House of Lords. The Liberals won their second election of 1910, though the balance of power in the government rested with peers from Ireland, who demanded a Home Rule bill as the price of support for Asquith's third government.

The Parliament Act of 1911 circumscribed the legislative power of the House of Lords, as the upper chamber of Parliament was limited to delaying, but not defeating outright, any bill passed by the House of Commons. Asquith paid off the Irish block with the Third Irish Home Rule Bill, which achieved Royal Assent in late 1914, though implementation of the law was suspended for the duration of World War I, which the UK had become involved in due to a spider web of treaties. The Irish question remained a tinderbox, and while civil war in Ireland over the fate of Ulster was averted in 1914 by the outbreak of the war in Europe, simmering tensions would lead to the Easter Rebellion of 1916, which would prove to be one of the factors that contributed to Asquith's loss of power. The other was the war.

In May 1915 the Cabinet split over a scandal involving the dearth of munitions available at the front. Asquith ultimately was held responsible for the shortcomings in British war production. The "Shell Crisis" underscored the need for the British economy to be put on a wartime footing. Responding to the discord, Asquith formed a new government, creating a national coalition that included members of the Opposition (though an election should have been held in 1915, elections were suspended for the duration of the war). David Lloyd George, the most dynamic of the Liberal ministers from the old cabinet, was made minister of munitions.

The new coalition government did nothing to bolster Asquith's premiership. Both Liberals and Tories criticized his performance over the conduct of the war and assigned him some of the blame for the failed offensives at the Somme (in which Asquith's eldest son Raymond died) and Gallipoli (which led to the resignation of Winston Churchill, then a Liberal MP, as First Sea Lord). He was also blamed for his handling of the armed Easter Rebellion of Irish Catholics in Dublin in April 1916 and the resulting civil war. The Machiavellian Lloyd George undermined Asquith by splitting the Liberal Party into pro- and anti-Asquith factions. The result was that Asquith resigned as prime minister on December 5, 1916, and was succeeded by Lloyd George.

After resigning, Asquith continued in his post as Liberal Party leader, even after losing his seat in the 1918 elections. He returned to the House of Commons in a 1920 by-election and played a key role in helping the Labour Party form a minority in 1924, which gave Ramsay MacDonald his first--though short-lived--premiership.

The minority Labour government fell in 1924, and in the subsequent election won by the Tories, Asquith lost his seat in the Commons. He was raised to the hereditary peerage as Viscount Asquith, of Morley in the West Riding of the County of York, and Earl of Oxford and Asquith in 1925. Asquith moved over to the House of Lords and finally resigned the Liberal Party leadership in 1926. He died in 1928.

Violet Bonham Carter (maiden name Violet Asquith), Asquith's only daughter by his first wife, was a successful writer who was made a Life Peeress in her own right (she is the grandmother of Oscar-nominated actress Helena Bonham Carter). His son Cyril became a Law Lord, and two other sons married well, one being the poet Herbert Asquith. His two children by Margot were Elizabeth (later Princess Antoine Bibesco), a writer, and Anthony Asquith, a well-regarded film director.

Gertrude Claire was born on 16 July 1852 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. She was an actress, known for Oliver Twist (1922), The Little Irish Girl (1926) and The Female of the Species (1916). She died on 28 April 1928 in Los Angeles, California, USA.

Arnold Rothstein was born on 17 January 1882 in Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA. He was married to Mrs. Arnold Robinson. He died on 6 November 1928 in New York City, New York, USA.

Nora Bayes was born on 3 October 1880 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. She was married to Benjamin L Friedland, Arthur Gordini, Harry Clark, Jack Norworth and Otto Anselm Gressing. She died on 19 March 1928 in Brooklyn, New York, USA.

George Barr McCutcheon was born on 26 July 1866 in Tippecanoe County, Indiana, USA. He was a writer, known for Brewster's Millions (1985), The Man from Brodney's (1923) and Beverly of Graustark (1926). He was married to Mrs. Marie Van Antwerp Fay. He died on 23 October 1928 in New York City, New York, USA.

Joseph J. Dowling was born on 4 September 1850 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. He was an actor, known for The Yankee Way (1917), Sink or Swim (1920) and The Christian (1923). He was married to Sarah J. Hassen and Myra Davis. He died on 8 July 1928 in Hollywood, California, USA.

Walt Whitman was born on 25 April 1859 in Lyon, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for The Three Musketeers (1921), The Mark of Zorro (1920) and The Three Musketeers (1916). He was married to Miriam Shelby. He died on 27 March 1928 in Santa Monica, California, USA.

Anita Berber was born on 10 June 1899 in Dresden, Germany. She was an actress, known for Die Reise um die Erde in 80 Tagen (1919), Dida Ibsens Geschichte (1918) and Eerie Tales (1919). She was married to Henri Châtin Hofmann, Sebastian Droste and Eberhard von Nathusius. She died on 10 November 1928 in Berlin, Germany.

Paul Doucet was born on 26 September 1885 in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. He was an actor, known for The Fair Pretender (1918), Love and Sacrifice (1924) and The Knife (1918). He was married to Catherine Doucet. He died on 10 October 1928 in New York City, New York, USA.

Sidney Smith was born on 28 February 1893 in Faribault, Minnesota, USA. He was an actor and director, known for The Ne'er-Do-Well (1915), The Ne'er-Do-Well (1923) and A Safe Risk (1916). He was married to Ruth Beckman. He died on 4 July 1928 in Los Angeles, California, USA.

Earl Mohan was born on 12 November 1889 in Pueblo, Colorado, USA. He was an actor, known for Two Wagons: Both Covered (1924), The Buccaneers (1924) and Sittin' Pretty (1924). He died on 15 October 1928 in Los Angeles, California, USA.

The Honorable Elsie Mackay was born August 21, 1893 in Simla-Calcutta, West Bengal, India, to James Lyle Mackay, 1st Earl of Inchcape of Strathnaver, a British colonial administrator in India who became chairman of the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company and Jean Paterson Shanks. Her brother, Kenneth Mackay was the 2nd Lord Inchcape. Her sister Effie Mackay, married Sir Eugen Millington-Drake, who was the British Minister to Uraguay during the 1939 Battle of the River Plate (view the 1956 film). Elsie was reportedly disinherited by her family after eloping with actor Dennis Wyndham to be married on 23 May 1917. She appeared as silent film actress Poppy Wyndham from 1919 through 1920. In a historical photo from Grand Central Palace Bldg in New York, it states that as Poppy Wyndham she was the first woman jockey in England, and in her short career on the turf she piloted no less than a dozen winners under the barriers. In the few events from which her *** did not bar her, her colors - yellow and blue - were always present, and always were heavily backed. After the marriage to Wyndham was annulled in 1922 she returned to her family and developed a career as an interior decorator, creating lavish interiors, state rooms and public spaces for her father's shipping line, the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company (P&O). In 1923 she launched the RMS Maloja, and went on to design much of the interiors for the four P&O "R" class ships of 1925: SS Rawalpindi, SS Ranchi, SS Ranpura and SS Rajputana, plus the RMS Viceroy of India in 1927. In early March 1928 the Daily Express discovered that Captain Hinchliffe and Mackay were preparing for a transatlantic attempt by carrying out test flights at RAF Cranwell and were staying at the George Hotel in Leadenham near Grantham. The story was silenced by Mackay's threatened legal action as she intended to depart in secret while her father was in Egypt, having promised her family she would not make the attempt. At 8:35 am on 13 March 1928 Endeavour took off from RAF Cranwell, Lincolnshire, with minimal fuss as Hinchliffe had told only two friends he was going and Elsie registered under the pseudonym of 'Gordon Sinclair'. Approximately five hours later, at 1.30 pm the chief lighthouse keeper at Mizen Head on the south west coast of Cork, Ireland saw the monoplane over the village of Crookhaven. A French steamer later reported seeing them still on course, but nothing else is known. A crowd of 5,000 is reputed to have waited for them at Mitchel Field, Long Island. In December 1928, eight months later, a single piece of identifiable undercarriage (a wheel with a serial number on it) washed ashore in north west Ireland. Her body was never recovered and there is a memorial stained glass window, as well as an inscription underneath the bell at Glenapp Church on the family estate marking her death as 13th March 1928.

Frank Currier was born in Norwich, Connecticut on 4 September 1857 and died on 22 April 1928 in Hollywood, California (blood poisoning).He was once anointed "the dean of cinema actors" by Photoplay magazine. He was an American actor and director of the silent era. He appeared in 133 films between 1912 and 1928. He also directed 19 films in 1916. A top character star for the pioneering Vitagraph company in the 1910s, Currier died from blood poisoning after having a finger smashed in a car door. He is memorable as the Roman Admiral who adopts Judah Ben-Hur (Ramon Novarro) as his son after Ben-Hur saves his life during battle at sea in the 1925 film Ben-Hur.

American director, cinematographer, and assistant director of silent films. A native of Chicago, Urson was the nephew of E.J. Hite of the Thanhauser Film Co. With his uncle's help, Urson was trained as a cameraman and eventually relocated to California as a camera operator for Fine Arts Productions. Director Marshall Neilan hired him as an assistant director, which led to work as cinematographer for James Cruze on several films. From 1920 on, Urson worked closely as an assistant director with Cecil B. DeMille on most of the latter's films, simultaneously directing his own for DeMille and others. Urson drowned while on a visit to Michigan, at 41.