B.F. Clinton

(b. San Francisco, 29/06/1879 - d. New York, 18/11/1919). American actor, manager, director. Benjamin (Ben) Franklin Clinton probably came to South Africa at the suggestion of Lorimer Johnston, whose wife, Caroline Frances Cooke, had acted with him in The Light in a Woman's Eyes (1915), a short on which Johnston had been associate producer. In The Moving Picture World of 12 February 1916 it was announced that he would be in charge of the studios of the African Film Trust, but after his arrival he apparently only directed three shorts for African Film Productions: A Kract Affair, The Water Cure and £20,000. The last of these was released in August 1916 and on 25 September Clinton was back in the United States, having returned via Liverpool.

Prior to his months in South Africa he was a stage actor and in 1905 completed a lengthy season as leading man in the very popular When Women Love, presented by Spitz & Nathanson. He also managed one of the theatre companies that toured with Girl of the Underworld (1913), presented at the La Salle Theatre in St. Louis and elsewhere. Some sources also credit him with supplying the story for The Enemy’s Baby (1913), a short starring Lionel Barrymore that may have been directed by D.W. Griffith, but which is not listed in all of Griffith’s filmographies. That same year he joined the General Film Company, a distribution firm affiliated to the Motion Picture Patents Company incorporated in New Jersey.

In December 1906 he had married actress Edith M. Rose in Chicago, who acted as Edith Clinton or Mrs. B.F. Clinton in numerous shorts for Vitagraph, appearing with the likes of John Bunny, Helen Gardner, Mabel Normand and Norma Talmadge. Some of these were directed by Charles Kent, including a version of Vanity Fair (1911). After his return to the United States he went to work for Prizma Inc., one of the first companies to experiment with the production of colour films. However, by 1918 he and Edith were divorced and the following year he died at the young age of 41. (FO)

(Note: There are many discrepancies concerning the couple’s dates of birth in the official records, with his passport application stating that he was born in San Francisco in 1879 and the New York City Municipal Deaths claiming that he was born in 1878 in Massachusetts. In addition his father was either John or Frank Clinton.)

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