Richard I. Scott

(b. Paducah, Kentucky, 05/01/1878 – d. Paducah, Kentucky, 09/10/1952). Actor, singer. Richard Irvin Scott was born in Paducah in McCracken County, Kentucky and returned there after he retired from the stage. By all accounts he had a good singing voice and was a popular performer in his hometown before he turned professional. For some time he was a member of Shakespearean actor Louis James’s touring company, appearing in everything from Peer Gynt to Henry VIII. In 1911 he opened with Otis Skinner in Kismet at the New National Theatre in Washington, D.C., in 1914 he acted in the play Life at the Manhattan Opera House and in 1916 he was in The Woman Who Paid at Poli’s Theatre also in Washington. Like Edward Donnelly and Florence Roberts, he was a member of J.C. Williamson’s American Dramatic Company that travelled to South Africa in March 1917 and appeared at the Opera House in Cape Town in August of that year, performing in such plays as Kick In and The Easiest Way. He arrived back in the United States in 1922, with his passport application indicating that had returned via the Far East. During his time in the Union he also played Adele Fillis’s uncle in the film The Vulture’s Prey (1922), directed by Dick Cruikshanks and William Bowden, which was only released after he had left. There are no easily accessible records of his subsequent movements and though during the 1930s there were occasional announcements that a Richard Scott would act in certain films, he does not feature in subsequent cast lists. He never married. (FO)

Sources

S.A. Pictorial, 29 April 1922

Le Roux, André I. & Fourie, Lilla – Filmverlede: geskiedenis van die Suid-Afrikaanse speelfilm

McCracken County Public Library, Local and Family History

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