Gareth Hughes Biography

Gareth Hughes (23 August 1894 " 1 October 1965) was a Welsh stage and silent screen actor. Usually cast as a callow, sensitive hero in Hollywood silent films, Hughes got his start on stage during childhood and continued to play youthful leads on Broadway.

Biography

Born William John Hughes into a working-class family in Dafen, Carmarthenshire, after undertaking some local amateur roles aged 15 he walked to London and joined a West End theatre based group of Welsh players. The group took a tour to the United States, and although not successful Hughes was spotted in New York, and left the group to take a series of minor roles on Broadway. Seen by the right people, they persuaded Hughes to get involved in the new-fangled picture business.

Film career

Hughes' earlier screen work was with Clara Kimball Young in Eyes of Youth (1919) and with Marguerite Clark in Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch (1920). He was teamed with Viola Dana in The Chorus Girl's Romance (1920), and signed with Paramount Pictures for Sentimental Tommy (1921), the picture which attracted attention to his ability.

Even though he had already appeared in many films before this,he always regarded Sentimental Tommy as his favorite and most successful. He made forty five films spanning 1918 to 1931. He was also the Welsh dialect coach, on The Corn Is Green (1945) starring Bette Davis. Cecil B. DeMille called him "a young idealist", and Fulton Oursler described him as "the charm boy to end all charm boys".

Return to theatre

In 1929 like many others he lost his fortune in the Wall Street crash and was left penniless, but he carried on making films until 1931 when he appeared in Scarce Heads. He then decided to leave the world of film and return to theatre, which he had always been his first love. His last performance ran for 18 weeks at the Hollywood Playhouse in 1938, where he starred as Shylock in the Merchant of Venice.

Missionary

In the early 1940s Hughes decided it was time to leave his full and exciting but also lavish and selfish lifestyle. Adopting the name of Brother David, in 1944 he became a missionary to the Paiute Indians on the Pyramid Lake Reservation of Nevada. Hughes spent almost 14 years with his "children" as he liked to call them.

Later years

In 1958 Hughes decided to return to Llanelli to spend his final years. But he longed for the sunshine of the West Coast, and after five months he returned to California. Later Hughes moved into the Motion Picture Country Home, in Woodland Hills, where he had his own cottage. He baptised silent film actress Clara Kimball Young prior to her death. There he died at the age of seventy-one, and his cremains were buried in a Masonic Cemetery at Reno, Nevada.

In 2000 the first ever TV documentary on Hughes's life was produced by Nant Films in collaboration with Stephen Lyons, Hughes's biographer. The programme was in Welsh and was broadcast on S4C. In 2008, Hughes relative Kelvin Guy made an award winning film In Search of Gareth Hughes, which has received only limited release. It has not been broadcast and there is no sign of the film being made available for public viewing.

To complement the work done by Official Biographer, Stephen Lyons, who unveiled a bronze plaque to Gareth's memory in Parc Howard Museum (Llanelli) with Gareth's niece in 2000, on the 21st. of August 2010 a blue plaque was unveiled by members of his family in Llanelli. The plaque was sponsored by Pyramid Lake Productions Ltd. The plaque is positioned on the street facing wall of the house where Gareth once lived as boy in Princess Street. Stephen Lyons, Llanelli community heritage and relative Kelvin Guy are to be thanked for these tributes to this sometimes forgotten silent film star.

The National Library of Wales has recently designated official biographer Stephen Lyons's web site as an important part of Wales's documentary heritage and wants to preserve the contents for future researchers. The web site is to be included in the UK Web Archive - a partnership between the National Library of Wales and the British Library.

Selected filmography

• The Woman in His House (1920)
• Shadows of Paris (1924)