Joseph Henabery

Joseph Henabery (January 15, 1888 – February 18, 1976) of Omaha, Nebraska, was a film actor, screenplay writer, and director in the United States. He is best known for his portrayal of Abraham Lincoln in D.W. Griffith's controversial 1915 silent historical epic The Birth of a Nation. Early years Henabery was born in Omaha and raised in Los Angeles. He began acting as an amateur in California. Before he worked in films, Henabery worked for the San Pedro, Los Angeles, Salt Lake Railroad. When he was 25 years old, he became an extra for Universal Pictures. Career Henabery's acting career began in The Joke on Yellentown (1914). From 1914 to 1917 he appeared in seventeen films, including his portrayal of Lincoln in The Birth of a Nation. Henabery also worked as a second-unit director on Griffith's Intolerance (1916), and supervised the filming of at least one extended sequence that appeared in the film. Henabery also acted as Admiral de Coligny in the Renaissance French portion of the film depicting the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre. Throughout the rest of his career, he worked as a director. From the mid-1920s, and after professional disagreements with both Louis B. Mayer at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Adolph Zukor at Paramount Pictures, Henabery found employment as a director for smaller Hollywood studios.