George Loane Tucker

George Loane Tucker (June 12, 1872 – June 20, 1921) was an American actor, silent film director, screenwriter, producer, and editor. Career Tucker was born George S. Loane in Chicago to George Loane and stage actress Ethel Tucker. After graduating from the University of Chicago, he got a job as a railroad clerk. He was chief clerk for the Maintenance of Way. Tucker was later the youngest man to be promoted to Contracting Freight Agent. After his first wife died while giving birth to the couple's son, Tucker quit his job. On the advice of friends, he began acting in stage productions. By the mid-1910s, films were becoming a more popular draw for audiences which led Tucker to film acting and scenario writing. In 1911, he wrote a script for the short drama film Their First Misunderstanding. The film, which starred Mary Pickford, was a surprise hit. Over the course of his career, Tucker directed 69 films, 19 of which he also wrote. In 1913 he directed Traffic in Souls, which concerned the topic of white slavery. The film was an enormous hit (it made over a million dollars in profit) and remains an early influential example of realism in early cinema. Traffic in Souls served to establish Tucker as a respected director and writer. Shortly after the film was released, he moved to England where he hired as the Director-general for the London Film Company. It was there that Tucker met and married his second wife, British actress Elisabeth Risdon. While living in England, Tucker directed and produced several films for London Film including The Manxman (1917). An adaptation of the 1894 novel of the same name, it was one of the few British films that was distributed in the United States and would go on to become a financial and critical success.