“You know, really, I hate this hero stuff. I love to get out in the mountains and let my whiskers grow, wear a soft shirt and get dirt in my fingernails. It’s terrible embarrassing to be a film hero, honestly. People to whom I am introduced or, more often, who introduce themselves to me, seem to be absolutely awe-struck and I have to carry on a foolish conversation just to interest them.” — J. Warren Kerrigan
Source: William M. Henry (1916)
“But my parents tell me I was born in Louisville, Kentucky, and that should settle the question. I have seven brothers and one sister, so that members of the Kerrigan family have lived in a number of places, but my birthplace remains in Louisville.” — J. Warren Kerrigan.
Source: Hettie Gray Baker (1915)
As Samson (1914)
“My sister, Kathleen, was the wife of the late Clay Clement, and I made my first appearance on the stage in his company. I had several years in the spoken drama and was playing the juvenile lead in ‘The Road to Yesterday’ when the Essanay Film Company made me an offer to appear in Moving Pictures. That was a little over four years agao. I played with them a year, nearly three years as leading man with the American Film Company in Santa Barbara and am well into my second year with Universal. My sister continues her stage career, having appeared in only one picture, ‘Samson,’ in which I play the title role.” — J. Warren Kerrigan
Source: Hettie Gray Baker (1915)
Photo: Samson (1914)
“My twin brother is a businessman, and a very successful one. He is manager of the Universal ranch and has no desire to be a Moving Picture actor. Will you please make it clear that he is doing the work he wants to do because he wants to do it. and not to oblige me. I am not jealous of him, and I am not paying him half my salary to keep him off the screen because he is better-looking than I am! That’s another story I want nailed right away.” — J. Warren Kerrigan
Source: Hettie Gray Baker (1915)
“I never answer the phone at home because most of the calls are from people who just want to tell their friends that they have talked to me.” — J. Warren Kerrigan
Source: William M. Henry (1916)
“I get from thirty to sixty letters a day, and I answer a large portion of them. I took six hundred with me to answer during our last visit to San Diego.” — J. Warren Kerrigan
Source: Hettie Gray Baker (1915)
“I get thousands of letters from people every year. And I conscientiously try to answer them all. Most of them are very interesting and a few are very silly. But I figure that they are all sincere and that it is nothing more or less than common courtesy to answer them. At first I answered them by hand, but finally they became so numerous that I began to answer them on a typewriter. And my troubles have begun all over again because they all think that I have a secretary writing the letters and are therefore peeved.” — J. Warren Kerrigan
Source: William M. Henry (1916)
Photo: Raymond Stagg (1916)
“If they think enough of me and my work to write commendatory letters to me about it, the very least I can do is answer them politely and attempt to answer their questions. I say attempt advisedly, because to answer all the queries would take the entire time of three stenographers and a couple of secretaries.” — J. Warren Kerrigan
The Stool Pigeon (1915). Swedish poster.
“I am not married. I think that covers all the other stories or most of them. Having no wife and not taking into consideration any natural attributes of common decency I may possess, it follows that I am not a wife-beater. It has also been stated, sometimes by my fellow actors, that I am trying to conceal the existence of a wife and several children, because I think married stars are not so popular. Even if I thought that, which I do not, one has only to look at the popularity of the Costello family to know how absurd such a theory is. If I were so fortunate, I’d want the whole world to know it. But I am not married, and what is more, I never have been; and just contradict anything you have ever heard about a wife of mine.” — J. Warren Kerrigan
Source: Hettie Gray Baker (1915)
“I never had time to consider [marriage], and anyway I don’t think I would be very likely to find a woman as good as my mother.” — J. Warren Kerrigan
Source: William M. Henry (1916)
Photo: Raymond Stagg (1916)
A Man’s Man (1918). A lost film.
“Don’t let’s talk of me; mother is the only worthwhile person in this house. I was compelled to go on that big stumping tour last year and I enjoyed visiting so many cities, but I will never forget the pangs it cost me to make three or four appearances in picture houses every night for months and months. Finally, I just couldn’t stand it any longer, and I told my manager that I was going to stop right there, and that was one month before my schedule was completed. It was terrible! I never had a moment of rest or privacy even in the hotels. Telegrams, telephone calls, dinners, a continual whisking about from one theater to the other, 20-minute speeches, everything in the way of publicity that the company had ordered me to do, and the whole things so utterly foreign to my natural inclinations. The happiest moment I had was when I was actually allowed to do do a little snowballing in Fort. Worth. You might know that after five years of California, that was a real treat.” — J. Warren Kerrigan
Source: Fritzi Remont (1918)
“Nineteen interminable weeks [of being too injured to work]! I don’t know how I would have stood it if I had not suddenly conceived the idea of planning a new home. The doctors have disagreed, as they always do, but they all assure me that my slow recovery is due to the fact that I did not want to spoil a picture then in the making. I had broken the bone badly, and five weeks later stood on crutches all day, and often until midnight, trying to make up lost time. I hobbled from chair to chair, or in some way concealed my helplessness, and grinned cheerfully for the camera while I endured agony. Well, that injury was a real first aid in registering unpleasant emotions!….Yes, me ‘n Bernhardt! The stage full of chairs and sofas, ad we two limpers chasing each other emotionally to some convenient resting place. A comedy like that ought to fill the house.” — J. Warren Kerrigan
Source: Fritzi Remont (1918)
“Plans? Most of them are house plans so far. You see, my limb was further injured by trying to use it before properly knit, and after consulting many surgeons, one cheerful graveyard purveyor told me that I would have to endure the pleasant sensation of having the bone broken all over again and reset, or I’d suffer from a limp and stiffness for the balance of my days. We never take advice we don’t like, do we? I hunted up another practitioner, who made an X-ray and then assured me that I would be cured by daily massage treatments. His theory has proven correct, and while it was a long siege, I find I can stand and walk longer every day, and so at last I can go to work again. The thing which has worried me most was the broken promises made to my friends all over the States when I told them positively that pictures under my new contract would be released last summer. They have been so patient and have sent me such beautiful letters of cheer and gifts to enliven my convalescence that I lie awake nights trying to figure out some plan by which I may show my gratitude to those faithful fans.” — J. Warren Kerrigan
Source: Fritzi Remont (1918)
“You see, the bungalow we are in is just rented furniture. Such a brown, ugly, dingy old thing it is. For once in my life, I will have the joy of selecting an entire houseful of furniture. The outside of this house will be white with green shingles. I think that is so restful in this sunny land, don’t you?” — J. Warren Kerrigan
Source: Fritzi Remont (1918)
$30,000 (1920)
