Biography

Entering films as an actor in 1910, John G. Adolfi soon switched careers and became a director. He turned out numerous, mostly low-budget films for minor companies, but every so often got a chance to work at a big studio like Fox. His big break came in the sound era, when he formed a partnership with actor George Arliss and directed several of Arliss' most successful films.
- IMDb mini biography by: frankfob2@yahoo.com

American film director and actor. He was born in New York City into a theatrical family on January 19, 1881, and was educated there and in Philadelphia. His father was the operatic tenor Gustav Adolfi. From childhood, John Adolfi was involved with the theatre and in 1907, at 26, he made his screen debut in a short Vitagraph film called The Spy: A Romantic Story of the Civil War. He joined Eclair American productions in 1911. He acted in nearly three dozen films before taking the reins as a director in 1913's Through the Sluice Gates. Thereafter he directed more than four score films, most of them relatively undistinguished except for the seven he made in partnership with George Arliss. After completing the film Voltaire with Arliss in early 1933, Adolfi joined Darryl F. Zanuck, Joseph Schenck, Ray Enright, Raymond Griffith, and Lloyd Bacon for trip hunting for grizzly bear in the wilds of British Columbia. On May 11, somewhere on the Canoe River some hundred miles north of Revelstoke, Adolfi suffered a cerebral hemorrhage and died, age 52. Zanuck and the others carried the body by canoe for two days before reaching civilization. Adolfi was cremated at Revelstoke. His ashes were transferred to Forest Lawn Cemetery in Glendale, California. He was survived by his wife Florence.
- IMDb mini biography by: Jim Beaver <jumblejim@prodigy.net>