Biography

Tisdale Justin Dow was born in Los Angeles, California. He was the son of Wilbur Olen Dow Sr., a real estate developer and Irene Eladist Bowen and the oldest of five children. He left Los Angeles to attend Adelphi College in Long Island, New York. While there, he majored in art, winning a gold medal in drawing in 1911. A number of his cartoons appeared in the Los Angeles Herald Newspaper. Shortly after, he began his stage career. This lasted two years before switching to silent films with Kalem Studios in New York. He appeared in several Alice Joyce films such as "The Vanderhoff Affair", "The Swamp Fox", "The Plains of Abraham" and "The Barefoot Boy". He typically portrayed foreign characters in supporting roles owing to his black hair. He later became a studio manager in Jacksonville, Florida for Kalem Film Co. He died in Oakland, California. He is buried in Evergreen Cemetery in East Los Angeles. He was the uncle of Olympian Bowen Stassforth.
- IMDb mini biography by: Eric Stassforth