Dustin Farnum

Overview

American leading man of silent pictures who specialized in Westerns. His mother and father were, respectively, a singer and an actor, and he and his younger brother William Farnum were introduced to the theatre at an early age. Raised in Maine, Dustin attended the East Maine Conference Seminary, but left school to go on the stage at the age of fifteen. With his brother, he formed a vaudeville act consisting largely of tumbling and wrestling. He spent several years touring in stock companies before making a great success in the play "Arizona" in New York. After a number of Broadway hits, he went to Cuba in 1913 to star in a film, Soldiers of Fortune (1914). Soon thereafter, Cecil B. DeMille gave Farnum the leading role in the film version of one of Farnum's Broadway hits, "The Squaw Man." He followed this smash hit with a number of film versions of plays he had starred in on Broadway. His brother William had himself become a big star in pictures, and the two of them signed contracts with the Fox Film Corporation. Although Dustin Farnum played a wide variety of roles, he tended toward Westerns and became one of the biggest stars of the genre. At the age of fifty-two, Farnum retired from films and, but for a few stage roles, lived quietly with his third wife, actress Winifred Kingston for three years, until his death in 1929 from kidney failure.
- IMDb mini biography by: Jim Beaver <jumblejim@prodigy.net>

According to Dustin Hoffman's April 1975 Playboy Magazine interview, his mother named him after Farnum.
Turned down the opportunity to invest $5,000 in the production of The Squaw Man (1914), an investment that would have made him a millionaire. When he was hired to star in the film, he was paid partly in cash and partly in stock of the company formed to produce the film, headed by Cecil B. DeMille, the film's director. Farnum thought so little of the stock that he gave it to his valet. When the film was released, its tremendous success resulted in the value of the stock soaring, and Farnum's valet got rich almost overnight.
Daughter Estelle Farnum born 1925. She acted briefly under the name Dustine Farnum. She changed her name to Dustine Runyon following her mother's remarriage.
Brother of actor William Farnum
Brother of Marshall Farnum.