Stalwart, durable Monte Blue, a romantic leading man of the silent
days, was born January 11, 1887, as Gerard Monte Blue (some sources
indicate 1890, but his mother's application for his admission to the
Soldier's and Sailor's Orphan's Home lists his birth date as January
11, 1887). Various sources have reported his first name as George or
Gerald, but, again, in his mother's application, it is spelled Gerard.
His father was killed in a railroad accident when Monte was eight and
his mother could not support four children. He was admitted (along with
another brother, Morris) to the orphanage at that time. There he built
up his physique playing football. At one time or another the
able-bodied gent was a railroader, a fireman, a coal miner, a
cowpuncher, a ranch hand, a circus rider, a lumberjack and, finally,
trekking west, he became a day laborer for
D.W. Griffith's Biograph Studios.
Blue eventually became a stuntman for Griffith and an extra in
Die Geburt einer Nation (1915),
which was his first film. Griffith took him in and made him an
assistant on his classic epic
Intoleranz (1916),
where he earned another small part. Gradually moving to support roles
for both Griffith and Cecil B. DeMille,
Blue earned his breakthrough role as "Danton" in Griffith's
Zwei Waisen im Sturm (1921)
with sisters Lillian Gish and
Dorothy Gish. He rose to stardom as a
rugged romantic lead opposite Hollywood's top silent stars, among them
Gloria Swanson,
Clara Bow and
Norma Shearer. He made a relatively easy
transition into talkies as he had a fine, cultivated voice, but, at the
same time, lost most of his investments when the stock market crashed
in 1929. By the 1930s the aging star had moved back into small, often
unbilled parts, continuously employed, however, by his old friend
DeMille and Warner Bros. At the end of his life he was working as an
advance man for the Hamid-Morton Circus in Milwaukee. He died of a
coronary attack complicated by influenza in 1963.
