Creighton Hale (born Patrick Wills Fitzgerald; May 24, 1882 – August 9, 1965) was an Irish-American theatre, film, and television actor whose career extended more than a half-century, from the early 1900s to the end of the 1950s.

Career

Born in County Cork, Ireland, Hale was one of two children born to Maud V. Hale and Daniel Fitzgerald. Educated in Dublin and London, he later attended Ardingly College in Sussex. He emigrated to the United States in 1910, with a company headed by Gertrude Elliott. Remaining in the country, he acted in stock theater in Hartford, Indianapolis, and other cities, billed initially as Pat Creighton Hale. While starring in Charles Frohman's Broadway production of Indian Summer, Hale was spotted by a representative of the Pathe Film Company. He eventually became known simply as Creighton Hale, although the derivation of "Creighton" remains unknown. Making his screen debut in The Exploits of Elaine (1914), Hale had prominent supporting roles in films like D.W. Griffith's Way Down East, Orphans of the Storm, and The Idol Dancer, and later starred in such films as The Marriage Circle, Seven Footprints to Satan and The Cat and the Canary. Regarding the latter, Picture Show wrote of Hale's performance, "He makes no attempt to be impressive. He is just natural." It was thought that in 1923 Hale starred in an early pornographic "stag" film On the Beach (a.k.a. Getting His Goat and The Goat Man). In the film, three nude women agree to have sex with him, but only through a hole in a fence. Photographs of the scene clearly show that the man in the film is not Hale, but is another actor who also wore glasses. When talkies came about, Hale's career declined. He made several appearances in Hal Roach's Our Gang series (School's Out, Big Ears, Free Wheeling), and also played uncredited bits in major talking films such as Larceny, Inc., The Maltese Falcon, and Casablanca.

Personal life

Hale's two sons, Creighton Hale Jr. and Robert Lowe Hale, from his first marriage to Victoire Lowe, were adopted by Lowe's second husband, actor John Miljan. After his divorce, Hale married Kathleen Bering in Los Angeles in 1931. Hale's sister-in-law, Isabelle Lowe, was both an accomplished stage actress and a published author and aspiring playwright. She and Hale performed together at least twice during the early 1920s—co-starring in revivals of Rida Johnson Young's Little Old New York and A.E. Thomas's Just Suppose —and co-authored two never-produced plays. Hale died at the Motion Picture Country Home on August 9, 1965, at age 83. In accordance with his wishes, no funeral service was held, his remains were cremated at Chapel of the Pines, and his ashes were brought to rest at Duncans Mills Cemetery in Northern California.

Selected filmography