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Does anyone know who the actor is in the title role of the 1913 2-reel Broncho (Ince) film "Grand-Dad"?
http://archive.org/details/Granddad
Somebody made a bad edit at the IMDB and credited the role to William Desmond Taylor (which is obviously wrong), and from there the error has virused to other sites and publications.

Perhaps the role was played by Walter Edwards, who acted in many Ince films during that year (more than the IMDB indicates). Here's a comparison, with screen captures from Grand-Dad on the left; the photo on the right is Walter Edwards from the 1914 book "Who's Who in the Film World."

Or does anyone have a different identification of the elderly actor in "Grand-Dad"?

Just a wild guess, but could it be Fred Stone?

Fred Stone with makeup? He was only 40 but it does look like him......

It does look like him, but it doesn't look like him at 40. It would be amazingly convincing old age makeup-- here's how he looks 20 years later at a well-preserved 60:

http://www.hungrytigerpress.com/whoswho ... halk.shtml" target="_blank

And if you search the Media History Digital Library for "Fred Stone" and sort by date, he seems to have been fully occupied in New York during 1913; no mention of a trip to California.
http://lantern.mediahist.org/?page=8&q= ... +asc&utf8=" target="_blank✓

It looks to me like the actor in the frame captures has a mole on the edge of his upper lip.

OK.... now I think it's J. Barney Sherry who co-starred in The Soul of the South 1913 also for Ince.

Here's Fred Stone in 1936 for Trail of the Lonesome Pine. Granddad was 23 years earlier.

I agree that it looks like J. Barney Sherry, alas I don't have any photos of him.

J. Barney Sherry

Here's a 1917 picture of J. Barney Sherry.
http://archive.org/stream/photoplayvolu ... 4/mode/1up" target="_blank
There are several of J. Barney Sherry's other 1913 films online at YouTube ("Silent Heroes" and "The Struggle"). I don't think Sherry looks like the actor in "Grand-Dad"

I'm wondering if it might be Tom (or Thomas) Ricketts. He was about 60 in 1913 and had been directing at Nestor and Bison at the end of 1912.

David Denton wrote:I'm wondering if it might be Tom (or Thomas) Ricketts. He was about 60 in 1913 and had been directing at Nestor and Bison at the end of 1912.

It's not Ricketts. I'm not convinced it's Walter Edwards, either. Nor is it J. Barney Sherry (who wore a toupee). The early (pre 1914) Ince players are really tough--most of them never seem to have gone on to significant film careers.

He most certainly(IMHO) is an actor who has come over to films from the stage. I searched through Blum's "A Pictorial History of the Silent Screen" but I wasn't convinced with anyone in the years leading to 1913. But then I thought off the top of my head an actor who I've been seeing more of listed in silents:

Herbert Standing, who began in films in 1913 and had several sons later in films notably Wyndham Standing:
http://content.lib.washington.edu/cdm4/ ... OSEARCHALL" target="_blank" target="_blank