Noble Johnson facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Noble Johnson
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Johnson in 1915
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| Born | April 18, 1881 Marshall, Missouri, U.S.
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| Died | January 9, 1978 (aged 96) Yucaipa, California, U.S.
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| Other names | Mark Noble |
| Years active | 1915–1950 |
| Spouse(s) | Ruth Thornton (m. 1912; div. 19??) Gladys Blackwell |
| Relatives | George Perry Johnson (brother) |
Noble Johnson (born April 18, 1881 – died January 9, 1978) was an American actor and film producer. He was also known as Mark Noble. He appeared in many famous movies. Some of these include The Mummy (1932), The Most Dangerous Game (1932), and King Kong (1933).
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Noble Johnson's Life and Acting Career
Noble Johnson was a very busy actor. He had a strong build, which made him popular for many different roles. In the early days of movies, called the silent era, he played characters of many different backgrounds. He often appeared in adventure movies, westerns, and serials (movies released in parts).
Playing Different Roles
Johnson played Black characters in many films. He also played Native American and Latino roles. Sometimes he played "exotic" characters, like people from Arabia. He even played a devil in the movie Dante's Inferno (1924).
Friendships and Business Ventures
Noble Johnson was good friends with another actor, Lon Chaney. They went to school together in Colorado. Johnson was also a smart businessman. In 1916, he started his own movie studio called Lincoln Motion Picture Company. He founded it with his younger brother, George Perry Johnson, in Omaha, Nebraska.
Lincoln Motion Picture Company
The Lincoln Motion Picture Company was special. It was an African-American film company. It made movies called "race films." These movies were made for African-American audiences. At the time, the main movie industry often ignored these audiences. Lincoln Motion Picture Company was the first to show African-Americans as real people, not as harmful stereotypes.
Johnson was the president of the company. He was also its main star. He helped support the studio by acting in movies for other companies. He would then invest the money he earned from those films into Lincoln. The company moved to Los Angeles in 1917. It stopped making movies in 1922.
Lincoln's first movie was The Realization of a Negro's Ambition (1916). Noble Johnson worked hard to keep Lincoln going for four years. His dedication to African-American filmmaking was amazing. However, he had to leave his role as president in 1920. It was too hard to manage his busy acting career in Hollywood and run a studio at the same time.
Later Film Career
In the 1920s, Johnson continued to be a very active character actor. He appeared in silent films like The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921) with Rudolph Valentino. He was also in Cecil B. DeMille's original The Ten Commandments (1923). Other films included The Thief of Bagdad (1924).
When movies started having sound, Johnson easily moved into these new roles. He was in The Mysterious Dr. Fu Manchu (1929) as Li Po. He played Queequeg in Moby Dick (1930). He was also "the Nubian" in the Boris Karloff film The Mummy (1932).
Johnson played the Native Chief on Skull Island in the famous movie King Kong (1933). He also appeared in its sequel, The Son of Kong (1933). Later, he was one of the porters in Frank Capra's classic Lost Horizon (1937). One of his last films was John Ford's She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949). In this movie, he played Native American Chief Red Shirt. He stopped acting in 1950.
Noble Johnson passed away from natural causes on January 9, 1978. He is buried in the Garden of Peace at Eternal Valley Memorial Park in Newhall, California.
Images for kids
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Noble Johnson with Bela Lugosi and Sidney Fox in Murders in the Rue Morgue, 1932
See also
In Spanish: Noble Johnson para niños
