Volume III: Biographies

OBER, George *

Actor (1912)

Thanhouser Career Synopsis: George Ober was an actor with Thanhouser in 1912.

Biographical Notes: George Ober was born in Baltimore in 1849. He went on stage as a youth and by the mid-1860s had essayed many roles. Early in his career, while a member of the Ford's Theatre stock company in the city of his birth, he was noticed by Frank Mayo, a stage veteran who signed him to play the First Witch in Macbeth. Later, Charley Hoyt tapped Ober to play Uncle Joe Vail in A Temperance Town and Uncle Tody in A Contented Woman. The thespian scored success in the role of Rip Van Winkle, but as Joseph Jefferson was nationally known in that part, Ober realized that he had to do something different. With his wife, Adelaide (the former Mrs. Power, of Chicago), and his stepson, Frederick L. Power, he created a condensed version of Rip Van Winkle that delighted vaudeville audiences. In 1901, the American Biograph Rip Van Winkle film featuring Joseph Jefferson was sometimes shown as part of the same performance, and Ober would play along with it. The Moving Picture World, December 14, 1912, printed an article in which Willard Holcomb, who at one time was associated with Ober, gave his recollections of the late actor and his various presentations of Rip Van Winkle, including the aforementioned stage performances in connection with the showing of the Biograph film of the same subject.

In 1902 Ober played four weeks in San Francisco, followed by a tour of the West Coast, and finished the summer in Nova Scotia. Among the stock productions in which he acted were What Happened to Jones, Why Smith Left Home, The House That Jack Built, A Runaway Colt, A Midnight Bell, and Jerome, a Poor Man, and his long-time standard plays, A Temperance Town and A Contented Woman. George Ober enjoyed a long career on the stage and at one time or another appeared with John Wilkes Booth, Edwin Booth, Charlotte Cushman and Edwin Forrest, among others.

Ober was an actor with Thanhouser in 1912 and probably appeared in a number of films, but in this early era Thanhouser did not credit most of its adult players, therefore today most of his roles cannot be attributed. Among George Ober's films with other companies were The Maid's Stratagem (IMP, 1912), The Staff of Age (IMP, 1912), The Blind Musician (IMP, 1912), The Indian Mutiny (Vitagraph, September 1912), As You Like It (Vitagraph, 1912), The Curio Hunters (Vitagraph, 1912), It All Came Out in the Wash (Vitagraph, 1912), The Little Minister (Vitagraph, 1913), and Papa Puts One Over (Vitagraph, 1913).

George Ober died of pneumonia at the age of 63, in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York, on November 16, 1912. He spent the last four months of his life with Vitagraph. His wife, Adelaide, survived him, as did a niece, Miss Minnie Power.

Thanhouser Filmography:

1912: His Great Uncle's Spirit (3-8-1912)

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