Volume III: Biographies

COOMBS, Guy *

Actor (1911)

Thanhouser Career Synopsis: Guy Coombs is believed to have been an actor with Thanhouser circa 1911.

Biographical Notes: Guy Coombs was born in Washington, D.C. on June 15, 1882, the son of Margaret C. Coombs. He followed a career on the stage and made his debut in the cast of Becky Sharp, with Minnie Maddern Fiske. Later, he was seen in The White Horse Tavern, The Rivals, Mrs. Dane's Defense, Boots and Saddles, and other productions, with Joseph Jefferson, James K. Hackett, Wilton Lackaye, Louis Mann, Charlotte Walker, and others. In December 1907 he was scheduled to substitute for James Durkin (who later became a Thanhouser director years later) in the leading role in Woman Against Woman, but he became ill and the last minute and could not do so. In 1909 he was on stage with his wife, Anne, in Romeo and Juliet, where the couple played the title roles.

His screen career included work with Edison, for whom he was a leading man; Kalem, where he was seen in several Civil War pictures and in various films starring Alice Joyce and where he was located for much of the year 1911 as part of an acting stint which lasted about three years and a directing position for about one year; Kleine; Ivan, in The Promise and Two Men and a Woman; and Famous Players, where he acted in Bab's Diary.

As a Married Man: During the fourth week of November 1911, Guy Coombs gave a dinner for his friends at the Hotel Rector, New York City, to mark his beginning success in motion pictures. According to an account in The Morning Telegraph, November 24, 1911, just as he was about to regale his guests with glowing tales of the opportunities offered by films, he was served with legal notice of a divorce action filed by his wife of three years, the former Anne Bronaugh, who in the meantime had taken Logan, the couple's three-month-old son, to the home of her father, J.J. Bronaugh, a wealthy leather manufacture who lived at 4467 Oakenwald Avenue in Chicago. The couple had met in 1908, when Coombs was playing on the stage in Chicago, and Miss Bronaugh was a prominent young socialite who was interested in amateur theatricals and who sought Coombs' advice on the subject. Very soon thereafter, they married without telling her parents, took a train to New York, and telegraphed the news to them, after which the couple received her parents' blessing.

The Coombses had lived in New York City until October 1911, when Mrs. Coombs took young Logan back to Chicago, ostensibly so that her mother could see him. According to a newspaper account (preserved in the Robinson Locke Collection), Guy Coombs was shocked when he learned of the divorce proceedings which had been instituted against him. The divorce petition claimed that beginning a few months after their marriage, the actor had engaged in "flirting with pretty women on every pretext and at every opportunity. He flirted with butterflies along the Gay White Way,' and he flirted with the most attractive members of the casts in which he had a part. He even flirted with women on and off the stage during the course of the drama, and it seemed to make no difference to him that his wife had insisted on having a part in the same show."

Later, he married actress Anna Q. Nilsson, becoming her first husband, but during their marriage he could not resist having affairs with a number of other women. According to an account in The Morning Telegraph, February 8, 1920, the couple had been living apart for two years, and Coombs had been startled to read in the papers that she was going to marry someone else soon. He stated that he had not divorced her yet, but he wished her new suitor all the best, stating: "I have no malice or anger in my heart against Miss Nilsson. Whatever trouble we had was my fault. She forgave me and took me back two or three times after I promised to reform. I am ashamed now of my part in making her unhappy...."

The New Rochelle Pioneer, July 15, 1916, stated that years earlier, Guy Coombs came to the Thanhouser studio as an actor about the same time that David H. Thompson did (which would have been in 1911). Coombs' work with Thanhouser was not publicized, in an era in which most of the firm's players were not credited. Possibly he went to Thanhouser before his work with Kalem, or perhaps he worked with Kalem on an intermittent basis and between engagements worked briefly in New Rochelle.

The Moving Picture World, October 16, 1915, stated that Coombs had recently joined the Metro forces and had just completed playing the lead with Madame Olga Petrova in My Madonna, produced by Popular Plays and Players, after which he was slated to start work on Barbara Frietchie. The October 1916 edition of the Motion Picture News Studio Directory listed his mailing address as the Screen Club, New York City. He was 6' tall and weighed 180 pounds. The 1918 edition of the same work stated he was with Famous Players in New York City at the time. In the late 1930s he was a room clerk in a Florida hotel. Coombs had two sisters, Joan and Gracie.

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