Brenon, Herbert (1880–1958), American film director, actor, and producer, was born 13 January 1880 in Dublin, son of Edward St John Brenon, editor and drama critic, of London, and Frances Brenon (née Harris), writer, of Dublin. Young Brenon attended the elite St Paul's School and King's College in the Strand, London, before abruptly emigrating to the United States at 16. Immediately commencing a life in the theatre, he rose from call boy to vaudeville manager and performer, with his wife Helen Oberg of Minneapolis (m. 1904). He briefly ran a small cinema house in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. His stage career dwindling, Brenon joined Carl Laemmle's Independent Motion Picture Company as a scenario writer, producing impressive work for the studio's stars Florence Lawrence and Mary Pickford. His directing debut in 1912 brought immediate success, propelling him into a league with the silent era's most respected creators, along with Cecil B. DeMille, Thomas Ince, and D. W. Griffiths. Although Brenon's complete filmography has not been compiled, and many of his films no longer exist, his total output is credibly estimated at more than 300 titles. Given large budgets from his earliest years, Brenon worked in a variety of genres, from the frivolous to the artistically aspiring. He employed swimmer Annette Kellerman in Neptune's daughter (1914) and Daughter of the gods (1916). Although Brenon was badly injured in the shooting of Neptune's daughter when a tank exploded, the film was a huge financial success and become one of the best-known of the decade. His Kreutzer Sonata (1915), an adaptation of Tolstoy, gave an early role to Theda Bara. Alla Nazimova appeared in the pacifist War brides (1917), a great influence on youthful producer David O. Selznick. The fall of the Romanoffs (1917) supported the Kerensky regime. Empty pockets (1917) dealt with Jewish ghetto life. Other films gave leading roles to important players: Pola Negri in The Spanish dancer (1923), Ronald Colman in Beau Geste (1926), Clara Bow in Dancing mothers (1926), and Lon Chaney in Laugh, clown, laugh (1928).
Once described as the ‘x’ in Fox pictures, Brenon worked with several major studios: Universal (successor of Laemmle's IMP), MGM, RKO, and Famous Players-Lasky, ancestor of Paramount. He twice established short-lived companies of his own, Tiffany Films (1915) and the Herbert Brenon Film Corporation (1916). Not confined to Hollywood, Brenon also made films in Jamaica, Bermuda, Britain, and Italy, where he was once kidnapped by bandits. Little of Brenon's Irish heritage appears in his output, but he wrote and directed Kathleen Mavourneen (1913) and the adaptation of Irish-American F. Scott Fitzgerald's The great Gatsby (1926). Dismissing the advent of sound motion pictures as a fad, Brenon switched reluctantly to ‘talkies’ and fared poorly with them. After directing a series of weak films in Hollywood, he moved to Britain in 1934 where he made eleven more features before retiring in 1940. Historian Terry Ramsaye described Brenon as ‘one of the motion pictures’ most spectacular and volatile personalities.' After eighteen years of obscurity, he died in Los Angeles 21 June 1958.