Silent Film People who worked with Charles Ashton

Charles Ashton worked with four well known film directors from the 1920s, Manning Haynes, Maurice Elvey, Walter West, and Victor Saville, and with film actors who were either established stage actors or at the start of their film careers in the 1920s.  Popular celebrities like John Stuart, Estelle Brody, Fay Compton, Irene Rooke, Moore Marriott, Norman McKinnel, appeared in his films.  Many of these actors made the transition to talking pictures, for instance, Milton Rosmer, Estelle Brody, Fay Compton and Walter West, had trained voices from working as stage actors.  Milton Rosmer, H. Manning Haynes and Walter West went on to be become directors.

Silent film actors could cross geographical boundaries to practice their art, because without sound, language was not a barrier!  A few of the actors that Charles worked with went on to America, Australia, Germany and France to appear in international films.  John Stuart appeared in German silent films; Betty Balfour and Walter West performed in American, French and German silent films, and Zoe Palmer appeared in Dutch films.  British producers in turn imported actors from Europe.  However, the arrival of sound in the late 1920s brought an end to this exchange, particularly for many of the British silent film actors with strong regional accents, who had to retire from filming once the talkies were established in 1929.   Charles Ashton’s last film was made in 1929.

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