Stellan Windrow(1893-1959)
- Actor
- Director
- Production Manager
Stellan Windrow's parents were both Swedish physicians. His mother Anna
Malmqvist Holm emigrated to Chicago were she gave birth to Stellan,
then divorced his father Sven Vindruvva in absentia. At the University
of Chicago Stellan was an outstanding athlete (swimming, shotput,
discus), took an Associate in Philosophy (1915) and was a member of
Alpha Tau Omega, the Society of Tiger Head and the Blackfriars Drama
Society. He worked summer jobs at Chicago's Essanay Studio and there
became friends with Wallace Beery, Ruth Stonehouse and Francis X.
Bushman. In 1917 he was hired by producer 'Bill Parsons' to play the
part of Tarzan, becoming the first actor ever contracted for the part.
After several weeks of shooting, on Bayou Teche LA, the tree-work all
but completed, the United States entered World War I and Stellan became
an ensign in the navy. He attended the premiere of Tarzan of the Apes (1918) as a guest
of Parsons, but was uncredited in the film even though all the shown
tree-work was his. Following marriage and the birth of daughters
Marjorie and Patricia, the Windrows moved to a suburb of Paris, working
for the Swedish division of Paramount Pictures. Near the end of the
1930s they returned to New York where he worked as a free-lance
newspaper/magazine photographer. He served in the American Red Cross
during World War II, in north Africa. Stellan died of "hardening of the
arteries" November 25, 1959 in New York.