Little Neck's Own: Francis X. Bushman

Actor Francis X. Bushman appeared in nearly 200 feature films and directed two of his own. In the early 1900s, he lived in a home overlooking Little Neck Bay.

Bushman was born in Baltimore in 1883 and, at an early age, began bodybuilding, developing a muscular physique.

Prior to becoming an actor, Bushman performed on the stage in Chicago and worked as a sculptor’s model in New York City. It was at this time that he lived in northeast Queens.

He made his screen debut in 1911 in the silent short “His Friend’s Wife.” Between that year and 1920, he worked in a total 175 films, including the 1925 version of “Ben Hur,” “The Masked Bride” and “Romeo and Juliet,” which he also directed.

Bushman started his career at the Vitagraph studio, but later signed with MGM.

The actor married seamstress Josephine Fladung and had five children. But he found himself at the center of a scandal when an affair with costar Beverly Bayne became public.

Bushman and Fladung divorced and the actor married Bayne shortly thereafter. He would go on to marry two more times.

In the late 1920s, Bushman lost much of his fortune during the stock market crash. The actor donated his home and land on Hollywood Boulevard to Sid Grauman, who built the famous Grauman’s Chinese Theater at the site.

In the 1930s and 1940s, Bushman entered the world of broadcasting by lending his voice to the CBS Radio serials “Those We Love.”

In later years, he appeared on television shows, such as “Peter Gunn,” “Make Way for Daddy,” “Perry Mason” and “Batman.” And, in the 1960s, he appeared in two science fiction pictures – “12 to the Moon” and “The Phantom Planet.”

The actor died from a heart attack in 1966 in Pacific Palisades, Calif.