Signed Portrait of Richard Dix - Autographs of Famous People

Autographed portrait of American actor Richard Dix.

Richard Dix (born Ernst Carlton Brimmer; July 18, 1893 – September 20, 1949) was an American motion picture actor who achieved popularity in both silent and sound film. His standard on-screen image was that of the rugged and stalwart hero. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for his lead role in the Best Picture-winning epic Cimarron (1931). Dix was born on July 18, 1893, in Saint Paul, Minnesota. He was educated there and, to please his father, studied to be a surgeon. His obvious acting talent in his school dramatic club led him to leading roles in most of the school plays. Standing 6 feet and weighing 180 pounds, Dix excelled in sports, especially football and baseball. After a year at the University of Minnesota, he took a position at a bank, and trained for the stage in the evening. His professional start was with a local stock company, and this led to similar work in New York City. He then went to Los Angeles and became leading man for the Morosco Stock Company. His success there earned him a contract with Paramount Pictures. He then changed his name to Richard Dix. After his move to Hollywood, he began a career in Western movies. One of the few leading men to successfully bridge the transition from silent films to talkies, Dix's best-remembered early role was in Cecil B. Demille's silent version of The Ten Commandments (1923). He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1931 for his performance as Yancey Cravat in Cimarron, in which he was billed over Irene Dunne. Cimarron, based on the popular novel by Edna Ferber, took the Best Picture award. Dix starred in another RKO adventure, The Lost Squadron. A memorable role for Dix was in the 1935 British futuristic film The Tunnel. Dix starred in The Great Jasper and Blind Alibi in the late 1930s. His popular RKO Radio Pictures co-star in Blind Alibi was Ace the Wonder Dog. Dix's human co-stars were Whitney Bourne and Eduardo Ciannelli; the film was directed by Lew Landers. Dix also starred as the homicidal Captain Stone in the Val Lewton production of The Ghost Ship, directed by Mark Robson. In 1941, Dix played Wild Bill Hickok in Badlands of Dakota and portrayed Wyatt Earp the following year in Tombstone, the Town Too Tough to Die, featuring Edgar Buchanan as Curly Bill Brocious. In 1944, he starred in The Whistler, a feature film produced by Columbia Pictures based on the popular radio program. The film adaptation was popular enough to become a series. In these offbeat, crime-related stories, Dix did not play "The Whistler" (who was an unseen narrator representing the central character's conscience). He appeared in a variety of characterizations, some sympathetic, others hard-boiled, but always victims of fate and circumstances conspiring against him. Dix retired from acting after the seventh of these films, The Thirteenth Hour. He suffered a heart attack in October 1948[6] and continued to have heart trouble until his death within the year.

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