Warner Leroy Baxter (March 29, 1889 – May 7, 1951) was an American film actor from the 1910s to the 1940s. Baxter became known for his role as The Cisco Kid
in the 1928 film In Old Arizona for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor at the 2nd Academy Awards. He frequently played womanizing, charismatic Latin bandit types in westerns, and played The Cisco Kid or a similar character throughout the 1930s, but had a range of other roles throughout his career. Baxter began his movie career in silent films with his most notable roles being in The Great Gatsby (1926) and The Awful Truth (1925). Baxter’s most notable talkies are In Old Arizona (1929), 42nd Street (1932), Slave Ship (1937), Kidnapped (1938), and the 1931 ensemble short film, The Stolen Jools. In the 1940s, he was well known for his recurring role as Dr. Robert Ordway in the Crime Doctor series of ten films. For his contributions to the motion picture industry, Baxter has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Baxter was born in Columbus, Ohio to Edwin F. Baxter (18671889) and Jane Barrett (18691962). Baxter was 5 months old when his father died. Baxter and his mother went to live with her brother in Columbus, Ohio. They later moved to New York City where he became active in dramatics, both participating in school productions and attending plays. In 1898, the two moved to San Francisco where he graduated from Polytechnic High School. When the 1906 San Francisco earthquake struck, Baxter and his mother lived in Golden Gate Park for eight days and then went to live with friends in Alameda for three months. In 1908, they returned to Columbus. After selling farm implements for a living, Baxter worked for four months as the partner of Dorothy Shoemaker in an act on the Keith Vaudeville Circuit.
Baxter began his film career as an extra in 1914 in a stock company. He had his first starring role in Sheltered Daughters (1921), and starred in 48 features during the 1920s. His most notable silent roles were in The Great Gatsby (1926), Aloma of the South Seas (1926) as an island love interest opposite dancer Gilda Gray, and an alcoholic doctor in West of Zanzibar (1928) with Lon Chaney. Baxter’s most notable starring role was as the Cisco Kid in In Old Arizona (1929), the first all-talking western, for which he won the second Academy Award for Best Actor. He also starred in 42nd Street (1933), Grand Canary (1934), Broadway Bill (1934) and Kidnapped (1938). By 1936, Baxter was the highest paid actor in Hollywood, but by 1943 he had slipped to B movie roles, and he starred in a series of “Crime Doctor” films for Columbia Pictures. Baxter had roles in more than 100 films between 1914 and 1950.
Baxter married Viola Caldwell in 1911, but they were soon separated and then divorced in 1913. He married actress Winifred Bryson in 1918, remaining married until his death in 1951. He was a close friend of William Powell with whom he had starred in three films, and was at Powell’s side when Jean Harlow died in 1937. When not acting, Baxter was an inventor who co-created a searchlight for revolvers in 1935 which allowed a shooter to more clearly see a target at night. He also developed a radio device that would allow emergency crews to change traffic signals from two blocks away, providing them with safe passage through intersections. He financed the device’s installation at a Beverly Hills intersection in 1940.
Baxter suffered from arthritis for several years, and in 1951 he underwent a lobotomy to ease the pain. On May 7, 1951, he died of pneumonia at age 62 and was interred in Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California. He was survived by his second wife and his mother.
Baxter has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6284 Hollywood Boulevard for his contributions to the motion picture industry. The induction ceremony occurred on February 8, 1960.
Overview
Early Life
Film career
Personal Life
Death
Recognition
Filmography
Year
Film
Role
Notes
1914
Her Own Money
Lew Alden
uncredited
1918
All Woman
uncredited
1919
Lombardi, Ltd.
uncredited
1921
First Love
Donald Halliday
Incomplete; Museum of Modern Art (New York)
Cheated Hearts
Tom Gordon
The Love Charm
Thomas Morgan
Sheltered Daughters
Pep Mullins
1922
If I Were Queen
Vladimir
A Girl’s Desire
Jones/Lord Dysart
The Ninety and Nine
Tom Silverton/Phil Bradbury
The Girl in His Room
Kirk Waring
Her Own Money
Lew Alden
1923
St. Elmo
Murray Hammond
Lost
Blow Your Own Horn
Jack Dunbar
In Search of a Thrill
Adrian Torrens
Those Who Dance
Bob Kane
Extant; Library of Congress (per Tave/IMDb review)
1924
Christine of the Hungry Heart
Stuart Knight
Extant; Library of Congress (per Tave/IMDb review)
The Female
Col. Valentia
His Forgotten Wife
Donald Allen/John Rolfe
Extant; Library of Congress
Alimony
Jimmy Mason
The Garden of Weeds
Douglas Crawford
1925
The Best People
Henry Morgan
Lost
A Son of His Father
Big Boy Morgan
Rugged Water
Calvin Horner
Lost
Welcome Home
Fred Prouty
Extant
The Awful Truth
Norman Satterlee
print preserved at UCLA Film and Television (per IMDb)
The Air Mail
Russ Kane
Incomplete
The Golden Bed
Bunny O’Neill
Extant
Mismates
Ted Carroll
Lost
1926
Aloma of the South Seas
Nuitane
Lost
The Runaway
Wade Murrell
Lost
Mannequin
John Herrick
Extant
The Great Gatsby
Jay Gatsby
Lost
Miss Brewster’s Millions
Thomas B. Hancock Jr
Lost
1927
The Coward
Clinton Philbrook
Singed
Royce Wingate
Drums of the Desert
John Curry
Lost
The Telephone Girl
Matthew Standish
Craig’s Wife
Walter Craig
Lost
1928
Danger Street
Rolly Sigsby
Ramona
Alessandro
Extant
Three Sinners
James Harris
Lost
The Tragedy of Youth
Frank Gordon
Lost
West of Zanzibar
Doc
directed by Tod Browning; Extant
A Woman’s Way
Tony
Lost
In Old Arizona
The Cisco Kid
Academy Award for Best Actor – Extant
1929
Romance of the Rio Grande
Pablo Wharton Cameron
Behind That Curtain
Col. John Beetham
Extant
The Far Call
?
Lost
Thru Different Eyes
Jack Winfield
Extant (special silent version only, incomplete)
Linda
Dr. Paul Randall
Extant
1930
Renegades
Deucalion
Extant
Such Men Are Dangerous
Ludwig Kranz
Extant; Library of Congress
The Arizona Kid
The Cisco Kid
Extant; Library of Congress
The Squaw Man
James ‘Jim’ Wingate, aka Jim Carston
Extant
1931
Their Mad Moment
Esteban Cristera
Doctors’ Wives
Dr. Judson Penning
The Stolen Jools
The Cisco Kid
Daddy Long Legs
Jervis Pendleton
The Cisco Kid
The Cisco Kid
Surrender
Sgt. Dumaine
1932
Six Hours to Live
Capt. Paul Onslow
Man About Town
Stephen Morrow
Amateur Daddy
Jim Gladden
1933
Dangerously Yours
Andrew Burke
42nd Street
Julian Marsh
I Loved You Wednesday
Philip Fletcher
Paddy the Next Best Thing
Lawrence Blake
Penthouse
Jackson ‘Jack’ Durant
1934
Hell in the Heavens
Lt. Steve Warner
As Husbands Go
Charles Lingard
Grand Canary
Dr. Harvey Leith
Stand Up and Cheer!
Lawrence Cromwell
Such Women Are Dangerous
Michael Shawn
Broadway Bill
Dan Brooks
1935
Under the Pampas Moon
Cesar Campo
One More Spring
Jaret Otkar
La Fiesta de Santa Barbara
Himself
Short film
1936
White Hunter
Capt. Clark Rutledge
To Mary – with Love
Jack Wallace
The Road to Glory
Captain Paul La Roche
The Prisoner of Shark Island
Dr. Samuel Mudd
King of Burlesque
Kerry Bolton
The Robin Hood of El Dorado
Joaquin Murrieta
1937
Wife, Doctor and Nurse
Dr. Judd Lewis
Vogues of 1938
George Curson
Slave Ship
Jim Lovett
1938
I’ll Give a Million
Tony Newlander
Kidnapped
Alan Breck
1939
Barricade
Hank Topping
Wife, Husband and Friend
Leonard Borland aka Logan Bennett
The Return of the Cisco Kid
The Cisco Kid
1940
Earthbound
Nick Desborough
1941
Adam Had Four Sons
Adam Stoddard
1943
Crime Doctor
Dr. Robert Ordway/Phil Morgan
first of 10 films in the Crime Doctor B-film series
Crime Doctor’s Strangest Case
Dr. Robert Ordway
1944
Shadows in the Night
Dr. Robert Ordway
Lady in the Dark
Kendall Nesbitt
1945
Crime Doctor’s Warning
Dr. Robert Ordway
The Crime Doctor’s Courage
Dr. Robert Ordway
1946
Crime Doctor’s Man Hunt
Dr. Robert Ordway
Just Before Dawn
Dr. Robert Ordway
1947
Crime Doctor’s Gamble
Dr. Robert Ordway
The Millerson Case
Dr. Robert Ordway
1948
The Gentleman from Nowhere
Earl Donovan/Robert Ashton
1949
The Crime Doctor’s Diary
Dr. Robert Ordway
last of the Crime Doctor series
The Devil’s Henchman
Jess Arno
Prison Warden
Warden Victor Burnell
1950
State Penitentiary
Roger Manners
1952
O. Henry’s Full House
clip of Baxter from The Cisco Kid