W. J. Lincoln W. J. Lincoln i(A124167 works by)
; Died: Ceased: Aug 1917
Gender: Male
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BiographyHistory

Film director, producer, playwright, screenwriter, actor.

W. J. Lincoln's early career in the entertainment industry was as a Melbourne-based playwright and actor. Towards the end of the first decade of the twentieth century, however, he began to establish himself as both a screenwriter and film exhibitor. He managed J. C. Williamson's Bio-Tableau tours of Australia and New Zealand and later managed the St Kilda Paradise Gardens, a Melbourne outdoor cinema. After directing his first feature, It is Never Too Late to Mend (1911), for Amalgamated Pictures he became the company's principal director, making at least six films in 1911. These were: The Mystery of the Hansom Cab, The Luck of Roaring Camp, Called Back, The Lost Chord, The Bells, and The Double Event.

When owners J. and N. Tait withdrew Amalgamated Pictures from feature production in 1912 Lincoln almost immediately formed his own company with actor Godfrey Cass. The pair went on to produce a series of short features in Melbourne but the enterprise eventually failed, due in part to Lincoln's problems with alcohol. Among the films produced were: The Sick Stockrider (1913), followed in quick succession by Moondyne, The Remittance Man, Transported, The Road to Ruin, The Reprieve and The Crisis.

Lincoln-Cass Films was bought out by J. C. Williamsons in 1914 and Lincoln was subsequently hired to write scenarios for several films the following year. His last films as a director were his own productions, but none succeeded commercially. He died in 1917 while working on the screenplay for The Worst Woman in Sydney.

[Adapted from Andrew Pike and Ross Cooper's entry in Australian Film 1900-1977, A Guide to Feature Film Production (1980), pp. 16-17.]

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Last amended 18 Nov 2014 16:24:18
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