Lloyd Hughes

Dubbed by the French artist Andre de Bourget as the "typical American boy," handsome but somewhat bland leading man Lloyd Hughes starred opposite Mary Astor eight times and was Colleen Moore's leading man in five of her most popular films. As Mary Pickford's stalwart love interest in Tess of the Storm Country (1922), Hughes met his wife, Gloria Hope, on the set. Although gifted with an all-American face, the actor could be villainous if the occasion called for it and proved a fairly good adversary for Milton Sills in The Sea Hawk (1924). This was not the last time he would portray the hero's weakling brother, but his Derek in John Barrymore's highly augmented version of Moby Dick, The Sea Beast (1930), was perhaps his final worthwhile assignment. It was downhill from there, all the way to Puritan Pictures and Rip Roaring Riley (1935), whose apocalyptic poisoned gas plot wasn't the film's only putrid element. Former co-star Mary Astor, in her very frank autobiography, summed it all up perfectly: "Hughes was a nice guy who should never have been an actor and he knew it." ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide