Tom Santschi

A barnstorming stage actor for nearly 20 years, burly leading man Tom Santschi entered films in 1909. Five years later, he made cinema history with his bloody, drawn-out screen fistfight with William Farnum in The Spoilers (1914). Farnum won that bout and remained a star; Santschi lost, and spent most of the 1910s and 1920s losing several other movie battles in villainous roles. Before settling into secondary parts, Santschi directed many of his starring vehicles, including His Fighting Blood (1914) and A Sultana of the Desert (1915). Shortly before his death from high blood pressure in 1931, an ageing but unbowed Tom Santschi engaged in another movie brawl with William Farnum in the early talkie Ten Nights in a Bar-Room.

~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide