{{Short description|British actor and screenwriter (1872–1964)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}} <!-- Before adding an infobox to this article, please seek to establish a new consensus on the Talk page to do so. --> thumb|Tom Terriss (1921) thumb|''My Country First'' (1916) '''Thomas Herbert F. Lewin''' (28 September 1872 – 8 February 1964), known professionally as '''Tom Terriss''', was a British actor, screenwriter, and film director.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20090118054506/http://ftvdb.bfi.org.uk/sift/individual/10921 BFI Database entry]</ref> After trying various occupations, he became an actor playing a variety of roles, beginning in 1890, in plays, pantomime and Edwardian musical comedy. After the First World War, he left the stage and pursued a decade-long film career. He was the brother of the musical comedy star Ellaline Terriss and son of leading man actor William Terriss.
==Life and career== Terriss was born in Barnes, London, son of the actor William Terriss and his wife Isabel (née Lewis).<ref>[http://search.findmypast.co.uk/results/united-kingdom-records-in-birth-marriage-death-and-parish-records?firstname=thomas%20herbert%20f.&firstname_variants=true&lastname=lewin "Thomas Herbert F. Lewin"], Results for Birth, Marriage, Death & Parish Records, ''Find My Past'', accessed 28 September 2014</ref> He was educated at Christ's Hospital, and being, in his own words, "like his father before him … of roving disposition", he tried several occupations before becoming an actor. He was an apprentice at sea, a sheep farmer in Australia, a miner in Colorado, and a clerk on the London Stock Exchange.<ref name=who>Parker, pp. 893–894</ref> His sister, Ellaline Terriss, became one of the most famous musical theatre stars of the day.<ref>Taylor, C.M.P. [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/printable/40483 Terriss, Ellaline. ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography''], Oxford University Press, accessed 7 January 2012</ref> He made his first appearance on the professional stage at the Globe Theatre in March 1890, as Osric in ''Hamlet'' with F.R. Benson's company. In May of the same year he began a three-year association with the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, playing first in ''Paul Kauvar'' and then ''A Million of Money'', ''The Prodigal Daughter'' (1892), and three pantomimes.<ref name=who/>
Over the next decade he played in a range of productions from musical comedies such as ''The Shop Girl'' to melodrama including ''The Colleen Bawn''. In 1902 he went to the US, where he remained for four years, appearing in musical comedies under the managements of Charles Frohman and others. He returned to the West End stage in 1906, taking over the role of Mr Beverley in ''The Beauty of Bath'' in which his sister Ellaline starred in the title role.<ref name=who/>
During 1909 Terriss toured in the US and the UK in ''The Vampire'', and in 1910–11 he made another American tour in ''Scrooge''. During 1913–15 he played in Britain in three Dickens adaptations: ''A Christmas Carol'', ''A Tale of Two Cities'', and ''Nicholas Nickleby''. After that he abandoned the stage for a film career, becoming a director for Vitagraph Pictures.<ref name=who/>
==Filmography== [[File:Sunnyside (1919) - 4.jpg|thumb|right|Charlie Chaplin and Tom Terris in ''Sunnyside'' (1919)]] {{div col}} * ''The Mystery of Edwin Drood'' (1914) * ''The Fettered Woman'' (1917) * ''The Song of the Soul'' (1918) * ''Everybody's Girl'' (1918) * ''The Woman Between Friends'' (1918) * ''The Captain's Captain'' (1919) * ''The Lion and the Mouse'' (1919) * ''The Cambric Mask'' (1919) * ''The Third Degree'' (1919) * ''The Spark Divine'' (1919) * ''The Tower of Jewels'' (1919) * ''The Vengeance of Durand'' (1919) * ''Sunnyside'' (1919) (actor, uncredited) * ''The Climbers'' (1919) * ''Captain Swift'' (1920) * ''Dead Men Tell No Tales'' (1920)<ref>Holliday, Diane and Chris Kretz. ''Oakdale: Images of America'', p. 36, Arcadia Publishing (2010) {{ISBN|0-7385-7239-X}}</ref> * ''The Fortune Hunter'' (1920) * ''Trumpet Island'' (1920) * ''The Heart of Maryland'' (1921) * ''Boomerang Bill'' (1922) * ''The Challenge'' (1922) * ''Find the Woman'' (1922) * ''The Harbour Lights'' (1923) * ''Fires of Fate'' (1923) * ''The Bandolero'' (1924) * ''The Desert Sheik'' (1924) * ''His Buddy's Wife'' (1925) * ''The Romance of a Million Dollars'' (1926) * ''Temptations of a Shop Girl'' (1927) * ''The Girl from Rio'' (1927) * ''Beyond London Lights'' (1928) * ''Clothes Make the Woman'' (1928) * ''The Naughty Duchess'' (1928) * ''A Princess of Destiny'' (1929) * ''Circumstantial Evidence'' (1935) {{div col end}}
==Notes== {{Reflist}}
==References== * {{cite book | last= Parker | first= John | year=1925 | title= Who's Who in the Theatre | location=London |edition=fifth| publisher=Sir Isaac Pitman and Sons | oclc=10013159 }}
==External links== {{commons category|Tom Terriss}} * {{IMDb name|0855912}} * [https://archive.org/stream/MorningTelegraphlouellaParsonsSeptember-december1923/TelegraphParsonsSepDec1923#page/n20/mode/1up 1923 Interview by Louella Parsons]
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Terriss, Tom}} Category:1872 births Category:1964 deaths Category:British film directors Category:British male film actors Category:British male screenwriters Category:Male actors from London Category:20th-century British male actors Category:20th-century British screenwriters