Wilfred Van Norman Lucas (1871-1940) is believed to have appeared in around 400 films between 1908 and 1940, as well as directing over 50.
Lucas was Canadian, moving to the United States in his teens. He started out as a singer, performing both light and grand opera, and also made some appearances on Broadway. The Biograph Company hired him in 1908, where he worked with D W Griffith. His first starring role in a feature, alongside the young Bessie Love, was in Acquitted (1916).
In the same year, along with many other friends of the director, Lucas played a cameo in Griffith’s Intolerance.
Lucas made a successful transition to sound pictures, where he worked a number of times with Laurel and Hardy, including as the Warden in Pardon Us (1931) and the Dean in A Chump at Oxford (1940).
Lucas was in three MGM musicals: Madam Satan, The Devil’s Brother (as Alessandro, again with Stan and Ollie) and Naughty Marietta.
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