Acting

John T. Dillon

Born — Died

1876-06-19 — 1937-12-29

Place of birth

New York City, New York, USA

Known for

Acting

Credits

60 titles

Known for

Film credits

1920s · 2 titles

1910s · 55 titles

Martyrs of the Alamo poster
5.2

A dramatization of the 1836 Texas Revolution, focusing on the buildup, the siege of Béxar, the defense of the Alamo by 185 Texans against General Santa Anna's army, and climaxing with the Battle of San Jacinto.

Martyrs of the Alamo

1915

The Musketeers of Pig Alley poster
6.1

A man recognizes the thief who had previously robbed him as one of the men involved in an unrelated mob shootout.

The Musketeers of Pig Alley

1912

The House with Closed Shutters poster
5.2

During the Civil War a young soldier loses his nerve in battle and runs away to his home to hide; his sister puts on his uniform, takes her brother's place in the battle, and is killed. Their mother, not wanting the shameful truth to become known, closes all the shutters (hence the film's title) and keeps her son's presence a secret for many years, though two boyhood chums stumble upon the truth...

The House with Closed Shutters

1910

The Sisters poster
NR

May and her younger sister, Carol, live in a small town. May is the more lovely of the two, but Carol is wooed by Frank, a country boy. George, a city man, comes to town on a visit, falls in love with Carol and wins her away from Frank. Carol is pleased with his attentions and poor Frank is brokenhearted. Calling one day to see Carol, George meets May and falls madly in love with her, and finally runs away with her and they are married. Carol, in despair, turns back to Frank and they are married, and a year later a baby is born.

The Sisters

1914

A Rich Man's Plaything poster
NR

Marie Grandon may have seen more of the world than any nice girl ever would, but her motives remain pure. Marie labors in a New England oyster cannery and dreams of someday crushing the slumlords who prey upon the poor. While on a cruise, "Iron" Lloyd, a millionaire financier and tenement owner, decides to visit the town where Marie lives. Under the name Strange, he gets in a fight and is injured. While recuperating, he meets Marie and she tells him of her dream. Lloyd is intrigued by this and decides to test her. He has his lawyer transfer a huge sum of money to her and makes it look like she inherited it from a distant relative. Marie takes the money, goes to New York, and does exactly what she had planned. Her main target happens to be Lloyd. His business rival, Ogden Deneau, even aligns with her, pretending interest in her cause, but really wanting to ruin Lloyd. Marie, however, had dealings with Deneau a long time ago and plans to crush him too.

A Rich Man's Plaything

1917

The Sheriff's Baby poster
5.5

After the death of his wife the baby was all the sheriff had left, the promise of hope in the future, and the reflection of all that was dear in the past. But a sheriff has no time to tread a cradle rocker, so the baby started off on the long journey to relatives across the desert. Then the sheriff was called away to hunt the "bad men" of the desert, and found there a deserted prairie schooner, the occupants dead and his baby gone.

The Sheriff's Baby

1913

No artwork available
8.0

The judge's young daughter championed the cause of Ching Fow against "The Bull." Kindness begot kindness again in a manner unlooked for and unusual. Ching Fow proved himself an unconscious humorist, but his very practical joke saved a life, making as well an exceptionally thrilling story.

A Dangerous Foe

1913

A Flash of Light poster
5.0

An experiment goes wrong and blinds a newly married chemist. The chemist's wife does not want to take on the burden of caring for the blind chemist, and her younger sister take her place.

A Flash of Light

1910

An Arcadian Maid poster
4.8

A young maiden is seduced by a charming traveling peddler who persuades her to steal from her host family in order to repay his gambling debts.

An Arcadian Maid

1910

No artwork available
NR

A tramp overhears a rancher's plans to go to town for the ranch's payroll. He tries to enlist another loafer (the Knight) to help with a robbery. Instead, the Knight helps thwart the robbery.

A Knight of the Road

1911

No artwork available
NR

Biff Dugan, the eldest son of a poor family living in a tenement on the squalid East Side of New York, leads a gang of hoodlums, among whose members is his brother Porky. Their sister Jess is a consumptive whose health was ruined in a sweatshop. During a melee in a mission run by reformer Henry Davis, the Dugan gang encounters Billy Drew and his sister Cora, newcomers to the city. Porky saves Cora from the unwelcome attentions of Biff's rival, Spike Golden, and the two fall in love. Later, when Spike is killed in a gang war, Biff is wrongfully convicted of the murder and executed in the electric chair. Porky, who served a short term in prison for his part in the crime, comes back to the city to find that Jess has died and Cora has returned to the country.

The Gangsters of New York

1914

The Two Paths poster
NR

Two sisters, Nellie and Florence, support themselves and their mother by sewing. A man accompanying a wealthy client tempts first Nellie and then Florence to leave with him. Nellie rejects him, but Florence goes to his decadent apartment and becomes his mistress. Nellie marries a diligent carpenter and raises a growing family. Eventually the Tempter tosses Florence out, and she dies alone and impoverished.

The Two Paths

1911

No artwork available
8.0

In the home of ease and refinement a new life opens to the girl. She no longer is obliged to resist the sordid way of poverty and sin. The woman's indulged son, overcome by his weakness and debt, robs his mother. It is then the girl saves the home from disgrace.

For the Son of the House

1913

In the Border States poster
5.6

During the Civil War, a father living in a border state leaves to join the Union Army. After he leaves, Confederate troops forage on his property, where a soldier encounters one of his daughters. The father himself is wounded on a hazardous mission and must run for his life, pursued by Confederate soldiers.

In the Border States

1910

What the Daisy Said poster
4.7

Two sisters want to know whether there is romance in their future. One sister pulls the petals off of a flower, while the other has her fortune told by a gypsy. When the gypsy tells the fortune so as to serve his own purposes, complications soon develop.

What the Daisy Said

1910

A Child's Impulse poster
6.2

Mrs. Thurston, a socially ambitious widow, is holding one of her famous Bohemian parties. To these functions are invited the leading lights of the several professions, actors, artists, musicians, etc. Surrounded by these men and women of art and letters, she was at first entertained, but they soon palled and bored. On this evening in particular, she is especially possessed of ennui, until the appearance of Raymond Hartley, a wealthy young bachelor, who is introduced into the circle by a newspaper man. An attachment immediately springs up between the widow and Raymond.

A Child's Impulse

1910

No artwork available
NR

Before Tom departs for the city, he becomes engaged to Kate. She gives him half of her broken pendant cross, with the agreement that either can end the engagement by sending his or her half to the other. In a city boarding house, Tom is vamped by a flirtatious manicurist who learns of the agreement and sends Tom half a cross, pretending it is from Kate. Tom realizes he has been tricked and returns to the country and his fiancée.

The Broken Cross

1911

Olaf—An Atom poster
6.0

Broken by grief after his mother's death, Olaf becomes a wanderer. He is treated cruelly until he is given a meal by a woman at the homestead where she lives with her husband and baby. Olaf is able to return her kindness when he overhears a plot to rob the settlers of their home. He alerts the couple and delays the would-be thieves long enough for the husband to file a claim on his land. Olaf is injured by the claim jumpers but he recovers, alone and forgotten by those he has helped. He then moves aimlessly along.

Olaf—An Atom

1913

The Telephone Girl and the Lady poster
5.7

D.W. Griffith short intercuts two different stories before mixing them together at the end. The film focuses on a telephone girl who leaves work for her lunch break at the same time as "The Lady" goes to a jewelry store to pick up some priceless jewels. When the telephone girl returns to work she gets a phone call from the house of "The Lady" as a robber has broken in and is trying to steal the jewels.

The Telephone Girl and the Lady

1913

The Root of Evil poster
NR

A woman, driven by envy, is convinced that her husband loves another woman, leading her to a vengeful act that ultimately destroys her own happiness.

The Root of Evil

1912

No artwork available
NR

In her own outraged sense of injury Galora sought to bring the young express agent into the justice that men might give, while the other woman sought to save his life from moral disaster and won. So the vengeance of Galora worked for the common good; one man was saved in a moment of weakness, while through many thrilling adventures the real offenders were brought to justice.

The Vengeance of Galora

1913

The Last Drop of Water poster
5.1

A wagon train heading west across the great desert runs out of water, and is attacked by Indians. One man -- their last hope -- is sent out to find water.

The Last Drop of Water

1911

What Shall We Do with Our Old? poster
5.5

An elderly carpenter is told by a doctor that his wife is seriously ill. Soon afterwards, an insensitive shop foreman lays him off from his job because of his age. Unable to find work, and with his wife's condition getting worse, he soon becomes desperate.

What Shall We Do with Our Old?

1911

No artwork available
NR

A blind princess is informed that her sight can be restored by the first kiss of unselfish love she receives. She remains blind until a humble poet steals a kiss.

The Blind Princess and the Poet

1911

The Lost Bridegroom poster
NR

Suffering from aphasia after being conked on the head, a man is coerced into robbing his fiancée's home.

The Lost Bridegroom

1916

No artwork available
NR

The girl's lessons from the young station agent on the manipulation of the telegraph code served her in good stead. By it, hemmed in on all sides at the lonely farmhouse, she was able to save both herself and her father's money from desperate tramps, an experience which is grippingly illustrated in this Biograph melodrama.

The Mirror

1913

A Girl Like That poster
NR

Nell Gordon's father was once a burglar, but he has turned over a new leaf. When he falls ill, however, the burglar's old cronies persuade Nell to help them in a bank robbery, supposedly to raise funds for their sick friend. Nell gets a job in the bank, and learns how to open the safe, but then she falls in love with Jim Brooks, another bank employee, and decides not to help with the robbery after all. The crooks try to force her father to insist, and when he refuses, they shoot him. Seeing their true colors, Nell forms a plan. She agrees to help with the robbery, but in the middle of the heist she calls the sheriff. Of course the story ends with the crooks in jail, and Nell and Jim in love.

A Girl Like That

1917

The Tear That Burned poster
NR

The Tear That Burned is a silent movie drama.

The Tear That Burned

1914

A String of Pearls poster
NR

A story about a poor young man who falls ill, while his wealthy employer ignores his plight and instead spends lavishly on a pearl necklace for his wife. The poor man recovers with the help of his community, while the rich wife falls ill and dies, the necklace ultimately proving useless

A String of Pearls

1912

The New Janitor poster
6.2

The hero, a janitor played by Chaplin, is fired from work for accidentally knocking his bucket of water out the window and onto his boss the chief banker (Tandy). Meanwhile, one of the junior managers (Dillon) is being threatened with exposure by his bookie for gambling debts unpaid. Thus the manager decides to steal from the company.

The New Janitor

1914

No artwork available
NR

A wife is waiting for her fun-loving husband to return from a club masquerade. The husband returns home with two companions who set up a diversion to transform the wife's wrath into compassion. She becomes aware of the joke and, rolling pin in hand, suggests that the friends leave her alone with her husband.

After the Ball

1910

A Woman in the Ultimate poster
NR

The unwilling dupe of her step-father, she became the decoy of the wealthy young man, but at the crucial moment she saved both herself and the young man and thus ended the game of the badgers.

A Woman in the Ultimate

1913

A Cry for Help poster
NR

Knocked down by an automobile, the intoxicated tramp is taken to the doctor's house, received and treated to a square meal. The husband of a patient has just died, calls on the doctor, intending to kill him. The grief-crazed man is foiled several times by the return of the tramp, whom the maid at last pushes out of the house. She hears the doctor struggling with his assailant and faints. The tramp hears the doctor's cry for help and enters by a rear window, despite the objections of a policeman, in time to save his benefactor.

A Cry for Help

1912

No artwork available
NR

In the apartment hotel lived the aspiring maid, whose solicitude maintained order in the bachelor's apartment. He was her ideal, and the all-adoring bell-boy was firmly but gently given to understand that maids who read "Heliotrope Glendening's Advice to Young Ladies" look higher than ice-water toters. A compromising complication, however, with an unexpected visit from a beautiful lady, quite convinces the aspiring one that wealthy young bachelors may be the grandest men ever, but their aspirations, when it comes to the crucial test, are not for chambermaids. Science influences his actions so much that he gets into trouble with the police.

Love in an Apartment Hotel

1913

Home, Sweet Home poster
5.0

John Howard Payne leaves home and begins a career in the theater. Despite encouragement from his mother and his sweetheart, Payne begins leading a life of dissolute habits, which soon leads to ruin and misery. In deep despair, he recalls better days, and writes a song that later provides inspiration to several others in their own times of need.

Home, Sweet Home

1914

No artwork available
NR

Harry wants to marry Dolly, a showgirl, but only on the condition that she can win over his disapproving father. The father is so charmed when he meets Dolly that he wants to win her for himself.

Teaching Dad to Like Her

1911

That Chink at Golden Gulch poster
5.0

In China, before leaving for America, Charlie Lee promises that he will never dishonour his family by cutting his pigtail. Later, as a laundryman in a California mining town, Charlie is tormented by local men but is finally befriended by a young woman and her cowboy sweetheart. One of Charlie’s tormentors is a well-dressed idler and, secretly, a bandit who robs the mail. The cowboy and the bandit become rivals for the girl’s affections. Suspicious of the bandit, Charlie follows him, observes him robbing a mail-carrier, and contrives to capture him, cutting off his pigtail to bind the bandit. Rewarded for the bandit’s capture, but disgraced in his own eyes for dishonouring his family, Charlie gives the cash reward to the young couple and surreptitiously leaves Golden Gulch.

That Chink at Golden Gulch

1910

Fate poster
5.7

Sim Sloane and his beloved son were the reprobates of the village, not what would be called lovers of peace and kindness. But granddad dwelt in a house filled more with love, and when Sim came in for his brutal sport, he soon went out assisted by granddad. Incited by ridicule and drink, Sim swore to get even. That was where granddad's new supply of powder came in. Sim appropriated it and although he wrecked the house of love, he destroyed through his venom the only thing he cherished in life.

Fate

1913

No artwork available
NR

When John Wilson comes home drunk, his marriage collapses, and he agrees to live separately from his wife in their apartment. His evenings now free, he takes up with a socialite, but uncomfortable with her social ambition, forgets to attend a dinner party she has thrown in his honor. To atone, he buys her an extravagant diamond pin, but before he can deliver it he sees an old suitor leaving his wife’s side of the apartment. Consumed first by jealousy, then remorse, he discovers he still loves the woman he married. A child next door finds the diamond pin while playing in the Wilson apartment and innocently takes it to Mrs. Wilson. Misreading the attached note, Mrs. Wilson assumes the pin is meant as a peace offering and takes her husband back.

The Diamond Star

1911

No artwork available
10.0

The reporter assigned to obtain a copy of the message from the Japanese Government unraveled the mystery of its disappearance in a clever manner. Every foreign government naturally was eager for a copy ahead, while the meeting of the Japanese Ambassador and Secretary of State was surrounded with greater risk than they imagined.

In Diplomatic Circles

1913

All Woman poster
NR

Susan Sweeney inherits a country hotel. When she arrives to take possession, she discovers it to be not the palatial resort she believed, but a run-down inn with an attached saloon. As she struggles to make something of her new operation, she becomes involved in the life and difficulties of her new community....

All Woman

1918

No artwork available
NR

Marta asks her husband Jose to buy her a new dress she saw at the market. On his way home, he goes with a friend to a saloon and drunkenly gives the dress to a barmaid. At home Jose tells his wife he lost the dress. She retraces his steps and finds the barmaid modeling her new dress. Faced with the truth, she goes mad.

The New Dress

1911

The Primal Call poster
4.0

A young woman who is engaged to a millionaire she doesn't love meets and falls in love with a rough sailor.

The Primal Call

1911

My Baby poster
5.5

When the double wedding takes two daughters away from the old man at once, the youngest, now the only one left, in outraged spirit promises never to leave her father, but soon she too is departing for a new home. Then comes a cold hard fact of life. The son-in-law claims his right to make a home alone for his wife. In his bitterness and anger, the father denies them both the house. Several years later the lonely old man meets at the gate a babe in arms. When he learns whose baby it is, heart hunger craves another sight, and sought, brings with it the only natural result.

My Baby

1912

No artwork available
9.0

Short, silent movie about a female journalist who does a sensational article for the newspaper investigation opium smuggling.

The Hop Smugglers

1914

No artwork available
6.0

In this picture it is shown how a convict's life still remains under the ban of the law, even after the expiration of his term. With the detective continually on his track, he is able to save both a young woman's honor and her weak brother from the hands of a designing employer.

Under the Shadow of the Law

1913

Destiny's Toy poster
NR

Young Nan was rescued from a shipwreck by a man who becomes her foster father. Years later, when he dies, she moves to a nearby city and unknowingly gets involved with a criminal gang. When the gang attempts and fails to rob wealthy Thomas Carter's home, Nan finally discovers what they are and tells the police all she knows, resulting in the imprisonment of Bad Riley, the gang's leader. Grateful, the Carter family takes Nan into their home, to replace a young daughter who had drowned years before, and the young son, Rev. Robert Carter, begins a romance with her. However, the jailed Riley soon escapes and comes after Nan.

Destiny's Toy

1916

No artwork available
NR

Jose becomes engaged to Pepita, but still has eyes for Mariana. He runs off with Mariana, but he is accidentally blinded, and she deserts him. Pepita discovers him wandering blindly, and forgives him.

The Spanish Gypsy

1911

Madame Rex poster
NR

Located in the south of France, a woman, who, after the death of her husband, is forced to assume the management of the Gambling Casino, of which he was proprietor. She places her daughter in a convent and keeps her in ignorance of her occupation. Twelve years later the mother becomes engaged to a young nobleman. The young man, however, by accident, meets the daughter, now seventeen years old, and falls in love with her, not knowing her identity. The mother realizing the truth of the situation, sacrifices her own love for the young man for her daughter's happiness.

Madame Rex

1911

The Sunbeam poster
6.3

Set in a tenement, a lonely confirmed bachelor occupies a room across the hall from a dour spinster. Children run amok in the hallways playing pranks on the two. A little girl from the floor above, now alone in the world, brings the pair together and brightens their lives.

The Sunbeam

1912

The Switchtower poster
5.0

"He was a regular boy and his father a switchman. The boy determined to be like his dad and spent his play hours around the switch-tower. Thus at the crucial moment he was able to save his father's honor as a switchman, when the struggle between love and duty came and later to come to the aid of his parents in the hands of the desperate counterfeiters, eventually causing their capture." —Moving Picture World synopsis.

The Switchtower

1913

Bobby the Coward poster
NR

Bobby's girlfriend thinks he's a coward when he refuses to fight a gang of toughs after they insult him. But when the gang breaks into his apartment, he fights them off, and wins his girlfriend's respect again.

Bobby the Coward

1911

Fisher Folks poster
NR

A crippled girl marries a fisherman, who also has eyes for the town flirt.

Fisher Folks

1911

No artwork available
NR

It is house cleaning time. Mother-in-law leaves, but insists that husband must be put to work, but husband hires a man, while he goes fishing. Our hero substitutes himself for the cleaner and appears to rob the lady of her silver. He is kept too busy, and later proves a hero in spite of himself by rescuing the fair young housewife from the drunken cleaner, who walks in late.

A Modest Hero

1913

The Indian Brothers poster
4.0

A renegade Indian kills a chief who has insulted him. The chief's brother swears vengeance and pursues the renegade, overtaking him just in time to rescue him from another tribe who are angry with him for stealing a horse.

The Indian Brothers

1911