Guy Bates Post was an American character actor who appeared in at least twenty-one Broadway plays and twenty-five Hollywood films over a career that spanned more than fifty years. He was perhaps best remembered in the role of Omar Khayyám in the 1914 stage and 1922 film productions of Richard Walton Tully's Omar the Tentmaker and for his over fifteen hundred performances in John Hunter Booth's 1917 play The Masquerader.
Early life
Guy Bates Post was born in Seattle, Washington, the first of two sons and a daughter raised by John J. Post and Mary Annette Ostrander. His father, a Canadian of English descent, was a partner in the Seattle lumber firm Stetson and Post. His mother was born in Wisconsin into a family that had originally come west from New York. Post received his education at schools in Seattle and later San Francisco before dropping out of college to embark on a career in theatre.
Stage
Post made his professional debut in November 1894 at Chicago's Schiller Theatre playing a minor role opposite Cora Urquhart Brown-Potter and Kyrle Bellew in Charlotte Corday. By May 1898, Post was a member of Otis Skinner's Company and married to Sarah Truax, the troupe's leading lady. His big break came early in 1900 when he was chosen to play David Brandon in Liebler and Company's Southern American tour of Israel Zangwill's, The Children of the Ghetto. Though the tour proved short lived, Post's performance in The Children of the Ghetto led to such rôles as Rawdon Crowley, in Langdon Miller's dramatization of the William Makepeace Thackeray novel Vanity Fair; Lieutenant Denton, in Augustus Thomas' Arizona; Robert Racket in the Madeleine Lucette Ryley play My Lady Dainty; and Abbe Tiberge, in Theodore Burt Sayre's dramatization of the Abbé Prévostshort novelManon Lescaut. c. 1909 Post remained active on Broadway until the mid-1930s achieving particular success as Captain Stuart in Soldiers of Fortune by Augustus Thomas, Steve in The Virginian by Owen Wister and Kirke La Shelle, Dean in Bird of Paradise by Richard Walton Tully, Omar Khayyám in Omar the Tent Maker by Richard Walton Tully and the dual rôles, John Chilcote, M.P. and John Loder, in The Masquerader by John Hunter Booth.
Film
Post had a 25-year career in cinema beginning in 1922 with silent film adaptations of Omar the Tentmaker and The Masquerader. He played the Grand Lama in the 1936 serial Ace Drummond and 'Papa' Bergelot in the 1937 serial The Mysterious Pilot. Post played Louis Napoleon in the 1937 film Maytime with John Barrymore, Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy. In 1939 he was once again cast as Louis Napoleon in the film The Mad Empress opposite Medea de Novara, Lionel Atwill and Conrad Nagel. In his last film, A Double Life, Post plays an actor performing in a production of Shakespeare's Othello.
Personal life
Post married actress Sarah Truax on April 18, 1897, at St. John's Episcopal Church, San Francisco. At the time the two were both engaged with Skinner's company performing at the city's Baldwin Theatre. The couple divorced amicably some ten years later. In August 1907 he married Jane Peyton, a fellow cast member with The Heir to the Hoorah tour. This union ended with an annulment seven years later. Post married Adele Ritchie on February 2, 1916, at a ceremony held in Toronto two days after the actress had secured a divorce from her previous husband. Post and Ritchie separated in 1926 and divorced three years later. On October 26, 1936, in Las Vegas, Post married the British actressLillian Kemble-Cooper. This union lasted for over thirty years and only ended with his death in Los Angeles at the age of 92.
