Born: January 01, 1900
Died: December 26, 1973

Leaving his Virginia hometown at age 14 to earn a living, William Haines was an assistant bookkeeper at a New York bond house when he sent in his photograph to a "New Faces" contest sponsored by movie producer Samuel_Goldwyn. The winners of the contest were Haines and another future film star, Eleanor_Boardman. Entering films in 1922, Haines rose to stardom at MGM as the star of several breezy comedy-dramas, in which he usually played a smart-lipped braggart who was forced to eat humble pie sometime before the fadeout. Some of Haines' most popular films were those with a sports setting: Brown of Harvard (1926), Slide_Kelly_Slide (1927), Spring_Fever (1927). His favorite leading ladies included Joan_Crawford and Marion_Davies. Though he weathered the changeover to talkies, Haines' popularity diminished in the early 1930s, due to the emergence of younger cocksure types like James_Cagney and Robert_Montgomery. After his film career ended in 1934 (an event accelerated in part by public revelation of the actor's homosexuality), William Haines launched a successful second career as a highly sought-after interior decorator. Hal Erickson, Rovi

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