John Steppling
Also Known As: John C. Steppling
Biography: John Steppling (8 August 1870 in Essen, Germany – 5 April 1932 in Hollywood, California) was a German-American silent film actor. He moved to America at a young age and entered film in 1912 aged 42. He starred in a total of 230 films between then and 1928, beginning with one of the first feature films ever made, Tess of the d'Urbervilles. He is also credited with directing 7 films. He is the grandfather of playwright John Steppling.
Department: Acting
Place of Birth: Essen, Germany
Birthday: August 08, 1870
Deathday: April 05, 1932
Adult: No
Gender: Male
Popularity:
Known For:
The Road Through the Dark
Overview: Gabrielle Jardee, daughter of a conservative Parisian family, is in love with an American, John Morgan, who her parents disapprove of. She is sent away from Paris to a small village, where her aunt lives with her sister and brother. The war comes and the Germans enter the town. She becomes the mistress of a German Kommandant.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1918-11-01
Popularity:
Miss Jackie of the Navy
Overview: All of the navy men in a California port town have fallen in love with Jackie Holbrook, except for Captain Robert Crowne. As a result, roused by the challenge, Jackie decides that she must add Robert to her list of conquests. Disguising herself as a sailor, she leaves port on Robert's ship, which is headed for the island of Vergania to quell a native uprising. On the island, Robert is taken captive by the natives, and just as they prepare to sacrifice him, Jackie leads a successful rescue mission. Then, Jackie reveals herself to be a woman, and Robert, impressed with her beauty and bravery, instantly falls in love, and makes plans with her for an immediate marriage.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1916-11-30
Popularity:
California Straight Ahead
Overview: Wealthy racing driver Tom Hayden loses his inheritance and his fiancé due to a wacky mishap on his wedding day.
Genres: Comedy Action
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1925-09-12
Popularity:
The Heart of a Child
Overview: A poverty-stricken Cockney girl rises through incredible adventures to become the wife of a nobleman.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1920-04-11
Popularity:
The Sin Flood
Overview: Stratton's café is a popular place with the people of Cottonia, a wealthy cotton town on the banks of the Mississippi, installs flood-proof doors as a safeguard against an overflow of the river; when a flood comes, it appears that the entire town will be submerged. Trapped in Stratton's cafe, amongst others, are Billy Bear, a young broker, and Poppy, a chorus girl with whom he has been in love.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1922-11-12
Popularity:
High Steppers
Overview: Perryam is going through a round of bad luck; he is thrown out of school and loses at love. In search of a change, he heads for London, where he meets Audrey Nye, a former jazz baby who has gotten a responsible job on a newspaper. She helps Perryam get hired as a reporter.
Genres: Comedy Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1926-03-14
Popularity:
Lombardi, Ltd.
Overview: Tito Lombardi a Fifth Avenue dress designer, causes his business to suffer by his generous dispensation of credit to clients, one of whom, Max Strohm, the manager of a musical review, has promised payment for his girls' lavish costumes as soon as the show makes money. To the dismay of Norah Blake, Lombardi's faithful assistant, who loves him, Lombardi proposes to Phyllis Manning, one of the showgirls, and presents her with his finest creations, while not even attempting to kiss her, as she puts off setting a wedding date and also accepts the attentions of wealthy bachelor Bob Tarrant.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1919-10-01
Popularity:
Jim
Overview: At the palatial home of a merchant the latter's wife entertains her husband's friends. The guests have all departed save one, the husband's most intimate and trusted friend. That this man should abuse the confidence of his friend and attempt to force his attentions upon the wife was a thing the merchant deemed little call to fortify against.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1914-06-15
Popularity:
Glass Houses
Overview: When a wealthy young lady loses her inheritance, she decides to apply for work in disguise. In prim and proper working girl attire she becomes the respectable companion of a woman looking to reform her wayward nephew.
Genres: Romance Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1922-03-06
Popularity:
The Promise
Overview: After an argument with his father, in which he is accused of stealing, Bill Carmody leaves home. His girlfriend Ethel is mad at him because of his carousing. So he heads out West, but he gets in a railroad accident and saves the life of Appleton, who owns a lumber mill. To reward Bill, Appleton gives him a job, and it doesn't take him long to discern that Buck Moncrossen, the camp boss, is crooked.
Genres: Romance Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1917-02-19
Popularity:
Broken Lullaby
Overview: A young French soldier in World War I is overcome with guilt when he kills a German soldier who, like himself, is a musically gifted conscript, each having attended the same musical conservatory in France. The fact that the incident occurred in war does not assuage his guilt. He travels to Germany to meet the man's family.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1932-01-19
Popularity:
The Fast Worker
Overview: Roxbury asks his friend Terry to assume his identity and go on vacation with his wife, Edith, and their daughter. When Terry falls in love with Edith's sister, a scandal erupts at the resort.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1924-10-25
Popularity:
American dream
Overview:
Genres: Animation
Original Language: pl
Release Date: 2007-01-01
Popularity:
A Cafe in Cairo
Overview: When her British parents are killed when an Arabian desert bandit launches an attack on their encampment, their young daughter is spared and brought up as an Arab known as Nadia. The bandit who killed Nadia's parents wishes to marry her. She is ordered to steal some documents from a British secret service agent. Lost film.
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1924-12-07
Popularity:
The Husband Hunter
Overview:
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1920-01-01
Popularity:
Bell Boy 13
Overview: Harry Elrod takes a job as a bellboy when he is disinherited by his uncle and fails in his efforts to elope with actress Kitty Clyde. He causes so much confusion that Uncle Elrod buys the hotel so that he may fire Harry. But Harry induces the other employees to strike until Uncle Elrod consents to Harry's marriage to Kitty.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1923-01-19
Popularity:
The County Fair
Overview: "The County Fair" begins with a nasty rich guy threatening to turn an old lady onto the street--unless her niece (who lives with her) marries this man's son. While she's dead set against it, the niece is a sweet thing and would do anything to help her aunt--even marry the rich jerk. However, a possible way out is presented. When a poor young man is taken in and fed, he turns out (naturally) to be a jockey and thinks he can win the $3000 prize at the fair and save the farm.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1920-09-05
Popularity:
Pretenses
Overview: Short comedy about a janitor at a bank that pretends to be a director in order to impress a girl.
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1915-12-07
Popularity:
The Comet's Come-Back
Overview: The gases left in the wake of a comet that passed by earth have the effect of making everyone on the planet lazy and lethargic, and actually stops time.
Genres: Science Fiction Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1916-05-31
Popularity:
The Silver Car
Overview: After serving in the Great War, international crook Anthony Trent resolves to go straight. He wants to track down the English private who saved his life, and discovers his true identity is Arthur Grenvil, the son of the Earl of Rosecarrel. Trent falls in love with Grenvil's sister, Daphne, and sets out to win the Earl's approval. He discovers that the Earl is being blackmailed by Count Michael Temesvar, the prime minister of Croatia, over some documents.
Genres: Crime Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1921-06-01
Popularity:
Johanna Enlists
Overview: A young girl, stifling on her father's backwoods farm, is reinvigorated by the arrival of an army regiment, come to train in the area.
Genres: Comedy Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1918-09-14
Popularity:
Tess of the D'Urbervilles
Overview: A peasant girl sent to make a claim on her family's ancestral home in England's Wessex is seduced and left with child by its current owner.
Genres: Romance Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1913-09-01
Popularity:
Let's Go
Overview: The no-good son of a company owner is sent to investigate a problematic business deal.
Genres: Action Adventure
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1923-10-31
Popularity:
Good Night, Paul
Overview: Mrs. Richard is happily married, but still agrees to pose as the wife of a businessman to hoodwink the businessman's rich uncle. Unfortunately, uncle plans to extend his visit, forcing the two schemers to keep up the pretense.
Genres: Comedy Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1918-06-20
Popularity:
Going Up
Overview: Going Up (1923)
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1923-09-30
Popularity:
A Lady's Name
Overview: Bright young novelist Mabel Vere is engaged to Gerald Wantage, a prig who angrily objects when she advertises for a husband in order to elicit ideas for her new book. Mabel's roommate, Maud Bray, a physical culture expert, frightens away the less desirable suitors, while the writer responds to the more interesting letters, and soon becomes embroiled in a number of adventures.
Genres: Comedy Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1918-12-10
Popularity:
A Bathtub Bandit
Overview: Bathtub movers on the job.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1917-11-02
Popularity:
Memory Lane
Overview: Mary is marrying Jimmie, from whom she has kept a secret; Mary remains in love with another man. Problems ensue, jeopardizing the tranquility of their relationship.
Genres: Drama Comedy Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1926-02-01
Popularity:
Madame Peacock
Overview: Jane Goring, a ruthlessly ambitious actress, forsakes her life as a wife and mother for the stage. Returning home from a performance one night, Jane is disgusted to find her husband Robert McNaughton victimized by a tubercular cough and so banishes him and her young daughter to a sanitarium in Colorado. Years pass, finding Jane still estranged from her family. On the opening night of her new play, Jane finds herself upstaged and outperformed by Gloria Cromwell, a rising young actress, who, unknown to Jane, is her abandoned daughter. Returning home, Jane is haunted by visions of her husband and child and begins to sob. Looking up from her pillow, she is startled to see her husband with Gloria.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1920-10-01
Popularity:
Billions
Overview: Princess Triloff, an emigrée from Czarist Russia, escapes to America where she becomes a patron of the arts. She falls in love with the verses of impoverished poet Owen Carey and becomes his anonymous benefactor. When Owen inherits a fortune from his rich Uncle Krakerfeller, he assumes his uncle's identity and confers his own upon an impoverished friend, Frank Manners. At a resort, Owen meets the princess and falls in love with her, but is chagrined to discover that she is enamored with Manners. The princess finally discovers Owen's real identity and the two fall in love.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1920-12-06
Popularity:
Soft Shoes
Overview: Sheriff Pat Halahan comes into an inheritance and travels to San Francisco to collect. Faith O’Day, a cat burglar armed with pistol and flashlight breaks into his hotel room and demands that Halahan cough up his dough. Halahan sees her threat and raises her a one-dollar bet that he can return a brooch she stole earlier the same evening before its loss is discovered. Pulling off his boots to slip on his own “soft shoes,” Halahan sets off to do a little second-story work, not realizing the trouble he’s in for.
Genres: Western Romance Crime Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1925-01-01
Popularity:
Black Beauty
Overview: Anna Sewell's "autobiography" of a horse named Black Beauty is here expanded to include the adventures of the humans who surround the horse.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1921-01-01
Popularity:
The Reckless Age
Overview: Lord Harrowby takes out an $100,000 insurance policy to be paid if his wedding to Cecilia Meyrick is cancelled. The insurance company sends Dick Minot to make sure the wedding takes place, but he falls in love with the bride.
Genres: Comedy Drama Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1924-08-16
Popularity:
The Better Man
Overview: Lord Hugh Wainwright is a Britisher who, on his way to his California ranch, rescues pretty American Nancy Burton from a brutal peddler. Interested in Nancy, Lord Hugh obtains passage as valet to her nouveau riche uncle, Phineas Ward.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1926-06-06
Popularity:
Luck in Pawn
Overview: Country girl Annabel Lee has big dreams of being a famous artist. Her widowed mother encourages her to go to the city so she can study. Annabel works hard, but she sells only one painting. She discovers that a renowned artist is spending the summer at a nearby resort, so she sends him her best work for a critique. A friend recommends that she see him in person, so Annabel pawns a piece of jewelry and heads for the resort. The artist informs her that she doesn't have enough talent to achieve much.
Genres: Romance Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1919-11-19
Popularity:
The Man Next Door
Overview: The story to this comedy-drama is based on the book by Emerson Hough, who was experiencing a surge of popularity because his book The Covered Wagon had recently been made into a hit film. Ranchman Colonel Wright sends his daughter Bonnie to an Eastern college to receive an education. She decides to stay in the city and sends for her father, who arrives with his foreman Curly. Even though they live in the midst of society, they are snubbed by the Easterners as uncouth.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1923-05-28
Popularity:
Nobody's Kid
Overview: Because of the circumstances of her parents' marriage her grandfather rejects their child, Mary. Following her their deaths she is placed in an orphanage where Mary finds hardship.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1921-04-17
Popularity:
Sick Abed
Overview: When showing a woman customer some ranch property, real estate agent John Weems's car is disabled by a terrible storm, and he and his client are forced to take refuge in a roadhouse. Weems's wife Constance finds out about her husband's adventure and, bored with her marriage, determines to file for divorce. Constance calls upon Reginald Jay to testify about the roadhouse incident, and Jay, reluctant to testify, feigns illness and is hospitalized, promptly falling in love with one of his nurses.
Genres: Comedy Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1920-06-27
Popularity:
Caprice
Overview: A lost film. A wealthy young man's marriage to a mountain girl he meets while hunting is disastrous until she abandons him and later reappears incognito as a tutored and sophisticated woman.
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1913-11-10
Popularity:
Eve's Lover
Overview: Austin Starfield has his greedy eye on a steel mill belonging to Eve Burnside. He persuades an impoverished count, Leon Molnar to marry Eve so he can then gain control of her fortune.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1925-07-06
Popularity:
The Dramatic Life of Abraham Lincoln
Overview: A biographical film featuring the presidency and assassination of Abraham Lincoln during the American Civil War.
Genres: History Drama
Original Language: xx
Release Date: 1924-02-02
Popularity:
Behind the Counter
Overview: Eddie, a prim store salesman, gets locked in overnight and battles hoodlums.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1928-03-03
Popularity:
Billy McGrath on Broadway
Overview: John Steppling is Billy McGrath in this popular series directed by Archer McMackin, of which this is the only existing example. Billy wants to be a Broadway producer but finds is isn't so easy.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1913-03-04
Popularity:
The Galloping Fish
Overview: Freddy Wetherill and his bride, Hyla, quarrel at her mother's beach cottage, and Hyla sends her new husband home alone. Seeking distraction from his troubles, Freddy enters a vaudeville theater where Undine, "the diving Venus," and her trained seal, Bubbles, are performing. Outside the theater, Freddy meets Undine's fiancé, George Fitzgerald, and becomes involved in George's effort to hide Undine's seal from a bill collector armed with an order of attachment because of an unpaid hotel bill. Complications arise when Freddy Wetherill's dying rich uncle, Cato Dodd, notifies him that he wants Hyla to nurse him. To insure he stays in his uncle's will, Freddy substitutes Undine for Hyla and takes George along to act as his "valet." Naturally, Bubbles comes along, too. This movie is presumed to be lost.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1924-03-10
Popularity:
What a Wife Learned
Overview: A novelist's success causes a rift between her and her rancher husband.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1923-01-28
Popularity:
The Breathless Moment
Overview: Unwilling to arrest Billy Carson, a crook who once befriended him, Officer Quinn forces him and Dan, his confederate, to spend a year in a small town.
Genres: Comedy Crime
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1924-02-03
Popularity:
In the Bishop's Carriage
Overview: A lost film. A successful stage actress with a hidden past as a criminal is kept on the path of righteousness by a benefactor.
Genres: Drama Crime
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1913-09-10
Popularity: