House Peters

Robert House Peters, Sr. was a British-born American silent film actor, known to moviegoers of the era as “The Star of a Thousand Emotions.”

Born in Bristol, England, Peters began his career on a high note, playing the handsome leading man in The Bishop’s Carriage, co-starring Mary Pickford. While The Bishop’s Carriage was filmed in an East Coast studio, Peters was in Los Angeles by 1914, becoming one of the first screen stars to permanently settle there. Although he stated publicly that he preferred playing villains, Peters, curly haired and pleasantly dimpled, was from the outset typecast as the romantic hero.

After enjoying his greatest success as the good-bad hero of The Girl of the Golden West, Peters found his career at the peak of the early 1920s. He signed with Universal Studios for six pictures in 1924, hoping for a comeback. The results, however, were mostly mediocre and he was soon demoted to supporting roles. Retired after 1928’s Rose Marie, Peters returned for a guest appearance in The Old West, a 1952 Gene Autry film that also featured his son, House Peters, Jr.