After playing leading roles on Broadway and in Hollywood during the Silent era opposite such stars as Mae Murray, Mae Marsh, Norma Talmadge, Alia Nazimova and Marion Davies, Schenck developed "Klieg light eyes".

Threatened with total blindness,[1] he interrupted a distinguished stage career and went to Hawaii to rest.

Returning to his homeland after twenty years of wandering, Schenck won success in still another field as a lecturer on the South Seas and, during the war, served the U.S. Navy Department in planning bases in the Southwest Pacific.

For nine months, he also worked with the U.S. Maritime Commission as a government speaker in shipyards and factories to speed up production.

He returned to his career as a motion picture actor with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1943, on an "actor-writer" contract.