He appeared behind the footlights with such notables as Richard Mansfield, Eleonora Duse, John Drew, Nance O'Neil, Minnie Maddern Fiske, and Kathryn Kidder.

While he was performing in Providence, Rhode Island, in June 1900, Salisbury and his mother were staying in a hotel on Weybosset Street when the U.S. Federal Census was taken.

Salisbury's film debut was in the uncredited role as Sir Henry, Earl of Kerhill, in DeMille's The Squaw Man (1914).

Salisbury scored his greatest success when he starred as Alessandro in Ramona (1916) opposite Adda Gleason in the title role.

[3] In the late 1910s he bought a 40-acre (160,000 m2) citrus ranch near Hemet, and, between pictures, it was his habit to drive out and drop in unexpectedly on the Native American overseer and his family who lived on the place and worked in the groves.

His final starring role was in the drama Great Alone (1922), in which he played a half-Native American college student and football player, a character presumably half his age.

In June 1928, he returned to the U.S. at the Port of San Francisco, from Kobe, Japan, aboard the S.S. Taiyo Maru, and gave his U.S. address as Hemet, California.

In 1930, he was living at the Warner Kelton Hotel at 6326 Lexington Avenue, just west of Vine Street, in Hollywood,[7] later called the Hotel Brevoort (and Tropical Gardens)[8][9][10] In February 1932, he returned to Southern California, at San Pedro, from Ensenada, Mexico, aboard the S.S. Ruth Alexander, and gave his U.S. address as 6326 Lexington Hollywood.