Richard Semler Barthelmess (May 9, 1895 – August 17, 1963) was an American film actor, principally of the Hollywood silent era.

He starred opposite Lillian Gish in D. W. Griffith's Broken Blossoms (1919) and Way Down East (1920) and was among the founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 1927.

In contrast to that, he was educated at Hudson River Military Academy at Nyack, New York and Trinity College at Hartford, Connecticut.

[8] Nazimova convinced Richard Barthelmess to try acting professionally,[citation needed] and he made his debut screen appearance in 1916 in the serial Gloria's Romance as an uncredited extra.

One of their films, Tol'able David (1921), in which Barthelmess starred as a teenage mailman who finds courage, was a major success.

An admirer wrote to the editor of Picture-Play Magazine in 1921:Different fans have different opinions, and although Wallace Reid, Thomas Meighan, and Niles Welch are mighty fine chaps, I think that Richard Barthelmess beats them all.

He played numerous leads in talkie films, most notably Son of the Gods (1930), The Dawn Patrol (1930), The Last Flight (1931), The Cabin in the Cotton (1932) and Heroes for Sale (1933).

He enlisted in the United States Navy Reserve during World War II, and served as a lieutenant commander, stationed at Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard.

[15][16] However, the engagement was called off due to Wilson's stated desire to continue acting,[17] or possibly his affair around this time with the journalist Adela Rogers St.