Best known now for The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921), this handsome, strong-willed visionary was responsible for a succession of films for Metro Pictures, later M-G-M, that topped the box office and were hailed as masterpieces by the critics. At the height of his fame, he was ranked alongside D.W. Griffith, Marshall Neilan and Erich von Stroheim (who invited Ingram to edit his doomed original version of Greed in 1924) as one of the foremost artists of the moving pictures. He made a star of Valentino and, when they fell out, found a new heartthrob in Ramon Novarro, who debuted with Ingram in The Prisoner of Zenda (1922) and remained loyal to his mentor to the end of his days. Rex’s second marriage, to Alice Terry, saw him cast her in the lead in all but one of his films.
