Edison and His Big Screen Buckeyes

To say that movies are magical would be a massive understatement. Movies, in and of themselves, are an illusion, one of the magician’s favorite tricks. Movies are tricks that our eyes play on our brains, but as you know, not all tricks are bad. Edison’s kinetoscope, first shown to the world in 1891, simply took hundreds of still frames, hundreds of still moments forever captured in time, and put them in motion. This simple motion brought moments frozen in time to life before our eyes. What a sight it would have been for those living in the 1890s and early 1900s to watch people laugh, cry, dance, trip, get angry, and smile the same way they did on a small machine or in a music hall! Just as it did for them, this small and simple illusion allows us here in 2026 to be transported to times and places beyond our wildest imagination.

Photo: Just like with all of his other inventions and improvements, Edison spent thousands of hours meticulously making sure that the product he delivered to the people was the best. Source: Museum Of The Moving Image.

Some of the best-known “magicians” in this medium came from the great state of Ohio. The Warner Brothers, Steven Spielberg, Doris Day, Halle Berry, Margaret Hamilton, Clark Gable, Paul Newman, Henry Mancini, and so many more hail from the Buckeye State, and although Edison did not certainly create the first movie, he did create the world’s first movie studio. It should therefore come as no surprise that some of the earliest actors and actresses in Edison’s films were also from Ohio! Although some credits for the earliest films and details about some of the first stars of the big screen (or rather “small screen” with the films shown in kinetoscopes) are scant, we do know a little bit about some of them, and hopefully by the time you get to the end of this piece, you’ll know a little bit about them too.

Photo: In 1894, Edison brought in the legendary Annie Oakley to the Black Maria to film some of her exploits. This is a still from that film, one of Edison’s first—source: IMDb.

One of Edison’s earliest film stars from Ohio needs no introduction. In 1894, one of Edison’s first films featured the Ohioan nicknamed “Little Sure Shot,” regarded as one of the best sharpshooters ever to walk the Earth, Annie Oakley. Born in Darke County in 1860 as Phoebe Ann Mosey, Annie began trapping and shooting game at a young age to support her family and soon earned a reputation for her incredible marksmanship. She was able to hit any target, even shooting the ash off a lit cigarette. By joining Buffalo Bill’s Wild West, her popularity only grew, leading Edison to call upon her for one of the first films that he recorded at his famous Black Maria. The movie was only a hair over twenty seconds long, but just like Annie Oakley herself, it did not miss.

Photo: 21 years before Boris Karloff made Frankenstein’s Monster a household name, it was Charles Ogle who first brought him to life in 1910 for Thomas Edison—source: IMDb.

While Annie Oakley was growing up on the western side of the state, Charles Stanton Ogle was born on the eastern side, in Steubenville. Ogle first found his career in law before starring on Broadway. Like many of the actors in the rest of this piece, he then transitioned into film, first working for Thomas Edison. In 1910, Ogle earned the distinction of being the first person to portray Frankenstein’s Monster in Edison’s Frankenstein (1910), the first ever film adaptation of the famous Mary Shelley book. He assumed many other roles for Edison, including Bob Cratchit in A Christmas Carol (1910), and, in total, Ogle starred in an estimated 300 films before retiring, including a role alongside fellow horror icon Lon Chaney as Long John Silver in Paramount Pictures’ Treasure Island (1920).

Photo: This is a still of “The Man With A Million Laughs”, Frank Daniels, as “Mr. I.B. Dam”. Sure enough, as his moniker suggests, he delivered a few laughs for Edison in the early years of cinema. Source: YouTube.

Although Lon Chaney is known as “The Man Of A Thousand Faces” for his ability to transform himself into The Phantom of the Opera and The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Frank Daniels was known as “The Man With A Million Laughs.” Daniels was born in Dayton, Ohio, in 1856. As a young boy, he moved to Boston with his family, where he rose to prominence, starring in Little Puck, in which he coined the phrase “jinx,” and Wizard of the Nile, in which he coined the term “wiz” or “whiz”. His Edison claim to fame comes in the 1905 comedy The Whole Dam Family and the Dam Dog, in which he plays “Mr. I.B. Dam”. The five-minute movie concludes with the Dam family dog ripping the tablecloth right off the table, causing all of the contents to fall onto the Dam family’s lap and presumably ruining the whole Dam meal in the process.

Photo: Herbert Yost, left, starring as “Octavius, Amateur Detective” in The Adventure of the Hasty Elopement (1914). Many of the films he acted in for Edison featured the bumbling and misguided adventures of one of early cinema’s favorite sleuths. Source: YouTube.

Although the Dam family meal was ruined, Herbert Yost was golden in his role for Edison as “Octavius, Amateur Detective”. Before trying to solve crimes on the big screen, Yost was born in Harrison, Ohio, in 1879. He performed in theatrical performances across the country, including some stays in both Cleveland and Toledo. He appeared in numerous films under the alias “Barry O’Moore,” as, in the early days of film, actors were seen as “beneath the dignity” of theatre performers. In a 1914 film journal article about him contradicts that early held belief, stating, “The actor, when appearing on the stage, finds that he can express so much with his voice that he unconsciously lets the body fall into disuse. In the photoplay, however, the body must tell all, and the actor must make up in physical expression that which is lost in the voice.”

Photo: After launching his film career directing for Edison, Apfel returned to acting, where it all started. He is pictured on the left, starring in Way Back Home (1931) alongside Frank Albertson and Bette Davis—source: IMDb.

Of course, it was up to Edison to find people who could identify actors and actresses capable of expressing so much to audiences. One of those Edison found was a prolific actor in his own right, Mr. Oscar Apfel. Apfel was born in Cleveland in 1879, the son of German immigrants. He became a theatre actor, and his brilliant performances led him to take on many more roles as a stagehand, stage manager, producer, and director. Edison made numerous films about the American Revolution, often at actual locations. He also filmed the first movie showing an actor playing two roles in the same scene. Apfel trained the legendary filmmaker Cecil DeMille, raised money for victims of the Armenian Genocide, and even made a return to the other side of the camera as an actor at the end of his life.

There are so many stories left to tell about the people who built the film industry from the ground up, shaping the stories we share today. Maybe the topic deserves a sequel. If there isn’t one, one thing must be remembered: those Buckeyes who built the industry and those who acted, directed, filmed, sang, and built sets right next to them gave way for not just modern-day Buckeyes to dream, but kids and adults alike from all across the globe to dream about worlds and ideas beyond our craziest imagination. Now that right there is real magic.

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Sources Used and Encouraged for Further Reading

• Anderson, Ashlee. 2018. “Annie Oakley.” National Women's History Museum. https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/annie-oakley

• Daniels, Frank. n.d. “The Famous Frank Daniels.” The Famous Frank Daniels. Accessed May 22, 2026. https://web.archive.org/web/20161220202843/http://faculty.southwest.tn.edu/fdaniels3/index2.html

• F.F.W. Oldfield & Co. 1914. “Barry O'Moore: "Octavius - Amateur Detective." Illustrated Films Monthly 2 (Mar-Aug): 501. https://archive.org/details/illustra02ffwo/page/n345/mode/2up

• Harnisch, Larry. 2018. “Mary Mallory / Hollywood Heights: Oscar Apfel, Paramount’s Forgotten Man.” The Daily Mirror. https://ladailymirror.com/2018/01/16/mary-mallory-hollywood-heights-oscar-apfel-paramounts-forgotten-man/

• Katchmer, George A. 2009. A Biographical Dictionary of Silent Film Western Actors and Actresses. McFarland, Incorporated, Publishers. https://books.google.com/books?id=qkOeCQAAQBAJ&pg=PA287#v=onepage&q&f=false

• Ohio Goes To The Movies. 2026. “About.” Ohio Goes To The Movies. https://ohiogoestothemovies.org/about/

• Ohio Goes To The Movies. 2026. “Ohio Movie Database.” Ohio Goes To The Movies. https://ohiogoestothemovies.org/ohio-movie-database/

• PBS. n.d. “Biography: Annie Oakley | American Experience | Official Site.” PBS. Accessed May 22, 2026. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/oakley-annie/

• Sandra Brennan, Rovi. 2013. “Movies & TV: Oscar C. Apfel.” New York Times, 2013. https://web.archive.org/web/20131207211820/http://www.nytimes.com/movies/person/79791/Oscar-C-Apfel

• Truitt, Evelyn M. 1983. Who Was Who On Screen. R.R. Bowker Company. https://archive.org/details/whowaswhoonscree00trui/page/392/mode/2up

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Dillon Liskai, a native of Clyde, Ohio, is a Bowling Green State University junior. He is pursuing a degree in Adolescent to Young Adult (AYA) Integrated Social Studies Education, specializing in History.

Dillon has been a Thomas A. Edison Birthplace Museum tour guide for several years. When not at school or the museum, he enjoys cheering on the Bowling Green Falcons, spending time with friends and family, and exploring local history.

Have a question for Dillon? Reach out via email at dliskai@tomedison.org!