J. Frank Glendon Birth name: |  |  (Image courtesy of Jack Tillmany) Above - Glendon circa 1935 |
J. Frank Glendon was born Jonathan Leroy Logan in Ohio but grew up in Montana. His parents were George E. Logan (1852 - 1926) and Margaret Caroline Patterson Logan (1854 - 1924), and father George was a Methodist minister. Hollywood biographies note that Frank attended Wesleyan University in Helena, Montana.
He got the acting bug and his early career included opera singing followed by roles in stock theater and vaudeville. Circa 1909, he was in New York doing some stage plays ... he married for the first time ... and changed his name to J. Frank Glendon.
His cinema career began around 1915, and he starred in some silent films and serials. In talkies, he did villain or support/bit roles in B-westerns with Jack Hoxie, Lane Chandler, Tim McCoy, Buck Jones, Gene Autry, John Wayne, Rex Lease and others. And he also worked in a half-dozen or so cliffhangers for Universal and Mascot.
 | | Left is a screen capture from the Gene Autry cliffhanger THE PHANTOM EMPIRE (Mascot, 1935) with J. Frank Glendon (as "Professor Beetson") and Edward Peil (wearing glasses in the role of "Dr. Cooper"). |
Glendon wound up with dual responsibilities in the anemic Montie Montana oater CIRCLE OF DEATH (Willis Kent, 1935). Willis Kent was searching for a replacement for Reb Russell, his prior screen hero, and was trying out Montie as a leading man. Somehow Glendon got the directing job in addition to portraying the sheriff.
Glendon was hospitalized for about a week and passed away on March 17, 1937 at the East Los Angeles Hospital from peritonitis due to appendicitis and gall bladder surgery. Jack Tillmany notes that the Variety tradepaper lists March 17, 1937 as the date of J. Frank Glendon's death.
The Family Search website (free), Ancestry.com (subscription), death certificate, and funeral notices have a confusing trail of information on Logan/Glendon. Most of the questions relate to his real/birth name vs. several other name variations. It appears that there were two marriages - his first was to a Lesley/Leslie Cook, and at the time of his death in 1937, his wife was Virginia McCandless.
Find A Grave website has a photo of the marker for Glendon who is interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale, California. The name shown on the marker is Jonathan F. Glendon and has an incorrect birth year of 1886 (should be 1885): https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/18656/j-frank-glendon
Note also the "For Technocracy" comments on Glendon's marker. Technocracy was a political/social movement related to the Great Depression. Read more about Technocracy at Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technocracy_movement
One of Glendon's silent screen roles was as the jealous husband to star Clara Kimball Young in HUSH (Equity, 1921). There's a multi-page article on the film at: https://web.stanford.edu/~gdegroat/CKY/reviews/hush.htm
and Glendon is shown on the right side of the photo on page 4 of that article: https://web.stanford.edu/~gdegroat/CKY/reviews/HushMPC4.jpg
Although some of the data may be incomplete or inaccurate, the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) has information on J. Frank Glendon: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0322551/
The J. Frank Glendon scrapbook | |
 (Courtesy of Abe Snow) | Abe Snow purchased some movie memorabilia at an auction. Inside the box was a scrapbook for J. Frank Glendon which chronicles his life from 1902 to the mid 1930s. The scrapbook belonged to Evangeline Clara McIlveen Logan (1883 - 1950), the wife of Glendon's brother Robert Otis Logan (1882 - 1969). The newspaper article on the left has no info as to source or date. But our Hollywood J. Frank Glendon appears to be well known in Helena, Montana as J. Frank Logan, the son of Reverend George Logan, a local Methodist minister. There are three films mentioned: HER RECKONING (1915), THE SALAMANDER (1916), AND THE PRICE OF MALICE (1916). Thus, the article has to be from 1916 or later. Also in the scrapbook was the business card (below) for J. F. Logan, when he was the manager of the local Union Coal company in Helena, Montana. The Glendon photo at the bottom is also not identified as to source or time, but based on the dark hair and youthful face, it's probably circa 1916 - 1920 when Glendon was in his early thirties. |
 (Courtesy of Abe Snow)  (Courtesy of Abe Snow) | |
 (Courtesy of Les Adams) Above - J. Frank Glendon is in the center and an unidentified player on the left. The performer on the right is young Hoot Gibson, several years prior to his starring days as a western movie hero. This is a chapter 13 card from the 15 episode serial THE WOMAN IN THE WEB (Vitagraph, 1918) which had Glendon and Hedda Nova in the lead roles. Below is a 1918 trade ad for that serial.   (Courtesy of Les Adams) Left to right are Lane Chandler, Phyllis Barrington, Arthur Thalasso (bartender), J. Frank Glendon (as the local minister/parson) and Bart Carre in a still from THE RECKLESS RIDER (Willis Kent, 1932).  (From Old Corral collection) Above - a still and a closeup/crop of Gene Autry pummeling J. Frank Glendon (as "Professor Beetson") in chapter 12 of THE PHANTOM EMPIRE (Mascot, 1935).  (From Old Corral collection) Card cheat Wheeler Oakman is on the right with a derringer on Rex Lease, while saloon owner J. Frank Glendon enjoys a cigar at his desk. Scene from the Tim McCoy ACES AND EIGHTS (Puritan, 1936), one of Glendon's last film appearances. Glendon worked in five mid 1930s Tim McCoy oaters. |
