PHOTOS: The History of Abraham Lincoln on Film

The 16th president has been a Hollywood star and box office attraction since the earliest days of Hollywood

  • By Jesse Rhodes
  • Smithsonian magazine, November 2012
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Walter Huston Henry Fonda Raymond Massey Sam Waterston Benjamin Walker
Raymond Massey

(Everett Collection)


Abe Lincoln in Illinois, 1940

In the film adaptation of novelist Robert Sherwood's Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Raymond Massey reprised his stage role as Lincoln. The spellbinding performance won him an Oscar nomination.

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Comments (1)

Cool pictures--although you start in the talkies, Lincoln's visage has been on film since the birth of the nation's movies. In fact, don't forget Jospeh Henabery's portrayal of Honest Abe in Griffith's "The Birth of a Nation" (1915). Lincoln certainly was one for the ages!



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