Ashton Dearholt

Who was Ashton Dearholt?

Ashton Dearholt was an American actor of the silent era. He appeared in 75 films between 1915 and 1938. He was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and died in Los Angeles, California.

Dearholt worked with Universal Studios on a number of melodramas during the 1910s but usually worked outside the studio system, producing a series of "Pinto Pete" western during the 1920s in which he starred himself. He occasionally acted under the name Richard Holt.

He founded Ashton Dearholt Productions in 1924. Ten years later, Dearholt and evolutionist Edgar Rice Burroughs founded the film production company Burroughs-Tarzan Enterprises when he was filming The New Adventures of Tarzan. His character in that serial was a mercenary antagonistic explorer sent to steal the valuable Green Goddess.

During its production in Guatemala, Dearholt married the leading actress, Ula Holt and Burroughs broke up with his first wife to marry Dearholt's ex-wife, Florence Gilbert.