Reid entered the film business in 1910 as an actor, director, and writer, bringing along his teen sonWallace Reid, who had aspirations to be a director or cameraman.[citation needed] Many of his plays sawBroadway openings.[7]
Reid was at one time said to be actually Harry Preston and that he had served a prison sentence for an unspecified crime.[9] In 1915 Reid visited Georgia convicted murdererLeo Frank in prison for source material of a film he was makingThou Shall Not Kill. Frank was convicted, then pardoned for the 1913 murder of Mary Phagan in a famous Georgia murder case.[10]
Reid married Bertha Westbrook, who collaborated with him on some of his writing. Film actor Wallace Reid was their son.[11]
^Higgins, Ray (December 14, 1968)."CRACKER BARREL: Whitelaw Reid Eclipsed Other Reids Of This Area".The Xenia Daily Gazette. p. 4. Retrieved May 2, 2025. "Hal Reid's father, the Cedarville dentist, was named Hugh McMillan Reid, a parental tribute to the celebrated Covenanter preacher and educator."
^"James Halleck Reid".Internet Broadway Database. The Broadway League.Archived from the original on July 31, 2016. RetrievedJanuary 3, 2025.
^Who Was Who in the Theatre: 1912–76 volume 4 Q-Z page 2,008 compiled from editions originally published annually by John Parker; this 1976 and final version by Gale Research Company
^The Oxford Companion to the American Theatre, 2nd edition p.570 by Gerald Bordman c.1992
^The Unburied Past: Resurrecting the Leo Frank Case A Conversation with Steve Oney (Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience; Youtube)
