American character actor of silent films, Edward Connelly, a native New Yorker, was a newspaperman before he became an actor, being a reporter for the New York Sunl. At 25 he joined a theatrical stock company in Kansas City and appeared subsequently on Broadway in such plays as "Shore Acres," "The Belle of New York," "Babbitt," "The Wild Duck," and his own production of "Marse Covington," which he later filmed (Marse Covington (1915)). Moving to Hollywood, he became a contract player at MGM, where he remained until his death from influenza in 1928.