B. A. Rolfe
Band leader, Movie producer (1879–1956)
Benjamin Albert Rolfe (October 24, 1879 – April 23, 1956) was an American musician known as "The Boy Trumpet Wonder" who went on to be a bandleader, recording artist, radio personality, and film producer.
Biography
He was born on October 24, 1879, in Brasher Falls, New York, the son of Albert Rolfe, founder of one of the first dance orchestras in the United States.
At 8 years of age he played the piccolo and cornet in his father's band, touring the U.S. east coast and Europe. After high school, he worked as a musical clown in a traveling circus until joining the Majestic Theater Orchestra in Utica, New York. At the Utica Conservatory of Music he was head of the brass instrument department. Drawn back to show business in the early part of the 20th century, he worked in vaudeville, producing a revue and serving as bandleader.
In 1914, Rolfe turned his talents to the fledgling motion picture business, establishing his own production company, Rolfe Photoplays Inc. Although he filmed in California, Rolfe's productions were primarily made in and around Fort Lee, New Jersey, and distributed through an agreement with Louis B. Mayer's Metro Pictures Corporation. Rolfe's company produced more than 50 silent films, several of which were collaborations with director/screenwriter Oscar A. C. Lund, including the 1916 drama Dorian's Divorce starring Lionel Barrymore.
He acquired Dyreda Art Film Company in 1915.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Dec 15, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q4833896. VIAF identifies the subject as 66049677. The Library of Congress control number is no94037870. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1879, 1956, 1914 and 1916.
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This entry incorporates text from “B. A. Rolfe” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.