William Shea (actor)
British actor (1856-1918)
William James O' Shea (6 October 1856 – 5 November 1918) was a Scottish-born actor. He was born in Dumfries, Scotland and was brought to the United States when he was one-year old. His father, Thomas Shea, was a civil engineer who fought with David Farragut in the Battle of New Orleans during the American Civil War.
Shea got his start acting at the age of 18 in Col. John W. Albaugh's stock company in Albany, New York. During the 1880s, he also became known as an Irish dancer and singer. He was said to be the first real actor Vitagraph ever hired, having appeared over 4,000 roles in more than one hundred films from 1905 to 1918.
Shea died of heart disease at his home on November 5, 1918. Obituaries at the time listed Shea as the oldest movie actor in the United States, although most list his age at time of death as 56 years old. Shea is buried in Holy Cross Cemetery, Brooklyn.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “William Shea (actor)” as british actor (1856-1918). Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as british actor (1856-1918). Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 30, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q18202531. VIAF identifies the subject as 73039027. The Library of Congress control number is n91100542. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1856, 1918 and 1905.
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This entry incorporates text from “William Shea (actor)” 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.