Appearances

Title	Role	Year	Approx. Age
Square Shoulders	unknown	1929	12
Peter Pan 1924 / Aladdin and his Lamp	Michael Darling	1924	7

Philippe De Lacy was born during World War I; the already fatherless Philippe lost his mother and five siblings when a German shell devastated the family home. Only two days old at the time of tragedy, the boy was kept alive, but barely, in the basement of his grandmother's house. He was adopted by Mrs. Edith De Lacy, who was associated with the U.S. Woman's Overseas Hospital. After the war ended, Mrs. De Lacy brought Philippe to America, where his stunning looks soon created opportunities for him as a model for magazine advertisements. His modeling assignments brought him to the attention of Hollywood, and he appeared in his first film in a bit part at the age of four in 1921.

Philippe freelanced for several studios in the 1920s, but mostly for Paramount. In 1924 he played the role of Michael Darling in the classic silent version of Peter Pan, with Betty Bronson. He played the young Don Juan at ten years of age in John Barrymore's Don Juan (1926), and in 1927 he played the young prince Karl Heinrich in Ernst Lubitsch's memorable The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg, which also starred Ramon Novarro and Norma Shearer. Also in 1927 he starred with Greta Garbo and John Gilbert in Love, an updated version of the Tolstoy novel Anna Karenina in which he played the young son of Anna, Serezha Karenin.

When the sound era arrived De Lacy's acting career was declining, and he never made the transition from child actor to adult. Apart from his films, De Lacy also did some work in the theatre. However, he had lost his boyish charm by his early teens and retired from the screen in the early 1930s.

As an adult, he was a producer-director with Cinerama Corporation for many years. He was an associate producer for We Are the Marines (1942) and the narrator for the Academy Awarding Winning The Fighting Lady (1944).

Quote: "I enjoyed making films. I liked acting with other actors. The painful part came at the end when I was entering what casting directors called "the gawky period" for juveniles, which was early teens in my case. All at once it seemed that no one wanted me. It was some years before I really understood what had happened. I was devastated by what I took as rejection. I'm extremely grateful I had the opportunities I had as a child, and they led to a very satisfying second career. I also appreciate that some of the work I did in pictures still entertains people."

Married his junior high sweetheart. Was with the J. Walter Thompson advertising agency for over twenty-five years as a broadcast supervisor after leaving Cinerama corporation. Died July 29, 1995, in Carmel, California of Cancer.