Hero of the Month: Scott Kolk
A studio contract could be a blessing and a curse, on the one hand you were guaranteed a regular paycheck, while on the other hand you had little say on the types of roles or films you do, some thrive and had a career that lasted way beyond the end of the studio system, like Jimmy Stewart. Other’s found that their career’s stagnated and ended early, Scott Kolk was one of the latter. A talented stage actor, he came to Hollywood in the late twenties and was signed by Universal, appearing in Marianne (1929) and Hold Your Man (1929) under his real name Walter Kolk.
After changing his name to Scott Kolk with the coming of sound, he made is best film, playing Leer in Universal’s big budget All Quiet On the Western Front (1930), and then for some reason he was relegated to the low budget B movies like For the Defense (1931). His last credit as Scott Kolk was the title role of Universal’s serial adaptation of Dashiell Hammett and Alex Raymond’s popular comic strip Secret Agent X-9 (1937), where Kolk tracked down an international jewel thief who is a master of disguise.
Changing his name to Scott Colton did not increase hs marquee value, after a small role in The Awful Truth (1937), he continued in the B movie section, making Murder in Greenwich Village (1937) and Women In Prison (1938). After a bit part in I Am the law (1938) Scott Kolk/ Colton dropped out of film.
