Actor. In his early teens he began spending his summer vacations performing juvenile parts in local stock companies. He was appearing in vaudeville by the age of sixteen, when he got a minor part in the movie 'The Snowman,' which was produced by Triangle Studios. In 1914 he began working at Essanay, the other major movie studio in his native Chicago. He was with Essanay until the studio went under in 1918, by which time he was becoming a bigger and bigger star. LaRocque moved to New York City and was signed to do theatrical work. He also had a bit part in the movie 'Let's Get a Divorce' in 1918. However, he didn't find a lot of success onstage, and was compelled to return to screen acting. He worked as a freelance actor and appeared in movies made by Universal, Famous Players-Lasky, Samuel Goldfish (who later became Samuel Goldwyn), and Vitagraph. In 1923 he became a big-name star when he appeared in the Cecil B. DeMille religious film spectacle 'The Ten Commandments.' Over the next five years of his contract with DeMille, he appeared in such films as 'The Coming of Amos' (1925), 'A Society Scandal' (1924), 'Braveheart' (1925), 'The Fighting Eagle' (1927), and 'Code of the Sea' (1924). In 1925 he met Vilma Banky, a Hungarian-born actress who had recently come to the United States to work for Samuel Goldwyn. Two years later they were married in a wedding ceremony and party that was the talk of Hollywood because of how lavish it was. In 1928 LaRocque's contract expired and he returned to freelance work, starring in films at MGM, Fox, and First National Studios. He and his wife appeared together in 'Cherries Are Ripe,' a Broadway play, in 1930, but the critics and the public didn't respond very favorably to it. Three years later they went to Germany and briefly found acting work there. After their return to the United States, LaRocque found himself no longer the big star he once had been. Most of his roles were in B-pictures, with an occasional supporting role in a more important film such as 'Meet John Doe' (1941) and 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame' (1939). By this point his wife Vilma had long since retired from the screen because of her thick Hungarian accent, and LaRocque joined her in retirement from acting in 1941. They lived in Los Angeles together, known as one of Hollywood's happiest and longest-married couples, until his death shortly before his seventy-first birthday.