Bartolomeo Pagano

From The Film Guide

Bartolomeo Pagano (born September 27, 1878; died June 24, 1947) was an Italian motion picture actor.

Before his cinema career, Pagano was a stevedore who worked at the port of Genoa. There, he was discovered and selected to play the role of Maciste, a muscular slave, in the silent movie classic Cabiria in 1914. As the originator of this role, he went on to play the character many more times in a series of sequels that continued until 1926.