Pauline Frederick was the major headliner of the early R-C days, and Evelyn Brent was FBO's most prized non-Western star. Warner Baxter, Joe E. Brown, and young Frankie Darro were among the other prominent FBO players. Anna Q. Nilsson starred in two of the studio's larger productions, as did Olive Borden and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. FBO's leading star of action and mystery pictures was Richard Talmadge. He appeared in eighteen FBO releases, more than half of them produced by his own company. Maurice "Lefty" Flynn starred in over a dozen FBO action films, all directed by Harry Garson, who also ran his own production business. From the studio's pre-Hollywood days in 1920 through 1928, Ralph Lewis starred in more than ten R-C and FBO pictures of various genres. Former model Reed Howes, renowned as an "Arrow Collar Man", made his acting debut with FBO after an extensive publicity campaign.