Born and raised in Indiana, Thomas Geraghty left for New York after graduating school and got a job as a reporter for the New York Herald and later the New York Tribune. His entrance into the film business was as a publicist, and he later became a writer for the one-reel comedies of Sidney Drew. In Los Angeles he got a job as a writer for Douglas Fairbanks, and was sent to New York by Famous Players-Lasky when it opened a studio there. He ran the studio for several years, then was sent to London to run the studio t