Arden was born in
St. Louis, Missouri, to Mary Berkley Hunter and Arden Richard Smith. After a common-school education he travelled west and worked in a number of different jobs, including as a mine-helper, cowboy, railroad brakeman, clerk, reporter, and theatre manager. In 1882, he made his debut as an actor with
Thomas W. Keene's Shakespeare company. The next year, he married Keene's daughter Agnes Eagleson Keene. Their only child, daughter Mildred Arden, also became an actor. Around this time, he wrote several plays, including ''The Eagle's Nest
, Raglan's Way
, Barred Out
, and Zorah''. He worked with a number of theatrical companies over the next thirty years, performing in such works as
Edmond Rostand's ''
L'Aiglon'',
Victorien Sardou's
Fédora, and in an all-star production of
Romeo and Juliet at the
Knickerbocker Theatre in New York. In his later years, he had his own stock
theatre company in
Washington, D.C. He starred in silent films such as
The Beloved Vagabond (1915). ==Partial filmography==