*** Welcome to piglix ***

Harold Lloyd

Harold Lloyd
Harold Lloyd - A Pictorial History of the Silent Screen.jpg
Lloyd in 1924
Birth name Harold Clayton Lloyd
Born (1893-04-20)April 20, 1893
Burchard, Nebraska, U.S.
Died March 8, 1971(1971-03-08) (aged 77)
Beverly Hills, California, U.S.
Medium Motion pictures (silent and sound)
Nationality American
Years active 1913–1963
Genres Slapstick
Influences Charlie Chaplin
Influenced Buster Keaton
Spouse Mildred Davis (1923–69)
Children Gloria Lloyd (1923–2012)
Marjorie Elizabeth Lloyd (1924–1986)
Harold Lloyd Jr. (1931–71)

Harold Clayton Lloyd, Sr. (April 20, 1893 – March 8, 1971) was an American actor, comedian, film director, film producer, screenwriter, and stunt performer who is most famous for his silent comedy films.

Harold Lloyd ranks alongside Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton as one of the most popular and influential film comedians of the silent film era. Lloyd made nearly 200 comedy films, both silent and "talkies", between 1914 and 1947. He is best known for his bespectacled "Glasses" character, a resourceful, success-seeking go-getter who was perfectly in tune with 1920s-era United States.

His films frequently contained "thrill sequences" of extended chase scenes and daredevil physical feats, for which he is best remembered today. Lloyd hanging from the hands of a clock high above the street in Safety Last! (1923) is one of the most enduring images in all of cinema. Lloyd did many of these dangerous stunts himself, despite having injured himself in August 1919 while doing publicity pictures for the Roach studio. An accident with a bomb mistaken as a prop resulted in the loss of the thumb and index finger of his right hand (the injury was disguised on future films with the use of a special prosthetic glove, though the glove often did not go unnoticed).

Although Lloyd's individual films were not as commercially successful as Chaplin's on average, he was far more prolific (releasing twelve feature films in the 1920s while Chaplin released just four), and made more money overall ($15.7 million to Chaplin's $10.5 million).

Lloyd was born in Burchard, Nebraska, on April 20, 1893, to James Darsie Lloyd and Sarah Elisabeth Fraser; his paternal great-grandparents were from Wales.

In 1910, after his father succumbed to several failed business ventures, Lloyd's parents divorced and his father moved with his son to San Diego. Lloyd had acted in theater since a child, but in California he began acting in one-reel film comedies around 1912. Lloyd worked with Thomas Edison's motion picture company, and his first role was a small part as a Yaqui Indian in the production of The Old Monk's Tale. At the age of 20, Harold moved to Los Angeles, and took up roles in several Keystone comedies. He was also hired by Universal as an extra and soon became friends with aspiring filmmaker, Hal Roach. Lloyd began collaborating with Roach who had formed his own studio in 1913. Roach and Lloyd created "Lonesome Luke", similar to and playing off the success of Charlie Chaplin films.


...
Wikipedia

...