Uncle Miltie
He was the first Superstar of Television and in the late 40s/Early 50s he was the one of the most watched, with people scheduling their evening around his show. Uncle Miltie was Milton Berle and June 12 is the anniversary of his birth. He was born Mendel Berlinger in New York in 1908. He spend [...]
A Keystone Girl
One of the many silent film stars who appeared in films made by Mack Sennett and Keystone Pictures was Louise Fazenda. Fazenda was born in Lafayette Indiana on June 17, 1895 to a merchant broker named Joseph Fazenda. He moved his family to Los Angeles when she was a young girl. Louise Fazenda got her [...]
A Silent Star and His Fall
Roscoe Conkling Arbuckle was born on March 24, 1887 in Smith Center, Kansas, to Mollie and William Goodrich Arbuckle. His mother died in 1899 and his father abandoned him shortly afterward. Arbuckle survived by doing odd jobs at a hotel in San Jose, California. He entered an amateur night contest where he caught the attention [...]
Silent Comedy Queen
Mabel Normand was born on November 9, 1892, in New Brighton, Staten Island, New York. Her parents were Mary Drury Normand and Claude G. Normand. There are accounts that give her birth as November 10, with the year given usually being 1894 or 1895. Of their children, only four survived childbirth: Ralph, Claude, Jr., Gladys, [...]
History Writ with Lightning
‘The Birth of a Nation’ was produced and directed by D.W. Giffith and released on February 8, 1915. It starred Lillian Gish, Henry Walthall and Mae Walsh. The 3 hour 10 minute film was originally presented in two parts separated by an intermission. The film cost $110,000 (over 2 Million in 2006) and grossed over [...]
The Tramp’s First Appearance
Whenever anyone speaks of Charlie Chaplin, the image that will come to mind is his signature character, the Little Tramp. Chaplin himself called him The Little Fellow. The character rarely was referred to by any name onscreen. The Little Tramp was first seen by the public when Keystone released the comedy short Kid Auto Races [...]
The Great Stone Face
During the 1920′s Buster Keaton was one of the greatest, if not the greatest, comic actor-directors of the end of the Silent Film Era. Roger Ebert has even called him the “greatest actor-director in the history of the movies”. Keaton’s films during this decade, such as The General or The Navigator, Steamboat Bill, Jr. or [...]
Hardy Before Laurel
It was towards the end of the Silent Film Era that Oliver Hardy joined Stan Laurel to form the comedy team of Laurel and Hardy. Hardy was in his mid-thirties when the pair joined and had already had a long career in Silent Films. Oliver Hardy was born on January 18, 1892 in Harlem, Georgia [...]
The Silent Cowboy
Tom Mix became film’s first Western Movie star. He wasn’t born in the west, but in the east. He was born on January 6, 1880 in Mix Run, Pennsylvania. His birth name was Thomas Hezekiah Mix, but when he enlisted in the army during the Spanish-American War he entered as Thomas E. Mix. The E [...]
Santa Claus in The Movies
Silent Santa’: SANTA CLAUS AND THE CHILDREN (1898) SANTA CLAUS (1899) SANTA CLAUS FILLING STOCKINGS (1897) SANTA CLAUS’ VISIT (1900) WAITING FOR SANTA CLAUS (1901) AN UNEXPECTED SANTA CLAUS (1908) A TRAP FOR SANTA CLAUS (1909) THE ADVENTURE OF THE WRONG SANTA CLAUS (1914) SANTA CLAUS VS. CUPID (1915) THE DETECTIVE’S SANTA CLAUS (1924) SANTA [...]
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