Harold Lloyd

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Harold Clayton Lloyd
Harold Lloyd in his trademark glasses and hat, 1929
Born	April 20, 1893 Burchard, Nebraska,  United States
Died	March 8, 1971 at age 77 Beverly Hills, California, USA
Parents	James Darsie Lloyd and Sarah Elisabeth Fraser

Harold Clayton Lloyd (April 20, 1893 – March 8, 1971) was an American film actor and director, most famous for his silent comedies.

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 "Glasses Character", a resourceful, success-seeking go-getter who was perfectly in tune with 1920s era America.

His films frequently contained "thrill sequences" of extended chase scenes and daredevil physical feats, for which he is best remembered today. The image of 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 during the filming of Haunted Spooks (1920) when an accident with a prop bomb resulted in the loss of the thumb and index finger of his right hand (the injury was disguised on film with the use of a special prosthetic glove).

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

Contents 1 Early life and entry into films 2 'Talkies' and semi-successful transition 3 Marriage and home 4 Radio and retirement 5 Renewed interest 5.1 Tributes and references to Lloyd 6 Academy Award 7 Death 8 "The Third Genius" 9 Walk of Fame 10 Filmography 10.1 Surviving films 10.1.1 Early 10.1.2 Lonesome Luke 10.1.3 Glasses character ("The Boy") 10.1.4 Later shorts 10.2 Feature-length films 11 Autobiography and notable biographies 12 See also 13 References 14 External links

[edit] Early life and entry into films

Lloyd was born in Burchard, Nebraska to James Darsie Lloyd and Sarah Elisabeth Fraser; his paternal great-grandparents were from Wales.[1] Lloyd had moved west with his family after his father failed in numerous business ventures. He had acted in theater since boyhood, and started acting in one-reel film comedies shortly after moving to California in 1912 in San Diego, California. Lloyd soon began working with Thomas Edison's motion picture company, and eventually formed a partnership with fellow struggling actor and director Hal Roach, who had formed his own studio in 1913. The hard-working Lloyd became the most successful of Roach's comic actors between 1915 and 1919. He hired Bebe Daniels as a supporting actress in 1914; the two of them were involved romantically and were known as "The Boy" and "The Girl". In 1919, she left Lloyd because of greater dramatic aspirations. Lloyd's early film character "Lonesome Luke" was by his own admission a frenetic imitation of Chaplin. By 1918, Lloyd and Roach had developed the "Glasses Character" (always named "Harold" in the films), a much more mature comedy character with greater potential for sympathy and emotional depth. Beginning in 1921, they moved from shorts to feature length comedies. These included the acclaimed Grandma's Boy (1922), which (along with Chaplin's The Kid) pioneered the combination of complex character development and film comedy, the sensational Safety Last! (1923), which cemented Lloyd's stardom, and Why Worry? (1923).

Lloyd and Roach parted ways in 1924, and Lloyd became the independent producer of his own films. These included his most accomplished mature features Girl Shy (1924), The Freshman (1925), The Kid Brother (1927), and Speedy (1928). Welcome Danger (1929) was originally a silent film but Lloyd decided late in the production to remake it with a soundtrack. All of these films were enormously successful and profitable^{[citation needed]}. They were also highly influential and still find many fans among modern audiences, a testament to the originality and film-making skill of Lloyd and his talented collaborators. Like the other great silent comics, Lloyd was the driving creative force in his films, particularly the feature-length films^{[citation needed]}. From this success he became one of the wealthiest and most influential figures in early Hollywood.

[edit] 'Talkies' and semi-successful transition

In 1924 he formed his own independent film production company, the Harold Lloyd Film Corporation, with his films distributed by Pathe and later Paramount. Lloyd was a founding member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Lloyd made the transition to sound in 1929 with Welcome Danger (the original unreleased silent version of this film was screened in various cities on the 2005 rerelease of Lloyd's films). Released a few weeks before the start of the Great Depression, it was a huge financial success, with audiences eager to hear Lloyd's voice on film. Lloyd's rate of film releases, which had been one or two a year in the 1920s, slowed to about one every two years until 1938, after which he temporarily retired from filmmaking.

The films released during this period were: Feet First (1930), with a similar scenario to Safety Last which found him clinging to a skyscraper at the climax; Movie Crazy (1932) with Constance Cummings; The Cat's-Paw (1934) which was a dark political comedy and a big departure for Lloyd; The Milky Way (1936), which was Lloyd's only attempt at screwball comedy, at that point hugely fashionable; and Professor Beware (1938).

Unfortunately, his character was now out of tune with movie audiences of the Great Depression. As the length of time between his film releases increased to years, his popularity in the early 1930s declined. On March 23, 1937, Lloyd sold the land of his studio Harold Lloyd Motion Picture Company to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The location is now the site of the Los Angeles California Temple.^[1] Lloyd chose to retire from the screen in 1938, but he returned for an additional starring appearance in The Sin of Harold Diddlebock (1947), an ill-fated homage to Lloyd's career directed by Preston Sturges and financed by Howard Hughes. Lloyd and Sturges fought during the shoot, and the finished film was shelved by producer Hughes, only to be recut by him and issued several years later under the title Mad Wednesday. It was a sad end to a brilliant film career.

[edit] Marriage and home

Lloyd married his leading lady, Mildred Davis, in February 1923. Together, they had two children: Gloria (born 1923), and Harold Lloyd, Jr., (1931-1971). They also adopted Peggy (1924-1986) in 1930. Lloyd, for a time, discouraged Davis from continuing her acting career. He later relented, but by that time her career momentum was lost. Mildred died in 1969, two years before Lloyd's death.

Lloyd's Beverly Hills home, "Greenacres" was built in 1926–1929, with 44 rooms, 26 bathrooms, 12 fountains, 12 gardens, and a nine hole golf course. The estate left the possession of the Lloyd family in 1975, after a failed attempt to maintain it as a public museum.

The grounds were subsequently subdivided, but the main house remains and is frequently used as a filming location, appearing in films like Westworld and The Loved One (film). It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

[edit] Radio and retirement

After leaving acting in 1938, Lloyd produced a few Hollywood films but by the 1940s he had left the film industry completely — almost. In October 1944, he emerged as the director and host of The Old Gold Comedy Theater, an NBC radio anthology series, when Preston Sturges turned the job down but recommended him for it. The show presented half-hour radio adaptations of recently successful film comedies, launching with a version of Palm Beach Story with Claudette Colbert and Robert Young.

Some saw The Old Gold Comedy Theater as being a lighter version of Lux Radio Theater, and it featured some of the best-known film and radio personalities of the day, including Fred Allen, June Allyson, Lucille Ball, Ralph Bellamy, Linda Darnell, Susan Hayward, Herbert Marshall, Dick Powell, Edward G. Robinson, Jane Wyman, and Alan Young, among others. But the show's half-hour format — which meant the material might have been truncated too severely — and Lloyd's sounding somewhat ill at ease on the air for much of the season (though he spent weeks training himself to speak on radio prior to the show's premiere, and seemed more relaxed toward the end of the series run) may have worked against it.

The Old Gold Comedy Theater ended in June 1945 with an adaptation of Tom, Dick, and Harry, featuring June Allyson and Reginald Gardiner and wasn't renewed for the following season. Many years later, acetate discs of 29 of the shows were discovered in Lloyd's home, and they now circulate among old-time radio collectors.

Lloyd remained involved in a number of other interests, including civic and charity work. Inspired by having overcome his own serious injuries and burns, he was very active with the Shriners Hospital for Crippled Children, and eventually rose to that organization's highest office, Imperial Potentate.

He appeared as himself on several television shows during his retirement, first on Ed Sullivan's variety show Toast of the Town June 5, 1949 and again in July 6, 1958. He appeared as the Mystery Guest on What's My Line? in April 26, 1953, and twice on This Is Your Life: on March 10, 1954 for Mack Sennett, and again on December 14, 1955 on his own episode.^[2]

Lloyd studied colors, microscopy, and was very involved with photography, including 3D photography and color film experiments. Some of the earliest 2-color Technicolor tests were shot at his Beverly Hills home. He became known for his nude photographs of models, such as Bettie Page and stripper Dixie Evans, for a number of men's magazines. He also took photos of Marilyn Monroe lounging at his pool in a bathing suit which were published after their deaths. Lloyd also provided encouragement and support for a number of younger actors, including Jack Lemmon, Debbie Reynolds and Robert Wagner.

[edit] Renewed interest

Lloyd kept copyright control of most of his films and re-released them infrequently after his retirement. As a consequence, his reputation and public recognition suffered in comparison with Chaplin and Keaton, whose work has generally been more available.

Also, Lloyd's film character was so intimately associated with the 1920s era that attempts at revivals in 1940s and 1950s were poorly received, when audiences viewed the 1920s (and silent film in particular) as old-fashioned. In the early 1960s, Lloyd produced two compilation films, featuring scenes from his old comedies, Harold Lloyd's World of Comedy (1962) and The Funny Side of Life (1963).

These films were positively received and renewed interest in Lloyd, and helped restore Lloyd's status among film historians. Throughout his later years he screened his films for audiences at special charity and educational events, to great acclaim.

Following his death, most of his feature films were marketed by Time-Life Films, but these were poorly presented, with insensitive musical scores. Through the efforts of Kevin Brownlow and David Gill and the support of granddaughter Suzanne Lloyd, the British Thames Silents series re-released some of the feature films in the early 1990s on video (with new orchestral scores by Carl Davis).

More recently, the remainder of Lloyd's great silent features and many shorts were restored and scored by Robert Israel. These are now frequently shown on the Turner Classic Movies (TCM). An acclaimed 1990 documentary by Brownlow and Gill also created a renewed interest in Lloyd's work in the early 1990s. A DVD Collection of restored versions of most of his feature films (and his more important shorts) was released by New Line Cinema in partnership with the Harold Lloyd Trust in November 2005, along with limited theatrical screenings in New York and other cities in the US, Canada and Europe. Annette Lloyd has also said that if there is a large-enough show of support by fans, a second collection may be released in the future^[3].

[edit] Tributes and references to Lloyd

The 2001 Futurama episode That's Lobstertainment!, was a tribute to Harold Lloyd, featuring an alien version of him, named Harold Zoid.

[edit] Academy Award

In 1952, Lloyd received a special Academy Award for being a "master comedian and good citizen." The second citation was a snub to Chaplin, who at that point had fallen foul of McCarthyism and who had had his entry visa to the United States revoked. Regardless of political aspects, Lloyd accepted the award in good part.

[edit] Death

Lloyd died at age 77 from prostate cancer on March 8, 1971, in Beverly Hills, California, USA. He was interred in a crypt in the Great Mausoleum at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.

[edit] "The Third Genius"

Lloyd was the subject of a television documentary series in 1990, Harold Lloyd: The Third Genius by Kevin Brownlow and David Gill, which followed similar acclaimed documentaries about the other great silent film clowns Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. [2] The film was shown in America on the PBS program American Masters. Through the participation of Lloyd's granddaughter and estate trustee, Suzanne Lloyd, the filmakers had full access to Lloyd's films and his personal archive.

A highlight of this program was an interview with Lloyd's friend and partner Hal Roach, then 98 years old. Other Lloyd associates, friends, and family members also participated in the film.

The two hour documentary revealed the methods behind Lloyd's celebrated high-altitude stunts, which he rarely discussed in public during his lifetime. They were staged on prop facades built above the entrance to the Hill Street Tunnel, or on the rooftops of other buildings in downtown Los Angeles. Lloyd was usually about 20 feet above a hidden platform, but the camera was positioned such that Lloyd appeared to be high above the streets below. The documentary noted, however, that if Lloyd had fallen, he might well have plummeted to the street despite these precautions.

[edit] Walk of Fame

loljgjgjk Harold Lloyd has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. His was only the fourth ceremony preserving his handprints, footprints, autograph, and outline of his famed glasses, at Grauman's Chinese Theatre, in 1927. In 1994, he was honored with his image on a United States postage stamp designed by caricaturist Al Hirschfeld.

Lloyd was notorious for using his access to get young actresses to pose for him, and in 2004, his granddaughter Suzanne produced a book of selections from his photographs, Harold Lloyd's Hollywood Nudes in 3D! (ISBN 1-57912-394-5).

[edit] Filmography

[edit] Surviving films

These are the films which are known to survive in various film archives around the world. Some are also available on video or DVD. Tragically, the negatives of many of Lloyd's early films were lost in a fire at his estate in 2007. Please note: this list is constantly changing as new films are discovered all the time, and is very likely incomplete. All of the films are listed in order of release date.

[edit] Autobiography and notable biographies

• Lloyd, Harold (1928, revised 1971). An American Comedy. 
• Schickel, Richard (1974). Harold Lloyd: the shape of laughter. New York Graphic Society. ISBN 0-8212-0595-1. 
• McCaffrey, Donald W. (1976). Three Classic Silent Screen Comedies Starring Harold Lloyd. Associated University Presses. ISBN 0-8386-1455-8. 
• Reilly, Adam (1977). Harold Lloyd: The king of daredevil comedy. Macmillan. ISBN 0-02-601940-X. 
• Dardis, Tom (1983). Harold Lloyd: The Man on the Clock. Viking. ISBN 0-14-007555-0. 
• Vance, Jeffrey, and Suzanne Lloyd (2002). Harold Lloyd: Master Comedian. Harry N Abrams. ISBN 0-8109-1674-6. 
• D'Agostino Lloyd, Annette M. (2003). The Harold Lloyd Encyclopedia. McFarland & Company. ISBN 0-7864-1514-2. 

[edit] See also

• List of United States comedy films

[edit] References

1. ^ Los Angeles California Temple Church of Latter Day Saints. Retrieved March 23, 2007
2. ^ Harold LloydIMDB.com Appearances as self. Retrieved March 23, 2007.
3. ^ The Trust needs your help. Discussion on Harold Lloyd Community Forum

[edit] External links

• Harold Lloyd at the Internet Movie Database
• Official site (only the official message board is currently online)
• HaroldLloyd.us — a site with articles and information, maintained by Annette Lloyd
• Harold Lloyd Forum part of ComedyClassics.org
• Harold Lloyd Photos at Silent Ladies & Gents
• BBC Radio Interview with Suzanne Lloyd (2002)
• Doctor Macro: Harold Lloyd

v • d • e Feature films starring Harold Lloyd
Silent	A Sailor-Made Man (1921) • Grandma's Boy (1922) • Doctor Jack (1922) • Safety Last! (1923) • Why Worry? (1923) • Girl Shy (1924) • Hot Water (1924) • The Freshman (1925) • For Heaven's Sake (1926) • The Kid Brother (1927) • Speedy (1928) • Welcome Danger (1929, released 2005)
Sound	Welcome Danger (1929) • Feet First (1930) • Movie Crazy (1932) • The Cat's-Paw (1934) • The Milky Way (1936) • Professor Beware (1938) • The Sin of Harold Diddlebock (1947)