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Harold Clayton Lloyd (April 20, 1893–March 8, 1971) was an American actor and filmmaker, most famous for his hugely successful and influential silent film 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 severely injured himself in a 1919 accident with a prop bomb that 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). Buster Keaton's films were not nearly as commercially successfull as Chaplin's or Lloyd's even at the height of his popularity, and only received belated critical acclaim in the late 1950s and 1960s.
Early life, Entry into films
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), but the 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. 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 homage to Lloyd's career directed by Preston Sturges and financed by Howard Hughes. Marriage and home Lloyd married his leading lady, Mildred Davis, in February 1923. Together, they had two children: Gloria (born in 1923), and Harold Jr., (born 1931, died 1971). They also adopted Peggy (born 1924, died 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 fabled 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. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. 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. 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. 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 was shown on PBS 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. * Additionally, the 2001 Futurama episode That's Lobstertainment!, was a tribute to Harold Lloyd, featuring an alien version of him, named Harold Zoid. Academy Award In 1952, Lloyd received a special Academy Award for being a "master comedian and good citizen." The second citation was an inelegant snub to Chaplin, who at that point had fallen foul of McCarthyism and who had had his entry visa to the United States revoked. Whatever the unsavoury aspects were, Lloyd accepted the award in good part. Death Lloyd died at age 77 from prostate cancer on March 8, 1971, in Beverly Hills, California, USA. He was interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California. "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. * 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 legendary friend and partner Hal Roach, then 95 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. Walk of Fame 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). Sony Pictures plans a remake of Safety Last! for release in 2006. Talent is not yet signed, but the producers are Jennifer Dana and Mark Gordon. Surviving short 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 1943. 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. Early Lonesome Luke Glass character ("The Boy") Later shorts Feature film|Feature-length films Autobiography and notable biographies See also | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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