Edgar Kennedy

Edgar Livingston Kennedy ( born April 26, 1890 in Monterey County, California ( USA); † November 9, 1948 in Los Angeles, California, USA) was an American film actor and film director.

Life

The 1.85 meter tall Kennedy appeared in over 400 films, most of them comedies. He is the inventor and master of the so-called Slow Burn, was therefore sometimes dubbed " Old Slow Burn." His specialty was the cinematic representation with difficulty a restrained, seething rage. So he played in many films an average man who is plagued by a variety of afflictions, but also has at most absurd margins still in force. The Average Man was finally titled a sound film series with Edgar Kennedy. He often played a police officer, whose face shows how much it is eating him, given him the information presented, which then pushes back his cap in mute despair, his bald head scratching or runs her hand over his face. He had from 1911, directed by Mack Sennett comedies in which he usually wore the police uniform, which earned the name " Keystone Cop " (named after the film company Sennett ) him his first film roles. He played here at the side of comedians like Charlie Chaplin, Fatty Arbuckle and Ben Turpin. Previously, Kennedy made ​​his way with odd jobs, among other things, he had appeared as a prizefighter, stagehand and vaudeville performer.

For the film production company, Educational, to which he moved, Kennedy worked as a director. These activities, he finally took also true for the film producer Hal Roach. He also worked as a scriptwriter and " Gagman " or Gag - inventor. But above all he stood for Roach on in a specially created for him film series and acted on the side of Roach's contractors Laurel and Hardy. In 1928 he was first occurred in a Laurel and Hardy comedy, Leave ' em Laughing ( Let them laugh ), where he worked as a police officer in four other films, in his signature role. In a total of ten films Kennedy became an equally congenial as memorable partner of the legendary comedy duo, next Finlayson, Gilbert, Hall and Sandford. Unforgettable was also Kennedy's view of the lemonade seller in the Marx Brothers comedy The Marx Brothers at war from the year 1933.

Edgar Kennedy died of throat cancer, he was, California buried in the Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City.