Larry Semon
Lawrence " Larry " Semon (* July 16, 1889 in West Point, Mississippi; † October 8, 1928 in Victorville, California ) was an American actor, screenwriter and film director, one of the most popular slapstick comedians of the silent film era.
Life and work
The son of a magician began his career in the first decade of the 20th century as an illustrator of comics in the newspaper New York Sun. In 1915 he was engaged by the production company Vitagraph as a director, screenwriter and gag writer of films.
Even during the First World War Semon reached a high level of popularity. Soon he found his very own unique style: with käsebleichem face and wide eyes, a wide-brimmed hat on his head and strong baggy pants that were pulled by large suspenders far beyond his narrow chest, he embodied lively village idiot, the trouble magically attracted. Semon specialty was hair-raising chases of burlesque comedy and nervenzerrender voltage.
After Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd, Larry Semon was up in the 20s in as America's most gifted and successful film comedian and slapstick artist. Several of his short film productions early 20s he realized together with the later Elvis Presley - director Norman Taurog. Before the two were welded together to form a team, Semon was also several times with colleagues Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy before the camera.
Only with the end of his Vitagraph Treaty - Semon used to coat the massive production budget - his star began gradually to decline. He now turned even full-length movies, although their audience found, but no longer justify the considerable investments. In 1925 he took over the role of the Scarecrow in the Erstverfilmung by Lyman Frank Baum's classic children's book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz After his last major film appearance ( in Josef von Sternberg's gangster drama Underworld ) Semon went on vaudeville tour.
He died in 1928 in the sanatorium Gracelon Ranch, from the film industry largely forgotten, bankrupt and professionally at the end. His short films have been shown on German television in the 1970s in the evening program of the ARD as part of a slapstick film series.
Filmography (selection)
As a director, screenwriter and actor