"...the boy in the horn-rimmed glasses."

Hal Roach, Harold Lloyd, and a new comic font

The Architect
In 1908, at the tender age of sixteen, Hal Roach left his home in New York State to travel the world and make it his oyster. Roach sold ice cream on the streets of Seattle and prospected for gold in Alaska. He worked as a postman and muleskinner before landing his first Hollywood job as a cowboy extra in 1912.

The Artist
Born and raised in Nebraska, Harold Lloyd sprang from similar roots. By 1911, his developing interest in the stage, and the offer of cash from his father, presented Lloyd with the choice of New York or California to further his career, a decision that was literally made with a coin toss. He eked out a meager existence at various jobs in San Diego, until employment opportunities seemed to dry up. Lloyd had no real interest in the movies, but hunger is a great motivator. In 1913 the twenty-year-old itinerant actor traveled to Hollywood. Seeking work amid the "dusty uproar" of Universal Studios. Lloyd was, to his amazement, turned away at the gate. Bright and ambitious, it wasn’t long before he learned how to sneak past the guards, and finagle his way into a job.
Hired as an extra, Lloyd made the acquaintance of Roach, who himself had been working at Universal for only a few weeks and the two became great friends. A terrible actor by his own admission, Roach learned the movie business from soup to nuts, while Lloyd used his experience on the boards to learn the ropes of film acting. When the studio cut their pay from five, to three dollars-a-day, they left Universal and parted ways.

Roach & the Our Gang kids (1923)

The Laugh Factory
Roach began his own production company (Rolin) in 1914 and Lloyd was quickly hired. After two or three films a wage dispute developed and Lloyd left for Keystone, while Roach folded his tent and went off to direct for Essannay.
Little time had passed before Pathé Exchange approached Roach with a distribution offer, if he could guarantee his stars from the Rolin picture Just Nuts (1915), Lloyd, Jane Novak and Roy Stewart. This was essentially the beginning of Hal Roach Studios. Over the next forty years Roach produced what is now regarded as the finest comedy of Hollywood’s golden era, second only to Keystone. Even then, comparing the "King of Comedy" Mack Sennett, and Roach’s "Laugh Factory" is entirely subjective. Roach chose a more conceptual approach to comedy, with a focus on plot, structure and visual gags, which was altogether unlike the mercurial slapstick hi-jinks of Sennett’s Keystone Studios. Accounts of those years generally describe Hal Roach Studios as a relaxed, low-key and congenial place, where everyone had a good time. Roach is responsible for bringing a host of talent to the screen, including Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, the long running Our Gang series, numerous lesser stars, many future stars who began with Roach, and an army of consummate writers, directors and cinematographers.
"Once they laugh, don’t let them stop."

The Legend
In the era of one and two-reel comedy, Harold Lloyd, along with most of filmdom, sought to imitate the enormous popularity of Charles Chaplin. Lloyd's character Willie Work was mercifully, short lived. When Lloyd and Roach reunited, a Chaplinesque character was again devised, this time dressed in tight cloths, with two greasepaint dots on his lip for a mustache and the name Lonesome Luke. As inane and unoriginal as the character was, Luke made money, and Roach produced scores of one reel films with the character. In later years, Luke was somewhat of an embarrassment to Lloyd, "I didn’t like Luke." While these films, which comprise roughly half of Lloyd’s catalog, do not diminish the tremendous value of his later work, the observation often made regarding Lloyd’s prolific production numbers is largely due to Luke.
Kevin Brownlow describes what became the final straw in The Parade’s Gone By… "By now, Bebe Daniels had become Lloyd’s leading lady, and one night they were in a theater, waiting for one of their comedies. As the Lonesome Luke character appeared on the screen, Lloyd heard a small boy saying, ‘Oh, here’s that fellow who tries to do like Chaplin.’ "
The Little Tramp’s influence over what had become the popular convention of screen comedy was so overwhelming that breaking free would have demanded either utter foolishness or great heroism.
A new and original character transformed Lloyd into what has become an iconic image in American culture, remarkably, by portraying an absence of affected character. Lloyd relied on his acting skills to become an average Joe, or Harold in his case, with the timidity and aspirations that made him thoroughly likeable, and easily understood. His youthful exuberance and naivete regularly found Harold in alternately dire and humorous circumstances. All this was achieved with nothing more than a simple pair of glasses. Roach knew he had something big, "As soon as we put the glasses on him…"

Why Worry? (1923)

Seattle Theater Group, The Paramount Theater and Trader Joe’s present,
The Harold Lloyd Retrospective: five nights and nine films from the legend of Silent Era comedy. Featuring live accompaniment performed by Dennis James, on the Paramount’s original 4/20 Publix 1 Wurlitzer. April 30th – May 25th

Next ... Grandma's Boy & Dr. Jack