Trivia: The first great screen comedian, Charles Chaplin was also one of the most gifted directors in history, in addition to being a formidable talent as a writer and composer. The son of music hall performers from England, he began working on the stage at age five. He was a popular child dancer and got work on the London stage, eventually moving up to acting roles. It was while touring America in 1912 that Chaplin was spotted by Mack Sennett, the head of Keystone Studios, and he was signed to them a year later. After a disappointing, relatively non-descript debut, Chaplin began evolving the persona that would emerge as his most famous screen portrayal, The Little Tramp, and after his first 11 movies, Chaplin began to manifest a desire to direct. By his 13th film, he had shifted into the director's chair, and also emerged as a writer. Chaplin's 35 movies at Keystone established him as a major film comedian and afforded him the chance to adapt his stage routines to the screen. He next moved on to Essanay Studios, where he had virtually complete creative freedom, and The Little Tramp became an established big-screen star. In 1916, Chaplin went to Mutual, earning an astronomical 10,000 dollars per week under a contract that gave him absolute control of his films -- the Mutual titles, most notably The Immigrant and Easy Street, are still counted among the greatest comedies ever made. These modestly proportioned two-reelers were followed by Chaplin's move to First National Studios, where he made lengthier, more ambitious, but fewer films, including the comedy The Kid, which was the second highest grossing silent film after D.W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation, and made an overnight sensation of his co-star, Jackie Coogan. By this time, Chaplin had become an international celebrity of a status that modern audiences can only imagine because he achieved his success through comedy. With three other screen giants, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks Sr., and D.W. Griffith, he founded United Artists, the first modern production and distribution company, and achieved further renown as a director with A Woman of Paris two years later. In 1925, he made what is generally considered his magnum opus, The Gold Rush. Chaplin's success continued into the sound era, although he resisted using sound until Modern Times in 1936. He had his first failure in 1940 with the anti-Hitler political satire The Great Dictator at about the same time that his personal life -- he had been involved in several awkward problems with various women, including a paternity suit filed against him by aspiring actress Joan Barry -- began to catch up with him. Chaplin's career during the immediate post-World War II period was marred by continuing problems, as his pacifism and alleged anti-American views led to investigations. He also made the black comedy Monsieur Verdoux, which failed at the box office. It was followed, however, by the best of his sound comedies, Limelight, which, because of his legal difficulties, didn't open in Los Angeles until two decades later -- when its score, written by Chaplin, received an Oscar. A King in New York, in 1957, and The Countess From Hong Kong, made nine years later, closed out his career on a lackluster note. After D.W. Griffith, Chaplin was the most important filmmaker of the silent film era. Through his clear understanding of film and its capabilities, and his constant experimentation -- he frequently ran through hundreds of takes to get just the right shot and effect he wanted -- he set most of the rules for screen comedy that are still being followed, and his onscreen image remains one of the most familiar.

Trivia: Canadian-born of Irish stock, actor, producer, director, and studio head Mack Sennett came from serving as a minor clown in third-string vaudeville to dominating the American motion picture comedy industry of the silent period. Hearing that one could make five dollars a day appearing in early movies, Sennett joined on at Biograph Studios in New York in 1908 and became one of the first members of D.W. Griffith's repertory company there; Sennett was also Griffith's first protégé among film directors. Griffith recognized Sennett's flair for comedy and featured him in many Biograph subjects between 1908 and 1910; Griffith's The Curtain Pole (1909), based on a French farce, was written by Sennett and is regarded as one of the first American slapstick comedies. Sennett began to direct in 1910, and when Mabel Normand joined Biograph in 1911, Sennett began to feature her in his comedy films as the star; comic Ford Sterling also began to work with Sennett at this time. In late 1912, Sennett broke with Biograph and formed the Keystone studio with Adam Kessel and Charles Baumann as backers, taking both Normand and Sterling with him and building a studio in Edendale, CA. The first Keystone was The Water Nymph (1912), starring Normand. The Bangville Police (1913) was the first subject featuring the Keystone Kops, and introduced Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, who had previously been with Selig Polyscope, to Keystone. By the time Charlie Chaplin arrived in 1914, Keystone was already established as the top producer of film comedies in the United States, noted for knockabout chaos, pie throwing, explosions, collapsing sets, and free-for-all irreverence. Chaplin, however, became the biggest male movie star of any kind to date in a very short time, and Sennett wasn't able to hang onto him; Chaplin left for Essanay by the end of 1914. This started a trend; Ford Sterling left in 1915, and Arbuckle the following year. However, Sennett had a matchless sense of spotting talent, and over time he would launch or significantly assist the film careers of Gloria Swanson, Chester Conklin, Charley Chase, Edgar Kennedy, Ben Turpin, Harry Langdon, Al St. John, Marie Dressler, Phyllis Haver, Betty Bronson, Carole Lombard, Bing Crosby, and W.C. Fields. Many of the women, including Swanson, made their film debuts among the ranks of "Sennett's Bathing Beauties." In 1915, Sennett signed on -- along with D.W. Griffith and Thomas Ince -- to distribute Keystone through Triangle Film Corporation, which turned out to be a mistake, as in 1917 it was discovered that Harry Aitken, head of Triangle, was slowing embezzling the company to the brink of bankruptcy. Sennett caught wind of this early and began legally unbinding himself from Triangle with the intention of leaving Aitken with nothing more than the brand name of "Keystone," which he ultimately did. But in the process, Sennett lost control of Mickey (1918), an expensive project for which Sennett had built a separate studio to produce; that the film was hugely successful when released while others made the money from it, coupled with the loss of Normand to the Goldwyn Studio in 1917, were major setbacks. The popularity of cross-eyed comic Ben Turpin helped the newly named Mack Sennett Comedies -- distributed by Paramount, and later Pathé -- to win back its cachet. Sennett also regained Normand's services in 1920, but finally lost them amid the scandals swarming around her as the 1920s progressed. Sennett updated his product from mere slapstick and stunts to incorporate special effects and other advanced devices and arrived at a surprise hit with Lizzies of the Field (1924), which featured mass destruction of automobiles. Sennett began production of Technicolor shorts in 1927, and released his first talking picture in 1928. However, with the Wall Street Crash of 1929, Sennett -- who around 1920 had amassed the largest personal fortune of anyone in Hollywood -- was suddenly broke. He left Pathé and entered into a new distribution agreement with Paramount in 1932 that ultimately turned sour, was badly injured in an auto accident that also killed his star Charles E. Mack in 1934, and finally lost his studio in 1935; What's Up Thar (1935) -- a western comedy short featuring Roy Rogers and the Sons of the Pioneers -- was his last film. In 1938, Sennett received an honorary Academy Award recognizing his influence on movie comedy. Nevertheless, though he had 25 years left to him, afterward Sennett was like a man lost; he finished out his days at the Motion Picture Country Home in Woodland Hills, CA, frequently expressing his regret that he'd never married Mabel Normand, who had died in 1930. Mack Sennett was probably the only studio head in Hollywood history to personally supervise every shot, cut, gag, and title card of every film that carried his name; if he didn't put his personal "ok" to it, it wasn't filmed. Gag writers and directors would periodically try to sneak one past him, such as Frank Capra, who once deliberately filmed a gag that Sennett had rejected just to show the boss that he was "right." Sennett agreed that the gag was a good one, then promptly fired Capra, and then re-hired him to teach Capra not to cross the boss; such firings and re-hirings were common with Sennett. He was able to watch the entire goings-on at Mack Sennett Comedies from his bathtub within a glass-walled room, three-stories high above the studio. Given his enormous productivity, the surviving output of Sennett's films is extremely disappointing -- while all but one of the 35 Chaplin films survive, the remainder only exist in a spotty, haphazard, and unpredictable fashion. In the early days of television, clips from Sennett's comparatively few surviving films were shown so often that the public eventually lost their taste for them. Nevertheless, certain Sennett films are iconic -- Barney Oldfield's Race for a Life (1913); Tillie's Punctured Romance (1914), which starred Chaplin, Normand, and Marie Dressler in her film debut in one of only about a dozen features Sennett made; His Trysting Place (1914), with Chaplin and Mack Swain; Fatty and Mabel Adrift (1916); Teddy at the Throttle (1917), with Gloria Swanson as the damsel in distress tied to the railroad tracks; Campus Vamp (1928), with Carole Lombard; and the four sound shorts Sennett made with W.C. Fields at the very end of his career, The Dentist (1932) and The Fatal Glass of Beer (1933) among them. Mack Sennett was dubbed "The King of Comedy" in his heyday, and was so in a way that would not be possible for any other actor, director, producer, or studio head to hope to achieve now or at any time in the future; Sennett was a one-man industry of comedy.

Trivia: Mabel Normand was the first great comedienne of American cinema and one the most important -- and popular -- American silent film actresses. By the time she first showed up at the Biograph studio in 1910, Normand was already a "Gibson Girl" (a model for illustrator Charles Dana Gibson) and a champion swimmer, and she was not yet 18. Biograph published a photo of Normand with the phony name "Muriel Fortescue," leading some sources to believe this her real name, but nevertheless it was Mabel Normand. She was from a French Canadian family and born on Staten Island on November 9, 1892. Normand worked for Biograph only a few months, then joined Vitagraph for about a year while the Biograph Company wintered out West. After they returned, so did she, working under the direction of D.W. Griffith. Griffith cast Normand as the "second girl" in melodramas and in tomboy roles; Griffith's protégé, Mack Sennett, primarily made comedies and would exploit Normand's natural comic abilities and athleticism through casting her in the lead. A Dash Through the Clouds (1912) featured Normand escaping with her beau in a new gadget, a Wright Brothers-styled airplane. This, and other, short comedies made by Sennett helped establish Mabel Normand as a girl who could take care of herself -- willful, powerful, and seemingly without fear.Sennett broke with Biograph to found Keystone Comedies, and Normand joined him in California; she starred in the first Keystone, The Water Nymph, released in September 1912. Apparently, a personal relationship between Sennett and Normand blossomed about this time as well, and though it was once the source of a popular musical, Mack and Mabel, the true nature of their relationship remains unclear. Normand was the Sennett studio's most significant female star, and as Sennett also discovered and introduced Gloria Swanson, Phyllis Haver, Betty Compson, and Carole Lombard, that's saying a lot. Normand also began to direct in 1914, although more out of necessity than any artistic need. One reason Charlie Chaplin was allowed to direct so early in his Keystone career was that he objected to taking direction from Normand, complaining about it to Sennett.Normand entered into an immensely popular series of films co-starring Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle as sidekick, with titles such as Fatty and Mabel Adrift (1916) and Fatty and Mabel at the San Diego Exposition (1915) being among the best remembered. It is said that the relationship, such as it was, between Sennett and Normand foundered in the summer of 1915, nevertheless, Sennett decided to produce a feature starring Normand and built the Mabel Normand Studio next door to Keystone; it was a necessary move, as the Keystone studio didn't have the right infrastructure to make such a film. Normand was 24 years old at the time; the studio with her name above the gate made only one film, Mickey (1918), a sentimental melodrama in the style of Griffith, spiced with comic touches. Mickey was tied up in post-production so long that by the time it was released, Normand had already left Sennett for the Goldwyn Studio and had been working there a year. Mickey, aided by a hit song and a successful merchandising campaign, proved Normand's most successful film, but Sennett had lost legal control of it, and neither shared in its profits.Normand's sojourn to Goldwyn resulted in disappointing returns, and in 1920, Sam Goldwyn was happy to sell Sennett back her contract. During this time, Normand had become dependant on cocaine and began to suffer months-long periods of illness where she could not work. Once back at Sennett, she made Molly O' (1921), a property more or less modeled right after Mickey; it was enormously successful. However, on February 1, 1922, director William Desmond Taylor was shot in the back and killed, and Normand was unfortunate enough to be the last person to see him alive. Although she had nothing to do with Taylor's murder, her name was added early on to a long list of suspects in the still unsolved case. Although her reputation was sullied, Normand made one more feature with Sennett, The Extra Girl (1923), which remains the most frequently seen of her films, and one of her best. Although it opened to enthusiastic crowds and good reviews, at a New Year's Eve party in 1923, Normand was witness to yet another shooting, this time of playboy Courtland S. Dines, by Normand's chauffeur, with her gun. Dines survived, but Normand's reputation was mortally wounded.Although publicly Sennett declared that he planned to continue making films with Normand, in private they agreed to end their association. In 1926, Normand married actor Lew Cody and made five films with Hal Roach. These were her last, for in February 1927 Normand fell prey to her final bout with illness, which claimed her at the age of 37 after three years of slowly declining health. Though tuberculosis was given as cause, research in the late 20th century revealed that Normand may have died from a disease that was carried congenitally through her family line. Altogether Mabel Normand appeared in about 230 films and directed 16 of them; roughly 45 percent of her titles survive. It is not as generous a bequest as it sounds; a third of that total consists of 1914 films in which she co-starred with Chaplin, and the remainder includes only two of her Goldwyn features and one Vitagraph. At her peak, Normand was worshipped by scores of women who admired her for being wealthy, independent, fashionable, and flamboyant -- not to mention well read and eloquent in interviews. She remains one of the most captivating and unique figures among American silent-screen stars.

Trivia: After 22 years of experience with minstrel shows, vaudeville, and legitimate theater, in 1913 he joined Mack Sennett's Keystone comedies. Standing 6'2" and weighing 280 pounds, he was skilled in knockabout, slapstick comedy; he supported Charlie Chaplin in many of the latter's earliest shorts. In late 1914 he began starring in his own comedy series, portraying Ambrose, an energetic, lecherous lout with a huge mustache and thick makeup. In the late teens his career started drying up, and he might have become a has-been if not for Charlie Chaplin, who rescued his career; he played supporting roles in many of Chaplin's films, including his features. He was especially memorable in The Gold Rush (1925) as the starving prospector who imagines Chaplin to be a chicken dinner. He went on to play character parts and occasional leads through the early '30s.