Almanac: Harold Lloyd
And now a page from our "Sunday Morning" Almanac, March 8th 1971, 44 years ago today . . . the final fade-out for one of Hollywood's earliest comic stars.
For that was the day Harold Lloyd died at the age of 77.
A bit player in some early comedy shorts, Lloyd found box office success once he started playing a bespectacled Everyman.
In hit film after hit film in the 1920s, he proved himself a master of the well-timed (and sometimes death-defying) stunt.
His encounter with a clock in the 1923 film "Safety Last!" is one of the most iconic scenes in movie history.
It was a vertiginous peril he reprised, at greater length, in the 1930 film, "Feet First."
Yet, for all that high-rise derring-do, "Feet First" was one of Harold Lloyd's LAST movies.
A silent star at heart, Lloyd failed to find his footing in the new world of talking pictures, and largely disappeared from public view for many years.
Until 1962, that is -- when he returned with an anthology film of many of his classics, called "Harold Lloyd's World of Comedy."
In an appearance on the CBS show "Calendar" that same year, he talked with Harry Reasoner about the distinctive character he had created for his films:
"When I adopted the glasses, it more or less put me in a different category," Lloyd said, "because I became a human being. He was a kid that you would meet next door or across the street."
Or, very far above it!
For more info:
- haroldlloyd.com (Official site)
- Harold Lloyd at IMDB.com
- "The Freshman" (1925) - Available on Blu-ray/DVD from Criterion; Also available via digital download from Hulu Plus and iTunes
- "Safety Last!" (1923) - Available on Blu-ray/DVD from Criterion; Also available via digital download from Hulu Plus and iTunes