Snub Pollard
Snub Pollard | |
---|---|
Pollard in 1920 ad for a series of comedy short films | |
Born |
Harold Fraser 9 November 1889 Melbourne, Victoria |
Died |
19 January 1962 72) Burbank, California, U.S. | (aged
Occupation | Actor, comedian |
Years active | 1913–1962 |
Harry "Snub" Pollard (9 November 1889 – 19 January 1962) was a silent film comedian, popular in the 1920s. He was born Harold Fraser in Melbourne, Australia in 1889.
Career
Often mistaken as the brother of Australian actress Daphne Pollard, though the two were not related.[1] Harry Pollard was born as Harold Fraser and took the name Pollard as his stage name. In addition, the two both acted with "Pollard's Lilliputian Opera Co." in Australia, which gave stage performances featuring children and performers of small stature. This was a very well-known troupe in its time, and many of its performers adopted the surname "Pollard".
Pollard played supporting roles in the early films of Harold Lloyd. The long-faced Pollard sported a Kaiser Wilhelm mustache turned upside-down; this became his trademark. Lloyd's producer, Hal Roach, gave Pollard his own starring series of one- and two-reel shorts. The most famous is 1923's It's a Gift, in which he plays an inventor of many Rube Goldberg-like contraptions, including a car that runs by magnet power.
Pollard left Roach in 1924 and joined the low-budget Weiss Brothers studio in 1926. There he co-starred with Marvin Loback as a poor man's version of Laurel and Hardy, copying that team's plots and gags.
In the 1930s, Pollard played small parts in talking comedies, and was featured as comic relief in "B" westerns. Pollard's silent-comedy credentials guaranteed him work in slapstick revivals. He appeared with other film veterans in Hollywood Cavalcade (1939), The Perils of Pauline (1947), and Man of a Thousand Faces (1957). He also appeared regularly as a supporting player in Columbia Pictures' two-reel comedies of the mid-1940s.
Forsaking his familiar mustache, he landed much steadier work as a bit player. He played incidental roles in scores of Hollywood features and shorts, almost always as a mousy, nondescript fellow, usually with no dialogue: In Wheeler & Woolsey's Cockeyed Cavaliers (1934) he played a drunken doctor and at the end of Miracle on 34th Street (1947), when a squad of bailiffs hauling sacks of mail enters the courtroom, Pollard brings up the rear. In Singin' in the Rain he receives the umbrella of Gene Kelly after his famous Singin' in the Rain scene. In Frank Capra's Pocketful of Miracles (1961), Pollard plays a Broadway beggar. His last film, Twist Around the Clock (1962), shows him wordlessly reacting to a curvaceous woman dancing energetically.
Death and recognition
Snub Pollard died of cancer on 19 January 1962, aged 72, after nearly 50 years in the movie business. His interment was at Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Hollywood Hills).
For his contributions to motion pictures, Pollard has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6415½ Hollywood Boulevard.
Selected filmography
- Sally Scraggs: Housemaid (short) (1913)
- A Coat Tale (short) (as Harry Pollard) (1915)
- By the Sea (1915)
- His Regeneration (1915)
- Giving Them Fits (1915)
- Bughouse Bellhops (1915)
- Tinkering with Trouble (1915)
- Great While It Lasted (1915)
- Ragtime Snap Shots (1915)
- A Foozle at the Tee Party (1915)
- Ruses, Rhymes and Roughnecks (1915)
- Peculiar Patients' Pranks (1915)
- Lonesome Luke, Social Gangster (1915)
- Lonesome Luke Leans to the Literary (1916)
- Luke Lugs Luggage (1916)
- Lonesome Luke Lolls in Luxury (1916)
- Luke, the Candy Cut-Up (1916)
- Luke Foils the Villain (1916)
- Luke and the Rural Roughnecks (1916)
- Luke Pipes the Pippins (1916)
- Lonesome Luke, Circus King (1916)
- Luke's Double (1916)
- Them Was the Happy Days! (1916)
- Luke and the Bomb Throwers (1916)
- Luke's Late Lunchers (1916)
- Luke Laughs Last (1916)
- Luke's Fatal Flivver (1916)
- Luke's Society Mixup (1916)
- Luke's Washful Waiting (1916)
- Luke Rides Roughshod (1916)
- Luke's Lost Lamb (1916)
- Luke, Crystal Gazer (1916)
- Luke Does the Midway (1916)
- Luke Joins the Navy (1916)
- Luke and the Mermaids (1916)
- Luke's Speedy Club Life (1916)
- Luke and the Bang-Tails (1916)
- Luke, the Chauffeur (1916)
- Luke's Preparedness Preparations (1916)
- Luke, the Gladiator (1916)
- Luke, Patient Provider (1916)
- Luke's Newsie Knockout (1916)
- Luke's Movie Muddle (1916)
- Luke, Rank Impersonator (1916)
- Luke's Fireworks Fizzle (1916)
- Luke Locates the Loot (1916)
- Luke's Shattered Sleep (1916)
- Lonesome Luke's Lovely Rifle (1917)
- Luke's Lost Liberty (1917)
- Luke's Busy Day (1917)
- Luke's Trolley Troubles (1917)
- Lonesome Luke, Lawyer (1917)
- Luke Wins Ye Ladye Faire (1917)
- Lonesome Luke's Lively Life (1917)
- Lonesome Luke on Tin Can Alley (1917)
- Lonesome Luke's Honeymoon (1917)
- Lonesome Luke, Plumber (1917)
- Stop! Luke! Listen! (1917)
- Lonesome Luke, Messenger (1917)
- Lonesome Luke, Mechanic (1917)
- Lonesome Luke's Wild Women (1917)
- Over the Fence (1917)
- Lonesome Luke Loses Patients (1917)
- Pinched (1917)
- By the Sad Sea Waves (1917)
- Birds of a Feather (1917)
- Bliss (1917)
- From Laramie to London (1917)
- Rainbow Island (1917)
- Love, Laughs and Lather (1917)
- The Flirt (1917)
- Clubs Are Trump (1917)
- All Aboard (1917)
- We Never Sleep (1917)
- Move On (1917)
- Bashful (1917)
- Step Lively (1917)
- The Big Idea (1917)
- The Tip (1918)
- The Lamb (1918)
- Hit Him Again (1918)
- Beat It (1918)
- A Gasoline Wedding (1918)
- Look Pleasant, Please (1918)
- Here Come the Girls (1918)
- Let's Go (1918)
- On the Jump (1918)
- Follow the Crowd (1918)
- Pipe the Whiskers (1918)
- It's a Wild Life (1918)
- Hey There! (1918)
- Kicked Out (1918)
- The Non-Stop Kid (1918)
- Two-Gun Gussie (1918)
- Fireman Save My Child (1918)
- The City Slicker (1918)
- Sic 'Em, Towser (1918)
- Somewhere in Turkey (1918)
- Are Crooks Dishonest? (1918)
- An Ozark Romance (1918)
- Kicking the Germ Out of Germany (1918)
- That's Him (1918)
- Bride and Gloom (1918)
- Two Scrambled (1918)
- Bees in His Bonnet (1918)
- Swing Your Partners (1918)
- Why Pick on Me? (1918)
- Nothing But Trouble (1918)
- Back to the Woods (1918)
- Hear 'Em Rave (1918)
- Take a Chance (1918)
- She Loves Me Not (1918)
- Wanted - $5,000 (1919)
- Going! Going! Gone! (1919)
- Ask Father (1919)
- On the Fire, aka. The Chef (1919)
- I'm on My Way (1919)
- Look Out Below (1919)
- The Dutiful Dub (1919)
- Next Aisle Over (1919)
- A Sammy In Siberia (1919)
- Just Dropped In (1919)
- Young Mr. Jazz (1919)
- Crack Your Heels (1919)
- Ring Up the Curtain, aka. Back-Stage! (1919)
- Si, Senor (1919)
- Before Breakfast (1919)
- The Marathon (1919)
- Pistols for Breakfast (1919)
- Swat the Crook (1919)
- Off the Trolley (1919)
- Spring Fever (1919)
- Billy Blazes, Esq. (1919)
- Just Neighbors (1919)
- At the Old Stage Door (1919)
- Never Touched Me (1919)
- A Jazzed Honeymoon (1919)
- Count Your Change (1919)
- Chop Suey & Co. (1919)
- Heap Big Chief (1919)
- Don't Shove (1919)
- Be My Wife (1919)
- The Rajah (1919)
- He Leads, Others Follow (1919)
- Soft Money (1919)
- Count the Votes (1919)
- Pay Your Dues (1919)
- His Only Father (1919)
- Bumping Into Broadway (1919)
- Captain Kidd's Kids (1919)
- From Hand to Mouth (1919)
- His Royal Slyness' (1920)
- It's a Gift (1923)
- The Strange Love of Molly Louvain (1932)
- The Midnight Patrol (1932)
- Bars of Hate (1935)
- Tex Rides with the Boy Scouts (1937)
- Sing, Cowboy, Sing (1937)
- Nation Aflame (1937)
- Hollywood Cavalcade (1939)
- Phony Express (1943)
- Bowery to Broadway (1944)
- The Hoodlum Saint (1946)
- Miracle on 34th Street (1947)
- Adam's Rib (1949)
- All About Eve (1950)
- Singin' in the Rain (1952) (Gene Kelly hands him the umbrella)
- Limelight (1952)
- Man of a Thousand Faces (1957)
- Heller in Pink Tights (1960)
- Twelve Hours to Kill (1960)
- Who Was That Lady? (1960)
- Inherit the Wind (1960)
- Studs Lonigan (1960)
- Pepe (1960)
- One-Eyed Jacks (1961)
- Master of the World (1961)
- The Ladies Man (1961)
- Homicidal (1961)
- The Errand Boy (1961)
- Pocketful of Miracles (1961)
- Twist Around the Clock (1961)
- The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)
References
External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Snub Pollard. |
- Snub Pollard at the Internet Movie Database
- Snub Pollard at Golden Silents
- Snub Pollard at Find a Grave