Harry Langdon — Biographical Sketch (1927) 🇺🇸
Harry Langdon came honestly by that wistful look he employs so successfully on the screen. He acquired it when as a newsboy in his home town of Council Bluffs, la., he gazed with envying eyes on the performers at the Doheny Theatre.
Harry’s career very much resembles that of Ragged Dick and Tattered Tom. The difference was that Harry had a vague idea as to just what he wanted to be. He was bound and determined to be an actor, so he started from the ground up.
Early in his teens he abandoned his newsboy work to become assistant janitor at the Doheny. Then in turn he became program boy, usher and ticket taker. The house took up “amateur nights,” and Harry was among the first volunteers.
The applause at these amateur shows spurred him on, and he soon got a chance to join a traveling medicine show. He returned later to Council Bluffs and became an actor at Mickey Mullin’s Music Hall. This lead to the comedy star rôle in a traveling road company playing The Show Girl through the Middle West.
Young Langdon sat down one night after the show and started writing a vaudeville act, which eventually resulted in his becoming a picture star. The act lasted him through six seasons, and brought him to Los Angeles and the attention of Mack Sennett.
Sennett offered him a contract in pictures for considerably less money than he was making, but he took a chance and made good in two-reel comedies at once. For two years he made many of them. A contract was then forthcoming from First National for him to produce his own feature length comedies, and he has been doing just that ever since.
His first was Tramp, Tramp, Tramp, and there was a clamor for it on the part of exhibitors. Then came The Strong Man and “Long Pants.” His latest vehicle is “Three’s A Crowd,” and as a result he is more popular than ever.
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Harry Langdon
Now —
- Three’s a Crowd
- Long Pants
- The Strong Man
- Tramp, Tramp, Tramp
Produced by The Harry Langdon Corp.
Distributing through First National
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Collection: Motion Picture News, October 1927 (Booking Guide and Studio Directory)