Noah Young & Sammy Brooks — A Nine-Year Quarrel (1925) 🇺🇸

Strange friendships develop oftentimes at motion-picture studios.

For example, the case of Noah Young, strong man playing heavies at the Hal Roach lot, and Sammy Brooks, diminutive comedian. For nine years these two have fought it out together.

Sammy, not enough over four feet to make it worth mentioning, has called Noah, six feet four, all the disrespectful names he ever knew and even acquired choice selections from the Greek, Scandinavian and Sioux to use on special occasions. He has offered to fight the “heavy” at any spot on the globe, Marquis of Queensburg, or bare fists. The big man just grins at him.

Let a bunch of rough outsiders, extras, come in for a day’s work, however, and get to jostling little Sammy about unnecessarily, and there comes the form of a two-hundred-and-ten pound giant slowly wading in to stop by the little fellow’s side. Then the jostlings end. Noah and Sammy are the closest friends.

Most every one who has seen Roach comedies will recall Noah because of his tremendous physique. He has developed in nine years from a supporting character player to a capable actor and has appeared in more than three hundred rôles. Sammy Brooks has been in literally more than a thousand makeups, sometimes in just a flash as a clown or court jester, sometimes in important parts for contrast with other players. He was a vaudeville comedian before joining Roach.

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Photo by: Lee Graves

Collection: Picture Play Magazine, September 1925