Broncho Billy Anderson
Encyclopedia
Gilbert M. "Broncho Billy" Anderson (March 21, 1880 – January 20, 1971) was an American
actor
, writer
, film director
, and film producer
, who is best known as the first star of the Western film genre.
, Arkansas
, the sixth child of Henry and Esther (Ash) Aronson, natives of New York. His family was Jewish
. He lived until age eight in Pine Bluff, Arkansas
, then moved with his family to St. Louis, Missouri
. At 18, he moved to New York City
. He attempted a career in vaudeville
and the theatre and supplemented his income as a photographer's model and a newspaper vendor. In 1903, he met Edwin S. Porter
, who gave him work as an actor and occasional script collaborator.
The Great Train Robbery
(1903), Anderson played three roles. After seeing the film for the first time at a vaudeville theater and being overwhelmed by the audience's reaction, Anderson decided the film industry was for him. Using the stage name
Gilbert M. Anderson, he began to write, direct, and act in his own westerns.
In 1907, he and George Kirke Spoor founded Essanay Studios
("S and A" for Spoor and Anderson), one of the predominant early movie studio
s. Anderson acted in over 300 short films for the studio. Though he played a wide variety of characters, he gained enormous popularity in a series of 148 silent
western shorts, becoming the first cowboy star of movies, "Broncho Billy." Spoor stayed in Chicago running the company like a factory, while Anderson traveled the western United States by train with a film crew shooting movies. Many of these were shot in Niles, a small town in Alameda County, California
, southeast of San Francisco, where the nearby Western Pacific Railroad
route thru Niles Canyon
proved to be a very suitable location for the filming of Westerns.
Writing, acting, and directing most of these movies, Anderson also found time to direct a series of "Alkali Ike" comedy westerns starring Augustus Carney. In 1916, Anderson sold his ownership in Essanay and retired from acting. He returned to New York
, bought the Longacre Theatre
and produced plays, but without permanent success. He then made a brief comeback as a producer with a series of shorts with Stan Laurel
, including his first work with Oliver Hardy
in A Lucky Dog
(filmed in 1919, released in 1921). Conflicts with the studio, Metro, led him to retire again after 1920.
Anderson sued Paramount Pictures
for naming a character "Bronco Billy" in Star Spangled Rhythm
(1943) and for depicting the character as a "washed-up and broken-down actor," which he felt reflected badly on him. He asked for $900,000, but the outcome of the suit is unknown.
Anderson resumed producing movies, as owner of Progressive Pictures, into the 1950s, then retired again. In 1958, he received an Honorary
Academy Award
as a "motion picture pioneer" for his "contributions to the development of motion pictures as entertainment."
At age 85, Anderson came out of retirement for a cameo role in The Bounty Killer (1965). For the last several years of his life, he lived at the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital
in Woodland Hills, California.
. Anderson was survived by his wife, the former Mollie Louise Schabbleman, and their daughter, Maxine. He was cremated and his ashes placed in a vault at the Chapel of the Pines Crematory
in Los Angeles
.
in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
. For the past nine years, Niles (now part of Fremont
), California, site of the western Essanay Studios, has held an annual "Broncho Billy Silent Film Festival."
Anderson has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
at 1651 Vine Street in Hollywood.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
actor
Actor
An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...
, writer
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
, film director
Film director
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...
, and film producer
Film producer
A film producer oversees and delivers a film project to all relevant parties while preserving the integrity, voice and vision of the film. They will also often take on some financial risk by using their own money, especially during the pre-production period, before a film is fully financed.The...
, who is best known as the first star of the Western film genre.
Early life
Anderson was born Maxwell Henry Aronson in Little RockLittle Rock, Arkansas
Little Rock is the capital and the largest city of the U.S. state of Arkansas. The Metropolitan Statistical Area had a population of 699,757 people in the 2010 census...
, Arkansas
Arkansas
Arkansas is a state located in the southern region of the United States. Its name is an Algonquian name of the Quapaw Indians. Arkansas shares borders with six states , and its eastern border is largely defined by the Mississippi River...
, the sixth child of Henry and Esther (Ash) Aronson, natives of New York. His family was Jewish
Jews
The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
. He lived until age eight in Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Pine Bluff is the largest city and county seat of Jefferson County, Arkansas, United States. It is also the principal city of the Pine Bluff Metropolitan Statistical Area and part of the Little Rock-North Little Rock-Pine Bluff, Arkansas Combined Statistical Area...
, then moved with his family to St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...
. At 18, he moved to New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. He attempted a career in vaudeville
Vaudeville
Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...
and the theatre and supplemented his income as a photographer's model and a newspaper vendor. In 1903, he met Edwin S. Porter
Edwin S. Porter
Edwin Stanton Porter was an American early film pioneer, most famous as a director with Thomas Edison's company...
, who gave him work as an actor and occasional script collaborator.
Film
In Porter's early motion pictureFilm
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
The Great Train Robbery
The Great Train Robbery (1903 film)
The Great Train Robbery is a 1903 American action Western film by Edwin S. Porter. Twelve minutes long, it is considered a milestone in film making, expanding on Porter's previous work Life of an American Fireman. The film used a number of innovative techniques including cross cutting, double...
(1903), Anderson played three roles. After seeing the film for the first time at a vaudeville theater and being overwhelmed by the audience's reaction, Anderson decided the film industry was for him. Using the stage name
Stage name
A stage name, also called a showbiz name or screen name, is a pseudonym used by performers and entertainers such as actors, wrestlers, comedians, and musicians.-Motivation to use a stage name:...
Gilbert M. Anderson, he began to write, direct, and act in his own westerns.
In 1907, he and George Kirke Spoor founded Essanay Studios
Essanay Studios
The Essanay Film Manufacturing Company was an American motion picture studio. It is best known today for its series of Charlie Chaplin comedies of 1915.-Founding:...
("S and A" for Spoor and Anderson), one of the predominant early movie studio
Movie studio
A movie studio is a term used to describe a major entertainment company or production company that has its own privately owned studio facility or facilities that are used to film movies...
s. Anderson acted in over 300 short films for the studio. Though he played a wide variety of characters, he gained enormous popularity in a series of 148 silent
Silent film
A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...
western shorts, becoming the first cowboy star of movies, "Broncho Billy." Spoor stayed in Chicago running the company like a factory, while Anderson traveled the western United States by train with a film crew shooting movies. Many of these were shot in Niles, a small town in Alameda County, California
Alameda County, California
Alameda County is a county in the U.S. state of California. It occupies most of the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area. As of the 2010 census it had a population of 1,510,271, making it the 7th most populous county in the state...
, southeast of San Francisco, where the nearby Western Pacific Railroad
Western Pacific Railroad
The Western Pacific Railroad was a Class I railroad in the United States. It was formed in 1903 as an attempt to break the near-monopoly the Southern Pacific Railroad had on rail service into northern California...
route thru Niles Canyon
Niles Canyon
Niles Canyon is a canyon in the San Francisco Bay Area formed by Alameda Creek. The canyon is largely in an unincorporated area of Alameda County, while the western portion of the canyon lies within the city limits of Fremont and Union City...
proved to be a very suitable location for the filming of Westerns.
Writing, acting, and directing most of these movies, Anderson also found time to direct a series of "Alkali Ike" comedy westerns starring Augustus Carney. In 1916, Anderson sold his ownership in Essanay and retired from acting. He returned to New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, bought the Longacre Theatre
Longacre Theatre
The Longacre Theatre is a Broadway theatre located at 220 West 48th Street in midtown Manhattan.-Theatre History:Designed by architect Henry Beaumont Herts in 1912, it was named for Longacre Square, the original name for Times Square...
and produced plays, but without permanent success. He then made a brief comeback as a producer with a series of shorts with Stan Laurel
Stan Laurel
Arthur Stanley "Stan" Jefferson , better known as Stan Laurel, was an English comic actor, writer and film director, famous as the first half of the comedy team Laurel and Hardy. His film acting career stretched between 1917 and 1951 and included a starring role in the Academy Award winning film...
, including his first work with Oliver Hardy
Oliver Hardy
Oliver Hardy was an American comic actor famous as one half of Laurel and Hardy, the classic double act that began in the era of silent films and lasted nearly 30 years, from 1927 to 1955.-Early life:...
in A Lucky Dog
A Lucky Dog
The Lucky Dog was the first film to include both members of the famous comedy duo of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, later known as Laurel and Hardy and is the first occasion that they worked together....
(filmed in 1919, released in 1921). Conflicts with the studio, Metro, led him to retire again after 1920.
Anderson sued Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
for naming a character "Bronco Billy" in Star Spangled Rhythm
Star Spangled Rhythm
Star Spangled Rhythm is a 1943 all-star cast musical film made by Paramount Pictures during World War II as a morale booster. Many of the Hollywood studios produced such films during the war, generally musicals, frequently with flimsy storylines, and with the specific intent of entertaining the...
(1943) and for depicting the character as a "washed-up and broken-down actor," which he felt reflected badly on him. He asked for $900,000, but the outcome of the suit is unknown.
Anderson resumed producing movies, as owner of Progressive Pictures, into the 1950s, then retired again. In 1958, he received an Honorary
Academy Honorary Award
The Academy Honorary Award, instituted in 1948 for the 21st Academy Awards , is given by the discretion of the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to celebrate motion picture achievements that are not covered by existing Academy Awards, although prior winners of...
Academy Award
Academy Awards
An Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...
as a "motion picture pioneer" for his "contributions to the development of motion pictures as entertainment."
At age 85, Anderson came out of retirement for a cameo role in The Bounty Killer (1965). For the last several years of his life, he lived at the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital
Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital
The Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital is a retirement community, with individual cottages, and a fully licensed, acute-care hospital, located at 23388 Mulholland Drive in Woodland Hills, California...
in Woodland Hills, California.
Death
Anderson died in 1971 at the age of 90, at a sanitarium in South Pasadena, CaliforniaSouth Pasadena, California
South Pasadena is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. As of the 2010 census, it had a population of 25,619, up from 24,292 at the 2000 census. It is located in in the West San Gabriel Valley...
. Anderson was survived by his wife, the former Mollie Louise Schabbleman, and their daughter, Maxine. He was cremated and his ashes placed in a vault at the Chapel of the Pines Crematory
Chapel of the Pines Crematory
Chapel of the Pines Crematory is a crematory and columbarium located at 1605 South Catalina Street Los Angeles, California, in the historic West Adams District a short distance southwest of Downtown...
in Los Angeles
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
.
Legacy
Anderson was honored posthumously in 1998 with his image on a U.S. postage stamp. In 2002, he was inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage MuseumNational Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum
The National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum is a museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, with more than 28,000 Western and American Indian art works and artifacts. The facility also has the world's most extensive collection of American rodeo, photographs, barbed wire, saddlery, and early rodeo trophies...
in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Oklahoma City is the capital and the largest city in the state of Oklahoma. The county seat of Oklahoma County, the city ranks 31st among United States cities in population. The city's population, from the 2010 census, was 579,999, with a metro-area population of 1,252,987 . In 2010, the Oklahoma...
. For the past nine years, Niles (now part of Fremont
Fremont, California
Fremont is a city in Alameda County, California. It was incorporated on January 23, 1956, from the merger of five smaller communities: Centerville, Niles, Irvington, Mission San Jose, and Warm Springs...
), California, site of the western Essanay Studios, has held an annual "Broncho Billy Silent Film Festival."
Anderson has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
Hollywood Walk of Fame
The Hollywood Walk of Fame consists of more than 2,400 five-pointed terrazzo and brass stars embedded in the sidewalks along fifteen blocks of Hollywood Boulevard and three blocks of Vine Street in Hollywood, California...
at 1651 Vine Street in Hollywood.
See also
- Broncho Billy Anderson filmography
- San Francisco Sunday Examiner & Chronicle, 21 Sep 1980, magazine section p. 54, about Essanay (Spoor & Aronson) studios at Niles, California