Harry Philmore Langdon was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 comedian

Comedian

A comedian or comic is a person who seeks to entertain an audience, primarily by making them laugh. This might be through jokes or amusing situations, or acting a fool, as in slapstick, or employing prop comedy...

 who appeared 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...

, silent film

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...

s (where he had his greatest fame), and talkies. He was briefly partnered 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:...

.

Life and career

Born in Council Bluffs, Iowa

Council Bluffs, Iowa

Council Bluffs, known until 1852 as Kanesville, Iowathe historic starting point of the Mormon Trail and eventual northernmost anchor town of the other emigrant trailsis a city in and the county seat of Pottawattamie County, Iowa, United States and is on the east bank of the Missouri River across...

, he began working 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...

 then joined Vitagraph Movie Studios

Vitagraph Studios

American Vitagraph was a United States movie studio, founded by J. Stuart Blackton and Albert E. Smith in 1897 in Brooklyn, New York. By 1907 it was the most prolific American film production company, producing many famous silent films. It was bought by Warner Bros...

. He eventually went over to Keystone Studios

Keystone Studios

Keystone Studios was an early movie studio founded in Edendale, California in 1912 as the Keystone Pictures Studio by Mack Sennett with backing from Adam Kessel and Charles O. Bauman, owners of the New York Motion Picture Company...

 where he became a major star. At the height of his film career he was considered one of the four best comics of the silent film era. His screen character was that of a wide-eyed, childlike man with an innocent's understanding of the world and the people in it. He was a first-class pantomimist.

Most of Langdon's 1920s work was produced at the famous Mack Sennett

Mack Sennett

Mack Sennett was a Canadian-born American director and was known as the innovator of slapstick comedy in film. During his lifetime he was known at times as the "King of Comedy"...

 studio. His screen character was so unique, and his antics so different from the broad Sennett slapstick, that he soon had a following. Success led him into feature films, directed by Arthur Ripley and Frank Capra

Frank Capra

Frank Russell Capra was a Sicilian-born American film director. He emigrated to the U.S. when he was six, and eventually became a creative force behind major award-winning films during the 1930s and 1940s...

. When Langdon had such good directors guiding him, he produced work that rivaled Charlie Chaplin

Charlie Chaplin

Sir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin, KBE was an English comic actor, film director and composer best known for his work during the silent film era. He became the most famous film star in the world before the end of World War I...

's, Harold Lloyd

Harold Lloyd

Harold Clayton Lloyd, Sr. was an American film actor and producer, most famous for his silent comedies....

's, and Buster Keaton

Buster Keaton

Joseph Frank "Buster" Keaton was an American comic actor, filmmaker, producer and writer. He was best known for his silent films, in which his trademark was physical comedy with a consistently stoic, deadpan expression, earning him the nickname "The Great Stone Face".Keaton was recognized as the...

's. His best films were The Strong Man

The Strong Man

The Strong Man is a 1926 American comedy silent film starring Harry Langdon and directed by Frank Capra.Along with Tramp, Tramp, Tramp, The Strong Man is Langdon's best known film...

(1926

1926 in film

-Events:*August - Warner Brothers debuts the first Vitaphone film, Don Juan. The Vitaphone system used multiple 33⅓ rpm disc records developed by Bell Telephone Laboratories and Western Electric to play back audio synchronized with film....

), Tramp, Tramp, Tramp

Tramp, Tramp, Tramp

Tramp, Tramp, Tramp is an American comedy silent film directed by Harry Edwards. It features Harry Langdon and Joan Crawford.-Plot:The film tells of Harry a ne'er-do-well who falls in love with Betty...

(1926) and Long Pants

Long Pants

Long Pants is a 1927 American comedy silent film starring Harry Langdon and directed by Frank Capra. Additional cast members include Gladys Brockwell, Alan Roscoe, Priscilla Bonner, and others.-Plot:...

(1927). After his initial success, Langdon took creative control of his films and career, but his appeal faded soon afterward. His last starring silent feature was made in 1928. Capra later claimed that Langdon's decline stemmed from the fact that, unlike the other great silent comics, he never fully understood what made his own film character successful. However, Langdon's biographer William Schelly among others have expressed skepticism about this claim, arguing that Langdon had established his character in vaudeville long before he entered movies, added by the fact that he wrote most of his own material during his stage years. The truth most likely lies somewhere between these two points, but history shows that Langdon's greatest success was while being directed by Capra, and once he took hold of his own destiny, his original film comedy persona dropped sharply in popularity with audiences. This is likely not due to Langdon's material, which he had always written himself, but with his inexperience with the many fine points of directing, at which Capra excelled, but at which Langdon was a novice.

Harry Langdon's babyish character didn't adapt well to sound films; as producer Hal Roach

Hal Roach

Harold Eugene "Hal" Roach, Sr. was an American film and television producer and director, and from the 1910s to the 1990s.- Early life and career :Hal Roach was born in Elmira, New York...

 remarked, "he was not so funny articulate" (he initially featured Langdon in several "talkie" shorts in 1929-'30, but those were unsuccessful, and Harry was released from his contract). But Langdon was a big enough name to command leads in short subjects for Educational Pictures

Educational Pictures

Educational Pictures was a film distribution company founded in 1919 by Earle Hammons . Educational primarily distributed short subjects, and today is probably best known for its series of 1930s comedies starring Buster Keaton, as well as for a series of one-reel comedies featuring Shirley...

 and Columbia Pictures

Columbia Pictures

Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production and distribution company. Columbia Pictures now forms part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. It is one of the leading film companies...

. In 1938 he adopted a Caspar Milquetoast

Caspar Milquetoast

Caspar Milquetoast was a comic strip character created by H. T. Webster for his cartoon series, The Timid Soul. In 1912, Webster drew a daily panel for the New York Tribune, under a variety of titles—Our Boyhood Ambitions, Life's Darkest Moment, The Unseen Audience...

-type, henpecked-husband character that served him well, he also contributed to comedy scripts as a writer, notably for Laurel and Hardy

Laurel and Hardy

Laurel and Hardy were one of the most popular and critically acclaimed comedy double acts of the early Classical Hollywood era of American cinema...

. Langdon continued to work steadily in low-budget features and shorts, always playing mild-mannered goofs, into the 1940s. As a point of interest, when Hal Roach

Hal Roach

Harold Eugene "Hal" Roach, Sr. was an American film and television producer and director, and from the 1910s to the 1990s.- Early life and career :Hal Roach was born in Elmira, New York...

 was in a contract dispute 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...

, one-half of the great Laurel and Hardy

Laurel and Hardy

Laurel and Hardy were one of the most popular and critically acclaimed comedy double acts of the early Classical Hollywood era of American cinema...

 comedic pair, the studio paired Langdon 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 1939 film titled Zenobia

Zenobia (film)

Zenobia is a 1939 comedy film starring Oliver Hardy, Harry Langdon, Billie Burke, Alice Brady, James Ellison, Jean Parker, June Lang, Stepin Fetchit, and Hattie McDaniel...

.

Harry Langdon kept busy right up until his death in 1944 (in Los Angeles, from a cerebral hemorrhage). He was interred in the Grand View Memorial Park Cemetery

Grand View Memorial Park Cemetery

Grand View Memorial Park Cemetery at 1341 GlenwoodRoad in Glendale, California was established in 1884 as Grand View Cemetery.The cemetery was purchased by Len C. Davis in the 1920s, renamed Grand View Memorial Park, and extensively remodeled. A 40 foot entrance arch was added on what is now...

 in Glendale, California

Glendale, California

Glendale is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. As of the 2010 Census, the city population is 191,719, down from 194,973 at the 2000 census. making it the third largest city in Los Angeles County and the 22nd largest city in the state of California...

. At the height of his career, Langdon was making $7,500 per week, a fortune for the times. Upon his death, The New York Times

The New York Times

The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

wrote, "His whole appeal was a consummate ability to look inexpressibly forlorn when confronted with manifold misfortunes--usually of the domestic type. He was what was known as 'dead-pan'...the feeble smile and owlish blink which had become his stock-in-trade caught on in a big way, and he skyrocketed to fame and fortune..."

In 1997, his hometown of Council Bluffs celebrated "Harry Langdon Day" and in 1999 named Harry Langdon Boulevard in his honor. For his contribution to the motion picture industry, Harry Langdon 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 6925 Hollywood Blvd.

Selected filmography

• The Sky Scraper aka The Greenhorn (1923)
• A Tough Tenderfoot aka Horace Greeley, Jr. (1923)
• A Perfect Nuisance aka The White Wing's Bride (1923)

• Picking Peaches (1924)
• Smile Please (1924)
• Shanghaied Lovers (1924)
• Scarem Much (1924)
• Flickering Youth (1924)
• The Cat's Meow (1924)
• His New Mamma (1924)
• The First Hundred Years (1924)
• The Lock o' the Foolish (1924)
• The Hansom Cabman (1924)
• All Night Long (1924)
• Feet of Mud (1924)

• The Sea Squawk (1925)
• Boos in the Woods (1925)
• His Marriage Wow (1925)
• Plain Clothes (1925)
• Remember When (1925)
• Lucky Stars (1925)
• There He Goes (1925)

• Saturday Afternoon (1926)
• Tramp, Tramp, Tramp
  Tramp, Tramp, Tramp
  Tramp, Tramp, Tramp is an American comedy silent film directed by Harry Edwards. It features Harry Langdon and Joan Crawford.-Plot:The film tells of Harry a ne'er-do-well who falls in love with Betty...
  
   (1926)
• Soldier Man (1926)
• Ella Cinders (1926)
• The Strong Man
  The Strong Man
  The Strong Man is a 1926 American comedy silent film starring Harry Langdon and directed by Frank Capra.Along with Tramp, Tramp, Tramp, The Strong Man is Langdon's best known film...
  
   (1926)

• Long Pants
  Long Pants
  Long Pants is a 1927 American comedy silent film starring Harry Langdon and directed by Frank Capra. Additional cast members include Gladys Brockwell, Alan Roscoe, Priscilla Bonner, and others.-Plot:...
  
   (1927)
• His First Flame
  His First Flame
  His First Flame is an American silent comedy film starring Harry Langdon and directed by Harry Edwards. Additional cast members include Natalie Kingston, Ruth Hiatt, Vernon Dent, and others.-Plot:...
  
   (1927)
• Three's A Crowd (1927)
• Fiddlesticks (1927)

• The Chaser (1928)
• Heart Trouble (1928)

• Hotter Than Hot (1929)
• Sky Boy (1929)
• Skirt Shy (1929)

• The Head Guy (1930)
• The Fighting Parson (1930)
• The Big Kick (1930)
• The Shrimp (1930)
• The King (1930)
• A Soldier's Plaything (1930)
• See America Thirst (1930)

• The Big Flash (1932)

• Tired Feet (1933)
• Hallelujah, I'm a Bum! (1933)
• The Hitchhiker (1933)
• Knight Duty (1933)
• Tied for Like (1933)
• Marriage Humor (1933)
• Hooks and Jabs (1933)
• The Stage Hand (1933)
• My Weakness (1933)
• On Ice (1933)
• Roaming Romeo (1933)

• Circus Hoodoo (1934)
• Petting Preferred (1934)
• Counsel on De Fence (1934)
• Shivers (1934)

• His Bridal Sweet (1935)
• Th Leather Necker (1935)
• Atlantic Adventure (1935)
• His Marriage Mix-Up (1935)
• I Don't Remember (1935)
• Love, Honor, and Obey (the Law!) (1935)

• He Loved an Actress (1938)
• Sue My Lawyer (1938)
• There Goes My Heart (1938)
• A Doggone Mixup (1938)

• Zenobia (1939)

• Goodness! A Ghost (1940)
• Cold Turkey (1940)
• Misbehaving Husbands (1940)
• Sitting Pretty (1940)

• All-American Co-ed (1941)
• Double Trouble (1941)

• What Makes Lizzy Dizzy? (1942)
• House of Errors (1942)
• Tireman, Spare My Tires (1942)
• Carry Harry (1942)
• Piano Mooner (1942)

• A Blitz on the Fritz (1943)
• Blonde and Groom (1943)
• Here Comes Mr. Zerk (1943)
• Spotlight Revue (1943)

• To Heir is Human (1944)
• Defective Detectives (1944)
• Hot Rhythm (1944)
• Mopey Dope (1944)
• Block Busters (1944)

• Snooper Service (1945)
• Pistol Packin' Nitwits (1945)
• Swingin' on a Rainbow (1945)

External links

• Harry Langdon at Film Reference
• Harry Langdon at The Harry Langdon Society (biography and filmography)
• Photographs and literature
• Feet of Mud a website dedicated to Harry Langdon