Snitz Edwards
Encyclopedia
Snitz Edwards was a notable character actor
of the early years of the silent film
era into the 1930s.
on New Year's Day
, 1868 in Budapest, Hungary (then, part of the Austro-Hungarian empire), Edwards emigrated to the United States
and became a very successful Broadway
stage actor during the early twentieth century. His first show was the musical comedy Little Red Riding Hood
which opened on January 8, 1900. Edwards often appeared in the first decade of the twentieth-century on the Broadway stage in productions for such prominent stage directors as Arthur Hammerstein
and Charles Frohman
. He also traveled with touring companies across the United States and in South America
. On one trip, the company manager absconded with the box office
receipts, leaving Snitz and the rest of the marooned troupers to find their way across Panama
to catch a steam ship back to New York
. In later years, Snitz told of touring cow towns in the American West, where boarding houses had signs saying Jews, Indians and Irish were acceptable, but not actors.
At his peak in the late 1910s and early 1920s, Edwards appeared with some of the most famous actors of the era, including: Mary Pickford
, Clara Kimball Young
, Barbara La Marr
, Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., Wallace Reid
, Lila Lee
, Colleen Moore
, Lionel Barrymore
, Conrad Nagel
, Owen Moore
, Mildred Harris
, Rod La Rocque
, Ramón Novarro
, Marion Davies
and countless others. In 1925 he was cast in one of his most memorable roles, that of Florine Papillon in the Rupert Julian
directed box-office hit The Phantom of the Opera, opposite Lon Chaney, Sr.
and Mary Philbin
; and he co-starred with Douglas Fairbanks
in Thief of Bagdad
.
Edwards was married to actress Eleanor Taylor and the couple had three daughters: Cricket, Evelyn and Marian. Edwards was a popular Hollywood personality, and he and Eleanor hosted lively parties as well as being guests of Marion Davies at San Simeon Castle.
Edwards also was personally chosen by actor and director Buster Keaton
to act in three of Keaton's films: 1925's Seven Chances
, 1926's Battling Butler
, and the extremely popular 1927 film College
.
By the early 1930s and the advent of talkies, Edwards was already in his 60s, suffering from crippling arthritis
, but remaining active until his last role, a part in the 1931 William A. Wellman
directed crime drama The Public Enemy
opposite actors Jean Harlow
, James Cagney
, and Joan Blondell
. Originally, the part was a significant one, but the first scenes were shot were in driving rain, causing Edwards to become severely ill. In the surviving film, he appears in only a few scenes (breezily saying "Hi ya, boys" to the juvenile Cagney and pal in the beer parlor, dropping a dime into a pay phone to rat out Cagney, refusing to open the door to Cagney after his first big job at the fur wearhouse goes bad.)
Edwards died of natural causes on May 1, 1937 in Los Angeles, California
at the age of 69. His wife Eleanor continued to act as a dress extra until World War II
, when she volunteered at the Hollywood Canteen. Snitz's and Eleanor's three daughters continued careers in the movie industry; Cricket was an executive for Carl Foreman and for Columbia Pictures, Evelyn was a writer, story analyst and story editor for MGM and CBS, and Marian (married to writer Irwin Shaw) produced numerous plays in Europe. Eleanor died at the Motion Picture Country Hospital in Calabasas California in 1968.
Character actor
A character actor is one who predominantly plays unusual or eccentric characters. The Oxford English Dictionary defines a character actor as "an actor who specializes in character parts", defining character part in turn as "an acting role displaying pronounced or unusual characteristics or...
of the early years of the 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...
era into the 1930s.
Background and career on the stage
Born Edward Neumann into a Jewish householdHousehold
The household is "the basic residential unit in which economic production, consumption, inheritance, child rearing, and shelter are organized and carried out"; [the household] "may or may not be synonymous with family"....
on New Year's Day
New Year's Day
New Year's Day is observed on January 1, the first day of the year on the modern Gregorian calendar as well as the Julian calendar used in ancient Rome...
, 1868 in Budapest, Hungary (then, part of the Austro-Hungarian empire), Edwards emigrated to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and became a very successful Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
stage actor during the early twentieth century. His first show was the musical comedy Little Red Riding Hood
Little Red Riding Hood
Little Red Riding Hood, also known as Little Red Cap, is a French fairy tale about a young girl and a Big Bad Wolf. The story has been changed considerably in its history and subject to numerous modern adaptations and readings....
which opened on January 8, 1900. Edwards often appeared in the first decade of the twentieth-century on the Broadway stage in productions for such prominent stage directors as Arthur Hammerstein
Arthur Hammerstein
Arthur Hammerstein , was the son of Oscar Hammerstein I and uncle of Oscar Hammerstein II, was an opera producer and one of the writers of the song "Because of You," a major hit for Tony Bennett in 1951. Hammerstein wrote the song in 1940. It was used in the film I Was an American Spy...
and Charles Frohman
Charles Frohman
Charles Frohman was an American theatrical producer. Frohman was producing plays by 1889 and acquired his first Broadway theatre by 1892. He discovered and promoted many stars of the American theatre....
. He also traveled with touring companies across the United States and in South America
South America
South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...
. On one trip, the company manager absconded with the box office
Box office
A box office is a place where tickets are sold to the public for admission to an event. Patrons may perform the transaction at a countertop, through an unblocked hole through a wall or window, or at a wicket....
receipts, leaving Snitz and the rest of the marooned troupers to find their way across Panama
Panama
Panama , officially the Republic of Panama , is the southernmost country of Central America. Situated on the isthmus connecting North and South America, it is bordered by Costa Rica to the northwest, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the north and the Pacific Ocean to the south. The...
to catch a steam ship back 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...
. In later years, Snitz told of touring cow towns in the American West, where boarding houses had signs saying Jews, Indians and Irish were acceptable, but not actors.
Moving to films
Edwards transitioned to films rather easily and was quickly lauded as a talented character actor. With his expressive and "homely" face, he was considered by many directors to be well-suited to light, comedic roles and often played characters written as a comic foil opposite starring actors. His "homely", pliable features eventually made Edwards a household name during the 1920s.At his peak in the late 1910s and early 1920s, Edwards appeared with some of the most famous actors of the era, including: Mary Pickford
Mary Pickford
Mary Pickford was a Canadian-born motion picture actress, co-founder of the film studio United Artists and one of the original 36 founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences...
, Clara Kimball Young
Clara Kimball Young
Clara Kimball Young was an American film actress, who was highly regarded and publicly popular in the early silent film era.-Early life:...
, Barbara La Marr
Barbara La Marr
Barbara La Marr was an American stage and film actress, cabaret artist and screenwriter.La Marr was known as "The Girl Who Is Too Beautiful", after a Hearst newspaper feature writer, Adela Rogers St...
, Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., Wallace Reid
Wallace Reid
Wallace Reid was an actor in silent film referred to as "the screen's most perfect lover".-Early life:Born William Wallace Reid in St...
, Lila Lee
Lila Lee
Lila Lee was a prominent screen actress of the early silent film era.-Early life:Lila Lee was born Augusta Wilhelmena Fredericka Appel in Union Hill, New Jersey into a middle-class family of German immigrants who relocated to New York City when Lila was quite young...
, Colleen Moore
Colleen Moore
Colleen Moore was an American film actress, and one of the most fashionable stars of the silent film era.-Early life:...
, Lionel Barrymore
Lionel Barrymore
Lionel Barrymore was an American actor of stage, screen and radio. He won an Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in A Free Soul...
, Conrad Nagel
Conrad Nagel
Conrad Nagel was an American screen actor and matinee idol of the silent film era and beyond. He was also a well-known television actor and radio performer.-Biography:...
, Owen Moore
Owen Moore
Owen Moore was an Irish-born actor in American films, appearing in more than 279 movies spanning from 1908 to 1937.-Life and career:...
, Mildred Harris
Mildred Harris
Mildred Harris was an American film actress. Harris began her career in the film industry as a popular child actress at age eleven. At the age of fifteen, she was cast as a harem girl in D. W. Griffith's Intolerance . She appeared as a leading lady through the 1920s but her career slowed with...
, Rod La Rocque
Rod La Rocque
-Biography:He was born Roderick La Rocque in Chicago, Illinois. He began appearing in stock theater at the age of seven and eventually ended up at the Essanay Studios in Chicago where he found steady work until the studios closed. He then moved to New York City and worked on the stage until he was...
, Ramón Novarro
Ramón Novarro
Ramón Novarro was a Mexican leading man actor in Hollywood in the early 20th century. He was the next male "Sex Symbol" after the death of Rudolph Valentino...
, Marion Davies
Marion Davies
Marion Davies was an American film actress. Davies is best remembered for her relationship with newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst, as her high-profile social life often obscured her professional career....
and countless others. In 1925 he was cast in one of his most memorable roles, that of Florine Papillon in the Rupert Julian
Rupert Julian
Rupert Julian was the first New Zealand cinema actor, director, writer and producer.Born Thomas Percival Hayes in Whangaroa, New Zealand, Son of John Daly Hayes and Eliza Harriet Hayes...
directed box-office hit The Phantom of the Opera, opposite Lon Chaney, Sr.
Lon Chaney, Sr.
Lon Chaney , nicknamed "The Man of a Thousand Faces," was an American actor during the age of silent films. He was one of the most versatile and powerful actors of early cinema...
and Mary Philbin
Mary Philbin
Mary Philbin was a notable film actress of the silent film era. Philbin is probably best remembered for playing the roles of Christine Daaé in the 1925 film The Phantom of the Opera opposite screen legend Lon Chaney and Dea in The Man Who Laughs...
; and he co-starred with Douglas Fairbanks
Douglas Fairbanks
Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. was an American actor, screenwriter, director and producer. He was best known for his swashbuckling roles in silent films such as The Thief of Bagdad, Robin Hood, and The Mark of Zorro....
in Thief of Bagdad
The Thief of Bagdad (1924 film)
The Thief of Bagdad is a 1924 American swashbuckler film directed by Raoul Walsh and starring Douglas Fairbanks. Freely adapted from One Thousand and One Nights, it tells the story of a thief who falls in love with the daughter of the Caliph of Bagdad...
.
Edwards was married to actress Eleanor Taylor and the couple had three daughters: Cricket, Evelyn and Marian. Edwards was a popular Hollywood personality, and he and Eleanor hosted lively parties as well as being guests of Marion Davies at San Simeon Castle.
Edwards also was personally chosen by actor and director 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...
to act in three of Keaton's films: 1925's Seven Chances
Seven Chances
Seven Chances is a 1925 American comedy silent film directed by and starring Buster Keaton, based on a play written by Roi Cooper Megrue, produced in 1916 by David Belasco. Additional casts members include T. Roy Barnes, Snitz Edwards, Ruth Dwyer, and others. The film also stars Jean Arthur, a...
, 1926's Battling Butler
Battling Butler
Battling Butler is a 1926 comedy silent film directed by and starring Buster Keaton.-Plot summary:Alfred's father, portrayed as a wealthy aristocrat, feels his son has grown up too comfortably and as a result has not become what a man should be. To remedy this predicament he sends his son Alfred...
, and the extremely popular 1927 film College
College (1927 film)
College is a 1927 comedy-drama silent film directed by James W. Horne and Buster Keaton, and starring Buster Keaton, Anne Cornwall, and Harold Goodwin.-Plot:...
.
By the early 1930s and the advent of talkies, Edwards was already in his 60s, suffering from crippling arthritis
Arthritis
Arthritis is a form of joint disorder that involves inflammation of one or more joints....
, but remaining active until his last role, a part in the 1931 William A. Wellman
William A. Wellman
William Augustus Wellman was an American film director. Although Wellman began his film career as an actor, he worked on over 80 films, as director, producer and consultant but most often as a director, notable for his work in crime, adventure and action genre films, often focusing on aviation...
directed crime drama The Public Enemy
The Public Enemy
The Public Enemy is a 1931 American Pre-Code crime film starring James Cagney and directed by William A. Wellman. The film relates the story of a young man's rise in the criminal underworld in prohibition-era urban America...
opposite actors Jean Harlow
Jean Harlow
Jean Harlow was an American film actress and sex symbol of the 1930s. Known as the "Blonde Bombshell" and the "Platinum Blonde" , Harlow was ranked as one of the greatest movie stars of all time by the American Film Institute...
, James Cagney
James Cagney
James Francis Cagney, Jr. was an American actor, first on stage, then in film, where he had his greatest impact. Although he won acclaim and major awards for a wide variety of performances, he is best remembered for playing "tough guys." In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked him eighth...
, and Joan Blondell
Joan Blondell
Rose Joan Blondell was an American actress who performed in movies and on television for five decades as Joan Blondell.After winning a beauty pageant, Blondell embarked upon a film career...
. Originally, the part was a significant one, but the first scenes were shot were in driving rain, causing Edwards to become severely ill. In the surviving film, he appears in only a few scenes (breezily saying "Hi ya, boys" to the juvenile Cagney and pal in the beer parlor, dropping a dime into a pay phone to rat out Cagney, refusing to open the door to Cagney after his first big job at the fur wearhouse goes bad.)
Edwards died of natural causes on May 1, 1937 in Los Angeles, California
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...
at the age of 69. His wife Eleanor continued to act as a dress extra until World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, when she volunteered at the Hollywood Canteen. Snitz's and Eleanor's three daughters continued careers in the movie industry; Cricket was an executive for Carl Foreman and for Columbia Pictures, Evelyn was a writer, story analyst and story editor for MGM and CBS, and Marian (married to writer Irwin Shaw) produced numerous plays in Europe. Eleanor died at the Motion Picture Country Hospital in Calabasas California in 1968.
External links/References
- Bio of Snitz Edwards at Anderson Toone.com