That is a silent film comedian who is said to be "the world's first movie star". I mention him as I say a few words about the 1908 short Troubles of a Grass Widower... no I can't explain why someone gave such a title when that's not a translated version of the original French title:
No, I don't know what a “grass widower” is either.
Due to my schedule, I'll take this time now to discuss Max Linder, a long-forgotten silent movie star unless you remember him being discussed in Inglourious Basterds. My time out of town this weekend went well. It was a journey taken to offer assistance to someone, which went well. Besides hanging out with some people, two local restaurants were eaten at: one in Fort Myers & the other in Sanibel Island, the location best known for Day of the Dead and Night Movies.
As for Max Linder, he was a Frenchman who was a stage performer and started appearing in front of the camera for Pathe in the first decade of the 20th century. Troubles of a Glass Widower (the actual translation of its French title is Live the Boy Life) is early in his run. Soon he became so popular that according to lore, he was the first-ever worldwide movie star. World War I and that distraction caused a decline in his popularity; he tried twice to make it in Hollywood, neither time succeeding. However, he became buddies with Chaplin during that time and the latter definitely was greatly inspired by the former. Linder unfortunately had depression and well, that resulted in his death in 1925. As it deals with him taking his own life AND something bad happening to his wife, I'll let everyone look up the details on Wikipedia in case anyone would rather not know themselves.
In this 10 minute short, Linder plays a husband who'd rather focus on reading the newspaper rather than his wife. She became verklempt and left in a huff. He is happy to be alone... except that there are problems when it came to doing the dishes, making dinner-which isn't as easy as it sounds if you have to pluck the chicken's features and prepare it after you buy the bird from the market-making his bed then looking for his tie the next day. For something made so early, this was a pretty amusing short which of course isn't as polished as something from later in the silent era but still had funny physical humor and Ol' Max was amusing in his role.
For certain, in the future I'll check out one of his shorts from when his Max character was the most popular—said to be between 1912 and 1914. I was happy to discuss a figure who needs a brighter spotlight shone on him due to his impact in cinematic history.
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