A few months ago I received a copy of The Rise & Fall of Max Linder: The First Cinema Celebrity, a remarkable new biography by Lisa Stein Haven. The book, the first English language study of the life and art of the comedic great, is published by Bear Manor Media. I have been slowly making my way through it, not because it is slow going, but because I am relishing reading it. The Rise & Fall of Max Linder is an immersive biography. Reading it, absorbing its rich detail, learning about the life of someone I admittedly knew only little about made me feel like I was displaced back in time to the beginning of the 20th century.
Before reading Haven's book, I was only a bit familiar with Linder. I knew that he was French. I had seen a few of his short films, and also knew that he was a comedic actor and had influenced Charlie Chaplin. That's about it - except for a tenuous connection to Louise Brooks, which I mention later. What is remarkable about Haven's book is that it pulls back the curtain on a time and place long ago and reveals a distant world from which this comedic genius sprang. That is revelatory.
Max Linder was born Gabriel Leuvielle in St. Loubes, France in 1883; he
started in films with the Pathe Brothers in 1905, making him one of the first film comedians to achieve
world-wide renown. In fact, according to Haven, there is evidence that Linder was the first
screen celebrity to see his name in print. His comedy timing and
gags
-- Linder started writing his own scenarios early on -- have been copied
and
imitated by many of his followers, including Charlie Chaplin. (Upon
receiving the news of Linder's death, Chaplin is reported to have closed
his studio for a day out of respect.)
Notably as well, his high
society characterizations as the dapper "Max" also influenced such
actors as Adolphe Menjou and Raymond Griffith. (Louise Brooks played in
two films opposite Menjou, A Social Celebrity and Evening Clothes, and appeared in another, God's Gift to Women, which was co-authored by Griffith.)
Just how big was Linder? The universality of silent films brought Linder fame and fortune throughout Europe, making him the highest paid entertainer of the day. By 1910, he had become the most popular film actor in the world, and is thought to be the very first movie star with a significant international following. In Russia, he was voted the most popular film actor, ahead of Asta Nielsen. He also had a Russian impersonator, Zozlov, and a devoted fan in Czar Nicholas II. Another professed fan was British playwright George Bernard Shaw. The first feature film ever made in Bulgaria was a remake of one of Linder's earlier movies. He was offered $12,000 to spend a month in Berlin making public appearances with his film screenings, but declined for health reasons. Later, in 1911 and 1912, he began touring Europe with his films, including Spain, where he entertained thousands of fans, as well as Austria and then Russia, where he was accompanied on piano by a young Dimitri Tiomkin.
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| via Lisa Stein Haven |
Spoiler
alert: Of course, nothing lasts forever, and Linder's
story is both a comedy and a tragedy. His meteoric rise to fame
beginning in
1907/1908 hit a roadblock in 1914 with the onset of World War I, and was
dealt a death blow by his attempts to revive his career in America and
Austria (and in a changing world). His marriage to a young wife was
ill-fated and ill-timed,
leading Linder to take the life of his wife and himself on the night of
October 31, 1925. Linder himself died on November 1, 1925 - 76 years ago
today, leaving behind a 16-month-old daughter named Maud who
would devote her life to restoring his film legacy.
In his native France, Linder was a
superstar, hugely popular to the degree that a movie theater was opened
in Paris which bore his name. Of course, it showed more than just Linder
films. In fact, it was at the Max Linder Pathe (located at 24 boulevard
Poissonnière in Paris) that Brooks' sole French film, Prix de beauté,
debuted on May 9, 1930. To open at the 1,200 seat Max Linder Pathe was
considered an honor, and Brooks' film rose to the challenge and proved
popular. At the time, most films played a few days or a week before
moving on. However, as this ad shows, Prix de beauté was a hit, and ran more than "2eme mois" or two months at the Max Linder Pathe.
The Max Linder theater is still open to this day, helping keep the memory of this comedic actor alive. I would encourage anyone interested in early film to check out The Rise & Fall of Max Linder: The First Cinema Celebrity. It is a good read.
Lisa Stein Haven is an Professor of English at Ohio University Zanesville, specializing in British and American modernist literature, the Beat poets and silent film comedy, especially the work of Charlie and Syd Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Max Linder. In 2010, she organized and hosted "Charlie in the Heartland: An International Charlie Chaplin Conference" at Zanesville, which was attended by participants from 11 countries outside of the United States.
In summer 2014, Haven was the keynote speaker at Charlot 100, a celebration of the 100th anniversary of Chaplin's Little Tramp persona, held in Bologna, Italy and sponsored by Roy Export S.A.S and the Cineteca di Bologna. She is also a member of the executive board for the Buster Keaton Celebration, held every year in Iola, Kansas.
Stein's earlier books, which I have read and written about in the past, include another first ever study, Syd Chaplin: A Biography (McFarland, 2010), a book about Chaplin, A Comedian Sees the World (University of Missouri, 2014), and Charlie Chaplin’s Little Tramp in America, 1947–77 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016).
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| via Cinema Treasures at http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/16578 |
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