Harry Langdon: The Little Elf Of The Silent Era

March 27, 2022

Harry Langdon, who was nicknamed the Little Elf, was a comedian in the silent film era. Born in Council Bluffs, Iowa, on June 15, 1884, he loved the stage, so as a young boy, he sold newspapers to earn money to go to the theater. In his early teens, he began performing with Dr. Belcher’s Kickapoo Indian Medicine Show. He then joined the Gus Sun Minstrels as well as other medicine shows and circuses. During his early career, he was a musician, a blackface minstrel, a tumbler, a gymnast, and a trapeze artist.

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He came to be regarded as one of the four best silent film comics and created a screen character who was unlike others of the time. On the screen, he played a child-like man; his adult character had a naïve understanding of the world and of people. The fact that he was so different from the slapstick of the time helped to boost his popularity.

From Vaudeville To Broadway

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In 1903, he married Rose Musolff, and the pair created the “Johnny’s New Car” act, finding fame on the vaudeville circuit. They expanded their act into “A Night on the Boulevard,” a full-stage production in 1906, which later led to their three-part act “After the Ball” which played in vaudeville houses in the 1920s. He appeared in Jim Jam Jems, a musical on Broadway from October 4, 1920, to January 1, 1921, although this was not his first time on Broadway as he had appeared in Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale in 1899.