| The Story of Magic in a Pair of Horn-Rimmed Glasses |
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| _WRITTEN_BY Annette Lloyd | ||||||
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The Magic Behind
Harold Lloyd
Magic in a
Pair of Horn-Rimmed Glasses
Annette
D’Agostino Lloyd
He was one of the
brightest stars of the silent film era, and is consistently recognized as one
of the triumvirate of the great 1920s movie comedians. Yet, when I first saw
Harold Lloyd, on television in the late 1970s, I didn’t know who I was looking
at. I knew that I liked what I saw, but hadn’t a clue who he was. My parents
didn’t know either. My grandparents, however, knew exactly who Harold Lloyd
was, and still adored him. They were impressed that their granddaughter, just
in high school, could recognize his greatness, and appreciated what she saw.
Oh, that I did. So much so that I spent the next 30 years (with more to come)
learning, absorbing, and sharing Harold Lloyd with the world.
In the first few years
following my introduction to the image on the screen, and determined to learn
whatever I could about him, I bought each and every Lloyd book I could get my
hands on. The first of these, An American
Comedy, was Lloyd’s 1928 autobiography, and a fabulous read. However, after
that, I was increasingly both puzzled and disappointed by the subsequent book
efforts that were available. The pictures were nice, sure – but I never got the
sense that the authors cared about
the man they were chronicling, or the films that were highlighted. I was so
dissatisfied that, in 1992, I decided to write a book of my own.
This literary rookie did get her book contract, received the day after Thanksgiving,
1992: I cried myself to sleep that night, from sheer terror and bewilderment.
What have I gotten myself into?!?
What I got myself into was
a magnificent and wondrous world, filled with new discoveries, and exceptional
friendships that last and endure to this day. I have always said that I am
grateful to Harold Lloyd: what I am most appreciative for, to be sure, is the
joy he has heaped upon my life, both in terms of his films and his example, as
well as the bevy of comrades and associates I have been blessed with along the
way.
I tried, very hard, to
ignore all previous books on Lloyd when I undertook my first book on him. This
was done for many reasons, but mostly because I didn’t want to be tainted by
someone else’s writing, be it positive or
negative. I wanted to make my own discoveries, and reach my own conclusions.
Where I learned such gumption, I don’t know – but I’m glad I did.
In the 15-plus years since
my first book, Harold Lloyd: A
Bio-Bibliography (Greenwood Press, 1994), was released, I have found that,
even though I had that first book completed, the work was far from over. My
next two books, indexing The Moving
Picture World trade journal, gave me a tremendous opportunity – to seek out
and photocopy every article on Lloyd within the pages of this wonderful magazine
(which saw life from 1907-1927). The most eye-opening aspect of this work was
also quite frightening: my 1994 filmography, I learned, was fraught with
errors!
In the respect of the
filmography, I bowed to the research that came before me, and essentially
repeated the perpetuated mistakes in decades’ worth of lists of Lloyd’s films.
I later found titles, reviewed in MPW and
crediting Lloyd, that were not in my list of his work. And, after I started
making my day trips to the Library of Congress, to scour copyright entries and
miles of microfilm, I was able to not only add new (and correct) films to the
list, but also take out others that didn’t belong. I found films that Lloyd did
for Edison, Universal, and Keystone (coming before his work with Hal Roach),
and discovered that a bunch of films long identified as the first of the
Lonesome Luke series were, in reality, made by another company.
Now what do I do? I have a book out, and it’s already obsolete! And, most importantly,
it has incorrect information in it… |
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