Larry Semon
Directing
🎂 1889-07-14
American silent film comedian whose hugely successful career disappeared virtually overnight, Larry Semon was the son of a traveling vaudeville magician, Zera the Great. He grew up in show business and was trained in stage comedy and acrobatics. A talent for drawing and cartooning led to art school and then work as a cartoonist for various New York City newspapers. The humor evident in his published cartoons prompted executives at New York's Vitagraph Studios to hire him as a gag writer in 1916. He quickly proved himself and was promoted to director for the Hughie Mack series of comedies. His background in magic helped him create interesting new gags for the comedian. When Mack left the studio in 1917, Semon took over the starring role himself. His one-reelers were quite successful, and Vitagraph sent him to California to participate in its new West Coast operation. He produced as well as wrote, starred in and directed his own films, at the same time also producing films for other comics. In the summer of 1928 Semon apparently fell ill with tuberculosis and simultaneously, it seems, suffered a nervous breakdown. He entered a sanitarium near San Bernardino, CA, where he reportedly died on October 8. However, an air of mystery surrounds his death, since his wife (and former co-star) Dorothy Dwan was allowed almost no contact with him and never saw his body, which was ordered cremated after a tightly secured funeral, which was carried out per Semon's "previous instructions" and to which almost no attendees were allowed. The whereabouts of Semon's cremated remains are to this day a mystery, and his widow professed until her death to be mystified by the circumstances of his passing. With enormous financial obligations facing him Larry Semon could easily have considered a dramatic escape of this sort from his creditors. Whether he did, or whether his death was the sad final chapter to a high-rising, briefly brilliant, but ultimately short-lived career may never be known for certain.
Cast credits(69)
Scarecrow / Toymaker
1925
Slippy Lewis
1927
Larry Cutshaw
1918
Spuds
1927
The Stage Hand
1920
The Speed Kid
1924
Bert Larry
1925
Lay Zee, Farm Hand
1923
The Suitor
1920
Larry, the Fall Guy
1921
Self
1925
The Dumb-Bell
1922
The Prop Man / Gentle Onlooker
1922
Larry, First Prisoner
1918
The son
1922
The Fly Cop
1920
Larry, a Suitor
1923
Government agent
1924
Tony
1924
Larry
1918
The Janitor
1918
Larry, a Bakery Clerk
1921
Star Boarder / Little Joe, Escaped Convict
1919
Caesar / A Minstrel
1918
Larry
1918
1917
Larry, the Hick
1921
Larry, the Chief's son
1924
The Entertainer
1928
It
1928
The Grocery Clerk
1919
Larry, the Counter Jumper
1922
1917
Peter Pep
1925
Borden Rhoom / Getz A. Bunn
1925
1917
Larry, the Rent Collector
1921
King August / Stranger
1922
Larry, a Detective
1919
Larry
1917
The Bellhop
1921
Larry, a Waiter
1923
The House Detective
1919
Larry
1917
Larry, a salesman
1923
Larry
1919
Joe
1920
The Sportsman
1921
Detective Sparks
1919
1916
A Farmer's Boy
1919
The Detective
1927
1917
1917
The Sheriff
1919
Larry, the Detective
1919
1917
O.U. Dubb
1917
Larry, the Handy Man and a Drunkard
1919
Larry
1923
Larry
1923
Lawrence
1918
The Husband
1919
Our Hero
1917
The Head Waiter
1919
1917
Larry
1927
1922
Larry
1918
Directing (76)
Director
1925
Director
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Director
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1928
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Director
1918
Director
1918
Writing (48)
Writer
1925
Writer
1918
Writer
1920
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1924
Writer
1923
Story
1921
Scenario Writer
1917
Writer
1922
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1922
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1922
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1920
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1923
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1924
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1921
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1919
Scenario Writer
1918
Writer
1918
Writer
1916
Scenario Writer
1918
Scenario Writer
1917
Scenario Writer
1927
Story
1916
Writer
1919
Writer
1922
Scenario Writer
1917
Scenario Writer
1925
Scenario Writer
1917
Writer
1921
Writer
1922
Writer
1919
Story
1921
Writer
1923
Scenario Writer
1919
Scenario Writer
1916
Scenario Writer
1919
Writer
1920
Scenario Writer
1919
Scenario Writer
1917
Scenario Writer
1917
Scenario Writer
1919
Scenario Writer
1917
Scenario Writer
1919
Writer
1923
Writer
1918
Scenario Writer
1919
Writer
1917
Writer
1927
Writer
1922