HAROLD LLOYD Biography - Other artists & entretainers

 
 

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HAROLD LLOYD
       

Harold Clayton Lloyd (April 20, 1893 - March 8, 1971) was an American actor.

       

Lloyd made nearly 500 comedy films, both silent and sound. Lloyd is best known for his extended chase sequences that included daredevil physical feats like climbing the sides of tall buildings, hanging precariously from clocks, flagpoles and ledges. Lloyd did his own stunts and worked without safety nets, even after severely injuring his right hand in a 1919 accident with a prop bomb.

       

Lloyd, born in Burchard, Nebraska, started acting in one-reel film comedies in 1912 in San Diego, California. Lloyd soon began working with Thomas Edison’s motion picture company, Universal, and eventually ended up with Hal Roach. Lloyd was a founding member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

       

Lloyd married his leading lady, Mildred Davis, in February of 1923, with whom he had two children; Gloria, born in 1923, and Harold, born in 1931. They also adopted Peggy in 1930. Lloyd’s home, “GreenAcres” has 44 rooms, 26 bathrooms, 12 fountains, 12 gardens and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Lloyd was involved with early color film experiments. Some of the earliest 2-color Technicolor tests were shot at his Beverly Hills home.

       

Lloyd’s autobiography, An American Comedy, was published in 1928.

       

By the 1940s, Lloyd was no longer active in the film industry. In 1947, director Preston Sturges brought him out of retirement for one more film, The Sin of Harold Diddlebock. The film was a failure.