Ben Turpin

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Ben Turpin in A Blonde's Revenge (1926)

Ben Turpin (born September 19, 1869 in New Orleans , Louisiana , † July 1, 1940 in Santa Monica , California ; real name Bernard Turpin ) was an American comedian who was mainly active in the silent film era . Its striking appearance was marked by be strong squinting right eye and a bushy mustache. Although Turpin was "made younger" up to five years in press publications, the US census (since 1870) regularly stated his year of birth as 1869. At his artistic peak in the 1920s, at over fifty years of age, he was much older than the other star comedians of the time. He starred in more than 200 films.

Life

Ben Turpin was born the son of a French-born patisserie owner and started his comedian career in vaudeville theater and in the circus . One of the characters represented by him was the then very popular comic strip -Figur Happy Hooligan he sustained in its embodiment in an accident squinting, which has become his trademark. He later had his eyes insured with Lloyd's of London for $ 25,000 .

In 1907 Turpin married his second wife (the dates of his first marriage are not known) and in the same year made his film debut as the leading actor in the short film An Awful Skate, or The Hobo on Rollers , the first release by the Chicago production company Essanay . In the following two years he could be seen in several smaller and larger roles and also worked for the studio as a caretaker. His style was pure slapstick and like many of his colleagues he also had acrobatic skills. For example, he could drop impressively by doing a half somersault before falling. In 1909 he made the short film Mr. Flip , the first known comedy in film history in which someone gets a cake in the face. It is not thrown , however , but pressed in Turpin's face.

After a four-year trip back to vaudeville, the comedian returned to Essanay at the end of 1913 and was an integral part of the Sweedie series with Wallace Beery there in 1914/15 . In 1915 an attempt was made to combine it with the essanay newcomer Charlie Chaplin . Unfortunately, no “chemistry” developed between the two fundamentally different comedians and after the two mediocre short films His New Job and A Night Out Turpin was only cast as an extra in The Champion . After Chaplin's departure from Essanay, Turpin finally appeared in 1916 in the version of Charlie Chaplin's Burlesque on Carmen, which was subsequently reworked by the studio and stretched in a meaningless manner .

Before turning some films for the Mutual subsidiary Vogue, Turpin worked briefly for Mack Sennett's Keystone Studios in 1915 through Chaplin's mediation , but was unable to gain a foothold there and was eventually fired. When Sennett wanted to leave Keystone in 1917 to start his own company, the then Gagman and later director Del Lord advised him to bring the cross-eyed comedian back. According to Turpin, Lord was also of great help in defining his ultimate screen personality. In the second attempt it worked with Turpin and Sennett and a very successful collaboration began for the new Mack Sennett Comedies.

From 1917 to the mid-1920s, Turpin was doing well with his short films and also starred in Sennett's all-star films Yankee Doodle in Berlin (1919) and Down on the Farm (1920). He later appeared in three of his own feature-length film vehicles: Married Life (1920, in this lost film Turpin first heard his frequently used role name "Rodney St. Clair"), A Small Town Idol (1921) and The Shriek of Araby (1923). Parodying well-known films became a specialty of the comedian: with The Shriek of Araby he satirized The Sheik with Rudolph Valentino , in A Prodigal Bridegroom (1926) he made fun of the elf dance from Chaplin's Sunnyside . Even Douglas Fairbanks , William S. Hart ( Yukon Jake , 1924) and especially Erich von Stroheim (u. A. Three Foolish Weeks , 1924) victims were his slapstick attacks. His most successful and famous short films include A Clever Dummy (1917), Bright Eyes (1922) and The Daredevil (1923).

At the height of his success, Turpin put his career on hold due to his wife's health. She died in 1925, and he married a third time the following year. He continued his film work, but his great days were over. The collaboration with Sennett ended in 1927, followed by a few short films for the Weiss Brothers, a low-budget studio for worn-out comedians like Snub Pollard and Jimmy Aubrey . The introduction of the sound film finally dealt the fatal blow to Turpin's star career. Since he had invested in real estate early enough, he didn't have to worry about his finances.

Until his death, Turpin performed regularly in small roles that he was well paid for, e. B. in Ernst Lubitsch's Liebesparade (1929), in the Laurel-and-Hardy short film Our Wife (1931) and as a silent running gag in Million Dollar Legs (1932, with Jack Oakie and WC Fields ). In the musical The Show of Shows (1929) he worked alongside comedians like Lloyd Hamilton and Lupino Lane in the number "What's Become of the Florodora Boys?" In addition to other former great comedians, he also appeared in two nostalgic homages to the silent film comedy, the short film Keystone Hotel (1935, with Ford Sterling , Chester Conklin , Hank Mann , Leo White and others) and the full- length film Hollywood Cavalcade (1939, with Buster Keaton , Conklin, Mann, Snub Pollard , James Finlayson and others). He made one last brief cameo in Laurel and Hardy's Saps at Sea (1940). He should also star in Chaplin's The Great Dictator (1940); but that did not happen because he died earlier.

Ben Turpin Tomb in Memorial Park Glendale

In 1940 the comedian died of a heart condition at the age of 70. His pallbearers at the funeral included Billy Bevan , Andy Clyde , James Finlayson, and Charlie Murray ; Charlie Chaplin sent a huge bouquet of roses. Turpin is buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale , California.

In Germany, the comedian's films were part of the television series Fathers of Clothes in the 1970s . The famous close-up of Turpin with raccoon trapper hat and rotating pupils in the credits comes from the short film The Daredevil, as does the scene with the jumping car and the bull .

Filmography

Essanay short films (selection)

Sennett films (selection)

  • 1917: A Clever Dummy
  • 1917: Are Waitresses Safe?
  • 1919: Yankee Doodle in Berlin (feature film)
  • 1920: Down on the Farm (feature film)
  • 1921: A Small Town Idol (feature film)
  • 1922: Bright Eyes
  • 1923: The Shriek of Araby (feature film)
  • 1923: The Daredevil
  • 1924: Ten Dollars or Ten Days
  • 1924: Yukon Jake
  • 1926: A Prodigal Bridegroom
  • 1926: A Harem Knight
  • 1927: The Pride of Pikeville

Weiss short films (selection)

  • 1928: The Eyes Have It
  • 1928: The Cockeyed Family
  • 1929: The Cock-Eyed Hero

As a small actor / guest star (selection)

reception

Even if he never achieved the same popularity as Chaplin, Keaton, Lloyd or Laurel and Hardy, Turpin was still an influential and symbolic figure of the slapstick silent film era. When the Life edition appeared in 1949 with James Agee's famous article Comedy's Greatest Era , the cover was not the portrait of Chaplin, Keaton or Lloyd , but that of Ben Turpin.

Turpin became the first comedian in the 1909 film Mr. Flip to be shown to get a pie in the face even if it wasn't tossed .

Web links

Commons : Ben Turpin  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ One Forgotten: Ben Turpin. Illustrated Film Week 1926, accessed on May 10, 2020 .
  2. ^ Veterans of Films Honor Ben Turpin. In: Prescott Evening Courier. July 4, 1940, Retrieved September 19, 2019 (English, reproduced on Google).
  3. ↑ Klaus Nerger Bennard Turpin. In: knerger.de. 2001, Retrieved September 19, 2019 (the tomb of Ben Turpin).
  4. ^ Time Inc: LIFE . Time Inc, September 5, 1949 ( google.de [accessed November 25, 2019]).
  5. ↑ How Did Slapstick Comedy Pie-In-The-Face Originate? Qantas Chief Alan Joyce Gets Smeared With Pie. May 9, 2017. Retrieved November 25, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Turpin, Ben
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American comedian, silent film actor
DATE OF BIRTH September 19, 1869
PLACE OF BIRTH New Orleans
DATE OF DEATH July 1, 1940
Place of death Santa Monica