Category Archives: catching up with the chaplins

Chaplin—on the ground near posters for Keystone and Mutual films—in A Film Johnnie. George Nichols. 1914.

Chas (on right) with Henry Lehrman (center) in Making A Living, Chaplin’s screen debut which was released 100 years ago today. (The name of the actor on the left has been lost over the past century.) Why we know the release date of an otherwise random Sennett one reeler is beyond me so we’ll have to take consensus’s word for it that it was February 2.

While writing the caption I read the wikipedia entry for Mr. Lehrman and it’s interesting stuff. Aside from being the first man to co-star with, write for and direct Chaplin on film, he was also the betrothed of Virginia Rappe and “was notorious for his low regard toward actors, and his willingness to place his actors in dangerous situations earned him the nickname ‘Mr. Suicide.'”