Nitrateville Answer Department: Daphne Pollard

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Richard M Roberts
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Nitrateville Answer Department: Daphne Pollard

Postby Richard M Roberts » Thu Jun 20, 2013 3:08 am

One of the nameless ones on Nitrateville wrote a little piece about Daphne Pollard, showing complete ignorance about her stage career, just referring to her as the poor little person who lived until 1978, some 40 years after the best days of her career.

Well, here's a quick refresher course in Daphne Pollard, from the program notes i wrote for her 1930 Pathe' short DANGEROUS YOUTH, which we showed at Slapsticon 2010:

DANGEROUS YOUTH (Pathe’ Melody Comedy released September 14, 1930)

Director: Arch B. Heath, Story: Guy Voyer, Screenplay: Monte Carter.

Cast: Daphne Pollard, Lucille Williams, Don Dillaway, Ray Cooke.

Though most likely remembered today as one of Laurel and Hardy’s better battleaxe’s in films like THICKER THAN WATER (1935) and OUR RELATIONS (1936), diminutive Daphne Pollard had a long career in comedy that started when the Australian comedienne reached America as part of the same Pollard Liliputans Comedy Troupe that featured Snub Pollard (though neither were related to each other, in fact, neither was actually named Pollard. Her real name was Daphne Trott Bunch and Snub was really Harry Fraser), Alf Goulding, and Billy Bevan.

Daphne toured vaudeville quite successfully in the teens, working the Keith-Albee Circuit as well as being a regular at the Palace and Wintergarten theaters. She was one of the stars of THE PASSING SHOW OF 1915 for the Schuberts, as well as making other Broadway appearances and even making a few recordings for Columbia Records. But Daphne steered clear of the movies, even as Mack Sennett tried to woo her into them as early as 1918. She finally relented nearly a decade later and joined Sennett in 1927 where she appeared in a number of Bathing Girl Comedies featuring a young Carole Lombard, also appearing in Sennett’s first talkie short, THE LIONS ROAR (1928) . She moved to Pathe’ in 1930 for a string of shorts that included AMERICA OT BUST, shown at Slapsticon 2006, but soon returned to Sennett where she remained until his Studio’s closure in 1933. From there a few Vitaphone shorts, then the occasional Laurel and hardy film, but Daphne continued to tour in vaudeville as long as it lasted and worked on the New York stage until her retirement sometime in the late 40’s . She passed away in 1978.

DANGEROUS YOUTH showcases Pollard’s acrobatics, for the tiny 4’8” woman that she is, she shows tremendous agility and energy in this odd little comedy. When Pathe’ lost both Hal Roach and Mack Sennett’s comedy short product, a new short subject unit was established under the supervision of E.B Derr, an associate of Joseph P. Kennedy who was in charge of Pathe’ at the time and working on reorganizing it with FBO and the Keith-Orpheum Circuit into RKO Radio Pictures in what would be one of the great corporate swindles in the movie business (and for a fascinating account regarding this merger, we recommend Cari Beauchamp’s book, JOSEPH P KENNEDY, THE HOLLYWOOD YEARS). The shorts Pathe’ ground out from 1929 to 1931 are a mixed bag of comedies and musicals, some giving work to good comics like Daphne Pollard, Edgar Kennedy, Arthur Housman, Al Shean and others, though this group of shorts is pretty well forgotten today. Though much of Pathe’would disappear into RKO, one survivor would be this shorts comedy unit, which would transfer and flourish as RKO/Pathe’, then just RKO’s short comedy unit producing those classic Edgar Kennedy, Clark and McCullough, and Leon Errol shorts among others into the 1950’s.



RICHARD M ROBERTS

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