1. Max Linder has been cited as the "first international movie star" and "the first film star anywhere".
46 Facts About Max Linder
1. 2.
Max Linder soon received awards for his performances and continued to pursue a career in the legitimate theater.
3.
Max Linder became a contract player with the Bordeaux Theatre des Arts from 1901 to 1904, performing in plays by Moliere, Pierre Corneille, and Alfred de Musset.
4.
Max Linder enlisted at the outbreak of the First World War, and worked at first as a dispatch driver and entertainer.
5.
Max Linder later moved to the US but was unable to achieve success.
6.
Max Linder died in 1925 in a purported suicide pact with his wife in Paris.
7.
Max Linder survived by resting in the oven of the village baker.
8.
In 1899, Max Linder enrolled in the Conservatoire de Bordeaux and quickly won awards for first prize in comedy and second prize in tragedy.
9.
Max Linder continued to pursue a career in the theater and became a contract player with the Bordeaux Theatre des Arts from 1901 to 1904, performing in plays by Moliere, Pierre Corneille and Alfred de Musset.
10.
Max Linder was rejected and began appearing in less prestigious theaters such as the Olympia Theater and the Theatre de l'Ambigu.
11.
Also during this period, Max Linder applied for work at Pathe Freres in Vincennes at the suggestion of film director Louis Gasnier and began appearing in small bit parts, mostly in slapstick comedies.
12.
Max Linder has appeared on the stage for the next two years and was not a significant film star at first.
13.
From 1905 to 1907, Max Linder appeared in dozens of short comedy films for Pathe, usually in a supporting role.
14.
Max Linder appeared in Georges Melies-like fantasy films such as Serpentine Dances and The Legend of Punching, his first leading role.
15.
Max Linder's rise to stardom commenced in 1907 when Pathe's slapstick star Rene Grehan left the company to join Eclair.
16.
Max Linder was chosen to take over the characterization for Pathe, and the style of dress and personality of Grehan's character became his trademark.
17.
Max Linder's luck began to change when Pathe's top comedy star, Andre Deed, left to work with the Italian film company Itala, leaving Linder as the company's leading comedic actor.
18.
Max Linder had a Russian impersonator, Zozlov, and a devoted fan in Czar Nicholas II.
19.
Max Linder was offered $12,000 to spend a month in Berlin making public appearances with his film screenings, but had to decline for health reasons.
20.
At the height of his fame, Max Linder ended 1910 with a serious illness.
21.
Max Linder was forced to stop making films when appendicitis left him bedridden, and some newspapers reported that he had died.
22.
Max Linder eventually recovered the following spring and began making films again in May 1911.
23.
In 1911, Max Linder returned to filmmaking and began co-directing his own films as well as writing the scripts.
24.
Max Linder began touring Europe with his films from 1911 to 1912, including Spain, where he entertained thousands of fans at the Barcelona railway station, Austria, and Russia, where he was accompanied on piano by a young Dimitri Tiomkin.
25.
The high point of Max Linder's career was from 1912 to 1914.
26.
Max Linder's films were made with increased skill and "Max" was at his funniest.
27.
Max Linder made such films as Max Virtuoso, Max Does Not Speak English, Max and His Dog, Max's Hat and Max and the Jealous Husband.
28.
Max Linder had given Chevalier his start in movies, but the silent medium did not suit Chevalier, who stuck to the stage until the all-singing all-dancing features came in, many years later.
29.
Max Linder attempted to enlist in the French army, but was physically unfit for combat duty.
30.
In 1916, Linder was approached by American film producer George K Spoor, the president of the Essanay Film Manufacturing Company, to make twelve short films for him in the US at a salary of $5,000 a week.
31.
Max Linder was offered a new contract from Charles Pathe, but accepted Spoor's offer and moved to the United States to work for Essanay later that year.
32.
Unfortunately his first few American-made "Max Linder" films were unpopular both critically and financially.
33.
Max and his Taxi had been shot in Hollywood and while there Linder had developed a close friendship with Charlie Chaplin.
34.
Four years after failing to become a major star in the US, Max Linder made another attempt at filmmaking in Hollywood and formed his own production company there in 1921.
35.
Max Linder next made Be My Wife later that year, but again neither films were able to find a major audience in the US.
36.
The film includes such gags as a hungover "Max Linder" waking up in a department store and the film's plot is similar to the Charlie Chaplin film The Circus.
37.
In late 1925, Max Linder was working on pre-production for his next film Barkas le fol, which would never be made.
38.
In early April 1923, Max Linder was involved in a second near fatal car accident in Nice, which resulted in a head injury.
39.
Max Linder was arrested in Nice later that month for "kidnapping a minor", who happened to be his future wife, the seventeen-year-old Helene "Ninette" Peters.
40.
Max Linder is said to have been a fiercely jealous and mentally abusive husband.
41.
Max Linder's wife is buried at Pere Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.
42.
Max Linder had been relegated to little more than a footnote in film history until a compilation film titled Laugh with Max Linder premiered at the Venice Film Festival and was theatrically released.
43.
In 1983, Maud Max Linder made a documentary film, The Man in the Silk Hat, about Max Linder's life and career.
44.
In 1992, Maud Linder published a book about Linder in France, Max Linder was my father and in 2008 she received the Prix Henri Langlois for her work to promote her father's legacy.
45.
Charles Prince, on the other hand, was gaining popularity during his career and was nearly equal to Linder by the beginning of World War I Prince's screen persona was "Rigadin", who like "Max" was a bumbling bourgeois socialite who always got into trouble.
46.
Years after both comedians' careers were long over, Max Linder has received several revivals in interest while Charles Prince remains mostly forgotten.