The Silent Genius of Harold Lloyd
On a hot summer day in July 1922, actor Harold Lloyd was walking around downtown Los Angeles when he noticed a crowd gathered around a tall building. He looked up to see a man climbing the building without a rope as a publicity stunt for a local insurance agency. Lloyd was mesmerized. “It stirred my emotions to such a degree that I thought if I can do that to an audience — if I capture that on screen — I think I’ve got something that’s never been done before.” This is the moment that inspired Safety Last, a film with arguably the most iconic image in the history of movies — Harold Lloyd dangling over Los Angeles while clinging to the hands of a clock.
Harold Lloyd was a silent film star known as “the third genius.” At the height of his career, he was a bigger box-office draw than Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. Paramount paid him $1.2 million a year. Lloyd was born in Nebraska in 1894. He moved with his father to Los Angeles when he was 19. The film industry was in its infancy and Lloyd made short silent comedies for Hal Roach Studios. Lloyd’s on-screen persona was a boy-next-door everyman with round glasses, a straw hat and a rumpled suit. He became known for “thrill sequences” featuring extended chases and death-defying stunts.
In 1919, Lloyd’s career almost came to a tragic end. While taking publicity shots for the film Haunted Spooks, he grabbed what he…
