Biography
Distinctive Features
Round, Black-Rimmed Glasses
Trivia and Quotes
Quotes
 [on his horn-rimmed glasses] At a cost of 75 cents they provide a trademark recognized instantly wherever pictures are shown. [on Bebe Daniels] She`s a wonderful individual and I can understand why she`s tremendously revered in Great Britain. She`s very warm-hearted and she has a habit of giving -- never lost it!
(imdb.com)
Comedy comes from inside. It comes from your face. It comes from your body.
(imdb.com)
[when asked whether the transition from silents to sound made any problems because of his voice, as with so many other stars from the era] I had to work a little on my voice because I hadn`t used it for years. I went to a voice coach for about five days, and then he said, "Good-bye, you just weren`t using it right".
(imdb.com)
I do not believe the public will want spoken comedy. Motion pictures and the spoken arts are two distinct arts.
(imdb.com)
[when asked why he abandoned his Lonesome Luke character and that type of character] Charlie [Charles Chaplin] had the market cornered on that. He had it down to a science.
(imdb.com)
[in 1970] My humor was never cruel or cynical. I just took life and poked fun at it. We made it so it could be understood the world over, without language barriers. We seem to have conquered the time barrier, too.
(imdb.com)
In a feature picture I like quite well, the one in which I`m hanging on a clock, Safety Last! (1923), and which is probably one of our most popular, we did the final scenes of that climb first. We didn`t know what we were going to have for the beginning of it. We hadn`t made up the opening and after we found that we had, in our opinion, a very, very good thrill sequence, something that was going to be popular and bring in a few shekels, we went back and figured out what we would do for a beginning, and then worked on up to what we already had.
(imdb.com)
[on Bebe Daniels] She`s a wonderful individual and I can understand why she`s tremendously revered in Great Britain. She`s very warm-hearted and she has a habit of giving -- never lost it!
OTHER
(Bebe Daniels)
[on his horn-rimmed glasses] At a cost of 75 cents they provide a trademark recognized instantly wherever pictures are shown.
OTHER
[in 1970] My humor was never cruel or cynical. I just took life and poked fun at it. We made it so it could be understood the world over, without language barriers. We seem to have conquered the time barrier, too.
Movies
In a feature picture I like quite well, the one in which I`m hanging on a clock, Safety Last! (1923), and which is probably one of our most popular, we did the final scenes of that climb first. We didn`t know what we were going to have for the beginning of it. We hadn`t made up the opening and after we found that we had, in our opinion, a very, very good thrill sequence, something that was going to be popular and bring in a few shekels, we went back and figured out what we would do for a beginning, and then worked on up to what we already had.
Movies
[when asked whether the transition from silents to sound made any problems because of his voice, as with so many other stars from the era] I had to work a little on my voice because I hadn`t used it for years. I went to a voice coach for about five days, and then he said, "Good-bye, you just weren`t using it right".
Career
[when asked why he abandoned his Lonesome Luke character and that type of character] Charlie [Charles Chaplin] had the market cornered on that. He had it down to a science.
Career
I do not believe the public will want spoken comedy. Motion pictures and the spoken arts are two distinct arts.
Movies
Comedy comes from inside. It comes from your face. It comes from your body.
Career
Trivia
His home, "GreenAcres" has 44 rooms, 26 bathrooms, 12 fountains, 12 gardens and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
One of the 36 founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS).
A 1919 accident with a prop bomb which turned out to be a live bomb, cost him the thumb and forefinger of his right hand. In subsequent films, he wore a glove and prosthetic device to hide it. Remarkably, he was able to do many of his gags (he employed a stunt man for serious stunts) convincingly afterward.
Lloyd`s "Glasses character" was the inspiration for Superman`s identity as Clark Kent. Like that character, Lloyd found that he could hide his identity simply by taking off the glasses.
Interred at Forest Lawn, Glendale, California, USA, in the Great Mausoleum, Begonia Corridor.
According to the book, "The History Of Pulitzer Prize Winning Plays", Lloyd was originally slated to play the lead role of Elwood P. Dowd in Mary Chase`s Broadway stage play "Harvey". Lloyd turned the part down, and it then went to Frank Fay.
Pictured on one of ten 29˘ US commemorative postage stamps celebrating stars of the silent screen, issued 27 April 1994. Designed by caricaturist Al Hirschfeld, this set of stamps also honored Rudolph Valentino, Clara Bow, Charles Chaplin, Lon Chaney, John Gilbert, Zasu Pitts, Theda Bara, Buster Keaton, and Keystone Kops.
Was immortalized in "Futurama" (1999) episode S03E08: That`s Lobstertainment. In this episode we find out that Dr. Zoidberg has an uncle who was a silent actor, Harold Zoid.
Aside from two talking films, The Milky Way (1936) & The Sin of Harold Diddlebock (1947) (AKA "The Sin of Harold Diddlebock"), all films from 1922 through Grandma`s Boy (1922), were owned by Lloyd. Many of the pre-1920 shorts were lost in a nitrate explosion in his film vault in 1943 and are now considered lost. A limited number of films rights were sold to Time-Life in 1998, and released on VHS format. The estate rejected offers to release them to DVD up until 2005, when they accepted an offer from New Line (some have also been restored and shown periodically on TCM). His films are set to be released on DVD somewhere in the next two years (2006-2007) (The two talking films are in the public domain, and all films before 1922 are owned by KINO having passed from Pathe and Roach)
He is the great-great uncle of Casper Van Dien and Grace Van Dien.
He adopted daughter Marjorie Elisabeth Lloyd in 1929, when she was five years old.
Father of Harold Lloyd Jr. and Gloria Lloyd Roberts.
Brother of Gaylord Lloyd.
Son of J. Darcie `Foxy` Lloyd and Elisabeth Fraser Lloyd.
Grandfather of Suzanne Lloyd Hayes.
After Lloyd`s career as an actor deserted him in 1938, he immersed - some would say drowned - himself into one hobby after another. While he bred Great Danes and collected cars earlier in life, he would later indulge himself in marathon movie nights several times each week, and become rabidly interested in photography (which allowed himself intimate contact with innumerable models) and later, in hi-fidelity sound systems. He placed standing orders for the entire catalogs of several record companies, amassing an enormous record collection.
His actual autographs prior to 1936 are quite rare. His father, `J. Darcie `Foxy` Lloyd` , was given the job as the official fan mail correspondent within the Harold Lloyd Corporation. Foxy`s signature is easy to recognize - it`s right out of the 19th century and quite florid. HL`s signature is much plainer and common. His father retired to Palm Springs in 1936. HL found it impossible to dodge autograph seekers when he began whirlwind movie/bowling nights around Los Angeles as his acting career wound down about the same time. Real pre-1936 autographs exist mainly on contracts and extremely personal correspondence to Bebe Daniels.
Head of jury at the Berlin International Film Festival in 1960.
Parts of Westworld (1973) were shot at his estate, GreenAcres. He had expressed a desire to see his home preserved in some capacity related to his career, but his will strangely neglected any funding for the enormous estate. His heirs briefly opened it as a tourist attraction (and filming location) but this failed to generate adequate income and it was later sold.
Sam Taylor was the most important director for him.
Was once one of the 10 richest entertainers in the world.
Lloyd was extremely superstitious. His daily routines were dictated by his superstitions: he maintained that certain streets were unlucky and his chauffeurs were instructed to avoid them. He would habitually enter and exit rooms from the same doors and dress and undress in precise reverse order.
While never credited as a writer through his entire career, Lloyd was in fact the driving force behind all of his movies, from Grandma`s Boy (1922) throughout the silent era. He came up with most of the stories and gags and structured them together with his team.
His hobbies included 3-D photography. He took hundreds of stereo images of Hollywood stars such as Marilyn Monroe, John Wayne, Sterling Holloway, Richard Burton and Roy Rogers. Many of these photos are reproduced in the book "3-D Hollywood: Photography by Harold Lloyd", which was edited by his granddaughter, Suzanni Lloyd Hayes, and comes with a 3-D viewer.
He and his wife Mildred Davis are mentioned twice in the Drake Bell song "End it Good" off of his 2006 album "It`s Only Time".
Great-uncle of Bentley Mitchum (Robert Mitchum`s grandson).
A famous story about Lloyd concerns he and composer Gaylord Carter regarding the scoring of Lloyd`s film Safety Last! (1923)) for a re-release in the Lloyd He was present during the recording session; during the sequence from the film in which he is scaling the side of a building, he loses his grip and catches hold of the hands of an enormous clock. During this moment, Carter at the organ swung into the song "Time on My Hands", which prompted Lloyd to give Carter a mock stern glance and declare, "Gaylord, I`LL do the jokes!".
Before moving into his famous home Greenacres in 1928, Lloyd and his wife lived at 502 South Irving Boulevard in Los Angeles, just south of Hollywood. The house still exists. Before that, up until shortly after his marriage in 1923, Lloyd live in a large two-story house on Hoover Street.
Son of J. Darcie 'Foxy' Lloyd and Elisabeth Fraser Lloyd.
(imdb.com)
He and his wife Mildred Davis are mentioned twice in the Drake Bell song "End it Good" off of his 2006 album "It's Only Time".
(imdb.com)
Lloyd's "Glasses character" was the inspiration for Superman's identity as Clark Kent. Like that character, Lloyd found that he could hide his identity simply by taking off the glasses.
(imdb.com)
Great-uncle of Bentley Mitchum (Robert Mitchum`s grandson).
He and his wife Mildred Davis are mentioned twice in the Drake Bell song "End it Good" off of his 2006 album "It`s Only Time".
Was once one of the 10 richest entertainers in the world.
His home, "GreenAcres" has 44 rooms, 26 bathrooms, 12 fountains, 12 gardens and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
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