Gilbert M. "Broncho Billy" Anderson (born Maxwell Henry Aronson; March 21, 1880 – January 20, 1971) was an American actor, writer, film director, and film producer, who was the first star of the Western film genre. He was a founder and star for Essanay studios. In 1958, he received a special

Academy Award The Academy Awards, commonly known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit in film. They are presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) in the United States in recognition of excellence ...

for being a pioneer of the

film industry The film industry or motion picture industry comprises the technological and commercial institutions of filmmaking, i.e., film production company, production companies, film studios, cinematography, animation, film production, screenwriting, pre- ...

Early life

Anderson was born Maxwell Henry Aronson in

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, the sixth child of Henry and Esther (Ash) Aronson, both natives of New York. His younger sister was actress and singer

Leona Anderson Leona Anderson (born Leona Aronson; April 3, 1885 – December 25, 1973) was an American silent film actress who is possibly best remembered for her 1957 shrill music album ''Music to Suffer By''. Biography Leona Anderson was born as Leona Aronso ...

. His family was

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, his father's parents having emigrated to the United States from

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, and his mother's from the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

. His family moved to

Pine Bluff, Arkansas Pine Bluff, officially the City of Pine Bluff, is the List of municipalities in Arkansas, tenth-most populous city in the U.S. state of Arkansas and the county seat of Jefferson County, Arkansas, Jefferson County. The population of the city wa ...

when he was three years old. He lived in Pine Bluff until he was 8, when he moved with his family to St. Louis, Missouri. When he was 18, he moved to

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and appeared in

vaudeville Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment which began in France in the middle of the 19th century. A ''vaudeville'' was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a drama ...

and the theater, supplementing his income as a photographer's model and newspaper vendor. In 1903, he met Edwin S. Porter, who hired him as an actor and occasional script collaborator.Katz, Ephraim. ''The Film Encyclopedia, 5th Ed.'' New York City: Harper Collins, 2005. pp. 35-36.

Film

Anderson played the dancing tenderfoot and the train passenger who gets shot and bandit #1 in '' The Great Train Robbery'' (1903). Seeing the film for the first time at a vaudeville theater and being overwhelmed by the audience's reaction, he decided to work in the film industry exclusively. He began to write, direct, and act in his own Westerns under the name Gilbert M. Anderson. Bushman chaplin Anderson

In 1907 in

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, Anderson and George Kirke Spoor founded Essanay Studios ("S and A" for Spoor and Anderson), one of the major early movie studios. In 1909, he directed the film with the first known instance of the pie-the-face gag, '' Mr. Flip''. Anderson acted in over 300 short films. He played a wide variety of characters, but he gained enormous popularity from a series of 148 silent Western shorts and was the first film cowboy star, "Broncho Billy." Many of these were shot in Niles, a small town in

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, south-east of San Francisco, where the nearby Western Pacific Railroad route through Niles Canyon proved to be a very suitable location for the filming of Westerns. Writing, acting, and directing most of these movies, Anderson also found time to direct a series of "Alkali Ike" comedy Westerns starring Augustus Carney. In 1916, Anderson sold his ownership in Essanay and retired from acting. He returned to New York City, bought the Longacre Theatre and produced plays, but without permanent success. He then made a brief comeback as a producer with a series of shorts with

Stan Laurel Stan Laurel ( ; born Arthur Stanley Jefferson; 16 June 1890 – 23 February 1965) was an English comic actor, director and writer who was in the comedy double act, duo Laurel and Hardy. He appeared with his comedy partner Oliver Hardy in 107 sh ...

, including his first work with Oliver Hardy in '' A Lucky Dog'' (filmed in 1919, released in 1921). After a series of failures as a Broadway producer, he retired again after 1920, this time permanently. Anderson sued

Paramount Pictures Paramount Pictures Corporation, commonly known as Paramount Pictures or simply Paramount, is an American film production company, production and Distribution (marketing), distribution company and the flagship namesake subsidiary of Paramount ...

for naming a character "Bronco Billy" in '' Star Spangled Rhythm'' (1943) and for depicting the character as a "washed-up and broken-down actor," which he felt reflected badly on him. He asked for $900,000, but the outcome of the suit is unknown. In 1958, Anderson received an Honorary

as a "motion picture pioneer" for his "contributions to the development of motion pictures as entertainment." At age 85, Anderson came out of retirement for a cameo role in '' The Bounty Killer'' (1965). File:Naked Hands.jpg, ''Naked Hands'', 1918 File:The Son of a Gun.jpg, ''The Son of a Gun'', 1919

Personal life and death

For the last years of his life, Anderson lived at the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, California. In his later years, his legs were paralyzed as the result of a back injury that occurred while he was making a film. He died of a

heart attack A myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a heart attack, occurs when Ischemia, blood flow decreases or stops in one of the coronary arteries of the heart, causing infarction (tissue death) to the heart muscle. The most common symptom ...

in 1971 at the age of 90, at a Braewood sanitarium in South Pasadena,

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Legacy

In 1918, Albert Levering drew a celebrity comic, ''Broncho Billy'', based on the Hollywood western star. Anderson was honored posthumously in 1998 with his image on a U.S. postage stamp. In 2002, he was inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in

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. For the past nine years, Niles (now part of Fremont), California, site of the western Essanay Studios, has held an annual "Broncho Billy Silent Film Festival." Anderson has a motion pictures star on the

Hollywood Walk of Fame The Hollywood Walk of Fame is a landmark which consists of 2,813 five-pointed terrazzo-and-brass stars embedded in the sidewalks along 15 blocks of Hollywood Boulevard and three blocks of Vine Street in the Hollywood, Los Angeles, Hollywood dist ...

at 1651 Vine Street in Hollywood. A Chicago Park District park, not far from the site of the Chicago Essanay Studio lot, was named Broncho Billy Park in his honor. On March 21, 2018, a historical roadside marker was dedicated in Little Rock, Arkansas, across the street from his birthplace, 713 Center Street. The marker was donated by the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation in cooperation with the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum and Little Rock's First United Methodist Church.As noted on the historical marker, see attached image Aronson marker - Little Rock

References

External links