Max Davidson (May 23, 1875 – September 4, 1950) was a German-American film

actor An actor (masculine/gender-neutral), or actress (feminine), is a person who portrays a character in a production. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such as film, radio, and television. ...

known for his comedic Jewish

persona A persona (plural personae or personas) is a strategic mask of identity in public, the public image of one's personality, the social role that one adopts, or simply a fictional Character (arts), character. It is also considered "an intermediary ...

during the

silent film A silent film is a film without synchronized recorded sound (or more generally, no audible dialogue). Though silent films convey narrative and emotion visually, various plot elements (such as a setting or era) or key lines of dialogue may, w ...

era. With a career spanning over thirty years, Davidson appeared in over 180 films.

Career

Born in

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

to Jewish parents, Davidson emigrated to the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

in the 1890s where he began working in stock theater and

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 ...

. He entered silent movies in 1912. He made a series of films featuring the character Izzy for Reliance Pictures Company in 1914. The films included ''Izzy Gets the Wrong Bottle'', ''Izzy and His Rival'', ''Izzy and the Diamond'', ''How Izzy Stuck to His Post'', ''How Izzy Was Saved'', ''Izzy, the Detective'', ''Izzy's Night Out'', ''Izzy, the Operator'', and ''Izzy and the Bandit''. By the mid-teens, Davidson had appeared in his first feature film, Edward Dillon's ''Don Quixote'' (1915), followed by D.W. Griffith's '' Intolerance'', and Tod Browning's '' Puppets'' (both 1916). He starred alongside a young Jackie Coogan in a pair of silent features, '' The Rag Man'' (1923) and '' Old Clothes'' (1925). In 1923, he appeared in the Mack Sennett feature '' The Extra Girl'' with Mabel Normand, and in 1927 made a rare starring feature at Columbia, '' Pleasure Before Business'', as well as playing a somewhat more serious role as a servant in the Pola Negri WW1 vehicle '' Hotel Imperial''. In 1926 he began working for Hal Roach, playing stereotypical Jewish comic characters. After being featured in the Mabel Normand comedy '' Raggedy Rose'', Davidson was given a short-subject series of his own, appearing as a woebegone, put-upon fellow in such titles as ''Jewish-Prudence'' and ''Don't Tell Everything''. He was also featured in other Hal Roach series, including the "female

Laurel and Hardy Laurel and Hardy were a British-American double act, comedy duo during the early Classical Hollywood cinema, Classical Hollywood era of American cinema, consisting of Englishman Stan Laurel (1890–1965) and American Oliver Hardy (1892–1957) ...

" shorts co-starring Anita Garvin and Marion Byron. Davidson's best-known starring shorts are '' Call of the Cuckoo'' (1927), featuring cameos by Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, and Charley Chase; and the recently revived '' Pass the Gravy'' (1928), deemed "culturally significant" by the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...

and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.

Career decline

Max Davidson's exaggerated Jewish caricature was popular enough with audiences to sustain a string of silent shorts, but the coming of sound gave Davidson a voice. Although Davidson's native German accent was not so thick as to ruin his chances in talking pictures, his dialect gave his screen character a new and potentially offensive dimension, and Hal Roach forestalled any protests by discontinuing the series entirely. Davidson did appear in a few of Roach's earliest talkies, including the Edgar Kennedy short '' Hurdy Gurdy'' (1929) and the Our Gang short '' Moan and Groan, Inc.'' (1929). But Davidson's established ethnic character was too broad to survive as a starring attraction, and he spent the rest of his career playing bit roles almost exclusively. Davidson's largest role in sound films was as cowboy Tom Tyler's good-natured Jewish sidekick in the 1936 western feature '' Roamin' Wild''. He was still familiar to the movie-comedy community; when

Charlie Chaplin Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin (16 April 188925 December 1977) was an English comic actor, filmmaker, and composer who rose to fame in the era of silent film. He became a worldwide icon through his screen persona, the Tramp, and is considered o ...

needed ethnic types to portray the residents of a Jewish ghetto in '' The Great Dictator'' (1940), Max Davidson was cast. He continued to play ethnic shopkeepers, opposite The Three Stooges in '' No Census, No Feeling'' (1940) and The East Side Kids in '' Clancy Street Boys'' (1943), among several other films. His final screen appearance was in the 1945

Clark Gable William Clark Gable (February 1, 1901November 16, 1960) was an American actor often referred to as the "King of Cinema of the United States, Hollywood". He appeared in more than 60 Film, motion pictures across a variety of Film genre, genres dur ...

film ''

Adventure An adventure is an exciting experience or undertaking that is typically bold, sometimes risky. Adventures may be activities with danger such as traveling, exploring, skydiving, mountain climbing, scuba diving, river rafting, or other extreme spo ...

''. Davidson died on September 4, 1950, in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California.

Partial filmography

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Davidson, Max 1875 births 1950 deaths Emigrants from the German Empire to the United States German male film actors German male silent film actors 19th-century German Jews Hal Roach Studios actors Male actors from Berlin Silent film comedians German vaudeville performers American vaudeville performers Jewish American comedians Hal Roach Studios short film series 20th-century German male actors Jewish American male actors Jewish German male actors 20th-century American comedians Comedians from California Comedians from Berlin Slapstick comedians