This post is especially for the Classic Movie Blog Association’s spring blogathon, “Screen Debuts & Last Hurrahs.” It’s also not a bad companion piece to the Harron interview I shared earlier this month. Please visit this link to see the many great posts my fellow members have written this week!
When we think of stars that have “gone too soon,” the folks who usually come to mind are icons like Marilyn Monroe or Elvis Presley, or perhaps Golden Age stars like Jean Harlow or Thelma Todd. But if we go even farther back we can find stars who were gone far too soon, in some cases just when they were making impacts on film history. Interestingly, examining their first and last films can enlighten us not just about their careers, but about the impressive cinematic advancements they witnessed in short spans of time.
One such star who was gone far too soon is Robert Harron, a dark-haired lad from a big Irish Catholic family who entered films when cinema itself was very young. Harron was born and raised in New York City and soon had to hustle for work to help support his family. When he was 14 one of the Catholic Brothers at his school helped him get a job at the American Mutoscope and Biograph Studio, not far from his home. For $5 a week he was kept busy as an all-purpose errand boy, helping clean, build sets, pick up lunches–and in time, gamely jump in as an extra in Biograph’s many one- and two-reel films.
Silent-ology 