Mack Sennett

Born: 17 Jan 1880, Danville, Quebec, Canada
Died: 05 Nov 1960, Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA

With an impressive credit listing as an actor (361 entries), director (308 entries) and producer (1117 entries) on IMDB, few have contributed as much to early silent comedy as Mack Sennett. He was innovational with the art of slapstick, earning himself the title of "King of Comedy". Irish-Canadian Michael Sinnott started off his career as a chorus singer in the theatre, before moving to America at the age of 17. He started his acting for the Biograph Company, mixing with the likes of Mary Pickford and Mabel Normand (with who he would later begin a relationship with), before moving into film production (having been approached by the New York Picture Company). Now, using the name Mack Sennett, he set up the Keystone Studios, taking Mabel with him. Sennett had a great ability of recognising raw talent, and gave a start to many a career, including Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd, and Roscoe Arbuckle as well as The Keystone Cops.
Sennett's comedies were of a type that hadn't been seen before. They were fast paced, frantic, and usually had wild chases of one type or another, and were packed with visual gags and madcap stunts. He was a believer that if a situation was unusual a whole comedy could be improvised around it and often began shooting films without a script (or indeed a basic story!). With Chaplin, he once used a real car race as the backdrop of a short. In another, he had Mabel fly in a less than safe looking real plane and built a story around the footage. His very popular Keystone Kops shorts were often just a chaotic mixture of gags, loosely connected.
In 1917, he left Keystone and set up Mack Sennett Comedies Corporation. This allowed him to produce feature length films with Mabel Normand and Ben Turpin (his other famous stars had long since left to bigger solo careers). Some more success followed although by the mid 20's his slapstick style was not as much in demand as it had been. Sennett moved to Pathe Exchange before having success with short sound comedies starring Bing Crosby and later W.C. Fields.
Sennett was financially hit hard by the Wall Street collapse in 1929 and lost a lot of his money. He was forced into bankruptcy in 1933. A few months later tragedy struck when a car accident left him injured and a friend dead. In 1938, Sennett was honored by his peers when he was presented with an honorary Academy Award "For his lasting contribution to the comedy technique of the screen".
The contribution of Mack Sennett to silent comedy cannot be under estimated and his style influenced a whole generation of film makers - he was, 'The King of Comedy'.