- Born
- Died
- Place
Max Linder
Although all too frequently neglected by fans of silent comedy, Max Linder is in many ways as important a figure as Charles Chaplin, Buster Keaton, or Harold Lloyd, not least because he predated (and influenced) them all by several years, and was largely responsible for the creation of the classic style of silent slapstick comedy.
He started out as an actor in the French theatre, but after making his screen debut in 1905 he quickly became an enormously famous and successful film comedian on both sides of the Atlantic, thanks to his character "Max", a top-hatted dandy. By 1912, he was the highest-paid film star in the world, with an unprecedented salary of one million francs. He began to direct films in 1911 and showed equal facility behind the camera, but his career suffered an almost terminal blow when he was called up to fight in World War I. He was gassed, and the illness that resulted would blight his career.
Although offered a contract in America, recurring ill-health meant that his US films had little of the sparkle of his early French work, and a brief attempt to revive his career by making films for the recently-formed United Artists (one of whose founders, of course, was Chaplin) in the early 1920s came to little, although these later films are now regarded as classics.
He returned to France and killed himself in a suicide pact with his wife in 1925.
As director
The Three Must-Get-Theres
Seven Years Bad Luck
Be My Wife
Max the Heartbreaker
Max Wants a Divorce
Max in a Taxi
Max and the Purse
Max, médecin malgré lui
Max devrait porter des bretelles
Max Comes Across
Max in Monaco
Chance and Love
Hairdresser of Love
Max Speaks English
Max and the Lady Doctor
Max Sets the Style
Max as a Chiropodist
Max's Vacation
The Forced Marriage
Max and the Jealous Husband
Max Wishes He Hadn't
Max asthmatique
Max's Latest Hobby
Max's Hat
Max Linder's Appointment
Max Linder Does All the Sports
Max Hates Cats
Max Toreador
An Unexpected Marriage
Max: Jockey for Love
As actor
Life and Deaths of Max Linder
Charlie Chaplin, The Genius of Liberty
Max Linder Collection 1917-1922
Birth of the Tramp
Tout sur mon père Max Linder
The Man in the Silk Hat
Laugh with Max Linder
All in Good Fun
Easter Parade
The Way of the World
Those Were The Days
Charlie the Innkeeper
The Theft of the Mona Lisa
Au secours !
The World of Yesteryear – Max Linder
King of the Circus
The Three Must-Get-Theres
Seven Years Bad Luck
Be My Wife
Le Petit Café
Max the Heartbreaker
Max in a Taxi
Max Wants a Divorce
Max and the Purse
Max, médecin malgré lui
Max devrait porter des bretelles
Max Comes Across
Max Linder Visits Charlie Chaplin
Max in Monaco
Chance and Love