James Harry "Ginger" Lacey
180px "Ginger" Lacey c. 1940.
Nickname	"Ginger"
Born	1 February 1917 Wetherby, West Riding of Yorkshire
Died	30 May 1989 (aged 72) Bridlington, East Riding of Yorkshire
Allegiance	United Kingdom
Service/branch	Royal Air Force
Years of service	1937–1967
Rank	Squadron Leader
Commands held	No. 501 Squadron RAF (1939–1941) 57 OTU (1941) 602 Squadron (1942) 81 Group (1942) No. 1 Special Attack Instructors School (1942) No. 20 Squadron RAF(1943) 1572 Gunnery Flight(1943) No. 155 Squadron RAF(1944) No. 17 Squadron RAF (1944–1948) Fighter Controller
Battles/wars	Second World War European Theatre Battle of France Battle of Britain
Awards	Distinguished Flying Medal & Bar Croix de guerre (France)
Other work	Owner of a cargo air carrier, Flight instructor

Squadron Leader James Harry "Ginger" Lacey DFM & Bar (1 February 1917 in Wetherby, near Leeds, Yorkshire, England – 30 May 1989) was one of the top scoring Royal Air Force fighter pilots of the Second World War and was the second highest scoring British RAF fighter pilot of the Battle of Britain, behind P/O Eric Lock of No. 41 Squadron RAF. Lacey was credited with 28 enemy aircraft destroyed, five probables and nine damaged.^[1]

Early years[link]

Lacey left King James Grammar School, Knaresborough in 1933. After four years as an apprentice pharmacist, he joined the RAFVR (Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve) in January 1937 as a trainee pilot at Perth, Scotland. In 1938, he then took an instructor's course, becoming an instructor at the Yorkshire Flying School. Called up at the outbreak of war, he joined No. 501 Squadron RAF.

Second World War[link]

Battle of France[link]

On 10 May 1940, the Squadron moved to Bétheniville in France where Lacey experienced his first combat. On 13 May over Sedan, he destroyed a Heinkel He 111 and a Messerschmitt Bf 109 followed by a Messerschmitt Bf 110 in the afternoon.^[2] He claimed two more He 111s on 27 May, before the squadron was withdrawn to England on 19 June, having claimed nearly 60 victories. On 9 June, he crash landed and was almost drowned in a swamp. During his operational duties in France, he was awarded the French Croix de guerre.

Battle of Britain[link]

Flying throughout the Battle of Britain with No. 501 based at Gravesend or Croydon, Lacey became one of the highest scoring pilots of the battle. His first kill of the battle was on 20 July 1940, when he shot down a Bf 109E of Jagdgeschwader 27. He then claimed a destroyed Ju 87 and a “probable” Ju 87 on 12 August along with a damaged Bf 110 and damaged Do 17 on 15 August, a probable Bf 109 on 16 August. He destroyed a Ju 88, damaged a Dornier Do 17 on 24 August and shot down a Bf 109 of Jagdgeschwader 3 on 29 August. He bailed out unharmed after being hit by return fire from a Heinkel He 111 on 13 August.

On 23 August, Lacey was awarded the Distinguished Flying Medal.

On 30 August 1940, during combat over the Thames Estuary, Lacey shot down a He 111 and damaged a Bf 110 before his Hurricane was badly hit from enemy fire. His engine stopped and he decided to glide the stricken aircraft back to the airfield at Gravesend instead of bailing out into the Estuary.

A highly successful August was completed when he destroyed a Bf 109 on 31 August.

On 2 September 1940, Lacey shot down two Bf 109s and damaged a Do 17. He then shot down another two Bf 109s on 5 September. During a heavy raid on 13 September, he engaged a formation of Kampfgeschwader 55 He 111s over London where he shot down one of the bombers that had just bombed Buckingham Palace. He then bailed out of his aircraft, sustaining slight injuries, as he could not find his airfield in the worsening visibility.

Returning to the action shortly thereafter, he shot down a He 111, three Bf 109s and damaged another on 15 September 1940, one of the heaviest days of fighting during the whole battle, which later became known as “Battle of Britain Day”. During the battle he attacked a formation of 12 Bf 109s, shooting down two before the other had noticed before escaping into cloud^[3]

Two days later on 17 September, he was shot down over Ashford, Kent during a dogfight with Bf 109s and bailed out without injury. On 27 September, he destroyed a Bf 109 and damaged a Junkers Ju 88 on 30 September. During October he claimed a probable Bf 109 on 7 October, shot down a Bf 109 on 12 October, another on 26 October and on 30 October, he destroyed a Bf 109 before damaging another.

During the Battle of France and the Battle of Britain, Lacey had been shot down or forced to land due to combat no less than nine times.

On 26 November 1940, with 23 claims (18 made during the Battle of Britain) Lacey received a Bar to his Distinguished Flying Medal for his continued outstanding courage and bravery during the Battle of Britain.

After 1940[link]

In January 1941, Lacey was commissioned and promoted to Acting Flight Lieutenant in June. On 10 July 1941, as “A” Flight Commander, he shot down a Bf 109 and damaged another a few days later on 14 July. On 17 July, he claimed a Heinkel He 59 seaplane shot down and on 24 July, two Bf 109s (by causing them to collide). He was posted away from combat operations during August 1941, serving as a flight instructor with 57 OTU (Operational Training Unit).

During March 1942, Lacey joined No. 602 Squadron, based at Kenley flying the Spitfire Mk V and by 24 March had claimed a Fw 190 as damaged. He damaged another Fw 190 on 25 April 1942 before a posting to 81 Group as a Tactics Officer and later that year, in November, as Chief Instructor at the No. 1 Special Attack Instructors School, Milfield.

In March 1943, Lacey was posted to No. 20 Squadron, Kaylan in India before joining 1572 Gunnery Flight in July of the same year to convert from Blenheims to Hurricanes and then to Republic P-47 Thunderbolts. He stayed in India, being posted to command 155 Squadron flying the Spitfire VIII in November 1944 and then as CO No. 17 Squadron later that month. While based in India, Lacey claimed his last aircraft on 19 February 1945, shooting down a Japanese Army Air Force Nakajima Ki 43 “Oscar” with only nine 20mm cannon rounds.

"Ginger" Lacey was one of the few RAF pilots on operational duties on both the opening and closing day of the war. His final tally was 28 confirmed, four probables and nine damaged.

Postwar[link]

After the war was over, Lacey went to Japan with No. 17 Squadron, becoming the first Spitfire pilot to fly over Japan on 30 April 1946. He returned to the UK in May 1946. After receiving a permanent commission in December 1948, Lacey retired from the RAF on 5 March 1967 as a Flight Lieutenant; he retained the rank of Squadron Leader.

After retirement, Lacey ran an air freight business and instructed at a flight school near Bridlington, UK.

Death[link]

"Ginger" Lacey died on 30 May 1989 at the age of 72. In September 2001, a plaque was unveiled at Priory Church, Bridlington, Yorkshire in memory of the fighter pilot and ace.

References[link]

Notes

Bibliography

External links[link]

Lacey Von Erich
Ring name(s)	Lacey Von Erich[1]
Height	5 ft 10 in (1.78 m)
Born	(1986-07-17) July 17, 1986 (age 25)[2] Dallas, Texas[2]
Resides	Los Angeles, California
Billed from	Dallas, Texas
Trained by	Steve Keirn[3]
Debut	2007[3]

Lacey Dawn Adkisson^[3][4] (born July 17, 1986)^[2] is an American professional wrestler better known by her ring name Lacey Von Erich. She is the daughter of Kerry Von Erich and the granddaughter of Fritz Von Erich. She is best known for working for Total Nonstop Action Wrestling where she is a one-time TNA Knockouts Tag Team Champion, defending under the freebird rule and holding the longest reign for the championship with former Beautiful People partners Velvet Sky and Madison Rayne.

Professional wrestling career[link]

World Wrestling Entertainment (2007)[link]

Adkisson signed a developmental contract with World Wrestling Entertainment in August 2007.^[4] She was assigned to Florida Championship Wrestling (FCW) in Tampa, Florida, and became the first third generation wrestler from the Von Erich family.^[4] She made her debut for FCW on September 15, 2007 managing Billy Kidman under the ring name Lacey Von Erich.^[5] On September 25, 2007, Lacey then appeared as the valet for Ryan O' Reilly along with Maryse Ouellet.^[6] On October 9, 2007 Von Erich made her in-ring debut in a loss against Nattie Neidhart.^[4][7] Von Erich made the decision to leave World Wrestling Entertainment due to heavy travel schedule and did not want to be away from her son.^[4]

Lacey made an appearance at WrestleMania XXV, where the Von Erich family was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame. She was seen in the audience as her uncle, Kevin Von Erich, accepted the induction.

Independent circuit (2008–present)[link]

On March 8, 2008, Von Erich returned to the ring with Missy Hyatt in her corner in a match against Angel Orsini in Lake Hiawatha, New Jersey. Wrestling barefoot like her uncle Kevin, Von Erich won the match by defeating Orsini with the Iron Claw. On March 22, 2008, Von Erich made her debut in Professional Championship Wrestling in Arlington, Texas. She teamed up with Action Jackson to defeat Mike Foxx and Claudia in a mixed tag team match.^[8] Before the debut at PCW she wrestled in a mixed tag team match vs. JT Lamotta and MissDiss_lexia at SWWA in Granbury, TX/ Von Erich joined Pro Wrestling Revolution on June 7, 2008. In December 2008, she defeated Cheerleader Melissa at a Pro Wrestling Revolution show in San Francisco, California.^[2]

On July 10, 2009, Lacey Von Erich defeated Mia Martinez, Faith, Huntress, and Kimberly Kash to become the new WCPW Ladies Champion.^[9]

Wrestlicious (2009–2010)[link]

In 2009, Von Erich began working for an all-female wrestling promotion, Wrestlicious, which was created by Jimmy Hart and started airing in March 2010.^[10] She, however, had to be released by the company after the tapings of the first season of episodes, after signing with Total Nonstop Action Wrestling.^[2] She debuted on March 17 edition of Takedown in a tag team main event, where she and Amber Lively defeated Draculetta and White Magic via disqualification.^[11] On the April 7 edition of Takedown, Von Erich participated in a battle royal to determine the top two contenders for the Wrestlicious Crown. She was eliminated by Kickstart Katie.^[12] On the May 19 edition of Takedown, Von Erich helped Alexandra the Great in her submission match against Kickstart Katie. She ended up putting Brooke Lynne in the Von Erich Claw to make her drop her towel and give Alexandra the victory over Katie.^[13]

Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (2009–2010)[link]

Von Erich with the Ugly Stick, as part of The Beautiful People.

On the October 1, 2009, episode of Total Nonstop Action Wrestling's Impact!, Von Erich debuted as a heel, by aligning herself with the Beautiful People of Velvet Sky and Madison Rayne and attacking the TNA Knockouts Tag Team Champions, Taylor Wilde and Sarita.^[14] On the October 15 edition of Impact! she made her in-ring debut teaming with Sky and Rayne in a six knockout tag team match, where they defeated the team of Awesome Kong, ODB and Tara.^[15] Two weeks later on Impact! she once again teamed with Sky and Rayne in a six knockouts tag team match, where they defeated ODB, Christy Hemme and Hamada, when Von Erich pinned Hemme after a chokeslam, scoring her first victory in TNA.^[16] On November 5, she started carrying a pink nightstick with her to the ring, dubbed "Lacey's Ugly Stick". At Turning Point, the Beautiful People were unsuccessful in gaining any gold in TNA, as ODB pinned Rayne in a six knockout tag team match with all the gold on the line to win the match for the reigning champions.^[17] The Beautiful People began appearing in backstage segments they dubbed as their reality show "The Meanest Girls", an allusion to the 2004 teen comedy Mean Girls.^[18] On the December 10 edition of Impact! Von Erich was defeated by Velvet Sky in a mud wrestling match refereed by Madison Rayne. The match was booked by Kevin Nash, who was in charge for the evening, in an attempt to get big ratings.^[19] On the January 14, 2010, edition of Impact! Sky, Rayne and Von Erich were attacked by the returning Angelina Love, whom Von Erich had replaced in the Beautiful People.^[20] On the March 8 Monday night edition of Impact! Rayne and Sky defeated the teams of Love and Tara and Sarita and Taylor Wilde in a three-way match to win the vacant TNA Knockouts Tag Team Championship, which they defended with Von Erich under the Freebird rule.^[21] Her first title defense was on the April 19 edition of Impact!, where she teamed with Velvet Sky to defeat the team of Daffney and ODB.^[22] On the June 17 edition of Impact! Von Erich competed in her second singles match in TNA against Angelina Love, who was making a return from an injury, and won via disqualification after she was dropped on a steel chair with a DDT.^[23]

On July 11 at Victory Road, Rayne lost the Women's Knockout Championship to Angelina Love via disqualification due to outside interference from a person incognito in a motorcycle helmet. Prior to the match it was announced that the title would change hands via disqualification, if either Velvet Sky or Lacey Von Erich interfered in the match.^[24] On the following edition of Impact!, The Beautiful People imploded as Sky said she didn't approve of Rayne's recent attitude, behavior, and apparent affiliation with the mystery woman at the pay-per-view, to which Rayne responded by saying that she didn't need Sky anymore. Sky and Von Erich then walked out on Rayne as she and the mystery woman ganged up on Love.^[25] On the July 22 edition of Impact!, the Women's Knockout Championship was returned to Rayne, when it was declared that there was no proof that the person who had interfered in the match was either Sky or Von Erich. Later that same night Rayne managed to convince Von Erich to abandon Sky and leave with her and the mystery woman.^[26][27] On July 27, at the tapings of the August 5 edition of Impact!, Von Erich and Sky lost the TNA Knockouts Tag Team Championship to Hamada and Taylor Wilde, when Rayne's and the mystery woman's interference backfired. Later in the night, Sky and Rayne were seen fighting backstage, during which Sky shoved Von Erich, who tried to make peace between her team mates, inadvertently knocking her unconscious.^[28][29] The following week it was announced that Von Erich had suffered a broken cheek bone in the scuffle.^[30]

On the September 16 edition of Impact!, Von Erich returned from her injury teaming with Rayne against Wilde and Hamada for the TNA Knockouts Tag Team Championship. Von Erich and Rayne were unsuccessful in regaining the championships, after which Von Erich was attacked by Rayne and Tara, before being saved by Velvet Sky and Angelina Love, thus turning Von Erich face.^[31] On the October 28 edition of Impact! it was announced that Von Erich had agreed to train Miss Tessmacher to wrestle, after her stable mates had turned her down the previous week.^[32] However, on November 11, 2010, Adkisson announced her departure from TNA.^[33]

Hulkamania: Let the Battle Begin (2009)[link]

In November 2009, Von Erich took part in the Australian tour "Hulkamania: Let the Battle Begin" created by Hulk Hogan. On November 21 she won a bikini contest, which also included Koa Marie Turner, Stephanie Pietz and Kiara Dillon. She also interfered in the main event between Hogan and Ric Flair, on Flair's behalf but was stripped down by Hogan's manager, Jimmy Hart.^[34] In other matches on the tour she was used as Flair's manager.

Other media[link]

On January 25, 2010, Lacey appeared as a live guest on the weekly "Right After Wrestling" radio program on Hardcore Sports Radio on SIRIUS Radio Chanel 98 with host Arda Ocal.^[35] In November 2010 she was a contestant on an all TNA week of Family Feud, teaming with Angelina Love, Christy Hemme, Tara and Velvet Sky against Jay Lethal, Matt Morgan, Mick Foley, Mr. Anderson and Rob Van Dam.^[36]

Personal life[link]

Adkisson is part of the Von Erich family. Her grandfather was Fritz Von Erich, and she is the daughter of Kerry Von Erich.^[4] She has an older sister named Hollie.^[4] She has one child.^[4]

Adkisson runs her own advertising company in Southern California.^[4] In early 2009, she was diagnosed with meningitis after complaining of a migraine, but she made a full recovery.^[2]

In wrestling[link]

Von Erich applying the Von Erich Claw on Sarita.

Von Erich performing a chokeslam.

• Finishing moves
  • Chokeslam^[37]
  • Tornado Punch (Discus punch)^[3] – adopted from her father
  • Von Erich Claw (Clawhold)
• Signature moves
  • Back flip transitioned into an elbow drop, sometimes from the second rope
  • Variations of Suplex
    • Double underhook
    • Delayed vertical
    • Chickenwing
    • Snap
  • Spinning savate kick^[22]
• With Velvet Sky
  • Double DDT^[38]
• Nicknames
  • "The Heir Apparent to the Von Erich Throne"^[39]
  • "The Texas Twister"^[2][40]
• Managers
  • Missy Hyatt
• Wrestlers managed
  • Billy Kidman^[1][41]
  • Ric Flair^[1]
  • Victoria Crawford^[1]
  • Ryan O'Reilly^[41]
  • Alexandra the Great^[42]
  • Madison Rayne^[1]
  • Velvet Sky^[1]
• Entrance themes
  • "Angel on My Shoulder" by Dale Oliver^[43]

Championships and accomplishments[link]

Von Erich with a TNA Knockouts Tag Team Championship belt.

• Total Nonstop Action Wrestling
  • TNA Knockouts Tag Team Championship (1 time)¹ – with Velvet Sky and Madison Rayne^[44]

• Windy City Pro Wrestling
  • WCPW Ladies Championship (1 time)^[9][45]

¹Von Erich defended the title with either Rayne or Sky under the Freebird Rule.

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Lacey Von Erich

Professional wrestling portal

• Online World of Wrestling profile
• Gerweck profile

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (May 2011)

The iconic clock scene in Safety Last!

Harold Clayton Lloyd, Sr. (April 20, 1893 – March 8, 1971) was an American film actor and producer, most famous for his silent comedies.^[2]

Harold Lloyd ranks alongside Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton as one of the most popular and influential film comedians of the silent film era. Lloyd made nearly 200 comedy films, both silent and "talkies", between 1914 and 1947. He is best known for his "Glasses Character", a resourceful, success-seeking go-getter who was perfectly in tune with 1920s era America.

His films frequently contained "thrill sequences" of extended chase scenes and daredevil physical feats, for which he is best remembered today. Lloyd hanging from the hands of a clock high above the street in Safety Last! (1923) is one of the most enduring images in all of cinema.^{[citation needed]} Lloyd did many of these dangerous stunts himself, despite having injured himself in August, 1919 while doing publicity pictures for the Roach studio. An accident with a bomb mistaken as a prop resulted in the loss of the thumb and index finger of his right hand ^[3] (the injury was disguised on future films with the use of a special prosthetic glove, though the glove often did not go by unnoticed).

Although Lloyd's individual films were not as commercially successful as Charlie Chaplin's on average, he was far more prolific (releasing twelve feature films in the 1920s while Chaplin released just three), and made more money overall ($15.7 million to Chaplin's $10.5 million).

Early life and early roles[link]

Lloyd was born in Burchard, Nebraska to James Darsie Lloyd and Elizabeth Fraser; his paternal great-grandparents were from Wales. When he was a child, his parents divorced and Lloyd chose to stay with his father, who was always dreaming up grand get-rich-quick schemes that ended in disasters. They eventually ended up in Omaha where Lloyd had his first acting experience in a local stock company. He attended East High School and San Diego High School and received his stage training at the School of Dramatic Art (San Diego). In 1912, his father J. Darsie "Foxy" Lloyd was awarded the then-massive sum of $6,000 in a personal injury judgment (although this was split evenly between Lloyd and his lawyer) after being run over by an Omaha beer truck. Reportedly, on the toss of a coin ("Heads is New York or Nashville or where I decide!, tails is San Diego"), he and Lloyd moved west.

Lloyd had acted in theatre since boyhood, and started acting in one-reel film comedies shortly after moving to California. He soon began working with Thomas Edison's motion picture company, and eventually formed a partnership with fellow struggling actor and director Hal Roach, who had formed his own studio in 1913. The hard-working Lloyd became the most successful of Roach's comic actors between 1915 and 1919.

Lloyd hired Bebe Daniels as a supporting actress in 1914; the two of them were involved romantically and were known as "The Boy" and "The Girl." In 1919, she left Lloyd to pursue her dramatic aspirations. Lloyd replaced Daniels with Mildred Davis in 1919. Lloyd was tipped off by Hal Roach to watch Davis in a movie. Reportedly, the more Lloyd watched Davis the more he liked her. Lloyd's first reaction in seeing her was that "she looked like a big French doll!"^{[citation needed]} Davis retired from acting in 1923, and Jobyna Ralston became Lloyd's co-star.

From 1915 to 1917, Lloyd and Roach created more than 60 one-reel comedies.

Lloyd in A Sailor-Made Man (1921), his first feature.

Silent shorts and features[link]

By 1918, Lloyd and Roach had begun to develop his character beyond an imitation of his contemporaries. Harold Lloyd would move away from tragicomic personas, and portray an everyman with unwavering confidence and optimism. The "Glasses Character" (often named "Harold" in the silent films) was a much more mature comedy character with greater potential for sympathy and emotional depth, and was easy for audiences of the time to identify with. The Glasses Character is said to have been created after Roach suggested that Harold was too handsome to do comedy, without some sort of disguise; previously, he had worn a fake mustache as the Chaplinesque "Lonesome Luke". Unlike most silent comedy personas, "Harold" was never typecast to a social class, but he was always striving for success and recognition. Within the first few years of the character's debut, he had portrayed social ranks ranging from a starving vagrant in From Hand to Mouth to a wealthy socialite in Captain Kidd's Kids.

Harold Lloyd in Grandma's Boy (1922).

Beginning in 1921, Roach and Lloyd moved from shorts to feature length comedies. These included the acclaimed Grandma's Boy, which, (along with Chaplin's The Kid), pioneered the combination of complex character development and film comedy, the highly popular Safety Last! (1923), which cemented Lloyd's stardom (and is the oldest film on the American Film Institute's List of 100 Most Thrilling Movies), and Why Worry? (1923).

Lloyd and Roach parted ways in 1924, and Lloyd became the independent producer of his own films. These included his most accomplished mature features Girl Shy, The Freshman (his highest-grossing silent feature), The Kid Brother, and Speedy, his final silent film. Welcome Danger was originally a silent film but Lloyd decided late in the production to remake it with dialogue. All of these films were enormously successful and profitable, and Lloyd would eventually become the highest paid film performer of the 1920s.^[4] They were also highly influential and still find many fans among modern audiences, a testament to the originality and film-making skill of Lloyd and his collaborators. From this success he became one of the wealthiest and most influential figures in early Hollywood.

Talkies and transition[link]

In 1924, Lloyd formed his own independent film production company, the Harold Lloyd Film Corporation, with his films distributed by Pathé and later Paramount and Twentieth Century-Fox. Lloyd was a founding member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Released a few weeks before the start of the Great Depression, Welcome Danger was a huge financial success, with audiences eager to hear Lloyd's voice on film. Lloyd's rate of film releases, which had been one or two a year in the 1920s, slowed to about one every two years until 1938.

The films released during this period were: Feet First, with a similar scenario to Safety Last which found him clinging to a skyscraper at the climax; Movie Crazy with Constance Cummings; The Cat's-Paw, which was a dark political comedy and a big departure for Lloyd; and The Milky Way, which was Lloyd's only attempt at the fashionable genre of the screwball comedy film.

To this point the films had been produced by Lloyd's company. However, his go-getting screen character was out of touch with Great Depression movie audiences of the 1930s. As the length of time between his film releases increased, his popularity declined, as did the fortunes of his production company. His final film of the decade, Professor Beware, was made by the Paramount staff, with Lloyd functioning only as actor and partial financier.

On March 23, 1937, Lloyd sold the land of his studio Harold Lloyd Motion Picture Company to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The location is now the site of the Los Angeles California Temple.^[5]

Lloyd produced a few comedies for RKO Radio Pictures in the early 1940s but otherwise retired from the screen until 1947. He returned for an additional starring appearance in The Sin of Harold Diddlebock, an ill-fated homage to Lloyd's career, directed by Preston Sturges and financed by Howard Hughes. This film had the inspired idea of following Harold's Jazz Age, optimistic character from The Freshman into the Great Depression years. Diddlebock opened with footage from The Freshman (for which Lloyd was paid a royalty of $50,000, matching his actor's fee) and Lloyd was sufficiently youthful-looking to match the older scenes quite well. Lloyd and Sturges had different conceptions of the material and fought frequently during the shoot; Lloyd was particularly concerned that while Sturges had spent three to four months on the script of the first third of the film, "the last two thirds of it he wrote in a week or less". The finished film was released briefly in 1947, then shelved by producer Hughes. Hughes issued a recut version of the film in 1951 through RKO under the title Mad Wednesday. Such was Lloyd's disdain that he sued Howard Hughes, the California Corporation and RKO for damages to his reputation "as an outstanding motion picture star and personality", eventually accepting a $30,000 settlement.

Marriage and home life[link]

Lloyd married his leading lady, Mildred Davis, on Saturday, February 10, 1923. Together, they had two children: Gloria Lloyd (1924–2012),^[6] and Harold Clayton Lloyd, Jr., (1931–1971).^[7] They also adopted Gloria Freeman (1924–1986) in September 1930, whom they renamed Marjorie Elizabeth Lloyd, but who was known as "Peggy" for most of her life. Lloyd, for a time, discouraged Davis from continuing her acting career. He later relented, but by that time her career momentum was lost. Davis died in 1969, two years before Lloyd's death. Lloyd's son was gay, and according to Annette D'Agostino Lloyd (no relation) in the book Harold Lloyd: Master Comedian, Harold Sr. took this in good spirit. Harold Jr. died from complications of a stroke.

Harold Lloyd and future wife: Mildred Davis in I Do in 1921.

Lloyd's Beverly Hills home, "Greenacres", was built in 1926–1929, with 44 rooms, 26 bathrooms, 12 fountains, 12 gardens, and a nine hole golf course. The estate left the possession of the Lloyd family in 1975, after a failed attempt to maintain it as a public museum.

The grounds were subsequently subdivided, but the main house and the estate's principal gardens remain and are frequently used for civic fundraising events and as a filming location, appearing in films like Westworld and The Loved One. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Radio and retirement[link]

In October 1944, Lloyd emerged as the director and host of The Old Gold Comedy Theater, an NBC radio anthology series, after Preston Sturges, who had turned the job down, recommended him for it. The show presented half-hour radio adaptations of recently successful film comedies, beginning with Palm Beach Story with Claudette Colbert and Robert Young.

Some saw The Old Gold Comedy Theater as being a lighter version of Lux Radio Theater, and it featured some of the best-known film and radio personalities of the day, including Fred Allen, June Allyson, Lucille Ball, Ralph Bellamy, Linda Darnell, Susan Hayward, Herbert Marshall, Dick Powell, Edward G. Robinson, Jane Wyman, and Alan Young, among others. But the show's half-hour format—which meant the material might have been truncated too severely—and Lloyd's sounding somewhat ill at ease on the air for much of the season (though he spent weeks training himself to speak on radio prior to the show's premiere, and seemed more relaxed toward the end of the series run) may have worked against it.

The Old Gold Comedy Theater ended in June 1945 with an adaptation of Tom, Dick and Harry, featuring June Allyson and Reginald Gardiner and was not renewed for the following season. Many years later, acetate discs of 29 of the shows were discovered in Lloyd's home, and they now circulate among old-time radio collectors.

Lloyd in 1946, when he was appointed to the Shriners' publicity committee.

Lloyd remained involved in a number of other interests, including civic and charity work. Inspired by having overcome his own serious injuries and burns, he was very active as a Shriner with the Shriners Hospital for Crippled Children. He was a Past Potentate of Al-Malaikah Shrine in Los Angeles, and was eventually selected as Imperial Potentate of the Shriners of North America for the year 1949–50.^[8]

He appeared as himself on several television shows during his retirement, first on Ed Sullivan's variety show Toast of the Town June 5, 1949 and again on July 6, 1958. He appeared as the Mystery Guest on What's My Line? on April 26, 1953, and twice on This Is Your Life: on March 10, 1954 for Mack Sennett, and again on December 14, 1955 on his own episode. During both appearances, Lloyd's hand injury can clearly be seen.^[9]

Lloyd studied colors, microscopy, and was very involved with photography, including 3D photography and color film experiments. Some of the earliest 2-color Technicolor tests were shot at his Beverly Hills home (These are included as extra material in the Harold Lloyd Comedy Collection DVD Box Set). He became known for his nude photographs of models, such as Bettie Page and stripper Dixie Evans, for a number of men's magazines. He also took photos of Marilyn Monroe lounging at his pool in a bathing suit, which were published after their deaths. In 2004, his granddaughter Suzanne produced a book of selections from his photographs, Harold Lloyd's Hollywood Nudes in 3D! (ISBN 1-57912-394-5).

Lloyd also provided encouragement and support for a number of younger actors, such as Debbie Reynolds, Robert Wagner, and particularly Jack Lemmon, whom Harold declared as his own choice to play him in a movie of his life and work.

Renewed interest[link]

Lloyd kept copyright control of most of his films and re-released them infrequently after his retirement. Lloyd did not grant cinematic release because in the main most theaters could not accommodate an organist, and Lloyd did not wish his work to be accompanied by a pianist: "I just don't like pictures played with pianos. We never intended them to be played with pianos". Similarly, his features were never shown on television as Lloyd's price was high: "I want $300,000 per picture for two showings. That's a high price, but if I don't get it, I'm not going to show it. They've come close to it, but they haven't come all the way up". As a consequence, his reputation and public recognition suffered in comparison with Chaplin and Keaton, whose work has generally been more available.

Also, Lloyd's film character was so intimately associated with the 1920s era that attempts at revivals in 1940s and 1950s were poorly received, when audiences viewed the 1920s (and silent film in particular) as old-fashioned.

In the early 1960s, Lloyd produced two compilation films, featuring scenes from his old comedies, Harold Lloyd's World of Comedy and The Funny Side of Life. The first film was premiered at the 1962 Cannes Film Festival, where Lloyd was feted as a major rediscovery. The renewed interest in Lloyd helped restore his status among film historians. Throughout his later years he screened his films for audiences at special charity and educational events, to great acclaim, and found a particularly receptive audience among college audiences: "Their whole response was tremendous because they didn't miss a gag; anything that was even a little subtle, they got it right away".

Following his death, and after extensive negotiations, most of his feature films were leased to Time-Life Films in 1974. As Tom Dardis confirms: "Time-Life prepared horrendously edited musical-sound-track versions of the silent films, which are intended to be shown on TV at sound speed, and which represent everything that Harold feared would happen to his best films".

Through the efforts of Kevin Brownlow and David Gill and the support of granddaughter Suzanne Lloyd Hayes, the British Thames Silents series re-released some of the feature films in the early 1990s on home video, at corrected projection speeds and with new orchestral scores by Carl Davis. More recently, the remainder of Lloyd's great silent features and many shorts were fully restored, with new orchestral scores by Robert Israel. These are now frequently shown on the Turner Classic Movies (TCM) cable channel. An acclaimed 1990 documentary (Harold Lloyd: The Third Genius) by Brownlow and Gill, which was shown as part of the PBS series American Masters, also created a renewed interest in Lloyd's work in the early 1990s. A DVD Collection of restored versions of most of his feature films (and his more important shorts) was released by New Line Cinema in partnership with the Harold Lloyd Trust in November 2005, along with limited theatrical screenings in New York and other cities in the US, Canada and Europe. Annette Lloyd has also said that if there is a large-enough show of support by fans, a second collection may be released in the future^{[citation needed]}.

Academy Award[link]

In 1953, Lloyd received a special Academy Award for being a "master comedian and good citizen." The second citation was a snub to Chaplin, who at that point had fallen foul of McCarthyism and who had had his entry visa to the United States revoked. Regardless of the political overtones, Lloyd accepted the award in good spirit.

Death[link]

Lloyd died at age 77 from prostate cancer on March 8, 1971, in Beverly Hills, California.^[4][10][11] He was interred in a crypt in the Great Mausoleum at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.

Walk of Fame[link]

Harold Lloyd has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. His was only the fourth ceremony preserving his handprints, footprints, autograph, and outline of his famed glasses (which were actually a pair of sunglasses with the lenses removed), at Grauman's Chinese Theatre, in 1927. In 1994, he was honored with his image on a United States postage stamp designed by caricaturist Al Hirschfeld.

Filmography[link]

Further reading[link]

• Lloyd, Harold and Stout, W.W. (1928, revised 1971). An American Comedy. Dover. 
• Agee, James (1958, 2000). "Comedy's Greatest Era" from Life magazine (9/5/1949), reprinted in Agee on Film. McDowell, Obolensky, Modern Library. 
• Cahn, William (1964). Harold Lloyd's World of Comedy. Duell, Sloane & Pearce. 
• Lahue, Kalton C. (1966). World of Laughter: The Motion Picture Comedy Short, 1910–1930. University of Oklahoma Press. 
• Brownlow, Kevin (1968, revised 1976). "Harold Lloyd" from The Parade's Gone By. Alfred A. Knopf, University of California Press. 
• McCaffrey, Donald W. (1968). 4 Great Comedians: Chaplin, Lloyd, Keaton, Langdon. A.S. Barnes. 
• Robinson, David (1969). The Great Funnies: A History of Film Comedy. E.P. Dutton. 
• Durgnat, Raymond (1970). "Self-Help with a Smile" from The Crazy Mirror: Hollywood Comedy and the American Image. Dell. 
• Lacourbe, Roland (1970). Harold Lloyd. Paris: Editions Seghers. 
• Gilliatt, Penelope (1973). "Physicists" from Unholy Fools: Wits, Comics, Disturbers of the Peace. Viking. 
• Mast, Gerald (1973, revised 1979). The Comic Mind: Comedy and the Movies. University of Chicago Press. 
• Schickel, Richard (1974). Harold Lloyd: The Shape of Laughter. New York Graphic Society. ISBN 0-8212-0595-1. 
• Kerr, Walter (1975, 1990). The Silent Clowns. Alfred A. Knopf, Da Capo Press. 
• McCaffrey, Donald W. (1976). Three Classic Silent Screen Comedies Starring Harold Lloyd. Associated University Presses. ISBN 0-8386-1455-8. 
• Byron, Stuart and Weis, Elizabeth (1977). The National Society of Film Critics on Movie Comedy. Grossman/Viking. 
• Reilly, Adam (1977). Harold Lloyd: The King of Daredevil Comedy. Macmillan. ISBN 0-02-601940-X. 
• Everson, William K. (1978). American Silent Film. Oxford University Press. 
• Maltin, Leonard (1978). The Great Movie Comedians. Crown Publishers. 
• Dardis, Tom (1983). Harold Lloyd: The Man on the Clock. Viking. ISBN 0-14-007555-0. 
• Hayes, Suzanne Lloyd (ed.), (1992). 3-D Hollywood with Photography by Harold Lloyd. Simon & Schuster. 
• D'Agostino, Annette M. (1994). Harold Lloyd: A Bio-Bibliography. Greenwood Press. ISBN 0-313-28986-7. 
• Dale, Alan (2002). Comedy is a Man in Trouble: Slapstick In American Movies. University of Minnesota Press. 
• Vance, Jeffrey, and Lloyd, Suzanne (2002). Harold Lloyd: Master Comedian. Harry N Abrams. ISBN 0-8109-1674-6. 
• Lloyd, Annette D'Agostino (2003). The Harold Lloyd Encyclopedia. McFarland & Company. ISBN 0-7864-1514-2. 
• Mitchell, Glenn (2003). A-Z of Silent Film Comedy. B.T. Batsford Ltd.. 
• Lloyd, Suzanne (2004). Harold Lloyd's Hollywood Nudes in 3-D. Black Dog & Leventhal. ISBN 978-1-57912-394-9. 
• Lloyd, Annette D'Agostino (2009). Harold Lloyd: Magic in a Pair of Horn-Rimmed Glasses. BearManor Media. ISBN 978-1-59393-332-6. 

See also[link]

• List of United States comedy films

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Harold Lloyd

• Harold Lloyd at the Internet Movie Database
• Official site – the official site of Harold Lloyd
• HaroldLloyd.us — a site with articles and information, maintained by Annette D'Agostino Lloyd
• Harold Lloyd Forum part of ComedyClassics.org
• Harold Lloyd Photos at Silent Ladies & Gents
• BBC Radio Interview with Suzanne Lloyd (2002)
• Harold Lloyd in The Sin Of Harold Diddlebock at The Internet Archive

• Photographs and bibliography