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Biography of Mack Sennett
Name: Mack Sennett
Birth Date: January 17, 1884
Death Date: November 6, 1960
Place of Birth: Richmond, Quebec, Canada
Nationality: American
Gender: Male
Occupations: film producer, film director
Mack Sennett
The American silent-screen producer and director Mack Sennett (1884-1960) is frequently considered the originator of film comedy. He perfected the art of silent-screen slapstick in his "Keystone" series.Mack Sennett was born Michael Sinnott on Jan. 17, 1884, in Quebec, Canada. He emigrated to New York at the beginning of the 20th century to act in films by D. W. Griffith. Not very successful, Sennett turned to movie direction, and his first two efforts, Comrade (1911) and One-round O'Brien (1912), were so popular that sequels were immediately demanded. Assured of financial backing, he formed his own organization, the Keystone Company, and moved to Hollywood, Calif.During the first year Sennett produced 140 "Keystone Comedies," the most famous of which were Uncle Tom without the Cabin and Salome vs. Shenandoah. Unable to direct every comedy personally, Sennett supplied himself with a talented crew of gag writers, comedians, cameramen, and stunt men. At the completion of each film, …showed first 150 words…
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…showed last 150 words…combination of impudent satire, vulgar burlesque, and exhilarated madness.The tragedy of Sennett's career was the arrival of sound in movies in the late 1920s; he was unable and unwilling to adjust to its demands. In 1928 Sennett permanently closed his studio. That same year the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awarded the classic innovator a special award, "for his lasting contribution to the comedy technique of the screen." He died on November 6, 1960, in Woodland Hills, Calif. Further Reading The standard biography of Sennett is Cameron Shipp, King of Comedy (1954). Excellent critical studies of the film maker's work are in Gilbert Seldes, The Seven Lively Arts (1924); James Agee, Agee on Film (1958); Edward C. Wagenknecht, The Movies in the Age of Innocence (1962); and Kenneth McGowan, Behind the Screen (1965).Sennett, Mack, King of comedy, San Francisco: Mercury House; St. Paul, Minn.: Distributed to the trade by Consortium Book Sales & Distribution, 1990.
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