She Could Be Chaplin!: The Comedic Brilliance of Alice Howell (Hollywood Legends Series) - Hardcover

Slide, Anthony

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1496806328 ISBN 13: 9781496806321

Publisher: University Press of Mississippi, 2016

Synopsis

Alice Howell (1886–1961) is slowly gaining recognition and regard as arguably the most important slapstick comedienne of the silent era. This new study, the first book-length appreciation, identifies her place in the comedy hierarchy alongside the best-known of silent comediennes, Mabel Normand. Like Normand, Howell learned her craft with Mack Sennett and Charlie Chaplin. Beginning her screen career in 1914, Howell quickly developed a distinctive style and eccentric attire and mannerisms, successfully hiding her good looks, and was soon identified as the “Female Charlie Chaplin.”

Howell became a star of comedy shorts in 1915 and continued her career through 1928 and the advent of sound in film. While she is today recognized as a pioneering female filmmaker, during her career she never expressed much interest in her work, seeing it only as a means to an end, with her income carefully invested in real estate. It has taken many years for her to gain her rightful place in film history, not only as a comedienne, but also as matriarch of a prominent American family that includes son-in-law and director George Stevens and grandson George Stevens Jr., founder of the American Film Institute and the Kennedy Center Honors, who provides a foreword.

About this title

About the Authors

Anthony Slide has written and edited more than two hundred books on the history of popular entertainment. He is a pioneer in the documentation of women in silent film, writing the first biography of Lois Weber, editing the memoirs of Alice Guy Blaché, and authoring the first study of women silent film directors. In 1990 he received an honorary doctorate of letters from Bowling Green State University, at which time Lillian Gish hailed him as “our preeminent historian of the silent film.” In 2025 the Los Angeles Silent Film Festival presented him with its first Certificate of Honor in Silent Film Scholarship.

George Stevens Jr., is founder of the American Film Institute and the Kennedy Center Honors.

Edition details

• Publisher: University Press of Mississippi
• Publication date: 2016
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1496806328
• ISBN 13: 9781496806321
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 144