Billie Ritchie
This article uses bare URLs, which may be threatened by link rot. (May 2021) |
Billie Ritchie | |
---|---|
Born | William Hill[1] 5 September 1874 Glasgow, Scotland |
Died | 6 July 1921 Los Angeles, California, US | (aged 46)
Nationality | Scottish |
Spouse(s) | Winifred Frances Kirby |
Children | 1 |
William Hill, known profesionally as Billie Ritchie (14 September 1878 – 6 July 1921), was a Scottish comedian who first gained transatlantic fame as a performer for British music hall producer Fred Karno — thus, a full decade before Stan Laurel and Charlie Chaplin took a similar career path. Ritchie is best recalled today for the silent comedy shorts he made between 1914 and 1920 for director/producer Henry Lehrman's L-KO Kompany and Fox Film Sunshine Comedy unit.
Biography[]
Variations on Ritchie's "tramp" and "drunk" personae – which Ritchie claimed he had developed before and during his Karno years – were introduced to film audiences by Charlie Chaplin in such shorts as the Lehrman-directed Kid Auto Races at Venice (7 February 1914) and Mabel's Strange Predicament (9 February 1914).
Ritchie, who, due to a series of on-set injuries, spent his final years relatively inactive, succumbed to stomach cancer in the summer of 1921.[2] Winifred Frances, the comedian's widow, and one-time stage partner, wound up in the employ of Charlie Chaplin as a wardrobe mistress, showing there was no animosity between the two performers.[3] Wyn Ritchie, their daughter, was also a performer, and, in private life, the wife (for 55 years) of songwriter Ray Evans.
In popular culture[]
In 1918 Dutch illustrator David Bueno de Mesquita created a comic book about Ritchie named Billie Ritchie en Zijn Ezel (Billie Ritchie and his Donkey). This was the first celebrity comic in Dutch history.[4]
Notes[]
References[]
- Massa, Steve (30 April 2013). Lame Brains and Lunatics: The Good, The Bad, And The Forgotten of Silent Comedy (pp. 55-68). BearManor Media. ISBN 978-1593932688.
External links[]
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Billie Ritchie. |
- Billie Ritchie at IMDb
- Billie Ritchie at Find a Grave
- Winifred Monroe Ritchie at IMDb
- Wyn Ritchie Evans at IMDb
- Wyn Ritchie at the Internet Broadway Database
- The Ray and Wyn Ritchie Evans Foundation Official Website
- Wyn Ritchie Evans Papers- University of Pennsylvania
- 1878 births
- 1921 deaths
- People from Glasgow
- Scottish male comedians
- 20th-century Scottish comedians
- British male comedy actors
- Scottish male film actors
- Scottish male silent film actors
- Scottish emigrants to the United States
- Scottish actor stubs
- British comedian stubs