Henry Lehrman

Henry Lehrman (March 30, 1881 – November 7, 1946) was an American actor, screenwriter, director and producer. Lehrman was a very prominent figure of Hollywood's silent film era, working with such cinematic pioneers as D. W. Griffith and Mack Sennett. He directed, as well as co-starred in, Charlie Chaplin's very first film, Making a Living. Lehrman was notoriously careless of the safety of the actors who worked for him. He was the lover of the actress Virginia Rappe, for whose death Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle (whom Lehrman had directed in about a dozen films in the early 1920s), in a highly publicized series of trials, was accused, and later acquitted, of manslaughter. Life and career Born in Sambir, Austria-Hungary (now Ukraine) or Vienna, Lehrman emigrated to the United States in 1908 or December 1906 and although he is best remembered as a film director, he began his career as an actor in a 1909 Biograph Studios production directed by D. W. Griffith. He gained the nickname "Pathé", reportedly because he told an executive at Biograph he had been sent there from Europe by France's Pathé Frères to get a job. While the executive may not have believed him, Biograph gave him his first acting work in film, appearing as one of many in a mob scene with another aspiring actor named Mack Sennett. A few years later Lehrman was a successful actor, and made his directorial debut, co-directing a 1911 Biograph production with Sennett. When Sennett left to found Keystone Studios, Henry Lehrman joined him, working as an actor, a screenwriter, and as the first director of Charlie Chaplin.