Harold Lloyd

Generally ranked alongside Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton as one of the masters of comedy during the silent era, Harold Lloyd created the so-called Glasses Character, an ever-optimistic, constantly striving everyman who thoroughly captured the public's fancy during the 1920s. In fact, throughout most of the decade, his films proved to be more popular than Chaplin's or Keaton's. A pioneer of sight gags and extreme stunts, Lloyd risked life and limb to create some of the most iconic images in silent film, most notably in "Safety Last!" (1923), in which he famously hung by a broken clock hand ten stories off the ground without use of trick photography. He went on to enormous success with hits like his personal favorite "Grandma's Boy" (1922), "Girl Shy" (1924) and "Welcome Danger" (1929), before enjoying measurable popularity in the sound era with "Feet First" (1930), "The Cat's-Paw" (1934) and "The Milky Way" (1936), with the latter being arguably his best talkie. Though his dissolved his production company in 1938 and effectively retired in the next decade, Lloyd fell into obscurity, only to regain prominence after his death, proving that the great comedian's appeal was timeless.