Max Davidson

Max Davidson (May 23, 1875 – September 4, 1950) was a German film actor known for his comedic Jewish persona during the silent film era.[1] With a career spanning over thirty years, Davidson appeared in over 180 films.

For the Australian rules footballer, see Max Davidson (footballer).

Max Davidson
MGM Studio publicity photograph, 1927
Born	(1875-05-23)May 23, 1875 Berlin, Germany
Died	September 4, 1950(1950-09-04) (aged 75) Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1912–45
Spouse(s)	Alice Marti (1927 – ?)

Career

Born in Berlin, Davidson emigrated to the United States in the 1890s where he began working in stock theater and vaudeville. He entered silent movies in 1912. He made a series of films featuring the character Izzy for Reliance Pictures Company in 1914. The films included Izzy Gets the Wrong Bottle, Izzy and His Rival, Izzy and the Diamond, How Izzy Stuck to His Post, How Izzy Was Saved, Izzy, the Detective, Izzy's Night Out, Izzy, the Operator, and Izzy and the Bandit.

By the mid-teens, Davidson had appeared in his first feature film, Edward Dillon's Don Quixote (1915), followed by D.W. Griffith's Intolerance, and Tod Browning's Puppets (both 1916).

In the 1920s, he began working for Hal Roach, appearing in numerous two-reeler comedies including Call of the Cuckoo with Charley Chase, Get 'Em Young with Stan Laurel, and Why Girls Say No and Love 'Em and Feed 'Em with Oliver Hardy, as well as the early talkie Our Gang short Moan and Groan, Inc. (1929), as the crazy old man who haunts a house. He starred alongside a young Jackie Coogan in a pair of silent features, The Rag Man (1923) and Old Clothes (1925).[2]

In 1923, he appeared in the Mack Sennett feature The Extra Girl with Mabel Normand, and in 1927 made a rare starring feature at Columbia, Pleasure Before Business, as well as playing a somewhat more serious role as a servant in the Pola Negri WW1 vehicle Hotel Imperial. He also received the colorization treatment as an irate shopkeeper in the Three Stooges film No Census, No Feeling (1940).

His 1928 short Pass the Gravy was deemed "culturally significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.

Later career and death

Davidson made the transition to sound film, but ended his career by playing mostly uncredited roles. He made his final screen appearance in the 1945 Clark Gable film Adventure. Davidson died on September 4, 1950 in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California.

Partial filmography

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1913	Scenting a Terrible Crime	The Superintendent
1914	An Interrupted Séance	Landlord
1915	Caught by the Handle	Mr. Riche
1916	Sunshine Dad	Mystic Seer
1916	Intolerance	Neighbor
1916	The Heiress at Coffee Dan's	Shorty Olson[3]
1917	A Daughter of the Poor	Joe Eastman	Alternative titles: The Heart of the Poor The Spitfire
1917	The Scrub Lady		Max and Marie Dressler in the film
1918	The Hun Within	Max
1919	The Hoodlum	Abram Isaacs
1919	The Mother and the Law	The Kindly Neighbor
1921	No Woman Knows	Ferdinand Brandeis
1921	The Idle Rich	The tailor
1922	Second Hand Rose	Abe Rosenstein
1922	Turn to the Right	Pawnbroker
1922	Remembrance	Georges Cartier
1922	The Right That Failed	Michael Callahan
1923	The Ghost Patrol	Rapushkin
1923	The Rendezvous	Commissar
1923	The Darling of New York	Solomon Levinsky
1924	Fools Highway	Old Levi
1924	Hold Your Breath	Street Merchant
1925	The Rag Man	Max Ginsburg
1925	Old Clothes	Max Ginsburg
1925	Justice of the Far North	Izzy Hawkins
1925	Hogan's Alley	Clothier
1926	Raggedy Rose	Moe Ginsberg
1927	Hotel Imperial	Elias Butterman
1927	Why Girls Say No	Papa Whisselberg
1927	Pleasure Before Business	Sam Weinberg
1927	Jewish Prudence	Papa Gimplewart
1927	Don't Tell Everything
1927	Should Second Husbands Come First?
1927	Flaming Fathers
1927	Call of the Cuckoo	Papa Grimplewart
1927	Love 'Em and Feed 'Em
1928	The Boy Friend	Papa Davidson
1928	Feed 'Em and Weep	Max, restaurant manager
1928	Pass the Gravy	The father	National Film Registry
1928	Dumb Daddies
1928	Came the Dawn
1929	So This Is College	Moe Levine, the tailor
1929	Moan and Groan, Inc.	The lunatic
1929	Hurdy Gurdy
1930	The Shrimp	Professor Schoenheimer
1931	The Itching Hour
1931	Oh! Oh! Cleopatra	Royal musician
1932	Docks of San Francisco	Max, Detective
1933	The Cohens and Kellys in Trouble	Larsen	Uncredited
1934	Straight Is the Way	Old clothes man	Uncredited
1935	Metropolitan	Tailor	Uncredited
1936	Roamin' Wild	Abe Wineman
1937	The Girl Said No	Max	Alternative title: With Words and Music
1939	The Great Commandment	Old man
1940	The Great Dictator	Jewish man	Uncredited
1940	Kitty Foyle: The Natural History of a Woman	Flower man	Uncredited
1940	No Census, No Feeling	Storekeeper	Uncredited
1942	Reap the Wild Wind	Juror	Uncredited
1945	Adventure	Man in library	Uncredited

References

1. Erens, Patricia (1988). The Jew in American Cinema. Indiana University Press. pp. 92–93. ISBN 978-0-253-20493-6.
2. McCaffrey, Donald W.; Jacobs, Christopher P. (1999). Guide to the Silent Years of American Cinema. Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 102. ISBN 978-0-313-30345-6.
3. "The Heiress at Coffee Dan's". AFI Catalog of Feature Films. Retrieved November 29, 2014.

External links

• Max Davidson on IMDb
• Max Davidson at AllMovie
• Max Davidson at Find a Grave