Early Snub Pollard sighting

[Steve Massa]

Hi guys
A film just turned up that's been identified as the 8/14/1913 Rex short SALLY SCRAGGS, HOUSEMAID, and stars Robert Z. Leonard, Margarita Fischer, and Laura Oakley. Unmentioned, but very visible in the scans playing a butler, is Snub Pollard. Here's a link to the scans:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nfig/86556 ... hotostream

It's generally been thought that Snub's film career started in 1915, but here he is in a 1913 Rex.

[Andrew Sholl]

If correct, Steve's discovery rewrites the book - literally - of Snub's career.

Certainly the timing - early to mid-1913 - and the circumstances both fit.

Like Roscoe Arbuckle, Snub had been treading the boards in Ferris Hartman's Oakland-based light opera troupe. And like Arbuckle and Minta, he was at a loose end following the return to the Bay Area of Hartman and his players after a six-month tour of the Orient.

Snub was back on stage in June that year when Hartman resumed his summer residency at Idora Park. But it always puzzled me that in the months between February and June there was nary a mention of his name in the trade papers and the theatrical columns.

Now we have an idea what he was up to.

The question, however, remains: was he making a serious stab at a career as a screen player? Or was he merely biding his time and earning a modest crust until he could resume his legit work?