Billie Ritchie
Billie Ritchie | |
---|---|
Born | William Hill.[1] 5 September 1874 |
Died | 6 July 1921 | (aged 46)
Cause of death | Cancer |
Nationality | Scottish |
Spouse | Winifred Frances Kirby |
Children | Wyn Ritchie Evans (23 December 1900 – 11 April 2003) |
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7f/Billie_Ritchie_in_A_Bold%2C_Bad_Breeze.jpg/220px-Billie_Ritchie_in_A_Bold%2C_Bad_Breeze.jpg)
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—this, 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 (of 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
External links
- Billie Ritchie at IMDb
- Billie Ritchie at Find a Grave
- Winifred Monroe Ritchie 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
Further reading
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/4/4a/Commons-logo.svg/30px-Commons-logo.svg.png)
Accounts on work and life
- 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.