
Harry 'Snub' Pollard
Biography
Snub Pollard (9 November 1889 – 19 January 1962) was an Australian-born vaudevillian, who became a silent film comedian in Hollywood, popular in the 1920s.
Born Harold Fraser, in Melbourne, Australia on 9 November 1889, he began performing with Pollard's Lilliputian Opera Company at a young age. Like many of the actors in the popular juvenile company, he adopted Pollard as his stage name. The company ran several highly successful professional children's troupes that traveled Australia and New Zealand in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.
In 1908, Harry Pollard joined the company tour to North America. After the completion of the tour, he returned to the US. By 1915 he was regularly appearing in uncredited roles in movies, for example Charles Epting notes that Pollard can clearly be seen in Chaplin's 1915 short By the Sea. In later years, Pollard claimed Hal Roach had discovered him while he was performing on stage in Los Angeles.
Pollard played supporting roles in the early films of Harold Lloyd and Bebe Daniels. The long-faced Pollard sported a Kaiser Wilhelm mustache turned upside-down; this became his trademark. Lloyd's producer, Hal Roach, gave Pollard his own starring series of one- and two-reel shorts. The most famous is 1923's It's a Gift, in which he plays an inventor of many Rube Goldberg-like contraptions, including a car that runs by magnet power.
In early 1923, shortly after his second marriage, Pollard returned with his wife Elizabeth to see his relations in Australia. His visit attracted considerable attention, and he appeared again in several theatres to speak about the motion picture business. On his return to the US, he left Roach and joined the low-budget Weiss Brothers studio in 1926. There he co-starred with Marvin Loback as a poor man's version of Laurel and Hardy, copying that team's plots and gags.
In later years, Pollard claimed the Great Depression wiped out his investments, and he had been unable to "adjust to the talkies." However, in the 1930s, he played small parts in talking comedies, and was featured as comic relief in "B" westerns. Pollard's silent-comedy credentials guaranteed him work in slapstick revivals. He appeared with other film veterans in Hollywood Cavalcade (1939), The Perils of Pauline (1947), and Man of a Thousand Faces (1957). He also appeared regularly as a supporting player in Columbia Pictures' two-reel comedies of the mid-1940s.
Forsaking his familiar mustache in his later years, he landed much steadier work in films as a mostly uncredited bit player. He played incidental roles in scores of Hollywood features and shorts, almost always as a mousy, nondescript fellow, usually with no dialogue.
Snub Pollard died of cancer on 19 January 1962, aged 72, after nearly 50 years in the movie business. His interment was at Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Hollywood Hills).
For his contributions to motion pictures, Pollard has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6415½ Hollywood Boulevard.
Acting (317 movies)

Ex-Flame
1930

Belle Starr's Daughter
1948

The Fast and the Furious
1954

State Fair
1945

Stars in My Crown
1950

Arizona Days
1937

Mr. Celebrity
1941

The Sound of Laughter
1963

Framed
1947

His Wedding Scare
1943

Song of the Buckaroo
1938

Santa Fe Rides
1937

Bowery at Midnight
1942

House of Strangers
1949

Valley of Fire
1951

Newly Rich
1922

Jack Frost
1923

The Stone Age
1922

Goofs and Saddles
1937

Gents in a Jam
1952

Conquest of Cochise
1953

The Amazing Exploits of the Clutching Hand
1936

The Oregon Trail
1959

The Old West
1952

Stand by for Action
1942

The Man with the Golden Arm
1955

The Drunkard
1935

Clancy Street Boys
1943

Phony Express
1943

Luke and the Bomb Throwers
1916

Luke Foils the Villain
1916

It's a Gift
1923

Riders of the Rockies
1937

Vitamin 'U' for Me
1942

Wanted - $5,000
1919

The Doughboy
1926

Double Trouble
1927

The Big Idea
1924

Scaramouche
1952

The Crime Patrol
1936

Desperate
1947

Bars of Hate
1935

Just My Luck
1935

The Crooked Way
1949

It Happened Tomorrow
1944

The Black Coin
1936

Who Was That Lady?
1960

The Marathon
1919

Hittin' the Trail
1937

Call for Mr. Caveman
1919

Sing Cowboy Sing
1937

Take a Chance
1918

Stingaree
1934

Tex Rides with the Boy Scouts
1937

Count Your Change
1919

Rollin' Plains
1938

The Rawhide Terror
1934

The Laramie Kid
1935

Utah Trail
1938

Casanova Brown
1944

Chop Suey & Co.
1919

Where the Buffalo Roam
1938

Hear 'Em Rave
1918

Till the Clouds Roll By
1946

Singin' in the Rain
1952

Young Mr. Jazz
1919

Teacher's Pet
1958

Waltz Me Around
1920

Here Comes a Sailor
1928

The Road to Singapore
1931

Fresh Paint
1920

Courtship of Miles Sandwich
1923

Run 'Em Ragged
1920

The Night Is Young
1935

Back to the Woods
1919

Limelight
1952

The Purchase Price
1932

Frontier Town
1938

Park Your Car
1920

Hollywood Cavalcade
1939

Monkey Businessmen
1946

Hit Him Again
1918

The Gentleman from Louisiana
1936

The Non-Stop Kid
1918

Si, Senor
1919

Luke, Crystal Gazer
1916

Over the Fence
1917

A Sammy in Siberia
1919

Birds of a Feather
1917

Clubs Are Trump
1917

Spring Fever
1919

Luke Locates the Loot
1916

Luke Joins the Navy
1916

The City Slicker
1918

Lonesome Luke on Tin Can Alley
1917

Sold at Auction!
1923

Move On
1917

We Never Sleep
1917

Fireman Save My Child
1918

A Jazzed Honeymoon
1919
| Title | Year | Job | 
|---|