Lloyd Hamilton
(08/19/1891 - 01/19/1935)

Lloyd Vernon Hamilton was a major silent film star. Hamilton is best remembered as the stocky half of silent comedy's "Ham and Bud" (opposite diminutive Bud Duncan), and later, his own series of short comedies. Hamilton's skill was admired by his fellow comedians—according to Oscar Levant, Charlie Chaplin singled him out as the one actor of whom he was jealous.

In his solo comedies, the husky Hamilton adopted the persona of a slightly prissy, overgrown boy, and his films often have surreal touches: in The Movies he tearfully bids goodbye to his mother to go to the city, turns his back on the family farm, and steps directly into the city which is right next door. In Move Along he neatly lays his trousers in the street, to have a steamroller press them. Few of Hamilton's silent comedies survive; they were produced by Educational Pictures, which suffered a laboratory fire in 1937. Those of Hamilton's films that do exist are often prized by comedy collectors and silent-film enthusiasts.

Hamilton's last starring series was a string of two-reel comedies produced by Mack Sennett. He continued to play the hapless victim of circumstance, as in Too Many Highballs where Hamilton tries to park his car and keeps getting boxed in by motorists.

Lloyd Hamilton has a "star" on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Available Films

Move Along (1925) short subject

Lloyd Hamilton Talkies (1929-1933)