Charley Chase

Charley Chase: IMDB lists Chase as having appeared in 277 films, using his real name of Charles Parrott he directed 156 films, between 1914 and 1940.  The bio on the IMDB page is quite a good one so please go there if you want to read more. By no means a giant of the silent screen, Chase was well respected and worked with many of his more legendary contemporaries, Mack Sennett (at Keystone Studios), Fatty Arbuckle, The Three Stooges, Charlie Chaplin and Laurel and Hardy. When Harold Lloyd left the Hal Roach studios it was Chase who Roach saw as his replacement. For a time the Roach studios main output was Chase's films, the Our Gang series and Laurel & Hardy. Laurel & Hardy appeared in Chase's movie On The Wrong Trek and Chase was in Stan and Ollie's Sons Of The Dessert. There are many of Charley Chase's silent and talking movies still in existence, many await commercial release on DVD. Charley Chase was the brother of James Parrott, also an actor and director. Both siblings suffered from alcoholism, Charley died just a few months after his brother in 1940, aged just 47. Here's Charley with Stan and Ollie

Here's Charley Chase in a scene from the movie "Sittin' Pretty", the film was directed by Leo McCarey who directed many Chase shorts, he also later directed The Marx Brothers' Duck Soup in which Groucho had a similar scene.


For more info, links, etc, check out the Charley Chase website http://www.charley-chase.com/