Max Linder: The First Movie Star
By George Seminara

A few months back, I wrote a giant-sized two-part article on the Vitagraph Studios and the second movie star in the history of movies. I also mentioned that Max Linder was the first movie star birthed at the dawn of film history. After receiving questions about how our immensely knowledgeable readers could know virtually nothing about the first movie star, I decided to tell the tale of Max Linder instead of answering each email. Sit back, relax, and get ready to clutch your pearls because this is where true crime and slapstick comedy crash into each other, leaving two dead and taking the eraser to the first superstar's legacy. Talk about Cancel Culture!
Film comedian extraordinaire Max Linder was born 16 December 1883 as Gabriel Leuvielle. By November 1, 1925, he would be off the planet, and his legacy would be scrubbed from the popular consciousness. Max Linder was a successful French actor; he jumped into the new medium of cinema with both feet, becoming one of the most influential directors and comedians of the silent film era. His recurring on-screen role, "Max," was arguably the first recognizable character in cinema’s early days. At his most popular, he churned out a movie a week, never letting the public wait long for a new Max film.
In the beginning, Max had a passion for the theater. To that end, he became a contract player with the Bordeaux Théâtre des Arts from 1901 to 1904, performing in plays by Molière, Pierre Corneille, and Alfred de Musset. Charles Pathé (Yes, that Pathé) was confident that Max could become a big movie star, so he left the theater to try out the new medium. From 1905, Linder appeared in short comedy films for Pathé, usually in supporting roles. His first significant film part was in the Georges Méliès fantasy film The Legend of Punching.
Over the next few years, Max made several hundred short films playing "Max," a rich and dapper man-about-town, frequently in trouble because he cultivated the attentions of beautiful women and the good life. Starting with The Skater's Debut in 1907, directed by Louis Gasnier, the character became one of the first identifiable motion picture characters to appear in successive situation comedies, and everyone could remember the name MAX on the posters. By 1911, he was making his own films (with a little help from director René LePrince - somebody has to stand behind the camera!) and writing the scripts.
Max appeared in at least 234 films and directed or co-directed more than half of them. According to the French Ministry of Culture, Max Linder appeared in well over 500 films, but because of poor storage and nitrate film stock, most of his creative output was lost. He also wrote and produced many of his movies as well. Though our greatest silent stars borrowed from him, they couldn't beat his concept. Max's character was a rich ne'er-do well and poked fun at the upper classes, Chaplin's character, the little tramp, is poor, Buster is poor, and Harold Lloyd is middle class, and the character manifests the can-do attitude of the 1920s, much like Tom Cruise did in the 1980s. (Keep your shirt on! I have a word limit these days.) But let's not forget that Max appeared ten years before Chaplin. Max was first, numero uno, number one!
The big question is, why isn't Max Linder at least as popular as Harold Lloyd or Buster Keaton today. Well, who talks about O.J. Simpson's acting career anymore? Right, you got it on the first try. When World War One began with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand Carl Ludwig Joseph Maria of Austria (what a mouthful!) Linder enlisted, unlike many of his showbiz counterparts. But we will return to the war in just a few paragraphs.
By 1910, Max had proved himself to Pathé and was quickly becoming the world's most popular film actor. The whole world? How was that possible? Most of us can count foreign stars they know on one hand. (Not me, I can do fingers and toes, but I'm certifiable.) Back in the silent film days, every country could get a film, translate it, and replace the interstitial cards in whatever language the country spoke that was showing it. The acting style of the day basically consisted of miming the bits, which was easily understood. Nuance was not a thing in the silent era. Subtlety was not a thing early directors were looking for.
It was a global community of cinema. Movies could be appreciated in any language. Garbo was a foreign star who first shot to fame in Sweden. Marlene Dietrich and Peter Lorre, from Germany, were stars in their home country before they made the journey to Hollywood. The Mecca of film making.

By the end of 1915, Linder had become the most popular film actor in the world. As a previous post about Vitagraph Studios (by me.) went into Florence Turner, who is often referred to as "The Very First Movie Star" in the United States. Bah! I say, and bah! Again. Max Linder is the very first worldwide movie star with fans all over the globe. In Russia, Max was voted the most popular film actor while they were having a revolution. He spawned a Russian impersonator, Zozlov. And Czar Nicholas II was gaga for Max. Rasputin didn't like comedies. Typical. Even British playwright George Bernard Shaw was a fan. In Bulgaria, one of their earliest films was a remake of one of Linder's first movies.
When Louis Gasnier was sent to the United States to oversee Pathé's productions there, Lucien Nonguet took over as Linder's director. Together, they made films such as Max Takes a Bath and the autobiographical Max Linder's Film Debut, which fictitiously creates the legend of Linder's early film career and includes Charles Pathé playing himself.
Max was offered $12,000 by his German distributor to travel to Berlin and make various public appearances at his film screenings. He had to decline for health reasons. Max had appendicitis. In the early 20th century, it could have been a death sentence. Thankfully, the surgery was a success, but the recovery was long. Some newspapers reported that he had died. He recovered the following spring and began making films again in May 1911. Critically and box office-wise, 1912 to 1914 was the high point of Linder's career. His movies were made with the skill of a master, and "Max" was at his funniest. The Max Linder movie theater opened in Paris and is still there!

He made such films as Max Virtuoso, Max Does Not Speak English, Max and His Dog, Max's Hat, and Max and the Jealous Husband. His ensemble of actors included Stacia Napierkowska of the Folies Bergère, Gaby Morlay, a comic actress who was often Max's co-star in numerous films, the young Abel Gance, the great director of Napoleon, and Maurice Chevalier, the Musical Comedy star most famous in America for the song, "Thank Heaven for Little Girls" from the Film GiGi. (Don't go there, he wasn't a creeper.)
The Lyrics go a little something like this:
"Thank heaven for little girls,
for little girls get bigger every day
Thank heaven for little girls,
they grow up in the most delightful way."
The silent films didn't suit the singing Chevalier, who performed in theaters and Music halls until movies offered all-singing, all-dancing.
As soon as the declaration of war was announced by France for WWI, Max enlisted.(Unlike many of his contemporaries who stayed home making movies and moolah!) Max worked as a dispatch driver and entertainer. Who wouldn't want the biggest comedian entertaining the troops? During his wartime service, he was injured several times. Those experiences in the war had a catastrophic effect on him. Physically and mentally. He was suffering from shell shock, or as they call it now, PTSD or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
After the war, Max was anxious to get back to making movies. He had a problem with being in France, too many war flashbacks, and a desire to turn the page and pursue new prospects. Linder moved to the U.S. but was unable to achieve the great success he enjoyed before the war.
Linder significantly influenced Charlie Chaplin, arguably the biggest film star ever to walk the planet. Chaplin made his debut in 1914. He once sent Linder a signed photograph: "To Max, the Professor, from his disciple, Charlie Chaplin." The two never appeared in the same film, but they spent much time together discussing gags and whatnot. As one does.

Now I know what you are going to ask, "If he's so great, why isn't he famous?" Here's why: Max Linder's personal life was chaotic, to say the least. In 1923, he was arrested for "kidnapping a minor," who later became his wife, the 17-year-old beauty Hélène "Ninette" Peters. When he first met her, the actor told a friend, "I spent the whole night in a hotel lounge talking to the most extraordinary girl I could ever imagine. Instantly, I knew this to be the woman in my life." They planned to run away together before Linder was caught in the act and arrested. By August of that year, they'd officially married, later having a daughter named Maude.
Throughout their crazy marriage, Linder is described as being abusive and highly jealous of everyone who might capture Hélène's attention. Tragically, things between Max and Hélène concluded on October 31, 1925. When the pair were discovered in what appeared to be a suicide pact. The exact circumstances remain a mystery, with some, including his own daughter, suggesting that instead, it is a murder-suicide. Linder had supposedly told a friend he'd planned to kill his wife, along with himself.
The reason for their shared deaths was the thought of Hélène being with someone else after Linder was gone was unbearable. He was 41 at the time, while she was just 19. When Linder died, Chaplin closed his studio for the day as a show of respect.
Max's last film was 1925's The King of the Circus.
Now, how do I know all this stuff? Well, Max and Hélène had a daughter, Maude. She was raised by her paternal grandparents, and when she became a teen, she lived with her maternal grandmother. At age 20, she apprehensively went to the cinema to see one of her father's movies for the first time. Upon leaving the theater, Maude decided to do everything she could to make his works accessible to the public. She spent much of her life trying to keep Max alive, finding quality copies of his films, and collecting ephemera and props from his movies. She has his Top Hat!
Max had left her their home and a considerable amount of cash. As she got older, the fortune dwindled, and she had to work as a part-time journalist and an assistant director. In 1983, Maude Linder made a documentary film titled The Man in the Silk Hat about the life and career of her father. It was screened out of competition at the 1983 Cannes Film Festival. That's where I first stumbled onto the genius of Max Linder. Maude Linder later published a book about Linder in France, Max Linder was My Father, and in 2008, she received the Prix Henri Langlois. But it is only available in French.
Maude Linder died on October 25, 2017, at 93. Almost 87 years to the date of her parent's death. arent's death.
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