Greetings once again family, friends and neighbors. Today's story, "Second Banana", is a bit of silent film history that took place right here in Niles a century ago.......lights, camera, action! Bill
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Historical Ramblings
SECOND BANANA*
*A comedian who plays a secondary or supporting role, especially as straight man and traditionally in vaudeville or burlesque theatre. Bernard “Ben” Turpin arrived in the village of Niles, California in 1913 under contract with The Essanay Film Manufacturing Company and took up residence in one of the studios bungalows on Second Street with his wife Carrie. The forty four year old Turpin, an experienced comedian and silent screen actor, was signed by old friend Gilbert Anderson to appear in Essanay’s Snakeville Comedies directed by Wallace Beery.
The popular one-reel films were to be shot in and around Essanay’s Niles studio, while “Broncho Billy” Anderson was busy cranking out Western films in Niles Canyon. Anderson had discovered the talented short wiry former vaudevillian with the signature brush mustache and crossed eyes six years earlier in Chicago’s Essanay Studios where he was working as a janitor, carpenter and occasionally called upon to perform comic bits in front of the camera.
Anderson signed new up and coming filmmaker Charlie Chaplin in 1915 who’s first film shot in Niles “A Night Out” featured Turpin as his “second banana” performing carefully choreographed drunken hits, kicks and prat falls. Turpin appeared in Chaplin’s His New Job, A Night Out, and The Champion but the duo didn’t last long with Chaplin’s slow intuitive creative style competing with Turpin’s vigorous physical slapstick comedy. Never enamored with the backwater town of Niles, Chaplin moved on after a few months to bigger and better opportunities in Hollywood’s growing movie industry.
Ben and Carrie Turpin remained in Niles for about a year and a half performing in front of the camera, making many friends and being active in the community until the studio’s closing in 1916.
Following a brief period producing a series of two reel films for Vogue Comedy Company, Turpin joined Mack Sennett Studio, Hollywood’s leading comedy company in 1917 where he became one of film’s most popular comics. Wisely investing his earnings in real estate during his twelve year tenure with Sennett, financially stable Turpin chose to retire to a comfortable life rather than adapting his slapstick skills for the “talkies”. Film producers would occasionally seek him out for brief cameo’s for a $1000 flat fee.
His final appearance was in 1940 in Laurel and Hardy’s Saps at Sea where he had sixteen words of dialog and a brief shot of his face and signature crossed eyes. Sadly, Ben Turpin passed before a planned reuniting with Chaplin in the classic film The Great Dictator three decades after being his “second banana” at Essanay in Niles.
-Bill 7/24
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