Harold Fraser (9 November 1889 â€" 19 January 1962), known
professionally as Snub Pollard, was an Australian-born vaudevillian,
who became a silent film comedian in Hollywood, popular in the
1920s.Born in Melbourne, Australia, on 9 November 1889, Pollard 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 un-credited 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.
professionally as Snub Pollard, was an Australian-born vaudevillian,
who became a silent film comedian in Hollywood, popular in the
1920s.Born in Melbourne, Australia, on 9 November 1889, Pollard 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 un-credited 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.
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