April 1, 1923: Harold Lloyd's "Safety Last!" Premieres

April 1, 1923: Safety Last! premieres, starring one of the top comedians of the silent film era, Harold Lloyd.

Harold Clayton Lloyd was born on April 20, 1893 in Burchard, Nebraska, and grew up in San Diego. Moving to Los Angeles, he became friends with film producer Hal Roach, and created Lonesome Luke, a character patterned after Charlie Chaplin's "Little Tramp." In 1917, he replaced this character with, as he put it, "an everyday young man in street clothes who faced comic situations with resourcefulness." The look, complete with glasses, is said to have inspired artist Joe Shuster to create the appearance of Clark Kent, alter ego of Superman.

But, unlike Superman, he was not invulnerable. On August 24, 1919, while posing for some promotional still photographs in the Los Angeles Witzel Photography Studio, he picked up what he thought was a prop bomb and lit it with a cigarette. It exploded and mangled his right hand, causing him to lose a thumb and forefinger. He would wear a prosthesis for all future film roles, and most of his fans never knew.

In Safety Last! Lloyd plays a fictionalized Harold Lloyd, who takes a train into the big city to make his fortune. He gets a job as a sales clerk in a department store, but frequently gets in trouble. He sends his girlfriend (never named, played by Mildred Davis, his regular co-star, whom he had just married) gifts from the store, which he can't really afford. She thinks this means he's ready to marry her, and she goes to the city to join him.

Now, he needs money fast. He accepts the challenge of climbing the 12-story Bolton Building for $500 -- about $8,600 in 2022 money. He does it, despite several setbacks, including hanging off a clock -- including with 2 prosthetic fingers. This became the defining image of Lloyd's film career, producing several homages, including Christopher Lloyd at the Hill Valley Courthouse clock tower in Back to the Future.

Standing in for the Bolton Building was The International Savings & Exchange Bank Building, at 223-229 North Spring Street in Los Angeles. In 1928, City Hall was built across from it, at 200 North Spring. The International Savings Building was torn down in 1954, and Grand Park is now on the site.

Mildred Davis made only one movie after they got married. They had a daughter, Gloria; a son, Harold Lloyd Jr. who also became an actor; and adopted a daughter they named Peggy.

Harold Sr. had a few successful movies after the switch to talking pictures, but as the Great Depression got deeper, his happy-go-lucky character was seen as a relic of the now-gone Roaring Twenties. He had some success in radio and television, and the 1960s' nostalgia for the silent film era led to him making some money and gaining some acclaim on re-releases. Mildred died in 1969, Harold in 1971. Harold Jr., having never recovered from a stroke in 1965, died just 3 months after his father.

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April 1, 1923 was a Sunday. Baseball was in Spring Training. Football was out of season. Professional basketball barely existed. And the hockey season ended the day before, when the Ottawa Senators, Champions of the National Hockey League, beat the Edmonton Eskimos, Champions of the West Coast Hockey League, 1-0 at the Denman Arena in Vancouver, to win a two-games-total-goals series for the Stanley Cup.