Max Davidson - Biography

Max Davidson (May 23, 1875 – September 4, 1950) was a German film actor known for his comedic Jewish persona during the silent film era. With a career spanning over thirty years, Davidson appeared in over 180 films.

1 Career
2 Later career and death
3 Filmography
4 External links

Career

Born in Berlin, Germany, Davidson emigrated to the United States in the 1890s where he began working in stock theater and vaudeville. He entered silent movies in 1912. By the mid-teens, Davidson had appeared in his first feature film, Edward Dillon's Don Quixote (1915), followed by D.W. Griffith's Intolerance, and Tod Browning's Puppets (both 1916). In the 1920s, he began working for Hal Roach, appearing in numerous two-reeler comedies including Call of the Cuckoo with Charley Chase, Pass the Gravy and Get 'Em Young with Stan Laurel, Why Girls Say No and Love 'Em and Feed 'Em with Oliver Hardy, and The Extra Girl with Mabel Normand. He also portrayed the crazy old man who haunts a house in the Our Gang short Moan and Groan, Inc. (1929), and starred alongside a young Jackie Coogan in a pair of silent features, The Rag Man (1923) and Old Clothes (1925). He also received the colorization treatment as an irate shopkeeper in the Three Stooges film No Census, No Feeling (1940).

Later career and death

Davidson made the transition to sound film, but ended his career by playing mostly uncredited roles. He made his final screen appearance in the 1945 Clark Gable film Adventure. Davidson died on September 4, 1950 in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California.

Filmography

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1913	Scenting a Terrible Crime	The Superintendent
1914	An Interrupted Séance	Landlord
1915	Caught by the Handle	Mr. Riche
1916	Sunshine Dad	Mystic Seer
1916	Intolerance	Neighbor
1917	A Daughter of the Poor	Joe Eastman	Alternative titles: The Heart of the Poor The Spitfire
1918	The Hun Within	Max
1919	The Mother and the Law	The Kindly Neighbor
1921	No Woman Knows
1922	Second Hand Rose	Abe Rosenstein
1923	The Darling of New York	Solomon Levinsky
1924	Hold Your Breath	Street Merchant
1925	The Rag Man	Max Ginzberg
1925	Justice of the Far North	Izzy Hawkins
1926	Raggedy Rose	Moe Ginsberg
1927	Hotel Imperial	Elias Butterman
1927	Pleasure Before Business	Sam Weinberg
1927	Jewish Prudence	Papa Gimplewart
1928	Feed 'em and Weep	Max, restaurant manager
1929	So This Is College	Moe Levine, the tailor
1929	Moan and Groan, Inc.	The lunatic
1930	The Shrimp	Professor Schoenheimer
1931	Oh! Oh! Cleopatra	Royal musician
1932	Docks of San Francisco	Max, Detective
1933	The Cohens and Kellys in Trouble	Larsen	Uncredited
1934	Straight Is the Way	Old clothes man	Uncredited
1935	Metropolitan	Tailor	Uncredited
1936	Roamin' Wild	Abe Wineman
1937	The Girl Said No	Max	Alternative title: With Words and Music
1939	The Great Commandment	Old man
1940	Kitty Foyle: The Natural History of a Woman	Flower man	Uncredited
1940	No Census, No Feeling	Storekeeper	Uncredited
1942	Reap the Wild Wind	Juror	Uncredited
1945	Adventure	Man in library	Uncredited