Harry "Snub" Pollard (November 9, 1889 - January 19, 1962) was a silent movie comedian, popular in the 1920s. He is often described as the brother of comedy actress Daphne Pollard, but this is a misconception. In Australia they both acted with "Pollard's Lilliputian Opera Co." which gave stage performances featuring children and performers of small stature. This was a very well-known troupe in its time, and many of its performers adopted the surname "Pollard."
Pollard played supporting roles in the early films of Harold Lloyd. 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 Snub plays an inventor of many Rube Goldberg-like contraptions, including a car that runs by magnet power.
Pollard left Roach in 1924 and joined the low-budget Weiss Brothers studio in 1926. There he co-starred with heavy-set comic Marvin Loback as a poor man's version of Laurel and Hardy, copying that team's plots and gags.
In the 1930s Pollard played small parts in talking comedies, and was featured as comedy relief in "B" westerns. Pollard's silent-comedy credentials guaranteed him work in slapstick revivals. He appeared with other movie veterans in Hollywood Cavalcade (1939), The Perils of Pauline (1947), and Man of a Thousand Faces (1957). He also appeared regularly as a supporting player in Columbia Pictures' two-reel comedies of the mid-1940s.
Forsaking his familiar mustache, he landed much steadier work as a bit player. He played incidental roles in scores of Hollywood features and shorts, almost always as a mousy, nondescript fellow, and usually with no dialogue. In Wheeler & Woolsey's Cockeyed Cavaliers (1934), he's a drunken doctor. At the end of Miracle on 34th Street (1947), when a squad of bailiffs hauling sacks of mail enters the courtroom, that's Snub Pollard bringing up the rear. In Frank Capra's Pocketful of Miracles (1961). Pollard plays a Broadway beggar. His last film, Twist Around the Clock (1962), shows a curvaceous woman dancing energetically -- and Snub Pollard wordlessly reacting to her.
Pollard died of cancer on January 19, 1962.
For his contributions to motion pictures, Pollard has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6415 1/2 Hollywood Boulevard.
The slight frame (5' 6"), pale, serious countenance, and dark, droopy mustache are unmistakeable, definitive identification badges in recalling silent comedian Harry "Snub" Pollard. Born in Australia as Harry Fraser, he joined a vaudeville troupe which toured the United States around 1910. The troupe broke up there and Harry decided to stay, dubbing himself with "Pollard" as a last name moniker. He started off at the Essenay Film Studios in 1911 and briefly worked with the Keystone Kops. Hal Roach took an avid interest and, in 1915, had Snub co-starring with Harold Lloyd and Bebe Daniels in the highly successful "Lonesome Luke" series, which ran for years (86 films in all). In 1919, Snub took a chance and ventured on with his own solo one- and two-reelers with sights gags and gimmicks a plenty. Many of them were ably directed by Charley Chase and co-starred Marie Mosquini as his frequent leading lady. His 'second banana' status, however, was firmly entrenched and his vehicles were met with only a modicum of interest. He also made personal appearances on the farcical stage. His production company, created in 1926, eventually folded and he was relegated to supporting other top comedians again, notably Laurel & Hardy and Andy Clyde, or appearing in povertyrow programmers. By the late 30s he was (ironically) reduced to silent, atmospheric bits in talking pictures. One last hurrah would be his playing of Pee Wee, sidekick to cowboy Tex Ritter, in a series of minor westerns. Thereafter, Snub continued obscurely in films until his death in 1962 of cancer. His sister was comedy actress Daphne Pollard who also entertained audiences with her own short films.
