I.love.Karl.Dane! He was one of the first subjects here at FTT and I have been very fortunate to speak with his biographer Laura Petersen Balogh. Laura's Karl biography has just been released via McFarland. "Karl Dane: A Biography and Filmography" is quite wonderful and I highly recommend it. Yes its McFarland priced, BUT it is just so wonderfully written and researched. And trust me I don't hand out that judgment lightly. Click here to purchase a copy.
In conjunction with The Egyptian Theatre here in Hollywood there will be a pretty major Karl Dane celebration October 18th. Laura will give a lecture and do a signing. To top it off there will be a screening of "The Big Parade" complete with the original score! Seriously you need to go if you're in the area. And if not you just need to buy one more copy of Laura's book to console yourself. Click here for more information about the event and tickets.
Laura was kind enough to do an interview for me. I must humbly prostrate myself here as I should have posted it a week ago. I may appear busy on the surface but I've recently received some crappy health news (rheumatoid arthritis...now no one will believe I'm in my 20s!) which unfortunately sidelined this a bit. So my apologies to both Laura and Karl! But here I am, so...buy her book already!
An Interview with Karl Dane's biographer Laura Petersen Balogh by Hala Pickford
HP: First off let me say this is a fantastic book! How did you discover Karl Dane?
LPB: I had always known who he was, since I’m a silent film buff. I had read Kenneth Anger’s “Hollywood Babylon 2” but all I knew about him were the tragic and sordid circumstances of his death. But he never really made that much of an impression until I saw the serial “The Whispering Shadow” in 2005. That’s the first time I heard his voice and I became intrigued because to me, his accent wasn’t so bad that he couldn’t work in talkies.
HP: What made you want to write a biography on him?
LPB: When I saw the serial I decided I had to find out more about him, but there was no biography available. I normally would have just given up and moved on, but I was so curious and felt such empathy for him, that I decided then and there to write one myself—despite the fact I had never attempted a book before.
HP: Wow that's quite impressive! Being your first book, what was it like taking on such an obscure topic for your first biography?
LPB: It was definitely tough! But I was so lucky since I met up with a retired British genealogist early in the process. His name is Hugh Watkins and he spends a lot of time in Denmark and knows Danish. He became intrigued about the project and decided to help me. We formed a bond and I hired him to visit archives for me when I couldn’t and he found lots of Karl’s records that help tell the story of Karl’s early life in Denmark.
HP: How long did you research the book? What was it like? What difficulties and joys did you discover while researching?
LPB: I did the research for about 3 years. I was still finding out small things while writing the book. I felt like an archaeologist, sifting through boxes of information in archives that no one had looked in for ages, piecing together a life from bare scraps. It was completely exhilarating. I’d wake up thinking, what will we discover about Karl today?
HP: Exciting! Where did your interest in silent film come from?
LPB: It’s a funny story! When I was in 4th grade, my teacher meant to give us an assignment to write a report on Frederick Douglass. Instead she wrote “Douglas Fairbanks” on the board. I raised my hand and asked her who he was, and she must have been in a bad mood—she just brushed me off. That made me extremely curious and when I got home I looked him up in the encyclopedia, and then headed to the library. From learning about Doug, I learned about Mary Pickford, then the Gish sisters, D.W. Griffith, etc. A new passion was born! At that time PBS was starting to show a lot of silent films and it was perfect timing since I got to see my new idols in action.
HP: What is your favorite Karl movie and why?
LPB: That’s a tough one! It’s hard to narrow it down to one, but I love seeing his available talkies, since it showcases the total actor. “Navy Blues” is a lot of fun, as is the short “A Put Up Job” with George K. Arthur.
HP: Karl led a very interesting life, starting as a mechanic in his native Denmark and ending up a tragedy in Hollywood. What do you think drove him? It seemed he was always seeking something new, some new adventure.
LPB: Yes, an article from the 20’s once described Karl as an “eternally dissatisfied man”, and I think that was pretty perceptive. He was very restless and loved from place to place, even in his early years, living in Lincoln Nebraska as well as Mildred, Kansas! He was always searching for something, some meaning, that eluded him, I think, as if it could be found outside of himself.
HP: Wow! He must have been restless to want to live in Kansas and Nebreska! He had a family in Denmark, a wife and 2 children. Yet by the time he was in America they lost contact. Did he ever regret that? Did he ever see his children again? Were you able to find what the children felt about this relationship?
LPB: As far as I know, Karl never discussed his family with anyone in America. When he died, no one close to him in the end knew anything about any relatives. And no, he never saw his 2 children again after he left in 1916, although when his brother saw him onscreen in 1926, he wrote to him in Hollywood, and re-established contact, and Karl wrote occasionally and sent money to help them out. But there were no visits back and forth, and Karl’s grandson said the family never discussed him much.
HP: What drove Karl to become an actor?
LPB: Karl had a troubled childhood. His parents fought since his father was an alcoholic and spendthrift and his younger brother died of cancer as a toddler. I think Karl was attracted to acting because he could escape into a world of make-believe. (You can probably tell I was a Psychology major, no?)
HP: Just a little! Karl quit film soon after he started. Why did he re-enter film in 1923?
LPB: His second wife Helen had died in childbirth along with their baby girl. The story goes that Charles Hutchison, who acted with Karl in the serial “The Wolves of Kultur” among others, saw Karl on the street and persuaded im to take up acting again since he was making his own independent feature.
HP: The Big Parade was a major success. How did Karl feel about that?
LPB: Karl always seemed pretty humble about his success in his interviews. He said at the beginning that he was aware that roles like that of “Slim” only came along once in a lifetime and he wasn’t holding any unrealistic expectations for long-lasting fame. He lived pretty humbly, at least at the beginning, still living at the same small apartment on Hollywood and Vine that he resided in before he was famous.
HP: Now Karl had a Danish accent but spoke English well enough (click here to listen). What happened when talkies arrived?
LPB: There was a lot of panic and apprehension at all the studios. George K. Arthur said that Karl never knew what hit him when sound film came in and was not prepared. Part of the reason may have been that MGM mogul Louis B. Mayer was known for telling his players that if they were loyal and worked hard, they would always have a job. Karl, probably due to his somewhat-shaky English, tended to take things very literally, and might have gotten a false sense of security about his job until it was too late. Karl was at his height when talkies came in, at about 1927.
HP: What made him all but retire from film? What did he do once he was out of film for good?
LPB: Karl claimed in an interview that he was offered a contract in 1930 but turned it down since he was suffering from total physical and emotional exhaustion and had to take time off to rest. He said he recognized that his voice was not ideal for talkies and that pantomime was his true forte and didn’t seem bitter at all. When he was out of films for good, he quickly turned his attention to gold mining. This was very popular in the early years of the Great Depression. However, he was swindled by one of his partners, who made off with a chunk of his savings.
HP: Karl's story is remembered mostly for a small blurb in the trashtastic Hollywood Babylon 2 saying he lost out on talkies due to his accent, ran a hot dog cart, and killed himself because of it. What really happened?
LPB: His voice wasn’t bad: it fit his physical appearance and was understandable most of the time. He could have made more films easily but the timing was terrible. So many things went wrong all at once: he was getting older (Karl was almost 40 when “The Big Parade” came out), public tastes were gradually changing, he was fragile emotionally, and most of all he made terrible decisions and saved none of his money.
HP: In addition to being swindled by his business partner Karl was pick-pocketed the day before he died. Do you think had he not been swindled and robbed he wouldn't have chosen such a sad ending?
LPB: Yes, I personally think if he had a decent living he could have soldiered on, despite any other problems he was having. He had borrowed so much money from his friends that he probably knew he couldn’t ask anymore—everyone was having a hard time in those years. He was probably close to being kicked out of his apartment—after all, he had only $1.57 (about $16 in 2009) at the time of his death.
HP: What happened after he committed suicide?
LPB: People had very strong feelings about his death from all the articles that appeared in American and Danish papers. Some were extremely sympathetic, condemning people who had helped his spend his money when he had wealth, but turned their backs on his when he lost everything. Others were very cruel, calling him a “failure” since he had no money at the end, and insinuated that he never had any real talent all along, that his earlier fame and fortune as all due to luck. It’s amazing to read this collective amnesia since all of these people surely had seen films like “The Big Parade” only a few short years before. The controversy also caused some actors to start paying more attention to their own finances.
HP: Well at least maybe something good came out of something so sad if others learned from his fate. What is the status of Karl's films now? Is he easily accessible or locked away in the vaults?
LPB: We’re actually lucky since we have a good sample of Karl’s films available to us today, like “Parade,” “”Trail of ‘98”, and the newly discovered “Bardelys the Magnificent,” but so many of his films also sit in vaults. One example is first Dane and Arthur film “Rookies” which exists in good condition and has never been released. This is supposed to be a great film and I really am dying to see it (Hala adds: are you listening festival and screening programmers? Come on!)
HP: What do you think Karl's legacy is right now? And what do you hope it will be in the future?
LPB: Much of the general public doesn’t know who Karl Dane is, but I’m very optimistic. As more films are released on video and DVD, he’ll find more of an audience with future generations. I hope this biography will encourage people to see more silent films in general, and give the medium a chance in todays’ reality-TV world.
HP: Silent film has been mostly forgotten since the 1930s, and most of Karl's work is silent. What do you hope modern audiences would see in his performances? In my experience when the Silent Movie Theatre ran "Son of the Sheik" last summer the packed crowd of hipsters just loved Karl. When Karl came on the screen for the second time the formerly cynical guy behind me commented "That guy is great!" Warmed my heart!
LPB: That warms my heart too!! I would hope that they’d see the wonderfully versatile and talented performer he was. Karl wasn’t some buffoon that people made him out to be years later. I’d advise them to check out his early works like “My Four Years in Germany” and the serial “The Wolves of Kultur” in which he plays TOTALLY against his later comedy type.
I felt the same joy when we showed parts of “Trail of ‘98” at the DFI in Copenhagen. When we showed a scene of Karl’s character flying into a rage and giving the villains their comeuppance by tearing their lair apart in a huge brawl, the audience (which included Karl’s family) loudly cheered.
HP: With such an acclaimed biography under your belt are you planning any more books? What about?
I definitely want to write another bio, and I have a few ideas I’m exploring, but I don’t want to jinx it yet!
More Karl Dane:
"Karl Dane: A Biography and Filmography" by Laura Petersen Balogh is out now on McFarland. Click here to purchase. Laura's Karl Dane site can be found at http://www.karl-dane.com Laura's Karl Dane article for The Rudolph Valentino Society can be found by clicking here. Another interview with Laura can be read at Perpetual Prose
Egyptian Theatre 87th Anniversary Celebration Information:
* The Great Dane: The Tragic Life and Career of MGM Silent Comedian Karl Dane Lecture Starts at 5pm
*Book signing and cake starts at 6pm
*The Big Parade complete with original score starts at 7pm
Tickets are $9-$12 with special discounts for Art Deco Society of Los Angeles members
For tickets and information click here and here
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