John Bunny

Before Chaplin’s Little Tramp, Max Linder’s dapper gentleman, and the manic exploits of the Keystone Kops, John Bunny reigned supreme as cinema’s foremost comedian. Virtually forgotten today, Bunny was an international star of whom, upon his death in 1915, the London Evening Standard asked, “Did ever a man so subjugate the wide world? Was ever a name so famous?”

Early life and stage career

John Bunny was born in New York City on 21st September 1863 to an English father and an Irish mother. He received his education in Brooklyn public schools before attending St. James High School. After working as a clerk in a general store, he joined a travelling minstrel show. Eventually, he found his way onto the stage—where he remained for 22 years. One of his earliest appearances was in The Stranglers of Paris; he also appeared in Way Down East for Sol Smith Russell’s company, alongside Hattie Williams in a musical called Fluffy Ruffles, and with Raymond Hitchcock in Easy Dawson. His generous girth won him notice as a comic actor, and he played the part of Bottom in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Although he worked under such legendary theatrical figures as William Brady and Charles and Daniel Frohman, Bunny never achieved real stardom on the stage.

Signing for Vitagraph

When asked why he joined Vitagraph in 1910, when most stage actors looked down on movie acting as something almost shameful, he told the interviewer for Motion Picture Acting, “About three or four years ago, I was one of the foremost comedians on the stage. I have played good parts with the Shuberts, Chas. Frohman’s productions and all the biggest managers. However, I woke to the fact that the stage game was not what it had been and that the ‘movies’ were the coming thing. So I decided I would rather be behind the guns than in front of them. I wanted to be with the ‘shooters’ rather than with the ‘shot/ so I canceled my thirty weeks’ contract with the Shuberts, threw aside all the years of experience and success I had had, and decided to begin all over again. I went down to the Vitagraph studio, which was then in its infancy, and frankly told them I wanted to work in the pictures. They knew of me and my work and were naturally surprised, in view of the general attitude toward moving picture players at that time, that I should be seeking an entrance into the field. However, I ignored this and offered to work in my first picture for nothing, so they could judge of my appearance on the screen. I was game and they accepted.

“Before I had finished my first picture they asked me to play in the next and I agreed, saying nothing till I had finished the first. Then I asked them what they could do for me in stock. I must admit that I did not receive a very enthusiastic reception. They said: ‘Mr. Bunny, you are a high-salaried comedian. We have looked up your past engagements, and while we realize you would be a very valuable addition to the Vitagraph, yet since we have just started we could not afford to pay you anything approaching $150.00.’ So I knew by this that they had looked into my past and learned that my salary was $150.00. This was all true, but I felt that the big future would be with the ‘movies,’ so I asked them what they would offer, and they said: ‘There’s no use for us to make you an offer, Mr. Bunny, you would only laugh at the ridiculously low sum.’ I promised to be a real good boy and not even smile, so they continued: ‘The best we could offer you now, Mr. Bunny, would be $40.00 a week.’ No, I didn’t laugh. I could see the big difference between what I had been getting and the $40.00, but I could see a greater future on the side of the $40.00 with the shooters. So I said, ‘You’re on, I’m game.’”

Joint-owner of Vitagraph J. Stuart Blackton’s recollection of his first encounter with Bunny conflicted somewhat with the actor’s. He recalled, “A very fat man was leaning against the wall of the studio, like a buttress supporting the wall of Notre Dame. ‘We need a new comedy man,’ said Albert, ‘maybe this one will be funny.’ He saw us coming. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘can either of you gentlemen do this?’ Springing into the air he clicked his heels together three times before he hit the ground again. ‘I want a chance at the pictures,’ he pleaded, ‘just a chance.’”

Bunny was hired at $40 per week—considerably less than the $150 weekly wage he earned on the stage. His debut film was Jack Fat and Jim Slim at Coney Island (1910), released on 2nd December 1910, and described by Vitagraph as ‘A Side-shaking Comedy That is Taken Where They Manufacture Fun and Millions Go to Have a Good Time.’ The studio paired him with another heavyweight debutante, the actress Kate Price, who would appear with Bunny many times over the next four years. Later, reminiscing about her first movie in an interview for the trade paper Motography, she recalled, “We put one chute out of working order, and I did everything I was told to do. I weighed two hundred and twenty then…and I had to do all the things first, and the others flying after me would all land on me.”

Bunny’s films eschewed the wild chases and destructive slapstick made popular by continental comedians and focused instead on domestic misadventures—the husband tangling with his wife, neighbours, servants, or in-laws, or succumbing to a small temptation that escalates into humiliation; plots that relied on reaction, timing, facial expression, and the gradual collapse of Bunny’s confidence for laughs.

Stardom

Price was not to be Bunny’s most regular comic foil. That honour was reserved for Flora Finch, an actress whose tiny, stick-thin figure provided an amusing visual counterpoint to Bunny’s rotund figure. Together, they made around one hundred comedy shorts for Vitagraph, which came to be known as ‘Bunnyfinches’. Their comedies together were hugely popular, and many believed them to be married in real life. Not only were they not married, but “they cordially hated each other,” according to Albert E. Smith, Vitagraph’s other joint-owner.

Bunny spent his entire short film career at Vitagraph. The number of films he made for the studio is uncertain, but is probably somewhere between 150 and 200. He became one of cinema’s earliest international stars. In Germany audiences knew him as Herr Kintop, and in Russia he was Pockson (or Poxon).