Viola Richard: A Brief Career in Comedy

Today is the birthday of Viola Richard (1904-1973).  The entirety of her short career in films consisted of roles in silent Hal Roach comedy shorts between the years 1927 and 1928, normally in support of Charley Chase or Laurel and Hardy. She appeared in a little over a dozen films, including Why Girls Love Sailors, Sailors Beware, Do Detectives Think?, and Should Married Men Go Home? In 1928 she left Roach to marry an executive at Fox and moved to New York (although you can see her in walk-on roles in two Roach talking shorts of the mid 30s. Get the rest of her story here.

To learn more about comedy film history don’t miss my book: Chain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickelodeons to Youtube, just released by Bear Manor Media, also available from amazon.com etc etc etc. , consult No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous, available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and wherever nutty books are sold.