Harold Clayton Lloyd Sr. (April 20, 1893 – March 8, 1971) was an American actor, comedian, and stunt performer who appeared in many silent comedy films.

An accident with a bomb mistaken as a prop resulted in the loss of the thumb and index finger of his right hand (the injury was disguised on future films with the use of a special prosthetic glove, and it was almost undetectable on the screen).

[13] Lloyd worked with Thomas Edison's motion picture company, and his first role was a small part as a Yaqui Indian in the production of The Old Monk's Tale.

He envisioned an entirely new character, not a costumed clown but an everyday young man in street clothes who faced comic situations with resourcefulness.

Lloyd thought that Pathé, Roach's distributor, would resist the new character because the Lonesome Luke films were proven moneymakers, and the company didn't want to lose that revenue.

"[19] Lloyd agreed to a compromise: He would continue to make Lonesome Luke two-reelers, but he would introduce his new "Glass" character[20] in less expensive one-reel shorts.

Within the first few years of the character's debut, he had portrayed social ranks ranging from a starving vagrant in From Hand to Mouth to a wealthy socialite in Captain Kidd's Kids.

In 1919, Bebe Daniels declined to renew her contract with Hal Roach, leaving the Lloyd series to pursue her dramatic aspirations.

On August 24, 1919, while posing for some promotional still photographs in the Los Angeles Witzel Photography Studio, he picked up what he thought was a prop bomb and lit it with a cigarette.

Lloyd was in the act of lighting a cigarette from the fuse of the bomb when it exploded, also badly burning his face and chest and injuring his eye.

[27] These included the acclaimed Grandma's Boy, which (along with Chaplin's The Kid) pioneered the combination of complex character development and film comedy, the highly popular Safety Last!

His final film of the decade, Professor Beware (1938), was made by the Paramount staff, with Lloyd functioning only as actor and partial financier.

[34] Lloyd produced a few comedies for RKO Radio Pictures in the early 1940s, including Lucille Ball's A Girl, a Guy, and a Gob in 1941,[35] but otherwise retired from the screen until 1947.

He returned for an additional starring appearance in The Sin of Harold Diddlebock,[35] an ill-fated homage to Lloyd's career, directed by Preston Sturges and financed by Howard Hughes.

[36] Such was Lloyd's disdain that he sued Howard Hughes, the California Corporation, and RKO for damages to his reputation "as an outstanding motion picture star and personality", eventually accepting a $30,000 settlement.

[citation needed] In October 1944, Lloyd emerged as the director and host of The Old Gold Comedy Theater,[37] an NBC radio anthology series, after Preston Sturges, who had turned the job down, recommended him for it.

[37] The show presented half-hour radio adaptations of recently successful film comedies, beginning with Palm Beach Story with Claudette Colbert and Robert Young.

[37] Some saw The Old Gold Comedy Theater as being a lighter version of Lux Radio Theater, and it featured some of the best-known film and radio personalities of the day, including Fred Allen, June Allyson, Lucille Ball, Ralph Bellamy, Linda Darnell, Susan Hayward, Herbert Marshall, Dick Powell, Edward G. Robinson, Jane Wyman and Alan Young.

[38] At the installation ceremony for this position on July 25, 1949, 90,000 people were present at Soldier Field, including then sitting U.S. President Harry S Truman, also a 33° Scottish Rite Mason.

[39] In recognition of his services to the nation and Freemasonry, Lloyd was invested with the Rank and Decoration of Knight Commander Court of Honour in 1955 and coroneted an Inspector General Honorary, 33°, in 1965.

Some of the earliest two-color Technicolor tests were shot at his Beverly Hills home (these are included as extra material in the Harold Lloyd Comedy Collection DVD Box Set).

Lloyd also provided encouragement and support for a number of younger actors, such as Debbie Reynolds, Robert Wagner and particularly Jack Lemmon, whom Harold declared as his own choice to play him in a movie of his life and work.

[42][43] The film was well received by most critics and audiences as a reminder of Lloyd's creative output as the third (with Chaplin and Keaton) of the "Big Three" great silent comedy filmmakers.

[49] The Brownlow and Gill documentary was shown as part of the PBS series American Masters, and created a renewed interest in Lloyd's work in the United States, but the films were largely unavailable.

The new cable television and home video versions of Lloyd's great silent features and many shorts were remastered with new orchestral scores by Robert Israel.

A DVD collection of these restored or remastered versions of his feature films and important short subjects was released by New Line Cinema in partnership with the Harold Lloyd Trust in 2005, along with theatrical screenings in the United States, Canada and Europe.

[citation needed] Criterion Collection has acquired the home video rights to the Lloyd library and has released Safety Last!,[52] The Freshman[53] and Speedy.

He was vested with the Rank and Decoration of Knight Commander Court of Honor (KCCH) and eventually with the Inspector General Honorary, 33rd degree.

[78][79] In 1927, his was the fourth concrete ceremony at Grauman's Chinese Theatre, preserving his handprints, footprints and autograph, along with the outline of his famed glasses (which were actually a pair of sunglasses with the lenses removed).

[citation needed] Lloyd was honored in 1960 for his contribution to motion pictures with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame located at 1503 Vine Street.