Essanay Film Company

Chicago Tribune, August 25, 1907

Peerless Film Manufacturing company, Chicago, name changed to Essanay Film Manufacturing company.

Advertisements for Essanay’s first movie, “An Awful Skate”, which was filmed in Old Town in July, 1907. The only existing copy is in the George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film in Rochester, NY and not available to the public. “Mr. Inquisitive” was released on August 24, 1907.

Moving Picture World, June 5, 1909

THE ESSANAY COMPANY’S NEW PLANT.
Enterprising Chicago Motion Picture Firm Moves Into Its New Quarters

The manufacturers are erecting plants of colossal proportions in order to supply the demand for more and better quality films.

The Essanay Company, of Chicago, is moving into its new quarters this week. Covering several acres of ground, the buildings within and without, models of beautiful architecture,’ the new plant is a fitting home for this enterprising motion picture firm. The writer recently enjoyed a visit to the new plant The genial president of the company, George K Spoor, first showed him through the company’s handsomely furnished offices. They are models of neatness and system. next went into the studio. Here we found G. M. Anderson, youngest and one of the most prominent men engaged in America to-day in the manufacturing of motion pictures. “Andy.” as he is familiarly known by the trade, was overseeing the work of a dozen or more carpenters who were engaged in swinging into place large framework for the overhead lights.

“We are going to have the most up-to-date stage equipment in the country,” Mr. Spoor said. “We have facilities here for staging the most stupendous productions. We have more than doubled our lighting systems, and I feel safe in making the assertion that future Essanay productions will be fully equal to the output of other manufacturers either at home or abroad.

Immediately to the south of this excellent indoor stage and studio is a daylight studio. This will be utilized at all times when the weather is suitable for outdoor work.

Taken all together, both the indoor and outdoor studios are the marvel of perfection. Every up-to-date appliance to minimize time and trouble, and to assure the best results, has been installed.

Adjoining the indoor studio is the carpenter shop and paint frame. Skilled artists were busy on the bridges above Two or three stage carpenters were building a padded cell for a scene from a story soon to be released, “The Curse of Cocaine.” It was not the usual painted upholstery, but the real thing. Indeed, the solidness of the construction of scenic effects, the care and watchfulness of detaH, would surprise one who has not been “behind the scenes.”

The property room is handily adjacent. We find here, if one is permitted to use the old phrase, everything “from a needle to a haystack.” Here is material for any sort of a scene from a drawing room in a Fifth avenue mansion to a corner in a boiler factory.

We went next to inspect the photographic department. The spotless cleanliness of these workrooms, so indispensable to the art, was prevalent. In the dimly-lighted developing rooms a dozen or more white gowned young ladies were busy putting the thousands of feet of celluloid strips through the various baths, or chemical processes, necessary in the developing of the films. The washing and drying departments, capable of handling 20,000 feet of film an hour, we found more inviting. The process here is a simple but delicate one.

The Essanay Company, indeed, is to be congratulated. Its facilities for turning out more and better films will insure the retention of the name an approving public has given it, as the one “House of Comedy Hits.”

essany

Film set for a silent western featuring Gilbert M. Anderson, known as Broncho Billy, at Essanay Film Studios in Chicago circa 1910.

Essanay’s Ira Morgan and Harris Ensign stand on each side with Bell & Howell production cameras. Rollie Totheroh stands in the middle with the original B&H prototype. Camera assistants Howard West, Mervyn Breslauer and Martin Killilay sit in front.

Inter Ocean, June 29, 1913

On Monday evening, June 2, 1913, the new Essanay studio, at Niles, Cal., was informally opened. G. M. Anderson and all the members of of the Western Stock company received the invited guests, consisting of prominent business men of Niles and San Francisco. The speech by Mr. Anderson was enthusiastically received and gave the cue for the festivities to begin. Dancing interspersed with gallons of refreshments (grape juice) comprised the evening’s enjoyment.

Essanay Film Manufacturing Company Plant at Niles, California

Chicago Tribune, December 19, 1914

Essanay Captures Chaplin.
Charles Chaplin, the English comedian with the tiny mustache whose weird repertoire of gestures and postures has helped make the Keystone low comedy films famous, has been captured by the Essanay company. Chaplin has signed a long term contract at one of the largest salaries in movie land. He will come to Chicago next week and take part in a new series of comedies.

Moving Picture World, February 6, 1915

A REAL FILM ABC
Anderson, Bushman and Chaplin of the Essanay Company Constitute an Unusual Photoplay Combination.
The accompanying photograph is one that is bound to interest those who follow the photoplay. As the original lay on a desk in this office a prominent magazine man picked it up and remarked: “That’s a sure-enough film A B C, isn’t it?” Certainly it would be hard in one company to match it for another containing three men so prominent in their own particular line. Each has been markedly successful, two of them in paths distinctly original. Gilbert M. Anderson showed the possibilities in a film way and incidentally in a money way when he went west about seven years ago to portray life as it was in primitive days. Charles M. Chaplin has not been long on the screen, but his popularity as a comedian has been so great that it seems a perfectly safe statement to remark that to-day he is drawing a larger salary than any man working before the camera, and that if that sum is exceeded by any sister actor there is probably but one. Francis X. Bushman has traveled no unbeaten paths, but he has come to the top of his profession in the legitimate screen drama by steady and hard work and sheer ability.

Mr. Anderson has been credited with being the pioneer of the “Western” type of picture plays. Before going West he did a little work for the Vitagraph and Edison companies. When he conceived the idea of making western pictures he submitted the proposition to several prominent Eastern film manufacturers, it has been said, but with the exception of George K. Spoor all of them turned it down. It is likely that many of them have since had occasion to express regret. It is possible that Mr. Spoor was not sure of the popularity of the step at the time he took it, but the pictures produced by Mr. Anderson made a hit with the public, both at home and abroad. Other manufacturers were quick to follow
the trail blazed by the Essanay company. Mr. Anderson is now at the head of the company’s western studio at Niles, Cal., near San Francisco.

Mr. Bushman’s work for the screen has been confined to the Essanay company. He has been with the Chicago company over three years. He had been successful on the stage before taking up photoplay work, but he found the latter so much more congenial that. so far as known to friends in New York, he has had no thought of returning to it. It was about a year and a half or two years ago that for a time he was out of the Essanay company and made an extended tour of the photoplay theatres. It was a remarkably successful trip. He said at the time that it was of deep interest to him as well. It brought him into direct touch with his friends and brought to his screen work an aspect of which he had not before been aware. While on tour he had many offers of engagements from film manufacturers, but it was the proposal of the Essanav that he accepted.

Mr. Bushman likes Chicago. He is athletic in his tastes. He enjoys nothing better than horseback riding. and many a morning takes a gallop before starting his day’s work. He is an accomplished wrestler, too. The story has been told of his bout with a big lumberman and of the amazement of the friends of the Wisconsin camp champion when an actor got the best of the man of the woods in a bitterly contested struggle. Mr. Bushman takes pride in his physical condition. While on tour his weight went up to something over 190 pounds. He remarked to friends in New York that he would have to get busy and get it back to 180 pounds, where he tried to maintain it. His height is six feet, which means that he has to be active to hold down his weight to the prescribed figure. Personally he is popular. His admirers are not confined to women. Among men he is looked upon as a charming companion. Speaking about women, the writer recalls the furore created in the Arena in Boston at the time of the Massachusetts Exhibitors ball. It just happened that this writer accompanied Mr. Bushman as he was “led to the slaughter,” as he expressed it, around the crowded hall on that occasion. The remarks that must have reached the ears of the Chicago photoplayer did not seem to hurt him a bit.

Charles Chaplin is the surprise of the screen. Many players have come from the legitimate stage and made quick and remarkable success before the camera, but he seems to lead them all. His position in the comedy field is proof that talent will come to the top despite adverse circumstances. It has been said that in his childhood he had no advantages, not even schooling; that his mother died when he was very young, and that he and his brother Sidney, four years older, were taken on the road by an acrobatic company. He was still a boy when with his brother he came to New York. His experiences here are fresh in his mind. He is said to be about twenty-five years old, which fact makes his success all the more remarkable. There are those who will await with considerable curiosity to see if his popularity is maintained— in other words, to know whether it is himself who is entirely responsible for the great name he has built up as a comedian or how much of that is due to the guiding hand and mind of Mack Sennett. Mr. Chaplin has been credited with the possession of an abundance of originality. Certainly in action there is no one on the screen like him. The public never knows what goes on when the camera crank is not turning. Mr. Chaplin’s friends aver that he is resourceful, chock full of ideas. many of which come to the surface at the psychological moment, which, after all. is proof of genius.

One good test of a screen player’s popularity is the demand for prints in which he is to appear. An exhibitor remarked to the writer a day or two ago that he knew of one exchange that had put in an order for five Chaplin prints where it had formerly been using one of the company. This is a reflection of the box office side of Chaplin. Personally he is said to be extremely modest, retiring, declining to assume that he has plished much worth making a fuss about-which is, alter all, one of the best things that can be said about anybody and one of the real proofs of greatness.

Ben Turpin and Charlie Chaplin face off in “His New Job”, made in 1915. It was the only Essanay film that Chaplin shot in Chicago. The city was a major center for silent film production before the industry relocated to California.

Moving Picture World, February 20, 1915

Los Angeles Times, February 1, 1916

CHARLEY CHAPLIN QUITS ESSANAY-HAS OWN FIRM.
Charley left last night on the 9 o’clock Santa Fo.

He bought a ticket straight through to New York, but will stop off at Chicago to wind up his financial affairs with the Essanay. His contract with that firm expired a couple of weeks ago.

Syd Chaplin, his brother, has preceded him to New York, and when Charley joins him they will complete arrangements for the will market Chaplin Syndicate, Inc., which will market the Chaplin pictures.

The famous brothers will return to Los Angeles within two weeks and will commence at once on a series of comedies, Edna Purviance will continue as Charley’s leading woman.

Chicago Tribune, February 18, 1916

From $55 to $12,050 Perhaps.
George K. Spoor got back from New York yesterday, and said he, wearily;

Unless Chaplin comes down on his demands he is out of the running for Essanay. He is asking altogether too much for any company. Why, now he wants $626,600 a year, which is $12,050 a week. If I could get together the $12,000 for him I couldn’t raise the $50. He is very friendly toward Essanay, but he’ll have to ask for less money if he wants to come back, and there isn’t much chance of that.

And time was, about five years ago, when the same Charlie Chaplin was playing his celebrated “drunk” in “A Night in an English Music Hall” in Sullivan-Considine houses for $55 a week.

The Tramp, His New Job

A Night Out

Chase Me Charlie

Triple Trouble

Police

Motography, May 30, 1914

Top row, left to right: Joseph Dailey, F. Doolittle, Inez Callahan, William J. Murray, Curtis Cooksey, Helen Lowe, Howard Missimer, Miss Lavalliet, Cyril Raymond.
Middle row: Florence Hoffman, Harry Cashman, Alice Donovan, Frank Dayton, Harry McRae Webster, Lottie Briscoe, William C. Walters, Rose Evans.
Bottom row: Eva Prout, Bobbie Guhl, Jack Essanay (dog), Charlotte Vacher, Tommy Shirley

Seated on Floor: Eleanor Kahn And Jack, The Bulldog Mascot;
1st Row: Charles Hitchcock, Whitney Raymond, Eva Prout, Baby Parsons, Ruth Stonehouse, William Mason
2nd Row: Lily Branscombe, Frank Dayton, Dolores Cassinelli, Francis X. Bushman, Beverly Bayne, William Walters, Mildred Weston;
3rd Row: Joseph Allen, Eleanor Blanchard, John Stepping, Martha Russell, Harry Cashman, Helen Dunbar, Harry Mainhall;
Top Row: E. H. Calvert, William Bailey, Howard Missimer, Fred Wulf

Chicago Tribune, August 24, 1966

Pacific Palisades, Cal., Aug. 23-Francis X. Bushman, 83, who had been the romantic “king of the movies” in the silent films a half century ago, died today of a heart attack. His death at first was thought to be the result of injuries when he fell and struck his head on a kitchen cupboard shortly after arising this morning.

His fourth wife, the former Iva Millicent Richardson, found him on the floor and summoned an ambulance crew which pronounced the actor dead. The heart attack was confirmed by a coroner’s autopsy.

The actor, a big husky man with a classic profile, ranked as the most dashing of the stars in the early years of the movie industry. He was in the original “Ben Hur” of the silent screen and was in more than 400 films over a 50-year-period.

‹strong>Joined Circus at 13
Altho his popularity had waned in recent years, Bus still made occasional personal appearance tours and some movie and television roles. His injury on Sund forced him to withdraw from a part in a movie “Huntsville,” which went into production yesterday.

Bushman was born in Norfolk, Va., Jan. 10, 1883, of John Henry and Mary Josephine Bushman. When he ran away from home to join a circus. A year late was a spear carrier in Baltimore theater production.

He made his Broadway stage debut in the play “Queen the Moulin Rouge” in 1907, then had leading roles i other plays, including “At Yale,” “Going Some,” “Si The Cross,” “The Master Thief,” and “Thin Ice.”

Started in Chicago
Bushman started in films with Essanay company in Chicago in. 1911, and four years later switched to the. newly formed Metro company. He won international popularity contests and received the crown of “king of the movies” at the San Diego world fair in 1915.

At the height of his film success, in a five year period prior to 1920, Bushman reputedly earned 6 million dollars and spent it as quickly as the money came in.

He lived flamboyantly, driving around Hollywood in a long, slow, lavender Marmon auto with “Francis X. Bushman” painted in gold on both sides.

Fans Are Disillusioned
Bushman and Beverly Bayne, an actress, formed a co-starring love duo and their romance carried on off-camera. Bushman divorced his first wife, Josephine Fladuene, to marry Miss Bayne in 1918. His movie fans were somewhat disillusioned with their idol when it was disclosed that he had five children by his 17 years of marriage to Miss Fladuene.

Bushman and Miss Bayne were divorced in 1925.

His most remembered role in the silents was as Messala, the villainous antagonist of “Ben-Hur.” The title role was played by Ramon Novarro. Their big scene was the climactic chariot race. When the big movie parts no longer came his way, Bushman went into vaudeville and radio. He had a radio program in Chicago from 1930 to 1940. He was host for a television series “Films to Remember” in 1961.

His third wife, the former Norma Atkins, died in February, 1956, after, 24 years of marriage. Six months later, Bushman married Mrs. Richardson, who had been a neighbor of his in Pacific Palisades. Surviving in addition to his fourth wife are three sons, three daughters, 12 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

A family spokesman said services for Bushman will be held Friday afternoon in the Church of the Recessional at Forest Lawn cemetery in Glendale, with burial to follow in the Memorial Court of Honor at Forest Lawn.

San Bernardino County Sun, January 21, 1971

Bronco Billy, 88, Screen’s First Star, Dies

By Bob Thomas
Hollywood (AP)—Gilbert M. Anderson, the man who started the movie western with “The Great Train Robbery” in 1903 and became the first major film star as Bronc o Billy, died in a sanitarium yesterday at 88.

Once a major figure as an actor and studio owner, Broncho Billy had been supported in his waning years by the Motion Picture and Television Relief Fund. He returned to the limelight briefly in 1958, when the Motion Picture Academy presented him with an honorary Oscar for his early achievements in the industry.

Anderson was one of the last links to the beginnings of films.

Born Max Aronson Anderson in Little Rock, Ark., he adopted the name of Gilbert M. Anderson as a vaudeville performer. He drifted into movies, working for director Edwin S. Porter in the fragmentary films of 1903. Late in life Anderson recalled:

I suggested something that had a lot of riding and shooting—plenty of excitement. Why not a train robbery? Another fellow remembered there was a play called The Great Train Robbery. So we stole the title.

Filmed in Fort Lee, N.J., “The Great Train Robbery” became a landmark movie, the first to tell a well-developed story.

Anderson found himself a new career. He teamed with George K. Spoor to form a Chicago company, Essanay. They made films with Charlie Chaplin, Gloria Swanson and Wallace Beery.

Anderson made some westerns in Boulder, Colo., then built a studio on San Francisco Bay where he ground out one-reel westerns with himself starring as Broncho Billy. He lifter the name from stories by Peter Kyne—”we never bought anything in those days.”

The Broncho Billy shorts appeared in theaters around the world every week.

“In 1919 I started making five-reelers,” he recalled. “But I got into the field too late. Bill Hart had already been making then and he had the market sewed up.”

He lingered in the film industry until 1926, then drifted away. His fortune vanished, and he lived in a tiny house near downtown Los Angeles. Many believed that Broncho Billy had died.

The 1958 Oscar brought him out of obscurity. In his last dozen years he often gave interviews and even appeared in a western. His movie favorite was Gary Cooper—”just about the best cowboy who has ever been on the screen.”

He is survived by his widow Molly and a daughter, Mazine.

A form rejection slip from Essanay Studios

Burlesque on Carmen

Motion Picture News, September 11, 1920

Chicago Tribune, November 25, 1953

George K. Spoor, 81, who as president of the Essanay Film company pioneered the moving picture industry in Chicago, died yesterday in his home at 908 Argyle st.

Spoor and Gilbert M. (Broncho Billy) Anderson founded the company in 1897. Many stars of the silent films got their start in the studio at 1345 Argyle st. The lot there was closed in 1916 when the motion picture industry invaded Hollywood, Cal.

Many Stars Began Here
In pioneer movie days, Essanay and Selig studios made Chicago one of the major motion picture producing centers. Stars who received their start on the Essanay lot included H. B. Walthal, Gloria Swanson, Wallace Beery, Francis X. Bushman, and Charles Chaplin.

Spoor was as prominent an inventor of movie equipment as he was a producer. He made one of the first projection machines that enabled filmed pictures to be flashed on a screen.

He worked for years on a three dimension film process, which he called “natural vision.” In 1930 he produced “Danger Lights” under that stereoscopic process. A fortune was lost, however, in attempts to put the three dimensional films on the market.

Lost Money in Crash
Spoor also promoted the construction of an apartment building, on which he lost money in the real estate crash of the late ’20’s at Argyle st. and the present extension of Lincoln Park.

His wife, Ada, a sister-in-law of Billy Sunday, the evangelist, died in 1951. Spoor lived with his daughter, Gertrude, and her husband, Douglas L. Weart, a retired major general who served in the Caribbean and China during World War II.

Services will be held at 2 p. m. Friday in the chapel at 5001 N. Ashland av., with burial in Forest Home cemetery.

Show World, October 26, 1907

Chicago Tribune, August 24, 1966

Pacific Palisades, Cal., Aug. 23—Francis X. Bushman, 83, who had been the romantic “king of the movies” in the silent films a half century ago, died today of a heart attack. His death at first was thought to be the result of injuries when he fell and struck his head on a kitchen cupboard shortly after arising this morning.

His fourth wife, the former Iva Millicent Richardson, found him on the floor and summoned an ambulance crew which pronounced the actor dead. The heart attack was confirmed by a coroner’s autopsy.

Joined Circus at 13
Altho his popularity had waned in recent years, Bushman still made occasional personal appearance tours and had some movie and television roles. His injury on Sunday had forced him to withdraw from a part in a movie “Huntsville,” which went into production yesterday.

Bushman was born in Norfolk, Va., Jan. 10, 1883, the son of John Henry and Mary Josephine Bushman. When he was 13 he ran away from home to join a circus. A year later, he was a spear carrier in Baltimore theater productions.

He made his Broadway stage debut in the play “Queen of the Moulin Rouge” in 1907, then had leading roles in other plays, including “At Yale,” “Going Some,” “Sign of The Cross,” “The Master Thief,” and “Thin Ice.”

AFTERMATH

The Essanay building in Chicago was sold to Wilding Pictures, a subsidiary of Bell and Howell formed by two former Essanay Studio employees. Then it was given to a non-profit television organization, WTTW Corporation, which sold it. One tenant was the Midwest office of Technicolor. Today, the Essanay lot is the home of St. Augustine College and portions of the two buildings were occupied by Essanay Stage and Lighting Company, another film industry company.

NOTES:

¹ The Great Train Robbery was the most popular film until the release of The Birth of a Nation in 1915.

Comments

Dennis Walker says

October 8, 2023 at 11:57 pm

Hello,
Thank you for sharing some great history.
My great-uncle was one of Essanay’s first “real” cowboy actors, Fred Church 1889-1983. He sub-contracted to make western movies for Essanay. An early film was, “The Best Man Wins”, Nov. 1909. It was filmed in Golden, Colorado and he continued making over 274+ accredited western movies from Niles, CA to Staten Island, NY, until retiring in 1936. He was born in Ontario, Iowa, now called Boone and raised in Wyoming and Colorado, he wanted to be a cowboy performance actor after attending acting school in Michigan.
Anderson, a stage actor, teamed up with financier Spoor to make, which was novel at the time, a series of action packed short western cowboy movies. The problem was neither Anderson or Spoor knew anything about cowboying, so they had to look for cowboys who could ride, rope and shoot as well as acting in front of a camera. Actors like my uncle and the Morrisons of Colorado were what they needed and thus came about the Broncho Billy series and many other action-packed western thrillers.
David Emrich says

August 11, 2025 at 5:01 pm

Dennis, I’m not sure whether you look at this page, but I’d love to talk about Fred. I’m in Colorado and I am researching the films Essanay and Selig made here. Thanks to anyone who might help us connect.
Ellen Restis says

March 23, 2026 at 5:31 pm

David, if you are interested in Selig history, his great nephew, Jeff Look, is on Facebook. I met Jeff a few years ago when we were interviewed for a segment on early films by Larry Potash.

Regards, Ellen Brand-Restis, great niece of George Spoor.

Bronco Billy, 88, Screen’s First Star, Dies

AFTERMATH

NOTES:

Comments

Leave a Reply