Essanay Studios

I thought that it would make sense to start my new Chicago history blog close to home, and what could be closer to home than the house next door? Only I don't live next door to a house, I live next door to a college that just happens to be housed in the former building of Essanay Studios, one of America's very first film studios.

The studio was founded in Chicago in 1907 by George K. Spoor and Gilbert M. Anderson, and this is where it gets its name--Spoor and Anderson, S and A, Essanay! George K. Spoor, one of the founders, had begun his film career working at the Phoenix Opera House in Waukegan. He was a box office manager. There, he teamed up with an inventor named Edward Hill Amet to create something called "The Magniscope," one of the first 35mm film projectors. Spoor and Amet are evidentally credited with all kinds of amazing film firsts. They filmed the very first newsreel--a video of the inauguration of President William McKinley in 1897. He and Amet were also the first to use film miniatures, using tin replicas and cigar smoke to simulate war footage; the first to encounter film censorship after a particularly graphic account of China's Boxer Rebellion; and the first to make a fake newsreel, when Spoor had his neighbors act out the battle of San Juan Hill in a local park.

The other founder of Essanay, Gilbert M. Anderson (born Maxwell Aronson), was already a silent film star when he teamed up with Spoor. He had been featured in the film "The Great Escape," where he apparently played three parts. With Essanay, he went on to become the very first cowboy movie star, acting as "Broncho Billy" in 148 different films. These films made up the bulk of Essanay's productions. Of course, it was difficult to film Westerns in Chicago since the city lacked the sweeping landscapes necessary for the wild west. So George Spoor would stay in Chicago and run the studio while "Broncho Billy" would go out west to do location work.

Filming a "Broncho Billy" film in the Chicago Essanay studio.

The studio's very first film was called "An Awful Skate," or "The Hobo on Rollers," and starred Ben Turpin, who although he went on to be a silent film star, was the studio's janitor at the time. As you probably gleaned from the title, it was a slapstick comedy. It only cost a few hundred dollars to make, and wound up grossing thousands. The movie also made Ben Turpin, ordinary Chicagoan, into a movie star. He went on to play comic roles in several films. It is believed that he, in the film "Mr. Flip," became the very first actor to receive a pie in the face, so what could be more notable than that? He was cross-eyed, which added to his comic appeal to the extent that he took out a $25,000 insurance policy, payable in the event that his eyes ever un-crossed themselves (seriously, you can't make this stuff up).

Ben Turpin--don't tell me those eyes aren't worth $25,000

Once Essanay started making some money, though, they moved beyond cross-eyed janitors and went after some real talent--Charlie Chaplin. He had originally been working with another studio (Keystone Studios), but in 1914 George Spoor managed to tempt him to Essanay by offering him a larger salary and his own production unit. He arrived by train two days before Christmas, wearing no overcoat and carrying his minimal belongings in a bundle. He went on to make several films with Essanay (including one of my favorites, "The Tramp") but only made one in Chicago, called "His New Job." He stayed with "Broncho Billy" Anderson and his wife, Mollie, at 1027 W. Lawrence, just a few blocks from the studio.



Broncho Billy's house seems to have been replaced by Dib sushi



Charlie Chaplin was, by all accounts, an eccentric. He immediately alienated Louella Parsons, the main scriptwriter at Essanay, by refusing to do her films (he only did films he wrote himself). On New Year's Eve, "Broncho Billy" Anderson and his wife Mollie took Chaplin to the glamorous Sherman Hotel at Clark and Randolph. On the way there, Mollie realized that Chaplin was wearing his pajama bottoms as a scarf, and, totally horrified, had to scramble for him to find something else to wear.

The Sherman Hotel--not the kind of place where pajama pants make an okay scarf

As I mentioned before, "Broncho Billy" and some of the other stars of Essanay had already begun doing location work out west, and as this continued, they opened up an "Essanay-West" location in Niles, California, which featured consistently good weather and a rolling landscape that was conducive to shooting Westerns. This location was opened around 1909, and by 1917 it became clear that there was no longer any need for the Chicago location, since filming in Chicago was so difficult due to the long winters. The Chicago location of Essanay closed in 1917.

The building was sold to a Norman Wilding, who continued to use it as a film studio, shooting industrial films. This really reflected a shift in Chicago's role in the film world. No longer was Chicago the center of entertainment films. Los Angeles and the surrounding areas were already becoming the center of the film world. Instead, with the advent of 16mm film in 1923, Chicago grew to be the center of industrial and educational films. It's interesting to come across this in my research of Essanay, because it's actually also something that I was recently discussing with a work contact, who has been making films in Chicago for a number of years. He was talking about how there was a major industrial film industry here in Chicago 10-20 years ago, but that now those films are no longer being made to the same extent, and Chicago's filmmakers are having to diversify.

Although the studio is long gone, the Essanay building is a landmark and is located on Argyle, west of Broadway and east of Clark. The original entryway still stands, and it is now a college. Somehow, the architecture evokes Hollywood for me, even though I know that Hollywood was not anything yet at the time when the studio was built. Especially as the days get darker and colder, it's kind of fun to think about what it must have been like to be at the film studio next door, imagining Western landscapes and open spaces.