This movie legend wore prosthetics and nobody saw anything

A comic genius in the tradition of Charles Chaplin and Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd also left an indelible mark on cinema. Harold Lloyd, known for his timeless boater hat and horn-rimmed glasses, appeared in nearly 200 silent and talking films during his career from 1914-1947.

His most famous film is Get on it!, in 1923, and his extremely famous scene in which he finds himself suspended in the void, chained to the hands of a clock.

Here is another legendary scene for fun..

A fake bomb that turns out to be completely authentic

But before his career rose to fame, Harold Lloyd suffered a terrible accident that left him horribly disfigured.

In April 1919, The actor signed a contract with Pathé Distributionsto star in two upcoming films. With its growing popularity, it was decided to promote this arrangement by inviting photographers to immortalize the handshake.

On Sunday, August 24, 1919, Harold Lloyd arrived at a Los Angeles photography studio. During the photo shoot where he posed, Lloyd received a suitcase full of props for the film. One member of his gag team found it fun and funny to light a cigarette with a fake bomb. After all, it was very much about the on-screen gags. The trouble is, the fake bomb turned out to be very real and devastating…

How did a real bomb get into an innocuous movie prop? Earlier that month, Pathe tested electric bombs for another film sequence that did not involve Lloyd.

Bombs were tested in the park and when one proved too powerful, shattering an oak table, it was decided that it would be too dangerous for screen use and was abandoned.

Therefore, it appears that this abandoned bomb ended up in a box of fake bombs. And because they all looked the same… a terrible lack of vigilance, for which Lloyd paid the price during his photo shoot.

The explosion was terrible. It blew a nearly 5-meter hole in the studio ceiling, crushing Lloyd’s face and temporarily blinding him. His thumb and forefinger were severed. Doctors suggested that Lloyd immediately consider changing his career path: he “Could be a photographer or a director, but more of an actor.”

Society sees nothing but fire

Shortly after, Lloyd was visited by Samuel Goldwyn, the all-powerful boss of MGM. Before making his fortune in Hollywood, Goldwyn was a former… glove salesman. So he suggested that Lloyd send some of his acquaintances to make him a stitched prosthesis to hide the injury.

Thus, he was fitted with a rather revolutionary prosthesis at the time, which required taking a mold of his left hand, then putting the mold back to simulate an incomplete right hand. The missing area was cut out and inserted into a thin leather glove, and when it was inserted into Lloyd’s right glove, it appeared complete. The index and middle fingers of the glove were sewn together.

“The leather glove was held securely in place by a system of rubber sheaths attached to Lloyd’s upper arm. The prosthetic was difficult to detect when assembled, and that’s exactly what Lloyd wanted.” tells us in a fascinating post, Annette D’Agostino Lloyd (no relation!), Professor of Communications at Hofstra University.

Although Lloyd has spoken about the incident several times, he has never publicly mentioned the loss of his fingers; Not even in his autobiography American comedy which he published much earlier, in 1928. He didn’t want the public to come and see his films and get bored. Through courage and training, he became ambidextrous and overcame his disability.

In 2020, a group of fans called Talking moviesIt also noted that handprints left by the actor at the famous Grauman’s Chinese Theater on Hollywood Boulevard revealed that his prosthesis did not have enough pressure to leave a full impression.

A beautiful lesson in self-sacrifice and courage, ultimately in the service of the art that Harold Lloyd gave so much to, to the great joy of moviegoers worldwide.