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LARRY SEMON
[HEN the troupe owned and headed by "Zera the Great" reached West Point, Miss., July 16, 1889, an event occurred which was not "on the bills."
It was the birth of a little "Zera," who today is the notable screen comedian and director, Larry Semon.
Semon, Sr., was a great magician in his day, carrying a company of vaudeville performers with him. He was assisted by his wife and sister.
Larry was thoroughly trained in pantomime before he was twelve years of age, but they managed his education, despite road life, and the youth finally went through the high school at Savannah, Ga.
This early professional career was a hard one for the youth. Travel accommodations were poor; the troupe often had to build its own stage in some barnlike structure in order to put on the show; the company frequently slept on benches, and all the other discomforts of the small town afflicted them.
Larry might have been a singer of note but for an accident. At 12 he had a magnificent soprano voice, and won a gold medal in San Francisco for his singing. But during his first football game at Savannah high school he came out of a scrimmage with an injured neck, which caused an abnormal development. His singing voice was gone.
Semon, Sr., was an artist among other accomplishments. The son inherited the taste for drawing and often sketched comic pictures. He recalls that he used the pages of his Latin grammar to draw an "ani
The eccentric person. Laity Semon, just lives in an ordinary Hollywood mansion, without even so much as a collapsible staircase in it.
mated" cartoon in the upper corners. By flipping the pages one could see a round of boxing. He still has the book to prove it.
The father, upon his death bed, asked Larry to give up the stage and take up the study of cartooning. The son complied, and entered art courses in New York. How well he succeeded is proven by his employment upon the Herald, Telegraph and Telegram of New York as cartoonist. Finally the New York Evening Sun featured his work, and Larry felt that he had fulfilled his father's dying request.
While on the Sun, Mr. Semon attracted the attention of a Vitagraph official, who, learning of his pantomime career, gave him private instruction in picture work.
Asa result Mr. Semon joined Vitagraph in July, 1913, and became a star for that concern in 1915.
His work possessed such value that he was made director, with authority to write or choose his own comedies.
Mr. Semon is five feet, seven inches tall; has light hair, gray eyes and weighs 133 pounds. His home is in Hollywood.
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