Bobby Vernon: Christie Comic Star

 

  

 

Five-foot-two and awfully daring (liked to perform many dangerous stunts) Bobby Vernon, better known as one of the Christie Film Company's most popular comedians, was a second-generation comedic actor, singer, and dancer, born of vaudeville entertainers Harry Burns and Dorothy Vernon on March 9, 1897, in Chicago. When he was eleven years old his parents moved to San Francisco where Bobby's first worked as a newspaper boy, but local citizens knew him as "Buttons, the singing newsboy." His talent for singing was soon discovered by Sid Grauman, which led to his first theatrical debut at the Empress Theatre and a modest career in vaudeville as a part of the Kolb and Dill act. By the time he was sixteen, he had moved on to the movies and began appearing in a series of Joker comedies at Universal.  

 

In 1915 he switched over to Keystone and starred in a string of romantic comedies with the then-teenaged Gloria Swanson. Bobby later began working for the Christie Film Company in 1917 and remained there until late 1929, minus a short hiatus in September 1918 to serve Uncle Sam's Navy during World War I. After his contract with Christie ended, he freelanced in the motion picture industry and even made a great comeback performance at Grauman's Theatre in early 1930. 

 

Unlike most silent era comedians, Bobby never transitioned into making feature-length films from two-reelers. However, he transitioned from silents to talkies, although his body of work with sound is scarce. After retiring from acting in 1933, he worked as a Paramount screenwriter for W.C. Fields and Bing Crosby. In his private life, which was very reserved, Bobby tied the knot with Angelina Repetto and had one daughter, Barbara Dorothy, whom he was very close with.  

 

Bobby, Teddy the Dog, and Gloria Swanson in 'Teddy at the Throttle' (1917).

"You want them all on your screen. Get Bobby Vernon and you've got them all. Bobby Vernon and his comedies are Youth itself--vibrating with life, vitality, action, and fun. And they'll put new life into any audience. The name Bobby Vernon is bringing in those extra customers that mean added profit, in thousands of theatres, big and little, everywhere." -- Moving Picture World, 1927.