For the Atlanta Braves prospect, see Eric Campbell. Alfred Eric Campbell (
26 April1878,
Dunoon -
20 December1917,
Hollywood) was a
Scottish silent film star, who was featured in eleven films starring
Charlie Chaplin where he typically played the intimidating large villain of the story. He began his career as a stage actor in "fit-ups" (local theatres) in Scotland and
Wales, playing a number of
melodramatic roles. It was in one such role that he was discovered by
Fred Karno, the famous
English impresario who also discovered
Charlie Chaplin and
Stan Laurel. Karno, who was impressed by Campbell's enormous size and rich,
baritone voice, took him to
London and introduced him to the
slapstick comedy style of Karno's troupe, the
Fun Factory, for which Campbell would later become famous. Campbell sailed to
New York City in
1914, following in the footsteps of Chaplin and Laurel, who had relocated there a year earlier. Campbell soon became established in America as a stage actor. He is said to have appeared in at least one
Gilbert and Sullivan musical. In
1915, Chaplin was in New York to sign his contract with
Mutual (then the highest sum ever paid to an entertainer). He saw Campbell performing in a play on
Broadway, remembered him, and invited him to
Hollywood to join the cast of actors in the new films that Chaplin had contracted to make. Campbell's first film with Chaplin was
The Floorwalker (
1916). In it, he achieved some recognition for the "
escalator scene," in which he chased Chaplin through a
department store. It was in their second film together,
The Fireman (1916) that Campbell really developed the role that would feature throughout all of his successive work with Chaplin. A towering figure weighing almost 300 pounds (136 kg), he became the
villain and comic foil to the "Little Tramp's" antics. His most fanous appearance is probably in Chaplin's
Easy Street (
1917), in which local bully Campbell demonstrates his strength to timid policeman Chaplin by bending a gas lamp-post. Chaplin was then the most recognised film star in the world, with countless imitators, including his old friend Stan Laurel. It was therefore inevitable that Campbell, who was a key figure in Chaplin's films of this period, would also have imitators. The most famous of these was tall, heavy-set
Oliver Hardy, who played
second banana to Chaplin impersonator Billy West. Ten years later, Hardy was paired with Stan Laurel to create the
Laurel and Hardy comedy team. While Campbell's career soared, his personal life suffered when he lost his wife in an automobile accident. Within a month, however, he had remarried to Cleda Pearl Gillman, after a romance of just five days. The marriage lasted only months, however, before Gillman divorced him, citing his drunken behavior and use of profanity. That same year, Chaplin ended his relationship with Mutual to sign a million-dollar contract with
First National (again, the highest amount ever paid to an actor). He planned on taking Campbell with him, but in the interim, between films, Chaplin lent Campbell to his friend,
Mary Pickford, who cast him in her film
Amarilly of Clothes-Line Alley (
1918). According to reports, he had been drinking heavily at a cast party held just a few days later, and finally left for home at 4:00 a.m. He was
driving drunk when his car spun out of control and crashed, killing him instantly. Campbell was cremated, but his ashes remained unclaimed for over 30 years, until they were finally laid to rest. No marker was set on his final resting place, and it is unknown where his remains were placed. Campbell, one of the most recognised faces of the Silent Film Era, would all but be forgotten were it not for the memorial plaque installed in
1996 in Castle Gardens, Dunoon.
