An excerpt of an article I originally wrote for silentfilmstars.net.  It is one of the online publications I write for.   

Born Gabriel Leuvielle in 1883, he really was known to the world as Max Linder, his film and stage alter ego. A funny French acting force to be reconned with his films entertaineed all who viewed them. Famous for his character Max, one of the primary identifiable recurring figures in early silent film. Gabriel started his company early. Starting with a genuine fascination with the theatre, he registered for that Bordeaux Conservatorie near the beginning of the turn in the century. He soon was discovered and received honours for his performances and continuing to pursue work inside the live theatre. He contiued to act honing his skills while performing as a contract player while attending the Bordeaux Théâtre des Arts.  He performed in major roles in plays by Pierre Corneille , Alfred p Musset, and Molière.

This French comedian branched out in a new direction by starting to act in films beginning in nineteen hundred and five. He creating the first broadly popular comic character “Max”, an aristocratic, skirt-chasing bad boy. This character garnered much attention.  Critical acclaim followed his early performanaces and Linder began  to be highly respected by the likes of such luminaires of teh film world like Charles Chaplin. Throughout  Linder’s career Chaplin often referred to as him: “The Professor” and liked to call himself a ” Linder disciple”. Seriously wounded while serving during the initial great world war of the century, he experienced melancholia, battling constantly with depression as a result of his depression. The great war put his acgting career on hold while Europe ripped itself apart.

Following The war to end all wars, Linder had gone to Hollywood. He quickly increased his profile to become a major film star and fulfilled a goal to run his own production company by the begining of the 1921. Carrying out a brief exit from america to return to his land of birth, he returned back to the United States making the film Seven Years Misfortune. He rapidly followed it with the title Be My Partner but neither features were major critical or financial powerhouses.  Audiences within the united states were not impressed and the box offcie showed it. States. Other films followed, like the Three Must Get Theres and Au Secours! Which were much better received leading to eventual success with film reviewers. Linder’s later films however again drifter to the unpopular with American audiences. Consequently, The actor increasingly became more and more depressed. “The King in the Circus” ws completed in 1925, his final film elevated his mental illness when it failed to inspoire. His final days were frought with extreme depression.  He and and his wife qhoe he had recently married committed suicide in 1925.

Susan