Essanay Studios
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Essanay Studios, officially the Essanay Film Manufacturing Company, was an early American motion picture studio. The studio was founded in Chicago by George Kirke Spoor and Gilbert M. Anderson, origin
Essanay Film Manufacturing Company logo in a still frame from a Charlie Chaplin film
Group photograph of the Essanay stock company in Chicago, Illinois, 1911: Top row, left to right: Joseph Dailey, F. Doolittle, Inez Callahan, William J. Murray, Curtis Cooksey, Helen Lowe, Howard Missimer, Miss Lavalliet, Cyril Raymond. Middle row: Florence Hoffman, Harry Cashman, Alice Donovan, Frank Dayton, Harry McRae Webster (producer/director), Lottie Briscoe (leads), William C. Walters, Rose Evans. Bottom row: Eva Prout (Evebelle Ross Prout), Bobbie Guhl, Jack Essanay (dog), Charlotte Vacher, Tommy Shirley (Thomas P. Shirley).
Essanay's stars in 1915: Francis X. Bushman, Charlie Chaplin and studio co-owner and actor Billy Anderson.
Broncho Billy Anderson
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Gilbert M. "Broncho Billy" Anderson was an American actor, writer, film director, and film producer, who was the first star of the Western film genre. He was a founder and star for Essanay studios. In
Anderson c. 1913
Francis X. Bushman, Charlie Chaplin and Anderson, photo taken at the Essanay Studio, Chicago in 1915
Naked Hands, 1918
The Son of a Gun, 1919