Ford Sterling was an American comedian and actor best known for his work with Keystone Studios. One of the 'Big 4', he was the original chief of the Keystone Cops.
Sterling in 1926
With Marvel Rea and Alice Maison
"Barney Oldfield's A Race for a Life" [1913] with left to right:Hank Mann; Ford Sterling; Al St John and in foreground Mabel Normand
Left:Ford Sterling as Keystone Cops Police chief [seated}; 4th from right: Al St John in "In the Clutches of the Gang (1914)
Keystone Studios was an early film studio founded in Edendale, California on July 4, 1912 as the Keystone Pictures Studio by Mack Sennett with backing from actor-writer Adam Kessel (1866–1946) and Charles O. Baumann (1874–1931), owners of the New York Motion Picture Company. The company, referred to at its office as The Keystone Film Company, filmed in and around Glendale and Silver Lake, Los Angeles for several years, and its films were distributed by the Mutual Film Corporation between 1912 and 1915. The Keystone film brand declined rapidly after Sennett went independent in 1917.
Keystone Studios, 1915
The "Sennett Bathing Beauties"
Scene in Mabel's Dramatic Career (1913) with two moviegoers ("Fatty" Arbuckle and Sennett) arguing while watching Mabel Normand on screen
Mabel Normand, Mack Sennett and Charles Chaplin in The Fatal Mallet (1914)