Born Gabriel-Maximilien Leuvielle on December 16, 1883, Linder sought a stage career rather than a position at his family's vineyard near Bordeaux. He graduated from the Conservatoire Municipal de Bordeaux in 1903 and, the following year, moved to Paris, where he sought entry into the Conservatoire National de Musique et de Declamation, without success. In 1905, he appeared in his first film, Pathe's Premiere Sortie (First Night Out). For a few years, Linder achieved notoriety both on the screen and on the Paris variety stage, but by 1909 he was devoting himself exclusively to cinema. In 1912, he became the world's highest-paid movie star and, in 1914, earned a record sum of 1 million francs.
In Max Takes a Picture (Max fait de la photo, 1913), Linder's trademark character is a camera buff at the beach, who tries to surreptitiously snap a shot of a shy bathing beauty. The woman foils Max by disappearing beneath the surf, causing the voyeur to launch a panicked rescue effort. Had American producer Mack Sennett staged the action, the plot would have run its course in about four minutes. But Linder's was not a comedy of speed, but grace. Relying less on visual gags of physical stunts to hold the viewer's attention, Max Takes a Picture is a leisurely-paced, thirteen-minute film built upon little more than Linder's effortless charm and the easy chemistry he shares with the camera-wary young woman. When Max becomes frazzled, he abandons neither dignity nor composure.
Max Takes a Picture is typical of Linder's comedies in that the personality of the star is its primary attraction. At the Sennett Studios, Mabel Normand and Ford Sterling were the primary stars, but neither of them achieved iconic status because of the plasticity of their roles and the broad physicality of their performances. Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle followed Linder's lead and began crafting a consistent onscreen persona in 1913, but it was Charlie Chaplin who best understood Linder's approach and followed its pattern to achieve cinematic immortality.
In his book A Republic of Images, Alan Williams declares that, "Although he expanded and developed Max's comic persona, Chaplin would borrow virtually intact Linder's restrained, minimal methods in using the film medium." Chaplin made no secret of his borrowing from Linder. He publicly referred to Linder as "my teacher," and himself as Linder's "disciple." Linder, in turn, said of Chaplin, "He calls me his teacher, but I have been the happy one, to take lessons from his school."
In Troubles of a Grasswidower (Max reprend sa liberte, 1912), one can clearly see the influence Linder had upon Chaplin. The 10-minute short depicts an abandoned husband ("grasswidow" being a once-common term for a wife whose husband has left her) feebly but cheerfully trying to manage the day-to-day tasks of cooking and cleaning. In one scene, Max (the character) tries to cook a chicken, leaving the feet and some of the feathers intact, spilling bootblack in the mix, and toppling the pot from the stove. Linder (the director) films himself against a plain white background, and holds the camera on himself for an extended take, giving the audience a generous helping of what they've paid to see: Max. Similarly, Chaplin would often stage extended (and intentionally uncomplicated) scenes in which humor was derived from a simple situation: Charlie dismantling a clock in The Pawnshop (1916), or cooking and eating a boot in The Gold Rush (1925).
At the height of his career, Linder attempted to enlist in the French military to fight in World War I. Due to health problems, he was not assigned to a combat post, but was made a dispatch driver instead. During the first Battle of the Marne, Linder suffered severe injury to his lungs. By some accounts, it was poison gas; by others his car was immersed in the icy waters beneath a German-held bridge. Whatever it was, it left Linder in frail health. From that time forward, he was physically exhausted by the filmmaking process, and required long periods of recuperation after each production. In 1916, he signed a contract with the Essanay Studios in America, but was unable to keep up with the hectic production pace and returned to France.
Linder found a champion in Chaplin, who invited him back to America, where a contract with United Artists awaited him (Chaplin was one of the founding partners of U.A.). His first U.A. production, Seven Years Bad Luck (1921), originated the false mirror routine that would later be elaborated upon by the Marx Brothers in Duck Soup (1933). The comeback continued with two more films: Be My Wife (1921) and a parody of a popular Douglas Fairbanks film, The Three Must-Get-Theres (1922). Upon the film's release, Fairbanks (another U.A. founder) cabled his congratulations to Linder, "Your movie is a big success in New York. Enthusiastic critics. Congratulations. Sincerely, Douglas Fairbanks."
In 1923, Linder began an affair with seventeen-year-old heiress Helene "Ninette" Peters. When the two disappeared in April, Peters's parents had Linder arrested for kidnapping. The scandal was hushed and, on August 2, 1923, Linder married the wealthy heiress, who was twenty years his junior.
Linder had every reason to be pleased with his success, but his struggles with ill health and depression kept him from enjoying his renewed fame. In February, 1924, Linder and wife were rushed to a sanitarium when they were found unconscious in their Vienna hotel room. When questioned about the incident, "Linder told a doctor that he and his wife had taken a customary sleeping draught, but had apparently mixed an overdose" (The New York Times).
Less than two years later, it became apparent that the near-fatal overdose had not been accidental. In the early hours of Halloween, 1925, the Linders repeated the suicide attempt, but took extra measures to be sure of its success. "Drinking large draughts of veronal and taking several injections of morphine, the couple finally cut the veins of their wrists with a razor and lay down on their bed in a hotel room to await death," reported The New York Times. Linder was 41, his wife 21.
They were discovered, still alive, by Ninette's mother, who had come to the hotel to wish them a pleasant trip to the countryside. "The couple were found in a dying condition and were removed to a hospital, where the wife passed away seven hours later," the Times story continued, "The actor died later." Neither regained consciousness.
A headline the following day announced that, "Max Linder's wife would not quit him; refused to heed her mother's pleading, though she wrote 'he will kill me.' Both left last letters." Linder, in fact, left six goodbye letters, including one (to his parents) that stated, "the wife I married, thinking her an angel, in reality is a monster."
Three days prior to the incident, Linder had resigned as President of the French Society of Film Authors and, the Times speculated, "apparently was even then planning for a dramatic exit from the world."
Upon hearing of Linder's death, Chaplin shut down production at his studio for a day, as a final tribute to his master.
Troubles of a Grass Widower
Director: Max Linder
Screenplay: Max Linder
Cast: Max Linder (Max), Jane Renouardt, Delphine Renot
BW-12m.
Max Takes a Picture
Director: Lucien Nonguet
Screenplay: Max Linder
Cast: Max Linder (Max)
BW-13m.
by Bret Wood
