the forgotten year: 1930
“Even though you’re make-believing, Laugh, clown, laugh.
Even though your heart is grieving, Laugh, clown, laugh.”
--Lyrics to the title song from the Lon Chaney film, “LAUGH, CLOWN, LAUGH”
N
o one laughed when the decade of wealth and excess, the infamous Roaring Twenties, came to end on October 29, 1929.
The credit-inspired economic bubble created by Wall Street investors had burst, and
the effect was devastating. Real estate values plummeted, life savings vanished, and businesses closed their doors, never to reopen. Over the following few years in the United States, the unemployment percentage would reach 25%. Around the world, it would reach as high as 33%. Bread lines, soup kitchens, and flophouses were common. People focused all their
energy on survival. Money was spent on the necessities of life—food, housing, and clothing. People waited for good times to return. And
waited...and waited.
The Great Depression would last nearly 11 years until the start of World War II. TWINKIES, SCOTCH TAPE, and BETTY BOOP
Few businesses prospered during this period, but there was great creativity. In
1930, we were first introduced to Mickey Mouse. Scotch Tape was marketed for the first time. Clarence Birdseye sold his first frozen foods. Hostess Twinkies and Neoprene (synthetic rubber) were invented. 1930 also saw the first airline stewardess. Building began on the Hoover Dam. THE SHADOW clouded men’s minds for the first time on radio. Betty Boop made her debut.
TARZAN AT THE EARTH’S CORE by Edgar Rice Burroughs was published, Dashiell Hammet’s THE MALTESE FALCON debuted, and Watty Piper’s inspirational children’s story, THE LITTLE ENGINE THAT COULD, hit shelves. 1930 saw the birth of future icons and the death of giants. Born in that year were Roy
E. Disney, Neil Armstrong (the first man to walk on the moon), Buzz Aldrin (the second man to set foot on the moon), musician Ray Charles, and the actors Gene Hackman, Robert Wagner, Steve McQueen, Clint Eastwood, and Sean Connery. Two titans in the field of sci-fi, fantasy, and horror were lost that year. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of SHERLOCK HOLMES and author of THE LOST WORLD passed away on July 7th, and Lon Chaney Sr. lost his battle with cancer on August 26th.
LON’S LEGACY
Lon Chaney’s huge success as a silent film star was due not only to his enormous talent as an actor and makeup artist, but to his shrewdness as a businessman. The star of
Left: “You’re a dummy if you don’t see this picture,” Lon Chaney Sr. tells his little friend in the talking version of THE UNHOLY THREE
FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND • SEP/OCT 2011 81
the forgotten year: 1930 by Eric Ashton
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