- Born
- Died
- Height6′ 6″ (1.98 m)
- At six and a half feet tall, Robert Emmet Milasch might have made a great circus performer. In fact, early in his career, that's exactly what he was. Born April 18, 1885, in New York City, Milasch ran away as a youngster and joined a circus, becoming a contortionist. He then joined another circus which toured South Africa. When he joined his last circus, in England, he performed as a clown. Returning to the United States when he was about fifteen years old, he got a job with the Gaumont Film Company, earning a few dollars a day. He then joined the Edison Company. Some sources claim his first film was "Babes in a Barrel," a 300-foot short produced by Edison around 1900. He was paid three dollars to appear as a brakeman and a train robber in the famous 1903 Edison film The Great Train Robbery (1903). In the early days of films, Milasch would write scenarios, erect sets, handle props, and even cast the parts. Often he would find extras in neighborhood saloons, offering customers five dollars for a day's work. He appeared in the first talkie, entitled "The Chimes of Normandie." The dialog was recorded on cylinders and played on a phonograph behind the movie screen. In 1912, he began filming a semi-documentary entitled "The Great Diamond Mystery," based upon a real diamond theft in Europe. His camera crew followed the police every time there was a new lead. Apparently the film was never completed. In 1913, while filming the two-reel short Hard Cash (1913), produced by the Edison Company, Milasch escaped serious injury. He was on a ship's mast during a fire scene, and his shoes and socks were scorched from the flames. Milasch was able to stay on the mast until the scene was over. Years later, Director Henry King offered him a role in Tol'able David (1921). Milasch was already committed to something else, but he had a friend who looked a lot like him and told King about him. The friend's name was Ernest Torrence, who got the part, and also a career start. Milasch had an extensive filmography, and claimed he had appeared in about 3000 films. He also claimed he had appeared in three versions of "The Hunchback of Notre Dame": the 1939 Charles Laughton version, the 1923 Lon Chaney version, and the 1917 version entitled The Darling of Paris (1917), which featured Theda Bara as the gypsy Esmeralda. He worked steadily into the early 1950s, in uncredited roles. After retiring from the screen, he ran a gift shop in Plattsmouth, Nebraska. Milasch died on November 14, 1954, at the Motion Picture Country Hospital in Los Angeles. He was married twice, and was survived by a son named Wally.- IMDb Mini Biography By: scsu1975
- SpousesVirginia Rose(October 9, 1936 - April 10, 1942) (her death)Frances Strong(September 2, 1917 - ?) (divorced, 1 child)
- Early in 1913, Thomas Edison experimented with "Edison Talking Pictures" in which synchronized voices and sound effects were recorded on a cylinder disc played simultaneously with the film. Despite the novelty appeal, much promotion, and high hopes, the system was doomed from the beginning because of the primitive acoustical sound recording technique, the lack of amplification, and the inevitable synchronization problems. Robert Milasch appeared in at least two of these, 'Chimes of Normandy.' which featured scenes and sounds from the New York City stage success, of which no further documentation has yet been found, and also in _Nursery Favorites (1913)_, which not only survives, but has been restored and is presently accessible on YouTube. In latter day interviews, Milasch claimed the actors performed, and attempted to synchronize their words with the pre-recorded cylinders, played over an acoustical horn placed above the set.
- In a 1939 interview, Robert Milasch told of his debut in films, which took place when he earned $2.50 per day working for Thomas Edison on Long Island. He described his first film as being something called 'Babes in a Barrel,' of which, not surprisingly, nothing further is known. He also claimed to have played two roles, both a trainman and a bandit, in Edison's The Great Train Robbery (1903). In a 1944 interview, actor Paul Panzer claimed that he considered himself to have been the second oldest continuous actor in motion pictures, his career going back 44 years; Milasch, he was happy to admit, superseded him by one additional year. Modern documentation adds Charley Grapewin, who also filmed as early as 1900 and worked up to 1951, to the illustrious trio.
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