Trivia

His home, Greenacres has 44 rooms, 26 bathrooms, 12 fountains, 12 gardens and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. His home was also used as the exterior of Jack Woltz's (John Marley) home in The Godfather (1972).

Was once one of the 10 richest entertainers in the world.

A 1919 accident with a prop bomb, which turned out to be a live bomb, cost him the thumb and forefinger of his right hand. In subsequent films, he wore a glove and prosthetic device to hide it. Remarkably, he was able to do many of his gags (he employed a stunt man for serious stunts) convincingly afterward.

One of the 36 founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS).

He was the visual inspiration for the original illustrations of the superhero Superman/Clark Kent (created in 1938). Lloyd was 45 years old at the time, and he was modeled for Clark Kent's identity (Superman's identity was modeled after Douglas Fairbanks). Lloyd's "Glasses character" was the inspiration because like that character, Lloyd found that he could hide his identity simply by taking off the glasses.

His hobbies included 3-D photography. He took hundreds of stereo images of Hollywood stars such as Marilyn Monroe, John Wayne, Sterling Holloway, Richard Burton and Roy Rogers. Many of these photos are reproduced in the book "3-D Hollywood: Photography by Harold Lloyd", which was edited by his granddaughter, Suzanne Lloyd Hayes, and comes with a 3-D viewer.

Parts of Westworld (1973) were shot at his estate, Greenacres. He had expressed a desire to see his home preserved in some capacity related to his career, but his will strangely neglected any funding for the enormous estate. His heirs briefly opened it as a tourist attraction (and filming location) but this failed to generate adequate income and it was later sold.

A famous story about Lloyd concerns he and composer Gaylord Carter regarding the scoring of Lloyd's film Safety Last! (1923)) for a re-release. Lloyd was present during the recording session; during the sequence from the film in which he is scaling the side of a building, he loses his grip and catches hold of the hands of an enormous clock. During this moment, Carter at the organ swung into the song "Time on My Hands", which prompted Lloyd to give Carter a mock stern glance and declare, "Gaylord, I'LL do the jokes!".

While never credited as a writer through his entire career, Lloyd was actually the driving force behind most of his movies, from Grandma's Boy (1922) through the silent era. He came up with most of the stories and gags and structured them together with his team.

Lloyd was extremely superstitious. His daily routines were dictated by his superstitions: he maintained that certain streets were unlucky and his chauffeurs were instructed to avoid them. He would habitually enter and exit rooms from the same doors and dress and undress in precise reverse order.

After Lloyd's career as an actor deserted him in 1938, he immersed - some would say drowned - himself into one hobby after another. While he bred Great Danes and collected cars earlier in life, he would later indulge himself in marathon movie nights several times each week, and become rabidly interested in photography (which allowed himself intimate contact with innumerable models) and later, in hi-fidelity sound systems. He placed standing orders for the entire catalogs of several record companies, amassing an enormous record collection.

Following his death, the Harold Lloyd Estate (also known as Greenacres) in Los Angeles became a popular filming location for Hollywood, appearing in features such as The Godfather (1972), Westworld (1973), Beverly Hills Cop (1984) and Commando (1985). One of Lloyd's many superstitions was that it was extremely unlucky to travel around the ornamental fountain at the front of the house (and he only ever did so once, in his hearse on the way to his funeral). In all four films, characters travel around the same fountain only to suffer a violent death afterwards.

His actual autographs before 1936 are quite rare. His father, J. Darcie 'Foxy' Lloyd, was given the job as the official fan mail correspondent within the Harold Lloyd Corporation. Foxy's signature is easy to recognize - it's right out of the 19th century and quite florid. HL's signature is much plainer and common. His father retired to Palm Springs in 1936. HL found it impossible to dodge autograph seekers when he began whirlwind movie/bowling nights around Los Angeles as his acting career wound down about the same time. Real pre-1936 autographs exist mainly on contracts and extremely personal correspondence to Bebe Daniels.

Merian Cooper rented several of Lloyd's purebred Great Danes for the hunt sequence of "The Most Dangerous Game" when he realized the leopards called for in the script weren't practical (even for him). He dyed the dogs' hair black to make them look more ferocious.

Unlike many other stars of the silent era, Lloyd was known for his financial acumen. Despite his many expensive hobbies and the essential death of his film career after the advent of 'talkies' in the late 1920s, he would still leave an estate of $12 million dollars upon his death in 1971.

He was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1503 Vine Street in Hollywood, California on February 8, 1960.

Before moving into his famous home Greenacres in 1928, Lloyd and his wife resided at 502 South Irving Boulevard in Los Angeles, just south of Hollywood. The house still exists. Before that, up until shortly after his marriage in 1923, Lloyd resided in a large two-story house on Hoover Street.

Harold Lloyd was in danger of becoming a name from the past, in the years following his death. Then, beginning with a new biography about him, his legacy began to blossom until he has now become almost as recognized as Charles Chaplin and Buster Keaton.

After his attempts at succeeding in talkie pictures failed, Lloyd reacted to this in a somewhat philosophical manner. He felt he had achieved everything he could in comedy and had no regrets that it was all over.

According to the book, "The History of Pulitzer Prize Winning Plays", Lloyd was originally slated to play the lead role of Elwood P. Dowd in Mary Chase's Broadway stage play "Harvey". Lloyd turned down the role, which then went to Frank Fay.

He was immortalized in the animated sitcom Futurama (1999) (episode "That's Lobstertainment"). In this episode, we find out that Dr. Zoidberg has an uncle who was a silent actor, Harold Zoid.

Aside from two talking films, The Milky Way (1936) and The Sin of Harold Diddlebock (1947), all films from 1922 through Grandma's Boy (1922), were owned by Lloyd. Many of the pre-1920 shorts were lost in a nitrate explosion in his film vault in 1943 and are now considered lost. A limited number of films rights were sold to Time-Life in 1998, and released on VHS format. The estate rejected offers to release them to DVD up until 2005, when they accepted an offer from New Line (some have also been restored and shown periodically on TCM). His films are set to be released on DVD somewhere in the next two years (2006-2007) (The two talking films are in the public domain, and all films before 1922 are owned by KINO having passed from Pathe and Roach).

His granddaughter donated 85 scrapbooks and 3,000 still negatives documenting his career over 34 years to the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences for Motion Picture Study in Beverly Hills, California.

Pictured on one of ten 29¢ US commemorative postage stamps celebrating stars of the silent screen, issued 27 April 1994. Designed by caricaturist Al Hirschfeld, this set of stamps also honored Rudolph Valentino, Clara Bow, Charles Chaplin, Lon Chaney, John Gilbert, Zasu Pitts, Theda Bara, Buster Keaton, and Keystone Kops.

Head of the jury at the 1960 Berlin International Film Festival.

He has appeared in three films that have been selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant": Safety Last! (1923), The Freshman (1925) and Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925).

On the rare occasions he allowed his work to be shown publicly, Harold Lloyd enjoyed the company and opinions of younger people as they discussed his films in his presence. During the height of his popularity, he tended to avoid autograph seekers at any cost when he wasn't working.

As someone who held complete copyright over his movies, Harold Lloyd forbade any of his work from being shown on television. As a result, his name would remain unknown for many years among future movie fans.

Before developing as a film comedian, Harold Lloyd did act in many dramatic roles during the early part of his career. Unfortunately, little footage exists in the archive.

As with a great deal of comedians, Harold Lloyd regarded creating comedy as an immensely frustrating experience. There were several occasions where he and his gag writers would spend many hours at a time - without much success - in trying to come up with some inspiration.

Photography enthusiast Roddy McDowall was invited by Harold Lloyd to his home, so that McDowall could take some photographs of the grounds.

Following his death, he was interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California, in the Great Mausoleum, Begonia Corridor.

Harold Lloyd not only get the girl, Mildred Davis, in the film but also in real life as they were married a while later. They are also mentioned twice in Drake Bell's song "End It Good" from his album "It's Only Time" (2006).

Met future film producer Hal Roach in 1913, who would produce some of Lloyd's early comedies. They began making a living as actors in two-reel movies at Universal Studios during their early teens.

At home, Harold Lloyd exercised a Victorian kind of strictness with most of his children. He could be expected to grow angry once any infraction was committed.

During the 1920s, Harold Lloyd was one of the highest earners in Hollywood. Under his contract with Paramount Studios, he was making approximately $1.2 million a year.

On August 7, 2018, he was honored with a day of his film work during the TCM Summer Under The Stars.

Sam Taylor was the most important director for him.

It has never been fully explained as to why Harold Lloyd didn't make the transition to talkie pictures. The most likely reason was because of the actor not having the right kind of voice for sound.

His film career went into decline when he failed to succeed in talkie pictures.

He was known for being a driven, determined and competitive individual. This applied to Harold Lloyd in both his professional and personal life. He became a recluse for the last few years of his life.

At the beginning of his career, Lloyd tried to succeed with a character called Lonesome Luke. Similar to Chaplin's tramp character, Lloyd experienced little success and the character was soon dropped.

Made his stage debut at age 12 in a production of "Tess of the d'Urbervilles" in Omaha, Nebraska.

Began to develop his iconic character in late 1917. With his pair of glasses and ordinary demeanor, Lloyd's on-screen persona became that of a tenacious and courageous individual.

A movie industry Trade Paper item in August 1930 announced that after "Feet First", Harold Lloyd's next talking picture comedy feature for Paramount Studios will be a football comedy. This eventually was never made - his next feature was "Movie Crazy" in 1932.

He was the subject of a two-part documentary, "Harold Lloyd: The Third Genius". Broadcast in 1989, the documentary had done much to revitalize interest in Lloyd.

He is believed to have made about 200 films including seven silent features and seven talkies.

As a youngster, he led an up and down existence because of the continued failure of his father's businesses from photographer to short order cook. Harold's variety of jobs ranged from anything to do with a travelling theatre company where he began work at age 12.

As a child, Harold Lloyd always felt closer to his father than his mother.

In 1938, Harold Lloyd and other Paramount stars, including Dorothy Lamour appeared in publicity photos with the cartoon character Popeye promoting a world-wide trip by Popeye to promote current Paramount pictures. The stills would also promote the star's current movie (for example, Harold Lloyd's "Professor Beware").