Anderson, Broncho Billy (1882-1971)

Actor, aka Gilbert M. Anderson, real name Max Aronson. A trade advert in 1912 called him 'The World's Greatest Photoplay Star', a large but justifiable claim, for he was undoubtably the most prominent and proli?fic personality of the early Western. One of his earliest roles was as a passenger in The Qreat Tram Robbery. In 1907 he formed the Essanay Co. with George K. Spoor. 

 It was under the Essanay brand that he established the popular Broncho Billy series, beginning in 1910 with Broncho Billy's Redemption. The name Broncho Billy, taken from a Peter B. Kyne story, belonged to Anderson and not to any consistent screen characterization. Each film had a self-contained narrative, so that he might be an outlaw in one film, a good guy in the next, get killed in another, and reappear fit and healthy in the following film. His most typical role, if he can be said to have had one in a career that spanned some 300 films, was as the Good-Badman: beginning as an outlaw and ending the film as a reformed, and conforming, citizen. His films are as utilitarian as his dowdy cos?tumes, foregrounding the characters' psy?chological  traits rather than,  say,  stunts, furious riding, or large-scale spectacle.