Augustus Carney
actor
- Born:
- 1870, UK
- Died:
- 1920
- Professions:
- actor
Biography
Augustus Carney first drew breath in 1870 somewhere amid the soot and music-hall glow of the United Kingdom. Within two decades he had swapped London fog for California sunshine, becoming one of early cinema’s most recognizable clowns. Between 1910 and 1912 he galloped through a trio of one-reelers that fixed his name to the silent screen: Hank and Lank: Joyriding let him barrel down dirt roads in a flivver; Alkali Ike Plays the Devil turned him into the loose-limbed miner forever one stick of dynamite away from disaster; and Alkali Ike Bests Broncho Billy pitted his gawky cowpoke against Gilbert Anderson’s scowling outlaw in a chase that left audiences gasping for breath. Forty-nine summers after his birth, the curtain came down—Carney died in 1920, leaving behind a grin that still flickers in the corners of the surviving prints.
