Lester Cuneo

Biography

Lester Cuneo stepped in front of a camera for the first time in 1910, trading footlights for flicker-light in a one-reel gag that unexpectedly cleaned up at the box office. Before the year was out he was churning out slapstick shorts—writing, staging, and clowning in them—until the custard pies lost their flavor. He swapped city sets for sagebrush, proclaimed himself a cowboy, and galloped into history as one of the screen’s earliest buckskin idols. Yet Cuneo refused to be branded: between saddle sagas he slipped into tailored suits for heavy dramas, proving the hat didn’t make the man. The Great War reined him in; he traded spurs for a uniform and came back from Europe with the same crooked grin. Rebuilding quickly, he launched his own shingle, cast himself as “The Smiling Daredevil,” and raced horses, trains, and cliffside fate while cranking the camera himself. Audiences cheered—until they didn’t. A few flops, a bank breathing down his neck, and a private life that unraveled faster than a frayed lariat left him cornered. One November night in 1925, the last reel spun: a gunshot in a lonely room ended the Western, the comedy, and the drama in a single, echoing frame.