Redfield Clarke

Biography

Peru, New York, delivered Redfield Clarke to the world, and before the age of thirty he had slipped into the flickering new art of cinema. Between 1914 and 1924 he animated three very different stories—first the tempest of *The Spitfire*, then the emotional maze of *The Grain of Dust*, and finally the paycheck-to-paycheck comedy *Twenty Dollars a Week*—each time lending the camera a quiet, steady presence audiences remembered even when the credits rolled. Detroit, Michigan, closed his final scene on 23 October 1928, but the reels he left behind still spin, keeping Clarke’s light alive in the dark.