Essanay Studios

The Essanay Film Manufacturing Company was an American motion picture studio. It is best known today for its series of Charlie Chaplin comedies of 1915.

Founding

The studio was founded in 1907 in Chicago, United States by George K. Spoor and Gilbert M. Anderson, originally as the Peerless Film Manufacturing Company. On August 10, 1907, the name was changed to Essanay ("S and A").

Essanay was originally located at 496 Wells Street (modern numbering: 1300 N. Wells). Essanay's first film, An Awful Skate, or The Hobo on Rollers (July 1907), starring Ben Turpin (then the studio janitor), produced for only a couple hundred dollars, grossed several thousand dollars in release. The studio prospered and in 1908 moved to its more famous address at 1333–45 W. Argyle St in Uptown, Chicago.

Leading players

Essanay produced silent films with such stars (and stars of the future) as George Periolat, Ben Turpin, Wallace Beery, Thomas Meighan, Colleen Moore, Francis X. Bushman, Gloria Swanson, Bebe Daniels, Tom Mix, Ann Little, Helen Dunbar, Harold Lloyd, Lester Cuneo, Eugene Pallette, Florence Oberle, Lewis Stone, Virginia Valli, Edward Arnold, Edmund Cobb and Rod La Rocque. The mainstays of the organization, however, were studio co-owner G. M. Anderson, starring in the very popular "Broncho Billy" westerns, and Charlie Chaplin.Allan Dwan was hired by Essanay Studios as a screenwriter and developed into a famous Hollywood director. Louella Parsons was also hired as a screenwriter and went on to be a Hollywood gossip columnist. Both George K. Spoor (in 1948) and Gilbert M. "Broncho Billy" Anderson (in 1958) received Oscars, specifically Academy Honorary Awards, for their pioneering efforts with Essanay.