Mack Sennett was one of the giants of slapstick silent film comedies in the first third of the 20th century. He created the Keystone Kops and Sennett Bathing Beauties and gave comedians like Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton their first starring roles.
He was born Michael Sinnott in Canada into a family of ironworkers and young Michael began working at that job in a factory as a teenager. But he also had a strong singing voice and hoped for a career in show business.
When he was 17, his family moved from Connecticut to Northampton. The men worked in a local factory and his mother operated a boarding house. One day Michael noticed that the famous Canadian actress, Marie Dressler, was appearing at the Academy of Music in Northampton in her hit show, “Lady Slavey.” He told his mother he wished to meet their fellow Canadian and get some advice about how to enter the world of show business. After some thought, his mother decided that her attorney, Calvin Coolidge, might be able to help.
In his autobiography, “King of Comedy,” Sennett relates what happened at that meeting. No dates are given but it must have been 1897 or 1898 when Coolidge was a brand new local attorney out on his own. They met in Coolidge’s Main Street office and he was initially mystified why anyone would consider show business as a career.
When Mrs. Sinnott offered to have Michael sing for him, Coolidge said “Unnecessary.” When she said Miss Dressler might help her son get a start in the world of entertainment, Coolidge said, “Be a mistake. Why give up a good job in the ironworks to become a mountebank?” The Sinnotts looked quizzically at each other as they had no idea what a mountebank was. Eventually Coolidge relented and wrote out a note that said simply: “Dear Miss Dresssler: This boy wants to go on the stage. Yours truly, Calvin Coolidge.”
Coolidge must have been well respected in town for, when they showed the note to the doorman at the theater, he allowed the Sinnotts to meet Dressler in her dressing room. She, in turn, gave him a note of introduction to David Belasco, a famous producer in New York. Michael Sinnott changed his name to Mack Sennett and eventually became one of the most powerful people in Hollywood.
As Sennett noted, when he met Marie Dressler he was making $1.50 a day as an ironworker. In 1914 he featured her in the first successful full length comedy, “Tillie’s Punctured Romance,” and paid her $2,500 a week.
Sennett remarked that he was undoubtedly the only person ever introduced to show business by Calvin Coolidge. The two never saw each other again and Sennett had no idea if Coolidge was a fan of his work. But Sennett called Coolidge the best actor we ever had in the White House and that, when he was president, Coolidge was aware he was putting on a show when he dressed as a cowboy or an Indian.
It is fascinating to think about that meeting of a 17-year-old boy and a 26-year-old lawyer in a small office on Main Street in Northampton. The boy became a Hollywood legend and the lawyer the 30th president of the United States. Even such a creative individual as Sennett, in his wildest imagination, would never have thought to script such an outcome.
So remember the next time you watch the Keystone Kops on YouTube and see a comic get a pie in the face, Calvin Coolidge had a hand in starting it all.
Richard Szlosek, of Northampton, volunteers in the Calvin Coolidge Room at Forbes Library.