Gilbert M. “Broncho Billy” Anderson

Born: Max Aaronson. March 10, 1880, Pine Bluff, Arkansas.  
Died: January 20, 1971, South Pasadena, California

Movie experts consider “Broncho Billy,” the father of the movie cowboy. Anderson played in the 1903, The Great Train Robbery and was the silver screen’s first cowboy star “Bronco Billy.” Still, after 1920, he drifted into obscurity. Many people believed he died.

Re-discovered after so many years, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science awarded him a special “Oscar.” In June 1958, the network television show “Wide Wide World” dedicated a show to the television and movie cowboy stars.

He began his working career as a salesman. He became a vaudeville actor under the name of Gilbert M. Aronson. Unable to gain stage success, he became an artist’s model to survive. In 1903, he visited the Edison Studio in New Jersey. Movie director Edwin S. Porter hired him to appear in a one-reel movie called The Messenger Boy’s Mistake. Porter included Aronson in The Great Train Robbery’s cast. The actor had never ridden a horse. Porter filmed the first Western in Dover, New Jersey. The movie was a success and made movie history as the first movie to tell a story.

Six months later, Aronson changed his name to Gilbert M. Anderson and left the Edison Company to join its chief competitor, Vitagraph. Starting as a production assistant, he eventually directed and acted in many one-reel movies. In 1905, he was responsible for the hit called Raffles, the Amateur Cracksman.

He left Vitagraph to make movies for Colonel William H. Selig. However, he served mostly as a director. In 1907, Anderson quit Selig to form a partnership with George K. Spoor. In Chicago, they organized the Essanay Film Company. They derived the name Essanay from their initials “S” and “A.”

Anderson learned that the Selig Company had started a studio in southern California. He took a film crew to Niles, California and directed a series of Ben Turpin comedies during the summer of 1908. He quickly realized Southern California’s great possibilities. He opened a new studio. It eventually became the headquarters for the Essanay Company.

Anderson decided to make a one-reel Western. The story line featured a central character. He named this character “Broncho Billy.” He searched for an actor to play the part. He failed to find with the right actor. He starred, as Broncho Billy, in the 1907 movie, The Bandit Makes Good. The film was a huge success. After five years, Anderson became an overnight sensation. He discovered he had created the first movie character, which moviegoers could identify with, in one film after another. Anderson invented the motion picture idol.

Beside the Bronco Billy series, in 1911 he started the “Snakeville Comedy” series. The following year, he appeared in the “Alkali Ike” series, which starred Augustus Carney.

Anderson made the “Broncho Billy” Westerns over eight years. No film was longer than two-reels.

His acting career peaked between 1912 and 1915. After making over 400 films, he sold his holdings in the Essanay Company. In 1916 at the age of 34, he retired. Over the next few years, he returned to New York City as the owner of the Longacre Theatre. He produced a number of plays for the theatre; however, none where successful.

Three years later, he made a brief comeback to direct, for the Metro Company, a series of two-reel Stan Laurel comedies. However, he ran into disagreements with the studio and retired permanently in 1920. For the next 30 years, he produced movies as the owner of Progressive Pictures. In 1965, he made a cameo role in The Bounty Hunter.

At the age of 88, he died in South Pasadena, California. It had been 55 years since being a Hollywood movie idol.