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Mack Swain (born Moroni Swain, February 16, 1876 – August 25, 1935) was an early American film actor, who appeared in many of Mack Sennett’s comedies at Keystone Studios, including the Keystone Cops series. He also appeared in major features by Charlie Chaplin.
In the early 1900s Swain had his own stock theater company, which performed in the western and midwestern United States.
Swain worked in vaudeville before starting in silent film at Keystone Studios under Mack Sennett. While with Keystone, he was teamed with Chester Conklin to make a series of comedy films. With Swain as “Ambrose” and Conklin as the grand mustachioed “Walrus”, they performed these roles in several films including The Battle of Ambrose and Walrus and Love, Speed and Thrills, both made in 1915.
Besides these comedies, the two appeared together in a variety of other films, 26 all told, and they also appeared separately and/or together in films starring Mabel Normand, Charles Chaplin, Roscoe Arbuckle and most of the rest of the roster of Keystone players.
Swain later took his Ambrose character with him to the L-KO Kompany. Having already worked with Charles Chaplin at Keystone, Swain began working with him again at First National in 1921, appearing in The Idle Class, Pay Day, and The Pilgrim. He is also remembered for his large supporting role as Big Jim McKay in the 1925 film The Gold Rush, for United Artists, written by and starring Chaplin.
For his contribution to the motion picture industry, Mack Swain received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, at 1500 Vine Street.
Mack Swain Biography / Wiki
| Name | Mack Swain |
| Also Know | Moroni Swain, Мак Свейн |
| Gender | Male |
| Known For | Acting |
| Place of Birth | Salt Lake City, Utah, USA |
| Date of Birth | 1876-02-16 |
| Age(as in 2022) | 59 |
| Deathday | 1935-08-25 |
Mack Swain Acting Movies
| Movie Name | Character | Release Date | Overview |
| Ambrose’s First Falsehood | Ambrose | 1914-12-12 | After running into a friend and two ladies, a married man sends his wife a note saying that he’s taken a train for business, but then his wife reads t… |
| Ambrose’s Lofty Perch | Ambrose | 1915-04-02 | King Ambrose chooses a queen from among the maidens of his kingdom. After they are married, Robin, a young man the queen had known earlier, attempts t… |
| Love, Speed and Thrills | Ambrose | 1915-01-18 | After Walrus has been shot, Ambrose takes him into his house. When Ambrose sees Walrus flirting with his wife he leaves. When Walrus runs away with Mr… |
| Ambrose’s Sour Grapes | Ambrose | 1915-03-01 | Ambrose loses his girl-friend to Harry Gribbon in the park. When Ambrose’s “girl-friend”‘s twin sister and husband arrive everybody gets mixed-up betw… |
| When Ambrose Dared Walrus | Ambrose | 1915-07-11 | Walrus and his wife run the Walrus Hotel, which acrobats Mr. & Mrs. Ambrose are staying at. Walrus gets a letter from his insurance broker Mr. Cin… |
| Ambrose’s Nasty Temper | Ambrose | 1915-04-16 | Ambrose’s nasty temper gets him in trouble when he accidentally puts his boss’s attractive daughter in danger…. |
| Ambrose’s Fury | Ambrose | 1915-03-24 | A couple of roving husbands are caught at the seashore by their wives…. |
| Willful Ambrose | Pa Ambrose | 1915-03-01 | Marksman Ambrose accidentally shoots a beer stein his wife has bought for him as a gift, so he tries to replace it…. |
| Oh, What a Knight | The Sheriff | 1919-01-25 | A slapstick comedy featuring Mack Swain…. |
| A Movie Star | Handsome Jack | 1916-01-26 | The star of a film attends a public showing…. |
| Madcap Ambrose | Ambrose | 1916-07-16 | Ambrose likes his mother’s assistant, but when she inherits a fortune, the obstacles to their relationship keep mounting…. |
| His Bitter Pill | Jim – a Big Hearted Sheriff | 1916-04-30 | Jim, the apple of his mother’s eyes, is the big-hearted galoot of a man and is sheriff of his small town. He is sweet on Nell, who he has known all hi… |
| Ye Olden Grafter | The Grafter | 1915-02-18 | Largely a typical Keystone flirting-in-the-park one-reeler, this one is differentiated slightly by dressing the players in early nineteenth century ga… |
| The Shamrock and the Rose | Mike Kelly | 1927-04-14 | The neighborly “feud” between a Jewish and an Irish families escalates when two of their youngsters fall in love…. |
| The Home Breakers | Ambrose | 1915-02-01 | Bankers Mack Swain & Chester Conklin courting each other’s wives…. |
| His Naughty Thought | Walter Ambrose | 1917-05-06 | Café ownder Mack Swain goes gaga over a gal…. |
| Innocent Ambrose | Ambrose Schnitz | 1920-01-11 | Mack “Ambrose” Swain, the ladies man, finds himself in all kinds of lady trouble…. |
| Thirst | Ambrose | 1917-07-29 | A woman has moved to a small town boarding house to seek peace and quiet. All too soon she finds herself in a Keystone movie, where there’s everything… |
| Ambrose’s Little Hatchet | Ambrose | 1915-03-15 | Mack Swain is making a dress for Louise Fazenda. He discovers his dressmaker’s dummy requires his adjustment, so he pulls out his hatchet for the job…. |
| Saved by Wireless | The Spy | 1915-11-21 | Swain and Conklin, two international secret service men of questionable reputation, have taken up headquarters in an underground refuge from which the… |
| Caught in the Rain | Husband | 1914-05-04 | When a married couple become separated in the park, Charlie takes up with the lady and is beat up when her husband rejoins her. He takes a room in the… |
| A Busy Day | Husband | 1914-05-07 | A jealous wife is chasing her unfaithful husband during a parade, after he starts to flirt with a pretty woman…. |
| His Musical Career | Mike, Charlie’s Partner | 1914-11-07 | Charlie and his partner are to deliver a piano to 666 Prospect St. and repossess one from 999 Prospect St…. |
| His Prehistoric Past | King Lowbrow | 1914-12-07 | Set in the stone age, King Low-Brow rules the land and a harem of wives. When Charlie arrives in this land (where every man has one thousand wives), h… |
| Fatty’s New Role | Ambrose Schnitz | 1915-02-01 | Fatty gets kicked out of a bar, and then the place gets a bomb threat…. |
| Gussle, the Golfer | Ambrose | 1914-12-27 | The ever-disreputable Reggie Gussle, mistreating his caddy and generally making an ass of himself on the golf course, receives a well-deserved golf ba… |
| Cleaning Up | Mack | 1930-09-28 | Two street cleaners save the life of the police commissioner. In gratitude, he gives them jobs as policemen. Their first assignment? Capture the #1 cr… |
| The Pullman Bride | Rover Peabody – the Chosen One | 1917-01-01 | The Pullman Bride is a 1917 American silent comedy film directed by Clarence G. Badger and starring Gloria Swanson…. |
| Hello, Mabel | The Married Flirt | 1914-10-08 | Hello, Mabel (also known as On a Busy Wire) is a 1914 American short silent comedy film directed by Mack Sennett…. |
| Other People’s Business | 1914-12-07 | Other People’s Business… | |
| The Girl from Nowhere | Wilbur Ashcraft | 1928-08-05 | The Girl from Nowhere is a comedy short… |
| The Gold Rush | Big Jim McKay | 1925-07-12 | A lone prospector ventures into Alaska looking for gold. He soon gets mixed up with some burly characters, falls in love with the beautiful Georgia, a… |
| Mabel’s Married Life | Wellington, a Ladykiller | 1914-06-20 | Mabel goes home after being humiliated by a masher whom her husband won’t fight. The husband goes off to a bar and gets drunk…. |
| Pay Day | Foreman | 1922-04-02 | A bricklayer and his wife clash over his end-of-the-week partying…. |
| His Trysting Places | Ambrose | 1914-11-09 | Charlie and his friend Ambrose meet in a restaurant and accidentally leave with each other’s coats. Charlie was going to pick up a baby bottle and Amb… |
| Getting Acquainted | Ambrose | 1914-12-05 | Charlie and his wife are walking in the park when they encounter Ambrose and his wife where they become attracted to each other’s wife and start chasi… |
| A Thief Catcher | Crook (uncredited) | 1914-02-19 | Two criminals chase a plainclothes policeman who, while taking out his dog, witnesses their crime…. |
| Double Crossed | The Belle’s Boyfriend | 1914-01-25 | Ford Sterling and Mack Swain are a couple of neighborhood toughs who fight over Emma Clifton and get involved in burglary in this Keystone from 1914…. |
| Caught in the Fog | Detective Ryan | 1928-08-24 | Wealthy Bob visits his mother’s Florida houseboat in order to remove her jewelry and stumbles upon a bobbed-hair bandit and her male accomplice, who m… |
| This Way Out | The Girl’s Father | 1923-05-27 | A rival courtships in a variety of absurd situations…. |
| The Sea Nymphs | Ambrose | 1914-11-23 | Fatty, his wife and mother-in-law are on a ferry to Catalina Island for an outing. So are Mabel and her father. Mabel and Fatty flirt with each other,… |
| Love and Gasoline | 1914-02-21 | A short comedy directed by Mabel Normand and Mack Sennett. believed to be a lost film…. | |
| Mabel’s Nerve | 1914-05-16 | A silent comedy short directed by Mabel Normand…. | |
| The Girl from Everywhere | Wilfred Ashcraft – Director | 1927-12-11 | Mack Sennett comedy short subject spoofing filmmaking, with girls, lions, and limburger cheese…. |
| A Rowboat Romance | (unconfirmed) | 1914-07-06 | A Rowboat Romance is a 1914 Comedy short…. |
| The Fatal Mallet | Another rival | 1914-06-01 | Three men will fight for the love of a charming girl. Charlie will play dirty, throwing bricks and using a huge hammer…. |
| Gentlemen of Nerve | Mr. Walrus | 1914-10-29 | Mabel and her beau go to an auto race and are joined by Charlie and his friend. As Charlie’s friend is attempting to enter the raceway through a hole,… |
| A Robust Romeo | 1914-02-12 | A Robust Romeo is a 1914 movie starring Roscoe Arbuckle and Emma Bell Clifton…. | |
| Leading Lizzie Astray | Cafe Patron – In from the Mines | 1914-11-30 | A city slicker tries to woo a country girl while her boyfriend fixes his tire…. |
| Mabel Lost and Won | Mabel’s Rival’s Husband | 1915-06-02 | Mabel has just gotten engaged during a housewarming party of which her mother is the hostess. When an annoying party guest persuades Mabel to dance wi… |
| Tillie’s Punctured Romance | Tillie’s Father | 1928-03-03 | The ring master is plotting to get the circus owner done away with in a lion cage so he can take over…. |
| The Nervous Wreck | Jerome Underwood | 1926-10-09 | Henry Williams, out in Arizona looking for a cure for his imaginary ills, stops at the ranch of Jud Morgan, and decides to stay. Jud’s daughter, Sally… |
| Fatty’s Wine Party | Restaurant Proprietor | 1914-11-21 | Fatty’s Wine Party is a 1914 American short comedy film directed by and starring Fatty Arbuckle…. |
| Lighthouse Love | Captain Wiggins – the Lighthouse Keeper | 1932-05-06 | Two marines stationed in the Chinese port of Hang Chow decide to swear off women and join the lighthouse patrol…. |
| A Gambling Rube | (unconfirmed) | 1914-06-15 | A comedy short that revolves around a poker game, both above and underneath the table. This is considered to be a lost film…. |
| Tillie’s Punctured Romance | Tillie’s father | 1914-11-14 | A womanizing city man meets Tillie in the country, after a fight with his girlfriend. When he sees that Tillie’s father has a very large bankroll for … |
| The Pilgrim | Deacon | 1923-02-19 | The Tramp is an escaped convict who is mistaken as a pastor in a small town church…. |
| Mockery | Vladimir Gaidaroff | 1927-08-13 | There is hunger in Siberia during the Russian Civil War. One day while dim-witted peasant Sergei is searching corpses for food, he meets a young woman… |
| A Muddy Romance | Desk Sergeant / Park Attendant | 1913-11-19 | Two rivals for Mabel’s hand play a series of dirty tricks on each other. Finally, one of them gets Mabel alone and is about to marry her, but his riva… |
| Caught in a Park | The Bartender | 1915-02-06 | Featuring Charlie Chaplin’s half-brother as The Husband, Phyllis Allen as The Wife, Slim Summerville as The Boy Friend, Cecile Arnold as The Girl Frie… |
| Sea Horses | Bimbo-Bomba | 1926-02-22 | Sea Horses is a 1926 American drama silent film directed by Allan Dwan and written by Becky Gardiner, James Shelley Hamilton and Francis Brett Young. … |
| Gentlemen Prefer Blondes | Sir Francis Beekman | 1928-01-22 | Gold digging blonde Lorelei and her brunette friend Dorothy are searching for rich husbands. This film is believed lost…. |
| Becky | Irving Spiegelberg | 1927-11-12 | Becky (1927) film… |
| Whispering Wires | 1926-10-24 | A woman hears of a murder plot through a whispered voice on the telephone…. | |
| Pitfalls of a Big City | The Vamp’s Husband | 1923-09-02 | Pitfalls of a Big City is a 1923 short comedy… |
| Finn and Hattie | Le Bottin | 1931-02-28 | The Haddocks are going on a European vacation and from their reception at the station, where the whole town goes to see them off, it is clear who wear… |
| The Gusher | Villager / Cop | 1913-12-14 | Mabel has two suitors – an oily con man, whom she mocks in a very funny scene where she is shown twiddling a fake moustache and making her feelings ve… |
| The Chaplin Revue | Various (archive footage) | 1959-09-01 | Three Chaplin silent comedies “A Dog’s Life”, “Shoulder Arms”, and “The Pilgrim” are strung together to form a single feature length film. Chaplin pro… |
| Laughing Gas | Patient | 1914-07-09 | Although only a dental assistant, Charlie pretends to be the dentist. After receiving too much anesthesia, a patient can’t stop laughing, so Charlie k… |
| The Locked Door | Hotel Proprietor | 1929-11-16 | On her first anniversary, Ann Reagan finds that her sister-in-law is involved with a shady character that she used to be intimate with, and determines… |
| The Under-Sheriff | Villager | 1914-01-08 | The Under-Sheriff is a 1914 movie starring Roscoe Arbuckle and George Nichols…. |
| The Last Warning | Robert Bunce | 1928-12-25 | A producer decides to reopen a theater, that had been closed five years previously when one of the actors was murdered during a performance, by stagin… |
| The Midnight Patrol | 1932-04-10 | A cub reporter rashly makes a promise to solve a murder mystery within 24 hours, then must make good on his boast…. | |
| Kiki | Pastryman | 1926-04-04 | Kiki, a poor young woman who sells newspapers on the street corners of Paris, is able to land a job singing and dancing at a nearby theater. While she… |
| Redemption | Magistrate | 1930-05-02 | Feyda is a man of wealth and has many fine qualities, but he is powerless to resist gambling and beautiful women. Feyda falls instantly in love with L… |
| Mabel at the Wheel | Spectator at Races | 1914-04-18 | Charlie, competing with his rival’s race car, offers Mabel a ride on his motorcycle but drops her in a puddle. He also kidnaps his rival before the ra… |
| Hogan’s Romance Upset | Fight Spectator | 1915-02-13 | Charles Murray out romancing in the park…. |
| The Late Lamented | Boarder (unconfirmed) | 1917-09-23 | The Late Lamented is a 1917 Comedy short…. |
| The Idle Class | Edna’s Father (uncredited) | 1921-09-25 | At an upper class golf resort, a tramp discovers he’s the lookalike of a rich man with a beautiful, unhappy wife…. |
| Torrent | Don MatÃas | 1926-02-21 | A young girl and her father are kicked out of their house by a cruel noblewoman, and the girl’s heart is broken when her sweetheart, the noblewoman’s … |
| Footloose Widows | Ludwig | 1926-06-19 | Department-store models Flo and Marian set their sights on wealthy young soft-drink magnate J. A. Smith. Through a misunderstanding, they pick on the … |
| My Best Girl | Judge | 1927-10-31 | Joe Merrill, son of the millionaire owner of a chain of 5 and 10 cent stores, poses as Joe Grant, and takes a job in the stockroom of one of his fathe… |
| The Sea Bat | Dutchy | 1930-07-05 | The sister of a sponge diver killed by a stingray loves an escaped convict posing as a priest…. |
| A Texas Steer | Bragg | 1927-12-04 | Laconic cowboy Maverick Brander just happens to be a very wealthy rancher, but the money doesn’t really mean that much to him. The same can’t be said … |
| Fatty Joins the Force | Cop at Station House | 1913-11-23 | Fatty rescues the daughter of the police commisioner and is given a job as an officer as a reward, but its not all its cracked up to be!… |
| Stout Hearts and Willing Hands | 1931-06-15 | Stout Hearts and Willing Hands is a 1931 short comedy film directed by Bryan Foy. It was nominated for an Academy Award in 1932 for Best Short Subject… | |
| Caught in a Cabaret | Tough Patron / Party Guest / Boy’s Father (uncredited) | 1914-04-27 | Charlie is a clumsy waiter in a cheap cabaret, suffering the strict orders from his boss. He meets a pretty girl in the park and tries to impress her … |
| The Beloved Rogue | Nicholas | 1927-03-12 | François Villon, in his lifetime the most renowned poet in France, is also a prankster, an occasional criminal, and an ardent patriot…. |
| Happy Times and Jolly Moments | (archive footage) | 1943-01-01 | This short film takes a nostalgic look at the Mack Sennett comedies of the silent cinema era…. |
| Star Power: The Creation Of United Artists | (archive footage) | 1998-01-01 | The careers of D.W. Griffith, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, and Charlie Chaplin are chronicled culminating in the formation of United Artists and … |
| Yesterday and Today | (archive footage) | 1953-12-02 | A compilation of early-day silent films that serves as a glimpse back to the formative days of the movie industry as a salute to Hollywood’s Golden Ye… |
| Soup to Nuts | First Fat Diner (uncredited) | 1930-09-28 | Mr. Schmidt’s costume store is bankrupt because he spends his time on Rube Goldberg-style inventions; the creditors send a young manager who falls for… |
| The Knockout | Gambler (uncredited) | 1914-06-11 | To show his girl how brave he is, Pug challenges the champion to a fight. Charlie referees, trying to avoid contact with the two monsters…. |
| That Little Band Of Gold | Audience Member (uncredited) | 1915-03-14 | A happy young couple become engaged, and soon afterwards they are married. But after their marriage, the husband begins to stay out carousing with his… |
Mack Swain Directing Movies
| Movie Name | Job | Release Date | Overview |
| Innocent Ambrose | Director | 1920-01-11 | Mack “Ambrose” Swain, the ladies man, finds himself in all kinds of lady trouble…. |
Credit: TMDB
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