Bowlers Journal International - November 2008 - (Page 36) Inside Line News, Notes And Perspective TIME CAPSULE BY J.R. SCHMIDT { jrschmidt@bowlersjournal.com } Harold Lloyd: How an Acclaimed Comic Actor Brought the ABC Tournament to Los Angeles DURING THE TWENTIES, HAROLD LLOYD was one of Hollywood’s biggest stars. As a comic actor, he was spoken of in the same breath as Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton. Today, many film historians consider him the funniest man on the silent screen. Harold Lloyd also was a serious bowler. Born in Nebraska in 1893, Lloyd moved to California as a teen and got started in movies about 1915. After a few false starts, he settled on the screen persona of a freshfaced young man in glasses who always seemed to get himself into some outrageously dangerous situations. Ever see the picture of the guy in a straw hat dangling from the hands of a clock a hundred feet above a city street? That’s Harold Lloyd. How he got started in bowling is not known. But by 1924, when he was at the height of his fame, Lloyd was regularly on the lanes three nights a week. He said that bowling gave him “the health, strength and agility which comes in handy in the strenuous motion picture business.” If he hired a chauffeur, the man had to be a bowler, so Harold would have a companion for open play. He served as a league president and sponsored his own team. The Harold Lloyds won the Southern California Team Tournament two years running. Harold himself contributed more than celebrity value or a sponsor’s s check, averaging in the 190s when the best players were barely over 200. In 1940, he rolled a perfect game in a Los Angeles tournament. And all the time, he was dealing with a major physical handicap. Early in his film career, an accident with a prop bomb blew off the thumb and index finger of Lloyd’s right hand. From that point on, he wore a prosthetic glove on screen. So when he bowled, he was — literally — using a three-finger grip. By 1940, Lloyd had stopped making movies. He had met Ned Day several years earlier, when Day first came to Hollywood to film a bowling short. Day introduced Lloyd to his teammate, Hank Marino, who was a successful proprietor in Milwaukee. The three men soon decided to build their own bowling center. They called it Llo-Da-Mar Bowl, taking the first letters from each of their names. Located a few miles from Hollywood, in Santa Monica, the Streamline Moderne showplace attracted many of the the 1944 show to Los Angeles. World War II delayed things a bit, but in 1947, the first West Coast ABC was held. And Harold Lloyd was featured H on the cover of Bowlers Journal to promote it. Lloyd became known as “The Nation’s Number One Bowling Fan.” Whenever the top bowlers gathered for an important match or tournament, chances were good that Lloyd would g be in the audience. b The All-Star Tournament was his favorite. “We’d look w around first thing in the a morning, and there would m be Harold Lloyd,” recalled b Buddy Bomar. “Then we’d B look around at night, and lo there would be Harold Lloyd, still there, and just as keenly observant as though he’d just come in the place.” As the years passed, Lloyd withdrew from the public eye. In 1961, the Bowling Writers Association of America gave him its Rip Van Winkle Award; because of a sanction ruling, his lone 300 game had not been recognized by the ABC. Harold Lloyd died in 1971. Some years later, Llo-DaMar Bowl closed its doors forever. But the building (now housing a number of small businesses) still stands, a designated landmark in Santa Monica since 2003. glamorous people of the film industry. Harold competed in a few of the leagues, and chuckled when he told friends that he couldn’t bowl well in his own house. But in 1946, one of the Llo-Da-Mar teams went to the ABC Tournament, and came back with the Team championship. Lloyd rolled in the ABC four times, with little success. However, he did earn a footnote in the history of the event. Until 1942, the big tournament had never been held west of Kansas City. At the ABC Convention that year, Harold’s speech helped convince the delegates to award 36 Bowlers Journal International | November 2008 www.bowlersjournal.com http://www.bowlersjournal.com
For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.