Early Essanay Shorts (Silent) - DVD

Jewish vaudevillian Max Aaronson was so excited by the audience's reaction to him in 1903's epochal The Great Train Robbery (in which he played three roles), that he changed his name to Gilbert M. Anderson, determined to devote himself to filmmaking. He and his partner, George Kirke Spoor, founded Essanay Studios in 1907, where Anderson acted in over 300 films, often writing and directing as well. He became Hollywood's first enormously