Early Life
Born as Mikall (or Michael) Sinnott in Danville, Quebec, Canada, the son of Irish Catholic immigrant farmers. His father was a blacksmith in the small Eastern Townships village. When he was 17 years old his family moved to Connecticut.
The family lived for a time in Northampton, Massachusetts, where, according to his autobiography, Sennett first got the idea to go on stage after seeing a vaudeville show. He claimed that the most respected lawyer in town, Northampton mayor (and future President of the United States) Calvin Coolidge, as well as Sennett's own mother, tried to talk him out of his theatrical ambitions.
In New York City, Sennett became an actor, singer, dancer, clown, set designer and director for Biograph. A major distinction in his acting career, often overlooked, is the fact that Sennett played Sherlock Holmes 11 times, albeit as a parody, between 1911 and 1913.
Read more about this topic: Mack Sennett
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“Make-believe is the avenue to much of the young child’s early understanding. He sorts out impressions and tries out ideas that are foundational to his later realistic comprehension. This private world sometimes is a quiet, solitary
world. More often it is a noisy, busy, crowded place where language grows, and social skills develop, and where perseverance and attention-span expand.”
—James L. Hymes, Jr. (20th century)
“There is a right according to which we may deprive a human being of his life but none according to which we may deprive him of his death: to do so is mere cruelty.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)