Epes Winthrop Sargent (August 21, 1872, in Nassau, Bahamas – Dec. 6, 1938 in Brooklyn, New York) was an American vaudeville critic who wrote under the pen-names Chicot[1] and Chic[1]. He was also a screenwriter.

Epes W. Sargent
Born1872 Edit this on Wikidata
Died1938 Edit this on Wikidata (aged 65–66)

He was considered "one of vaudeville's most influential critics and commentators".[2]

Early life

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He was born in Nassau, Bahamas[1] on August 21, 1872, and moved to the United States in 1878 with his parents.

Career

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He first worked as a critic for the New York paper, the Daily Mercury.[2][1] In the 1890s, he joined the New York Morning Telegraph.

He claimed to have critiqued the first motion picture offered in a theatre, becoming a film fan in the process."[3] In 1905, when Variety began publication,[1] he joined them as their first reviewer and wrote for them intermittently until his death.

In 1911, he became a staff writer for The Moving Picture World. They serialized his Technique of the Photoplay, which was soon published as a book.

In 1914–1915 he wrote the stories for a large number of split-reel and one-reel silent comedies produced by Arthur Hotaling at the Jacksonville, Florida, studio of the Lubin Manufacturing Company, which included the earliest screen appearances of Oliver Hardy.[4]

References

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  1. ^ a b c d e "Obituary for Epes Winthrop Sargent". Hartford Courant. 1938-12-08. p. 4. Retrieved 2023-08-17.
  2. ^ a b Anthony Slide, Encyclopedia of Vaudeville. 1995. p.453
  3. ^ Epes W. Sargent, "Flimflamming the Film Fans, Woman's Home Companion, November 1924.
  4. ^ Rob Stone, Laurel or Hardy: The Solo Films of Stan Laurel and Oliver "Babe" Hardy (Temecula, CA: Split Reel, 1996), pp. 5–61, passim.
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