January 21, 1971, Page 38Buy Reprints
HOLLYWOOD, Jan. 20 (AP)— Gilbert M. (Bronco Billy) Ander son, who made his debut in the first movie with a story, “The Great Train Robbery” in 1903, and became the first star of Westerns, died in a sanitariumm, here today. He was 88 years, old.
Mr. Anderson, long retired, won a special honorary Oscar in 1958 for his pioneering work in films.
He is survived by his widow, Molly, and a daughter, Maxine.
Began Western Cycle
Mr. Anderson's place in the history of the cinema is as sured, if for no other reason, by the fact that “The Great Train Robbery” ran for all of 13 minutes‐800 feet of film when such a time frame was unheard of. It was thus credited with be ing motion picture with a plot.
Mr. Anderson came from not very far west of the Mississippi —Little Rock, Ark—and did not know how to ride a horse or shoot a pistol until after his film debut. But his mounting a saddle attached to a sawbuck in the Fort Lee, N. J., studio was the event “commencing the cycle of Western cowboy films,” according to Bosley Crowther, film historian and former New York Times motion picture critic.
His real name was Max Aron son. He and his sister tried to get on the stage in New York, but the best he could do was to be a model for illustrators, in cluding Howard Chandler Christy. In 1902 he moved up to the Edison Studio, a second story loft on Twenty‐third Street that was turning out 50‐ foot peep‐show films.
50‐cent‐an‐hour Star
His first starring role at 50 cents an hour was in “The Messenger Boy's Mistake,” about a young man who was acutely embarrassed when a messenger delivered pajamas in stead of flowers to his girl friend.
His director, Edwin S. Porter, was ready next year for “The Great Train Robbery.” Mr. An derson recalled years later that he played not only the bandit but the brakeman who tried to fight him off in the caboose, and the passenger whom he shot. Some of the railroad foot age was shot on location in Dover, N. J.
The one reel film was a great success on the nickleodeon cir cuit and Mr. Anderson moved on to a bigger job as a $25‐a week director, actor and facto tum with the Vitagraph Com pany. He said he made the first two‐reeler in 1904. Moving on to Pittsburgh and Chicago, he formed a partnership, Essanay, (S. and A.) with George K. Spoor, a distributor of screen, equipment.
Moved West in 1907
The production team, con sisting of Mr. Anderson, the vaudeville veteran Ben Turpin and a cameraman, went to Los Angeles in 1907, Their first script called for Mr. Turpin as a hungry hobo to dive into the pond in Westlake Park in pur suit of a duck. As Mr. Ander son spun out the story later, a real policeman plunged in after him, the camera kept turning, and when the situation was explained to the police man Mr. Turpin got off and the comedy was complete.
Moving on to Niles Canyon near San Francisco for its Wild West scenery, the group built a small studio and shot “The Bandit Makes Good” in 1908. Mr. Anderson played Bronco Billy, who got caught robbing a bank. He gave the money to the sheriff, who lost it gam bling. Billy held up the gam blers, returned the money to the sheriff, and was named deputy. The fan response was so great that Mr. Anderson started a series around the Robin Hood type of bandit.
375 Films in 7 Years
“I directed, wrote and acted in 375 of those dang things in seven years,” he recalled. In those days, a film budgeted at $800 might bring in $50,000, and Mr. Anderson's income rose to $125,000 a year.
In 1915, he recalled, Essanay hired Charlie Chaplin at a phenomenal $1,250 a week to shoot comedies such as “A Night Out,” “Give and Take,” “The Pugilist” and “Carmen.” Mutual came along with a $10, 000‐a‐week offer and Chaplin left.
Mr. Anderson sold Out his interest in the company and made his second attempt to break into the legitimate thea Ler—as an investor. With H. H. Frazee he bought the Longacre Theater on West 49th Street. He produced several plays but never became firmly estab lished. When he returned to the Western scene William S. Hart and other new cowboy actors had won away Bronco Billy's old fans.
Mr. Anderson produced some comedies with Stan Laurel but drifted out of the film business after 1920, living frugally in Los Angeles. He enjoyed telling of the old days and still con sidered movies “the maximum amount of entertainent for the minimum amount of price.”
He still liked cowboy pictures —except for singing Westerns.