The silent film era featured some of the most revered names of on-screen comic performance, from Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton to Harold Lloyd, Douglas Fair

It would be impossible in a book of this size to offer anything like a comprehensive survey of the vast, tumbling, chattering, shrieking army of clowns who have

Combing every medium--vaudeville, musical comedy, films, radio, and television--Franklin brings together, in text and pictures, the comedians and the classic ro