Albert Edward Sutherland

Albert Edward Sutherland, credited as 'Edward' or 'Eddie', was born in London on January 5, 1895 to a family in theatre. His father was a theatre manager and producer and his mother was a vaudevill performer. He emigrated at a young age and acted in 37 movies starting as one of the Keystone Cops in "Tillie's Punctured Romance" 1914 starring Charlie Chaplin, Mabel Normand and Marie Dressler. Chaplin directed him in "A Woman of Paris" 1923 and two years later, he began directing and he was established as a comedy director with "Behind the Front" 1926 which made stars of the leads, Wallace Beery and Raymond Hatton. He found Stan Laurel impossible to work with but he became close with acerbic W.C. Fields, with whom he established a life long friendship. He directed Fields in 1926 in "It's the Old Army Game" and that's how he met one of his five wives, Field's co-star, Louise Brooks. He had been married to Marjorie Daw from 1923-1925 and his marriage to Brooks was from 1926-1928 but it was not a happy one as there were reports of infidelity on each party. Sutherland was married next to Ethel Kenyon from 1930 to 1931 and then to Audree Henderson from 1933 to 1935 but his final marriage to Edwina Blanche Robinson Kinsley in 1944, lasted for the rest of his life. He owned their home in the Calypso Apartments in Palm Springs, CA where he died on December 31, 1973.

Edward Sutherland had 57 film credits, including four for television, between 1927 and 1959. This includes the Nancy Carroll and Charles Buddy Rogers musical "Close Harmony"; "The Dancy of Life" 1929 again with Nancy Carroll teamed this time with Hal Skelly; Clara Bow's "The Saturday Night Kid" 1929 with James Hall, Jean Arthur and newcomer Jean Harlow in a bit part; "Pointed Heels" 1929 William Powell, Helen Kane, Fay Wray, and Phillips Holmes; "Paramount On Parade" 1930, the studio's all-star revue, with Maurice Chevalier as the host; "Up Pops the Devil" 1931, a light drama Carole Lombard, Norman Foster, Stuart Erwin, and Lilyan Tashman; "Murders in the Zoo" 1933 Charles Ruggles, Lionel Atwill, Gail Patrick, and Kathleen Burke; the delightful and imaginative "International House" 1933 W.C. Fields, Peggy Hopkins Joyce, Stuart Erwin, Sari Maritza, Bela Lugosi, George Burns & Gracie Allen, Franklin Pangborn, Baby Rose Marie, Cab Calloway, Rudy Vallee; "Mississippi" 1935 Bing Crosby, W.C. Fields, Joan Bennett; "Poppy" 1936 W.C. Fields, Rochelle Hudson, Richard Cromwell; "Every Day's a Holidy" 1937 Mae West, Edmund Lowe, Charles Butterworth, Charles Winninger, Walter Catlett, Lloyd Nolan, and Louis Armstrong. And more up to 1959.