The fellow second from the left in the above photo is Clyde Bruckman, one of the most important names in the first forty years of movie comedy. The guy in the center — Buster Keaton — is only one of the great comedians Bruckman wrote for and sometimes directed. The list includes Laurel and Hardy, W.C. Fields, Harold Lloyd and The Three Stooges. One of the films he did with Keaton was The General, which I linked to here not long ago, citing it as one of my favorite movies of all time. For that alone, Bruckman deserves attention.
As many of you have written me, there's a good article about his life and times online by Matthew Dessem. Take a look at you when you get a moment. Bruckman's story is a sad one and it's also one that has been clouded by Hollywood Legends and it's nice to see Mr. Dessem do actual research instead of reporting common, and probably inaccurate wisdom. Bruckman was accused late in his career of stealing liberally from…Clyde Bruckman. The truth is that if stealing from Clyde Bruckman was a crime, an awful lot of comedy writers and directors would have wound up behind bars.