Talk:Harold Lloyd Estate

Conflicting information on the size of the swimming pool

The photographs of Marilyn at a swimming pool show a pool far smaller than 150 feet or 45 meters: the pool seems to be at most 60 feet or 20 meters. So, either the pool was/is far smaller, or there were actually two pools, a very large one that does not exist anymore, and a smaller one at which Marilyn was photographed (and which might still exist: check Google Maps aerial photos!) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.100.143.192 (talk) 16:03, 17 February 2018 (UTC)

Conflicting dates

This article states that, "Construction of the mansion began in July 1927 and was completed in 1928.[6]", yet goes on to state that the house was used in some scenes for Lloyd's 1924 film, Girl Shy.CrashRiley (talk) 17:03, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

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Restrictive Covenants Reference

Dear Editors,

We represent Harold Lloyd Entertainment, Inc. (“HLE”). Among other things, HLE is the owner of the copyrights and all rights, title and interest in and to the movies of Harold Lloyd (including but not limited to The Freshman) and the publicity rights of Mr. Lloyd, one of the most famous and popular actors and comedians of the silent era. We apologize for contacting you out the blue, but we are reaching out to you at the recommendation of legal counsel at the Wikipedia Foundation, who has suggested that we inform relevant editors of the official Wikipedia entry for the Harold Lloyd Estate, found at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Lloyd_Estate, about the serious concerns that have arisen regarding the unfounded allegations of racism and support for racially restrictive covenants that have been leveled against Mr. Lloyd therein.

Specifically, we are deeply troubled by the paragraph in the Harold Lloyd Estate’s entry section entitled “Family home” and its assertion that “Greenacres [Mr. Lloyd’s home] was built in the 1920s in Beverly Hills, one of Los Angeles’ all-white planned communities. The area had restrictive covenants prohibiting non-whites (this also included Jews) from living there unless they were in the employment of a white resident (typically a domestic servant). In 1940, Lloyd supported a neighborhood improvement association in Beverly Hills that attempted to enforce the all-white covenant in court after a number of black actors and business had begun buying properties in the area. However, in his decision, federal judge Thurmond Clarke dismissed the action stating that it was time that ‘members of the Negro race are accorded with reservations or evasions, the full rights, guaranteed to them under the 14 amendment.’” As detailed below, this Allegation is wholly without any factual basis. In the process, it not only unfairly besmirches the good name and reputation of an iconic Hollywood legend, but it is also has caused and continues to cause significant injury to HLE’s existing and prospective business relationships because of the very serious charges of racism that it raises—charges that are (rightfully) toxic in the public arena.

User Ewulp has raised similar concerns about the references to racially restrictive covenants and Mr. Lloyd’s alleged support therefor. As he wrote in the Talk Notes to the Harold Lloyd Wikipedia entry: “The article shouldn't exaggerate Lloyd's role here; these covenants were unfortunately common throughout the US at the time, and Lloyd (as far as we can tell) was not one of the eight white Sugar Hill plaintiffs who sued to have their black neighbors evicted in the 1944 [sic] case that Judge Thurmond Clarke decided.” Said allegations have now been removed from Harold Lloyd’s individual Wikipedia entry after having been determined by the editors there to be lacking foundation and support. As such, we kindly request that you do the same on the Harold Lloyd Estate entry on Wikipedia.

Indeed, there are no facts whatsoever establishing any link between Harold Lloyd and the Sugar Hills litigation or any of the plaintiffs therein and, as detailed below, any allegation of racism against Mr. Lloyd is wholly at odds with any facts we know about his life and how he lived it. As such, we are writing to kindly request that you might consider, in the interest of accuracy and fairness, to correct the problematic portion regarding said Allegation and the surrounding discussion regarding racially restrictive covenants. Your consideration of this request is deeply appreciated.

Allow us first to begin by thanking you for the unparalleled public service that you, through Wikipedia, provide to the world. Wikipedia is an invaluable public resource that has democratized knowledge and leavened disparities in access to social, political, cultural and scientific information and its many volunteers, such as yourself, play a vital role in that. As such, Wikipedia has represented a transformative tool for education, transparency, and, above all, the truth in a time when so-called ‘Fake News’ dominates the Internet.

With Wikipedia’s dedication to accuracy, proper sourcing and careful research in mind, the detailed analysis below plainly demonstrates that the Allegation against Mr. Lloyd Harold is without substance or reliable support. And, unfortunately, the Allegation tarnishes the legacy of an American legend and causes direct economic harm to HLE and its intellectual property and contractual interests. As you know, charges of racism and bigotry can impact the way in which a public figure is viewed and it can shatter careers and legacies (see, e.g., Paula Deen, PewDiePie, Kate Smith, John Wayne and Morrissey). When these allegations are without basis, lives are fundamentally altered both unjustly and unfairly. In this particular case, the Allegations have already threatened HLE and, among other things, interfered with its existing and prospective business relationships. Specifically, HLE is under contract with certain companies for a forthcoming original, feature-length animated motion picture based on Harold Lloyd and his films. This project is now in jeopardy as a direct result of the unfounded Allegations. These companies have put HLE on direct notice that investor concerns regarding the Allegations are significantly curtailing the ability of the movie’s producers to raise the necessary funding for continuing support of the project.

In the Wikipedia entry for Harold Lloyd, the Allegation is footnoted with a single citation to a single source—a book by Stephen Grant Meyer. The Talk File for the “Restrictive Covenant” section of Harold Lloyd’s entry on Wikipedia, further expands on the purported support for the Allegation by referencing “at least three reliable sources for Lloyd’s involvement in presenting the restrictions.” Yet these sources—books by Stephen Grant Meyer, Anima Hassan and Nancie Clare—do not provide any credible support for the proposition that Mr. Lloyd supported racially restrictive covenants and efforts to keep blacks and Jews out of Beverly Hills or his neighborhood. Thus, the Allegations violate Wikipedia’s commitment to accuracy and verifiability. Given the particularly incendiary nature of the claims—claims that easily fall under Wikipedia’s policy for “exceptional claims”—Wikipedia’s own burden of requiring multiple high-quality sources supporting the proposition is simply not met.

First of all, Nancie Clare’s book THE BATTLE FOR BEVERLY HILLS (St. Martin’s Press, 2018) states only that Lloyd “joined a neighborhood association whose goal was to enforce the city’s restrictive covenants that prohibited nonwhites, including Jews, from buying or renting property in the city,” id. at 195—an aspersion that could be cast upon millions of Americans at a time when both political major political parties—both Democrats and Republicans—supported such measures. More importantly, the book does not remotely suggest that Mr. Lloyd actually supported any efforts to enforce restrictive covenants (the proposition for which it is relied upon); rather, it simply claims that Mr. Lloyd was a mere member of a group that supported restrictive covenants. Above all, it does not provide any citation to substantiate its accusations and it does not provide any details regarding the neighborhood association in question or its identity.

Meanwhile, both the Meyer and Hassan books only restate claims from a single, 70-word article that appeared in the Chicago (Daily) Defender on July 28, 1945 (the “Article”). Specifically, Stephen Grant Meyer’s book, AS LONG AS THEY DON’T MOVE NEXT DOOR (Rowman & Littlefield, 2001), alleges that “one of the white home owners who led the challenge to black occupancy in Beverly Hills was also an actor: the silent-screen comedian, Harold Lloyd.” Id. at 76. Yet the only citation it makes that might support any such speculation is to the Chicago Defender Article.

Amina Hassan’s book, LOREN MILLER: CIVIL RIGHTS ATTORNEY AND JOURNALIST (University of Oklahoma Press, 2015), fares no better. It claims that “In 1941, . . . Harold Lloyd, famous for hanging from the hands of a skyscraper clock tower in Safety Last! (1923), led the drive to keep blacks and Jews from moving into nearby Beverly Hills. Id. at 132. To support this proposition, Hassan’s book also cites only to the Chicago Defender Article. And, to make matters worse and to cast the rigor of Hassan’s research into further doubt, she erroneously cites the Article to date the relevant events as taking place in 1941 when, in fact, the Chicago Defender has them taking place in 1945.

In effect, therefore, the Allegations against Mr. Lloyd solely emanate from the Article. All of the remaining sources that state the Allegation are simply mimicking the claim by citing back to the Article. Thus, to assess the reliability and accuracy of the Allegation, it is necessary to examine the Article. As even the most cursory review of the Article demonstrates, the Chicago Defender piece neither credibly asserts the Allegations against Mr. Lloyd nor does it have any support from other sources.

The Article, entitled “Harold Lloyd Heads Anti-Negro Drive,” appeared on the front page of the Chicago (Daily) Defender on July 28, 1945 and its total content of 70 words reads as follows: "The famous film comedian of the silver screen was reported as the prime instigator of the new Beverly Hills restrictive covenant drive. A recent letter, sent out over the name of the famous actor, called for a meeting of residents here to sign restrictive covenants. The letter, sent out through offices of the Chamber of Commerce, was disclaimed by company officials who admitted that Lloyd had been elected president recently."

While it is true that Mr. Lloyd, at one time, served as the head of Beverly Hill’s Chamber of Commerce, the reminder of the Article is filled with ambiguities, inaccuracies, unsupported speculation and sophistry:

1. The Article engages in pure conjecture and succumbs to salacious innuendo in remarking, vaguely and in the passive voice, that Mr. Lloyd “was reported as the prime instigator of the new Beverly Hills restrictive covenant drive.” Notably, therefore, the Article fails to name any sources for its idle and unsupported tabloid gossip. For example:
2. The Article refers to a purported letter that was sent out by the Chamber of Commerce which the Article ties to Harold Lloyd. But, notably, it does not say the letter was written or drafted by Harold Lloyd, or even approved by Harold Lloyd (it merely alleges that it was “sent out over the name” of Harold Lloyd).
3. The Article fails to quote any actual contents of the purported letter. As such, its characterization of the letter and its contents are rightfully suspect and unsupported.
4. The Article only states the letter “called for a meeting of residents . . . to sign restrictive covenants.” As such, the Article does not state, outright, that an actual position was taken in the letter (i.e., that restrictive covenants are good or bad) and, quite possibly, the letter, if it existed, may have only provided information that such a meeting was taking place.
5. The Article is unclear as to when the letter was sent out (referring only to the vague characterization of “recently”), a particularly odd omission since official letter are always dated. As such, the Article’s leap in logic—that Harold Lloyd was recently made president of the Chamber of Commerce and that, therefore, the letter must be reflective of his point of view, is pure speculation. Indeed, the Article does not expressly spell out that the letter was written or sent out while Mr. Lloyd was, in fact, President.
6. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the Article itself acknowledges that the purported letter’s authenticity and accuracy in reflecting the viewpoint of the Chamber of Commerce (and, by extension, Harold Lloyd, who is being tied to the views of the Chamber of Commerce by virtue of his presidency thereof for a period of time) was contemporaneously and directly disputed and called into question. As the Article admits, “The letter, sent out through offices of the Chamber of Commerce, was disclaimed by company officials.” This sentence—the concluding one in the Article—renders the salacious, unsupported and speculative headline “Harold Lloyd Heads Anti-Negro Drive” wholly bunk and makes any misrepresentation of this Article as historical truth wholly inappropriate.

It's also worth noting that the statements surrounding the sentence containing the Allegation in Mr. Lloyd’s Wikipedia page are also demonstrably false or inaccurate. Specifically, the Harold Lloyd Estates’s Wikipedia page states that “Greenacres [Mr. Lloyd’s home] was built in the 1920s in Beverly Hills, one of Los Angeles’ all-white planned communities. The area had restrictive covenants prohibiting non-whites (this also included Jews) from living there unless they were in the employment of a white resident (typically a domestic servant). In 1940, Lloyd supported a neighborhood improvement association in Beverly Hills that attempted to enforce the all-white covenant in court after a number of black actors and business had begun buying properties in the area. However, in his decision, federal judge Thurmond Clarke dismissed the action stating that it was time that ‘members of the Negro race are accorded with reservations or evasions, the full rights, guaranteed to them under the 14 amendment.’” Yet these sentences, and their citing sources in the Wikipedia page, are riddled with errors.

Among other things, this section contains the following inaccuracies:

1. The lawsuit to which the sentences refer challenged racially restrictive covenants in Sugar Hills, which is not in Beverly Hills, but in the West Adams area of Los Angeles. See Victory on Sugar Hill, TIME MAGAZINE (Dec. 17, 1945) (referring to Sugar Hills as being in the West Adams area of Los Angeles). As such, there was no direct link between the lawsuit and Greenacres (which was in Beverly Hills), Harold Lloyd, or any neighborhood improvement association in Beverly Hills;
2. The “federal judge” handling the case was, at the time, only a state Superior Court judge for Los Angeles County (Judge Thurmond Clarke did not receive his commission as a federal judge until his appointment to the United States District Court for the Southern District of California in the 1950’s). See Victory on Sugar Hill, TIME MAGAZINE (Dec. 17, 1945) (noting that Thurmond Clarke was a Superior Court judge, not federal judge);
3. There was no West Adams Improvement Association or any other kind of homeowners association in the lawsuit;
4. The eight plaintiffs in the lawsuit were merely local citizens not officially representing any community; and
5. The case was decided in 1945, not 1940. See Victory on Sugar Hill, TIME MAGAZINE (Dec. 17, 1945) (reporting that the decision occurred in late 1945, not 1944).

This lack of rigor and precision in the page authors’ investigations and research highlights the unreliable nature of the claims contained therein.

While both Los Angeles and the United States have provided unparalleled opportunities to individuals of all races, there is no doubt that the city and our country, as a whole, share a tragic history of bigotry and racism as well. The legacy of racially restrictive covenants continues to haunt us to this very day, as, among other things, it has directly contributed to the vast disparities of wealth that still exist between white and African-American families. But there is no evidence that Harold Lloyd led efforts to prop up the use of racially restrictive covenants or even supported them at any time.

Indeed, everything the historical record contains about Harold Lloyd’s life otherwise suggests that such covenants would be contradictory to his personal values and the way he chose to live. For example, as Wikipedia’s Harold Lloyd page acknowledges, Harold Lloyd was an active and honored Freemason and Shriner. As a Freemason, he earned the Rank and Decoration of Knight Commander Court of Honor in 1955 and was coroneted an Inspector General Honorary, 33°. As a Shriner, he was selected as the Imperial Potentate of the Shriner’s of North America in 1949-50. Non-discrimination and color blindness are core, essential values of both the Freemason and Shriner organizations, and have been so, long before such causes were popular or even widely accepted. As Harold Lloyd himself said in a 1949 radio interview regarding his involvement with the Shriner’s:

The Shriners have these marvelous hospitals, all over North America, that do nothing but cure little crippled children, and that's without regard to race, creed, or color. You can go into one of their hospital wards and see little colored children, little white children, all there just the same, there's no discriminating at all, and it's 100% charitable, and the Shrine does not seek aid outside. It's all done by the Shrine and of course that's one of the things they look with great pride upon. It's marvelous work..

Not only would support for racially restrictive covenants be inconsistent with Mr. Lloyd’s lifelong values, but it is also critical to note that there are no other sources that independently verify these incendiary Allegations against Mr. Lloyd. And, in fact, the individuals who know the most about Harold Lloyd’s personal history, life, values and belief strongly deny the Allegations’ veracity. Specifically, declarations sworn under penalty of perjury from Suzanne Lloyd, Annette Lloyd (unrelated to Mr. Lloyd), and Richard Simonton explain their relationship with and to Mr. Lloyd, the basis of their expertise and personal knowledge about Mr. Lloyd and their unequivocal certainty that Mr. Lloyd was never supportive of restrictive covenants and, in fact, found them morally repugnant and inconsistent with his values. Among other things:

2. Suzanne Lloyd, Mr. Lloyd’s granddaughter, was actually raised by Mr. Lloyd and his wife and, as a result, lived with him for over twenty years and she notes that “she never once heard Harold make a single derogatory remark about anyone based on their race, creed, or religion and I never witnessed him, or had knowledge of him, ever exhibiting any prejudice on the basis of race, color, creed or religion,” and states that the allegations of racism are “utterly inconsistent everything I know about the man that raised me,”;
3. Annette Lloyd, a noted historian and expert on the silent-era and the life and work of Harold Lloyd, declares that, “In the 40-plus year that I have studied, the allegation of racism published in the Chicago Defender in July of 1945 is the only instance I have ever encountered in which HL was mentioned in this light or accused of any sort of intolerance or prejudice,” and that, in light of what she knows about him and his life, the allegations of racism in the Article “are wildly implausible and, also, wholly unsupported by, and inconsistent with, the historical record, Lloyd’s personal values, and the manner in which he conducted his life,” as evidenced by, among other things, his political and charitable affiliations, and his work, where he regularly hired African-Americans during an era otherwise characterized by segregation and bigotry;
4. Richard Simonton, one of the Mr. Lloyd’s last surviving friends, swears, under penalty of perjury, that through his many decades spent with Mr. Lloyd, he “can say with confidence and certainty that I never witnessed him indicate or express any kind of prejudice--never an unkind word about anyone,” and that, among other things, Mr. Lloyd’s extensive involvement with, and commitment to, the Shiners (and their core beliefs kindness, tolerance, and colorblindness) would make any support of racially restrictive covenants utterly inconsistent with his charitable work and the values he embraced through his life.

Finally, the Beverly Hills Historical Society recently unearthed archival video of Harold Lloyd joyously visiting a sick African-American child and embracing him and putting his iconic spectacles on him. The child’s face lights up and the warmth in this interaction is clear to any observer. The video is utterly inconsistent with any view that Mr. Lloyd harbored any prejudice, let alone any virulent racist sentiments. We encourage you to watch the video, which you can download.

All told, therefore, the allegations that tie Mr. Lloyd to support for restrictive covenants, which are published as fact on Wikipedia’s Harold Lloyd Estate page, ultimately all derive from a single 70-word Article that repeated unsourced tabloid gossip without verification or quotation. The same Article acknowledged that the very position supposedly attributed to Mr. Lloyd through the Chamber of Commerce had been disputed contemporaneously by the Chamber of Commerce itself.

As such, we are kindly requesting your action to correct and remove the Allegations from Mr. Lloyd’s page once and for all in order to serve the interests of accuracy and reliability that Wikipedia has always sought to uphold and to mitigate the tremendous damages that are being done to Mr. Lloyd’s legacy.

We appreciate your consideration of our request, which we do not make lightly, and we look forward to hearing back from you shortly. We’re also happy to provide additional details and documents if that might be helpful.

HLE1893 —Preceding undated comment added 23:43, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

Response to HLE1893

@HLE1893: Please see Talk:Harold Lloyd#Response to HLE1893. Cbl62 (talk) 10:14, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

@HLE1893: So did Harold Lloyd ever disavow the letter sent by the chamber of commerce that he was president of? Could you please cite a source for this disavowal? 157.52.6.39 (talk) 03:11, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

This has made me proud

I came across this story on Wikipediocracy. Who would have thought that the edits I made with legitimate sources on on 9 January 2016 would piss off the estate of a long dead and forgotten silent film star? This is fucking awesome. 81.141.32.130 (talk) 21:17, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

References