Volume III: Biographies

HEMBROW, Harry

Studio employee (1915-1916)

Thanhouser Career Synopsis: Harry Hembrow was a "property man" with the Thanhouser studio in Jacksonville, Florida in 1916.

Biographical Notes: Harry Hembrow was one of a group of technicians who formerly worked with the Kalem studio in Jacksonville and who were at liberty in the autumn of 1915, when William McNulty, also formerly of Kalem, talked with Edwin Thanhouser and negotiated an arrangement whereby the former Kalemites would work for the Thanhouser studio in Jacksonville. The initial group of Thanhouser players arrived from New Rochelle on December 20, 1915, and by January 1916 production was in full swing at the new Jacksonville facility, at which time the former Kalem employees were at work.

The Florida Metropolis, February 10, 1916, printed this item: "We were calmly sitting in George Grimmer's private office the other day in the Thanhouser plant, when in rushed a very excited gentleman and yelled to Harry Hembrow to get him a rush order of worms. Out rushed Harry for his rush order of worms, and also out rushed we. Our family never was in favor of worms and we didn't know just how far that rush order would go."

On the next day the same newspaper said more: "Harry Hembrow, the prop man of the Thanhouser Company, has just received an order from his director for 'some' ostriches, which will be used in a coming picture. We haven't found out who is going to bestride these hefty birds, but wouldn't Riley Chamberlin or Fatty Hiers look wonderful, doing a marathon on the shell road, lovingly caressing the neck of an ostrich?"

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