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starring Sunny McKeen...
The world has forgotten one child movie star...
This page will attempt to reintroduce the world
to a once huge Hollywood child star!!!
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During the latter part of the 1920's and the early 1930's Stern Bros. Comedies and Universal Pictures put out, what was called at that time, movie shorts.
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'The Newlyweds & Their Baby' was one of these movie shorts. This particular movie short, unfortunately, didn't make it into the Hollywood history books.
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Baby Snookums was such a phenomenal success that his name became synonymous with any other character from the 'Little Rascals' or for that matter even Charlie Chaplin! |
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Baby Snookums 'Sunny McKeen was, at that time, typically an average American house hold name, second to none... |
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Although 'The Newlyweds & Their Baby' didn't make it into the Hollywood history books, its certainly not to say that this child star didn't move the entertainment industry, at that time! No, just the contrary, Sunny McKeen was one of Hollywood's biggest stars and definitely everyone's favorite celebrity! Baby Snookums, during this time, was extremely popular |  |
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Sunny was everyone's delight, "He is one of the easiest child stars to work with...", remarked Hal Roach, however Hal Roach was not his director... It would seem that he would have a very bright future as did other child stars, such as, Jackie Coogan and Robert Blake... |
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Sunny had a candy bar named after his character and with his picture on it! He definitely lived the high life and he was richly paid for it, too. Sunny McKeen was paid the very high price of one hundred dollars for a days work, which at that time was a kings ransom!!! |  |
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Although it may appear that Sunny McKeen's life was very prestigious it certainly didn't come without its physical and emotional price. Sunny needed to take time off from the lime light and just be a normal kid, if he didn't his glamorous life would have been way too much for such a young child to endure. Sunny was fortunate enough to enjoy spending time with his family during his time off and just be a kid... But when he was on the set he was a pleasure to be around. Sunny had a tremendous amount of energy, especially for such a young actor. He never complained about all of the exhaustive hours spent taking directions from his director and working under the extremely hot stage lights! He was a natural born actor. |
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Sunny actually enjoyed all of the publicity and traveling. Universal really felt they had the biggest child star of the time, even over Shirley Temple! Now the perplexing question... Why did time forget this young super star of the silent movie era??? |  |
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Why did most of Hal Roach's movie shorts make the grade, to pass the test of time and 'The Newlyweds and Their Baby' didn't? Well, it certainly wasn't because Sunny's movie shorts weren't entertaining enough, no, the reason for this is because the film of those times was very delicate and if it wasn't contained in an air tight containment then the material film was made of would decompose and turn to dust, which was the fate of Sunny McKeen's films. Hal Roach's films were maintained in Universal's air tight vaults and periodically update with fresh new film, whereas 'The Newlyweds & Their Baby' was not updated appropriately, this was the fate of many great films. So it would appear that all of 'The Newlyweds & Their Baby' movie shorts were destroyed by time, nothing left to be enjoyed today, that is with the exception of... |  |
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or simply have any comments please refer them to
one of Sunny's biggest fans, his nephew, Cody Simmons...
Please e-mail me with your thoughts...
If you'd like to read something rather interesting then please read about my wife Jeraldine's Grandfather, Chief Frank TeMoke of the Western Shoshone Indians of Northeastern Nevada...
Also, you may be interested in viewing Jeraldine's and my fun day at the Renaissance Pleasure Faire...
