I know, I know. One of those nagging questions that keeps you awake at night, makes it impossible for you to have a steady relationship with the opposite sex, makes holding down a job near impossible: "What ever happened to
HEINIE & LOUIE?"
In 1915, Jimmy Aubrey as
Heinie and Walter
Kendig as Louie made about 59 Starlight Comedies for the
Mittenthal Company. Released through the
Pathe Exchange the company used studios located in Yonkers, New York. These comedies were Jimmy Aubrey's first film work having come out of the English Music Halls (with Fred
Karno's troupe, no less). Walter
Kendig did some film work in 1914 primarily in support of Bobby Burns and Walter
Stull in some of their first Pokes & Jabs comedies. By all accounts these
Heinie & Louie comedies were popular and only tragedy ended the series.
Looking through THE NEW YORK CLIPPER I came across the following article in the October 30, 1915 issue:
Walter
Kendig passed away at the age of 25 and it truly was "a sad and abrupt termination of a promising career." It also pretty much brought an end to the
Mittenthal Company. The company only made a few comedies other than the
Heinie & Louie shorts and once the backlog of finished Aubrey &
Kendig product was released the company seems to have disappeared. One of the non-
Heinie & Louie shorts that
Mittenthal produced featured Babe Hardy in
FATTY's FATAL FUN, ironically released on October 23 right around the same time as
Kendig's accident.
Jimmy Aubrey would soon find work over at
Vitagraph working in support of Hughie Mack and Larry
Semon. Eventually Aubrey would get his own series at
Vitagraph. So now go bed, go out on a date (not necessarily in that order), and check the want ads.... your nagging question has been answered.