Ben Turpin was born in New Orleans in 1869. His family resided in the French Quarter and his father, Ernest, operated a successful confectionary business. When Turpin was still very young, his family moved to New York’s Lower East Side. There, he joined a group and learned acrobatics at what was then known as the German Turn Hall, a gym and public event space. Ernest opened another candy shop and Turpin would help pull taffy after school. However, by the time he was 14, the candy shop was struggling, and Turpin worked several jobs throughout his teen years to assist his family. He was employed at different times as a shipping clerk for a trunk manufacturer, a cashier at a dry goods store, and a bellhop at the Hotel St. George, among many other positions. When he was 17, his father gave him some money to leave home and establish himself, and he ended up in Chicago. By his own account, Turpin spent the next several years living an itinerant lifestyle, travelling the country by freight train and living off handouts. He eventually settled in Cincinnati, and while working as a dishwasher became known locally for his sense of humor. He decided to try his hand at performing and joined a traveling medicine show as a comedian.
The medicine show led to work in vaudeville, and by the turn of the century Turpin was earning a living touring the country with various acts, often drawing on the acrobatics he had learned as a child. He soon gained popularity performing his take on the Happy Hooligan comic strip character created by Frederick Burr Opper in 1900. The character was a good-natured tramp with crossed eyes, and it was later reported that Turpin’s own trademark cross-eyed look was the result of having played the character so often that his eyes remained crossed. Despite his growing fame, his work in vaudeville did not provide a steady income, and he often worked various jobs in between shows to survive. By 1907 he had settled in Chicago with his new wife, stage actress Carrie LeMieux, and he was determined to provide a more stable life for her. When an offer came to perform in films for the newly formed Essanay Film Manufacturing Company, he jumped at the opportunity, as it not only offered better pay than his stage work, but he would no longer have to leave his wife to perform on tour. Initially he appeared in small comic parts and assisted with props, set construction, and janitorial duties at the studio. In the evenings, he continued to perform on stage with variety acts throughout Chicago.

Turpin appeared in numerous Essanay shorts for the next couple of years, but abruptly left the studio in 1909 after being refused a raise. He returned to the vaudeville circuit again for a time, then made a couple of films with Independent Motion Pictures Company. By 1913 he was back under contract at Essanay, supporting Wallace Beery in several of the films in the ‘Sweedie’ series. When Charlie Chaplin signed with Essanay, he selected Turpin to appear in his film HIS NEW JOB (1915). Chaplin then convinced Turpin to move out to California for his next film, A NIGHT OUT (1915), and Turpin signed a new contract with Essanay to work at their studio in Niles Canyon, California. He appeared in a number of Gilbert M. Anderson’s “Broncho Billy” shorts and several films in the “Snakeville” comedy series before the studio closed its film facilities in Niles in 1916. He then signed with Vogue Motion Picture Company and made over thirty comedy shorts for the company before joining Mack Sennett Comedies in 1917. Turpin experienced his greatest success working with Sennett. He acted in dozens of shorts for the studio, often opposite Heinie Conklin. Beginning with MARRIED LIFE (1920), he played the character Rodney St. Clair in several Sennett comedy shorts, with the only consistency in the character’s appearances being that the comedy often derived from Turpin playing against type as a baron or a knight. Turpin retired just as film was transitioning to sound, though he continued to make appearances in films throughout the 1930s, most notably in MILLION DOLLAR LEGS (1932) and HOLLYWOOD CAVALCADE (1939). His final film was Laurel and Hardy’s SAPS AT SEA (1940). Turpin died in 1940.