Langdon was 12 years old when he ran away to join the circus. Soon he was involved in medicine shows, circuses and Vaudeville where he spent the next 20 years developing an act called "Harry`s New Car". With Vaudeville, he would play and perfect the act in town after tank town, year after year. By 1923, Langdon had been picked up by Mack Sennett and Sennett gave Langdon to the writers to develop something from his character.
Luckily for everyone involved, director Harry Edwards and the writers Frank Capra and Arthur Ripley were able to create the perfect story lines for the pantomime of the baby faced 40 year old comic. His film style of comedy would consist of indecision and helplessness, and the two reel films that he made would make him a star.
One of his best performances was as the henpecked husband who comes back after a spree with a buddy and hopes to tell his wife off in Saturday Afternoon (1926). In 1926, Harry left Sennett to form his own company, the Harry Langdon Corporation, which had a six picture deal with First National.
Harry took Edwards, Capra, and Ripley with him to his new company and the first picture made was _Tramp, Tramp, Tramp (1926/I)_ which became a big hit. The girl in the picture was named Joan Crawford and Harry would be walking across the country to win her hand. The next two films The Strong Man (1926) and Long Pants (1927) were directed by Capra. With 3 big successful films, and an ego to match, Langdon fired Capra and put himself into the director`s chair.
The problem was that Langdon was as naive as his character about what made his character popular and how to film it. His next three films were disasters as to plot, character and editing and were, worst of all, not funny. With the end of his six film commitment came the end of his popularity and Langdon was soon bankrupt.
In 1929, he would sign with Hal Roach to stage a comeback in sound, but after 8 unremarkable shorts, he would be fired. In 1932, he was making cheap two reelers which were no where near the quality that he made under Capra. In 1934, at age 50, langdon would sign with Columbia where he would stay for the next 10 years. At Columbia, he would work in shorts, most of which were rehashes of his earlier films.
He would also work once more at the Hal Roach Studio where he became a writer for the comedy team of Laurel and Hardy. By this time, he was a much nicer person as the setbacks has deflated his ego years before. Attempts to team Langdon with other performers such as Charley Rogers were tried and then dropped. If anything, he was finding his place as a character actor in a number of Columbia shorts and Monogram features.
The small sad man with the white baby face and the jacket that was too small would die from a cerebral hemorrhage in 1944 as a shadow of what might have been. Langdon had been married four times.