The man dangling from the clock face in 1923's Safety Last was missing the thumb and index finger of his right hand, gripping with three fingers and a prosthetic glove that fooled audiences completely. This episode tells the story of Harold Lloyd, born in Nebraska in 1893 to a father of failed business schemes, who sneaked onto the Universal lot by blending into a crowd of extras in full makeup, teamed up with Hal Roach, and made money as the Chaplin imitator Lonesome Luke before risking it all on a new everyman character defined by a pair of lensless horn-rimmed glasses.

The conversation covers the 1919 photo shoot in which a supposed prop bomb exploded in his hand, the prosthetics, forearm strength and stunt double Harvey Parry that made his 1920s masterpieces possible, and how the Great Depression made his optimistic go-getter feel out o ...