Max Asher on AllMovie

Early film's top representative of vaudeville's famous "Dutch" comedy style -- a misnomer since the rube characters with their florid mustaches and crepe hair actually originated in Germany and not Holland -- curly haired Max Asher had perfected the role in various West Coast stock companies before entering films in 1912 with producer Pat Powers who, at that stage, was part of the newly established Universal combine. As the star of the company's line of "Joker" comedies, Asher's Mike was teamed with Harry McCoy's Jake in a series of popular low-budget situation comedies in which his eccentric attire of polka-dot shirts, striped vests, and an abbreviated bowler never failed to garner laughs. When in 1913 McCoy left the unit in favor of Mack Sennett's Keystone company, Asher soldiered on with a new partner, Bobby Vernon, but their comedies failed to catch on with audiences and the team of Mike and Jake vanished from the screen. Asher was briefly teamed with spinsterish comedienne Gale Henry but left Universal when offered a better offer from independent producer Fred J. Balshofer and he later returned to Powers to co-star in a well-received parody of blood-and-thunder serials, Lady Baffles and Detective Duck (1915). Universal came calling once again but by then Asher's style already belonged in the past and his days as a lead comic were all but over. By the 1920s, he was playing comic bit roles and augmenting his income as a makeup man. He later operated a magic store in Ocean Park, CA, and did charitable work.