I was reading a a copy of "Hollywood" by Garson Kanin, fished  from one of the piles of books with which my house is decorated when I came across a section about Marshall Nielan in a chapter devoted to "The Great Profile", John Barrymore.

I don't believe I'd ever heard the Nielan's name before, but was intrigued as Kanin described Nielan's Bits of Life as the funniest film he'd ever seen.  So it was quick to IMDB with this depressing result: