100 Iconic Silent Era and Golden Age Hollywood Child Actors
List of child actors from silent era and sound-speaking Golden Age.
--Extra Long Profile -=Dead
*ButchPatrick
-*AnthonySydes
*ArthurFox
-*ArthurCarrington
*AlfredCaiazza
*AlfredNunez
-*AlanRoberts
*AlbertRay
*AllenMartinJr
-*ArthurStone
-*BillyEHughes
-*BillClauson
*BillMumy--
-*BillyDawson
-*BradMorrow
-*BillyLechner
-*BillySheffield
-*BillyLenhart
-*BillyLee
-*BillyBooth
-*BillyCummings
-*BillyKimbley
*BillySmith
*BillyBester
*BillyWard
*BillyGray--
*BGNorman
-*BlayneyLewis
*BootsBrown
*BobbyDolanJr
-*BobbyDiamond
-*BrandonDeWilde
-*BobbyLarson
-*BuzBuckley
*BobbyCooper
*BobbyCallahan
*BobStebbins
-*BobbyWalberg
-*BobbyBeakman
-*BobbyDriscoll
-*BobbyBuntrock
*BobbyClark--
-*BarryDowning
-*BuddySwan
-*BarryCurtis
*ButchHengen
*BarryGordon
-*BillyChapin
*CraigHuxley
-*CharlesHerbert
-*CharlesPeck
*CaseyJohnson
*ClaudeJarmanJr--
*CullenJohnson
*ConradBinyon
-*ChuckStubbs
*CharlesBates
*CurtisLoysJacksonJr
*ChristopherSevern
*ChristopherOlsen--
--*DannyMummert
*DannyBravo
-*DeePollock
*DrewRoddy
*DickieJones
*DixDavis
*DonaldGordon
*DickieLove
*DickieDillon
*DavidJames
-*DennisChaldecott
*DennisRoss
*DennisHolmes--
*DonnieKerr
*DavidStollery
*DonPhillips
*DonaldDewar
*DonaldBrown
*DonaldDavis
*DonaldOlson
*DaleHartleben
-*DaleBelding
*DuncanRichardson
*DonaldLosby--
-*DonaldMacDonald
-*EarlRobie
*EddieHodges--
-*EddieNichols
*EricShea
*EricRoberts
-*EdwinBrian
*ElvinField
*EddieEhrhart
*EugeneMazzola
-*EugenePersson
-*ErnestSevern
-*ErikNielsen
-*FrankBank
-*FrankWard
-*FrankMazzola
*FrankWorthington
*FlipMark
*FernandoAlvarado
-*FredWalburn
-*FreddieChapman
-*FreddieMercer
-*GordonThorpe
-*GeorgieNokes
-*GeorgeMcDonald
-*GaryArmstrong
*George&MichaelEconomides
*GeorgeArglen
*GeraldMackey
*GordonGebert
-*GregoryMarshall
*GregoryMoffett--
-*GaryGray
*GilbertBarnett
*GeneCollins
-*GeneHolland
*GaryStewart
-*GaryPagett
*GaryJackson
*GaryHunley
*GeraldCourtemarche
*HarveyGrant
*HarryMcKim
-*HarryHarveyJr
*HughCorcoran--
-*HenryBlair
*HughMaguire
*HankTobias
*JeffreyByron
-*JohnnyWalsh
*JonProvost--
*JoeyDVieira
-*JoeConti
-*JoelDavis
*JamesWest
*JimmyBaird
*JimmyClemonsJr.
*JimmyMoss
-*JimmyLagano
*JimmyBates
*JimmyCrane
-*JimmyKarath
-*JimmyZahner
*JimmyHunt--
-*JerryMickelsen
*JayNorth--
*JayGilpin
*JackieBrown
*James&JerryMathers--
-*JohnTreul
*JohnnyRussell
*JohnnyWashbrook
*JohnnyJensen
-*JohnnyCalkins
*-Johnny&RobertCrawfordJr.--
*JohnnyWhitaker--
-*JackEgger
*JackieJackson
*JerryMullins
*JerryHunter
**KurtRussell
-*KennethBrown
*KenOsmond--
-*KevinCoughlin
-*KevinTate
*KimCharney
-*KevinCorcoran
-*KellyCorcoran
*LarryMathews
-*LarryOlsen
--*LarrySimms
-*LarryHarris
*LarryLathrop
-*LannyRees
*LouisTowers
*LouisLettieri
*LonnieThomas
*LeonardLawrence
*LeonTyler
*LeslieBennett
*LeeErickson
-*LeeAaker
*MerrillRodin
*MickeyMaga
-*MickeyLittle
-*MickeyRentschler
*MichaelBurns
-*MichaelWinkelman
-*MarvinDavis
-*MarkDennis
-*MichaelMiller
*MichaelShea
*MichaelChapin
*MichaelMcGreevey
*MikeRyan
*MyronTobias
*MichelPetit
*NicolasKoster
-*NormanOllestad
*OrleyLindgren--
*PhilipBrown
*PeterRoman
*PeterJVotrian
*PeterCaldwell
*PeterPrice
*PeterBGood
*PatMitchell
*PayneBJohnson
*PaulDunn
*PaulPetersen--
-*PeterMiles
-*PaulDeRolf
*PaulHilton
*PatrickGriffin
*PatrickMiller
*PatCardi
-*RayFerrell
-*RaymondSevern
-*RobertWinkler
-*RobertJAnderson
-*RobertWinans
-*RobertEllis
-*RobertHyatt
-*RobertEyer
-*RalphGilliam
*ReneAustin
*RonnieRondellJr
*RustyStevens
-*RudyWissler
*RudyLee
*RexThompson
*RoddyMcCaskill
*RogerMobley
*RichardEyer
*RickyKelman
*RichardHall
*RichardTyler
*RichardKeith
-*RichardLyon
*RichardNichols
*Ron&ClintHoward --
-*RobertHyatt
*RobinWarga
*RonnieDapo
-*RustyHamer
-*SammyMcKim
*ScottyMorrow
-*StephenWootton
*StephenTalbot
-*StanleyFafara
-*StanleyClements
*StanleyLivingston
*StevenPerry
*StevenBenson
*StuffySinger
*SkipTorgerson
*SonnyBoyWilliams
*ScottLane
-*SchuylerStandish
-*ShelbyBacon
*StefanArngrim
*TedQuinn
*TedCrane
--*TedDonaldson
-*TeddyInfuhr
*TeddyDriver
-*TeddyRooney
*TerryRangno
-*TimConsidine--
-*TommyRettig
-*TommyConlon
-*TommyBond
-*TommyBaker
-*TimDavis
*TimMatheson
-*TimHovey
*TimmyHawkins
*TommyCook
*TommyIvo
-*TomBraunger
*TomBrannigan
*TomBrown
*TomNolan
-*TommyKirk
-*ThomasMenzies
*TonyTaylor
-*TonyDow--
-*VincentGraeff
*WhiteyHaupt
*WesleyMorgan
*WinstonSevern
-*WilliamSevern
-*Warren&WayneFarlow
-*WilliamRoy
*WalterPeeWeeFlannery
*AnnJillian
*AnnLace
-*AnnCarter
-*AntoniaOland
AngelaCartwright--
*AndreaLee
*ArleneGray
*BeverlyWashburn--
-*BeckyBohanon
*BetsyRobinson
*BrendaHenderson
*BabyQuintanilla
-*BeverlySimmons
-*BeverlyHudson
*BeverlyMook
*BonnieKayEddy--
-*BonnieGayeCowen
*BarbaraBeaird
-*BettyJaneGraham
-*BarbaraWhiting
*BetsyHale
-*CherylHoldridge
*CherylCallaway
*CarolAnneSeflinger
*CarolNicholson
*CarolCoombs
*CarolAnnBeekly
*CarolLeeds
-*CarlottaJelm
-*CarolynLee
*CindyCarol
*CharleneWyatt
*ConnieLaird
*Carol&JudyNugent--
-*ConnieMarshall
-*ClareSandars
-*ClareFoley
*ClaireWilcox
-CarolLynley
*DanaDillaway
*DenaPenn
*DianeMountford
*DianeFlorentine
*DianneRamey
*DianeNance
*DonnaCooke
*DonnaLeary
*DeborahSydes
*DebbieMegowan
*DebiStorm
*DorothyHack
*DorothyMcCann--
-*DorothyAnnSeese
*EvePlumb
*ErinMurphy
*EileenBaral
*EileneJanssen--
*EleanorTaylor
-*EvelynDelRio
*EleanorBassett
*ElanaSchreiner
*EileenChesis
-*EvelynMills
*EvelynFalke
*EvelynRudie
*EdnaMayWonacott
ElinorDonahue--
*FrancesKarath
*FrancescaSantoro
*FayChaldecott
*GayleReed
*GloriaPetroff
*GloriaMoore
*Gigi&JaninePerreau--
*GinaGillespie
-*HelenParrish
HayleyMills--
*IrisMann
*IsaAshdown
*JuliaBenjamin
-*JackieHorner
*JerrilynFlannery
*JeriWell
*JeanneBrowning
*JuneHedin
*JanetChapman
-*JanetAnnGallow==
*JeannieRussell--
*JeanVanderwilt
-*JoanneTree
-*JoAnnMarlowe==
*JoanFreeman
*JoyceTucker
-*JennyHecht
*JudithFord
*KimDarby
*KarenGreen
*KarenKester
*KymKarath
*LydiaReed
*LindaBennett
*LoraLeeMichel
*LisaGerritsen
*LaurenChapin--
*MarjorieAnnMutchie
*MargaretBrown
*MelindaCasey
*MimiGibson--
*MaryJaneSaunders--
*MorganBrittany
-*MarilynHarris==
*-MarleneMains
*MarjeanNeville
*MaryAnnBricker
*MaryThomas
*MaryJaneHodge
*MaryBadham--
*NadineAshdown
-*NancyJuneRobinson
*NormaGeneNelson
*NancyAbbate
*NonaGriffith
*Noreen&DonnaCorcoran--
-*PattyAnnGerrity
*PattiHale
*PattyMcCormack--
-*PatsyO'Connor
-*PatsyParsons
*PatsyNash
*PatsyWeil
*PeggyMcIntyre
*PeggyMiller
*PamelynFerdin
-*PriscillaLyon
*PatriciaBarker
*PatriciaMorrow
*PatriciaPrest
*PatsyPatterson
*PattiBrady
-*RuthieRobinson
*RobertaShore
-*RuthTobey
*RoyceMilne
*RaeCollett
*RebaWaters
*SusanOlsen
-*SusanGordon
*ShelleyFabares--
*SandyDescher--
*SherryJackson--
-*ShirleyMills
*SallySmith
*SallyMartin
-*StephanieFoster
*SharonMcManus
*SharylLocke
-*ShirleyJeanRickert
*ShirleyJeanBarton
*SharynMoffett--
*SusanLevine
*SusanHallaran
-*SueEngland
*ShariLeeBernath
-*SheilaSheldon
SheilaJamesKuehl
*TammyMarihugh
*TracyStratford
-*TerryBurnham
*TinyFracone
*TerryAnnRoss
*TinaThompson
*VictoriaPaigeMeyerink--
*VeronicaCartwright--
*VickiCos
-*YvetteDuguay
*WinifredGlyn
--Extra Long Profile -=Dead
*ButchPatrick
-*AnthonySydes
*ArthurFox
-*ArthurCarrington
*AlfredCaiazza
*AlfredNunez
-*AlanRoberts
*AlbertRay
*AllenMartinJr
-*ArthurStone
-*BillyEHughes
-*BillClauson
*BillMumy--
-*BillyDawson
-*BradMorrow
-*BillyLechner
-*BillySheffield
-*BillyLenhart
-*BillyLee
-*BillyBooth
-*BillyCummings
-*BillyKimbley
*BillySmith
*BillyBester
*BillyWard
*BillyGray--
*BGNorman
-*BlayneyLewis
*BootsBrown
*BobbyDolanJr
-*BobbyDiamond
-*BrandonDeWilde
-*BobbyLarson
-*BuzBuckley
*BobbyCooper
*BobbyCallahan
*BobStebbins
-*BobbyWalberg
-*BobbyBeakman
-*BobbyDriscoll
-*BobbyBuntrock
*BobbyClark--
-*BarryDowning
-*BuddySwan
-*BarryCurtis
*ButchHengen
*BarryGordon
-*BillyChapin
*CraigHuxley
-*CharlesHerbert
-*CharlesPeck
*CaseyJohnson
*ClaudeJarmanJr--
*CullenJohnson
*ConradBinyon
-*ChuckStubbs
*CharlesBates
*CurtisLoysJacksonJr
*ChristopherSevern
*ChristopherOlsen--
--*DannyMummert
*DannyBravo
-*DeePollock
*DrewRoddy
*DickieJones
*DixDavis
*DonaldGordon
*DickieLove
*DickieDillon
*DavidJames
-*DennisChaldecott
*DennisRoss
*DennisHolmes--
*DonnieKerr
*DavidStollery
*DonPhillips
*DonaldDewar
*DonaldBrown
*DonaldDavis
*DonaldOlson
*DaleHartleben
-*DaleBelding
*DuncanRichardson
*DonaldLosby--
-*DonaldMacDonald
-*EarlRobie
*EddieHodges--
-*EddieNichols
*EricShea
*EricRoberts
-*EdwinBrian
*ElvinField
*EddieEhrhart
*EugeneMazzola
-*EugenePersson
-*ErnestSevern
-*ErikNielsen
-*FrankBank
-*FrankWard
-*FrankMazzola
*FrankWorthington
*FlipMark
*FernandoAlvarado
-*FredWalburn
-*FreddieChapman
-*FreddieMercer
-*GordonThorpe
-*GeorgieNokes
-*GeorgeMcDonald
-*GaryArmstrong
*George&MichaelEconomides
*GeorgeArglen
*GeraldMackey
*GordonGebert
-*GregoryMarshall
*GregoryMoffett--
-*GaryGray
*GilbertBarnett
*GeneCollins
-*GeneHolland
*GaryStewart
-*GaryPagett
*GaryJackson
*GaryHunley
*GeraldCourtemarche
*HarveyGrant
*HarryMcKim
-*HarryHarveyJr
*HughCorcoran--
-*HenryBlair
*HughMaguire
*HankTobias
*JeffreyByron
-*JohnnyWalsh
*JonProvost--
*JoeyDVieira
-*JoeConti
-*JoelDavis
*JamesWest
*JimmyBaird
*JimmyClemonsJr.
*JimmyMoss
-*JimmyLagano
*JimmyBates
*JimmyCrane
-*JimmyKarath
-*JimmyZahner
*JimmyHunt--
-*JerryMickelsen
*JayNorth--
*JayGilpin
*JackieBrown
*James&JerryMathers--
-*JohnTreul
*JohnnyRussell
*JohnnyWashbrook
*JohnnyJensen
-*JohnnyCalkins
*-Johnny&RobertCrawfordJr.--
*JohnnyWhitaker--
-*JackEgger
*JackieJackson
*JerryMullins
*JerryHunter
**KurtRussell
-*KennethBrown
*KenOsmond--
-*KevinCoughlin
-*KevinTate
*KimCharney
-*KevinCorcoran
-*KellyCorcoran
*LarryMathews
-*LarryOlsen
--*LarrySimms
-*LarryHarris
*LarryLathrop
-*LannyRees
*LouisTowers
*LouisLettieri
*LonnieThomas
*LeonardLawrence
*LeonTyler
*LeslieBennett
*LeeErickson
-*LeeAaker
*MerrillRodin
*MickeyMaga
-*MickeyLittle
-*MickeyRentschler
*MichaelBurns
-*MichaelWinkelman
-*MarvinDavis
-*MarkDennis
-*MichaelMiller
*MichaelShea
*MichaelChapin
*MichaelMcGreevey
*MikeRyan
*MyronTobias
*MichelPetit
*NicolasKoster
-*NormanOllestad
*OrleyLindgren--
*PhilipBrown
*PeterRoman
*PeterJVotrian
*PeterCaldwell
*PeterPrice
*PeterBGood
*PatMitchell
*PayneBJohnson
*PaulDunn
*PaulPetersen--
-*PeterMiles
-*PaulDeRolf
*PaulHilton
*PatrickGriffin
*PatrickMiller
*PatCardi
-*RayFerrell
-*RaymondSevern
-*RobertWinkler
-*RobertJAnderson
-*RobertWinans
-*RobertEllis
-*RobertHyatt
-*RobertEyer
-*RalphGilliam
*ReneAustin
*RonnieRondellJr
*RustyStevens
-*RudyWissler
*RudyLee
*RexThompson
*RoddyMcCaskill
*RogerMobley
*RichardEyer
*RickyKelman
*RichardHall
*RichardTyler
*RichardKeith
-*RichardLyon
*RichardNichols
*Ron&ClintHoward --
-*RobertHyatt
*RobinWarga
*RonnieDapo
-*RustyHamer
-*SammyMcKim
*ScottyMorrow
-*StephenWootton
*StephenTalbot
-*StanleyFafara
-*StanleyClements
*StanleyLivingston
*StevenPerry
*StevenBenson
*StuffySinger
*SkipTorgerson
*SonnyBoyWilliams
*ScottLane
-*SchuylerStandish
-*ShelbyBacon
*StefanArngrim
*TedQuinn
*TedCrane
--*TedDonaldson
-*TeddyInfuhr
*TeddyDriver
-*TeddyRooney
*TerryRangno
-*TimConsidine--
-*TommyRettig
-*TommyConlon
-*TommyBond
-*TommyBaker
-*TimDavis
*TimMatheson
-*TimHovey
*TimmyHawkins
*TommyCook
*TommyIvo
-*TomBraunger
*TomBrannigan
*TomBrown
*TomNolan
-*TommyKirk
-*ThomasMenzies
*TonyTaylor
-*TonyDow--
-*VincentGraeff
*WhiteyHaupt
*WesleyMorgan
*WinstonSevern
-*WilliamSevern
-*Warren&WayneFarlow
-*WilliamRoy
*WalterPeeWeeFlannery
*AnnJillian
*AnnLace
-*AnnCarter
-*AntoniaOland
AngelaCartwright--
*AndreaLee
*ArleneGray
*BeverlyWashburn--
-*BeckyBohanon
*BetsyRobinson
*BrendaHenderson
*BabyQuintanilla
-*BeverlySimmons
-*BeverlyHudson
*BeverlyMook
*BonnieKayEddy--
-*BonnieGayeCowen
*BarbaraBeaird
-*BettyJaneGraham
-*BarbaraWhiting
*BetsyHale
-*CherylHoldridge
*CherylCallaway
*CarolAnneSeflinger
*CarolNicholson
*CarolCoombs
*CarolAnnBeekly
*CarolLeeds
-*CarlottaJelm
-*CarolynLee
*CindyCarol
*CharleneWyatt
*ConnieLaird
*Carol&JudyNugent--
-*ConnieMarshall
-*ClareSandars
-*ClareFoley
*ClaireWilcox
-CarolLynley
*DanaDillaway
*DenaPenn
*DianeMountford
*DianeFlorentine
*DianneRamey
*DianeNance
*DonnaCooke
*DonnaLeary
*DeborahSydes
*DebbieMegowan
*DebiStorm
*DorothyHack
*DorothyMcCann--
-*DorothyAnnSeese
*EvePlumb
*ErinMurphy
*EileenBaral
*EileneJanssen--
*EleanorTaylor
-*EvelynDelRio
*EleanorBassett
*ElanaSchreiner
*EileenChesis
-*EvelynMills
*EvelynFalke
*EvelynRudie
*EdnaMayWonacott
ElinorDonahue--
*FrancesKarath
*FrancescaSantoro
*FayChaldecott
*GayleReed
*GloriaPetroff
*GloriaMoore
*Gigi&JaninePerreau--
*GinaGillespie
-*HelenParrish
HayleyMills--
*IrisMann
*IsaAshdown
*JuliaBenjamin
-*JackieHorner
*JerrilynFlannery
*JeriWell
*JeanneBrowning
*JuneHedin
*JanetChapman
-*JanetAnnGallow==
*JeannieRussell--
*JeanVanderwilt
-*JoanneTree
-*JoAnnMarlowe==
*JoanFreeman
*JoyceTucker
-*JennyHecht
*JudithFord
*KimDarby
*KarenGreen
*KarenKester
*KymKarath
*LydiaReed
*LindaBennett
*LoraLeeMichel
*LisaGerritsen
*LaurenChapin--
*MarjorieAnnMutchie
*MargaretBrown
*MelindaCasey
*MimiGibson--
*MaryJaneSaunders--
*MorganBrittany
-*MarilynHarris==
*-MarleneMains
*MarjeanNeville
*MaryAnnBricker
*MaryThomas
*MaryJaneHodge
*MaryBadham--
*NadineAshdown
-*NancyJuneRobinson
*NormaGeneNelson
*NancyAbbate
*NonaGriffith
*Noreen&DonnaCorcoran--
-*PattyAnnGerrity
*PattiHale
*PattyMcCormack--
-*PatsyO'Connor
-*PatsyParsons
*PatsyNash
*PatsyWeil
*PeggyMcIntyre
*PeggyMiller
*PamelynFerdin
-*PriscillaLyon
*PatriciaBarker
*PatriciaMorrow
*PatriciaPrest
*PatsyPatterson
*PattiBrady
-*RuthieRobinson
*RobertaShore
-*RuthTobey
*RoyceMilne
*RaeCollett
*RebaWaters
*SusanOlsen
-*SusanGordon
*ShelleyFabares--
*SandyDescher--
*SherryJackson--
-*ShirleyMills
*SallySmith
*SallyMartin
-*StephanieFoster
*SharonMcManus
*SharylLocke
-*ShirleyJeanRickert
*ShirleyJeanBarton
*SharynMoffett--
*SusanLevine
*SusanHallaran
-*SueEngland
*ShariLeeBernath
-*SheilaSheldon
SheilaJamesKuehl
*TammyMarihugh
*TracyStratford
-*TerryBurnham
*TinyFracone
*TerryAnnRoss
*TinaThompson
*VictoriaPaigeMeyerink--
*VeronicaCartwright--
*VickiCos
-*YvetteDuguay
*WinifredGlyn
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- Actress
- Writer
The daughter of an opera star turned actress, Gladys Hulette began her career as a three-year old on the stage. On Broadway from 1906, she played juvenile leads in "The Kreutzer Sonata" and "A Doll's House". She was also Tyltyl in "The Blue Bird". A genuine pioneer of the movies, Gladys first starred on screen in Carl Laemmle's one-reel IMP production of Hiawatha (1909). During the 1910's and 20's, she appeared variously in films with Edison, Biograph, Thanhouser, Vitagraph, Astra and First National. In 1917, she was voted most popular actress by students of New York University. In truth, Gladys was a true all-rounder, who took on just about anything from high drama to slapstick farce. She even starred as the titular heroine in the comedy Prudence, the Pirate (1916). In private life, Gladys was fond of flowers, a voracious reader of books, including classic literature and a painter in oils, whose works occasionally found their way into major exhibitions. Long after leaving the Hollywood scene, she found work as a ticket seller at Radio City Music Hall in New York City.- Ethel Grandin was born on 3 March 1894 in New York City, New York, USA. She was an actress, known for The Crimson Stain Mystery (1916), Garments of Truth (1921) and A Tailor-Made Man (1922). She was married to Ray C. Smallwood. She died on 28 September 1988 in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Her soft Irish beauty highlighted many films in the late 1920s and 1930s, but film actress Lois Moran's major claim to fame was as F. Scott Fitzgerald's inspiration for the character of "Rosemary" in his classic novel Tender Is the Night. Lois trained in dance while young and moved to Paris with her mother at the age of 10 to study seriously. She danced and sang for several years at the Paris National Opera and appeared in two silents. Hollywood came calling in 1925 and she quickly made an auspicious debut with the monumental tearjerker Stella Dallas (1925). Film offers came flying her way but none equaled her first movie. She appeared in a few early musical talkies such as Words and Music (1929), A Song of Kentucky (1929), and Mammy (1930) with Al Jolson, then took on Broadway in 1931 with lead singing roles in "Of Thee Is Sing" and its sequel "Let Them Eat Cake." Lois married Clarence M. Young, Assistant Secretary of Commerce, in 1935 and retired. She came back briefly as Preston Foster's co-star on the TV series Waterfront (1954) which ran for three seasons. In later years she settled in Sedona, Arizona with her husband (he died in 1972) where she ran a weekly local column for a time. She died of cancer in 1990 at age 81, never having missed the career she left over five decades before.
- A gentle-mannered, somewhat mournful-looking actress, brown-haired Helen Jerome Eddy enjoyed a substantial career in the silents, often in genteel, well-bred roles which required a certain amount of pathos. After acting on the stage at the Pasadena Playhouse, she began in films with the Lubin company in 1915, initially cast as vamps in juicy melodramas. Moving on to Paramount and better prospects, Eddy was given a starring role in King Vidor's debut full-length feature, The Turn in the Road (1919). Subsequently, she became George Beban's regular leading lady in several prestige films in the early 20's, in which her dignified personality now epitomised wholesome values. By the time the talkies arrived, Eddy had efficiently segued into character roles, henceforth as forlorn widows or careworn, long-suffering wives and mothers. She continued to show up in quality films like Skippy (1931) (as the sympathetic mother), Winterset (1936) (as the anarchist's wife) or Klondike Annie (1936) (as the ailing missionary Annie Alden).
Eddy left the movie business in the 1940's, following a dispute over salary. She managed to establish herself as a successful real estate agent in Pasadena, occasionally emerging from retirement to appear at the Pilgrimage Theatre in the Hollywood Hills. - Actress
- Soundtrack
Lovely Madge Evans was the perennial nice girl in films of the 1930s. By then, she had been in front of the camera for many years, starting with Fairy Soap commercials at the age of two (she sat on a bar of soap holding a bunch of violets with the tag line reading "have you a little fairy in your home?"). 'Baby Madge' also lent her name to a children's hat company. In 1914, aged five, she was picked out by talent scouts to appear in the William Farnum movie The Sign of the Cross (1914), followed by The Seven Sisters (1915) with Marguerite Clark.
By the end of the following year, she had amassed some twenty film credits, appearing with such noted contemporary stars as Pauline Frederick or Alice Brady. All of her early films were made on the East Coast, at studios in Ft.Lee, New Jersey. In 1917 (aged eight), Madge made her Broadway debut in Peter Ibbetson with John Barrymore and Lionel Barrymore. She resumed her stage career in 1926 as an ingenue with Daisy Mayme and the following year appeared with Billie Burke in Noël Coward's costume drama The Marquise (1927).
Her pleasing looks and personality soon attracted the attention of Hollywood and she was eventually signed by MGM in 1931. During the next decade, she appeared in several A-grade productions, notably as Lionel Barrymore's daughter in MGM's Dinner at Eight (1933) and as the dependable Agnes Wickfield in one of the best-ever filmed versions of David Copperfield (1935). She co-starred opposite James Cagney in the gangster movie The Mayor of Hell (1933), Spencer Tracy in The Show-Off (1934) and listened to Bing Crosby crooning the title song in Pennies from Heaven (1936). Madge received praise for her performance as the star of Beauty for Sale (1933) and The New York Times review of January 13 1934 described her acting in Fugitive Lovers (1934) (opposite Robert Montgomery ) as 'spontaneous and captivating'. Many of her 'typical American girl' roles did not allow her to express aspects of the greater acting range she undoubtedly possessed. Too often she was cast as the 'nice girl' - and those rarely make much of a dramatic impact. On the few occasions she was assigned the role of 'other woman', such as the Helen Hayes-starrer What Every Woman Knows (1934), audiences found her character difficult to believe and disassociate from her all-round wholesome image. When her contract with MGM expired in 1937, Madge wound down her film career and, following her 1939 marriage, concentrated on being the wife of celebrated playwright Sidney Kingsley. She last appeared on stage in one of his plays, "The Patriots", in 1943.- Actress
Elinor Fair was born Elinor Virginia Crowe on December 21, 1903 in Richmond, Virginia. Sadly her only brother died in 1904 shortly before his third birthday. The family moved to Seattle, Washington where her father was the manager of a credit card company. After her parents divorced Elinor and her mother lived in Paris, France. When she was a child she began her career performing in vaudeville. Her dream was to become a opera star. At the age of twelve she made her film debut in the 1916 drama The End Of The Trail. Fox offered her a five year contract in 1919. Elinor appeared in the films Loves Is Love and Be A Little Sport, and The Miracle Man with Lon Chaney. The beautiful brunette started dating Lew Cody, her costar in Wait For Me. In 1924 she was chosen as one of the Wampas Baby Stars along with Clara Bow. Then Cecille B. Demile cast her in his 1926 film The Volga Boatman costarring William Boyd. She and William fell in love and were married in January of 1926. They worked together in the films The Yankee Clipper and Jim The Conqueror. For a while Elinor put her career on hold and became a full-time housewife. Unfortunately her marriage to William ended in 1930. She returned to acting with a role in the 1932 adventure 45 Calibre Echo. That same year she became engaged to actor Frank Clark. Following a fight with Frank she impulsively married Thomas W. Daniels, a stunt man, on December 27, 1932.
The marriage was annulled a few weeks later. Her final film was the 1934 comedy Broadway Bill. Surprisingly she remarried Thomas W. Daniels in July of 1934. Eleven months later she divorced him claiming he "criticized her and called her unseemly names." By this time she was bankrupt and suffering from alcoholism. Her ex-husband William Boyd began helping her financially. In December of 1936 she was found wandering the streets looking shabby and confused. Elinor was taken to a hospital where she was diagnosed with an acute nervous condition. She married actor Jack White in Las Vegas in 1941. After they divorced in 1944 she married Merle Aubert Martin. The couple moved to Seattle, Washington but Merle struggled to find work. During the early 1950s Elinor was diagnosed with a liver condition caused by her chronic alcoholism. She and her husband briefly returned to California in 1956 ask her Hollywood friends for financial help. Tragically she was hospitalized in the Spring of 1957 and went into a hepatic coma. On April 26, 1957 Elinor died from cirrhosis of the liver at the age of fifty-three. She was cremated and her ashes were given to her husband.- Actress
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Shirley Mason was born Leonie Flugrath on June 6, 1900, in Brooklyn, NY. The youngest of three acting sisters (the others were Edna Flugrath and Viola Dana), Shirley made her debut in At the Threshold of Life (1911) at age 11. As a child actress she wasn't in much demand until she grew older, then she began to take on more roles. Her second film was Vanity Fair (1915). It wasn't until 1917 that film executives began to take the young actress more seriously, as they cast her in 13 films that year alone, which also saw her gain the title role in The Awakening of Ruth (1917). By the time the 1920s rolled around she was making fewer films, but taking on more substantial parts in films such as Love's Harvest (1920), The Lamplighter (1921) and Very Truly Yours (1922). Her final film was The Flying Marine (1929), after which she retired.
She died on July 27, 1979.- Jewel Carmen was born in Portland, Oregon, on July 13, 1897. After graduating from high school, she traveled to New York City to try her hand at acting. She appeared in her first production in the lead role in Daphne and the Pirate (1916) when she was 19 years old. Six more films followed,including Sunshine Dad (1916) and Manhattan Madness (1916). She went on to six movies in 1917 and five in 1918. After Confession (1918) she left the film industry for three years before returning in Nobody (1921). Her final fling with movies was The Bat (1926). She died in San Diego, California, on March 4, 1984 at the age of 86.
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Mary Pickford was born Gladys Louise Smith in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, to Elsie Charlotte (Hennessy) and John Charles Smith. She was of English and Irish descent. Pickford began in the theater at age seven. Then known as "Baby Gladys Smith", she toured with her family in a number of theater companies. At some point, at her devout maternal grandmother's insistence, when young Gladys was seriously ill with diphtheria, she received a Catholic baptism and her middle name was changed to "Marie".
In 1907, she adopted a family name Pickford and joined the David Belasco troupe, appearing in the long-running The Warrens of Virginia". She began in films in 1909 with the 'American Mutoscope & Biograph [us]', working with director D.W. Griffith.
For a short time in 1911, to earn more money, she joined the IMP Film Co. under Carl Laemmle. She returned to Biograph in 1912, then, in 1913 joined the Famous Players Film Company under Adolph Zukor. She then joined First National Exhibitor's Circuit in 1918. In 1919, she co-founded United Artists with D.W. Griffith, Charlie Chaplin and then-future husband, Douglas Fairbanks.- According to an article in The Paterson (New Jersey) Morning Call of 15 April 1921, she had just returned "...to the screen after a long absence, during which she was busy making history in Europe as a driver of one of the American hospital corps ambulances." Other accounts say she did this in New York during the Spanish Flu epidemic.
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Born into a family of show people, Blanche Sweet first appeared on the stage when she was 18 months old. She was a dancer by the time she was four and a talented actress by 1909 when she started work at the Biograph with D.W. Griffith. By 1910, aged 14, she was four years younger than Mary Pickford, but her maturity and appearance soon lead to leading roles. She starred in such films as The Lonedale Operator (1911) and Judith of Bethulia (1914). Unlike most of the frail roles for women of her day, her presence was smart and resourceful. She left Biograph in 1914 and worked with Cecil B. DeMille in The Warrens of Virginia (1915). A popular and independent actress, she worked for many studio's and directors in the age of silent movies.
In 1922, she married director Marshall Neilan, who would direct her in Tess of the D'Urbervilles (1924). The marriage ended in divorce in 1929. In 1923, she starred in Anna Christie (1923), directed by John Griffith Wray, the first play by Eugene O'Neill to be filmed. Even before talkies, her career was in decline. She made three talking pictures, including Show Girl in Hollywood (1930). This was to be the last film Sweet appeared in before retiring. Her line, in the movie, about being washed up at 32 in Hollywood, was close to the truth for her. (She was 34.) After that she retired from the screen and returned to the Stage. She appeared in plays on Broadway and with touring companies and also worked in radio during the 1930s. She and co-star Raymond Hackett married in 1936 and remained married until his death in 1958. Both of her marriages were childless.- Actor
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Nepotism certainly has had its advantages in Hollywood, none more so than in the cinematic career of Jack Pickford, whose famous older sis, "America's Sweetheart" Mary Pickford, saw to it that Jack had every advantage her star weight could muster. In Jack's case, it only added fuel to a self-starting tragic fire.
The youngest of three children, if Jack was christened with the extremely common name of John (aka Jack) Smith, his life would resemble anything but. Born in Toronto, Canada, on August 18, 1896, his middle sister was minor actress Lottie Pickford (née Charlotte Smith, (1893-1936)). Both younger children were prompted by their actress/mother, Charlotte Smith, to follow Mary (née Gladys Louise Smith) into show business after her husband (also John Charles Smith), an alcoholic, deserted the family.
A child actor on the theatre stage, it was Mary who got both her baby brother and baby sister into the Biograph film company as steady fixtures starting in 1909. They all appeared in scores of short films for D.W. Griffith -- Jack's list included Wanted, a Child (1909), To Save Her Soul (1909), The Smoker (1910), Muggsy Becomes a Hero (1910), Sweet Memories (1911), As a Boy Dreams (1911), The Speed Demon (1912), Heredity (1912), The Sneak (1913) and Home, Sweet Home (1914). Lottie had her own lead pictures, including The Pilgrimage (1912) and They Shall Pay (1921). Mary, Jack and Lottie all appeared together in the films Sweet Memories (1911) and Fanchon, the Cricket (1915), among others. Jack occasionally worked for other film companies, as he did when he played the title role in Giovanni's Gratitude (1913) for Reliance; and starred in The Making of Crooks (1915), The Hard Way (1916), The Conflict (1916) and Cupid's Touchdown (1917) for Selig Polyscope,
Jack followed along with sister Mary when she left Biograph and moved to the Famous Players Film Company (later Paramount Pictures) in 1914, and proved a personable light leading man. When Mary signed her famous million-dollar contract with First National in 1917, one of her stipulations was that Jack receive a lucrative contract as well. He appeared with Mary in such films as A Girl of Yesterday (1915) and Poor Little Peppina (1916), and starred on his own as lovelorn Bill Baxter in Seventeen (1916); as Pip in Great Expectations (1917); as Jack in The Dummy (1917); and as Tom Sawyer in both Tom Sawyer (1917) and Huck and Tom (1918); as well as the title roles in His Majesty, Bunker Bean (1918), Mile-a-Minute Kendall (1918) and Sandy (1918) (all co-starring lovely Louise Huff, and the films Freckles (1917), The Girl at Home (1917), What Money Can't Buy (1917) and Jack and Jill (1917).
The young man, however, just couldn't stay out of trouble. A 1918 stint in the Navy Reserve to straighten up proved disastrous when Jack, among others, was accused of accepting bribes from draftees who wanted light shore duty and stay out of front-line action. With the help of his family, he avoided a court martial, was exonerated and received a general discharge -- more than he deserved.
Earning a modicum of naïve "boy-next-door" success, Jack went on to produce a few of his own films (Burglar by Proxy (1919), Garrison's Finish (1923) and In Wrong (1919)), as well as co-direct (with Alfred E. Green) a couple of Mary's films (Through the Back Door (1921) and Little Lord Fauntleroy (1921)). Some of Jack's better silents during the "Roaring 20's" included The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come (1920), The Man Who Had Everything (1920), Waking Up the Town (1925), The Goose Woman (1925), Brown of Harvard (1926) and the classic Beatrice Lillie backstage comedy vehicle Exit Smiling (1926) as a young leading man of the troupe.
Tragically, Jack's obsessive taste for the high life quickly took over. A ne'er-do-well playboy and constant carouser, his scandalous private life aroused more public interest than his on-camera work in light romantic films. He picked up severe alcohol, drug and gambling addictions to accommodate his partying decadence with bouts of syphilis adding to the complications. Jack's wedded life was anything but blissful. All three wives were Ziegfeld girls at one time. His stormy marriage to despondent, drug-addicted first wife, actress Olive Thomas, ended after four years when the 25-year-old died by swallowing mercury bichloride. His next two marriages to legendary Broadway musical star Marilyn Miller and minor actress Mary Mulhern also ended quickly due to his acute alcoholism.
By the late 1920s Jack was completely undependable and, with the advent of sound, his career ground to a screeching halt, despite Mary's continued attempts to rescue it. Jack's health deteriorated considerably after this letdown. His last two films were the (lost) silent feature (with talking sequences) The Dancer Upstairs (2002) co-starring Olive Borden and a lead in the short film All Square (1930).
He died aged 36 on January 3, 1933, in Paris. The cause was listed as "progressive multiple neuritis", but it was almost certainly precipitated by his chronic alcoholism-- a tragic and seemingly unnecessary end for a young man who chose to tarnish the silver platter readily handed to him. Sister Lottie too fell into extreme excess and died in 1936 at age 43 of alcohol-related causes. Jack later earned a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.- Actress
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Mabel Normand was one of the comedy greats of early film. In an era when women are deemed 'not funny enough' it seems film history has forgotten her contributions. Her films debuted the Keystone Cops, Charlie Chaplin's tramp and the pie in the face gag. She co-starred with both Chaplin and Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle in a series of shorts. She was a star in the first Keystone Comedy as well as the first feature film comedy. She was the only comedian to work with Charles Chaplin , Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, Mack Sennett, D.W. Griffith, Harold Lloyd, Mary Pickford, Hal Roach, Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Fred Mace, Fred Sterling and John Bunny (she and Buster Keaton never had a chance to work together but they were friends.)
Born in Staten Island, New York to Claude and Mary Normand. Normand started out as an artist model for Charles Dana Gibson (creator of the Gibson girl). Friends suggested she try out for the new medium of film and she did, working as an extra in Kalem and Biograph shorts. With Biograph's move to California she went to work for Vitagraph where she made a series of comedic shorts as 'Betty', one co-starring the first comedy film star John Bunny.
Eventually Normand returned to Biograph where she began working with Mack Sennett on comedic shorts that would eventually turn into Keystone Comedies. Normand and Sennett were lovers, close friends and close co-workers. All of Sennett's early ideas seemed to revolve around Normand. His creation of Keystone was contingent on Normand joining him; and though he would underpay her as he underpaid everyone he worked with, he insisted Normand have credit and say in the company. When Normand eventually left Keystone for Goldwyn, Sennett left soon after.
By 1912 Normand was writing her own films and by 1914 she was directing her films. By this point she was a major star, continually topping fan polls by new movie magazines. While the discovery of Charlie Chaplin varies from telling to telling, everyone involved agreed Sennett would not have hired (or kept him on) had it not been for Normand. Chaplin's second short for the company was Normand's "Mabel's Strange Predicament" which she starred and directed in. This was the first film Chaplin created his iconic tramp character for.
Chaplin and Normand had a comedic chemistry and would go on to team in a series of shorts until Chaplin left Keystone in 1915. As Chaplin's star rose many fan magazines began to call Normand a 'female Chaplin'. Normand and Chaplin had similar subtle mannerisms and the influence Normand had on Chaplin can not be understated. Before Chaplin left Keystone, they starred, alongside Marie Dressler, in "Tillie's Punctured Romance" the first full length comedy film.
With the loss of Chaplin, Normand and Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle began to team together in a series of shorts (though they had acted together before). This series was also popular and the pair continued acting together until they both left Keystone for better pay.
Sennett and Normand became engaged around this time, though the engagement ended when Sennett was caught cheating on Normand. Friends report she suffered a severe head injury when Sennett's fling threw a vase at Normand's head. Those who knew Normand all believed Sennett was the love of her life; and she his. However they would never reconcile romantically. Sennett did convince Normand to create her own production company "Mabel Normand Film Company" to make her own features. The first project was "Mickey" and Sennett's handling of her business affairs resulted in the film not being released until 1918 (or having a definite version).
Normand dissolved the company and signed with Goldwyn where she went on to make comedy features. These movies would be more akin to sitcoms: they were shorter than a lot of features, but still features. Many are lost though several have turned up in the past 10 years.
Normand once again signed with Sennett to make features and this would result in her final feature films. However this would be a rocky venture. Normand's health was hit or miss (she had been diagnosed with tuberculosis when she was 10) and seemed to be worse than better. She also was drinking heavily. In 1922 her friend William Desmond Taylor was murdered. This case would become 'the case of the century' and became a media circus, it is still unsolved. Though Normand was cleared (she had been seen leaving his house with him waving goodbye to her; she was likely the last person to see him alive), the association left an unwelcome tarnish on her soon after the scandalous death of her friend Olive Thomas, and the unfair trial of Roscoe Arbuckle.
Normand continued working, making The Extra Girl. Soon after its release in 1923 she was again near another crime (a butler was shot at a party she attended; though he survived.) Soon after Normand took a break from film.
By 1926 Normand was ready for a comeback. She signed with Hal Roach to make comedy shorts. These were well received and by 1928 she had signed with the William Morris Agency to make talkies. However she did not realize how sick she was and her health soon interrupted these plans.
Over the years Normand's tuberculosis has turned into rumors of a drug addiction. This started during the Taylor scandal when it was claimed that maybe he had been killed for interrupting a drug ring, and maybe Normand was part of it. While not prominent during her life it has become more commonly believed as time has passed despite no evidence. Normand's family, estate and personal nurse were all adamant she had never used any drugs. Sadly this rumor has become common place in Hollywood lore.
Normand's drinking increased as did her partying. During one party she decided to marry longtime friend Lew Cody at 2am. She instantly regretted the marriage and they continued living separately. As Normand's health decreased and she was committed to a sanitarium (akin to a hospital/hospice in modern terms) by 1929. She died in 1930 from tuberculosis.- Violet Mersereau was born on 2 October 1892 in New York City, New York, USA. She was an actress, known for Together (1918), The Shepherd King (1923) and Nero (1922). She died on 12 November 1975 in Plymouth, Massachusetts, USA.
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The Davenport family was well known in theatrical circles. Her aunt, Fanny Davenport was considered one of the greatest stage actresses of her time and her father, Harry Davenport, was a Broadway star before later venturing into movies. Her mother, Alice Davenport, was a respected Broadway and film actress. With a background on the stage, Dorothy was in her early teens when she started playing bit parts in films. By the time she was 17, she was a star at Universal, where she would meet a young actor-assistant director-gopher-scenario writer named Wallace Reid. Called on to act with him in a film, she was frustrated by his apparent lack of acting ability on the first day, but was smitten with him on the third day of their work together. Dorothy was a horsewoman of distinction who had no regard for a man who couldn't stay in the saddle. When Wallace proved to be an excellent horseman, she was hooked.
After six months working on a job with another film company, Wallace returned to Universal and they married on October 13, 1913. The newlyweds continued to work. He directed and starred with Dorothy in two films a week for the next year. When Wallace left Universal Dorothy also left films, returning in 1916 to appear in a handful of them. In 1917 she gave birth to Wallace Reid Jr. and became a full-time mother and wife.
When Wallace Reid died from morphine addiction in 1923, Dorothy and Bessie Love made Human Wreckage (1923), a film that dealt with the dangers of narcotics. Dorothy would not return to the screen again until she directed and acted in The Red Kimono (1926). Dorothy later in life dabbled as a producer and a writer.- Actress
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Dolores Costello was once known as the Goddess of the Silent Screen but is probably best remembered today as Drew Barrymore's grandmother. She was born in 1905 to actors Maurice Costello and Mae Costello. Her father began his film career in 1908 and soon became the most popular matinée idol of his day. He gave Dolores and her sister Helene Costello their screen debuts in 1911. Dolores appeared in numerous pictures throughout the 1910s and the early 1920s, mostly with her father and sister. She later appeared on the New York stage with her sister in "George White Scandals of 1924." They were then signed by Warner Bros. where Dolores met future husband John Barrymore.
Barrymore soon made Dolores his costar in The Sea Beast (1926). During their lengthy kissing scene Dolores fainted in John's arms. They married in 1928 despite the misgivings of her mother, who would die the following year at age 45. They had two children, DeDe in 1931 and John Drew Barrymore in 1932. Dolores took time off from her movie career in the early 1930s to raise her young children. Her sister Helene and her new husband, actor Lowell Sherman, successfully convinced Dolores to divorce Barrymore in 1935, mainly because of his excessive drinking.
After the divorce Dolores returned to acting, appearing in several big-budget pictures, and her career seemed to be back on track. Her physical appearance, however, was greatly damaged from the harsh studio makeup used in the early years. The skin on her cheeks was in the process of deteriorating, forcing her into early retirement. She lived in semi-seclusion on her Southern California avocado farm, Fallbrook Ranch, where much of the memorabilia and papers from both the Barrymore and Costello family were destroyed in a flood.- Actress
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Dorothy Gish was born into a broken family where her restless father James Lee Gish was frequently absent. Mary Robinson McConnell a.k.a. Mary Gish, her mother, had entered into acting to make money to support the family. As soon as Dorothy and her sister Lillian Gish were old enough, they became part of the act. To supplement their income, the two sisters also posed for pictures and acted in melodramas of the time. In 1912 they met fellow child actress Mary Pickford, and she got them extra work with Biograph Pictures. Director D.W. Griffith was impressed by both the girls and cast them in An Unseen Enemy (1912), their first picture. Dorothy would go on to star in over 100 two-reel films and features over the years. She would appear in the very successful Judith of Bethulia (1914) with Blanche Sweet. She and her sister Lillian made a number of films together, including the extremely successful Hearts of the World (1918) and Orphans of the Storm (1921). In both films Dorothy would play French girls, but in different periods of time. Lillian would try her hand at directing, with a movie called Remodeling Her Husband (1920), which starred Dorothy and an actor named James Rennie, whom Dorothy would marry and later divorce. While she would excel in pantomime and light comedy, her popularity would always be overshadowed by that of her sister Lillian, who was considered to be one the silent screen's greatest stars. Dorothy would only make a handful of movies in the 1920s, and in Romola (1924)--a costume picture about Italy in the Middle Ages--she would again co-star with Lillian. By 1926 Dorothy had moved to England, where she would star as the title role in Nell Gwyn (1926). Her last silent film would be Madame Pompadour (1927). In 1928 Dorothy would retire from the screen, except for a few occasional roles, and enjoy a long career on the stage.- Actress
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Some of Helene Costello's films available on video are Her Crowning Glory (1911), Lulu's Doctor (1912) and Lights of New York (1928), the first all-talking feature. She worked for a time as a reader for 20th Century Fox in the early 1940s. Miss Costello died on January 26, 1957, in California's Patton State Hospital. She left behind a daughter Deirdre by her fourth husband. Deirdre now resides in Winston Salem, NC- Actress
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Lillian Diana Gish was born on October 14, 1893, in Springfield, Ohio. Her father, James Lee Gish, was an alcoholic who caroused, was rarely at home, and left the family to, more or less, fend for themselves. To help make ends meet, Lillian, her sister Dorothy Gish, and their mother, Mary Gish, a.k.a. Mary Robinson McConnell, tried their hand at acting in local productions. Lillian was six years old when she first appeared in front of an audience. For the next 13 years, she and Dorothy appeared before stage audiences with great success. Had she not made her way into films, Lillian quite possibly could have been one of the great stage actresses of all time; however, she found her way onto the big screen when, in 1912, she met famed director D.W. Griffith. Impressed with what he saw, he immediately cast her in her first film, An Unseen Enemy (1912), followed by The One She Loved (1912) and My Baby (1912). She would make 12 films for Griffith in 1912. With 25 films in the next two years, Lillian's exposure to the public was so great that she fast became one of the top stars in the industry, right alongside Mary Pickford, "America's Sweetheart".
In 1915, Lillian starred as Elsie Stoneman in Griffith's most ambitious project to date, The Birth of a Nation (1915). She was not making the large number of films that she had been in the beginning because she was successful and popular enough to be able to pick and choose the right films to appear in. The following year, she appeared in another Griffith classic, Intolerance (1916). By the early 1920s, her career was on its way down. As with anything else, be it sports or politics, new faces appeared on the scene to replace the "old", and Lillian was no different. In fact, she did not appear at all on the screen in 1922, 1925 or 1929. However, 1926 was her busiest year of the decade with roles in La Bohème (1926) and The Scarlet Letter (1926). As the decade wound to a close, "talkies" were replacing silent films. However, Lillian was not idle during her time away from the screen. She appeared in stage productions, to the acclaim of the public and critics alike. In 1933, she filmed His Double Life (1933), but did not make another film for nine years.
When she returned in 1943, she appeared in two big-budget pictures, Commandos Strike at Dawn (1942) and Top Man (1943). Although these roles did not bring her the attention she had had in her early career, Lillian still proved she could hold her own with the best of them. She earned an Oscar nomination as Best Supporting Actress for her role of Laura Belle McCanles in Duel in the Sun (1946), but lost to Anne Baxter in The Razor's Edge (1946).
One of the most critically acclaimed roles of her career came in the thriller The Night of the Hunter (1955), also notable as the only film directed by actor Charles Laughton. In 1969, she published her autobiography, "The Movies, Mr. Griffith, and Me". In 1987, she made what was to be her last motion picture, The Whales of August (1987), a box-office success that exposed her to a new generation of fans. Her 75-year career is almost unbeatable in any field, let alone the film industry. On February 27, 1993, at age 99, Lillian Gish died peacefully in her sleep at her Manhattan apartment in New York City. She never married.- Actress
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Norma Talmadge was born on May 26, 1895, in Jersey City, New Jersey. The daughter of an unemployed alcoholic and his wife, Norma did not have the idyllic childhood that most of us yearn for. Her father left the family on Christmas Day and his wife and three daughters had to fend for themselves. Her mother, Peggy, took in laundry to help make ends meet. By the time Norma was 14 she took up modeling. She was successful enough that she attracted the attention of studio chiefs in New York City (where the Vitagraph studio was located at the time). Norma landed a small role in The Household Pest (1910). With her mother's prodding, she landed other small roles with the studio in 1910, such as Uncle Tom's Cabin (1910), Love of Chrysanthemum (1910), A Dixie Mother (1910) and A Broken Spell (1910). By 1911 she was improving as an actress, so much so that she landed a good part in A Tale of Two Cities (1911). By 1913 she was Vitagraph's most promising young actress. In August of 1915 Norma and her mother left for California and the promise of success in the fledgling film industry there. Her first film in Hollywood was Captivating Mary Carstairs (1915). The film was not only a flop but the studio that made it, National Pictures, went out of business.
During this time her sister, Constance Talmadge, was working for legendary director D.W. Griffith. Constance managed to get Norma a contract with Griffith's company. Over the following eight months Norma made seven feature films and a few shorts. After the contract ran out, the family returned to the East Coast. In 1916 she met and married producer and businessman Joseph M. Schenck. With his backing they formed their own production company and turned out a number of films, the first of which was Panthea (1917). It was a tremendous hit, as was Norma. In 1920 the production company moved to Hollywood, where the big hits of the day were being produced. Her company produced hits such as The Wonderful Thing (1921), The Eternal Flame (1922) and The Song of Love (1923).
By 1928 Norma's popularity had begun to fade. Her film The Woman Disputed (1928) was a flop at the box-office. Her final film was Du Barry, Woman of Passion (1930). By that time "talkies" were all the rage, but Norma's voice did not lend itself to sound and she was out of work. She divorced Schenck and married George Jessel. Jessel had his own radio show and Norma was added to the cast to help its sagging ratings. She thought this might be the vehicle by which she would revive her stalled film career, but the show continued its decline and was ultimately canceled, and with it the hopes of rebuilding her shattered career. She was finished for good.
She divorced Jessel in 1939 and married Dr. Carvel James in 1946. She remained with him until she died of a stroke on Christmas Eve of 1957 in Las Vegas, Nevada. She was 62 and had been in a phenomenal 250+ motion pictures.- Actor
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Today screen actor Robert (Bobby) Harron is one of Hollywood's forgotten souls, although he was a huge celebrity in his time and graced some of the silent screen's most enduring masterpieces. A talented, charismatic star in his heyday, Bobby had everything going for him but died far too young to make the longstanding impression he certainly deserved.
Bobby was born one of nine children in New York City to an impoverished Irish-American family. In order to put food on the table, Bobby started out quite young looking for work. At age 13 he found a job working for the American Biograph Studio on East 14th Street as a messenger boy and was given a couple of film bits for added measure. Within the next year director D.W. Griffith had joined the company and the sensitive, highly photogenic Bobby caught the legendary director's eye almost immediately.
Bobby subsequently had leading roles in many of Griffith's classic silents, usually playing characters that were much younger and much more naive than in real life. He appeared opposite other legendary female stars who also played "young-ish" roles, notably Mae Marsh and Lillian Gish. Bobby made indelible impressions in The Birth of a Nation (1915), Intolerance (1916), An Old Fashioned Young Man (1917), Hearts of the World (1918), A Romance of Happy Valley (1919) and True Heart Susie (1919).
Bobby had become such a sensation that in 1920 he entertained thoughts about leaving the Griffith fold and forming his own company. A fatal, self-inflicted bullet wound to the left lung in September of 1920 ended those dreams before they ever got off the ground. Although it was listed as an "accidental" death, Hollywood rumor has it that a despondent Bobby killed himself in a New York hotel room on the eve of the premiere of Griffith's new film Way Down East (1920). It seems Bobby was devastated after being passed over by Griffith for the lead role in favor of the director's new protégé, Richard Barthelmess. Whatever the truth may be, Bobby's death remains a tragic mystery. Ironically, Bobby had two lesser known sibling actors who also died quite young. Tessie Harron (1896-1918) died at age 22 of Spanish influenza, and John Harron (1904-1939), nicknamed Johnnie, collapsed and died of spinal meningitis at age 35. Both appeared unbilled in Hearts of the World (1918) with Bobby.- Helen Badgley was born in Saratoga Springs, New York in 1908. She made her film debut in Brother Bob's Baby (1911) as "The Baby". She became popularly known as "The Thanhouser Kidlet" and appeared in many films as a child.
She "retired" from the film business when she turned six years old--she lost her front teeth and had to wait until her new teeth grew in. She stayed with Thanhouser almost until the company's demise, appearing in such releases as The Candy Girl (1917), Fires of Youth (1918) and The Heart of Ezra Greer (1917).
After she left the film business, she married the owner of a radio and recording studio and moved to Arizona. She died in Phoenix on October 25, 1977. - Zena Keefe was born in San Francisco, California, on June 26, 1896. The actress who was to make a total of 28 films started her career at the age of 16 when she played a bit part in The Hieroglyphic (1912). After The Gamblers (1912) later that year, four years elapsed before she would appear onscreen again, in The Rail Rider (1916). Her first real meaty role, however, came later that year when she played "Mary Winslow" in Her Maternal Right (1916). For the rest of her career she was not as busy as she would have liked--in the film industry's early years it was not unusual for performers to make 20 films a year, but Zena was turning out only three or four. She stayed with her craft throughout the 1920s, making her final film in 1924, Trouping with Ellen (1924).
On November 16, 1977, Zena Keefe died at the age of 81 in Danvers, Massachusetts. - Actress
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Constance was blonde; star sister Norma Talmadge was brunette. She was buoyant and a comedienne; Norma was introspective and a tragedienne. Nicknamed "Dutch" by her stage mother Peg as she looked like a cherubic Little Dutch Boy, silver screen star Constance Talmadge was one of silent pictures' most popular and enduring stars of romantic comedy.
Born in Brooklyn in April 19, 1898 (various sources give different years ranging from 1897 to 1903), her New York City childhood was humbling and tragic. Their father Fred Talmadge was a chronic alcoholic who ultimately deserted his family, which included sister Natalie Talmadge, while all three girls were quite young. By the time Norma had become a commodity for Vitagraph Studios, Constance, in her early teens, begged to follow.
Constance's first comedy short for Vitagraph was In Bridal Attire (1914). As the two sisters were as different as night and day, professional jealousy never entered into the picture. In fact, all three sisters remained consistently loyal throughout their lives. Appearing in a number of two-reel comedies predominantly with comedian Billy Quirk, Constance drew major acclaim in the role of The Mountain Girl in D.W. Griffith's epic masterpiece Intolerance (1916). Her role was so inspiring that when Griffith re-issued her segment as a solo feature entitled The Fall of Babylon (1919), he re-shot her death scene ending so that her character would wind up living happily ever after.
Throughout the late '10s and early '20s the elegant Constance charmed audiences with a number of flapper-era comedy vehicles, many of them co-starring silent film great Harrison Ford (not related to the present-day star). These include A Pair of Silk Stockings (1918), Happiness a la Mode (1919), Romance and Arabella (1919), Wedding Bells (1921) and The Primitive Lover (1922). She grew so much in stature that she eventually formed her own production company. Constance, as did sister Norma, abruptly left films with the advent of sound. The notion that they willingly abandoned their careers while very much on top does not quite ring true. Both she and Norma's pronounced and rather squeaky Brooklyn accent did not prove all that suitable for talkies (particularly for the dramatic Norma) and it's more likely that they left Hollywood on their own terms before they were shunned.
Both sisters invested wisely in business ventures in later life. Married four times, Constance became reclusive and fell victim (as did sisters Norma and Natalie) to alcohol abuse in later years. She died of pneumonia in Los Angeles on November 23, 1973.- Actress
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When top "working girl" silent screen comedienne Mabel Normand would gripe to Mack Sennett about making classier films, Sennett's quippy retort would always be, "I'll send for Fazenda." This pretty, oval-faced, highly popular Keystone comedy cut-up put in her time first in comic two-reelers from 1913 on, but soon unleashed her real gift "dressing down" for laughs with her best known character types as frizzy-haired country bumpkins complete with spit curls, multiple pigtails and calico dresses, a look that went on to inspire bucolic comics Judy Canova and Minnie Pearl.
Louise was born on June 17, 1895, in Lafayette, Indiana, the daughter of a merchandise broker. Raised in California, she attended Los Angeles High School and St. Mary's Convent. She found odd jobs working a dentist, a candy store owner, and a tax collector. While performing in a high school show, lucky Louise was discovered by a Sennett talent agent and taken immediately to films. The 18-year-old hopeful made her first films with Joker Studios and went on to be highly featured in a slew of "Mike and Jake" comedy shorts starring Max Asher and Harry McCoy. She would also co-star in a number of burlesque-style features with Asher and Bobby Vernon in such vehicles as Heaven Will Protect the Working Girl (1914), A Freak Temperance Wave (1914), The Tender Hearted Sheriff (1914), Love and Electricity (1914), The Diamond Nippers (1914) and Schultz the Paperhanger (1914).
Soon silent kingpin Sennett himself began incorporating the funny girl's gift for slapstick comedy in his highly popular "Keystone Kops" shorts. Between the years 1915 to 1917, she rose quickly up the front ranks as an early plain-Jane Carol Burnett goofball playing an assortment of serviles -- maid, cook, janitress, flower girl, nurse and fortune teller types. In A Hash House Fraud (1915) she played a flirty cashier; in Her Fame and Shame (1917) she played a star-struck daughter who attempts burlesque to save her pop's mortgage; in The Betrayal of Maggie (1917) and Maggie's First False Step (1917) she portrayed the eager title roles; and in Her Torpedoed Love (1917), she plays a daffy cook whose life is in danger when a greedy butler (Ford Sterling) learns her boss is leaving her his entire estate.
During this peak time, Louise got to work alongside the most brilliant of silent male screen clowns, including Sterling himself, and Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle, Ben Turpin, Charley Chase, Charles Murray, Harry Booker, Edgar Kennedy, Mack Swain, Chester Conklin, James Finlayson, Slim Summerville, Billy Bevan, Jack Cooper, Billy Armstrong and Hugh Fay. Other popular Sennett comic outings for Louise would include Ambrose's Nasty Temper (1915), Fatty's Tintype Tangle (1915), A Game Old Knight (1915), A Versatile Villain (1915), The Judge (1916), Bombs! (1916), Are Waitresses Safe? (1917), Those Athletic Girls (1918), The Village Chestnut (1918) Hearts and Flowers (1919), Back to the Kitchen (1919), The Gingham Girl (1920), Bungalow Troubles (1921) and Made in the Kitchen (1921).
Sennett's Down on the Farm (1920) is a silent film feature-length rural comedy featuring an all-star cast of funsters with Louise playing a typical role as the farmer's daughter. Louise eventually left Sennett's company in the early 1920s and, in a change of pace, progressed on her own in both comic and dramatic outings. She appeared in the comedy drama Quincy Adams Sawyer (1922) starring John Bowers, Blanche Sweet and Lon Chaney; three dramatic pieces, The Beautiful and Damned (1922), The Wanters (1923) and Being Respectable (1924), all starring Marie Prevost; the social drama Main Street (1923) starring Florence Vidor; the historical drama (as a country gal) The Dramatic Life of Abraham Lincoln (1924); the tearjerker This Woman (1924) starring Irene Rich and Julliet Akinyi; the canine family adventure The Lighthouse by the Sea (1924) featuring Rin Tin Tin; the Raymond Griffith comedy vehicle The Night Club (1925); the melodramas The Price of Pleasure (1925) starring Virginia Valli and Déclassé (1925) starring Corinne Griffith; and a rare comedy Bobbed Hair (1925) starring Ms. Prevost; Occasional star roles during this silent period included the comedies Listen Lester (1924), Footloose Widows (1926), The Gay Old Bird (1927) and The Cradle Snatchers (1927).
Coming the advent of sound, Louise had no problem whatsoever adjusting to sound where her eccentric talents were greatly utilized in (mostly) Warner Bros. musicals, dramas and knockabout comedies. She provided comedy relief/support in such films as the mystery thriller The Terror (1928); the adventure film The Lady of the Harem (1926); the romantic comedy The Red Mill (1927) starring Marion Davies; the W.C. Fields talking remake of the silent comedy Tillie's Punctured Romance (1928); the sports comedy Babe Comes Home (1927) starring legendary ballplayer Babe Ruth; the war comedy Ham and Eggs at the Front (1927); the Will Rogers comedy A Texas Steer (1927); the comedy Heart to Heart (1928); the dramedy Vamping Venus (1928) which reunited her with Charles Murray and co-starred a rising Thelma Todd; the war drama Noah's Ark (1928); the action adventure Stark Mad (1929) the musicals On with the Show! (1929) and No, No, Nanette (1930) (as Sue Smith); the comedy Wide Open (1930); and the light romantic comedy Loose Ankles (1930).
On November 24, 1927, Louise married renowned Warner Bros. producer Hal B. Wallis who went on to produce several movies that she later appeared in, including Colleen (1936), First Lady (1937), Ready, Willing and Able (1937) and Swing Your Lady (1938). They had one child, Brent, who would grow up to become a psychiatrist. Ending her career on a dramatic note, Wallis would produce Louise's effort -- a supporting role in the Bette Davis/Miriam Hopkins soaper The Old Maid (1939) in the role of, what else, a maid!
Away from the limelight, Louise remained socially prominent and became a noted humanitarian and art collector. In 1958, she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The 66-year-old former actress suffered a brain hemorrhage in Beverly Hills and died on April 17, 1962. She was survived by her husband, who, in 1966, married actress Martha Hyer. Louise was interred at the Inglewood Park Cemetery in Inglewood, California.- The twins made numerous movies starting in 1910 with Biograph Co and from 1912 to 1917 at Thanhouser Films. Too numerous to mention here. One such film of the many Thanhousers can be seen in its entirety on you tube "The Fairbanks Twins (14) Their One Love 1915~Silent Movie w Added Soundtrack. I can try and e-mail a complete listing if any one cares.
- Silent-film actress Muriel Ostriche was born in New York City on March 24, 1896. As a young girl she planned on becoming a schoolteacher, but that career fell by the wayside when, while still a high-school student, she was stopped on the street by director Christy Cabanne, who asked her to take a screen test at American Biograph studios, where he was working. She did so and was hired by Biograph. However, Biograph only used her as an extra, and it wasn't long before she left the company and went to work for several other studios, notably Powers and Pathe, and then settled in for a spell at American Sinclair, across the river in Fort Lee, NJ. She was mentored there by director Étienne Arnaud, who put her in quite a few films.
After she left Eclair she worked briefly for Reliance Pictures, then joined the Thanhouser Company, her first picture there being Miss Mischief (1913). Thanhouser set up a special division for her, called Princess Films, and turned out a string of one-reelers starring her, often with Boyd Marshall as her co-star.
Off-screen, she enjoyed the life of a movie star, and was especially fond of upscale restaurants which, as was the fashion of the time, had dance bands to whom patrons could "trip the light fantastic" in between courses. She became renowned for making the circuit of those establishments, and was often praised in the entertainment press of the day for her "beautiful" dancing. One of the best-known of those restaurants, Rector's, featured waiters who would dance with the patrons. One of them was a fellow who was trying to break into movies but so far had just appeared in small parts, and was such a fine dancer that he and Ostriche often danced together for the enjoyment of the restaurant's customers. His name was Rudolph Valentino.
She left Thanhouser in 1915, when the studio's survival was in serious doubt. She worked for several different studios, among them Universal, Vitagraph and World Films. She stayed with World for three years, and then made several independent films that were released through Arrow Productions. She made her last film, The Shadow (1921), in 1921 for low-budget independent producer J. Charles Davis, then retired.
She married twice and had four children, two with each husband. She passed away after a short illness in St. Petersburg, FL, on May 3, 1989, at 93 years of age. - Actress
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Bebe Daniels already had toured as an actor by the age of four in a stage production of "Richard III". She had her first leading role at the age of seven and started her film career shortly after this in movies for Imperial, Pathe and others. At 14 she was already a film veteran, and was enlisted by Hal Roach to star as Harold Lloyd's leading lady in his "Lonesome Luke" shorts, distributed by Pathe. Lloyd fell hard for Bebe and seriously considered marrying her, but her drive to pursue a film career along with her sense of independence clashed with Lloyd's Victorian definition of a wife. The two eventually broke up but would remain lifelong friends. Bebe was sought out for stardom by Cecil B. DeMille, who literally pestered her into signing with Paramount. Unlike many actors, the arrival of sound posed no problem for her; she had a beautiful singing voice and became a major musical star, with such hits as Rio Rita (1929) and 42nd Street (1933). In 1930 she married Ben Lyon, with whom she went to England in the mid-'30s, where she became a successful West End stage star. She and her husband also had their own radio show in London, and became the most popular radio team in the country--especially during World War II, when they refused to return to the US and stayed in London, broadcasting even during the worst of the "blitz".
They later appeared in several British films together as their radio characters. Her final film was one in that series, The Lyons Abroad (1955).- Actress
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Viola Dana (real name Virginia Flugrath) was born in Brooklyn, NY, on June 26, 1897. She was the middle sister of three sisters (the other two were Edna Flugrath and Shirley Mason). She made her film debut in 1914 in Molly the Drummer Boy (1914). The following year she received top billing playing "Gladiola Bain" in Gladiola (1915). She was in top demand as evidenced by securing another lead in The Innocence of Ruth (1916). She continued to turn in great performances, particularly as Katie O'Doone in Bred in Old Kentucky (1926). Viola's final silver screen role was in 1929's One Splendid Hour (1929). The last the general public saw her was in a documentary about 'Buster Keaton' called Buster Keaton: A Hard Act to Follow (1987).
Viola died on July 3, 1987, at age 90.- Actor
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Bobby Vernon was born in the U.S. in 1897, was trained in Vaudeville and became a talented comic in the silent era. He began working in 1913, appearing in Lon Chaney's Almost an Actress (1913) and later worked for Mack Sennett, who teamed him up with young Gloria Swanson in 9 comedies between 1916 and 1917, most memorably in Teddy at the Throttle (1917), which also co-starred Wallace Beery, Gloria Swanson's husband, off-screen.
When the sound era arrived, he starred in three more films and retired to be a writer and comedy supervisor at Paramount for W.C. Fields and Bing Crosby.- Ethelmary Oakland was born on 30 July 1909 in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA. She was an actress, known for Always in the Way (1915), The Shine Girl (1916) and The Dummy (1917). She died on 2 December 1999 in Benicia, California, USA.
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Jane Lee was born in 1912 in Glasgow, Scotland, UK. She was an actress, known for Swat the Spy (1918), We Should Worry (1918) and American Buds (1918). She was married to ? St. John. She died on 17 March 1957 in New York City, New York, USA.- Actress
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Marie Osborne was born on 5 November 1911 in Denver, Colorado, USA. She was an actress, known for Milady o' the Beanstalk (1918), Twin Kiddies (1917) and The Godfather Part II (1974). She was married to Murray F. Yeats and Frank J. Dempsey. She died on 11 November 2010 in San Clemente, California, USA.- Little Mary Miles Minter was a child star who was dominated by her mother. At the age of 5 she first appeared on the stage in the play "Cameo Kirby". From that time on she worked steadily without a single vacation. Her greatest stage success was in "The Littlest Rebel", with William Farnum and Dustin Farnum. In 1911, at the age of 9, a New York paper described her as " . . . a ragged, straight-haired, woman-faced little one". She continued on the stage until 1915, when she started her film career. She was being groomed as a Mary Pickford star - a child of innocence. Her early pictures carried this theme with such titles as Lovely Mary (1916), Faith (1916) and Dimples (1916). Mary was described by the press as "of the screen as a sweet, pretty little girl with an abundance of blonde curls, a picture actress slightly bigger than a faint recollection, a little queen with delicate features and endearing young charms". She later worked for Adolph Zukor at Realart Pictures and one of her favorite directors was William Desmond Taylor. While at Realart Mary made a number of films including Anne of Green Gables (1919), Judy of Rogues' Harbor (1920), Jenny Be Good (1920) and The Little Clown (1921). Her salary, which started at $150 per week in 1915, increased to $2250 per week. At that time she also became involved with Taylor, but it is not known whether Taylor was looking out for his biggest star or if there was any real romance.
Then everything crumbled. On February 1, 1922, Taylor was shot to death in his Hollywood bungalow. His unsolved murder was one of Hollywood's major scandals, coming at the same time as the Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle incident. Though she was never considered a suspect in the murder, when the public learned of Mary's involvement with a man who had questionable dealings with women and was more than twice her age, they boycotted her films. The discovery of her belongings in Taylor's bungalow effectually killed her career in pictures. Mary was so weak from grief that she was barricaded in her home for a month. By the next year she had moved out of the home she shared with her mother and was out of pictures forever. - Actress
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Bessie Love was born in Texas. Her cowboy father moved the family to Hollywood, where he became a chiropractor. As the family needed money, Bessie's mother sent her to Biograph Studios, hoping she would become an actress. D.W. Griffith saw she was pretty and had some acting talent, and put her in several of his films, also giving her a small part in Intolerance (1916). Bessie became popular with audiences and worked with Douglas Fairbanks in Reggie Mixes In (1916) and William S. Hart in The Aryan (1916). She then moved to Vitagraph and starred in a number of comedy-dramas. In the 1920s she began to act in more mature roles, such as Those Who Dance (1924), and also began working on the stage. She performed the first screen "Charleston" dance in The King on Main Street (1925), and gave one of her best performances in Dress Parade (1927). When sound movies came into vogue, she made a number of them and received an Academy Award nomination for The Broadway Melody (1929). By 1931, however, her career was over. She moved to England in 1935 and entertained the troops during World War II. By the 1950s she started playing small roles in movies such as No Highway in the Sky (1951). She played in a handful of low-budget films from the 1950s through the 1970s. In the 1980s she appeared in the big-budget Ragtime (1981) which starred James Cagney, and later that year in Reds (1981) which starred Warren Beatty.- Kittens Reichert was born on 3 March 1910 in Yonkers, New York, USA. She was an actress, known for House of Cards (1917), Les Misérables (1917) and Heart and Soul (1917). She was married to Richard Plummer Lundy Sr.. She died on 11 January 1990 in Louisville, Kentucky, USA.
- Born on January 10, 1903 in St. Louis, Missouri, USA, to an English father and an American mother, Violet Wilkey made her screen debut at the age of 12 in the D.W. Griffith screen epic _Birth of a Nation, The_, playing a young 'Mae Marsh'. She then appeared in The Children Pay (1916), but left the film world forever after Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1917) to retire to private life. Her film career lasted only two short years. She died on June 5, 1976 in North Hollywood, California, USA at the age of 73.
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Virginia Lee Corbin was born on 5 December 1910 in Prescott, Arizona, USA. She was an actress, known for Bare Knees (1928), Hands Up! (1926) and The Forbidden Room (1919). She was married to Theodore Elwood Krol and Charles Jacobson. She died on 5 June 1942 in Winfield, Illinois, USA.- Actress
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Colleen Moore was born Kathleen Morrison in Port Huron, Michigan. Her father was an irrigation engineer and his job was good enough to provide the family a middle-class environment. She was educated in parochial schools and studied at the famed Detroit Conservatory. Colleen's family moved to Atlanta, Georgia, and later to Tampa, Florida, where she spent some of her happiest years. She described her childhood as a happy one where her parents were very much in love. In fact, she claims she never heard her parents argue with each other, although she admitted they had their differences. As a child she was fascinated with films and the queens of the day such as Marguerite Clark and Mary Pickford and kept a scrapbook of those actresses; she even kept a blank space for the day when she would be a famous star and could put her picture there. When a neighbor down the street from her had a piano delivered, Colleen talked the deliverymen into taking the wooden packing crate to her house, and she set it up as a stage. It was the beginning of her career, as she and her friend performed plays for the other neighborhood children. By 1917 she would be on her way to becoming a star. Colleen's uncle, Walter C. Howey, was the editor of the "Chicago Tribune" and had helped D.W. Griffith make his films The Birth of a Nation (1915) and Intolerance (1916) more presentable to the censors. Knowing of his niece's acting aspirations, Hovey asked Griffith to help her get a start in the motion picture industry. No sooner had she arrived in Hollywood than she found herself playing in five films that year, The Savage (1917) being her first. Her first starring role was as Annie in Little Orphant Annie (1918). Colleen was on her way. She also starred in a number of westerns opposite Tom Mix, but the movie that defined her as a "flapper" was the classic Flaming Youth (1923), in which she played Patricia Fentriss. By 1927 she was the top box-office draw in the US, pulling in the phenomenal sum of $12,500 a week (unlike many other young, highly-paid actresses, however, Colleen did not spend her money frivolously. Instead, she put it into the stock market, making very shrewd investments). She successfully made the transition into the "talkie" era of sound films. Her final film role was as Hester Prynne in The Scarlet Letter (1934). She did make one final appearance in the TV mini-series Hollywood (1980), but it was her silver screen appearances that mattered most. After she retired she wrote two books on investing and went so far as to marry two stockbrokers. On January 25, 1988, Colleen died of an undisclosed ailment in Paso Robles, California. She was 88.- Marjorie Daw was born on 19 January 1902 in Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA. She was an actress, known for Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1917), The Puppet Crown (1915) and East Lynne (1925). She was married to Myron Selznick and A. Edward Sutherland. She died on 18 March 1979 in Huntington Beach, California, USA.
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A performer since childhood (she was widely known then as "Cuddles"), pert and pretty, raven-haired Lila Lee was brought to Hollywood by Paramount mogul Jesse L. Lasky and debuted in a starring role with The Cruise of the Make-Believes (1918) as a poor girl supported by a rich admirer. Following her appearance as a servant wench in Cecil B. DeMille's Male and Female (1919), Paramount starting grooming her to eventually supplant the highly temperamental and troublesome Gloria Swanson. Lila's talent, however, was lighter in weight and, though she enjoyed great popularity in such films as Blood and Sand (1922) with Rudolph Valentino, Another Man's Wife (1924), The Midnight Girl (1925), Love, Live and Laugh (1929) co-starring George Jessel and The Unholy Three (1930) opposite Lon Chaney, Swanson had little to worry about. A series of bad judgments and highly publicized bouts with illness led to Lila's swift decline. She made a few dismal comebacks on stage and in TV soaps in the 1950s but to little fanfare. Her last picture was as a hayseed mom in the deservedly obscure Cottonpickin' Chickenpickers (1967). Her actor-turned-writer son James Kirkwood Jr., however, earned fame on his own for penning the play "P.S. Your Cat Is Dead" and the musical "A Chorus Line." Lila died of a stroke in 1973.- Lewis Sargent was born in Los Angeles August 19, 1903. He had 8 brothers and sisters. His father Lewis was a carpenter, and his older bother, Don Sargent, was a Cinematographer in Hollywood for over 40 years. He was an early friend of James Wong Howe. Lewis' ancestor, William Sargent, came to America at Agawam, Massachusetts with Captain Smith in 1614. Lewis W. Sargent was the third child of Lewis and Elsa Plath Sargent. He was a child actor in the early days of motion pictures, beginning with Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp (1917) in 1917, until 1935 when he played Tarzan's side-kick in a series produced by Edgar Rice Burroughs. He played the title role in Huckleberry Finn (1920) in 1920, shared the lead with a dog in The Call of the Wilderness (1926) and played supporting roles in Oliver Twist (1922) and several other films though 1929.
After his acting years, Lewis worked as a California State Probabtion Officer for 20 years, and spent much of his retirement time fishing and creating fishing lures. Lewis died November 19, 1970 while a patient at the Hollywood West Hospital and was buried at Valhalla Memorial Park. - Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
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A Hollywood native (born there in 1907), seven-year-old Wesley Barry was spotted by a director at Kalem who was taken with the boy's face full of freckles, and he went on to become one of the most popular child actors in the business. Barry had been making picture for several years when director Marshall Neilan scrubbed off the layers of greasepaint that covered his freckles (the standard "solution" at the time in Hollywood to cover up facial blemishes) and let the boy's naturally wild hair grow out instead of being slicked down. Audiences were charmed by the young actor's naturalness and "all-American" looks and flocked to his films. His biggest success was Dinty (1920), but he also scored with Penrod (1922), School Days (1920) and Rags to Riches (1922). Barry was not one of those former child stars whose life fell apart after growing into adulthood; he got involved in the production end of the business and enjoyed a long career as an assistant director, producer and director in both films and television. He died in Fresno, CA, in 1994.- Actor
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Jackie Coogan was born into a family of vaudevillians; his father was a dancer and his mother had been a child star. On the stage by age 4, Jackie was touring at age 5 with his family in Los Angeles, California.
While performing on the stage, he was spotted by Charles Chaplin, who then and there planned a film in which he and Jackie would star. To test Jackie, Chaplin first gave him a small part in A Day's Pleasure (1919), which proved that he had a screen presence. The movie that Chaplin planned that day was The Kid (1921), where the Tramp would raise Jackie and then lose him. The movie was very successful and Jackie would play a child in a number of movies and tour with his father on the stage.
By 1923, when he made Daddy (1923), he was one of the highest- paid stars in Hollywood. He would leave First National for MGM where they put him into Long Live the King (1923). By 1927, at age 13, Coogan had grown up on the screen and his career was going through a downturn. His popular film career would end with the classic tales of Tom Sawyer (1930) and Huckleberry Finn (1931).
In 1935, his father died and his mother married Arthur Bernstein, who was his business manager. When he wanted the money that he made as a child star in the 1920s, his mother and stepfather refused his request and Jackie filed suit for the approximately $4 million that he had made. Under California law at the time, he had no rights to the money he made as a child, and he was awarded only $126,000 in 1939. Because of the public uproar, the California Legislature passed the Child Actors Bill, also known as the Coogan Act, which would set up a trust fund for any child actor and protect his earnings.
In 1937, Jackie married Betty Grable; the marriage lasted 3 years. During World War II, he served in the Army; he returned to Hollywood after the war. Unable to restart his career, he worked in B-movies, mostly in bit parts and usually playing the heavy. In the 1950s he started to appear on television, and he acted in as many shows as he could. By the 1960s he would be in two completely different television comedy series.. The first one was McKeever and the Colonel (1962), where he played Sgt. Barnes in a military school from 1962 to 1963. The second series was the classic The Addams Family (1964), where he played Uncle Fester from 1964 to 1966. After that, he continued to make appearances on television shows and a handful of movies. He died of a heart attack in 1984.- Actress
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Silent moppet star Jackie Coogan, immortalized as Charles Chaplin's The Kid (1921), had only one screen rival during the early 1920s, and that was none other than Baby Peggy. She was "discovered" while visiting the Century Studios lot on Sunset Boulevard with her mother when she was a mere 19 months old and went on to appear in nearly 150 shorts (between 1920 and 1923) and nine feature films during her silent heyday. Often considered a precursor to Shirley Temple, Baby Peggy's most popular film vehicle was the child classic Captain January (1924), which would be made a decade later as a vehicle for Temple.
She was born Peggy-Jean Montgomery in 1918 in San Diego, California, of acting stock. She was the daughter of Marian (Baxter), from Wisconsin, and Jack Montgomery, a Nebraska-born cowboy for years all over the western states. He ended up in the movies as a stuntman and extra, driving stagecoaches and buckboards. He supported himself as Tom Mix's double, but never achieved the rugged stardom he yearned for. In fact, his daughter was the one who became the celebrity and chief breadwinner for the family.
Many of Baby Peggy's popular comedies were parodies of movies that grown-up stars had made, and she delightfully imitated such legends as Rudolph Valentino, Pola Negri, Mary Pickford and Mae Murray. Her first feature-length film was Penrod (1922); her first film with Universal, The Darling of New York (1923), shot when she was 3-1/2 years old, was a solid hit. A few more, including Helen's Babies (1924), were also certifiable winners. However, by the age of 8, she was finished.
Her fortune reportedly was depleted by her father Jack's stepfather, a banker to whom she had entrusted all her money. Within a short time, she was forced to turn to the vaudeville circuit for survival. A comeback in early talkies with the new moniker Peggy Montgomery was very short-lived. Her credits, as a result, are often mixed up with another actress named Peggy Montgomery, who was a western ingénue for many years.
The former child star lived in dire straits and suffered from nervous breakdowns and near poverty for many years until she found a new and unexpectedly successful career as a book publisher and writer, using the pseudonym "Diana Serra Cary". As the author of "Hollywood Posse" (1975) and (later) "Hollywood's Children", she wrote about her youthful career, post-stardom years, child stars in general, and Hollywood history in all its fascinating glory. Her own autobiography, "Whatever Happened to Baby Peggy?", was released in 1996.
In 2016, Diana was inducted into the Classic Film Hall of Fame at the Rheem Theater in Moraga, CA. Diana was present, at age 98, to receive the honor and answer questions. She is considered to have been the last living star of the silent film era. Per Robert Garfinkle, a board member of the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum in Fremont, CA, Diana now has the longest acting career of all time, from 1920 to 2015. Her last film was a silent film she made at the above-referenced museum. The film was actually made using one of their antique hand-cranked cameras!
Baby Peggy died on February 24, 2020 in Gustine, California. She was 101.- Actor
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Coy Watson was born on 16 November 1912 in Los Angeles, California, USA. He was an actor and director, known for Erskine Johnson's Hollywood Reel (1949), The Smart Set (1928) and The One Woman Idea (1929). He was married to Willie Watson. He died on 14 March 2009 in Alpine, California, USA.- Lucille Ricksen was born Ingeborg Erickson in Chicago, Illinois on August 22, 1910. She worked a child model and made her film debut at age 5. Her parents separated and her mother took her to Hollywood in 1920, and 10-year-old Lucille was offered a contract with Samuel Goldwyn and starred in a series of short films. She often had to work long hours but she always said she was having fun. In 1922 she starred opposite Marie Prevost in "The Married Flapper." The following year she was given a starring role in the drama "The Rendezvous"; although she was only 13, the studio lied that she was actually 16. The press called her "the youngest leading lady in movies". Lucille developed a close relationship with producer Sydney Chaplin (brother of Charlie Chaplin), who was 25 years her senior. She became one of Hollywood's busiest starlets and was chosen as one of the WAMPAS Baby Stars.
In 1924 Ricksen made 10 films, including "Vanity's Price," "The Galloping Fish," and "The Valley Of The Wolf." Unfortunately, the 14-year-old started to suffer from exhaustion and malnutrition. She was diagnosed with tuberculosis and became bedfast. Her mother kept a bedside vigil, but the stress brought on a fatal heart attack. Following her mother's death, Lucille was looked after by family friends including actress Lois Wilson. During one of her conscious moments Lucille said "Mother wouldn't want me--die--Mother said--Wonderful future--Going to do big things--Won't die! I won't!" But on March 13, 1925, she passed away from complications of tuberculosis, still at only 14 years old. There were rumors that her death had actually been caused by a botched abortion. Lucille was cremated and she was buried with her mother at Forest Lawn in Glendale, California. Her final film, "The Denial," came out 10 days after her death. - Actor
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Starting out as a child actor in 1915, Ben Alexander's first roles were in the films of such directors as Cecil B. DeMille and D.W. Griffith. He later graduated to juvenile leads and supporting parts in sound films, most notably in All Quiet on the Western Front (1930). When his acting career slowed down in the mid-'30s, he found a new career as a successful radio announcer. Alexander was more or less retired when producer Jack Webb picked him for the part of his detective partner in the TV series Dragnet (1951). Alexander later played another detective on Howard Duff's TV series The Felony Squad (1966).- Actress
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Patsy Ruth Miller was born on 17 January 1904 in St. Louis, Missouri, USA. She was an actress, known for The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923), Daughters of Today (1924) and Fools in the Dark (1924). She was married to Effingham Smith Deans, John Lee Mahin and Tay Garnett. She died on 16 July 1995 in Palm Desert, California, USA.- Actress
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Mary Astor was born Lucile Vasconcellos Langhanke on May 3, 1906 in Quincy, Illinois to Helen Marie Vasconcellos, an American of Portuguese and Irish ancestry from Illinois, and Otto Ludwig Langhanke, a German immigrant. Mary's parents were very ambitious for her and wanted something better for her than what they had, and knew that if they played their cards right, they could make her famous. Recognizing her beauty, they pushed her into various beauty contests. Luck was with Mary and her parents because one contest came to the attention of Hollywood moguls who signed her when she was 14.
Mary's first movie was a bit part in The Scarecrow (1920). It wasn't much, but it was a start. Throughout 1921-1923 she continued her career with bit or minor roles in a number of motion pictures. In 1924, she landed a plum assignment with a role as Lady Margery Alvaney opposite the great John Barrymore in the film Beau Brummel (1924). This launched her career to stardom, as did a lively affair with Barrymore. However, the affair ended before she could star with him again in the classic Don Juan (1926). By now, Mary was the new cinematic darling, with each film packing the theaters.
By the end of the 1920s, the sound revolution had taken a stronghold on the industry, and Mary was one of those lucky actresses who made the successful transition to "talkies" because of her voice and strong screen presence. Mary's career soared to greater heights. Films such as Red Dust (1932), Convention City (1933), Man of Iron (1935), and The Prisoner of Zenda (1937) kept her star at the top. In 1938, she turned out five feature films that kept her busy and in the spotlight. After that, she churned out films at a lesser rate. In 1941 she won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role as Sandra Kovac in The Great Lie (1941). That same year she appeared in the celebrated film The Maltese Falcon (1941), but her star soon began to fall.
Because of her three divorces, her first husband Kenneth Hawks' death in a plane crash, alcoholism, a suicide attempt, and a persistent heart condition, Mary started to get smaller film roles. She appeared in only five productions throughout the 1950s. Her final fling with the silver screen was as Jewell Mayhew in Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964).Although it was her final film, she had appeared in a phenomenal 123 motion pictures in her entire career.
Mary lived out her remaining years confined to the Motion Picture Country Home, where she died of a heart attack on September 25, 1987. She was 81.- Although her younger sister Mary Ann is more famous, having been a popular early member of the Our Gang (1922) comedy shorts, that might not have been true in Hawaii. In the mid-1930s, Peaches met and married Hawaiian-born "Tony Guerrero." It is unclear whether Peaches went to Honolulu as a showgirl with a revue and there met local "beach boy" Guerrero, or if he moved to Los Angeles in the mid-1930s and met her there. However they met, they married and settled down in Los Angeles and opened a restaurant called "The Hawaiian Hut." It became very successful, but by the end of the decade, her life changed in a big way. She had left show business after her marriage to work in the restaurant, and although even Tony had managed a few bit parts in films in his spare time, most notably in an uncredited minor role in the Spencer Tracy film Northwest Passage (1940), by the time that movie was released, the pair moved to Honolulu and opened a restaurant there in the heart of Waikiki Beach. They called it "The Tropics" and it became an Hawaiian institution over the years, very popular with many Hollywood movie stars. It was eventually renamed The World Famous Tropics at Waikiki and in 1952, the couple went to Paris to study at the Cordon Bleu, opening a second restaurant upon their return to Hawaii, the Tropics Ala Moana. This restaurant was as successful as the Tropics and the special house dressing became so much in demand that it was eventually bottled and to this day, Tropics Salad Dressings are popular on the West Coast and of course, in Hawaii, where they are made. They are also available online. Tony died in 1985 and Peaches in 2002, having lived a long and happy life together outside of show business.
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Virginia Davis was born on December 31, 1918, in Kansas City, Missouri. Her father was a traveling furniture salesman and spent much time away from home. With her husband gone for weeks at a time, Margaret Davis, a housewife, focused all her attention on her daughter; she began taking Virginia to dancing lessons and modeling auditions when she was 2. A striking child with long curls, Virginia was soon appearing in advertisements that played between films in local theaters. She also entered Georgie Brown's Dramatic School in Kansas City, where she studied drama and dance. In the summer of 1923, 22-year-old Walt Disney, a struggling but ambitious director, saw Virginia in an advertisement in a Kansas City theater and immediately decided to hire her. He quickly contacted Margaret Davis, who was eager to advance her Virginia's career. Alice's Wonderland (1923), the first short film of the Alice series, was filmed at the Davis home in Kansas City; both Margaret Davis and Walt Disney made brief appearances (which marked Disney's first live appearance in one of his own cartoons). After filming, Disney returned to Hollywood and began to build his movie empire with only forty dollars and one short film starring little Virginia Davis. The Davis family soon followed Disney to Hollywood, although their daughter's career was not the only reason for the move; Virginia had suffered a pneumonia and other health problems, and her doctor told her parents that she would be healthier in a drier, warmer climate. Virginia signed her first contract with Disney for a salary of $100 a month, and she began filming the Alice shorts in Walt Disney's first studio, his uncle's garage. His brother Roy O. Disney was the cameraman, and the Disney family dog Peggy appeared in many of the films. The Alice shorts became very popular, providing Disney with his first national success. But as the series progressed, Disney became more interested in the animation aspect, which minimized Virginia's live-action role; she only made about thirteen of the Alice shorts before her contract was severed. She later auditioned for the role of voice of Snow White in Disney's film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), but she didn't get the role because her mother refused to accept the frugal salary. Virginia had some small roles in full-length films, including The Harvey Girls (1946), before she left acting to earn a degree from the New York School of Interior Design. She later became an editor for the 1950s magazine "Living for Young Homemakers," and in the 1960s, she began working for real estate agents in Connecticut and later California. In 1992, interest was renewed in the Alice series. Living in retirement in Montana, Virginia was suddenly overwhelmed by the number of fans seeking to honor her and the remarkable role she played in the birth of Walt Disney Studios. She was the guest of honor at the Pordonone Silent Film Festival in Italy in 1992, and she was inducted as a Disney Legend in 1998. Virginia also became very active in silent film festivals and events at Disneyland and Walt Disney World.- Priscilla Moran was born into poverty, her parents both ill with tuberculosis at the time of her birth (and from which, neither ever recovered.) Her father owned and ran a small movie house in Sedalia, and she was named for actress Priscilla Dean. When she was barely four, it was suggested that the family move to a drier climate to try to improve their health. Friends urged them to go to Hollywood, where they felt Priscilla would be able to easily break into the movies and provide a source of income for her parents. During a trip to a casting office, she was spotted by the director of "The Toll of the Sea", and was picked on the spot for a part. Priscilla became an instant favorite of her co-stars and other actors - including her namesake, Priscilla Dean. When her co-stars learned of the parents' financial problems, they took up a collection to help her. Soon, Priscilla's own salary easied her family's financial burden. However, upon her mother's death, almost all the money was used to pay for doctors and burial expenses. On April 22, 1923, her father left her with the John Coogan family (parents of Jackie Coogan), and dropped out of sight. The Coogans wanted to adopt her, but six months later her father reappeared and took her away. Nothing is known of this time of her life, and there was no news of the Morans for several months. Eventually, they resurfaced in New York, where Mr. Moran had begun the Priscilla Moran Productions Company, and was looking for investors. One woman paid Moran $35,000 for stock on the condition that she receive custody of Priscilla - so that she could "protect her investment." Moran agreed, Priscilla got a new home, and he disappeared again. Two months later he resurfaced and went to visit Priscilla, but never returned her. They ended up in New York where he named a movie executive her legal guardian in his will. He then borrowed $500 dollars and left for the Southwest, where he died only days later. Her father's death made Priscilla's life more complicated. There was a drawn-out court battle with three parties asking for custody - her first guardian, the man named in her father's will, and her aunt and grandmother. The judge viewed the first two petitioners as having tried to buy Priscilla, and custody was awarded to the aunt and grandmother. Priscilla went to yet another new home, and her life as a "movie star" came to an end.
- Betty Bronson's discovery reads like a Hollywood dream. As a New Jersey teenage bit-player, she was rocketed from obscurity when she was chosen to play the part of Peter Pan in 1924's Peter Pan (1924). She was hand-selected by author J.M. Barrie and beat several Hollywood superstars to the part, most notably Gloria Swanson and Mary Pickford. Pickford, though nearly 30, had built a career out of playing such parts, and faced the first serious threat to her status as "America's Sweetheart". Betty's beautifully expressive performance and unsophisticated looks earned her instant success. For the year following "Peter Pan"'s release, Bronson-mania easily equaled the sort of hysteria previously reserved only for Pickford.
Unfortunately, Bronson's studio seemed unsure of how to exploit this talent, which was wasted in small or unchallenging roles. "Peter Pan"'s 1925 follow-up, A Kiss for Cinderella (1925), seemed destined for the same success--but instead was a major flop. In only one year the public taste had changed so much as to render the sentimental entertainment of yesteryear obsolete. Had Bronson emerged ten years earlier she would have been a worthy competitor to Pickford; in 1925, audiences were suddenly more interested in the more adult charms of flappers such as Clara Bow and Colleen Moore. Betty, too, was re-launched as a flapper, sophisticate and occasional period dame. Her career was moderately successful but her superstardom had subsided. She sparkled and demonstrated an excellent voice in her first sound appearance (The Singing Fool (1928) with Al Jolson) but it became clear that her formidable skills as a pantomimist was wasted in the new form. She retired in 1933 to marry, and only appeared on-screen intermittently thereafter. - Spec O'Donnell was born on 9 April 1911 in Fresno, California, USA. He was an actor, known for Accidents Will Happen (1938), Vamping Venus (1928) and Kentucky Blue Streak (1935). He was married to Inez Hixson. He died on 14 October 1986 in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA.
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The son of a railroad clerk/pro boxer, Frank Coghlan Jr. was born in Connecticut and soon moved with his parents to California, where all three did extra work in silent pictures. Freckle-faced Coghlan was soon one of the era's most popular child actors, but with the advent of sound (and the onslaught of adolescence) he was reduced to smaller parts. After starring in the milestone serial Adventures of Captain Marvel (1941), Coghlan became a naval aviator in World War II. He later headed the Navy's motion picture cooperation program (and other similar programs), acting as liaison between the Navy and the Hollywood studios. When his 23-year active duty stint ended in 1965, he returned to acting in movies and on television (where he had a supporting part in the pilot of the "Captain Marvel"-like comedy series Mr. Terrific (1967)). He wrote his autobiography "because my kids just kept bugging me to do it", does the occasional TV commercial, and is a popular figure at movie conventions, where, to the amazement of the 80-ish "Junior", fans still line up to meet Captain Marvel's alter ego.- Actress
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The younger sister of actress Alice Day, Marceline achieved stardom in the mid-1920s, appearing opposite such stars as John Barrymore and Lon Chaney. Adept at comedy, she also starred with such top comics as Buster Keaton and Harry Langdon. Her career faltered in the early 1930s, however, and she was soon reduced to appearing in low-budget thrillers and action pictures. She retired in the mid-1930s.- Actor
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Born in France during a World War I air raid in which his mother was killed, Philippe was adopted by Mrs. Edith DeLacy, who was associated with the Women's Overseas Hospital. After the war ended, Mrs. Lacy brought Philippe to America where his stunning looks soon made him a sought after model for advertisements and eventually brought him to the screen.- Joyce Coad was born on 14 April 1917 in Laramie, Wyoming, USA. She was an actress, known for The Scarlet Letter (1926), The Magic Garden (1927) and Drums of Love (1928). She died on 3 May 1987 in March Air Force Base, California, USA.
- Vondell Darr was born on 18 April 1919 in Los Angeles, California, USA. She was an actress, known for On Trial (1928), Scouts to the Rescue (1939) and That Certain Age (1938). She was married to Fred C. Wilson. She died on 10 September 2012 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
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Sweet, sweeter, sweetest. No combination of terms better describes the screen persona of lovely Loretta Young. A&E's Biography (1987) has stated that Young "remains a symbol of beauty, serenity, and grace. But behind the glamour and stardom is a woman of substance whose true beauty lies in her dedication to her family, her faith, and her quest to live life with a purpose."
Loretta Young was born Gretchen Young in Salt Lake City, Utah on January 6, 1913, to Gladys (Royal) and John Earle Young. Her parents separated when Loretta was three years old. Her mother moved Loretta and her two older sisters to Southern California, where Mrs. Young ran a boarding house. When Loretta was 10, her mother married one of her boarders, George Belzer. They had a daughter, Georgianna, two years later.
Loretta was appearing on screen as a child extra by the time she was four, joining her elder sisters, Polly Ann Young and Elizabeth Jane Young (later better known as Sally Blane), as child players. Mrs. Young's brother-in-law was an assistant director and got young Loretta a small role in the film The Only Way (1914). The role consisted of nothing more than a small, weeping child lying on an operating table. Later that year, she appeared in another small role, in The Primrose Ring (1917). The film starred Mae Murray, who was so taken with little Loretta that she offered to adopt her. Loretta lived with the Murrays for about a year and a half. In 1921, she had a brief scene in The Sheik (1921).
Loretta and her sisters attended parochial schools, after which they helped their mother run the boarding house. In 1927, Loretta returned to films in a small part in Naughty But Nice (1927). Even at the age of fourteen, she was an ambitious actress. Changing her name to Loretta Young, letting her blond hair revert to its natural brown and with her green eyes, satin complexion and exquisite face, she quickly graduated from ingenue to leading lady. Beginning with her role as Denise Laverne in The Magnificent Flirt (1928), she shaped any character she took on with total dedication. In 1928, she received second billing in The Head Man (1928) and continued to toil in many roles throughout the '20s and '30s, making anywhere from six to nine films a year. Her two sisters were also actresses but were not as successful as Loretta, whose natural beauty was her distinct advantage.
The 17-year-old Young made headlines in 1930 when she and Grant Withers, who was previously married and nine years her senior, eloped to Yuma, Arizona. They had both appeared in Warner Bros.' The Second Floor Mystery (1930). The marriage was annulled in 1931, the same year in which the pair would again co-star on screen in a film ironically titled Too Young to Marry (1931). By the mid-'30s, Loretta left First National Studios for rival Fox, where she had previously worked on a loan-out basis, and became one of the premier leading ladies of Hollywood.
In 1935, she made Call of the Wild (1935) with Clark Gable and it was thought they had an affair where Loretta got pregnant thereafter. Because of the strict morality clauses in their contracts - and the fact that Clark Gable was married - they could not tell anybody except Loretta's mother. Loretta and her mother left for Europe after filming on The Crusades finished. They returned in August 1935 to the United States, at which time Gladys Belzer announced Loretta's 'illness' to the press. Filming on Loretta's next film, Ramona, was also cancelled. During this time, Loretta was living in a small house in Venice, California, her mother rented. On November 6, 1935, Loretta delivered a healthy baby girl whom she named Judith. It wasn't until the 1990s when she was watching Larry King Live where she first heard the word 'date rape' and upon finding out exactly what it was, professed to her friend and biographer Edward Funk and her daughter-in-law Linda Lewis, that she had gone through the same with Clark Gable. "That's what happened between me and Clark."
In 1938, Loretta starred as Sally Goodwin in Kentucky (1938), an outstanding success. Her co-star Walter Brennan won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as Peter Goodwin.
In 1940, Loretta married businessman Tom Lewis, and from then on her child was called Judy Lewis, although Tom Lewis never adopted her. Judy was brought up thinking that both parents had adopted her and did not know, until years later, that she was actually the biological daughter of Loretta and Clark Gable. Four years after her marriage to Tom Lewis, Loretta had a son, Christopher Lewis, and later another son, Peter Charles.
In the 1940s, Loretta was still one of the most beautiful ladies in Hollywood. She reached the pinnacle of her career when she won the Academy Award for Best Actress in The Farmer's Daughter (1947), the tale of a farm girl who rises through the ranks and becomes a congresswoman. It was a smash and today is her best remembered film. The same year, she starred in the delightful fantasy The Bishop's Wife (1947) with David Niven and Cary Grant. It was another box office success and continues to be a TV staple during the holiday season. In 1949, Loretta starred in the well-received film, Mother Is a Freshman (1949) with Van Johnson and Rudy Vallee and Come to the Stable (1949). The latter garnered Loretta her second Oscar nomination, but she lost to Olivia de Havilland in The Heiress (1949). In 1953, Loretta made It Happens Every Thursday (1953), which was to be her final big screen role.
She retired from films in 1953 and began a second, equally successful career as hostess of The Loretta Young Show (1953), a half-hour television drama anthology series which ran on NBC from September 1953 to September 1961. In addition to hosting the series, she frequently starred in episodes. Although she is most remembered for her stunning gowns and swirling entrances, over the broadcast's eight-year run she also showed again that she could act. She won Emmy awards for best actress in a dramatic series in 1954, 1956 and 1958.
After the show ended, she took some time off before returning in 1962 with The New Loretta Young Show (1962), which was not so successful, lasting only one season. For the next 24 years, Loretta did not appear in any entertainment medium. Her final performance was in a made for TV film Lady in the Corner (1989).
By 1960, Loretta was a grandmother. Her daughter Judy Lewis had married about three years before and had a daughter in 1959, whom they named Maria. Loretta and Tom Lewis divorced in the early 1960s. Loretta enjoyed retirement, sleeping late, visiting her son Chris and daughter-in-law Linda, and traveling. She and her friend Josephine Alicia Saenz, ex-wife of John Wayne, traveled to India and saw the Taj Mahal. In 1990, she became a great-grandmother when granddaughter Maria, daughter of Judy Lewis, gave birth to a boy.
Loretta lived a quiet retirement in Palm Springs, California until her death on August 12, 2000 from ovarian cancer at the home of her sister Georgiana and Georgiana's husband, Ricardo Montalban.- Actress
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On stage from the age of seven, Martha Sleeper began on screen in her early teens as a comic actress for Hal Roach. After her successful debut in the independently produced farce The Mailman (1923), she found herself cast in a series of child comedies with Buddy Messinger and a brace of one- and two-reel shorts opposite Charley Chase with titles like All Wet (1924) and Crazy Like a Fox (1926). Being voted a WAMPAS Baby Star in 1927 was a further boon to her popularity. An attempt was made to turn her into an eccentric knockabout comedienne in the vein of Gale Henry, but this failed to come off. She was subsequently used in rather more subtle domestic farce, such as in Pass the Gravy (1928) , as Max Davidson's daughter, frenetically trying to communicate with him by mime. Her last role of note in silent comedy was as a rather perfunctory leading lady in Stan Laurel's last solo effort, Should Tall Men Marry? (1928).
Her contract with Roach was not renewed due to a fiscal downsizing of the company in 1928, so Martha moved over to FBO. This was a Poverty Row outfit that specialized in low-budget features--often westerns--for the Midwest market. No prints of the six films Martha made for FBO are believed to have survived. After 1930, she bounced around among the studios, appearing in supporting roles--often as the "other woman"--in melodramas for MGM, Paramount and RKO. At the same time, growing ever more restless in Hollywood, she sought work on the stage. In an interview, she asserted that she had been given "permission to take jobs in the theater in downtown Los Angeles. That's unheard of, a contract player wanting to have time for stage work" (NY Times, April 7,1983).
In 1936, Martha and her actor-husband Hardie Albright left the West Coast for New York to begin a ten-year run on- and off-Broadway. At the same time she developed a lucrative sideline of designing idiosyncratic costume jewelry, mostly made from bakelite, wood and metal. This blossomed into a respectable $300,000-a-year business and earned Martha the sobriquet of "The Gadget Girl". Her varied creations--including tarantula brooches, necklaces of sun-drenched strawberries and collars of champagne bubbles and swizzle sticks--were hugely popular with the general public, the jet set and film stars like Dolores Del Río and Fay Wray.
In 1949, Martha settled on the island of Puerto Rico, sold her possessions in New York and reinvented herself yet again, as proprietor of a boutique in San Juan, designing and manufacturing fashionable women's clothes. She remained on the island until her retirement in 1969, spending her remaining years on her second husband's plantation near Charleston in South Carolina.- Edith Roberts was born in New York City on September 17, 1899. She was a starstruck 19-year-old when she made her debut in The Deciding Kiss (1918). Although she didn't get the acclaim that her more successful counterparts did, she remained very busy throughout the decade and into the 1920s. After The Wagon Master (1929), Edith left films. On August 20, 1935, she died in Los Angeles, California, from complications from a horrendous childbirth. She was only 35 years old.
- Adele DeGarde was born on 3 May 1899 in Brooklyn, New York, USA. She was an actress, known for Lights of New York (1916), Within the Law (1917) and And a Little Child Shall Lead Them (1909). She was married to Harris N. Jespersen. She died on 7 January 1966 in Valley Stream, New York, USA.
- Clara Horton was born on 29 July 1904 in Brooklyn, New York, USA. She was an actress, known for The Girl from Outside (1919), Tom Sawyer (1917) and Huck and Tom (1918). She was married to Hyman Brand. She died on 4 December 1976 in Encino, California, USA.
- Edith Haldeman was born on 17 April 1905 in Manhattan, New York, USA. She was an actress, known for Let No Man Put Asunder (1912), Loneliness and Love (1913) and The Doll (1911). She died in October 1984 in Bronx, New York City, New York, USA.
- Eileen Percy was born in Belfast, Ireland on August 21, 1900. She got an early start in films when she landed the role of Ethel Forsythe in 1917's Down to Earth (1917). She was barely 17 years old. Eileen was kept busy as the twenties rolled in with roles in The Third Eye (1920), Why Trust Your Husband (1921), Let's Go (1923), and Tongues of Flame (1924). (Her sister Thelma, briefly, appeared in four films in 1920 and 1921). Eileen was one of those stars whose voice didn't translate well into sound. She made only a few sound pictures with a bit part in The Cohens and Kellys in Hollywood (1932). Afterwards she retired from the silver screen. On July 29, 1973, Eileen died of cancer in Beverly Hills, California. She was 72 years old.
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Mary Tunstal Ijames, born Kentucky, was part of a Vaudeville sister act "Tempest and Sunshine". She and her sister were in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1907. She is credited on Broadway, the Palace Theater, Silent Films, music composer and lyricist (The Peanut Vendor)and is also credited for introducting Cuban music to the US.- Marie Eline was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on February 27, 1902. She got her start in the film business at age 7 with the Thanhouser Co. in New York with A 29-Cent Robbery (1910), which came out the year after she signed the contract. She was one of the few actresses who played the lead role in her very first film (her sister, Grace Eline, also had a part in the film). Marie proved to be an incredibly versatile player for such a young child, easily shifting between playing female and male children and, in one film-- The Judge's Story (1911)--she even played a Black boy. She was so popular with critics and audiences alike that, unlike most actors at Thanhouser, she was mentioned by name by the company and even given a nickname: "The Thanhouser Kid". Critics praised her "naturalness" and audiences flocked to her pictures, which played no small part in Thanhouser's success as a major film production studio.
In 1913, at the ripe old age of 11, she decided to broaden her horizons by conquering Broadway, appearing in at least one play. That same year Thanhouser took her out of "kid" roles and put her in its prestigious "Princess Films" division. Unfortunately, her popularity waned and she made fewer and fewer pictures. She finally left Thanhouser in 1914 and went back to the stage. She later signed with World Films, for whom she made Uncle Tom's Cabin (1914). She remained in the theater for several years, then in 1919 she signed with the low-budget National Film Corp. in Los Angeles.
She and her sister toured extensively in stock and vaudeville into the 1920s. She married in 1922 and had one child, a girl. She died in Longview, Washington on January 3, 1981, while visiting her daughter. - Magda Foy was born on 13 July 1905 in Manhattan, New York, USA. She was an actress, known for Falling Leaves (1912), Man's Woman (1917) and A Child's Sacrifice (1910). She was married to Arthur J. Edwards. She died on 2 February 2000 in Port Jefferson, New York, USA.
- Zoe Rae was born on 13 July 1910 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. She was an actress, known for Danger Within (1918), The Kaiser, the Beast of Berlin (1918) and Gloriana (1916). She was married to Ronald Foster Barlow. She died on 20 May 2006 in Newberg, Oregon, USA.
- Mary McAllister was born on 27 May 1909 in Los Angeles, California, USA. She was an actress, known for On Trial (1917), The Devil's Skipper (1928) and The Midnight Watch (1927). She died on 1 May 1991 in Del Mar, California, USA.
- Gertrude Robinson was born on 7 October 1890 in New York City, New York, USA. She was an actress, known for The Feud and the Turkey (1908), What the Daisy Said (1910) and Good for Evil (1913). She was married to Walter Robinson and James Kirkwood. She died on 19 March 1962 in Hollywood, California, USA.
- Actress
- Soundtrack
Gertrude Messinger was born on 28 April 1911 in Spokane, Washington, USA. She was an actress, known for A Bit o' Heaven (1917), Rip Van Winkle (1921) and Penrod and Sam (1923). She was married to Schuyler A. Sanford, Henry Walsh Knight and David Sharpe. She died on 8 November 1995 in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA.- Gladys Egan was born on 24 May 1900 in Manhattan, New York, USA. She was an actress, known for The Adventures of Dollie (1908), Romance of a Jewess (1908) and After Many Years (1908). She was married to John Edward Jacoby. She died on 8 March 1985 in Lemon Grove, California, USA.
- Muriel Frances Dana was born on 14 October 1916 in Clinton, Iowa, USA. She was an actress, known for Hail the Woman (1921), White Hands (1922) and Can a Woman Love Twice? (1923). She died on 25 August 1997 in Thousand Oaks, California, USA.
- Actor
- Soundtrack
Actor John (Johnnie) Harron was born in New York City on March 31, 1903, a younger brother of silent screen star Robert Harron. John got his first taste of the movie business with an unbilled bit in one of his brother's many classic films, Hearts of the World (1918). After all the tabloid hoopla of his brother's sudden and mysterious shooting death in 1920 (listed as "accidental" but some claim it might have been suicide), John was practically handed a movie career on a silver platter.
Taking Bobby's place portraying young, innocent, wholesome romantic leads opposite silent screen's top femme stars, John literally coasted through hundreds of films. Although he showed major promise starring or co-starring in such jazz-era mementos as The $5 Baby (1922), The Ragged Heiress (1922), Dulcy (1923), My Wife and I (1925), The Boy Friend (1926) and Silk Stockings (1927), he never managed to win the kind of fame brother Bobby received. By the arrival of sound, John had been relegated to bit and unbilled parts again in second-string films.
Following location work on his last picture, John returned home unusually exhausted. He traveled to Seattle for a bit of fishing and rest and relaxation but, shortly after arriving, developed a raging headache and went into the hospital. Diagnosed with spinal meningitis, John died suddenly on November 24, 1939 at the hospital. He was only 36 and was survived by his wife of ten years, actress Betty Westmore, and young daughter Colleene.- Born in the film capital of the world near the end of World War I, he made his film debut under the name John Henry Jr. in a Valentine's Day film short. During the 1920s he was considered to be one of the most popular film stars of the decade, alongside Mickey Rooney, Peggy Montgomery, and the many "Our Gang" cast members. When the Depression came, however, Marion found himself getting fewer parts, and when he resumed his film career at the start of his adulthood he was often subjected to less-than-desirable roles, in some of which he would only have one sentence to speak. Despite his film setbacks in adulthood, he made a name for himself by performing in a handful of radio shows, even though he was almost always uncredited. He left acting in 1953 to focus on family and his church.
- Quiet, benign, blue-eyed, rangy-framed child/teen actor Junior Durkin, who was an absolute natural on film and possessed major "down home" appeal, showed strong promise in just the few 1930s films he appeared in. A fatal roadster accident quickly ended the dreams of this young "Henry Fonda" type just as he was about to transition into grownup-roles.
He was born Trent Bernard ("Junior") Durkin in Atlantic City, New Jersey on July 2, 1915. His father, Bernard, was a hotel owner who abandoned the family while Junior was quite young. His mother, Florence "Molly" Edwards, was an actress who quickly geared Junior and his two older sisters, Gertrude Durkin and Grace Durkin toward performing. Junior first set foot on stage at age 2 1/2 playing the part of Cupid in the play "Some Night". From there he was seen in such shows as "The Squaw Man," "The Blue Bird," "Poppy," "Paid" and "Floradora." Following a role in "Dagmar" starring legendary 'Nazimova' as a countess in January 1923, the 8-year-old Junior took his first bow on Broadway with the melodrama "The Lady" toward the end of that year with veterans 'Mary Nash' and Elisabeth Risdon.
Junior returned to Broadway as Tommy Tucker in Gilbert & Sullivan's musical "H.M.S. Pinafore" (1926), then earned his strongest reviews yet in the Broadway comedy "Courage" (1928), also starring Janet Beecher and featuring sister Gertrude, which ran for 8 months. He and sister Gertrude also toured on the vaudeville circuit around this time.
Following his mother's death in 1930, the young actor and both his sisters, who now had stage and Broadway experience, headed West to Hollywood to test "early sound" pictures. Junior was immediate placed in the Warner Bros. domestic drama Recaptured Love (1930) and received noticeable reviews as the son of estranged parents. Junior was next paired well with child actress Mitzi Green in The Santa Fe Trail (1930) headlining Richard Arlen, with both children receiving their share of praise.
Brief as it was, Junior became life-long friends with superstar Jackie Coogan when he tested and won the role of Huckleberry Finn opposite Coogan's Sawyer in what would prove to be a highly popular movie version of the Mark Twain classic Tom Sawyer (1930). Both boys were the same age. With Mitzi Green delightful as Becky Thatcher, the three young actors received heaps of praise for their naturalistic performances. The movie was so well received, in fact, that all three were reunited in the film version of Huckleberry Finn (1931). Blessed with a shy, ingratiating smile, Junior, along with the other two, received equal applause for these same roles.
Junior co-starred in the drama Hell's House (1932) with an early Bette Davis and Pat O'Brien as a bucolic "good kid" who gets mixed up with the wrong city crowd, a bootlegger and his dame, and takes the fall for a crime his mentor committed. Junior's next film Man Hunt (1933) showed off Junior's natural charm as a boy sleuth who involves himself in a murder and robbery. Returning then to the stage with a starring role in the comedy "Growing Pains" at the Pasadena Playhouse, the show moved to Broadway in November 1933 but ran only 29 performances.
Dropping the name "Junior" from the marquee, the young actor was fourth billed as "Trent Durkin" in the Richard Arlen/Ida Lupino comedy Ready for Love (1934) in his pursuit of a grownup image. Big Hearted Herbert (1934) with Guy Kibbee and Louisa May Alcott's Little Men (1934) with fellow kid actors Dickie Moore, Frankie Darro, Tommy Bupp and Cora Sue Collins followed. Junior's last film would be RKO's Chasing Yesterday (1935), which would be released posthumously.
Junior had just been cast to play "Tommy" in the hotly anticipated film version of Eugene O'Neill's drama Ah Wilderness! (1935) when the boy decided to take some spring time off to relax with his good friend Jackie Coogan at the Coogan ranch just outside San Diego. On their way back to the ranch while out on a dove-hunting expedition one day in Coogan's new car, a 20th birthday present from his dad, the vehicle (driven by Coogan, Sr.) swerved to avoid an oncoming car, lost control and plunged into a ravine, overturning more than seven times. Of all the occupants -- Jackie, Jackie's father, Junior, actor-writer Robert J. Horner and ranch foreman Charles Jones -- young Jackie Coogan was the sole survivor, the only one not thrown from the car.
Junior's death was attributed to a fractured skull. The highly beloved youth had over two hundred guests attend his funeral, which was held at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Glendale, California. Gone at 19, one can only image what talents he still had to share or what kind of Hollywood career he would have had as a full-fledged adult star. - Child star Bobby Connelly, the son of vaudeville actors, was born April 4, 1909 in Brooklyn, New York. He made his first screen appearance in 1912. In 1913, he joined the Vitagraph Company, whose studio was just a short distance from his home. While at Vitagraph, he starred in a series of shorts as the character "Sonny Jim." Bobby studied violin, which came in handy when he was cast as the young violinist Leon Kantor in the 1920 film version of "Humoresque." Reportedly he was one of the highest paid child actors in the world. At one point, he headed a vaudeville company. In 1922, Bobby became ill for three months, suffering from bronchitis, aggravated by an enlarged heart. Sadly, he passed away on July 6, 1922, at his home in Lynbrook, Long Island.
- Actor
- Writer
- Soundtrack
American Western star and character actor whose career spanned six decades. The son of director Robert N. Bradbury, he appeared in vaudeville with his parents and with his twin brother Bill Bradbury appeared as a child in a series of 16 semi- documentary short films directed by their father, The Adventures of Bob and Bill. As Bob Bradbury Jr., he played juvenile roles in silent films, then took the stage name Bob Steele in 1927. He appeared in scores of films during the Thirties, rising to B-Western stardom and an apparently solid position as one of Republic Studios' top draws. Occasionally he made an appearance in more prominent films, as in his role as Curly in Of Mice and Men (1939). But he remained primarily a figure in Westerns. His stardom diminished by the mid-40s, and he spent the next quarter-century in character roles, some highly visible, such as his part in The Big Sleep (1946). But he also eventually turned up as a virtual extra in pictures like Shenandoah (1965). He appeared often on television and regained some fame in his role as Trooper Duffy in F Troop (1965). He died at St. Joseph's Hospital in Burbank, California, following a long illness.- Yale Boss was born on 18 October 1899 in Utica, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for The Ransom of Red Chief (1911), A Youthful Knight (1913) and A Question of Hats and Gowns (1914). He died on 16 November 1977 in Augusta, Georgia, USA.
- Actor
- Soundtrack
Harold Goodwin (22 October 1917 - 3 June 2004) was an English actor born in Wombwell, Barnsley, South Yorkshire, England.
Goodwin trained at RADA and was a stage actor at Liverpool repertory theatre for 3 years. He appeared in numerous British films of the 1950s and 1960s, usually playing 'flat cap' wearing working class characters from Northern England or low ranks in the military.
He had significant parts in the war films The Dam Busters (playing Guy Gibson's batman, 'Crosby'), The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) and The Longest Day. He can also be seen in films such as The Ladykillers, Sea of Sand, Angels One Five and The Cruel Sea (in which he was the ASDIC operator).
He also made hundreds of British TV appearances in programmes such as Minder (as Dunning, episode Get Daley!, 1984) and a notable role in All Creatures Great and Small. Goodwin was a 'staple' of the popular 1980s sitcom, That's My Boy. His last major television appearance was playing the part of Joss Shackleton, father to Vera Duckworth, in the ITV soap opera Coronation Street (1960) in the early 1990s.
He also appeared in an episode of One Foot in the Grave (1990) as a window cleaner.- Actor
- Stunts
- Soundtrack
Maurice Murphy was born on 3 October 1913 in Seattle, Washington, USA. He was an actor, known for Tailspin Tommy (1934), Beau Geste (1926) and Peter Pan (1924). He died on 23 November 1978 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Bruce Guerin was born on 18 January 1919 in Los Angeles, California, USA. He was an actor, known for Revelation (1924), Kindred of the Dust (1922) and Brass (1923). He was married to Jeanne Marie Payne and Lucille Fregoso (fourth). He died on 27 June 2012 in Wailuku, Hawaii, USA.
- Frankie Lee was born on 31 December 1911 in Gunnison, Colorado, USA. He was an actor, known for Jinx (1919), The Bronze Bride (1917) and The Right to Be Happy (1916). He died on 29 July 1970 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Mickey McBan was born on 27 February 1919 in Spokane, Washington, USA. He was an actor, known for Beau Geste (1926), Peter Pan (1924) and Sorrell and Son (1927). He died on 30 October 1979 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Teddy Sampson was born on 8 August 1898 in New York City, New York, USA. She was an actress, known for The Bad Man (1923), Hickory Hiram (1918) and Her American Husband (1918). She was married to Ford Sterling. She died on 24 November 1970 in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Married to director/writer Scott Pembroke, daughter of actor Lew Short and sister of actress Florence Short. Gertrude Short was in vaudeville for five years then moved to the legit stage and onto Hollywood in 1922. From 1924 to 1925, Short played in a series of "Telephone Girl" comedies, directed by her husband. She continued playing telephone operators in several of her sound films. In fact, her last screen appearance was as an operator in the film Week-End at the Waldorf (1945). During WWII Short left the screen to work at Lockheed and stayed there until she retired in 1967.
- Jeanne Carpenter was born on 1 February 1916 in Kansas City, Missouri, USA. She was an actress, known for Through the Back Door (1921), Fighting Fate (1921) and A Man from Nowhere (1920). She was married to Robert Alvin Grimes and Robert Drysdale. She died on 5 January 1994 in Oxnard, California, USA.
- Mary Jane Irving was born on 20 October 1913 in Columbia, South Carolina, USA. She was an actress, known for The White Lie (1918), Scotty of the Scouts (1926) and The Godless Girl (1928). She was married to Robert Carson. She died on 17 July 1983 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Actor
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
- Producer
Who was the first screen Tarzan? The standard answer is Elmo Lincoln star of the first Tarzan movie (1918). But the first third of that movie shows Tarzan as a boy, frolicking in the nude with real chimps (unlike the grown-up Lincoln who cavorted clothed with athletes wearing monkey suits). The earliest movie Tarzan was actually Gordon Griffith, a child star who began his career four years earlier in five Charles Chaplin one-reelers. After the initial Tarzan role he played the son of Tarzan (anticipating John Sheffield's "boy" roles), Tom Sawyer, and a few more child parts. As an adult he joined Monogram as an assistant director and was affiliated with both Robert Sherwood Productions and Gregory Ratoff Productions as a director and associate producer. In 1941 he became production manager of Columbia Pictures. He also served as associate producer on RKO's "Never Wave at a Wac" and UA's "Monsoon". He was survived by his sister.- Miriam Battista was born in New York City on July 14, 1912, the youngest of three children, to immigrant parents from Italy. Her father was Raphael Battista from Oliveto Citra, Italy, and her mother was Cleonice (Clara) Rufolo. Clara was related to many old Neapolitan families of noble blood, and Raphael's grandfather was an archbishop. Miriam captivated audiences at age 4 when she made her stage debut in 1916 with legendary stage star Maude Adams (1872-1953) in "A Kiss for Cinderella." She was first seen on film in Blazing Love (1916) starring Virginia Pearson. Her eyes lit up the screen, though she received no credit for being in the film. Several years of stage work followed, including roles in "Daddy Long Legs" with Ruth Chatterton (1917), the Henrik Ibsen classic "A Doll's House" with Alla Nazimova (1918), "Freedom" with her eldest brother William (1918), "Red Dawn" (1919), and "Daddies" with Jeanne Eagles (1919).
In 1919, she returned to film in Nazimova's Eye for Eye (1918), playing Hassouna's little sister. The following year, she played Minnie Ginsberg as a child in Humoresque (1920), the first film to receive the Photoplay Magazine Medal of Honor (the first significant annual film award); in Miriam's most memorable scene, she sobs over her dead kitten and tries to bring it back to life by warming it against her body. Roles in many more films followed, including At the Stage Door (1921) with Billie Dove, Smilin' Through (1922) with Norma Talmadge, Boomerang Bill (1922) with Lionel Barrymore in which she played a Chinese girl, and The Man Who Played God (1922) with George Arliss. Her mother, who had managed her career, died in 1924, and Miriam didn't return to the stage until 1930, at the age of 18. She played the ingénue lead in "The Honor Code" (1931) and after joining Florenz Ziegfield Jr.'s "Follies" as a dancer, she landed a singing role in "Hot Cha!" (1932) with Bert Lahr. She continued performing on the stage, including starring with Humphrey Bogart in "Our Wife" (1933), and making films, mostly in Italian. In 1934, she married dancer Paul Pierce; the marriage lasted only one year. In 1938, she married Russell Maloney, an author who worked as a staff writer on the New Yorker. Their only child, Amelia, was born in 1945. In 1948, they collaborated on an ill-fated musical titled "Sleepy Hollow" that lasted only 12 performances. Russell died a few months later, and in 1949 Miriam married Lloyd Rosamond, a radio and TV producer who had been a friend since childhood. Lloyd died in 1964. Miriam died on December 22, 1980, of complications from emphysema. - Little-known today but regarded in her time as one of the screen's great beauties, New Jersey-born Marguerite Courtot was sent in 1909, at age 12, to be educated in a European convent. By the time she returned to the US she had blossomed into such a beauty that she soon had a career as a top photographer's model; it didn't take long for offers from the film industry (much of which, at the time, was based in New Jersey) to come pouring in. Her mother, determined that Marguerite would finish her education, refused all offers until 1912, when she let her daughter take some small bit parts in movies filmed at a local New Jersey studio. Within a year Marguerite went from extra work to starring roles. Although excelling in comedy roles, she preferred to do action/drama pictures, and by 1915 was making serials for Kalem. She was off the screen for a year during World War I, when she decided to help in the war effort and toured the country selling war bonds and savings stamps. She returned to the screen in 1918 playing a World War I Belgian refugee in The Unbeliever. In 1919 she was in a succession of serials, all of which were extremely successful. In 1918 her co-star in The Unbeliever was actor 'Raymond McKee (I)' and she starred with him again in Down to the Sea in Ships in 1922. They were married soon after. She made only a few more films, then retired from the industry to raise a family. She died in Hawaii, her longtime home, in 1984.
- Polly Ann Young was born on 25 October 1908 in Denver, Colorado, USA. She was an actress, known for Port of Hate (1939), Turnabout (1940) and The Man from Utah (1934). She was married to Carter Hermann. She died on 21 January 1997 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Actor
- Writer
- Soundtrack
Lean, red/auburn-haired, athletically-inclined Paul Michael Kelly grew up on the tough streets of Brooklyn, New York. Born August 9, 1899, the ninth of ten children in a Roman Catholic family of Irish descent. The siblings' father, Michael, owned a bar called Kelly's Cafe. He died while Paul was still quite young and the entire clan was required to pitch in financially. Young Paul, who wound up making his Broadway debut at age 8 in "The Grand Army Man", did quite well for his family. His father's establishment was located close to Vitagraph Studios and the studio used to borrow furniture from the saloon for their sets. As partial repayment (at the request of his mother), the studio would use Paul for some of their one-reel silent films.
From 1911 on, he was the resident moppet at the studio,known as 'Chick Kelly, the Vitagraph Boy'. He appeared with such top matinée heavyweights as Maurice Costello and Constance Talmadge. The good-looking Kelly played the son in "The Jarr Family" series of one-reel adventures starring Harry Davenport as the patriarch. He transitioned into teen and young adult roles alternating between theater and movie assignments. Hit Broadway shows included "Little Women" (1916), Booth Tarkington's "Seventeen" (1918), and the highly popular "Penrod" starring Helen Hayes (also 1918). On celluloid he was romantically paired with Mary Miles Minter in the silent classic Anne of Green Gables (1919) and the success of that film moved him into even higher contention. The early 20s continued to be fruitful for Paul especially behind the theater footlights where he joined such esteemed leading ladies as Doris Kenyon in "Up the Ladder" (1922) and Blanche Yurka in "The Sea Woman" (1925). Films beckoned with The Great Adventure (1921), The New Klondike (1926), Slide, Kelly, Slide (1927) and Special Delivery (1927).
It was the love of a woman in the form of actress Dorothy Mackaye, however, that temporarily proved his undoing. Kelly met Dorothy Mackaye and her husband, Ziegfeld Follies song-and-dance man Ray Raymond (1888-1927), in New York and the three became fast friends and party-hearty cronies. They reconnected again years later when all had moved to Hollywood to pursue film. Her shaky marriage led her and Paul into a torrid love affair. By April 16, 1927, the couple's cover had been blown wide open. That same day, the two men, both drunk, duked it out. Ray came out the definite loser in the fight. Ethel Lee, the Raymonds' maid, opened the door and Kelly stormed into the house and confronted the much smaller man. Kelly shouted: "I understand that you have been saying things about me." Ray denied the accusation and attempted to defuse the situation by offering Kelly a seat, but Kelly, 6 feet tall and weighed about 200 lbs, was drunk and spoiling for a fight. According to the maid, Ray told Kelly: "I can't fight. I'm fifty pounds underweight, and I've been drinking." "I'll beat you", Kelly reportedly replied and punched Ray three or four times. The maid told police that Raymond got up but that Kelly grabbed him and put one hand behind his neck and beat him with the other, then threw him to the couch. The maid stated that Raymond was just a punching bag for Kelly and had put up minimal resistance. Four year old Valerie Raymond had witnessed the beating. Dr. Sullivan, who attended Raymond, consulted with other doctors who determined the cause of death was "nephritic coma" - the result of an inflammation of the kidneys. Mackaye paid Sullivan $500 (approximately $6500 in current U.S. dollars) for his "services".
The circumstances of Raymond's death might have been permanently successfully covered up if not for local newshounds who got wind of the fight and his subsequent death. They called on Coroner Nance and began asking for details, but he couldn't tell them a thing -- Raymond's death had never been reported to his office. Nance called the hospital where Raymond had died, and was informed that not only was Ray deceased his body had been removed by an undertaker! Nance followed up and located the corpse at a Hollywood mortuary and claimed the body to perform an autopsy. Unsurprisingly, the coroner's findings didn't agree with those of Sullivan - and Nance had harsh words for both Kelly and Mackaye, as well as Sullivan. The coroner reported that "Fortifying himself with four or five drinks - probably to brace up his bully courage - Kelly deliberately went into Raymond's home for the purpose of beating him. I am also informed that Mrs. Raymond was in Kelly's apartment when he left his home for the purpose of going to her home to beat up Raymond and it is my belief that it was due to her influence that Kelly went to Raymond's for the sole purpose of attacking him."
In Kelly's statement to the cops he said he had purposely called on Raymond to demand an apology for comments the cuckolded man had allegedly made. Kelly also told cops was that he went to Raymond's home "to give him the threshing [sic] that was coming to him" and made no other statements except to profess his love for Mackaye. Witnesses stated that Dorothy was still at Kelly's apartment when he returned after beating Ray, and apparently the couple retired to a rear room and conferred in secret for nearly thirty minutes, apparently in order to get their stories straight.
Dorothy Mackaye collapsed three times at the grand jury inquiry into Ray's death. At one point she fell to the marble floor with enough force to render her unconscious for ten minutes. She must have become light-headed after finally being compelled to tell the truth about the day of the beating. Her original story had been that she'd gone out to get Easter eggs for her daughter and to go to a dressmaker. Mackaye summed up her day of testimony before the grand jury by saying: "It has been a terrible ordeal. Why, oh, why, do they have to do all this to me? I would be all right but my nerves are shot to pieces. I hope I won't have to go through all this again very soon. ... Mr. Kelly I have known for years. I knew him as a youngster in New York when he was first starting out. My feeling for him has always been, and is, I suppose, a sort of sisterly love." Like Kelly, she had no words of sadness or remorse for her husband's death. The tabloids had a field day. Kelly was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to one to ten years in prison. Mackaye was sentenced as an accessory after the fact and for concealment of facts involving her husband's death. She was released on bond after serving ten months; Kelly was paroled in August 1929 for "good behavior" after serving only 25 months despite a decided lack of remorse over the incident. In 1931, despite Mackaye's "sisterly love" for Kelly, the couple wed after Kelly's parole board permitted it.
Kelly took his first post-prison Broadway curtain call in a 1930 musical revue and went on to appear in the short-lived drama "Bad Girl" (1930), opposite future film star Sylvia Sidney. Within the next two years he appeared in "Hobo", "Just to Remind You", "Adam Had Two Sons", and "The Great Magoo". Although none were hits, he was firmly establishing himself once again. Hollywood didn't desert him either although he was now relegated to "B" supporting roles with an occasional starring part thrown in for good measure. The virile, thin-lipped actor with trademark jut jaw and iron resolve received consistently good notices for his hard-boiled parts, including Broadway Thru a Keyhole (1933), The President Vanishes (1934), and Song and Dance Man (1936).
Dorothy Mackaye was killed in a car accident in January 1940. Kelly adopted Dorothy's child, Valerie Raymond, who had witnessed the beating death of her father. Her name was changed to Mimi Kelly, removing the last link to the world that Ray Raymond had left behind. Kelly appeared in such films as The Flying Irishman (1939), The Roaring Twenties (1939), Invisible Stripes (1939), Queen of the Mob (1940), The Howards of Virginia (1940), Wyoming (1940), Mystery Ship (1941), Mr. and Mrs. North (1942), Tarzan's New York Adventure (1942), The Story of Dr. Wassell (1944), San Antonio (1945), The Cat Creeps (1946), and Crossfire (1947), freelancing often as either an unyielding police official or sadistic bad guy. He found love again on the film set of Flight Command (1940) and married one of the film's bit part players, Claire Owen (née Zona Mardelle Zwicker), in January 1941, one year after the death of his first wife. Owen subsequently retired from acting and went on to survive him.
During the 1947-48 season, he was nominated and won a Tony Award (tying with Henry Fonda and Basil Rathbone) for his performance in "Command Decision", and also won the Donaldson and Variety Critics awards. In 1950, he went on to earn further acclaim for originating the part of Frank Elgin, the alcoholic actor in Clifford Odets's classic drama "The Country Girl", starring Uta Hagen. Not a big enough movie draw, he lost both parts in the film versions to Clark Gable and Bing Crosby, respectively, but found plentiful work on standard TV drama in the 1950s.
After suffering a heart attack in 1953, the actor was stricken again on Election Day, November 6, 1956, this time fatally, just after returning home from voting for Adlai Stevenson, who lost the election.- Actress
- Producer
A silent screen siren of considerable beauty was blonde, blue-eyed Ella Hall. As a small child, she already performed on stage with the company of David Belasco. She was later chosen to understudy Mary Pickford for "The Warrens of Virginia". Ella entered films in 1910 as a fifteen-year old ingénue with D.W. Griffith at Biograph. In the course of the next three years she honed her acting skills in scores of one and two-reel short comedies and melodramas. By 1915, she had become one of the hottest box-office properties at Universal, going on to make headlines as star of feature films like Jewel (1915), The Bugler of Algiers (1916) and Polly Redhead (1917).
A devotee of ballroom dancing and fast cars, Ella was rumoured to have been romantically involved with film maker Robert Z. Leonard, but instead ended up marrying the less prominent actor/director Emory Johnson. Though still young, Ella's career faded after 1923 and a comeback attempt in talkies failed to revive her fortunes. In 1933, she left the industry to work behind the counter of the most exclusive ladies dress shop on Hollywood Boulevard.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Raymond Hackett was born on 15 July 1902 in New York City, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for The Trial of Mary Dugan (1929), Not So Dumb (1930) and The Cat Creeps (1930). He was married to Blanche Sweet and Myra Hampton. He died on 7 July 1958 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Actress
- Producer
Anita Stewart was born on 7 February 1895 in Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA. She was an actress and producer, known for A Midnight Romance (1919), Her Kingdom of Dreams (1919) and The Lodge in the Wilderness (1926). She was married to George Peabody Converse and Rudolph Cameron. She died on 4 May 1961 in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA.- Charlotte Merriam born in Illinois in 1903. Her father was a Colonel in the Army. She began her film career in 1919 when she was 16 in The Flip of a Coin (1919). While visiting the Universal studios she was offered a part in a comedy series starring Eddie Lyons and Lee Moran, which she accepted. Afterwards, she starred in many short and feature comedies, also with the Vitagraph Film Company in 1924, and starred in adventure and drama films, including the role of Mary Trail in Captain Blood (1924). Later she worked for the Warner Brothers studios from 1929; she also appeared in many talkies until her last, Dancing Man (1934). She was also a accomplished singer. Married to actor Rex Lease in 1925; divorced in 1929. Died in Los Angeles in 1972, age of 69.