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- Actress
- Writer
- Soundtrack
Mae West was born August 17, 1893 in Brooklyn, New York, to "Battling Jack" West and Matilda Doelger. She began her career as a child star in vaudeville, and later went on to write her own plays, including "SEX", for which she was arrested. Though her first movie role, at age 40, was a small part in Night After Night (1932), her scene has become famous. A coat check girl exclaims, "Goodness! What lovely diamonds!", after seeing Mae's jewelry. Mae replies, "Goodness had nothing to do with it". Her next film, in which she starred, came the following year. She Done Him Wrong (1933) was based on her earlier and very popular play, "Diamond Lil". She went on to write and star in seven more films, including My Little Chickadee (1940) with W.C. Fields. Her last movie was Sextette (1977), which also came from a play. She died on November 22, 1980.- Actor
- Writer
- Soundtrack
Emanuel Goldenberg arrived in the United States from Romania at age ten, and his
family moved into New York's Lower East Side. He took up acting while
attending City College, abandoning plans to become a rabbi or lawyer.
The American Academy of Dramatic Arts awarded him a scholarship, and he
began work in stock, with his new name, Edward G. Robinson (the "G" stood for his birth surname), in 1913. Broadway was two years
later; he worked steadily there for 15 years. His work included "The
Kibitzer", a comedy he co-wrote with Jo Swerling. His film debut was a
small supporting part in the silent The Bright Shawl (1923), but it was with the coming
of sound that he hit his stride. His stellar performance as snarling,
murderous thug Rico Bandello in Little Caesar (1931)--all the more impressive since
in real life Robinson was a sophisticated, cultured man with a passion
for fine art--set the standard for movie gangsters, both for himself in
many later films and for the industry. He portrayed the title character
in several biographical works, such as Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet (1940) and A Dispatch from Reuters (1940).
Psychological dramas included Flesh and Fantasy (1943), Double Indemnity (1944), The Woman in the Window (1944)and Scarlet Street (1945).
Another notable gangster role was in Key Largo (1948). He was "absolved" of
allegations of Communist affiliation after testifying as a friendly
witness for the House Un-American Activities Committee during the
McCarthy hysteria of the early 1950s. In 1956 he had to sell off his
extensive art collection in a divorce settlement and also had to deal
with a psychologically troubled son. In 1956 he returned to Broadway in
"Middle of the Night". In 1973 he was awarded a special, posthumous
Oscar for lifetime achievement.- Actress
- Writer
- Director
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
- Soundtrack
Fay Bainter's career began as a child performer in 1898. For some time,
she was a member of the traveling cast of the Morosco Stock Company in
Los Angeles. In 1912, she made her Broadway debut in
'The Rose of Panama', but this and her subsequent play 'The Bridal Path' (1913), were conspicuous failures. She continued in stock and, after forming an association with David Belasco,
took another swing at Broadway. She had her first hit with a dynamic
performance, which established her as major theatrical star, as Ming
Toy in
'East is West', at the Astor Theatre (1918-1920). Alternating between comedy and melodrama, Fay then shone in 'The Enemy' (1925-26) with Walter Abel
and gave an outstanding performance of mid-life crisis as the desperate
Fran Dodsworth
('Dodsworth',1934-35), opposite Walter Huston
as her husband Sam. Fay never had the chance to recreate her stage role
on screen - Ruth Chatterton got the part
instead. At the same time, now aged 41, she was offered a role in her
first motion picture,
This Side of Heaven (1934).
Co-starring opposite Lionel Barrymore,
this was the first of many thoughtful, understanding wives, aunts and
mothers she was to play over the next twenty years.
Of stocky build, with expressive eyes and a warm, slightly smoky voice,
Fay rarely essayed unsympathetic or hard-boiled characters, with the
exception of her Oscar-nominated dowager in
The Children's Hour (1961).
While not often top-billed, her name remained consistently high in the
list of credits throughout her career. Critics applauded her sterling
performances in productions like
Make Way for Tomorrow (1937)
and Quality Street (1937), as
Katharine Hepburn's excitable spinster
sister. Fay won the Academy Award as Best Supporting Actress for the
movie Jezebel (1938). As Bette Davis'
stern, reproving Aunt Belle, she excelled in a somewhat meatier role
than the genteel or fluttery ladies she had previously been engaged to
portray. That same year, she was also nominated (as Best Actress) for
her housekeeper, Hannah Parmalee, in
White Banners (1938), but lost to
Bette Davis. Fay enhanced many more films
with her presence during the 1940's, notably as Mrs. Elvira Wiggs, in
Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch (1942),
Merle Oberon's eccentric aunt from the
bayou in Dark Waters (1944) and
Danny Kaye's mother in
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947).
From the
1950's, she alternated stage with acting on television. Her
last role of note was as Mary Tyrone in Eugene O'Neill's
'Long Day's Journey into Night', on tour with the National Company in
1958.- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Leslie Howard Steiner was born in London to Lilian (Blumberg) and
Ferdinand "Frank" Steiner. His father was a Hungarian Jewish immigrant,
and his English mother was of German Jewish and mostly English
descent. Leslie went to Dulwich College, then worked as a bank clerk
until the outbreak of World War I, when he went into the army. In 1917,
diagnosed as shell-shocked, he was invalided out and advised to take up
acting as therapy. In a few years, his name was famous on the stages of
London and New York. He made his first movie in 1914:
(The Heroine of Mons (1914)).
He became known as the perfect Englishman (slim, tall, intellectual, and
sensitive), a part that he played in many movies which set women to
dreaming about him. His first sound movie came out in 1930:
Outward Bound (1930), an adaptation
of the stage play in which he starred. In
Never the Twain Shall Meet (1931)
and Smilin' Through (1932), he
played the Englishman role to the hilt. His screen persona could
perhaps best be summed up by his role as Sir Percy Blakeney in
The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934),
a foppish society gentleman.
It was Howard who insisted that
Humphrey Bogart get the role of Duke
Mantee in
The Petrified Forest (1936),
a role that Bogart had played in the stage production. As he became
more successful, he also became quite picky about which roles he would
do, and usually performed in only two films a year. In 1939, he played
the character that will always be associated with him, that of Ashley
Wilkes, the honor-bound, disillusioned intellectual Southern gentleman,
in Gone with the Wind (1939).
However, war clouds were gathering over England, and he devoted all his
energy on behalf of the war effort. He directed films, wrote articles
and made radio broadcasts. He died in 1943, when the KLM plane he was
in was shot down by German fighters over the Bay of Biscay.- Actress
- Soundtrack
After working as early as the 1910s as a band vocalist, Hattie McDaniel debuted as a maid in The Golden West (1932). Her maid-mammy characters became steadily more assertive, showing up first in Judge Priest (1934) and becoming pronounced in Alice Adams (1935). In this one, directed by
George Stevens and aided and abetted by star Katharine Hepburn, she makes it clear she has little use for her employers' pretentious status
seeking. By The Mad Miss Manton (1938) she actually tells off her socialite employer Barbara Stanwyck and her snooty friends. This path extends into the greatest role of her career, Mammy in Gone with the Wind (1939). Here she is, in a number of ways, superior to most of the white folk surrounding her. From that point her roles unfortunately descended, with her characters becoming more and more menial. She played on the "Amos and Andy" and Eddie Cantor radio shows in the 1930s and 1940s; the title in her own radio show "Beulah" (1947-51), and the same part on TV
(Beulah (1950)). Her part in Gone with the Wind (1939) won her the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress, the first African American actress to win an Academy Award, it was presented to her by Fay Bainter at a segregated ceremony, she had to sit at the back away from the rest of the cast.- Actor
- Director
- Producer
Conrad Veidt attended the Sophiengymnasium (secondary school) in the
Schoeneberg district of Berlin, and graduated without a diploma in
1912, last in his class of 13. Conrad liked animals, theater, cinema,
fast cars, pastries, thunderstorms, gardening, swimming and golfing. He
disliked heights, flying, the number 17, wearing ties, pudding and
interviews. A star of early German cinema, he became a sensation in
1920 with his role as the murderous somnambulist Cesare in
Robert Wiene's masterpiece
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920).
Other prominent roles in German silent films included
Different from the Others (1919)
and
Waxworks (1924).
His third wife, Ilona (nicknamed Lily), was Jewish, although he himself
wasn't. However, whenever he had to state his ethnic background on
forms to get a job, he wrote: "Jude" (Jew). He and Lily fled Germany in
1933 after the rise to power of
Adolf Hitler, and he became a British
citizen in 1939. Universal Pictures head
Carl Laemmle personally chose Veidt to play
Dracula in a film to be directed by Paul Leni
based on a successful New York stage play: "Dracula". Ultimately,
Bela Lugosi got the role, and
Tod Browning directed the film,
Dracula (1931). In his last German film,
F.P.1 Doesn't Answer (1932),
Veidt sang a song called "Where the Lighthouse Shines Across the Bay."
Although the record was considered a flop in 1933, the song became a
hit almost 50 years later, when, in 1980, DJ
Terry Wogan played it as a request on the
Radio 2 breakfast show. That single playing generated numerous phone
calls, and shortly thereafter the song appeared on a British
compilation album called "Movie Star Memories" - a collection of songs
from 1930s-era films compiled from EMI archives. The album was released
by World Records Ltd., and is now out of print but can still be ordered
online ("Where the Lighthouse Shines Across the Bay" is track 4 on side
2). Veidt appeared in Germany's first talking picture,
Bride 68 (1929),
and made only one color picture,
The Thief of Bagdad (1940),
filmed in England and Hollywood. His most famous role was as Gestapo
Maj. Strasser in the classic
Casablanca (1942); although he was not
the star of the picture, he was the highest paid actor. He died while
playing golf, and on the death certificate his name is misspelled as
"Hanz Walter Conrad Veidt". Because he had been blacklisted in Nazi
Germany, there was no official announcement there of his death. His
ex-wife, Felicitas, and daughter Viola, in Switzerland, heard about it
on the radio.- Actor
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
First wife Jeanne died in 1943. Wed second wife, Marjorie Little after
16 year courtship when she was 39 and he 67 Marjorie Little had been
the hatcheck girl at the Copacabana. Durante and his second wife
adopted a baby girl, Cecelia Alicia on Christmas day 1961. Durante
doted on "CeCe" until his death.- Actor
- Director
- Producer
Sir Cedric Hardwicke, one of the great character actors in the first
decades of the talking picture, was born in Lye, England on February
19, 1893. Hardwicke attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and made
his stage debut in 1912. His career was interrupted by military service
in World War I, but he returned to the stage in 1922 with the
Birmingham Repertory Theatre, distinguishing himself as Caesar in
George Bernard Shaw's Caesar and Cleopatra,
which was his ticket to the London stage. For his distinguished work on
the stage and in films, he was knighted by
King George V in 1934, a time when very
few actors received such an honor.
Hardwicke first performed on the American stage in 1936 and emigrated
to the United States permanently after spending the 1948 season with
the Old Vic. Hardwicke's success on stage and in films and television
was abetted by his resonant voice and aristocratic bearing. Among the
major films he appeared in were
Les Misérables (1935),
Stanley and Livingstone (1939),
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939),
Suspicion (1941),
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1949),
and
The Ten Commandments (1956).
His last film was
The Pumpkin Eater (1964) in
1964. Cedric Hardwicke died on August 6, 1964 in New York City, New
York.- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Born in Burchard, Nebraska, USA to Elizabeth Fraser and J. Darcie
'Foxy' Lloyd who fought constantly and soon divorced (at the time a
rare event), Harold Clayton Lloyd was nominally educated in Denver and
San Diego high schools and received his stage training at the School of
Dramatic Art (San Diego). Lloyd grew up far more attached to his
footloose, chronically unemployed father than his overbearing mother.
He made his stage debut at age 12 as "Little Abe" in "Tess of
d'Ubervilles" with the Burwood Stock company of Omaha. Harold and his
father moved to California as a result of a fortuitous accident
settlement in 1913. Foxy bought a pool hall (that soon failed) while
Harold attended high school. The pair were soon broke when his father
suggested he try out for a job on a movie being shot at San Diego's Pan
American Exposition by the Edison Company. On the set he first met
Hal Roach who would be the most
influential person in his professional life. Roach (admittedly a poor
actor) told Lloyd that someday he'd be a movie producer and he'd make
him his star.
Soon afterward, Roach inherited enough money to begin a small
production company (Phun Philms, quickly renamed Rolin, with a partner
who he soon bought out) and contacted Lloyd to star in the kinds of
films he wanted to make: comedies. On the basis of a handful of
self-produced shorts starring Lloyd, he managed to land a production
contract with the U.S. branch of the French firm, Pathe, who literally
paid Roach by the exposed foot of film on what films were accepted.
Things were touch and go in the beginning, with improvised scenarios,
outdoor shoots meaning Pathe rejected several of their first efforts,
resulting in missed paydays. During his first contract with Roach he
appeared in "Will E. Work" and then "Lonesome Luke" comedies,
essentially cheap variations of
Charles Chaplin's Little Tramp
character. He abandoned the character in disgust in late 1917, adopting
his "glasses" persona, an average young man capable of conquering any
obstacle thrown at him. He began cementing his new image with
Over the Fence (1917), that
ushered in a prolific number of shorts through late 1921, often
releasing 3 per month. In his "glasses" personification, Lloyd's
popularity grew exponentially with each new release, but Lloyd rapidly
grew dissatisfied with his relationship with his producer. Roach and
Lloyd fought constantly; it's not so much that he didn't want to work
for Roach, he didn't want to work for anyone - a trait he himself
recognized from early on. To be fair, Roach was increasingly
preoccupied with other stars (The "Our Gang" series was launched to
huge success in 1922 and he also produced ''Snub Pollard" shorts,
among others) and although he would always resent Lloyd's attitude and
ultimate defection to Paramount, the loss of his major star wouldn't
financially cripple him. Lloyd had his own quirks; he fell in love with
his first co-star Bebe Daniels, who left
him after it became apparent he was unable to make a commitment
(however the two would remain lifelong friends). Lloyd, in his own way
was decidedly complex: he could be professionally generous (often
allowing debatably deserving directorial credit to members of his crew)
while being notoriously cheap. Yet he practiced little financial self
control in anything that concerned himself. Wildly superstitious, he
engaged in strict rituals about dressing himself, leaving through the
same doors as he entered, and expected his chauffeurs to know which
streets were unlucky to traverse. As his finances improved with age he
happily indulged himself with a myriad of hobbies that would include
breeding Great Danes, amassing cars, bowling, photography, womanizing,
and high-fidelity stereo systems. He was open minded about homosexuals
while being practically Victorian in his ideas about raising his
daughters. He had an enormous libido and rumors abounded about
illegitimate children and according to Roach, chronic bouts with VD.
Most traumatically, he suffered the loss of his right thumb and
forefinger in an accidental prop bomb explosion on August 14, 1919,
just as his career was starting to take off. Lloyd would go to great
lengths to hide his disability, spending thousands on flesh-colored
prosthetic gloves and hiding his right hand whenever knowingly
photographed, even long after his career ended. Upon his recovery he
completed work on
Haunted Spooks (1920) and
successfully renegotiated his contract with Pathe, which began a career
ascent that would rival Chaplin's (indeed, Lloyd was more successful,
considering grosses on total output as Chaplin's output soon dwindled
by comparison). Lloyd began feature film production with the 4-reel
A Sailor-Made Man (1921). It
began as a 2-reel short but contained, in his words, "so much good
stuff we were loathe to take any of it out." It became a huge hit and
continued to release hit features with ever increasing grosses but
split with Hal Roach (who retained lucrative re-issue rights to his
earlier films) after completing
The Freshman (1925), one of his
finest films. Pathe's U.S. operations quickly unraveled after their
U.S. representative, Paul Brunet returned to France, and Lloyd made a
decisive move (Roach himself would also leave Pathe, opting for a
distribution deal with MGM - Mack Sennett,
also distributed by Pathe, would be financially ruined). After weighing
various attractive offers, Lloyd signed an advantageous contract with
Paramount and racked up another hit with
For Heaven's Sake (1926), one
of his weakest silent features, yet it grossed an incredible $2.591
million, nearly equaling "The Freshman" and astonishing even himself.
Lloyd could do no wrong throughout the 1920s, he consistently earned at
or near $1.5 million per film with his Paramount contract, and seemed
invincible. He married his second co-star
Mildred Davis on February 10, 1923
and she retired from acting (replaced by
Jobyna Ralston). He built a huge 32-room
mansion he christened, "Greenacres" that took over 3 years to complete
and the couple eventually had 3 children. His final silent film,
Speedy (1928), shot on location in New
York, was one of the few major hits of the sound transition period and
remains (as do most of Lloyd's films) thoroughly enjoyable today. The
advent of sound proved problematic for the comedian. His films were
gag-driven and his writing team was wholly unaccustomed to converting
their type of comedy into dialog. While his first sound effort (began
as a silent),
Welcome Danger (1929) grossed
nearly $3 million, by any standard it's a bad film, and marked a
serious decline in Lloyd's screen persona; he became a talking
comedian. Ironically, as bad as the film is, it would prove to be the
last solid hit of his career. His next talkie,
Feet First (1930), included a climb
reminiscent (but technically superior to that) of his hit
Safety Last! (1923), only being in
sound, it contained every grunt and groan and proved painful to watch.
With a gross of less that $1 million, Lloyd would see slightly over
$300,000, his smallest feature paycheck to date, and it became clear he
was in trouble. Lloyd fought back with
Movie Crazy (1932). Generally
regarded as his finest talkie, it grossed even less than "Feet First."
Lloyd left Paramount for Fox and suffered his first outright flop with
his next feature,
The Cat's-Paw (1934), which grossed
$693,000 against a negative cost of $617,000 ---resulting in red ink on
a net basis. The miracle Harold Lloyd needed to salvage his career
would never happen, but he refused to go down without a fight.
Amazingly, the public was oblivious to his decline, and he was widely
considered as one of the few silent comedy stars to have made a
successful transition through the first decade of sound. But to those
within the industry, the numbers didn't add up. Back at Paramount on a
2-movie deal, Lloyd starred in
The Milky Way (1936), a
better-than-average comedy that pulled a world-wide gross of $1.179
million, but it had production budget exceeding $1 million, resulting
in a $250,000 loss for the studio. Paramount was livid, demanding a
personal guarantee from Lloyd on anything over $600,000 for his next
film, Professor Beware (1938).
The comedian soon discovered he couldn't complete the film within the
required budget and did something unprecedented --for him at least-- he
invested his own money. The final production cost was $820,275 - and it
grossed a mere $796,385 - and as a result of a complex payment deal,
Lloyd ended up personally losing $119,400 on its initial release (he
would eventually recoup the bulk of his losses over the next 35 years).
At the relatively young age of 45, Harold Lloyd's Hollywood career was
effectively over. Still immensely wealthy from a conservative
investment strategy, and always hyperactive, he sought out ways to
occupy his time, dragging his kids on marathon movie nights all across
Los Angeles and falling back on his many hobbies. Foxy, who had handled
the bulk of his correspondence (almost all Lloyd's pre-1938 autographs
were actually signed by Foxy) and had carefully documented his press
clippings since his acting career had began, retired to Palm Springs in
1938, leaving a void in Lloyd's life. He produced two pictures for RKO,
A Girl, a Guy, and a Gob (1941),
and a Kay Kyser vehicle,
My Favorite Spy (1942) which must
have looked good on paper but went nowhere at the box office. This
ended his career as a producer. He would sign a $25,000 deal with
Columbia in 1943 for a comeback project that never materialized. In
1944, Lloyd was approached by director
Preston Sturges who envisioned a
first-rate vehicle for him entitled,
The Sin of Harold Diddlebock (1947).
The production launched Sturges' new California Pictures, was financed
by Howard Hughes, and initially
released by United Artists. It proved to be a nightmare for
everyone concerned. Its $1.7 million production cost proved to be an
insurmountable obstacle preventing it from profitability and the
eccentric Hughes withdrew it from circulation, later retitling it "Mad
Wednesday," re-editing and re-releasing it as an RKO feature in 1951 to
an even more dismal box office. Lloyd would also zealously protect
ownership of his material and was quite litigious. He successfully sued
MGM over their unauthorized poaching of his gags on a
Joan Davis vehicle,
She Gets Her Man (1945) (sadly
an action that put the final nail in the professional coffin of the
hopelessly alcoholic Clyde Bruckman).
With his career at an end, Harold renewed his interest in photography
and became involved with color film experiments. Some of the earliest 2
color Technicolor tests had been shot at Greenacres in 1929. In the
late 1940s he became fascinated with color 3D still photography and
often visited friends on film sets. Throughout the late 40s and well
into the 1960s Lloyd indulged himself with glamor models. At his death,
his collection of 3D stills numbered 250,000 (the vast majority of
which are nudes). Recently his granddaughter published an elaborate
book of photos carefully excised from the collection. In the late 1940s
Lloyd became an active member of the Shriners (he'd joined originally
in 1924) and an effective administrator for their Los Angeles crippled
children's hospital. Harold is reported to be the only actor that owned
most of the films he appeared in (sadly many of the earliest ones were
destroyed in a nitrate fire in a vault at Greenacres in 1943). This
ownership gave him the ability to withhold his films from being shown
on television; Lloyd feared incorrect projection speed and commercials
would damage his reputation. As a result, a generation of film fans saw
very few of his films and his reputation was diminished. He did release
2 compilation films, of which the first,
World of Comedy (1962) was very
successful. Mildred descended into alcoholism in the 1950s and died in
1969. Lloyd occupied his time with extensive travel (he thoroughly
enjoyed speaking engagements where he could interact with students on
the subject of silent film) and continued his pathological passion for
his hobbies through the end of his life. He became interested in high
fidelity stereo systems and habitually ordered several record
companies' entire annual catalogs, eventually amassing an LP collection
rivaling most record stores. He enjoyed cranking music to volumes that
caused the inlaid gold leaf on Greenacres' ceilings to rain down on
anyone below. Conversely, he balked at modernizing anything inside the
mansion, seeing improvements and redecorating as things that would
survive him, and thus a complete waste of money. Lloyd was diagnosed
with a recurrence of cancer by his brother-in-law, Dr. John Davis
(Jack Davis, who starred in early
"Our Gang" shorts) and died on March 8, 1971. His son,
Harold Lloyd Jr. was an alcoholic
homosexual and died soon afterward. Although Lloyd left an estate
valued at $12 million (in 1971 dollars), he failed to make a provision
for the maintenance of Greenacres, a blunder that would seriously
complicate his estate. His granddaughter Suzanne Lloyd has been largely
responsible for restoring his reputation of late, working to preserve
his surviving films; many have been issued on HBO Video, Thames Video.
Several have been superbly restored with new musical accompaniments and
are shown periodically on TCM.- The epitome of opulent, grande dame pomposity, British character actress Isobel Elsom was born Isabelle Reed in Cambridge, England on March 16, 1893. She began on the stage in 1911 and went on to grace a number of silent and sound pictures in England, marrying and divorcing director Maurice Elvey in the interim.
Isobel made an elegant entry into British feature films as Lady Monkhurst in the drama Milestones (1916) and continued in leading roles with the silent films Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor (1918), Onward Christian Soldiers (1918), A Member of Tattersall's (1919), For Her Father's Sake (1921), Dick Turpin's Ride to York (1922), the title role in The Love Story of Aliette Brunton (1924), The Last Witness (1925) and Tragödie einer Ehe (1927). Her voice suitable for sound pictures, she continued her leading status with such early British talkies as The Other Woman (1931), Stranglehold (1931), The Crooked Lady (1932), The Thirteenth Candle (1933), and The Primrose Path (1934).
In the late 1920s, she made a transatlantic visit to the American stage, taking her first Broadway curtain all in "The Ghost Train" in 1926. She continued on the New York stage with such plays as "The Mulberry Bush" (1927), "People Don't Do Such Things" (1927), "The Silver Box" (1928), "The Behavior of Mrs. Crane" (1928) and "The Outsider" (1928).
Settling in America in the 1930s, Isobel achieved great character success in the role of retired actress Leonora Fiske in the play "Ladies in Retirement" (1940), which she also took to film (Ladies in Retirement (1941)) starring Ida Lupino). She would alternate between film and the Broadway stage for the next two decades. Broadway shows included "Hand in Glove" (1944), "The Innocents" (1950), "Romeo and Juliet" (as Lady Capulet) (1951), "The Climate in Eden" (1952), "The Burning Glass" (1954) and "The First Gentleman" (1957).
What the tiny-framed Elsom lacked in stature, she certainly made up for in pure chutzpah. The matronly actress remained in Hollywood and played a number of huffy blue-bloods in both comedies and drama for over two decades, including The War Against Mrs. Hadley (1942), You Were Never Lovelier (1942), Between Two Worlds (1944), Of Human Bondage (1946), The Two Mrs. Carrolls (1947), The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947), Ivy (1947), Smart Woman (1948), The Secret Garden (1949), Lust for Life (1956), The Miracle (1959) and The Second Time Around (1961). One standout blue-blooded role was as one of Charles Chaplin's intended victims in the black comedy Monsieur Verdoux (1947).
In later years, Isobel served as a frequent foil to Jerry Lewis in a few of his solo pictures (Rock-a-Bye Baby (1958), The Bellboy (1960), The Errand Boy (1961), Who's Minding the Store? (1963)). She ended her film career playing Mrs. Eynsford-Hill in My Fair Lady (1964). Isabel remarried in 1942 and was the widow of actor Carl Harbord in 1958. The couple both met when they appeared in the film Eagle Squadron (1942). Isobel Elsom died at age 87 of heart failure at the Motion Picture & Television Hospital in Woodland Hills, California on January 12, 1981. She had no children. - Carl Benton Reid was a drama graduate from Carnegie Tech who had
several years of stage experience performing at the Cleveland Playhouse
in the 1920s, where he met his future wife, stage actress Hazel
Harrison. After moving to New York, he became a noted actor on the
Broadway stage with some impressive credits to his name. Between 1929
and 1949, he appeared in such illustrious plays as "Life with Father"
(in the title role), Anton Chekhov's "The
Cherry Orchard" (with Eva Le Gallienne)
and Eugene O'Neill's Theatre
Guild Production of "The Iceman Cometh". As to Reid's Harry Slade in
"Iceman", the noted critic
Brooks Atkinson commented for the New
York Times (10/10/1946): "as the barroom's (sic) master of cosmic
thinking, Carl Benton Reid is vigorously incisive and lends substance
to the entire performance". Reid's stern demeanor lent itself to
playing all sorts of tough characters, particularly heavy fathers,
which he did ably (and often) as in "Strange Bedfellows" (1947). Way
back in 1942, Atkinson had remarked on his energetic performance in the
title role of the comedy "Papa is All": "Reid plays Papa with a snarl
and ferocity that make the wreck at the railroad crossing an occasion
of civic betterment" (NY Times, March 21, 1973).
In 1941, Reid left for Hollywood to recreate his stage role of Oscar
Hubbard in the outstanding film adaptation of
Lillian Hellman's play "The Little
Foxes". Shot at RKO Studios, it was brilliantly directed by
William Wyler. With his customary scowl
and icy delivery, Reid was perfect as one of two avaricious brothers
(the other was played by Charles Dingle)
of equally venomous turn-of-the century Southern aristocrat Regina
Giddens (whose part was played on stage by
Tallulah Bankhead and in the film by
Bette Davis). Reid's powerful performance
ensured many more years of regular employment in films, though none of
his subsequent roles ever came close to repeating his earlier success.
However, Reid found a new lease of life on the small screen, invariably
as senior military brass
(Yancy Derringer (1958),
12 O'Clock High (1964)) or
elder statesmen
(Target: The Corruptors (1961)),
even occasionally as murder victims
(Perry Mason (1957)) or spy
masters (Burke's Law (1963)). - Actress
Brunette, buxom matinee idol Betty Blythe capitalised on the 'roaring
20's' infatuation with exotic screen sirens to achieve a brief period
of stardom. She was, notoriously, one of the first actresses to ever
appear nude (or in various stages of undress) on screen. It wasn't that
Betty couldn't act, as well; in fact, she had studied art in Paris and
at USC and had appeared on stage in a number of traditional plays like
"So Long Letty" in both London and New York. In 1918, she joined a
roommate on a visit to the Vitagraph Studio in Brooklyn and found
immediate employment when one of the directors needed a leading lady.
Two years later, she wound up in Hollywood, was signed by Fox Studios
as a replacement for Theda Bara and became
the protégée of J. Gordon Edwards
(grandfather of Blake Edwards of
'Pink Panther' fame. She was eventually cast as the star of one of the
most lavishly produced films of the decade,
The Queen of Sheba (1921),
directed, of course, by Edwards. Betty later recalled that she was
given 28 costumes to wear, all of which would have fit comfortably
into a shoe box. Alas, only a few stills of the movie survive, a fate
shared by most of her other silent films.
Betty's career was put on hold when Edwards quarreled with Fox and
left the studio. For a while, she freelanced, playing leads in films
for lesser studios. She did have a couple of hits in England with
Chu-Chin-Chow (1923) and
She (1925), in addition to doing theatrical
work, which helped her to smoothly make the transition from silent to
talking pictures. By that time, however, public tastes had changed and
Betty had aged sufficiently to be classified as a character actress. To
her credit, she persisted and appeared in support in many an A-grade
production, her swan song being a small role in the ballroom scene of
My Fair Lady (1964).- Charles Soldani was born on 1 June 1893 in Ponca City, Oklahoma, USA. He was an actor, known for Daughter of the Jungle (1949), Man from Oklahoma (1945) and The Pioneers (1941). He died on 10 September 1968 in Glendale, California, USA.
- Actor
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Richard Dix was a major leading man at RKO Radio Pictures from 1929
through 1943. He was born Ernest Carlton Brimmer July 18, 1893, in St.
Paul, Minnesota. There he was educated, and at the desires of his
father, studied to be a surgeon. His obvious acting talent in his
school dramatic club led him to leading roles in most of the school
plays. At 6' 0" and 180 pounds, Dix excelled in sports, especially
football and baseball. These skills would serve him well in the
vigorous film roles he would go on to play. After a year at the
University of Minnesota he took a position at a bank, spending his
evenings training for the stage. His professional start was with a
local stock company, and this led to similar work in New York. He then
went to Los Angeles, became leading man for the Morosco Stock Company
and his success there got him a contract with Paramount Pictures. His
rugged good looks and dark features made him a popular player in
westerns. His athletic ability led to his starring role in Paramount's
Warming Up (1928), a baseball story and also the studio's first feature with
synchronized score and sound effects. His deep voice and commanding
presence were perfectly suited for the talkies, and he was signed by
RKO Radio Pictures in 1929, scoring an early triumph in the all-talking
mystery drama, Seven Keys to Baldpate (1929). In 1931 he was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar
for his masterful performance in Cimarron (1931), winner of the Best Picture
Oscar that year. Throughout the 1930s Dix would be a big box-office
draw at RKO, appearing in mystery thrillers, potboilers, westerns and
programmers. He appeared in the "Whistler" series of mystery films at
Columbia in the mid-40s. He retired from films in 1947. He first
married Winifred Coe on October 20, 1931, had a daughter, Martha Mary
Ellen, then divorced in 1933. He then married Virginia Webster on June
29, 1934. They had twin boys, Richard Jr. and Robert Dix and an adopted
daughter, Sara Sue. Richard Dix the actor, died at age 56 on September
20, 1949.- Director
- Actor
- Writer
Born in Ludwigshafen, Germany, Wilhelm Dieterle was the youngest of
nine children of parents Jacob and Berthe Dieterle. They lived in
poverty, and when he was old enough to work, young Wilhelm earned money
as a carpenter and a scrap dealer. He dreamed of better things, though,
and theater caught his eye as a teen. By the age of 16 he had joined a
traveling theater company. He was ambitious and handsome, both of which
opened the door to leading romantic roles in theater productions.
Though he had acted in his first film in 1913, it was six more years
before he made another one. In that year he was noticed by
producer/director/designer/impresario
Max Reinhardt, the most
influential proponent of expressionism in theater; while in Berlin,
Reinhardt hired him as an actor for his productions. Dieterle resumed
German film acting in 1920, becoming a popular and successful romantic
lead and featured character actor in the mix of German
expressionist/Gothic and nature/romanticism genres that imbued much of
German cinema in the silent era. He was interested in directing even
more than acting, however, and he had the iconic Reinhardt to provide
inspiration. Dieterle had acted in nearly 20 movies before he also
began directing in 1923, his first female lead being a young
Marlene Dietrich.
With his wife Charlotte Hagenbruch
he started his own film production . He was said to have tired of
acting; he appeared in nearly 50 films over the course of his career,
mainly in the 1920s, and in several of his films he also functioned as
director. As an actor he worked with some of the greatest names in
German film, such as directors Paul Leni (in
Waxworks (1924)
[Waxworks]) and F.W. Murnau (in
Faust (1926))
and actors Conrad Veidt and
Emil Jannings. By 1930, however, he had
emigrated to the US--now rechristened as William Dieterle--with an
offer from Warner Brothers to direct their German-language versions of
the studio's popular hits for the German market. In that capacity he
made Those Who Dance (1930),
The Way of All Men (1930) and
Die heilige Flamme (1931) (aka
"The Holy Flames"). He even stood before the camera for another of
these, Dämon des Meeres (1931)
(aka "Demon of the Sea", a version of "Moby Dick") in 1931, in which he
played Capt. Ahab. The film was directed by another European who was
soon to become one of Warners' most successful directors: the Hungarian
Michael Curtiz.
Having taken to the Hollywood brand of filmmaking with ease--helped by
his own brilliance in defining and executing the telling of a
story--into 1931, he was soon promoted to directing some of Warners'
"regular" films (his first,
The Last Flight (1931), is now
regarded as a masterwork) and he wold average directing six pictures a
year for the studio through 1934. In that year Reinhardt came to the
US, the Nazi threat finally having driven him off the Continent. He
arrived with a flourish, ready to stage
William Shakespeare's "A
Midsummers Night's Dream"--an extravaganza at the Hollywood Bowl that
would become legend. It was impressive enough to interest the execs of
Warner Bros. They opted for a film version in 1935 with the great
Reinhardt--even studio boss
Jack L. Warner knew who he was--reunited
with his disciple, Dieterle, as co-director. Reinhardt knew nothing
about Hollywood and had to learn via Dieterle's diplomacy the
differences between the overemphasis of stage and the subtlety of the
camera. He learned from other directors as well about the realities of
making films, in particular ratchet down the tendency that stage
directors had to let their actors perform "too" much. It was all for
naught, however, as the film was a major box-office flop, but it was
one of the great moments in the evolution of film. Dieterle would
direct Paul Muni for Warners in three
first-rate bio movies:
The Story of Louis Pasteur (1936),
The Life of Emile Zola (1937)
and Juarez (1939) and all received Oscar
nominations. After that Dieterle moved on to do
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939)
at RKO with Charles Laughton as
Quasimodo. This was one of Dieterle's best efforts, both in its
romantic style and the great dark scenes of the Parisian medieval
underworld with dramatic minimal lighting that gave vent to his
expressionist roots.
Through the 1940s Dieterle moved around among Hollywood's studios,
turning out vigorously wrought pictures, such as his two 1940 bios with
Edward G. Robinson at
Warner's. He became associated with independent producer
David O. Selznick and actor
Joseph Cotten, first with his
direction of
I'll Be Seeing You (1944). His
romantic fires as a director had been restoked, as it were, and kept
burning in the subsequent series of films with them which included the
wonderful acting talents of Selznick's soon-to-be-wife (1949),
Jennifer Jones:
Love Letters (1945),
Duel in the Sun (1946)--for which
he shared directing but not credit with
King Vidor--and the ethereal
Portrait of Jennie (1948).
"Jennie" was one of Dieterle's masterpieces, bringing into play a
fusion of all his artistic fonts. The romantic fantasy with edges of
darkness from the novel by
Robert Nathan was just the
vehicle to challenge Dieterle. His use of light and dark and gauzed--at
one point the textured field of a painting canvas--backdrops conveyed
the dreamlike state and netherworld atmosphere of the story of lovers
from different times. Certainly the film influenced others to follow
with similar themes.
Through the 1950s Dieterle's work--two more with Joseph Cotten--though
sturdily in the director's hands, came off like good Hollywood fare,
but were inspired more by the films' tight shooting schedules than by
any artistic pretensions. His output during that decade was small, and
that was partly due to bane of McCarthyism. He was never blacklisted as
such, but his film Blockade (1938) was
too libertarian to keep him completely away from the shadow of
suspicion as a "socialist" / "communist" sympathizer. In 1958 he
returned to Germany and directed a few films there and in Italy before
retiring in 1965.
Though regrettably not as well known as his German and European
directorial compatriots in Hollywood, he had great artistic style and
worked with much energy in providing some of Hollywood's and the
world's crown jewels of cinematic art.- Writer
- Actor
- Music Department
While his special gifts seemed to lie in music and composing, the
dapper, multi-talented Welsh actor Ivor Novello (ne David Ivor Davies),
with his leading-man good looks, had a strong affinity for the camera.
Born in Cardiff, Wales, in 1893, he was the son of a tax-collector
father and a well-known singing teacher mother. His prodigious musical
skills were evident fairly early. Trained at the Magdalen College Choir
School on a soprano scholarship, he soon began writing songs under the
name Ivor Novello. In his overall career, Novello would write over 250
songs, a large percentage of them uplifting, touchingly sentimental and
war-inspired morale boosters. He moved with his family to London in
1914, and became an overnight celebrity after composing the patriotic
World War I standard "Keep the Home Fires Burning," which was
introduced much later in the film
The Lost Squadron (1932).
Novello then switched to pursue acting and debuted with a role in
The Call of the Blood (1921) [The Call
of the Blood], a French romantic melodrama which earned him promising
notices. Other roles that ensured his status as a screen idol followed,
including
The Man Without Desire (1923),
which he produced. He wrote and appeared in the successful 1924 play
"The Rat," which transferred quite well to film the following year
(The Rat (1925)). This also inspired two
sequels --
The Triumph of the Rat (1926)
and
The Return of the Rat (1929).
The actor's film peak occurred headlining two of
Alfred Hitchcock's early
suspense thrillers, serving as the put-upon protagonist in both the
silent classic
The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927)
and the lesser-received Downhill (1927).
Novello had a fine, well-modulated speaking voice that transferred
easily to talkies. Into the 1930s, he wrote and starred in
Symphony in Two Flats (1930)
and went on to remake
The Phantom Fiend (1932) successfully. During
this time he also wrote the dialogue for
Tarzan the Ape Man (1932), the
first of the jungle series to star
Johnny Weissmuller and
Maureen O'Sullivan. Novello's
last film was Autumn Crocus (1934),
after which he decided to devote himself full time to music and
theater.
He went on to earn rave reviews for his opulent, romantically
melodramatic stagings of "Glamorous Night" (1935), "The Dancing Years"
(1939) and "Perchance to Dream" (1945). He wrote eight musicals in all
and appeared in six of them, all of them non-singing parts.
His longtime companion of 35 years, actor
Robert Andrews, was with Novello
when Novello died suddenly on March 6, 1951 of a coronary thrombosis
only hours after performing in his own play "The King's Rhapsody."
Hugely popular in his time (though virtually unknown in America),
Novello's lasting influence on film, theater and especially music
cannot be denied.- Born Olga Vladimirovna Baklanova, one of six children of Vladimir
Baklanoff and his wife Alexandra, later billed as the Russian Tigress
in her early talking films, was born August 19, 1893. She graduated
from the Cherniavsky Institute in Moscow prior to her selection in 1912
at age 19 to apprentice at the Moscow Art Theatre. During her early
years at M.A.T. (1914-1918) she appeared in perhaps 18 films bringing
her into contact with Tourjansky, Boleslawski and M. Chekov among
others. Her last Russian film, Bread (1918) was the first communist
agitprop vehicle. From 1917 she appeared in the "classics" on the
parent stage and at the M.A.T. First Studio. Her mentor,
Nemirovich-Danchenko, showcased her in avant-garde productions of the
newly created M.A.T. Musical Studio from 1920-1925. She was honored
with the Worthy Artist Of The Republic by the Soviet regime.
Eight months after her M.A.T. New York debut in December 1925, she
declined to return with the M.A.T. company to Russia and subsequently
defected. She was noticed by the Hollywood studios while performing on
stage in Los Angeles in The Miracle in the role of the nun. Her film
debut was a bit in The Dove (1927). Her dramatic Portrayals in The Man Who Laughs (1928),
Street of Sin (1928), The Docks of New York (1928) and Forgotten Faces (1928) brought her critical acclaim in 1928. Her
subsequent vamp/tramp roles in early Paramount and Fox talking films
nearly destroyed her promising start. Stagey mannerisms and a heavy
accent relegated her to supporting roles. She appeared to advantage in
three films at MGM including the infamous Freaks (1932) with an unrestrained
and legendary performance.
After appearing in west coast stage productions in 1931-32, she
permanently left for the Broadway stage in 1933 following one last film
at Paramount. From 1933 to 1943 she starred in various Broadway
productions and then toured in road companies of Cat And The Fiddle,
Twentieth Century, Grand Hotel and Idiot's Delight. She debuted on the
London stage in 1936 in Going Places. One last big role in Claudia (1943) kept
her busy for two years (1941-1943). She returned to Hollywood in 1943
to recreate her stage role. Some summer stock and occasional night club
appearances followed as she moved into retirement.
During the mid-1960s Olga was interviewed by Richard Lamparski, Kevin
Brownlow and John Kobal who all recognized her unique contributions in
the performing arts. Her death occurred at Vevey, Switzerland on
September 6, 1974 after a period of declining health. - Actor
- Soundtrack
A minor character actor who appeared in literally hundreds of films,
actor Irving Bacon could always be counted on for expressing bug-eyed
bewilderment or cautious frustration in small-town settings with his
revolving door of friendly, servile parts - mailmen, milkmen, clerks,
chauffeurs, cab drivers, bartenders, soda jerks, carnival operators,
handymen and docs. Born September 6, 1893 in the heart of the Midwest
(St. Joseph, Missouri), he was the son of Millar and Myrtle (Vane)
Bacon. Irving first found work in silent comedy shorts at Keystone
Studios usually playing older than he was and, for a time, was a
utility player for Mack Sennett in such
slapstick as
A Favorite Fool (1915). Irving made an easy adjustment when sound entered the pictures and
after appearing in the Karl Dane and
George K. Arthur two-reel comedy shorts
such as
Knights Before Christmas (1930),
began to show up in feature-length films. He played higher-ups on
occasion, such as the Secretary of the Navy in
Million Dollar Legs (1932),
police inspector in
The House of Mystery (1934), mayor
in Room for One More (1952),
and judge in
Ambush at Cimarron Pass (1958),
but those were exceptions to the rule. Blending in with the town crowd
was what Irving was accustomed to and, over the years, he would be
glimpsed in some of Hollywood's most beloved classics such as Capra's
Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936),
San Francisco (1936),
You Can't Take It with You (1938)
and A Star Is Born (1954). Trivia
nuts will fondly recall his beleaguered postman in the
Blondie (1938) film series that ran over
a decade.
Irving could also be spotted on popular '50s and '60s TV programs such
as the westerns Laramie (1959) and
Wagon Train (1957), and "comedies
December Bride (1954) and
The Real McCoys (1957). He
can still be seen in a couple of old codger roles on
I Love Lucy (1951). One was as a
marriage license proprietor and the other as
Vivian Vance's doting dad from Albuquerque,
to whom she paid a visit on her way to Hollywood with the Ricardos.
Irving died on February 5, 1965, having clocked in over 400 features.- Actor
- Additional Crew
Howard Smith was born on 12 August 1893 in Attleboro, Massachusetts, USA. He was an actor, known for Death of a Salesman (1951), Kiss of Death (1947) and Don't Go Near the Water (1957). He was married to Mildred A. Barker and Lillian Boardman. He died on 10 January 1968 in Hollywood, California, USA.- Actor
- Art Department
- Cinematographer
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.- Jesslyn Fax was born on 4 January 1893 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. She was an actress, known for Rear Window (1954), The Ghost and Mr. Chicken (1966) and Kiss Me Deadly (1955). She died on 16 February 1975 in Hollywood, California, USA.
- Actor
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Charles Stevens was born on 26 May 1893 in Solomonsville, Arizona, USA. He was an actor and assistant director, known for The Three Musketeers (1921), The Americano (1916) and Ebb Tide (1937). He was married to Lila Ethel Berry. He died on 22 August 1964 in Hollywood, California, USA.- Actor
- Director
- Writer
While Charley Chase is far from being as famous as "The Big Three"
(Charles Chaplin,
Buster Keaton and
Harold Lloyd) today, he's highly
respected as one of the "greats" by fans of silent comedy.
Chase (real name Charles Parrott) was born in Maryland, USA, in 1893.
After a brief career in vaudeville, burlesque, and musical comedy he appeared with Al Christie at Universal
Studios as a comedian in 1913 before moving to the Mack Sennett Studios the
following year. His career in films did not start off with
remarkable success. He played bit parts in a large number of short
comedies, coming to notice in 'The Knockout' with Charlie Chaplin, Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, Edgar Kennedy and The Keystone Cops. This was followed by appearing in a number of films written and directed by Chaplin. At the end of 1914 he was one of the stars in the spectacular Tillie's Punctured Romance featuring all the stars on the lot, and which took 14 weeks to shoot. He spent another year with Sennett starring in his own shorts, one of his first being Settled at the Seaside co starring Mae Busch. In 1915he started directing films using his real name and switching to his stage name when starring. He moved to Fox Studios in 1916 where he directed, wrote and starred in comedies some of which featured Chester Conklin. After a couple of further studio moves he rejoined Sennett then went to Paramount before arriving at Hal Roach Studios in 1920 as
a director, before Roach realized what a gifted performer he had hired.
"I can play anything!" Chase told Roach, and eventually his claim was
confirmed. Although Mack Sennett's Keystone studio has earned legendary
status as the ultimate factory of comic invention, it can hardly be
denied that Roach developed a more refined style of comedy which
obviously fitted Chase better (indeed, Sennett's unsophisticated
product increasingly lost favor with the movie-going public by the
early 1920s, while Roach's studio flourished). During five years,
1924-29, he starred in nearly a hundred two-reelers, most of which were
directed by Leo McCarey.
Chase usually portrayed an apparently gentle and charming man who in
reality, it eventually turned out, was quite a loser after all. His
character was largely inspired by Lloyd Hamilton, another neglected
comedian whom Chase had directed in several two-reelers. Among
Charley's most memorable shorts are Innocent Husbands, Mighty Like a
Moose, and Movie Night.
From the beginning, Charley Chase was a "critics' darling," but none of
his movies were remarkably successful at the box office. There is no
official "explanation" to this, but one reason may be that Chase, in
contrast to the more popular clowns, never starred in any feature
during the silent period. On a personal level, Chase was severely
hobbled by alcoholism, which is unapparent in his films.
Chase made several promising appearances after the talkies arrived, in
1929-30, especially in Laurel and Hardy's highly acclaimed feature
Sons of the Desert (1933).
Despite this, he was never offered any further appearances in features.
But he continued to perform in shorts and did also direct some of the
Three Stooges' early movies. He died in 1940, not yet 47 years of age,
of a heart attack. It is reasonable to believe that his early death was
to a large extent caused by his addiction to alcohol, a problem which
had troubled his family for several years. His brother James, also an
actor, had died the year before. The two brothers had been close
throughout their lives, although their personal problems frequently
affected each other (or perhaps that was the reason for their being so
close.) Chase was married to Bebe Eltinge from 1914, a marriage that
lasted until his death and produced two daughters, Polly and June.
Chase's silent work was celebrated on DVD in two volumes from Kino
Video. At long last his comic genius is being recognized.- Producer
- Writer
- Additional Crew
In 1920, Merian C. Cooper was a member of volunteer of the American
Kosciuszko Squadron that supported the Polish army in the war with
Soviet Russia, where he met best friend and producing partner Ernest B. Schoedsack.
On 26 July 1920, his plane was shot down, and he spent nearly nine
months in the Soviet prisoner-of-war camp. He escaped just before the
war was over. He was decorated by Marshall Jozef Pilsudski with the
highest military decorations: Virtuti Military. He had a successful
career in the military and in the movie business.- Barry Jones was born on 6 March 1893 in St. Peter Port, Guernsey, Channel Islands, UK. He was an actor, known for Brigadoon (1954), Prince Valiant (1954) and Demetrius and the Gladiators (1954). He died on 1 May 1981 in Guernsey, Channel Islands, UK.
- Actor
- Director
- Soundtrack
Otto Wernicke was born on 30 September 1893 in Osterode am Harz, Germany. He was an actor and director, known for M (1931), The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (1933) and Titanic (1943). He died on 7 November 1965 in Munich, Bavaria, West Germany.- Actor
- Director
- Writer
Al St. John was born on 10 September 1893 in Santa Ana, California, USA. He was an actor and director, known for Billy the Kid in Texas (1940), Prairie Badmen (1946) and Billy the Kid Trapped (1942). He was married to Yvonne June Villon Price Pearce (actress), Lillian Marion Ball and Flo-Bell Moore. He died on 21 January 1963 in Lyons, Georgia, USA.- Effervescent, blond star of sophisticated Broadway comedy in the 1920s. Born Ina Fagan, of Irish descent, she lost her father in a car accident four months before she was born (a CAR ACCIDENT in October 1893?!) Without a breadwinner in the family, she was forced to live in a boarding house with her mother. From earliest childhood, she displayed a precocious talent for impersonating other people, which eventually led to her abandonment of school (Holy Cross Academy) at age 17 and her entry into the world of vaudeville. Performing under her mother's maiden name as an imitator of established stage performers made her a popular name in revues on both sides of the Atlantic. Ina's first extended run on the
stage (more than a year) was as Prudence in the 1911 musical "The Quaker Girl", where a very young F. Scott Fitzgerald became enamoured with her. In 1915, she appeared in the Ziegfeld Folies, and in the following year, had her first major hit as the titular heroine in the comedy "Polly With a Past" at the Belasco Theatre.
Between 1919 and 1928, Ina Claire was almost continuously employed in one theatrical success after another in comedic plays penned by the likes of S.N. Behrman, W. Somerset Maugham, Anthony Trollope and T.S. Eliot. She had huge hits in the title role of "The Last of Mrs. Cheyney" (1925) and, as Lady Grayston, in "Our Betters" (1928). Her curtain call was as the star of "The Confidential Clerk" in 1954, at the Morosco Theatre. John Mason Brown, writing for the New York Post (December 13, 1932) called her "the ablest comedienne our theatre knows". Immensely popular with audiences and critics alike, she was noted for her deft delivery, her wit and charisma and for her elegant, stylish costumes and coiffure. She also had the ability to carefully select her roles to suit her special talent for sophisticated high comedy (though in later years blaming producers for typecasting her and not allowing her the opportunity to shine in dramatic parts). Regardless, Ina Claire has long since been inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame.
Her screen career, brief as it was, seemed desultory - possibly because Claire regarded film making as 'a director's art'. She reprised the role she had originated on Broadway in 1922 in her first talking picture The Awful Truth (1929), but, like many other early talkies, the film turned out decidedly static and ponderous. It was successfully remade by Leo McCarey in 1937 with Irene Dunne in the Claire role. Ina was then slated to play the lead in "Holiday" , an adaptation of a play by Philip Barry, but the nine months remaining of her contract with Pathe proved insufficient and Ina was paid $55,000 instead to settle the contract. Paramount picked up the option of signing her for The Royal Family of Broadway (1930), spoofing the private lives of the Barrymore dynasty. Claire essayed a very good likeness of Ethel Barrymore - in fact, it annoyed the real Ethel enough to threaten legal action against Paramount. Another eight years elapsed until Ina offered a glimpse of her Broadway panache in the classic comedy Ninotchka (1939) as Greta Garbo's elegant nemesis, the Duchess Swana. Her last film role was as the mother of movie debutante Dorothy McGuire in the domestic comedy Claudia (1943).
An intensely private person, Ina Claire successfully shunned the limelight, except for the duration of her much-publicised, and brief, marriage to fading star John Gilbert (on the rebound from Garbo). She died at age 91 of a heart attack in San Francisco, California on February 21, 1985. She was buried at Mount Olivet Cemetery in Salt Lake City, Utah. - Producer
- Director
- Additional Crew
One of a large group of Hungarian refugees who found refuge in England
in the 1930s, Sir Alexander Korda was the first British film producer to
receive a knighthood. He was a major, if controversial, figure and
acted as a guiding force behind the British film industry of the 1930s
and continued to influence British films until his death in 1956. He
learned his trade by working in studios in Austria, Germany and America
and was a crafty and flamboyant businessman. He started his production
company, London Films, in 1933 and one of its first films The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933),
received an Oscar nomination as best picture and won the Best Actor
Oscar for its star, Charles Laughton. Helped by his brothers Zoltan Korda (director)
and Vincent Korda (art director) and other expatriate Hungarians, London
Films produced some of Britain's finest films (even if they weren't all
commercial successes). Korda's willingness to experiment and be daring
allowed the flowering of such talents as Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger and gave
early breaks to people such as Laurence Olivier, David Lean and Carol Reed. Korda sold
his library to television in the 1950s, thus allowing London Films'
famous logo of Big Ben to become familiar to a new generation of film
enthusiasts.- Art Director
- Art Department
- Set Decorator
After graduating from New York's Art Students League he worked for his
architect father, then started film work at Edison Studios in 1915
assisting Hugo Ballin. In 1918 he moved to Goldwyn as art director and, in
1924, began his 32 year stint as supervising art director for some 1500
MGM films, with direct responsibility in well over 150 of those. He
designed the Oscar itself, winning it 11 of the 37 times he was
nominated for it. Some of his designs influenced American interiors,
and it has been argued that he was the most important art director in
the history of American cinema.- Born in New Haven, Connecticut on November 5, 1893, silent screen lead
Theodore Von Eltz was the son of a Yale professor and educated at Hill
School at Pottstown Pennsylvania. Originally prepped to become a
doctor, he decided instead to pursue acting. At age 19 he made his New
York debut and soon was hitting the Broadway boards with performances
in "Children of Earth" (1915), "Rio Grande" (1916) and "The Old Lady
Shows Her Medals (1917). Von Eltz evolved into a dark and dashingly
handsome silent film actor. Well-dressed with a trimmed mustache, he
romanced a number of the silent screen's most lovely stars in both
comedy and drama, including Bebe Daniels in The Speed Girl (1921) and Viola Dana in Fourteenth Lover (1922),
before moving into a pattern of disreputable second leads and support
roles with Tiger Rose (1923), The Sporting Chance (1925), The Red Kimono (1926), The Sea Wolf (1926). He received lesser
billing to a couple of animal heroes in White Fang (1925) and No Man's Law (1927).
By the advent of sound Von Eltz was firmly entrenched in character
parts and was often relied upon to drum up sinister support such as his
deceptive culprit in The Arizona Kid (1930); his gangster in Red-Haired Alibi (1932); the Shirley Temple
vehicle Bright Eyes (1934), in which he played Jane Withers' annoyingly vexatious
father; his henchman in The Sun Never Sets (1939); and, more notably, his minor role as
the blackmailing pornographer whose actions ignite the classic film
noir The Big Sleep (1946). On the other hand, he could also play benevolent doctors,
lawyers and servants and did so in a film career that nearly hit the
200 mark. By the late 1930's his billing had slipped considerably to
the point he was frequently uncredited. A well-oiled player on radio,
he voiced the part of Papa Barbour on the popular program "One Man's
Family" from 1948-1949, but was later replaced. He also played on 50s
TV.
Von Eltz was married twice. First wife Peggy Prior was a screenwriter for
Pathe Studios. They had two children, Teddy and Lori, the latter
becoming the soap actress Lori March. Following their divorce and a bitter
custody feud (which he lost), he married Elizabeth Lorimar in 1932.
They remained together until his death. He passed away at the Motion
Picture Country Home after an extended illness and was buried in Forest
Lawn Memorial Park in Los Angeles. - Director
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
- Production Manager
The son of comedian and theatre director Ludwig Brahm, Hans followed in
his father's footsteps and began his career on the stages of Vienna,
Berlin and Paris. Again, like his father, he graduated to directing and
had his first fling with the film business as a dialogue director for a
Franco/German co-production, starring his future wife
Dolly Haas. Hans went to England in 1934 to
escape Nazi persecution (and to avoid being caught up in another war,
having spent much of the previous conflagration as a conscript on the
Russian Front). After a brief spell as a production supervisor, Brahm
made his directing debut with an undistinguished remake of
D.W. Griffith's
Broken Blossoms (1936). A year
later, he moved on to the U.S..
Having anglicised his first name to John, he arrived in Hollywood in
1937 and was signed to a three-year contract at Columbia (1937-40),
followed by another three years with 20th Century Fox (1941-44). Brahm
specialised in suspense thrillers, often with psychological undertones,
at times involving madness. His affinity with filming the sinister and
the grotesque had much to do with the influence of his uncle Otto, once
an influential theatrical producer. Otto introduced his nephew to the
dark and fantastic elements of classic German expressionist cinema,
including films like
Faust (1926).
At Fox, Brahm directed two masterpieces back-to-back: the stylish and
moody 'Jack the Ripper' look-alike
The Lodger (1944); and, in a similar
vein, Hangover Square (1945), a
gothic melodrama about insanity and murder, set in Victorian London.
Both films starred the excellent, sadly short-lived, actor
Laird Cregar, whose professionalism and
finely-etched performances Brahm greatly appreciated. Much of the
credit for the pace and detail of these films belongs to Brahm himself,
who meticulously mapped out every scene and camera angle before
shooting commenced.
Another of Brahm's films, not in the same league as the aforementioned,
but nonetheless quite enjoyable, is
The Mad Magician (1954).
Something of a precursor to the cycle of low-budget horror films
Vincent Price was later to make at
American-International, it was shot in the experimental 3-D process.
What the picture lacked in a visceral sense, it made up for in period
detail and in an enjoyable star performance reminiscent of the earlier
House of Wax (1953).
By the mid-1950's, Brahm had segued from films to television, but never
strayed far from the macabre. He directed some of the best-loved
episodes of
Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955),
The Outer Limits (1963),
The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (1962)
and, especially,
The Twilight Zone (1959)
("Time Enough at Last" comes
to mind, in particular). Brahm retired in 1968. He spent the last years
of his life confined to a wheelchair and died in October 1982 at the
respectable age of 89.- Evelyn Varden was born on 12 June 1893 in Adair, Oklahoma, USA. She was an actress, known for The Night of the Hunter (1955), The Bad Seed (1956) and Pinky (1949). She was married to William J. Quinn and Charles Coleman. She died on 11 July 1958 in New York City, New York, USA.
- George Selk was born on 15 May 1893 in Lincoln, Nebraska, USA. He was an actor, known for Adventures of Superman (1952), Gunsmoke (1955) and Lawman (1958). He died on 22 January 1967 in Montrose, California, USA.
- Dennis Hoey was born on 30 March 1893 in London, England, UK. He was an actor, known for Sherlock Holmes Faces Death (1943), Terror by Night (1946) and The Spider Woman (1943). He was married to Josephine Marta Ricca and Sarah Pearl Lyons (known as Cissie). He died on 25 July 1960 in Palm Beach, Florida, USA.
- Actor
- Soundtrack
Earle Hodgins was born on 6 October 1893 in Payson, Utah, USA. He was an actor, known for Oregon Trail (1945), The Sagebrush Family Trails West (1940) and Heroes of the Alamo (1937). He was married to Elizabeth Birss Ogilvie and Sue Henley. He died on 14 April 1964 in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA.- Bernard Nedell was born on 14 October 1893 in New York City, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for The Loves of Carmen (1948), The Silver King (1929) and Angels Wash Their Faces (1939). He was married to Helen Porter Nichols and Olive Blakeney. He died on 23 November 1972 in Hollywood, California, USA.
- Actor
- Soundtrack
Chris-Pin Martin was born on 19 November 1893 in Tucson, Arizona, USA. He was an actor, known for King of the Bandits (1947), Four Frightened People (1934) and Under Strange Flags (1937). He died on 27 June 1953 in Montebello, California, USA.- Actor
- Additional Crew
Hermann Göring was born on January 12, 1893, in Rosenheim, Bavaria, the
son of a prominent judge. He entered the German Royal Military Academy
at Gross Lichterfeide outside Berlin in his teens and graduated in
1911. At the beginning of World War I he saw service as an infantry
lieutenant but soon transfered to the air corps. During the war he
racked up 22 aerial kills, earning the coveted Blue Max and a promotion
to commanding officer of Manfred von Richthofen's "Flying Circus" in 1918 after that
famous ace was killed in action. In the years following World War I
Göring became one of Adolf Hitler's most devoted followers. The former war
hero was named head of Hitler's private army, the Brownshirts, a Nazi
paramilitary organization similar to the Blackshirt fascist group in
Italy commanded by Benito Mussolini, in 1922. Göring took part in the
unsuccessful "Beer Hall Putsch" attempt to overthrow the Bavarian state
government in 1923, was wounded and spent some time in prison. In 1933,
after Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany, Göring became
commissioner for aviation and in 1935 commander in chief of the newly
established German Air Force (the Luftwaffe). By the opening days of
World War II, Göring had built the Luftwaffe into the largest air force
in the world. His planes performed superbly in the "blitzkrieg"
campaigns against Poland, the Low Countries, Norway and France. In
recognition of his work, Göring was promoted to Reichsmarschall (a rank
above field marshal) on June 19, 1940. The tall, heavyset Göring became
well known for his garish, colorful uniforms and his devotion to the
war aims of the Nazi party, rivaled only by Hitler's. Göring didn't
confine his efforts on behalf of the Nazi party to purely military
matters, however; he also developed much of Nazi Germany's anti-Jewish
legislation.
Unfortunately for Göring, his hour of military triumph was short-lived.
He seriously botched the Battle of Britain in August and September of
1940 by overestimating the Luftwaffe's capability for long-range combat
and underestimating the resolve of Britain's Royal Air Force, which
resulted in the loss of huge numbers of his aircraft in daily air raids
against England, not to mention the death or capture of thousands of
his most experienced bomber crews. During the invasion of the Soviet
Union in June of 1941, the Luftwaffe first held the upper hand against
the undertrained and underequipped Soviet Air Force. However, it wasn't
long before the tide turned, and before long the Russians were turning
out thousands of fighters and bombers and inflicting serious damage on
the Luftwaffe, which could ill afford such losses. Starting in 1943
Allied bombers had turned the tide of the air war against Germany, and
Göring's vaunted Luftwaffe began losing increasing numbers of planes,
not to mention experienced pilots, to the US and British air forces,
and Allied bombing campaigns smashed many more German aircraft on the
ground in addition to destroying many aircraft factories. In April
1945, with the defeat of Germany a certainty, Göring suggested to
Hitler that he make peace with the Allies before they brought total
destruction to Germany. Enraged, Hitler ordered his arrest. Göring
managed to escape from Nazi custody but was captured on May 2, 1945, by
soldiers of the U.S. 7th Army. He was eventually tried, convicted and
sentenced to death for crimes against humanity during the war crimes
trials at Nuremberg late in 1945. His lawyers fought for time with
appeals and requests to overturn his death sentence, but they were all
denied. On October 15, 1946, just two hours before the former
Reichsmarshall was to face the hangman to pay for his crimes, the
53-year-old Hermann Göring committed suicide in his jail cell by taking
poison that he somehow had smuggled in with him.- Writer
- Music Department
- Actress
Dorothy Rothschild was born on August 22, 1893 into a family of comfortable
financial means. Raised by her father and Stepmother after her mother's death, she was given an excellent education for the times. Highly intelligent, she pursued a career after her formal education and proved herself to be one of the early feminists. She started writing poems early and her witty remarks are still alive today. In 1917 she was asked to join the staff at Vanity Fair magazine and to marry Edward Pond Parker II, both of which she agreed to gladly. Eddie Parker soon was stationed overseas and Dorothy became one of the founding members of the Algonquin Hotel "Round Table". Eddie arrived back from the war with an unfortunate drinking problem, and Dorothy decided she loved her new life more than she did him. They were separated far more than together and divorced in 1928. She spent a very dramatic period of time in New York City, doing theater reviews, spending time with her Algonquin friends, drinking far too much. She published poems and short stories and in 1929 won the national O. Henry Prize for the short story "Big Blonde". This established her as a serious writer. She married
Alan Campbell when she was forty and he was twenty-nine. He encouraged her to go Hollywood where they became a very successful screenwriting team. Beginning in 1933 they received screen credits for fifteen films, most notably A Star Is Born (1937) which was nominated for an Academy Award. The time spent in Hollywood were the most lucrative years of her career, yet she spent every dime of it. She divorced and remarried Alan Campbell and in 1963 he died. She spent her last years in New York City, in very poor health due to heavy drinking and making do on very little money. Often, she would have to call on friends like
Lillian Hellman to help her financially. Dorothy Parker died in 1967 at seventy-three years old in her New York hotel room, all alone. Time magazine devoted an entire page to her obituary, which was considered an amazing tribute. Her estate was left in full to Martin Luther King and the NAACP.- Alexander Granach was born in the
region of Galizia, in what was then the Austro-Hungarian Empire (today
Ukraine). Given the name Jessaja Szajko Gronish, he was one of a dozen
children of a poor Jewish family eking out a living, first in a farming
village, later in a series of small towns and cities. He began working
early mornings as a baker in his father's poor bakery by the age of 6,
had a rough and tumble youth with relatively little schooling in
religious and secular Jewish schools. He ran away from home four times,
according to his autobiographical novel, but, reunited with his family
at the age of 14, saw his first theatrical production, a famous play in
the Yiddish language. Granach was smitten by the stage and, determined
to become an actor, ran away to Berlin in 1909. In Berlin, Granach
worked as a journeyman baker, fell in with a group of Jewish socialist
worker-intellectuals--recent immigrants from similar Eastern European
backgrounds to his own. His beginning as an actor was in amateur
Yiddish-speaking productions, but he was encouraged to learn German and
aspire to a wider career and was accepted into the acting school of Max
Reinhardt, Europe's leading theatrical figure. Although the beginning
of his acting career was interrupted by his military service in World
War I, and his time as a prisoner of war in Italy, after the war he
rapidly established himself as a leading figure of the flourishing
theater and film industry of the Weimar-era in post-war Germany. His
most enduring success in German film was as "Knock," the weird real
estate agent in "Nosferatu." His charisma is demonstrated in the early
German "talkie," "Kameradschaft" (1931), directed by G.W. Pabst.
Granach was a well-known figure in the lively political and artistic
milieu of the 1920s and early '30s, a friend of leading writers,
actors, and directors, and had to flee as soon as Hitler came to power
in 1933-as both a Jew and a Leftist. He spent the next five years in
exile in Poland and the Soviet Union, acting in films and plays, but
was arrested by Stalin's minions in 1938 and was fortunate to be able
to leave the USSR and then to get to the United States. He learned
English, as he had once learned German, and got his chance to act in
Hollywood and then on Broadway, joining the small army of Jewish and
other escapees from Hitler's Europe. The role for which he is best
known in America is that of Kopalsi in "Ninotchka," (1939) directed by
Ernst Lubitsch, but his role as Gestapo Inspector Alois Gruber in
"Hangmen Also Die!" (1943) should be better known. (The film was
written, in part, by his old colleague, Bertolt Brecht and directed by
Fritz Lang.) Granach was acting on Broadway with Frederic March in the
play by John Hersey, "A Bell for Adano," when he had an attack of
appendicitis and died several days later of an embolism, on March 13,
1945. Alexander Granach wrote an autobiographical novel, with the title
Da geht ein Mensch, in German, which was published in 1945, just after
his death. The book was published at the same time in an English
version, as There Goes an Actor. It was recognized at the time as a
remarkable work, and has been republished as: From the Shtetl to the
Stage: the Odyssey of a Wandering Actor, by Transaction Publishers,
2010. - Actress
- Writer
- Costume and Wardrobe Department
Irene Castle and her husband Vernon Castle (born Vernon Blyth) were the
best known ballroom dancers of the early 20th C. Beginning about 1914
they operated several clubs and studios in the NYC area, toured the
country dancing, and were able to charge as much as a thousand dollars
an hour for lessons. They appeared in an Irving Berlin musical ("Watch
Your Step") and in the film "The Whirl Of Life" as themselves. Irene
appeared in a number of films alone, notably the WWI drama "Patria".
Vernon (as a military flying instructor) was killed in an airplane
accident shortly before the war's end. Irene later married Robert
Treman, an Ithaca NY businessman who stole her money and lost it on the
stock market. In 1923 she married Frederic McLaughlin, a man sixteen
years older than her. She married him for his money, divorcing him when
he proved to be possessive and physically violent. Her fourth and final
husband was George Enzinger an advertising executive from Chicago. She
spent the later years of her life championing animal rights.- Jean Acker was born in 1893 on a farm in Trenton, NJ, and was named Harriet.
Her father was part Cherokee and her mother was Irish, and they had
separated when she was young. Jean attended school at St. Mary's
Seminary in Springfield, NJ. Her acting career began in
vaudeville and stock-company drama before she moved in front of the
cameras.
In 1919 she came to California and negotiated a
$200-a-week contract with a movie studio based on the
strength of her relationship with her lover, the famed star
Alla Nazimova. Within a few months she
started another relationship with a younger, less established actress,
Grace Darmond. In the midst of this love
triangle she met the struggling actor
Rudolph Valentino at a party, and they
became friends. After a two-month courtship, he asked her to marry him
and she accepted. On November 6, 1919, they married, and on their
wedding night she locked him out. She wept, claiming she made a mistake
and later departed to Grace Darmond's
apartment. Valentino tried to reconcile with her but to no avail, and
the marriage ended in divorce two years later when Valentino was a
major star and Acker's star was waning.
Newspapers had a field day when Valentino was charged with bigamy, as he
hadn't waited long enough to marry his second wife, talented set
and costume designer Natacha Rambova.
Acker sued for the legal right to call herself "Mrs. Rudolph
Valentino," and Valentino remained angry at her for several years.
However, they rekindled their friendship a few months before his death
in 1926. She was one of the last people who saw him alive, and she
attended his funeral with her mother. Soon after he died, she wrote and
published a popular song about him, "We Will Meet at the End of the
Trail."
She played bit parts in films, usually uncredited, until the early
1950s. She and her companion Chloe Carter owned a Beverly Hills
building where Patricia Neal lived
for several years. She died in 1978 at the age of 85. She and
her companion Carter are now buried side by side in Holy Cross
Cemetery, Los Angeles, California. - Actor
- Soundtrack
Gino Corrado is best known as the waiter in most of the films from Hollywood's Golden Age. He appeared in such popular and beloved films as Casablanca, Citizen Kane, and Gone with the Wind. With over 1,000 appearances (mostly uncredited roles as a bit player or an extra from 1916 until 1956) he has one of the largest filmographies of any actor in the film industry. Three Stooges fans recognized him from his appearances in several memorable Three Stooges shorts, and it was the Three Stooges Fan Club that eventually bought him his gravestone. Corrado's earliest film roles included DW Griffith's Intolerance (1916), Sunrise (1927) and his biggest role as one of the Three Musketeers (Aramis) opposite Douglas Fairbanks in The Iron Mask (1929). Italian-born Gino Corrado's real name was Gino Liserani and his two brothers were also actors. Lawrence Liserani worked mostly as an extra, and Louis (Luigi) Liserani had a few bit roles in the 1920s under the name Louis Dumar.
Corrado was mainly uncredited after the silent era ended and typecast as a waiter or chef. He, incredibly, entered the restaurant business in the late 1940s where he served the motion picture crowd much like on-screen. Kirby Pringle is writing a book about Gino Corrado titled "Waiting on Hollywood: The Tale of an Italian Bit Player," with University Press of Mississippi, due out in early 2022.- Director
- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
Ernest B. Schoedsack was born on 8 June 1893 in Council Bluffs, Iowa, USA. He was a director and cinematographer, known for Dr. Cyclops (1940), The Most Dangerous Game (1932) and Rango (1931). He was married to Ruth Rose. He died on 23 December 1979 in Los Angeles County, California, USA.- Beverly Bayne was born on 11 November 1893 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. She was an actress, known for Romeo and Juliet (1916), The Age of Innocence (1924) and The Girl at the Curtain (1914). She was married to Charles Thomas Hvass Sr. and Francis X. Bushman. She died on 18 August 1982 in Scottsdale, Arizona, USA.
- Ed Cassidy was born on 21 March 1893 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. He was an actor, known for Valley of Fear (1947), Sun Valley Cyclone (1946) and Navajo Kid (1945). He was married to Pearl Wiard(vaudeville actress) and Dorothy. He died on 19 January 1968 in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Writer
- Additional Crew
Russel Crouse was born on 20 February 1893 in Findlay, Ohio, USA. He was a writer, known for The Sound of Music (1965), Arsenic and Old Lace (1944) and Anything Goes (1936). He was married to Anna Erskine and Dorothy Alison Greene (Alison Smith). He died on 3 April 1966 in New York City, New York, USA.- Fay Roope was born on 20 October 1893 in Allston, Massachusetts, USA. He was an actor, known for Viva Zapata! (1952), The Twilight Zone (1959) and The Atomic Kid (1954). He was married to Marie Theresa Ravot. He died on 13 September 1961 in Port Jefferson, Long Island, New York, USA.