List of all people nominated for Oscar
All categories. All years. 1929-2024.
List activity
16K views
• 15 this weekCreate a new list
List your movie, TV & celebrity picks.
7399 people
- Actor
- Producer
- Art Department
His real name was Theodor Friedrich Emil Janenz, and in the early 1900s, he was already working in the theater under Max Reinhardt's company. Important movies where he defined himself as a convincing actor were Passion (1919) and Quo Vadis? (1924), followed by The Last Laugh (1924) (aka The Last Laugh) in 1924 and Variety (1925) (aka Variety) in 1925. In 1928, he became the first male leading actor to receive the academy award for The Last Command (1928) directed by Josef von Sternberg. In 1929, Stenberg directed him in his world famous movie The Blue Angel (1930) (aka The Blue Angel) co-starring the young Marlene Dietrich (her first role). Later on, he concentrated on theater and dedicated his acting skills to the Nazi regime and also took part in the realization of Ohm Krüger (1941) in 1941, an expensive anti-British film production. When the Second World War ended, the US government cleaned his image, and he converted to Catholicism. He played in a few more German movies, but his career never recaptured its brilliance.1884-1950 (65 years old)
Wins:
Actor in a leading role (1929, The Last Command/The Way of All Flesh)- Actor
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Richard Barthelmess was born into a theatrical family in which his mother was an actress. While attending Trinity College in Connecticut, he began appearing in stage productions. While on vacation in 1916, a friend of his mother, actress Alla Nazimova, offered him a part in War Brides (1916), and Richard never returned to college. He appeared in a number of films before signing a contract with D.W. Griffith in 1919. Griffith put Richard into Broken Blossoms (1919) with Lillian Gish which made him a star. He had an uncanny ability to become the characters he played. The next year, he was again teamed with Lillian in Way Down East (1920). This film would become the standard for many movies in the future. Best remembered is the river scene in which Richard jumps over the ice floes in search of Lillian as she heads towards the falls. He formed Inspiration Pictures to make Tol'able David (1921) and gave one of his best performances as a lad who saves the U.S. mail from the outlaws. He remained popular throughout the twenties and became one of the biggest stars at First National Pictures. He received Academy Award nominations for The Patent Leather Kid (1927) and The Noose (1928). Sound was not a medium that would embrace Richard. He did make a number of talkies in the first few years of sound, but his acting technique was not well suited for sound and the parts began to get smaller. With his career over by the mid-30s, but he came back with a fine performance in Howard Hawks's Only Angels Have Wings (1939). Richard joined the Navy Reserve in 1942, and when the war ended he retired to Long Island and lived off his real estate investments.1895-1963 (68 years old)
Nominations:
Actor in a leading role (1929, The Patent Leather Kid)
Actor in a leading role (1929, The Noose)- Actress
- Soundtrack
Janet Gaynor was born Laura Gainor on October 6, 1906, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. As a child, she & her parents moved to San Francisco, California, where she graduated from high school in 1923. She then moved to Los Angeles where she enrolled in a secretarial school. She got a job at a shoe store for the princely sum of $18 per week. However, since L.A. was the land of stars and studios, she wanted to try her hand at acting. She managed to land unbilled bit parts in several feature films and comedy shorts. She bided her time, believing "Good things come to those who wait." She didn't have to wait too long, either. In 1926, at the age of 20, she turned in a superb performance as Anna Burger in The Johnstown Flood (1926). The Hollywood moguls knew they had a top star on their hands and cast her in several other leading roles that year, including The Shamrock Handicap (1926), The Blue Eagle (1926), The Midnight Kiss (1926) and The Return of Peter Grimm (1926). The next year she turned in acclaimed performances in two classic films, 7th Heaven (1927) and Sunrise (1927). Based on the strength of those two films plus Street Angel (1928), Janet received the very first Academy Award for best actress. This was the first and only time an actress won the Oscar for multiple roles. When "talkies" replaced silent films, Janet was one of the few who made a successful transition, not only because of her great acting ability but for her charming voice as well. Without a doubt, Janet had already lived a true rags-to-riches story. Throughout the mid-1930s she was the top drawing star at theaters. She turned in grand performances in several otherwise undistinguished films.
Then came A Star Is Born (1937). She was very convincing as Vicki Lester (aka Esther Blodgett), struggling actress trying for the big time. Told by the receptionist at Central casting "You know what your chances are? One in a hundred thousand," Esther/Vicki replies, "But maybe--I'm that one." For her outstanding performance she was nominated for another Oscar, but lost to Luise Rainer's performance in The Good Earth (1937), her second in as many tries. After appearing in The Young in Heart (1938), Janet didn't appear in another film until 1957's Bernardine (1957). Her last performance was in a Broadway version of Harold and Maude. Although the play was a flop, Janet's performance salvaged it to any degree - she still had what it took to entertain the public. On September 14, 1984, Janet passed away from pneumonia in Palm Springs, California, at the age of 77.1906-1984 (77 years old)
Wins:
Actress in a leading role (1929, 7th Heaven/Street Angel/Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans)
Nominations:
Actress in a leading role (1938, A Star is Born)- This knowing, plump-framed, strong-willed actress went on to play the gamut of emotions, from downtrodden, drunken ex-stars to self-controlled dowager empresses, in both silent pictures and early talkies. Grandly supporting the huge stars of her day (including Rudolph Valentino and Will Rogers), she actually started out as a celebrated singer from the vaudeville and Broadway stages; films came much later. While she wasn't as extensively captured on celluloid as, say, a Jane Darwell and is less remembered these days, Louise Dresser nevertheless created a daunting gallery of character matrons in her time and earned the respect of Hollywood.
The Hoosier-born and -bred Dresser was born Lulu Josephine Kerlin in Evansville, Indiana, on October 5, 1878, and raised there as the daughter of William and Ida Kerlin, he being a train engineer. She sang as a child and grew up as part of various choirs and shows in town. The family moved to Columbus, Ohio, when she reached her teens (he was killed in a railroad accident not long after their move). With a burning desire to perform professionally, the pretty 16-year-old ran away from home, abandoned her schooling and set her heart on making a career for herself in entertainment. She actively pursued singing roles that could benefit her contralto voice in stock, burlesque and vaudeville. She eventually changed her stage name to Louise Kerlin. During this time she became the lovely singing protégé of Tin Pan Alley composer Paul Dresser (né Paul Dreiser). Known at the time for such songs as "On the Banks of the Wabash" and "Far Away", it was Dresser, the brother of novelist Theodore Dreiser, who changed Louise's marquee name to Louise Dresser, and it was Louise who introduced Paul's biggest song hit to American ears, "My Gal Sal". Her affiliation with Paul helped earn her the billing "The Girl from the Wabash."
While on the vaudeville circuit Louise met and married Jack Norworth, a performing monologist, best known in later years for providing the lyrics to such old-time classics as "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" and "Shine On, Harvest Moon." She made her Broadway debut in "About Town" in 1906, which starred her husband, who also provided the songs. By the time Louise settled into the Broadway scene, however, the couple had divorced (after eight years). Noted for her charm and elegance, Louise specialized in light operettas and musical comedy, and year after year increased her marquee value with such New York musical shows as "The Girls of Gottenberg" (1908), "The Candy Shop" (1909), "A Matinee Idol" (1910), and "From Broadway to Paris" (1912).
Louise met Broadway singing star Jack Gardner (1873-1950) along the way. They married in 1908, a year after her divorce from Norworth. The couple went on to headline together in vaudeville but, interestingly, never managed to appear together on the Great White Way. Into the next decade she graced the New York stage with such singing vehicles as George M. Cohan's "Hello, Broadway!" (1914), and in two of Jerome Kern's: "Have a Heart" (1917) and "Rock-a-Bye, Baby" (1918).
Louise and husband Gardner decided to make a daring pitch for film work by moving to California in 1920. She debuted at age 44 with the film The Glory of Clementina (1922); her actor/singer husband, who appeared in the pictures Hollywood (1923) and Bluff (1924), actually found more success as a Fox Films executive. Forsaking her musical career, she now served as a reliable character actress in silents, making indelible impressions as the title character in The Goose Woman (1925) and as Catherine the Great in the Rudolph Valentino classic The Eagle (1925).
Louise, Janet Gaynor and Gloria Swanson were nominated for the very first "Best Actress" Oscar award, Louise for her strong, touching portrayal of a Hungarian immigrant in A Ship Comes In (1928) opposite Joseph Schildkraut. It was Gaynor, however, who earned the distinction of holding up the first trophy (for her work in three roles) while Swanson and Dresser received "Citations of Merit". Other famous ladies of history Louise addressed in films would include Calamity Jane in Caught (1931) and Empress Elizabeth in The Scarlet Empress (1934).
In the early 1930s the actress made a rare return to the stage with the play "A Plain Man and His Wife" in Pasadena, CA. Quite settled by this time in films, she became a familiar presence opposite homespun comedian Will Rogers in such unassuming Rogers vehicles as Lightnin' (1930), State Fair (1933), Doctor Bull (1933), David Harum (1934) and The County Chairman (1935). Rogers' tragic death in a plane accident ended a very warm and lucrative association she had with the beloved humorist. The devastated Dresser made only one film after that, the Claudette Colbert / Fred MacMurray drama Maid of Salem (1937), which recalled the Salem witch trials of the late 1600s.
Louise and husband Gardner retired to their home in Glendale, CA, where she primarily tended to her favorite pastime (gardening), along with taking part in numerous charitable affairs, notably for the Motion Picture Country Home and Hospital. Her husband died in 1950 and she followed suit a decade and a half later following surgery for an intestinal blockage on April 24, 1965, in Woodland Hills, CA. She was interred at Forest Lawn Cemetary in Glendale.1878-1965 (86 years old)
Nominations:
Actress in a leading role (1929, A Ship Comes In) - Actress
- Producer
- Costume Designer
Gloria Swanson was born Gloria May Josephine Svensson in Chicago, Illinois. She was destined to be perhaps one of the biggest stars of the silent movie era. Her personality and antics in private definitely made her a favorite with America's movie-going public. Gloria certainly didn't intend on going into show business. After her formal education in the Chicago school system and elsewhere, she began work in a department store as a salesclerk. In 1915, at the age of 18, she decided to go to a Chicago movie studio with an aunt to see how motion pictures were made. She was plucked out of the crowd, because of her beauty, to be included as a bit player in the film The Fable of Elvira and Farina and the Meal Ticket (1915). In her next film, she was an extra also, when she appeared in At the End of a Perfect Day (1915). After another uncredited role, Gloria got a more substantial role in Sweedie Goes to College (1915). In 1916, she first appeared with future husband Wallace Beery. Once married, the two pulled up stakes in Chicago and moved to Los Angeles to the film colony of Hollywood. Once out west, Gloria continued her torrid pace in films. She seemed to be in hit after hit in such films as The Pullman Bride (1917), Shifting Sands (1918), and Don't Change Your Husband (1919). By the time of the latter, Gloria had divorced Beery and was remarried, but it was not to be her last marriage, as she collected a total of six husbands. By the middle 1920s, she was the highest-paid actress in Hollywood. It has been said that Gloria made and spent over $8 million in the '20s alone. That, along with the six marriages she had, kept the fans spellbound with her escapades for over 60 years. They just couldn't get enough of her. Gloria was 30 when the sound revolution hit, and there was speculation as to whether she could adapt. She did. In 1928, she received an Oscar nomination for Best Actress for her role of Sadie Thompson in the film of the same name but lost to Janet Gaynor for 3 different films. The following year, she again was nominated for the same award in The Trespasser (1929). This time, she lost out to Norma Shearer in The Divorcee (1930). By the 1930s, Gloria pared back her work with only four films during that time. She had taken a hiatus from film work after 1934's Music in the Air (1934) and would not be seen again until Father Takes a Wife (1941). That was to be it until 1950, when she starred in Sunset Blvd. (1950) as Norma Desmond opposite William Holden. She played a movie actress who was all but washed up. The movie was a box office smash and earned her a third Academy Award nomination as Best Actress, but she lost to Judy Holliday in Born Yesterday (1950). The film is considered one of the best in the history of film and, on June 16, 1998, was named one of the top 100 films of all time by the American Film Institute, placing 12th. After a few more films in the 1950s, Gloria more or less retired. Throughout the 1960s, she appeared mostly on television. Her last fling with the silver screen was Airport 1975 (1974), wherein she played herself. Gloria died on April 4, 1983, in New York City at the age of 84. There was never anyone like her, before or since.1899-1983 (84 years old)
Nominations:
Actress in a leading role (1929, Sadie Thompson)
Actress in a leading role (1930, The Trespasser)
Actress in a leading role (1951, Sunset Blvd.)- Director
- Writer
- Producer
Lewis Milestone, a clothing manufacturer's son, was born in Bessarabia (now Moldova), raised in Odessa (Ukraine) and educated in Belgium and Berlin (where he studied engineering). He was fluent in both German and Russian and an avid reader. Milestone had an affinity for the theatre from an early age, starting as a prop man and background artist before traveling to the US in 1914 with $6.00 in his pocket. After a succession of odd jobs (including as a dishwasher and a photographer's assistant) he joined the Army Signal Corps in 1917 to make educational short films for U.S. troops. Following World War I, having acquired American citizenship, he went on to Hollywood to meet the director William A. Seiter at Ince Studios. Seiter started him off as an assistant cutter. Milestone quickly worked his way up the ranks to become editor, assistant director and screenwriter on many of Seiter's projects in the early 1920s, experiences that would greatly influence his directing style in years to come.
Milestone directed his first film, Seven Sinners (1925), for Howard Hughes and two years later won his first of two Academy Awards for the comedy Two Arabian Knights (1927). He received his second Oscar for what most regard as his finest achievement, the anti-war movie All Quiet on the Western Front (1930), based on a novel by Erich Maria Remarque. The film, universally praised by reviewers for its eloquence and integrity, also won the Best Picture Academy Award that year. A noted Milestone innovation was the use of cameras mounted on wooden tracks, giving his films a more realistic and fluid, rather than static, look. Other trademarks associated with his pictures were taut editing, snappy dialogue and clever visual touches, good examples being the screwball comedy The Front Page (1931), the melodrama Rain (1932)--based on a play by W. Somerset Maugham--and an adaptation of John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men (1939). When asked in 1979 about the secret behind his success, he simply declared "Arrogance, chutzpah--in the old Hollywood at least that's the thing that gave everybody pause" (New York Times, September 27, 1980). Milestone had a history of being "difficult", having clashed with Howard Hughes, Warner Brothers and a host of studio executives over various contractual and artistic issues. Nonetheless, he remained constantly employed and worked for most of the major studios at one time or another, though never on long-term contracts. While he was not required to testify before HUAC, Milestone was blacklisted for a year in 1949 because of left-wing affiliations dating back to the 1930's. His output became less consistent during the 1950s and his career finished on a low with the remake of Mutiny on the Bounty (1962) and its incongruously cast, equally headstrong star Marlon Brando.
Milestone must be credited with a quirky sense of humor: when the producer of "All Quiet on the Western Front", Carl Laemmle Jr., demanded a "happy ending" for the picture, Milestone telephoned, "I've got your happy ending. We'll let the Germans win the war".
Having suffered a stroke, Lewis Milestone spent the last ten years of his life confined to a wheelchair. He died September 25, 1980, at the University of California Medical Center in Los Angeles.1895-1980 (84 years old)
Wins:
Director, comedy picture (1929, Two Arabian Knights)
Director (1930, All Quiet on the Western Front)
Nominations:
Director (1931, The Front Page)- Director
- Writer
Ted Wilde was born on 16 December 1889 in New York City, New York, USA. He was a director and writer, known for Speedy (1928), The Kid Brother (1927) and For Heaven's Sake (1926). He died on 17 December 1929 in Hollywood, California, USA.1889-1929 (40 years old)
Nominations:
Director, comedy picture (1929, Speedy)- Actor
- Director
- Producer
Frank Borzage was born on 23 April 1894 in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA. He was an actor and director, known for Bad Girl (1931), 7th Heaven (1927) and No Greater Glory (1934). He was married to Juanita Scott, Edna Skelton and Rena Rogers. He died on 19 June 1962 in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA.1894-1962 (68 years old)
Wins:
Director, dramatic picture (1929, 7th Heaven)
Director (1932, Bad Girl)- Director
- Writer
- Actor
Herbert Brenon was born on 13 January 1880 in Dublin, Ireland, UK [now Republic of Ireland]. He was a director and writer, known for Beau Geste (1926), Ivanhoe (1913) and Sorrell and Son (1927). He was married to Mrs. Herbert Brenon. He died on 21 June 1958 in Los Angeles, California, USA.1880-1958 (78 years old)
Nominations:
Director, dramatic picture (1929, Sorrell and Son)- Director
- Writer
- Producer
King Vidor was an American film director, film producer, and screenwriter of Hungarian descent. He was born in Galveston, Texas to lumberman Charles Shelton Vidor and his wife Kate Wallis. King's paternal grandfather Károly (Charles) Vidor had fled Hungary as a refugee following the failed Hungarian Revolution of 1848 (1849-1849). The Kingdom of Hungary had attempted to gain independence from the Austrian Empire, but the revolutionary troops failed against the allied armies of the Austrian Empire and the Russian Empire. After the restoration of Habsburg power, Hungary was placed under brutal martial law. Karoly fled the country and settled in Galveston, Texas by the early 1850s.
During his childhood, King Vidor was a witness of the 1900 Galveston hurricane, the deadliest natural disaster in United States history. The hurricane caused between 6,000 and 12,000 fatalities in the United States, based on varying estimates. Most of these deaths occurred in the vicinity of Galveston. Every house in the city sustained damage, about 3600 houses were completely destroyed, and an estimated 10,000 people were left homeless, out of a population of about 38,000. King Vidor would later give a somewhat fictionalized account of his hurricane experience in a 1935 interview.
By the early 1910s, Vidor was working as a freelance newsreel cameraman and cinema projectionist. In 1913, he directed the short film "The Grand Military Parade", his directing debut. In 1915, Vidor moved to Hollywood, California and was hired as a screenwriter and short-film director by Judge Willis Brown (1881-1931), owner of the Boy City Film Company in Culver City. Brown had gained fame as a judge of the Utah Juvenile Court and a progressive expert on boys' reformation, but had been kicked out of service when it was discovered that he did not actually have a law degree. Brown had established himself as a film producer in order to produce films depicting his main concerns about American society: juvenile delinquency and racial discrimination. Vidor served as a screenwriter and director of at least 10 films with these topics, while working for Brown.
In 1919, Vidor directed his first feature film: "The Turn in the Road". It was a silent drama film, depicting a businessman who loses his faith in God and any interest in industry, when his beloved wife dies in childbirth. Vidor's first major hit was the feature "Peg o' My Heart" (1922), an adaptation of a popular Broadway theatrical play. Following this success, Vidor was signed to a long-term contract for the studio Goldwyn Pictures. The studio was under the administration of Polish-American producer Samuel Goldwyn (1879-1974). In 1924, Goldwyn Pictures merged with Metro Pictures and Louis B. Mayer Pictures into a new company: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Vidor remained on contract with this new company.
In the 1920s, Vidor's most famous silent feature films were the war film "The Big Parade" (1925), the Academy-Award nominated drama "The Crowd" (1928), the comedy "Show People"" (1928), and the comedy-drama "The Patsy" (1928). His first sound film was the drama "Hallelujah" (1929), about the life of sharecroppers. It was one of the first Hollywood films with a cast consisting fully of African-Americans. Vidor expressed an interest in "showing the Southern Negro as he is" and attempted to depict African-American life beyond the popular stereotypes of the era.
Vidor faced no problem in transitioning from silent film to sound film, and continued regularly working on feature films until the late 1950s. His last major film was the Biblical-romance "Solomon and Sheba" (1959), featuring love, court intrigues, and military invasions during the reign of legendary Solomon, King of Israel (estimated to the 10th century BC). Afterwards he worked on short films and documentaries, his last film being the documentary "The Metaphor" (1980). The 86-year-old Vidor chose to retire from filmmaking in 1980.
In 1982, Vidor died at his ranch in Paso Robles, California, from an unspecified heart disease. He was 88-years-old and well past his prime. His remains were cremated and his ashes were scattered in his ranch.
Vidor was nominated 5 times for the Academy Award for Best Director, without ever winning. He was nominated for the feature films "The Crowd" (1928), "Hallelujah" (1929), "The Champ" (1931), "The Citadel" (1938), and "War and Peace" (1956). He won an Academy Honorary Award in 1979. Part of his modern fame rests on an uncredited part as an assistant director. Vidor directed the scenes set in Kansas for the novel adaptation "The Wizard of Oz" (1939).1894-1982 (88 years old)
Nominations:
Director, dramatic picture (1929, The Crowd)
Director (1930, Hallelujah)
Director (1932, The Champ)
Director (1939, The Citadel)
Director (1957, War and Peace)
Honorary award:
1979 - For his incomparable achievements as a cinematic creator and innovator.- Writer
- Actor
- Producer
Ben Hecht, one of Hollywood's and Broadway's greatest writers, won an Oscar for best original story for Underworld (1927) at the first Academy Awards in 1929 and had a hand in the writing of many classic films. He was nominated five more times for the best writing Oscar, winning (along with writing partner and friend Charles MacArthur, with whom he wrote the classic play "The Front Page") for The Scoundrel (1935) (the other nominations were for Viva Villa! (1934) in 1935, Wuthering Heights (1939) (shared with MacArthur), Angels Over Broadway (1940) and Notorious (1946), the latter two for best original screenplay). Hecht wrote fast and wrote well, and he was called upon by many producers as a highly paid script doctor. He was paid $10,000 by producer David O. Selznick for a fast doctoring of the Gone with the Wind (1939) script, for which he received no credit and for which Sidney Howard won an Oscar, beating out Hecht and MacArthur's Wuthering Heights (1939) script.
Born on February 28, 1894, Hecht made his name as a Chicago newspaperman during the heady days of cutthroat competition among newspapers and journalists. As a reporter for the Chicago Daily News, he wrote the column "1001 Afternoons in Chicago" and broke the "Ragged Stranger Murder Case" story, which led to the conviction and execution of Army war hero Carl Wanderer for the murder of his pregnant wife in 1921. The newspaper business, which he and MacArthur famously parodied in "The Front Page", was a good training ground for a screenwriter, as he had to write vivid prose and had to write quickly.
While in New York in 1926 he received a telegram from friend Herman J. Mankiewicz, who had recently arrived in Hollywood. The telegram read: "Millions are to be grabbed out here and your only competition is idiots. Don't let this get around." Hecht moved to Hollywood, winding up at Paramount, working uncredited on the script for Lewis Milestone's adaptation of Ring Lardner's story The New Klondike (1926), starring silent superstar Thomas Meighan. However, it was his script for Josef von Sternberg's seminal gangster picture Underworld (1927) that got him noticed. From then until the 1960s, he was arguably the most famous, if not the highest paid, screenwriter of his time.
As a playwright, novelist and short-story writer, Hecht always denigrated writing for the movies, but it is for such films as Scarface (1932) and Nothing Sacred (1937) as well The Front Page (1931), based on his play of the same name, for which he is best remembered.
He died on April 18, 1964, in New York City from thrombosis. He was 70 years old.1894-1964 (70 years old)
Wins:
Writing, original story (1929, Underworld)
Writing, original story (1936, The Scoundrel)
Nominations:
Writing, adaptation (1935, Viva Villa!)
Writing, screenplay (1940, Wuthering Heights)
Writing, original screenplay (1941, Angels Over Broadway)
Writing, original screenplay (1947, Notorious)- Writer
- Script and Continuity Department
Lajos Biró was born on 22 August 1880 in Nagyvarad, Austria-Hungary [now Oradea, Bihor, Romania]. He was a writer, known for The Thief of Bagdad (1940), The Last Command (1928) and Women Everywhere (1930). He died on 9 September 1948 in London, England, UK.1880-1948 (68 years old)
Nominations:
Writing, original story (1929, The Last Command)- Writer
- Producer
- Script and Continuity Department
Benjamin Glazer was born on 7 May 1887 in Belfast, Ireland [now Northern Ireland], UK. He was a writer and producer, known for 7th Heaven (1927), Arise, My Love (1940) and Paris Calling (1941). He was married to Sharon Lynn. He died on 18 March 1956 in Hollywood, California, USA.1887-1956 (68 years old)
Wins:
Writing, adaptation (1929, 7th Heaven)
Writing, original story (1941, Arise, My Love)- Writer
- Director
- Script and Continuity Department
Anthony Coldeway was born on 1 August 1887 in Louisville, Kentucky, USA. He was a writer and director, known for Pacific Liner (1939), Glorious Betsy (1928) and Men of the Hour (1935). He died on 29 January 1963 in Los Angeles, California, USA.1887-1963 (75 years old)
Nominations:
Writing, adaptation (1929, Glorious Betsy)- Writer
- Director
- Editor
Alfred Cohn moved to Cleveland, where he got a newspaper job. After getting married, he moved to Galveston, Texas, to run a newspaper. He then moved to Arizona, where he served as secretary to the constitutional convention of Arizona when it was admitted as a state in 1912.
Eventually, he moved to Hollywood and began writing scripts, completing a total of over 100 during his lifetime. He then went on to become head collector for the Port of Los Angeles, and became Commissioner of Police. He also wrote several books, some garnering best-selling labels.
His wife Grace (whom he married in Cleveland) and he had three children: Dorothy, Jackson, and Adrienne. Grace died in the 1940s from dropsy, and he from a heart condition in the early 1950s.1880-1951 (70 years old)
Nominations:
Writing, adaptation (1929, The Jazz Singer)- Writer
- Editor
- Actor
Joseph Farnham was born on 2 December 1884 in New Haven, Connecticut, USA. He was a writer and editor, known for Thunder (1929), Where East Is East (1929) and The Trail of '98 (1928). He was married to Rose Alma LeCourt and Emily Ardis. He died on 2 June 1931 in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA.1884-1931 (46 years old)
Wins:
Writing, title writing (1929)- Writer
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
George Marion Jr. was born on 30 August 1899 in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. He was a writer, known for Let's Go Native (1930), Adorable (1933) and The Eagle (1925). He was married to Dorothy Maldeis. He died on 25 February 1968 in New York City, New York, USA.1899-1968 (68 years old)
Nominations:
Writing, title writing (1929)- American journalist, short-story writer, and film scenarist. Duffy was editor of Redbook magazine and a most prolific contributor of short stories to it and other serial magazines. He had written over 200 stories by the age of 23. His popularity as a writer led to employment by First National Studios as a scenario and title writer in 1919, and he wrote for dozens of films before dying suddenly at the studio while dictating a script. He was 32.1896-1928 (32 years old)
Nominations:
Writing, title writing (1929, The Private Life of Helen of Troy) - Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Additional Crew
Among the foremost technical innovators in his field, a charter member of the American Society of Cinematographers, English-born Charles Rosher had initially aimed for a diplomatic career. Fortunately, he chose a different career option and attended lessons in photography at the London Polytechnic in Regent Street. He must have been a keen student, for he found himself apprenticed to noted portrait photographers David Blount and Howard Farmer, soon afterward becoming assistant to Richard Neville Speaight (1875-1938), the official Royal photographer. Having learned the art of still photography, Rosher departed England for the United States sometime in late 1908, equipped with a Williamson camera.
In 1910, Rosher found his first job in the fledgling film industry through a connection forged with an English compatriot, the pioneer producer David Horsley: as principal cameraman for Horsley's East Coast-based Centaur Film Company (which made Rosher Hollywood's first ever full-time cinematographer). Centaur was renamed Nestor Studios upon its permanent relocation to California in 1911, setting up at the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Gower Street. Essentially all of Rosher's early work consisted of one and two reelers, invariably made for Nestor's chief director, Al Christie. Some were comedies, many were 'quota quickie' westerns, such as The Indian Raiders (1912), for which Nestor imported genuine Indians from New Mexico.
In 1913, Rosher accompanied directors Raoul Walsh and Christy Cabanne on his famous expedition to Mexico to shoot the feature film The Life of General Villa (1914). The rebel leader Pancho Villa had agreed to grant exclusive rights to filming of his battles against the Federales by the Mutual Film Corporation, in exchange for a fee of $25,000 and 20% of all revenues from the picture. There were a number of hazards experienced by Rosher during this adventure, including capture by enemy forces, and at times coercive interference from Villa, who fancied himself as a filmmaker.
Upon his return to the other side of the border, Rosher had a brief spell with Universal (which had absorbed Nestor), followed by two years with the Lasky Feature Play Company (which later became Paramount). He then worked at United Artists from 1919 to 1928, becoming the favourite cinematographer of the company's biggest asset, Mary Pickford, lighting her in such a way that her true age never interfered with the image of the ingénue she persisted in portraying on screen. During this period, Rosher also developed his own unique visual style, which married artistry with technical know-how. He was much acclaimed for the sharpness and clarity of his photography, for the effects he achieved by combining natural and artificial light, photographing people against reflecting surfaces (glass, water), double exposure effects, split screen techniques, and so on. Rosher also patented several inventions, including a system for developing black & white film, ABC Pyro (A=pyro,B=sulfite,C=carbonate).
In 1929 Rosher became co-recipient (with Karl Struss) of the first-ever Oscar for cinematography bestowed by the Academy, for a film made at Fox: Sunrise (1927) - still regarded today as one of the finest examples of 1920's filmmaking. With its many scenes bathed in light or twilight, it has also been likened to a cinematic French impressionism. Rosher himself recalled this as one of the most difficult assignments of his career, particularly in terms of lighting such tricky scenes as the moonlit, fog-bound swamp, necessitating a very mobile camera. "Sunrise", inevitably, ended up winning the top award for 'unique and artistic production'. Two years later, after a falling out with Pickford during filming of Coquette (1929) , Rosher went his own way. He was never out of a job for long, working variously for RKO (1932-33), MGM (1930,1934) and Warner Brothers (1937-41).
Though he had made his reputation with black & white photography, Rosher easily adapted to the medium of colour. He enjoyed a major resurgence in the second half of his career, shooting some of the most sumptuous technicolor musicals (Ziegfeld Follies (1945), Show Boat (1951)) and dramas (The Yearling (1946),Scaramouche (1952)) during his tenure at MGM, which lasted from 1942 to 1954. He won his second Oscar for "Yearling" and became the only ever recipient of a fellowship by the Society of Motion Picture Engineers. Rosher retired in 1955, except for occasional lectures and guest appearances at film festivals. He settled down on a 1,600-acre plantation he had acquired at Port Antonio on Jamaica, formerly owned by Errol Flynn. He died in 1974 in Portugal, after a fall, at the respectable age of 88.1885-1974 (88 years old)
Wins:
Cinematography (1929, Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans)
Cinematography, color (1947, The Yearling)
Nominations:
Cinematography (1935, The Affairs of Cellini)
Cinematography, color (1945, Kismet)
Cinematography, color (1951, Annie Get Your Gun)
Cinematography, color (1952, Show Boat)- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Director
Oscar-winning cinematographer Karl Struss was born on November 30, 1886, in New York City. He became a professional photographer after studying photography with Clarence H. White and became part of the group associated with the great photographer Alfred Stieglitz. His photographs, which he characterized as "pictorial" rather than "fashion", were published in leading magazines, including "Harper's Bazaar," "Vanity Fair" and "Vogue."
Struss moved to Los Angeles in 1919 to practice his craft as a still photographer. He subsequently was hired by producer-director Cecil B. DeMille to serve as a cameraman in his second-unit. Along with Charles Rosher, he won the first Oscar ever awarded for cinematography at the first Academy Awards, for photographing Sunrise (1927) for F.W. Murnau. He was nominated for the Academy Award three more times for his cinematography.
In addition to DeMille and Murnau, Struss worked with such greats as Charles Chaplin and D.W. Griffith. After being the director of photography on Mary Pickford's Sparrows (1926), he was the lighting cameraman on her first sound film, Coquette (1929), for which she won a Best Actress Academy Award. He worked with other top stars such as Fredric March, who won an Oscar on the Struss-photographed Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931), for which Struss was also Oscar-nominated.
Karl Struss was not only one of the first cinematographers to work in color (he shot in two-strip Technicolor on the original screen version of Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925)), he also was a pioneer in three-dimensional cinematography in the 1940s and 1950s.
Karl Struss died on December 15, 1981. He was 95 years old.1886-1981 (95 years old)
Wins:
Cinematography (1929, Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans)
Nominations:
Cinematography (1932, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde)
Cinematography (1934, The Sign of the Cross)
Cinematography, color (1942, Aloma of the South Seas)- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
Veteran cinematographer George S. Barnes had a well-earned reputation for reliability and a knack for combining artistry with economic efficiency. As a result, he was seldom out of work.
Having started as a still photographer for Thomas H. Ince in 1918, Barnes quickly rose through the ranks to director of photography. In the course of his career he spent time at just about every major studio in Hollywood: Paramount (1919-21), Metro (1924-25), United Artists (1926-31), MGM (1932), Warner Brothers (1933-38), 20th Century-Fox (1940-41), Universal (1942) and RKO (1942-48). During the 1920s he was the primary cinematographer for Samuel Goldwyn and was largely responsible for the success of films like The Dark Angel (1925). Under his auspices Gregg Toland learned his craft, particularly Barnes' trademark soft-edged, deep-focus photography and intuitive composition and camera movement. Barnes was an expert at lighting. He often utilized curtains or reflective surfaces to create patterns of light and shade. Most importantly, he perfectly suited the required style of photography to each individual assignment. He brought a vivid opulence to the dullish Technicolor romance Frenchman's Creek (1944), making it a triumph of style over content. His 'catoon colours' were just as perfectly suited to the fantasy adventure Sinbad, the Sailor (1947). At Warner Brothers the dark, somewhat grainy texture of films like Marked Woman (1937) was in sync with the realistic look the studio wanted to achieve for its product. He also excelled at shooting vivid dramatic scenes, such as the flood sequences featured in The Winning of Barbara Worth (1926).
Barnes did his best work in the 1940s, shooting two classic Alfred Hitchcock thrillers: for Rebecca (1940) he created an atmosphere of sinister foreboding, right from the beginning, with his shots of Manderley (Barnes was hired because Toland was unavailable, but he ended up winning an Academy Award); and Spellbound (1945), with its unsettling surrealist Salvador Dalí-designed dream sequence of wheels, eyes and staircases. A lesser, but nonetheless good-looking, addition to Barnes' resume is a minor film noir, The File on Thelma Jordon (1949). In contrast, he created a suitably lavish look for his color photography, which enlivened two charismatic swashbuckling adventures, The Spanish Main (1945) and Sinbad, the Sailor (1947). Popular with directors and producers (though he was once fired by David O. Selznick for failing to bring the best out of Jennifer Jones) and stars (Bing Crosby) alike, Barnes was continually employed until his retirement in 1953. He was also popular with the ladies, to which his seven marriages testify. One of his wives was the actress Joan Blondell.1892-1953 (60 years old)
Wins:
Cinematography, black and white (1941, Rebecca)
Nominations:
Cinematography (1929, Sadie Thompson)
Cinematography (1929, The Magic Flame)
Cinematography (1929, The Devil Dancer)
Cinematography (1930, Our Dancing Daughters)
Cinematography, color (1946, The Spanish Main)
Cinematography, black and white (1946, Spellbound)
Cinematography, color (1951, Samson and Delilah)- Art Director
- Director
- Art Department
William Cameron Menzies was educated at Yale University, the University of Edinburgh and at the Art Students League in New York. He entered the film industry in 1919, after serving with the U.S. Expeditionary Forces in World War I. His initial assignments were in film design and special effects, as assistant to Anton Grot at Famous Players-Lasky. Menzies drew inspiration from German Expressionism and from the work of D.W. Griffith. His sense of visual style was quickly recognized and he was promoted to full art director after only three years. At United Artists (1923-30, 1935-40) and Fox (1931-33), he eventually designed for stars like Rudolph Valentino, Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford. He worked for all three of the major independent producers: Samuel Goldwyn, David O. Selznick and Walter Wanger. Menzies also had the singular distinction of receiving the first-ever Oscar for art direction (for The Dove (1927)).
His flamboyant and exotic fairy-tale sets for The Thief of Bagdad (1924) are regarded to this day as a work of pure genius. From the beginning of the sound era, Menzies also got involved in directing and producing. During the 1940's, he worked frequently with the director Sam Wood, whose films he improved dramatically through his designs. Over time, Menzies acquired a well-earned reputation for his larger-then-life personality, his visual flair and love of adventure and fantasy in films. He defined and solidified the role of the art director as having overall control over the look of the finished motion picture. He was a tireless innovator, who meticulously pre-planned the color and design of each film through a series of continuity sketches that outlined camera angles, lighting and the position of actors in each scene. For Gone with the Wind (1939), he and J. McMillan Johnson drew some 2000 detailed watercolor sketches, that got him the Honorary Academy Award 1940 "For outstanding achievement in the use of color for the enhancement of dramatic mood" of the film.
An historian, Wilbur G. Kurtz, was employed on the project to provide additional accuracy of period detail. Menzies himself directed the famous burning of Atlanta sequence and hospital sequence, including the famous long shot of wounded and dying Confederate soldiers, taken from a 90-foot crane.
A consummate designer of film architecture on a grand scale, Menzies was rather less effective as a director, consistently displaying an inability to draw strong performances from his cast. As a result, others were often brought in as co-directors, forcing Menzies to share the credit. In the 1950's, he helmed several low-budget films, which stand out purely for their characteristically good visuals, as, for example, Invaders from Mars (1953).
Menzies was inducted into the Art Directors Guild Hall of Fame in 2005.1896-1957 (60 years old)
Wins:
Art direction (1929, Tempest)
Art direction (1929, The Dove)
Nominations:
Art direction (1930, Bulldog Drummond)
Art direction (1930, The Awakening)
Art direction (1930, Alibi)
Honorary award:
1940 - For outstanding achievement in the use of color for the enhancement of dramatic mood in the production of Gone with the Wind.- Art Department
- Art Director
- Set Decorator
Harry Oliver was born on 4 April 1888 in Hastings, Minnesota, USA. He was an art director and set decorator, known for Scarface (1932), 7th Heaven (1927) and Street Angel (1928). He died on 5 July 1973 in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA.1888-1973 (85 years old)
Nominations:
Art direction (1929, 7th Heaven)
Art direction (1930, Street Angel)- Art Director
- Director
- Production Designer
Rochus Gliese was born on 6 January 1891 in Berlin, Germany. He was an art director and director, known for Brüder (1923), Komödie des Herzens (1924) and Die schöne Prinzessin von China (1917). He died on 22 December 1978 in West Berlin, West Germany.1891-1978 (87 years old)
Nominations:
Art direction (1929, Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans)- Special Effects
- Director
- Additional Crew
Roy Pomeroy was born on 20 April 1892 in Darjeeling, India. He was a director, known for Shock (1934), Inside the Lines (1930) and Interference (1928). He was married to Sylvia. He died on 3 September 1947 in Los Angeles, California, USA.1892-1947 (55 years old)
Wins:
Effects, engineering effects (1929, Wings)- Special Effects
Nugent Slaughter was born on 17 March 1888 in Virginia, USA. He died on 27 December 1968 in Oroville, California, USA.1888-1968 (80 years old)
Nominations:
Effects, engineering effects (1929)- Visual Effects
- Special Effects
- Cinematographer
Ralph Hammeras was born on 24 March 1894 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. He was a cinematographer, known for 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954), Just Imagine (1930) and In Old Chicago (1938). He was married to Fay Mansker and Emma May Flynn. He died on 3 February 1970 in Los Angeles, California, USA.1894-1970 (75 years old)
Nominations:
Effects, engineering effects (1929)
Art direction (1931, Just Imagine)
Effects, special effects (1949, Deep Waters)- Actor
- Soundtrack
Warner Baxter claimed to have an early pre-disposition toward show business: "I discovered a boy a block away who would eat worms and swallow flies for a penny. For one-third of the profits, I exhibited him in a tent." When he was age 9, his widowed mother moved to San Francisco where, following the earthquake of 1906, his family lived in a tent for two weeks "in mortal terror of the fire." By 1910 he was in vaudeville and from there went on to Broadway plays and movies. A matinée idol in the silents, he came to prominence as the Cisco Kid with In Old Arizona (1928), for which he won an Oscar. He went on to star with Myrna Loy in Penthouse (1933) and to what many consider his best role, that of the doctor who treated Abraham Lincoln's assassin, in The Prisoner of Shark Island (1936). That year his $284,000 income topped the industry. In 1943, after slipping into a string of B-pictures, he began his Dr. Ordway "Crime Doctor" series with Crime Doctor (1943). He had suffered a nervous breakdown, and these pictures were easy on him (studio sets for one month, two films a year). Following a lobotomy to relieve pains of arthritis, he died of pneumonia.1889-1951 (62 years old)
Wins:
Actor in a leading role (1930, In Old Arizona)- George Bancroft was raised in Philadelphia and attended high school at Tomes Institute (Philadelphia). He won an impressive appointment to the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis and graduated as a commissioned officer. He served in the Navy for the prescribed period of required service but no more. He decided to turn to show business, first as a theater manager. He worked in the old and fading minstrel show variety format into the 1920s but then decided to try his hand at acting. By 1923, he was good enough for Broadway and spent about a year there doing two plays. But he was already good enough for some early camera work for by 1921, so he had made his first appearance in the silent movie medium. Being a big man with dark features, he was a natural for heavies. And it seemed that early Westerns were an easy fit as well after his first four films. Through 1924 and into 1925, he did four, culminating with pay dirt in his appealing performance as rogue Jack Slade in the James Cruze Western The Pony Express (1925). With him was another up-and-coming character actor, Wallace Beery. Bancroft's acting made Paramount Pictures take a look at him as star material. His roles as tough guy took on more flesh into the later 1920s, especially in association with director Josef von Sternberg and his well-honed gangster films that started with Underworld (1927). Their work culminated with Sternberg's Thunderbolt (1929) for which Bancroft received an Oscar nomination. He was tops at the box office.
Bancroft's various on-screen personas as bigger-than-life strong man was not far from his off-screen character as Hollywood notability got to him. It was recalled that he became more difficult to deal with as his ego grew. At one point, he refused to obey a director's order that he fall down after being shot by the villain. Bancroft declared, "One bullet can't kill Bancroft!" Although he stayed busy through the 1930s, he was older and stouter -- the stuff of featured characters. And Bancroft was also getting a lot of competition from younger character actors. In the early '30s, his roles continued to typecast him as lead heavies, but increasingly, he was cast as second tier -- if with more variety -- in later roles. He was paper editor MacWade in Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936); a doctor in A Doctor's Diary (1937); a few sea captains along the way; and most memorably Marshal Curly Wilcox in the John Ford Western (his first with sound) Stagecoach (1939). Here he is particularly engaging tough lawman but with a big heart. Into the 1940s, he only did a handful of films. But he again had a rogue's spotlight with another name director -- Cecil B. DeMille -- in one of his always epic yarns. This time it was a Texas Ranger chasing a murderer over the Canadian border in North West Mounted Police (1940) with a stellar cast including Gary Cooper, everybody's favorite blond Madeleine Carroll, and Paulette Goddard as fleeing criminal, Jacques Corbeau's (Bancroft) daughter. By 1942, Bancroft had decided to move on, retiring with the intention of becoming a Southern California rancher. He quietly assumed this new role for a long run of 14 years before his passing.1882-1956 (74 years old)
Nominations:
Actor in a leading role (1930, Thunderbolt) - Actor
- Soundtrack
The Academy Award-nominated film actor Chester Morris, who will forever be associated with the character Boston Blackie, was born John Chester Brooks Morris on February 16 1901 in New York City, the son of actor William Morris and comedienne Etta Hawkins.
Chester Morris made his Broadway debut as a teenager in 1918 in the play "The Copperhead," in support of the great Lionel Barrymore, who coincidentally would play Boston Blackie in a silent picture (The Face in the Fog (1922)) a generation before Morris would make that role his own. A year earlier, Chester Morris had made his movie debut in Van Dyke Brooke's An Amateur Orphan (1917), but he didn't really become a movie actor until the sound era. Instead, Morris made his acting bones on the boards, appearing on Broadway in the plays "Thunder" and "The Mountain Man" in 1919. He returned to the Great White Way in 1922 in the comedy "The Exciters" following it up with the comedy-drama "Extra" in 1923. Now established, Chester Morris began billing himself as "the youngest leading man in the country."
He appeared without credit in 'Cecil B. DeMille's The Road to Yesterday (1925), though his dark, good-looks and chiseled jaw made him a natural for movie stardom, it wasn't until the transition of the movies from silent pictures to the talkies that he became a movie actor. He was one of the first actors to be nominated for an Academy Award when in 1930 (the second year of the as-yet non-nicknamed Oscars) he was recognized with a nod as Best Actor for Alibi (1929), his first talking picture. But it was his appearance in The Big House (1930), the film for which he is best known (other than his portrayal of Boston Blackie in the eponymous detective series of the 1940s) that he broke through to stardom.
From 1930 through the middle of the decade, he was a star with good roles in first-rate pictures, usually assaying a tough guy. However, his star dimmed and by the end of the decade he was appearing in B-pictures, but beginning in 1941, the Boston Blackie series at Columbia Pictures revived his career. In all, he appeared in 14 pictures as the detective. He later segued to TV work in the 1950s and '60s, appearing in the occasional film such as his last, The Great White Hope (1970), which meant he had been a working movie actor for seven decades.
Although he was afflicted with cancer, it is unclear whether he took his own life as he was apparently in good spirits and left no note September 11, 1970.1901-1970 (69 years old)
Nominations:
Actor in a leading role (1930, Alibi)- Actor
- Soundtrack
Paul Muni was born Sept. 22, 1895, in Lemberg, Austro-Hungarian Empire, to Salli and Phillip Weisenfreund, who were both professionals. His family was Jewish, and spoke Yiddish. Paul was educated in New York and Cleveland public schools. He was described as 5 feet 10 inches, with black hair and eyes, 165 pounds. He joined the Yiddish Art Theatre in New York (1908) for 4 years, and then moved to other Yiddish theaters until 1926, when he "went into an American play" called "We Americans", his first English-language role. In 1927-28, he appeared in the plays "Four Walls", "This One Man", "Counsellor-at-Law", and others. He began with Fox in 1928. He would later alternate between Broadway and Hollywood for his roles, becoming one of the more distinguished actors in either venue. Failing eyesight and otherwise poor health forced him into retirement after his appearance in The Last Angry Man (1959).1895-1967 (71 years old)
Wins:
Actor in a leading role (1937, The Story of Louis Pasteur)
Nominations:
Actor in a leading role (1930, The Valiant)
Actor in a leading role (1934, I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang)
Actor in a leading role (1935, Black Fury)
Actor in a leading role (1938, The Life of Emile Zola)
Actor in a leading role (1960, The Last Angry Man)- Actor
- Writer
By the time that he was 20, Lewis Stone had turned prematurely grey. He enlisted to fight in the Spanish American War and when he returned, he returned to be a writer. This turned to acting and he began to appear in films during the middle teens. His career was again interrupted by war as he served in the cavalry during World War I. After the war, he returned to films and quickly graduated to lead roles. With his distinguished look and grey hair, he was able to play the roles of well mannered romantic men. In 1921, Lewis starred in Don't Neglect Your Wife (1921). In the next year, he starred with Alice Terry, who played the heroine, and Ramon Novarro in The Prisoner of Zenda (1922) and Scaramouche (1923). In 1924, Metro merged into the new MGM where Lewis remained for the rest of his career. He was busy over the next few years and garnered an Academy Award nomination for The Patriot (1928). In 1928, he appeared in the first of a series of pictures with Greta Garbo. In A Woman of Affairs (1928) he played the older doctor, a friend of the family. But two years later in Romance (1930), he played her lover.
Lewis made the transition from silent to sound with The Trial of Mary Dugan (1929), which starred Norma Shearer. Sound did not cause Lewis any problems and he continued to be busy with his roles as the distinguished lead. The Big House (1930) was highly successful for MGM and he appeared in other popular movies such as The Phantom of Paris (1931) with John Gilbert and Red-Headed Woman (1932) with Jean Harlow. He appeared with Garbo in Inspiration (1931), Mata Hari (1931), Grand Hotel (1932) and Queen Christina (1933). In the late 30s he took on a role for which he was long remembered - the role of Judge James Hardy who had a son named Andy. Judge Hardy was the father audiences wanted in the late 30s early 40s. He was kind, intellectual, fair and as patient as he had to be with Andy, played by Mickey Rooney. This series occupied most of his screen time until it ended and he did slow down during the late 40s. In the 50s he continued to appear in a number of pictures including remakes of the two he had made 30 years before with Alice Terry. He suffered a heart attack and died in 1953 after appearing in over 200 films.1879-1953 (73 years old)
Nominations:
Actor in a leading role (1930, The Patriot)- Actress
- Producer
- Writer
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.1892-1979 (87 years old)
Wins:
Actress in a leading role (1930, Coquette)
Honorary awards:
1976 - In recognition of her unique contributions to the film industry and the development of film as an artistic medium.- Actress
- Writer
- Soundtrack
Beginning as a chorus girl at age 14, Ruth Chatterton became a Broadway star with "Daddy Long Legs" in 1914. She appeared in such shows as "Mary Rose" and "Come Out of the Kitchen" before moving to Hollywood in 1925. As her film career faded in the late 1930s, she returned to the stage in revivals, and radio and TV performances, including "Hamlet." In the 1950s, she began a successful writing career. She had no children.1892-1961 (68 years old)
Nominations:
Actress in a leading role (1930, Sarah and Son)
Actress in a leading role (1930, Madame X)- Actress
- Soundtrack
A mining engineer's daughter, blond, blue-eyed Betty Compson began in show business playing the violin in a Salt Lake City vaudeville establishment for $15 a week. Following that, she went on tour, accompanied by her mother, with an act called 'The Vagabond Violinist'. Aged eighteen, she appeared on the Alexander Pantages Theatre Circuit, again doing her violin solo vaudeville routine, and was spotted there by comedy producer Al Christie. Christie quickly changed her stage name from Eleanor to Betty. For the next few years, she turned out a steady stream of one-reel and two-reel slapstick comedies, frequently paired with Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle.
In 1919, Betty was signed by writer-director George Loane Tucker to co-star opposite Lon Chaney as Rose in The Miracle Man (1919). The film was a huge critical and financial success and established Betty Compson as a major star at Paramount (under contract from 1921 to 1925). One of the more highly paid performers of the silent screen, her weekly earnings exceeded $5000 a week at the peak of her career. She came to own a fleet of luxury limousines and was able to move from a bungalow in the hills overlooking Hollywood to an expensive mansion on Hollywood Boulevard. From 1921, Betty also owned her own production company. She went on to make several films in England between 1923 and 1924 for the director Graham Cutts.
During the late 1920's, Betty appeared in a variety of dramatic and comedic roles. She received good reviews acting opposite George Bancroft as a waterfront prostitute in The Docks of New York (1928), and was even nominated for an Academy Award for her portrayal of a carnival girl in The Barker (1928). She gave a touching performance in The Great Gabbo (1929), directed by her then husband James Cruze, as the assistant of a demented ventriloquist (Erich von Stroheim), with whom she is unhappily in love. That same year, she appeared in RKO's first sound film, Street Girl (1929), and was briefly under contract to that studio, cast in so-called 'women's pictures' such as The Lady Refuses (1931) and Three Who Loved (1931).
The stature of her roles began to diminish from the mid 1930s, though she continued to act in character parts until 1948.
Betty's personal fortunes also declined. This came about primarily as a result of her marital contract to the alcoholic Cruze, whom she had divorced in 1929. For several years, Cruze had failed to pay his income tax and Betty (linked financially to Cruze) ended up being sued by the federal government to the tune of $150,000. This forced her to sell her Hollywood villa, her cars and her antiques.
In later years, Betty Compson developed her own cosmetics label and ran a business in California producing personalized ashtrays for the hospitality industry.1897-1974 (77 years old)
Nominations:
Actress in a leading role (1930, The Barker)- Jeanne Eagels, one of the most intriguing stars of late silent films and the early talkies, was born Amelia Jean Eagles on June 26, 1890 in Kansas City, Missouri, to Edward and Julia Sullivan Eagles. Young Jean was part of an impoverished family of eight, with three brothers and two sisters. She likely stopped going to school when she was 11 years old.
As a girl, she decided to become an actress after appearing in a Shakespearen play. Of that performance, she said, "I played the grave-digger in 'Hamlet,' first, at the age of seven. They gave me the chance to play Shakespeare because nobody else of the tender age of seven would do so. They wouldn't say the rather amazing words...the other kiddies. I took it all quite seriously and said ALL the words without a quiver. Once I had begun I could not be stopped. I was ill when I was not on the stage. It seemed to me I couldn't breathe in any other atmosphere."
She followed up the experience up by playing bit parts in local theatrical productions. When she was 12 years old, she became a member of the Dubinsky Brothers' traveling stock company, appearing at first as a dancer, but eventually working her way into speaking roles. Eagels soon was playing leading roles in the stock company's repertory, including "Camille," "Romeo and Juliet," and "Uncle Tom's Cabin." Later, a myth arose that Eagels' began her career as a circus performer. The 1957 biographical film "The Jeanne Eagels Story" erroneously depicts Eagels' beginning as a hootchie-kootchie dancer in a carnival. The Dubinsky Brothers did use a tent to put on their shows, but they did not present carnival acts but performed popular comedies, musicals, and dramas. The tent was only used during the spring and summer months, while during the colder months, the company performed in theaters and halls in the Midwest.
Jeanne Eagels married the scion of the Dubinsky family, Morris, the oldest of the brothers. She was likely in her teens, and probably had a baby by Morris. Stories about Eagels' past diverge, and in one account, the child was adopted by family friends, while in another, Eagels' baby boy died in infancy, triggering a nervous breakdown for the bereft mother. Eagels and Dubinky separated, likely due to his infidelity. Jeanne eventually left the Dubinksy company and joined another touring stock company, which eventually brought her to New York City.
Eagels decided to make herself over in New York as she fought her way up in the fiercely competitive theatrical world. A brunette, Eagels dyed her hair blonde and said that she was of Spanish and Irish lineage, and that her surname was originally "Aguilar," which loosely translates into English as "eagle." She changed the spelling of her name from "Eagles" to "Eagels," reputedly as she thought it looked better on a marquee. Eliminating her past, she presented herself as an ingÃffÃ'©nue rather than as a divorced woman and mother of a dead infant. She also adopted an English accent as David Belasco, the legendary theatrical impresario, had commented that she spoke like an "earl's daughter."
She began her climb up the greasy pole of Broadway stardom by appearing as a chorus girl. She even served a stint as a Ziegfield girl, but Eagels was determined to establish herself as a dramatic roles, wining bit parts in the plays "Jumping Jupiter" and "The Mind the Paint Girl."
Eagels took a trip to Paris, where she likely studied acting with Beverly Sitgreaves, an expatriate American actress who had appeared with Sarah Bernhardt, Eagels' idol. After Jeanne Eagels' death, there arose a myth that she was a "raw," untrained talent who just happened to have the spark of genius on stage. This is demonstrably false as she had a thorough grounding in technique in her six-year apprenticeship in regional stock companies. She also studied acting with Sitgreaves and with acting coaches in New York. The myth likely is rooted in the biography of Eagels' stage co-star Leslie Howard that was written by his children. Howard was of the opinion that Eagels was untrained, but that likely was rooted in English snobbery vis-ÃffÃ'Â -vis America actors as he had the same opinion of the great Bette Davis. What Howard likely meant that the emotionally erratic Eagels was undisciplined rather than untrained. George Arliss, considered one of the great stage actors at the time he appeared on Broadway with Eagels, would hardly have chosen her to appear in three of his productions if she were not trained and up to giving a fine performance. Arliss was full of praise for Eagels.
In Paris, Eagels attracted the attention of Julian Eltinge, the famous Broadway female impersonator, though they were not introduced. Ironically, when he returned to New York, Eltinge found out that Eagels was to be his co-star in what turned out to be a long tour of the play "The Crinoline Girl." The two became good friends.
Eagels won the role of a prostitute who becomes a faith-healer in the touring company of the play "Outcast" by modeling herself after the play's star, Elsie Ferguson, for her audition. She won the part, and also won great reviews during the tour's swing through the South. When the touring company returned to New York for an off-Broadway engagement, some critics were there to see if Eagels actually did live up to the road reviews of her "Outcast" performance. She did, and the critics were suitably impressed.
The Thanhouser Film Co. cast Eagles in the film of "Outcast" in 1916, which was entitled The World and the Woman (1916) upon its release. Eagels was working during the daytime in films and at night on the stage. Suffering from fatigue and insomnia, she sought treatment and likely became hooked on drugs during this period. With the aid of physician-prescribed dope, Jeanne Eagels continued her hectic dual-career of making movies during the day while acting on stage at night. The routine continued until 1920. Suffering from chronic sinusitis and other maladies, Eagels descended the slippery slope of self-medicating her ills, an unfortunate situation exacerbated by her fondness for drink.
Eagels received great reviews when she starred with George Arliss in the Broadway hit "The Professor's Love Story" in 1917. She followed up their joint triumph with two more co-starring ventures with Arliss, "Disraeli" and the even-more-popular play "Hamilton." Of his co-star, Arliss said that each of the three distinctly different parts she acted were "played with unerring judgment and artistry."
In 1918, she appeared in Belasco's production of "Daddies," an original play about the plight of war orphans starring George Abbott. She quit the hit show either due to exhaustion or because, as rumor had it, she was fed up with Belasco's sexual harassment, though she praised him as a producer.
"Often in the theater there is a feeling of commercialism in every detail; it may not touch one directly, but it is there, and the consciousness that the financial success of the play is perhaps of first importance is decidedly unpleasant. Now, Mr. Belasco puts acting, like every other element of a production, upon an artistic basis. He makes you feel that a thing is important artistically or not at all. Money seems never to be a consideration, yet the making of it follows as a result of making the production as nearly perfect as possible.... That point of view on the producer's part means a great deal to the actor; it leaves him free to do so much, and is an incentive to work toward a faithful portrayal of character. To me everything about Mr. Belasco's theater points toward that one ideal of his -- perfection."
She next appeared in the comedy "A Young Man's Fancy" (1919), followed up by "The Wonderful Thing" (1920). By the time she appeared in the latter, a modest success that played for 120 performances, she had become a true Broadway diva, having to wait for the applause to die down after her entrance before she could deliver her lines. She had her own distinctive ideas on how to give a fresh impression to the audience for each performance:
"Audiences mean as much to an actress as the acoustics of a concert hall mean to a musician. The musician must vary his playing according to his acoustics--according to the sort of room in which his concert is given.... A sort of sixth sense enables me to discern the character of an audience within a few minutes after I have begun to play, and it is only the people for whom I am making this lovable girl live at that one performance that matter. Former audiences are swept from my thought as though they had never been. As far as the audience of the moment is concerned others have never been. What I have done, or have not done, for them doesn't matter to the folk who have come to see the play to-night. I am so very conscious of this that I am able to play to them as though I were creating the part for the first time... I do wrong in speaking of 'playing to an audience,' however. A true artist never 'plays to the audience.' Rather he or she keeps his or her own vision true, and the creation evolves itself."
Her next Broadway appearance, "In the Night Watch" (1921), was another modest success, but she soon was to appear in the play that would make her lasting reputation. The opportunity came her way when another actress turned down the role of the prostitute Sadie Thompson in the theatrical adaptation of W. Somerset Maugham's short story "Rain."
On the road in Philidelphia, the play received discouraging reviews, necessitating a rewrite of the second act. By the time the rewritten "Rain" debuted on Broadway on November 7, 1922, at Maxine Elliott's Theatre, all the kinks had been worked out, and the play was a smash, running for 256 performances. When the company returned to Broadway after the road show, re-opening at the Gaiety Theatre on September 1, 1924, "Rain" starring Jeanne Eagels ran for another 648 performances, transferring to the New Park Theatre on December 15, 1924. "Rain" elevated Jeanne Eagels into the pantheon of American theater greats.
John D. Williams, the director of "Rain" said, "In my score of years in the theater Miss Eagels was one of the two or three highest types of interpretive acting intelligences I have met. To work with her on a play was once more to feel one's self in the theater when it was in its finest estate; when a play was not a 'show,' nor even a performance, but a work, which because it had something to say that might clarify life, was a living thing and simply demanded to be heard. It was then that somebody, known or unknown, wrote something that deserved fanatically true fulfillment--and somebody else of magic touch acted it.... Miss Eagels had that touch of magic in character interpretation- the quick exchange of ideas as to the sense of the scene. And then would come the superbly tragic entrance, for example, of Sadie Thompson in the last act of 'Rain,' with its flawless blend of bitter disillusionment, irony, revenge, terror."
Eagels' great performance was acknowledged as responsible for the great success of the play, and although Gloria Swanson had some success playing Sadie in the silent movie version of the play in 1928, Joan Crawford did less well in the role in the 1931 talkie version. Both Swanson and particularly Crawford were upstaged by their leading men, Lionel Barrymore and Walter Huston, respectively. Rita Hayworth's version in 1953, opposite José Ferrer, is barely remembered. Sadie Thompson belonged to Jeanne Eagels, and the touring company of "Rain" toured for four years.
In 1917, Eagels had said, "I am timid and afraid of men and far too busy to become well acquainted with them. My work fills my life, and I should not care to fall in love or marry before I am very, very old -- about thirty-five -- because a woman gives too much of herself when she loves, and that would interfere with her career."
By the time Eagels married her second husband, the stockbroker Edward H. Coy, in 1925 at the age of 35, she had developed a reputation as a temperamental actress who was a hard drinker. Coy had achieved Ivy League gridiron immortality as a 6-foot, 195-pound fullback at Yale, where he was named an All-American in 1908 and 1909 but had turned to the sauce for solace now that the cheers had faded. The incompatibility between the two did nothing to ameliorate her problems with her mood swings or with drink.
After "Rain," she took time off, either turning down offers such as the role of Roxie Hart in "Chicago" (1926) or quitting plays she did sign up for during rehearsals. Finally, she made her Broadway return in the George Cukor-directed light comedy "Her Cardboard Lover" (1926) opposite Leslie Howard. Broadway critics and audiences had grown accustomed to Eagels in more substantial fare, and on opening night, it was Leslie Howard whom the audience cheered, calling for Howard to take curtain calls. Controversially, Eagels took Howard's curtain calls, thanking the audience "on behalf of my Cardboard Lover." The critics, too, wound up praising Howard rather than Eagels.
Eagels fondness for medicating herself and for drink caused problems during the run of the show. Her on-stage behavior could be egregious, as when she stepped out of character and, thirty for the sauce, asked Howard's character for a drink of "water." This caused the stage manager more than once to bring down the curtain during a performance, and Howard left the stage in a huff at one point.
About bad acting, Eagels blamed it on "...[N]ot being a good listener. So few people are. For instance, when you and I are talking here and I say 'no' very deeply and quietly, your reply will be 'yes' with something of a rising inflection, a lighter modulation. You have listened to me and have made a correct tonal reply. On the stage, most of the actors and actresses know their cue words and take their cues, but they haven't listened to the speech preceding their own. The result is a correct enough answer as to word, but not as to tone. There is not tonal intelligence in the reply. Good listeners...so rare."
John D. Williams, her director in "Rain," attributed her greatness on the stage to her great ability to listen while on stage.
"First off, she knew to perfection, and adhered to as to a religion, the art of listening in acting. At every performance, whether the first, or the hundredth, the speeches of the character addressing her were not merely heard but listened to. Hence there was always thought and belief and conviction behind every speech and scene of her own-- the essence of theater illusion."
The drink and drugs apparently were eroding that greatness. However, despite her on-stage antics, "Her Cardboard Lover" was another modest success, playing for 152 performances. After shooting the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film Man, Woman and Sin (1927) with John Gilbert, she toured with the play in the large cities.
Eagels' behavior during the filming of Man, Woman and Sin (1927) was atrocious. Gilbert, whom she reportedly had an affair with, said Eagels was the most temperamental actress he had ever worked with. She would appear late at the studio, and once, she disappeared for several days. The Hollywood trade press credited Eagels disappearance to a drink binge, and at one point, she took off on a two-week vacation to Santa Barbara without informing her director, Monta Bell. Bell asked studio management to terminate Eagels' contract, which they did. Fortunately, there was enough footage so Bell could salvage the film without re-shooting.
John Gilbert said of Eagels, "She seemed to hate the movies for a popularity they could not give her....[The] blind, unreasoning adulation of the movie fans was a type of popularity she spurned. Fundamentally, Jeanne was much superior to us. Movie actors are crazy to be worshiped. Jeanne Eagels wanted to be understood and appreciated."
When the film was released, Eagels' performance received mixed reviews, but the picture was a failure primarily due to the poor reviews garnered by Gilbert. Critics rejected the great lover playing a naive mama's boy in this film. Gilbert's career was salvaged shortly thereafter by the release of his second film with Great Garbo, Love (1927), which was a smash hit at the box office.
When Eagels began touring the East Coast in "Her Cardboard Lover," the Boston engagement was cut in half to one week as Eagels reportedly was ill. After the play moved to Chicago with a revivified Eagels, she divorced Coy in 1928, citing physically abuse and accusing him of breaking her jaw. Eagels claimed that Coy had threatened to wreck her budding movie career by ruining her face. Coy, a heavy boozer like his soon-to-be ex-wife, pleaded no contest and the divorce was granted.
The Mid-Western tour of "Her Cardboard Lover" moved on to Milwaukee, but Eagels was a no-show at both the Milwaukee and the subsequent St. Louis performances. She claimed that she was suffering from ptomaine poisoning, but eye-witness accounts placed her in Chicago on a long boozing binge when she was supposed to have been in Milwaukee. Her indefensible and unprofessional behavior brought her an 18-month suspension from Actor's Equity, which banned her from performing on stage with any other Equity actor for the length of the suspension. The ban essentially ended her stage career in New York and the rest of the country, although it could not stop her from appearing by herself on stage in non-Equity venues. Eagels hit the vaudeville circuit, performing scenes from "Rain." She also appeared in movies as producers were desperate for trained stage people with the advent of sound, and she eventually made more money from the film industry and vaudeville than she ever had from the "legitimate" stage.
Ironically, it was Monta Bell, now working at Paramount's Astoria Studios in New York, who hired Jeanne Eagels for her film comeback. In 1929, Bell announced that even though Equity didn't want Eagels, he wanted her, for she had been the consummate professional during the making of Man, Woman and Sin (1927). The man who had urged the MGM brass to fire her now told the press that he had actually urged MGM to sign Eagels to long-term contract for more pictures.
The first movie Eagels made for Paramount was the Monta Bell-produced The Letter (1929), which reunited Eagels with W. Somerset Maugham. Katharine Cornell had had a Broadway hit with Maugham's play as the murderous adulteress, and Eagels delivered an electrifying, legendary performance in the role on film. After Eagels received rave reviews for her The Letter (1929), Paramount took Bell's advice and signed her to a contract for two more pictures, Jealousy (1929) and The Laughing Lady (1929).
She began shooting "Jealousy" (1929) with the English actor Anthony Bushnell, whom she had hand-picked to be her leading man, but during filming it was apparent that Bushnell's voice was not registering well on the sound equipment. Bushnell was replaced by the up-and-coming star Fredric March, who later said Eagels was "great" to work with, but that the movie they made together was a "stinker." There were rumors that Eagels had suffered a nervous breakdown while filming "Jealousy", but Paramount denied there had been any trouble with their new diva. However, Eagels asked to be let out of her contract for "The Laughing Lady" on the grounds that she was either ill or because she didn't like the script, and the studio obliged, replacing her with Ruth Chatterton.
About her management of her personal affairs, Eagels said, "I cannot bear to transact any of my own business or make any of my own professional arrangements. I have an aversion to it I cannot overcome. I can't read the papers, either. Mention of my personal life, even tho I expect it, acts terribly on my nerves. I suppose I'm an odd person."
It was reported that now that the Actors Equity ban was due to expire in the fall of 1929, Eagels was preparing to return to Broadway. In September, Eagles underwent successful surgery to treat ulcers on her eyes, a condition was caused by her sinusitis. Two weeks after surgery, on the night of October 3, 1929, as Eagels was preparing for a night out on the town, she fell ill and was taken to a private 5th Avenue hospital. In the hospital waiting room, she suffered a convulsion and died.
Three autopsies were conducted over the following three months and reached three different conclusions as to the cause of her death, which was variously attributed as an overdose of alcohol, the tranquilizer chloral hydrate, and heroin in the successive autopsy reports. All three substances likely were in her system when she died, and it was suggested that the unconscious Eagels had received a sedative from the first doctor to treat her, and that subsequently a second doctor, not knowing she had already been sedated, had unknowingly given the unconscious actress a second shot, thus causing the overdose that killed her.
When her estate went through probate, it was worth an estimated $52,000 (approximately $562,000 in 2005 dollars) after her debts and funeral costs were deducted. Dying intestate, the estate went to her mother. A wake was held at Campbell's funeral home in New York City, the same establishment that had handled Rudolph Valentino's funeral. Reportedly, her movie "Jealousy" was playing across the street from the funeral home as she lay in her casket, finally at peace. Her body was sent to Kansas City, where a Catholic mass and requiem was held, and she was laid to rest with her father and a brother.
Eagels was posthumously nominated for a 1929 Best Actress Academy Award for her role in "The Letter," the first actor to be so honored. She lost out to superstar Mary Pickford, one of the founders of the Academy, who took the Oscar home to Pickfair for her performance in "Coquette," her first talkie.
Jeanne Eagels' life was limned in the 1957 film _Jeanne Eagels_, which starred Kim Novak. This film is fictionalized biography that whitewashed the truth about Eagels' life. In recent years, there have been rumors that Eagels enjoyed same-sex relationships with other women, but the rumors remain unsubstantiated. In her lifetime, she was romantically linked to many famous men, including the conductor Arthur Fiedler, the gambler "Nick the Greek" Dandalos, and the theater critic Ward Morehouse. She was pursued by producer David Belasco, theater owner Lee Shubert, and the Prince of Wales, the future Duke of Windsor.
About actors, Jeanne Eagels was quoted as saying, "We are glorious, unearthly people, set above all others because of our genius, our capacity to sway others, to make them laugh and cry, or make them live a romance we but play." In the Academy Award-winning All About Eve (1950), writer-director Joseph L. Mankiewicz has the critic Addison DeWitt tell the great fictional diva Margo Channing (played by Leslie Howard's other great "untrained" co-star, Bette Davis), "Margo, as you know, I have lived in the theater as a Trappist monk lives in his faith. I have no other world, no other life -- and once in a great while I experience that moment of revelation for which all true believers wait and pray. You were one. Jeanne Eagels another."
The actor playwright Noël Coward said, "Of all the actresses I have ever seen, there was never one quite like Jeanne Eagels," while actress-playwright-Academy Award-nominated-screenwriter Ruth Gordon, a friend of Eagels, said of her, "Jeanne Eagels was the most beautiful person I ever saw and if you ever saw her, she was the most beautiful person YOU ever saw."
Kathleen Kennedy, her co-star in "Rain," said, "I sincerely doubt if Jeanne Eagels really knew, in spite of her pretensions, that she was a great actress. She was. Many times backstage I'd be waiting for my entrance cue and suddenly Jeanne would start to build a scene, and [we] would look up from our books at once. Some damn thing- some power, something- would take hold of your heart, you senses, as you listened to her, and you'd thrill to the sound of her."
John D. Williams, the director of "Rain," called her an acting genius. "Acting genius--that is, the power of enhancing a written character to a plane that neither author nor director can lay claim to -- Miss Eagels had at her beck and call, whether in tragedy or in comedy."1890-1929 (39 years old)
Nominations:
Actress in a leading role (1930, The Letter) - Actress
- Producer
- Writer
Corinne Griffith was a popular star of the silent movies. She started her film career at Vitagraph in 1916 and later moved to First National, where she became one of that studio's biggest stars. At the height of her popularity she was known as the "Orchid Lady of the Screen." Black Oxen (1923) was one of her most popular films. In 1925 she made Déclassé (1925), which featured a young extra named Clark Gable.
Corinne received an Academy Award nomination for her work in The Divine Lady (1928), but sound did not embrace her in the same way that the silent films had. Music was a popular device used in many early sound movies, but she quickly proved that she was not cut out to be a singer, and the fact that her acting style remained rooted in the wooden pre-sound days didn't help matters. Her last Hollywood film was released in 1930. After appearing in an English film in 1932, she retired. She appeared in one final film, Paradise Alley (1962), a low-budget Hugo Haas potboiler.1894-1979 (84 years old)
Nominations:
Actress in a leading role (1930, The Divine Lady)- Actress
- Script and Continuity Department
- Writer
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.1898-1986 (87 years old)
Nominations:
Actress in a leading role (1930, The Broadway Melody)- Director
- Actor
- Writer
Frank Lloyd was an unpretentious, technically skilled director, who crafted several enduring Hollywood classics during the 1930's. He started out as a stage actor and singer in early 1900's London and was well-known as an imitator of Harry Lauder. After several years in music hall and with touring repertory companies, Lloyd emigrated to Canada in 1909 and joined the travelling theatrical troupe of Winnipeg entrepreneur C.P. Walker. In between acting, he made ends meet by working as a repair man on telegraph lines. While in Edmonton, Alberta, he met and married the German-American soubrette Alma Haller. Lloyd spent several months on the vaudeville circuit and in burlesque shows on the West Coast before marking his arrival in Hollywood with an acting contract at Universal in 1913. After two years of consistently poor critical notices, he gave up the acting profession for good and turned his skills to writing and directing.
In two years at Fox, 1917-19, he directed some fifteen films, often starring the popular matinée idol William Farnum. The majority were Zane Grey westerns (including an early version of Riders of the Purple Sage (1918)) and adaptations of classic literature (such as A Tale of Two Cities (1917) and Les Misérables (1917)). After a spell with Samuel Goldwyn, Lloyd joined First National/Warner Brothers (1922-31) and became the resident specialist in period drama and swashbuckling adventure. As his reputation grew, he was given charge of his own production unit. Among his most famous films during this period are Oliver Twist (1922), with Jackie Coogan in the title role and Lon Chaney as Fagin; The Eternal Flame (1922), a historical drama based on a novel by Honoré de Balzac; and The Sea Hawk (1924), with Milton Sills. In 1929, Lloyd became the second director to receive a coveted Academy Award, for The Divine Lady (1928), one of three films for which he had been nominated.
Much of Lloyd's acclaim is based on his work during the 1930's. At Fox (1931-34), he directed Noël Coward's Cavalcade (1933), and the historical fantasy Berkeley Square (1933) -- both with meticulous attention to geographic and period detail. Immensely popular at the box office, the former won Lloyd his second Oscar and returned $ 5 million in grosses from a production cost of $1.25 million. 'Berkeley Square' was described by the New York Times as "an example of delicacy and restraint" and "in a class by itself" (September 14, 1933). Lloyd's brief stint at MGM in 1935 culminated in the greatest success of his career. Mutiny on the Bounty (1935) won the Best Picture Oscar in its year and heaped praise on the director for maintaining strong narrative cohesion throughout, and for eliciting superb performances from stars Clark Gable (as Fletcher Christian) and Charles Laughton (as Captain Bligh). Lloyd continued in the same vein with the rollicking Foreign Legion adventure Under Two Flags (1936) and the sweeping (though historically inaccurate), big budget western epic Wells Fargo (1937). Also at Paramount, and, once again with his own production unit , he filmed the romantic story of adventurer-poet François Villon, If I Were King (1938), with excellent production values and superb acting from Ronald Colman and Basil Rathbone.
After completing a two-year contract at Columbia (1940-41), Lloyd served in World War II in command of the 13th Air Force Combat Camera Unit, turning out short documentaries. He rose to the rank of major and was decorated with the Legion of Merit. After the war, he temporarily retired to life on his Carmel Valley ranch, but made a brief comeback after the death of his wife Alma. His swan song for Republic Studio was the story of the Battle of the Alamo, The Last Command (1955), a suitably-titled finale to the career of one of the great action directors of the period. Lloyd has a star on the Walk of Fame on Hollywood Boulevard.1886-1960 (74 years old)
Wins:
Director (1930, The Divine Lady)
Director (1934, Cavalcade)
Nominations:
Director (1930, Drag)
Director (1930, Weary River)
Director (1936, Mutiny on the Bounty)- Actor
- Director
- Writer
Famed actor, composer, artist, author and director. His talents extended to the authoring of the novel "Mr. Cartonwine: A Moral Tale" as well as his autobiography. In 1944, he joined ASCAP, and composed "Russian Dances", "Partita", "Ballet Viennois", "The Woodman and the Elves", "Behind the Horizon", "Fugue Fantasia", "In Memorium", "Hallowe'en", "Preludium & Fugue", "Elegie for Oboe, Orch.", "Farewell Symphony (1-act opera)", "Elegie (piano pieces)", "Rondo for Piano" and "Scherzo Grotesque".1878-1954 (76 years old)
Wins:
Actor in a leading role (1931, A Free Soul)
Nominations:
Director (1930, Madame X)- Actor
- Director
- Writer
Born in Abilene, KS, in 1888, Harry Beaumont started his show-business career early--he quit school to become an actor in a traveling stock company, and eventually made his way to the New York stage. In 1912 he began working as a film actor for Edison studios--which was headquartered across the river in New Jersey--in everything from two-reel shorts to serials, and also began writing screenplays. He began directing in 1915, stayed with Edison for a year and then went over to Essanay Studios. He soon made the rounds of other studios as a director, and got a reputation as an efficient craftsman who could bring in films on time and within budget, which guaranteed him work. His most productive period was in the 1920s, when he worked in the rarefied atmosphere of MGM--the "Tiffany" of studios--directing such major productions as Main Street (1923) and Beau Brummel (1924), and MGM entrusted him with the careers of such major stars as Joan Crawford and John Barrymore. The studio awarded him the honor of making its first sound musical, The Broadway Melody (1929), which won an Oscar for Best Picture. Unfortunately, that picture was pretty much the pinnacle of his career; he continued directing, mainly at MGM, into the 1940s, but none of his subsequent films rose much above the "B" level. He directed his last film, Alias a Gentleman (1948), in 1948, and died in Santa Monica, CA, in 1966.1888-1966 (78 years old)
Nominations:
Director (1930, The Broadway Melody)- Actor
- Director
- Producer
New York-born Irving Cummings began his career as an actor on the Broadway stage in his late teens, and appeared with the legendary Lillian Russell's company. He entered films in 1909 as an actor, and became a very popular leading man in the early 1920s. He began directing at around that time, turning out mostly action films and an occasional comedy, but he really came into his own in the 1930s at 20th Century-Fox. Cummings specialized in the big, splashy Technicolor musicals for which Fox became known, and was responsible for many of Betty Grable's, Alice Faye's and Shirley Temple's most enjoyable films.1888-1959 (70 years old)
Nominations:
Director (1930, In Old Arizona)- Director
- Actor
- Writer
From Ernst Lubitsch's experiences in Sophien Gymnasium (high school) theater, he decided to leave school at the age of 16 and pursue a career on the stage. He had to compromise with his father and keep the account books for the family tailor business while he acted in cabarets and music halls at night. In 1911 he joined the Deutsches Theater of famous director/producer/impresario Max Reinhardt, and was able to move up to leading acting roles in a short time. He took an extra job as a handyman while learning silent film acting at Berlin's Bioscope film studios. The next year he launched his own film career by appearing in a series of comedies showcasing traditional ethnic Jewish slice-of-life fare. Finding great success in these character roles, Lubitsch turned to broader comedy, then beginning in 1914 started writing and directing his own films.
His breakthrough film came in 1918 with The Eyes of the Mummy (1918) ("The Eyes of the Mummy"), a tragedy starring future Hollywood star Pola Negri. Also that year he made Carmen (1918), again with Negri, a film that was commercially successful on the international level. His work already showed his genius for catching the eye as well as the ear in not only comedy but historical drama. The year 1919 found Lubitsch directing seven films, the two standouts being his lavish Passion (1919) with two of his favorite actors--Negri (yet again) and Emil Jannings. His other standout was the witty parody of the American upper crust, The Oyster Princess (1919) ("The Oyster Princess"). This film was a perfect example of what became known as the Lubitsch style, or the "Lubitsch Touch", as it became known--sophisticated humor combined with inspired staging that economically presented a visual synopsis of storyline, scenes and characters.
His success in Europe brought him to the shores of America to promote The Loves of Pharaoh (1922) ("The Loves of Pharaoh") and he become acquainted with the thriving US film industry. He soon returned to Europe, but came back to the US for good to direct new friend and influential star Mary Pickford in his first American hit, Rosita (1923). The Marriage Circle (1924) began Lubitsch's unprecedented run of sophisticated films that mirrored the American scene (though always relocated to foreign or imaginary lands) and all its skewed panorama of the human condition. There was a smooth transition between his silent films for Warner Bros. and the sound movies--usually at Paramount--now embellished with the flow of speech of Hollywood's greats lending personal nuances to continually heighten the popularity at the box office and the fame of Lubitsch's first-rate versatility in crafting a smart film. There was a mix of pioneering musical films and some drama also through the 1930s. The of those films resulted in Paramount making him its production chief in 1935, so he could produce his own films and supervise production of others. In 1938 he signed a three-year contract with Twentieth Century-Fox.
Certainly two of his most beloved films near the end of his career dealt with the political landscape of the World War II era. He moved to MGM, where he directed Greta Garbo and Melvyn Douglas in Ninotchka (1939), a fast-paced comedy of "decadent" Westerners meeting Soviet "comrades" who were seeking more of life than the mother country could--or would--offer. During the war he directed perhaps his most beloved comedy--controversial to say the least, dark in a tongue-in-cheek sort of way--but certainly a razor-sharp tour de force in smart, precise dialog, staging and story: To Be or Not to Be (1942), produced by his own company, Romaine Film Corp. It was a biting satire of Nazi tyranny that also poked fun at Lubitsch's own theater roots with the problems and bickering--but also the triumph--of a somewhat raggedy acting troupe in Warsaw during the Nazi occupation. Jack Benny's perfect deadpan humor worked well with the zany vivaciousness of Carole Lombard, and a cast of veteran character actors from both Hollywood and Lubitsch's native Germany provided all the chemistry needed to make this a classic comedy, as well as a fierce statement against the perpetrators of war. The most poignant scene was profoundly so, with Felix Bressart--another of Reinhardt's students--as the only Jewish bit player in the company. His supreme hope is a chance to someday play Shylock. He gets his chance as part of a ruse in front of Adolf Hitler's SS bodyguards. The famous soliloquy was a bold declaration to the world of the Axis' brutal inhumanity to man, as in its treatment of and plans for the Jewry of Europe.
Lubitsch had a massive heart attack in 1943 after having signed a producer/director's contract with 20th Century-Fox earlier that year, but completed Heaven Can Wait (1943). His continued efforts in film were severely stymied but he worked as he could. In late 1944 Otto Preminger, another disciple of Reinhardt's Viennese theater work, took over the direction of A Royal Scandal (1945), with Lubitsch credited as nominal producer. March of 1947, the year of his passing, brought a special Academy Award (he was nominated three times) to the fading producer/director for his "25-year contribution to motion pictures." At his funeral, two of his fellow directorial émigrés from Germany put his epitaph succinctly as they left. Billy Wilder noted, "No more Lubitsch." William Wyler answered, "Worse than that - no more Lubitsch films."1892-1947 (55 years old)
Nominations:
Director (1930, The Love Parade)
Director (1930, The Patriot)
Director (1944, Heaven Can Wait)
Honorary Award:
1947 - For his distinguished contributions to the art of the motion picture- Writer
- Actor
- Script and Continuity Department
Hanns Kräly was born on 16 January 1884 in Hamburg, Germany. He was a writer and actor, known for The Patriot (1928), One Hundred Men and a Girl (1937) and Broadway Gondolier (1935). He died on 11 November 1950 in Los Angeles, California, USA.1884-1950 (66 years old)
Wins:
Writing, achievement (1930, The Patriot)
Nominations:
Writing, achievement (1930, The Last of Mrs. Cheyney)
Writing, original story (1938, One Hundred Men and a Girl)- Writer
- Script and Continuity Department
- Producer
Elliott J. Clawson was born on 19 January 1883 in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA. Elliott J. was a writer and producer, known for The Cop (1928), Sal of Singapore (1928) and Skyscraper (1928). Elliott J. died on 21 July 1942 in Vista, California, USA.1883-1942 (59 years old)
Nominations:
Writing, achievement (1930, Skycraper)
Writing, achievement (1930, Sal of Singapore)
Writing, achievement (1930, The Leatherneck)
Writing, achievement (1930, The Cop)- Writer
- Actor
Tom Barry was born on 31 July 1885 in Kansas City, Missouri, USA. He was a writer and actor, known for In Old Arizona (1928), The Valiant (1929) and Under Suspicion (1930). He died on 7 November 1931 in Los Angeles, California, USA.1885-1931 (46 years old)
Nominations:
Writing, achievement (1930, The Valiant)
Writing, achievement (1930, In Old Arizona)- Writer
- Actress
Josephine Lovett was born on 21 October 1877 in San Francisco, California, USA. She was a writer and actress, known for Our Dancing Daughters (1928), Annie Laurie (1927) and The Fighting Blade (1923). She was married to John S. Robertson. She died on 17 September 1958 in Rancho Santa Fe, California, USA.1877-1958 (80 years old)
Nominations:
Writing, achievement (1930, Our Dancing Daughters)- Writer
- Actress
- Script and Continuity Department
Bess Meredyth was born on 12 February 1890 in Buffalo, New York, USA. She was a writer and actress, known for Wonder of Women (1929), Morgan's Raiders (1918) and A Woman of Affairs (1928). She was married to Michael Curtiz, Wilfred Lucas and Burton Leslie. She died on 13 July 1969 in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA.1890-1969 (79 years old)
Nominations:
Writing, achievement (1930, Wonder of Women)
Writing, achievement (1930, A Woman of Affairs)- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Writer
Educated at the University of Arkansas, Clyde De Vinna entered the film business almost at its beginnings, and became a cinematographer in 1915. He was behind the camera on dozens of films for many different studios, but did much work for independent producer Thomas H. Ince and MGM. De Vinna didn't care for studio-shot pictures, and preferred films that were to be shot on location, where he did much of his best work.1890-1953 (63 years old)
Wins:
Cinematography (1930, White Shadows in the South Seas)- Cinematographer
Distinguished veteran cinematographer John F. Seitz had eighteen patents for various photographic processes to his name. These included illuminating devices, processes for making dissolves and the matte shot, which he perfected during filming of Rex Ingram's Trifling Women (1922). Seitz started with Essanay in Chicago, then joined the St. Louis Motion Picture Company as a lab tech in 1909. Within another four years, he had progressed to director of photography. He was signed by Metro in 1920, doing his best work in collaboration with Ingram, most notably on The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921) and The Prisoner of Zenda (1922). Personally selected by William Randolph Hearst, Seitz was also behind the camera for The Patsy (1928), one of the major hits for Hearst's mistress, Marion Davies. By this time, he was the highest paid cinematographer in Hollywood.
Seitz's trademark was low key lighting and differentially illuminating different regions of the screen (ie. background, foreground and middle). His colour photography was characterised by a tendency to favor tan or beige as backgound colours, and vivid colours for costumes or props. Seitz's career in the 1930's, spent at 20th Century Fox (1931-36) and MGM (1937-40), was generally unremarkable. However, he enjoyed a massive resurgence at Paramount (1941-52), working on some of the best films made by Preston Sturges (Sullivan's Travels (1941), Hail the Conquering Hero (1944) and The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (1943)) and Billy Wilder (Double Indemnity (1944), The Lost Weekend (1945) and Sunset Blvd. (1950)). Add to that another two excellent films noir, This Gun for Hire (1942) and Lucky Jordan (1942) - both directed by Frank Tuttle and starring Alan Ladd. He was a master at creating atmosphere through ominous shadows and looming close-ups.1892-1979 (86 years old)
Nominations:
Cinematography (1930, The Divine Lady)
Cinematography, black and white (1944, Five Graves to Cairo)
Cinematography, black and white (1945, Double Indemnity)
Cinematography, black and white (1946, The Lost Weekend)
Cinematography, black and white (1951, Sunset Blvd.)
Cinematography, color (1951, When Worlds Collide)
Cinematography, black and white (1955, Rogue Cop)- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
Ernest Palmer was born on 6 December 1885 in Kansas City, Missouri, USA. He was a cinematographer, known for Blood and Sand (1941), Broken Arrow (1950) and Street Angel (1928). He died on 22 February 1978 in Pacific Palisades, California, USA.1885-1978 (92 years old)
Wins:
Cinematography, color (1942, Blood and Sand)
Nominations:
Cinematography (1930, Street Angel)
Cinematography (1930, 4 Devils)
Cinematography, color (1951, Broken Arrow)- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Arthur Edeson is an American cinematographer who was a pioneer of his craft. His career spanned four decades and encompassed many films now regarded as classics.
Born in New York in 1891, Edeson first worked as a still photographer. In 1911 he entered the movie business at Eclair Studios, a production unit based in Fort Lee, NJ. There he was employed as an extra and still photographer. He became a cinematographer in 1914 and worked on films starring Clara Kimball Young, a very popular actress of that era whose films are, for the most part, lost. In 1917 Young left New Jersey for California, and so did Edeson.
In 1919 he was one of the 15 cameramen who founded the American Society of Cinematographers. During the 1920s he was hired by actor-producer Douglas Fairbanks for The Three Musketeers (1921) ('Fred Niblo'). Robin Hood (1922) (Allan Dwan) and The Thief of Bagdad (1924) (Raoul Walsh). That last film launched a long relationship between Edeson and Walsh. In 1925 Edeson worked on The Lost World (1925)) (Harry O. Hoyt), the first full-length feature film using the stop-motion animation technique. In 1929 he was cinematographer on In Old Arizona (1928) (Irving Cummings), the first talking picture shot entirely outdoors. Edeson was also one of the first to experiment with the widescreen format on Walsh's The Big Trail (1930). During that period he also worked with Lewis Milestone on the anti-war epic All Quiet on the Western Front (1930). Soon afterward he collaborated with James Whale on two technically groundbreaking films: Frankenstein (1931) and The Invisible Man (1933).
In 1936 Edeson was hired at Warner Bros. There he worked notably on the first film directed by John Huston, the classic noir The Maltese Falcon (1941), and re-teamed with Huston on the lesser known Across the Pacific (1942). He was also lenser on the perennial favorite Casablanca (1942) (Michael Curtiz) and later worked with Jean Negulesco, notably on The Mask of Dimitrios (1944) and Three Strangers (1946).
Edeson retired in 1949, putting an end to a distinguished career. He died in California in 1970.1891-1970 (78 years old)
Nominations:
Cinematography (1930, All Quiet on the Western Front)
Cinematography (1930, In Old Arizona)
Cinematography, black and white (1944, Casablanca)- 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.1893-1960 (67 years old)
Wins:
Art direction (1930, The Bridge of San Luis Rey)
Art direction (1935, The Merry Widow)
Art direction, black and white (1941, Pride and Prejudice)
Art direction-interior decoration, color (1942, Blossoms in the Dust)
Art direction-interior decoration, black and white (1945, Gaslight)
Art direction-interior decoration, color (1947, The Yearling)
Art direction-set decoration, color (1950, Little Women)
Art direction-set decoration, color (1952, An American in Paris)
Art direction-set decoration, black and white (1953, The Bad and the Beautiful)
Art direction-set decoration, black and white (1953, Julius Caesar)
Art direction-set decoration, black and white (1957, Somebody Up There Likes Me)
Nominations:
Art direction (1934, When Ladies Meet)
Art direction (1937, Romeo and Juliet)
Art direction (1937, The Great Ziegfeld)
Art direction (1938, Conquest)
Art direction (1939, Marie Antoinette)
Art direction (1940, The Wizard of Oz)
Art direction, color (1941, Bitter Sweet)
Art direction-interior decoration, black and white (1942, When Ladies Meet)
Art direction-interior decoration, black and white (1943, Random Harvest)
Art direction-interior decoration, color (1944, Thousands Cheer)
Art direction-interior decoration, black and white (1944, Madame Curie)
Art direction-interior decoration, color (1945, Kismet)
Art direction-interior decoration, color (1946, National Velvet)
Art direction-interior decoration, black and white (1946, The Picture of Dorian Gray)
Art direction-set decoration, black and white (1950, Madame Bovary)
Art direction-set decoration, color (1951, Annie Get Your Gun)
Art direction-set decoration, black and white (1951, The Red Danube)
Art direction-set decoration, color (1952, Quo Vadis)
Art direction-set decoration, black and white (1952, Too Young to Kiss)
Art direction-set decoration, color (1953, The Merry Widow)
Art direction-set decoration, color (1954, Young Bess)
Art direction-set decoration, color (1954, The Story of Three Loves)
Art direction-set decoration, color (1954, Lili)
Art direction-set decoration, color (1955, Brigadoon)
Art direction-set decoration, black and white (1955, Executive Suite)
Art direction-set decoration, black and white (1956, I'll Cry Tomorrow)
Art direction-set decoration, black and white (1956, Blackboard Jungle)
Art direction-set decoration, color (1957, Lust for Life)- Director
- Art Director
- Costume Designer
Mitchell Leisen was born on 6 October 1898 in Menominee, Michigan, USA. He was a director and art director, known for Death Takes a Holiday (1934), The Mating Season (1951) and Hold Back the Dawn (1941). He was married to Stella Yeager. He died on 28 October 1972 in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA.1898-1972 (74 years old)
Nominations:
Art direction (1930, Dynamite)- Art Director
- Art Department
- Set Decorator
The extraordinarily prolific and eclectic art director Hans Dreier studied at Munich University where he majored in engineering and architecture. Following military service during the First World War, he spent time working as a supervising architect in the Cameroons and South Africa. Between 1919 and 1923, he was employed by Germany's pre-eminent film company Ufa as an assistant designer. Along with Ernst Lubitsch and other talented compatriots seeking more lucrative opportunities within the emerging film industry, Dreier left Europe in the early 1920s and was recruited by Hollywood. Most of his lengthy tenure at Paramount (1923-50) was spent as supervising art director. In that capacity, he became as influential at determining the overall style of the studio's output as his counterpart Cedric Gibbons at MGM. The Paramount 'look' during the 20's and early 30's epitomised continental elegance and sophistication. Unlike Gibbons, Dreier was far less autocratic and gave the production designers he recruited (among them Albert S. D'Agostino and Roland Anderson) carte blanche to stamp their own distinctive authority on their work. In turn, this laissez-faire approach attracted more and more talented designers to Paramount.
Dreier himself took personal charge of all films made by Lubitsch and Josef von Sternberg between 1927 and 1932. His innate perception of space, combined with his expressionist leanings, proved eminently well-suited to the sombre, moody and heavily stylised films of von Sternberg. The Docks of New York (1928), Shanghai Express (1932) and The Scarlet Empress (1934) are among the most visually evocative examples of Dreier's use of light and dark effects, of chiaroscuro and fog. In later years, his most rewarding collaborations were with Billy Wilder and Preston Sturges. Among Dreier's impressive list of credits -- either working on his own or in collaboration -- are many of Paramount's most enduring films, encompassing nearly every genre: from horror to romance, from epic spectacle to period drama, from musical to films noir: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931), Island of Lost Souls (1932), Trouble in Paradise (1932), Duck Soup (1933), Cleopatra (1934), The Lives of a Bengal Lancer (1935),The Buccaneer (1938), Sullivan's Travels (1941), Reap the Wild Wind (1942), The Fleet's In (1942), This Gun for Hire (1942) and Double Indemnity (1944).
Dreier retired in 1950 and was replaced as supervising art director by Hal Pereira. During his career he was nominated for twenty Academy Awards for Best Art Direction, winning on three occasions. He received his first Oscar for the costume drama Frenchman's Creek (1944). In 1950 he scored a double: one for the biblical technicolor epic Samson and Delilah (1949) and a second for his work on Billy Wilder's black & white masterpiece Sunset Blvd. (1950). He was inducted into the Art Director's Hall of Fame in 2005.1885-1966 (81 years old)
Wins:
Art direction-interior decoration, color (1946, Frenchman's Creek)
Art direction-set decoration, color (1951, Samson and Delilah)
Art direction-set decoration, black and white (1951, Sunset Blvd.)
Nominations:
Art direction (1930, The Vagabond King)
Art direction (1930, The Love Parade)
Art direction (1930, The Patriot)
Art direction (1931, Morocco)
Art direction (1934, A Farewell to Arms)
Art direction (1936, The Lives of Bengal Lancer)
Art direction (1938, Souls at Sea)
Art direction (1939, If I Were King)
Art direction (1940, Beau Geste)
Art direction, color (1941, North West Mounted Police)
Art direction, black and white (1941, Arise, My Love)
Art direction-interior decoration, black and white (1942, Hold Back the Dawn)
Art direction-interior decoration, color (1943, Reap the Wild Wind)
Art direction-interior decoration, black and white (1943, Take a Letter, Darling)
Art direction-interior decoration, color (1944, For Whom the Bell Tolls)
Art direction-interior decoration, black and white (1944, Five Graves to Cairo)
Art direction-interior decoration, color (1945, Lady in the Dark)
Art direction-interior decoration, black and white (1945, No Time for Love)
Art direction-interior decoration, black and white (1946, Love Letters)
Art direction-interior decoration, black and white (1947, Kitty)- Actor
- Writer
- Soundtrack
One of the oldest actors on the screen in the 1920s and 1930s, George Arliss starred on the London stage from an early age. He came to the United States and starred in several films, but it was his role as British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli in Disraeli (1929) that brought him his greatest success.1868-1946 (77 years old)
Wins:
Actor in a leading role (1930, Disraeli)
Nominations
Actor in a leading role (1930, The Green Goddess)- Actor
- Director
- Writer
In 1902, 16-year-old Wallace Beery joined the Ringling Brothers Circus as an assistant to the elephant trainer. He left two years later after a leopard clawed his arm. Beery next went to New York, where he found work in musical variety shows. He became a leading man in musicals and appeared on Broadway and in traveling stock companies. In 1913 he headed for Hollywood, where he would get his start as the hulking Swedish maid in the Sweedie comedy series for Essanay. In 1915 he would work with young ingénue Gloria Swanson in Sweedie Goes to College (1915). A year later they would marry and be wildly unhappy together. The marriage dissolved when Beery could not control his drinking and Gloria got tired of his abuse. Beery finished with the Sweedie series and worked as the heavy in a number of films. Starting with Patria (1917), he would play the beastly Hun in a number of films. In the 1920s he would be seen in a number of adventures, including The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921), Robin Hood (1922), The Sea Hawk (1924) and The Pony Express (1925). He would also play the part of Poole in So Big (1924), which was based on the best-selling book of the same name by Edna Ferber. Paramount began to move Beery back into comedies with Behind the Front (1926). When sound came, Beery was one of the victims of the wholesale studio purge. He had a voice that would record well, but his speech was slow and his tone was a deep, folksy, down home-type. While not the handsome hero image, MGM executive Irving Thalberg saw something in Beery and hired him for the studio. Thalberg cast Beery in The Big House (1930), which was a big hit and got Beery an Academy Award nomination. However, Beery would become almost a household word with the release of the sentimental Min and Bill (1930), which would be one of 1930's top money makers. The next year Beery would win the Oscar for Best Actor in The Champ (1931). He would be forever remembered as Long John Silver in Treasure Island (1934) (who says never work with kids?). Beery became one of the top ten stars in Hollywood, as he was cast as the tough, dim-witted, easy-going type (which, in real life, he was anything but). In Flesh (1932) he would be the dim-witted wrestler who did not figure that his wife was unfaithful. In Dinner at Eight (1933) he played a businessman trying to get into society while having trouble with his wife, link=nm0001318]. After Marie Dressler died in 1934, he would not find another partner in the same vein as his early talkies until he teamed with Marjorie Main in the 1940s. He would appear opposite her in such films as Wyoming (1940) and Barnacle Bill (1941). By that time his career was slowing as he was getting up in age. He continued to work, appearing in only one or two pictures a year, until he died from a heart attack in 1949.1885-1949 (64 years old)
Wins:
Actor in a leading role (1932, The Champ)
Nominations:
Actor in a leading role (1930, The Big House)- Actor
- Writer
- Soundtrack
Maurice Chevalier's first working job was as an acrobat, until a serious accident ended that career. He turned his talents to singing and acting, and made several short films in France. During World War I he enlisted in the French army. He was wounded in battle, captured and placed in a POW camp by the Germans. During his captivity he learned English from fellow prisoners. After the war he returned to the film business, and when "talkies" came into existence, Chevalier traveled to the US to break into Hollywood. In 1929 he was paired with operatic singer/actress Jeanette MacDonald to make The Love Parade (1929). Although Chevalier was attracted to the beautiful MacDonald and made several passes at her, she rejected him firmly, as she had designs on actor Gene Raymond, who she eventually married. He did not take rejection lightly, being a somewhat vain man who considered himself quite a catch, and derided MacDonald as a "prude". She, in turn, called him "the quickest derrière pincher in Hollywood". They made three more pictures together, the most successful being Love Me Tonight (1932). In the late 1930s he returned to Europe, making several films in France and England. World War II interrupted his career and he was dogged by accusations of collaboration with the Nazi authorities occupying France, but he was later vindicated. In the 1950s he returned to Hollywood, older and gray-headed. He made Gigi (1958), from which he took his signature songs, "Thank Heaven for Little Girls" and "I Remember it Well". He also received a special Oscar that year. In the 1960s he made a few more films, and in 1970 he sang the title song for Walt Disney's The Aristocats (1970). This marked his last contribution to the film industry.1888-1972 (83 years old)
Nominations:
Actor in a leading role (1930, The Love Parade)
Actor in a leading role (1930, The Big Pond)
Honorary award:
1959 - For his contributions to the world of entertainment for more than half a century.- Actor
- Producer
- Writer
British leading man of primarily American films, one of the great stars of the Golden Age. Raised in Ealing, the son of a successful silk merchant, he attended boarding school in Sussex, where he discovered amateur theatre. He intended to attend Cambridge and become an engineer, but his father's death cost him the financial support necessary. He joined the London Scottish Regionals and at the outbreak of World War I was sent to France. Seriously wounded at the battle of Messines--he was gassed--he was invalided out of service scarcely two months after shipping out for France. Upon his recovery he tried to enter the consular service, but a chance encounter got him a small role in a London play. He dropped other plans and concentrated on the theatre, and was rewarded with a succession of increasingly prominent parts. He made extra money appearing in a few minor films, and in 1920 set out for New York in hopes of finding greater fortune there than in war-depressed England. After two years of impoverishment he was cast in a Broadway hit, "La Tendresse". Director Henry King spotted him in the show and cast him as Lillian Gish's leading man in The White Sister (1923). His success in the film led to a contract with Samuel Goldwyn, and his career as a Hollywood leading man was underway. He became a vastly popular star of silent films, in romances as well as adventure films. The coming of sound made his extraordinarily beautiful speaking voice even more important to the film industry. He played sophisticated, thoughtful characters of integrity with enormous aplomb, and swashbuckled expertly when called to do so in films like The Prisoner of Zenda (1937). A decade later he received an Academy Award for his splendid portrayal of a tormented actor in A Double Life (1947). Much of his later career was devoted to "The Halls of Ivy", a radio show that later was transferred to television The Halls of Ivy (1954). He continued to work until nearly the end of his life, which came in 1958 after a brief lung illness. He was survived by his second wife, actress Benita Hume, and their daughter Juliet Benita Colman.1891-1958 (67 years old)
Wins:
Actor in a leading role (1948, A Double Life)
Nominations:
Actor in a leading role (1930, Condemned)
Actor in a leading role (1930, Bulldog Drummond)
Actor in a leading role (1943, Random Harvest)- Actor
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
- Soundtrack
One of the great voices of the Metropolitan Opera, Lawrence Mervil Tibbet was born in Bakersfield, California, in 1896. Born at the end of the "wild west" era, he was only six when his father, who was a Kern County deputy sheriff, was killed by bandits. After training with, among others, Metropolitan Opera bass (and later film actor) Basil Ruysdael, he joined the Met, adding another "t" to his name in his initial contract. He made his company debut in the small role of Lovitsky in Mussorgsky's "Boris Godonov" in 1923. Two years later, in 1925, he caused a sensation as "Ford" in Verdi's "Falstaff" and his future with the company was assured. At home in French, Italian, German, and American opera, he created the leads in numerous Met premiers, most notably in Deems Taylor's "The King's Henchman," Verdi's "Simon Boccanegra," and Louis Gruenberg's "The Emperor Jones." Blessed, in his younger days, with boyish good looks, in addition to his powerful voice, he was one of the first great opera stars to enjoy success in Hollywood films, most notably 1929's "The Rogue Song," which brought him an Oscar nomination, and 1931's "Cuban Love Song," the latter opposite Lupe Velez and Jimmy Durante. He was also a highly-regarded recitalist and appeared successfully on radio. His recordings for Victor sold in the millions. In 1936, along with violinist Jascha Heifetz, he founded the American Guild of Musical Artists, serving for 17 years as its active president.
Unfortunately, beginning in around 1940, the stress of taking on too many heavy roles too early brought on a vocal crisis which only worsened in the next decade. He continued to take on new roles at the Metropolitan (Michele in Puccini's "Il Tabarro," Balstrode in Benjamin Britten's "Peter Grimes," Ivan in Mussorgsky's "Khovantchina"), but these were parts that stressed his considerable dramatic abilities, rather than his diminishing vocal ones. This vocal crisis also triggered a drinking problem (some have said vice versa) which also got progressively worse with time. Perhaps wisely, Tibbett left the Met at the end of the 1949-50 season.
The 1950s saw him appearing on stage in both musical and dramatic roles, most notably succeeding former Met colleague Ezio Pinza in the Broadway musical hit "Fanny," as well as hosting "Golden Voices" on NBC radio. But heavy drinking, which also brought on a well-publicized traffic arrest, left his once good looks bloated and puffy. An increasingly unhappy life ended in early 1960 when he tripped on a Persian runner in his home, badly gashing his head on the corner of his TV set and driving bone fragments into his brain. He died on July 17 at the age of 64. Tibbett's unhappy end is best forgotten. His contributions to the world of music will live forever.1896-1960 (63 years old)
Nominations:
Actor in a leading role (1930, The Rogue Song)- Actress
- Soundtrack
She won a beauty contest at age fourteen. In 1920 her mother, Edith Shearer, took Norma and her sister Athole Shearer (Mrs. Howard Hawks) to New York. Ziegfeld rejected her for his "Follies," but she got work as an extra in several movies. She spent much money on eye doctor's services trying to correct her cross-eyed stare caused by a muscle weakness. Irving Thalberg had seen her early acting efforts and, when he joined Louis B. Mayer in 1923, gave her a five year contract. He thought she should retire after their marriage, but she wanted bigger parts. In 1927, she insisted on firing the director Viktor Tourjansky because he was unsure of her cross-eyed stare. Her first talkie was in The Trial of Mary Dugan (1929); four movies later, she won an Oscar in The Divorcee (1930). She intentionally cut down film exposure during the 1930s, relying on major roles in Thalberg's prestige projects: The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934) and Romeo and Juliet (1936) (her fifth Oscar nomination). Thalberg died of a second heart attack in September, 1936, at age 37. Norma wanted to retire, but MGM more-or-less forced her into a six-picture contract. David O. Selznick offered her the part of Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind (1939), but public objection to her cross-eyed stare killed the deal. She starred in The Women (1939), turned down the starring role in Mrs. Miniver (1942), and retired in 1942. Later that year she married Sun Valley ski instructor Martin Arrouge, eleven years younger than she (he waived community property rights). From then on, she shunned the limelight; she was in very poor health the last decade of her life.1902-1983 (80 years old)
Wins:
Actress in a leading role (1930, The Divorcee)
Nominations:
Actress in a leading role (1930, Their Own Desire)
Actress in a leading role (1931, A Free Soul)
Actress in a leading role (1935, The Barretts of Wimpole Street)
Actress in a leading role (1937, Romeo and Juliet)
Actress in a leading role (1939, Marie Antoinette)- Actress
- Soundtrack
Nancy Carroll was born Ann Veronica Lahiff on November 19, 1903 in New York City. Nancy was the youngest of seven children. At the age of sixteen she dropped out of high school to work as a stenographer. Then she began performing in local talent competitions. She was a gifted dancer and appeared in several Broadway musicals. In 1925 she married writer Jack Kirkland and had a daughter named Patricia. Nancy made her film debut in the 1927 comedy Ladies Must Dress and was offered a contract with Paramount. She starred in a string of successful talkies including The Shopworn Angel, Laughter, and Close Harmony. With her red hair and big smile she quickly became one of Hollywood's most popular actresses. Her marriage to Jack ended in 1930. That same year she was nominated for Academy Award for her role in Devil's Holiday. After a brief affair with Joseph P. Kennedy she married Francis Bolton Mallory, a Life magazine editor in 1931. By this time she was receiving more fan mail than any other star! Unfortunately she had developed a reputation for being difficult and often complained about the parts she was given.
Paramount released her from her contract in 1933. Nancy continued to make movies but she was no longer an A-list star. She costarred with George Murphy in the dramas Jealousy and After The Dance. In 1935 she divorced her husband after four years of marriage. Unhappy with the way her career was going she decided to quit making movies. Her final film was the 1938 comedy There Goes My Heart. She returned to the stage starring in the Broadway show For Heaven's Sake Mother. During the 1950s she made guest appearances on numerous television shows. She also costarred with her daughter, Patricia Kirkland, in the series The Egg And I. Nancy married international businessman C.H. "Jappe" Groen in 1953. The couple split their time between Mexico and Indonesia. At the age of fifty-nine Nancy was cast in the play Never Too Late. It was a success and she toured with the show for two years. On the evening August 6, 1965 she didn't show up for her performance. Tragically she was found dead in her New York apartment. Nancy had died of an aneurysm at the age of sixty-one. She was buried with her parents at Calvary Cemetery in Queens, New York.1903-1965 (61 years old)
Nominations:
Actress in a leading role (1930, The Devil's Holiday)- Actress
- Soundtrack
Greta Garbo was born Greta Lovisa Gustafsson on September 18, 1905, in Stockholm, Sweden, to Anna Lovisa (Johansdotter), who worked at a jam factory, and Karl Alfred Gustafsson, a laborer. She was fourteen when her father died, which left the family destitute. Greta was forced to leave school and go to work in a department store. The store used her as a model in its newspaper ads. She had no film aspirations until she appeared in short advertising film at that same department store while she was still a teenager. Erik A. Petschler, a comedy director, saw the film and gave her a small part in his Luffar-Petter (1922). Encouraged by her own performance, she applied for and won a scholarship to a Swedish drama school. While there she appeared in at least one film, En lyckoriddare (1921). Both were small parts, but it was a start. Finally famed Swedish director Mauritz Stiller pulled her from the drama school for the lead role in The Saga of Gösta Berling (1924). At 18 Greta was on a roll.
Following The Joyless Street (1925) both Greta and Stiller were offered contracts with MGM, and her first film for the studio was the American-made Torrent (1926), a silent film in which she didn't have to speak a word of English. After a few more films, including The Temptress (1926), Love (1927) and A Woman of Affairs (1928), Greta starred in Anna Christie (1930) (her first "talkie"), which not only gave her a powerful screen presence but also garnered her an Academy Award nomination as Best Actress (she didn't win). Later that year she filmed Romance (1930), which was somewhat of a letdown, but she bounced back in 1931, landing another lead role in Mata Hari (1931), which turned out to be a major hit.
Greta continued to give intense performances in whatever was handed her. The next year she was cast in what turned out to be yet another hit, Grand Hotel (1932). However, it was in MGM's Anna Karenina (1935) that she gave what some consider the performance of her life. She was absolutely breathtaking in the role as a woman torn between two lovers and her son. Shortly afterwards, she starred in the historical drama Queen Christina (1933) playing the title character to great acclaim. She earned an Oscar nomination for her role in the romantic drama Camille (1936), again playing the title character. Her career suffered a setback the following year in Conquest (1937), which was a box office disaster. She later made a comeback when she starred in Ninotchka (1939), which showcased her comedic side. It wasn't until two years later she made what was to be her last film, Two-Faced Woman (1941), another comedy. But the film drew controversy and was condemned by the Catholic Church and other groups and was a box office failure, which left Garbo shaken.
After World War II Greta, by her own admission, felt that the world had changed perhaps forever and she retired, never again to face the camera. She would work for the rest of her life to perpetuate the Garbo mystique. Her films, she felt, had their proper place in history and would gain in value. She abandoned Hollywood and moved to New York City. She would jet-set with some of the world's best-known personalities such as Aristotle Onassis and others. She spent time gardening and raising flowers and vegetables. In 1954 Greta was given a special Oscar for past unforgettable performances. She even penned her biography in 1990.
On April 15, 1990, Greta died of natural causes in New York and with her went the "Garbo Mystique". She was 84.1905-1990 (84 years old)
Nominations:
Actress in a leading role (1930, Romance)
Actress in a leading role (1930, Anna Christie)
Actress in a leading role (1938, Camille)
Actress in a leading role (1940, Ninotchka)
Honorary award:
1955 - For her unforgettable screen performances.- Director
- Producer
- Editor
Clarence Leon Brown was the son of Larkin Harry and Catherine Ann (Gaw) Brown of Clinton, Massachusetts. His family moved to Knoxville, Tennessee, when he was 12 years old. He graduated from Knoxville High School in 1905 and from the University of Tennessee with a B.A. in mechanical and electrical engineering in 1912. After graduation Brown settled in Alabama, where he operated a Stevens Duryea dealership called the Brown Motor Car Co. He soon tired of the car business and, fascinated by the movies, moved to New Jersey to study with French director Maurice Tourneur at Peerless Productions in Fort Lee.
During his career Brown directed or produced more than 50 widely-acclaimed full-length films--many during his long association with prestigious MGM--and worked with many of the industry's most illustrious performers. He also maintained close ties with the University of Tennessee, donating the money necessary to construct the institution's Clarence Brown Theatre during the 1970s and an additional $12 million after his death.1890-1987 (97 years old)
Nominations:
Director (1930, Romance)
Director (1930, Anna Christie)
Director (1931, A Free Soul)
Director (1944, The Human Comedy)
Director (1946, National Velvet)
Director (1947, The Yearling)- Director
- Actor
- Producer
Chicago-born Robert Z. Leonard studied law at the University of Colorado, but the legal profession proved not to be his forte and he dropped out in favor of a career in the theatre. When his family moved to Hollywood in 1907 Leonard sought work in the fledgling film industry, starting as an actor with Selig Polyscope. Though he became an established star by 1916, his chief interest lay on the other side of the camera. Turning to directing from 1913, he helmed a brace of short comedy features and got his break when he was assigned a serial, The Master Key (1914), in 1914. From 1915-19 he was under contract at Universal, where he became chiefly associated with the films of his future wife, the ex-Ziegfeld Follies star Mae Murray. In 1919 Leonard and Murray founded Tiffany Productions, specifically as a means of creating suitable star vehicles for her. While the company lingered on as Tiffany-Stahl on the Talisman lot--one of the "Poverty Row" studios turning out cheap westerns and even cheaper "Chimp Comedies"' (yes, the stars were chimps and a lot cheaper to maintain than humans!)--Leonard and Murray moved on to join the newly-established Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1924.
Leonard's union with the volatile Murray ended in divorce in 1925. After clashing with MGM chief Louis B. Mayer, Murray left the studio two years later. Leonard married another actress, Gertrude Olmstead, and went on to become one of the studio's most reliable contract directors for the next three decades. Fitting in perfectly with the studio system, he was part of a highly efficient team of top craftsmen under the auspices of producer Hunt Stromberg, turning out scores of musicals and light comedies. Though not generally regarded by film critics as among the top echelon of Hollywood directors, Leonard nevertheless capably handled a variety of A-grade pictures, often starring temperamental personalities. Among his most successful hits for MGM were the backstage musical Dancing Lady (1933); the opulent multi Oscar-winning musical biopic The Great Ziegfeld (1936) (completed on a budget of $2 million); all but two of the popular cycle of Nelson Eddy-Jeanette MacDonald operettas; and the stylish, witty Pride and Prejudice (1940), an adaptation of the famed Jane Austen novel, a production that typified the most lavish of MGM's post-Thalberg costume dramas. It was scripted by no less than Aldous Huxley and starred Laurence Olivier and Greer Garson.
While many of his films may be dismissed for lacking artistic merit, the plain truth is that few lost money. Leonard gave the public what it wanted: he excelled at providing escapist entertainment, particularly with glossy, all-star extravaganzas like Ziegfeld Girl (1941) or Week-End at the Waldorf (1945). It was ironic, that, in 1949, he made a rare and unsuccessful foray into the genre of film noir with The Bribe (1949), an endeavor equally untypical of its studio. Starring Robert Taylor, Ava Gardner (at her most ravishing) and Vincent Price as a war surplus racketeer, the picture bombed at the box office. Producer Pandro S. Berman subsequently lamented it as "a heap of junk" that should "never have been made", but in retrospect "The Bribe" is not at all bad. In fact, it has gained something of a cult following over the years. Scenes from it were conspicuously used by Steve Martin for his excellent montage comedy Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid (1982).
Leonard left MGM on the studio retirement plan in 1955. He then had a brief sojourn in Italy, where he directed Gina Lollobrigida in Beautiful But Dangerous (1955) before finally making his swan song at Universal with a less-than-memorable family film, Kelly and Me (1956). With his wife Gertrude, Leonard resided in Beverly Hills until his death in August 1968.1889-1968 (78 years old)
Nominations:
Director (1930, The Divorcee)
Director (1937, The Great Ziegfeld)- Writer
- Director
- Actress
The most renowned female screenwriter of the 20th century, and one of the most respected scripters of any gender, Frances Marion was born in San Francisco. She modeled and acted and had some success as a commercial artist. She entered into journalism and served in Europe as a combat correspondent during World War I. She moved to Los Angeles and was employed by director Lois Weber as an assistant, in which position she received a thorough apprenticeship in the film industry. She began writing scripts and attracted the attention of Mary Pickford. The pair began a long relationship as both friends and artists, with Marion serving as Pickford's official screenwriter. She wrote many of Pickford's most famous and memorable silent films as well as many other of the great successful pictures of the 1920s and 1930s. She won Oscars for her writing on The Big House (1930) and The Champ (1931). Her influence resurrected the career of Marie Dressler and resulted in her greatest glory, and her scripts for Marion Davies are among the most memorable of that actress' oeuvre. At MGM, where she was long under contract, she enjoyed enormous creative freedom for a writer. With the death of Irving Thalberg, MGM's creative head, in 1936, Marion's power and influence waned. In 1946 she left Hollywood and thereafter concentrated on plays and novels. She was at one time married to 1920s cowboy star Fred Thomson and subsequently to director George W. Hill. She died in 1973, one of the most respected names in Hollywood history.1888-1973 (84 years old)
Wins:
Writing, achievement (1930, The Big House)
Writing, original story (1932, The Champ)
Nominations:
Writing, original story (1934, The Prizefighter and the Lady)- Writer
- Director
- Additional Crew
Legendary Broadway writer/producer/director George Abbott was born in 1887 in Forestville, New York. His father was mayor of Salamanca, New York, for two terms. In 1898 his family moved to Cheyenne, Wyoming, and Abbott attended Kearney Military Academy. The family returned to New York, where Abbott attended Hamburg High School, graduating in 1907, and the University of Rochester (BA degree in 1911). He wrote the play "Perfectly Harmless" for University Dramatic Club. He attended Harvard University from 1911-1912, studying play writing under George Pierce Baker, and wrote "The Head of the Family" for Harvard Dramatic Club. In 1912 he won $100 in a play contest sponsored by the Bijou Theatre in Boston, Massachusetts, for "The Man in the Manhole", and worked at the Bijou for a year as assistant stage manager. He made his Broadway debut as an actor in 1913 in "The Misleading Lady" (as Babe Merrill, a drunken student), followed by "The Yeoman of the Guard" (1915), "The Queen's Enemies" (1916), "Daddies" (1918), "The Broken Wing" (1920), "Dulcy" (on tour) (1921), "Zander the Great" (1923), "White Desert" (1923), "Hell-Bent for Heaven" (1924), "Lazybones" (1924), "Processional" (1925) and "Cowboy Crazy" (1926). From that point he concentrated on writing and directing, with "The Fall Guy" (his Broadway's debut, 1925), "Three Men on a Horse" (1935), "Jumbo" (1935), "On Your Toes" (1936), "The Boys from Syracuse" (1938), "Too Many Girls" (1939), "Pal Joey" (1940), "Best Foot Forward" (1941), "On the Town" (1944), "High Buttom Shoes" (1947), "Where's Charley?" (1948), "Call Me Madam" (1950), "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" (1951), "Wonderful Town" (1953), "The Pajama Game" (1954), "Damn Yankees" (1955), "New Girl Town" (1957), "Fiorello!" (1959), "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Forum" (1962), "Flora, the Red Menace" (1965; Liza Minnelli's Broadway debut).
He won five Tony Awards and the Pulitzer Prize (for "Fiorello!"). He was nominated for an Oscar for writing All Quiet on the Western Front (1930). His daughter, Judith Abbott, is a stage actress/director and was married (1946-49) to Tom Ewell.1887-1995 (107 years old)
Nominations:
Writing, achievement (1930, All Quiet on the Western Front)- Writer
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
James Maxwell Anderson was born in Atlantic, Pennsylvania, on December 15, 1888 to William Lincoln Anderson and Charlotte Perrimela (Stephenson) Anderson. The second child born to the couple, Anderson spent his formative years on his maternal grandmother's farm in Atlantic before the family moved to Andover, Ohio when he was three years old. His father attended a seminary at night to study for the ministry while he supported the family as a railroad fireman.
His father took up the life of a traveling minister, moving his family frequently until Anderson was in his late teens. Anderson attended schools in Ohio, Iowa, North Dakota, and Pennsylvania. The Anderson family's life was a vagabond one until they settled in Jamestown, North Dakota in 1907.
After graduating from Jamestown High School, Anderson went to the University of North Dakota in 1908. He worked his way through college as a waiter and serving on the night copy desk of the newspaper "The Grand Forks Herald." He was a member of the literary society Ad Altiora at UND and helped put together the "Dacotah" Annual. He also participated in college theatrics, serving as assistant director for the Sock and Buskin Dramatic Society.
Graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature in June 1911, Anderson married his UND classmate Margaret Haskett, a farmer's daughter, on August 1, 1911. They eventually had three sons, Quentin, Alan, and Terence.
His first job after college was serving as the principal of the Minnewaukan, North Dakota high school, where he doubled as an English teacher. After making pacifist comments to his students, his contract was not renewed, and he moved to Palo Alto, California, where he enrolled in a master's program in English Lit at Stanford University. After graduating from Stanford in 1914, he spent three years as a high school English teacher in San Francisco before accepting an offer to become chairman of Whittier College's English Department in 1917. Once again he got in trouble with his pro-pacifist statements, and he was fired after his first year for speaking out publicly on behalf of a student seeking conscientious objector status during World War I.
Moving back to San Francisco, he worked as a journalist on the "San Francisco Chronicle" and the "San Francisco Bulletin," then moved to New York City to take an editorial position on the liberal periodical "The New Republic." He continued his work as a newspaperman, becoming a stringer for the "New York Globe" and the New York World." He also found time to help launch the poetry magazine "Measure."
Turning his interest to the theater, he wrote his first play in 1923. Written in verse, "White Desert" was a flop, lasting only 12 performances, but it attracted the attention of "New York World" critic Laurence Stallings. Stallings chose Maxwell as his collaborator on his World War One play "What Price Glory?" Opening on September 3, 1924, the play was one of the stage sensations of the decade, earning kudos and running for 430 performances. The financial rewards of helping create such a big boffo box office blockbuster enabled Anderson to retire from journalism and become a full-time dramatist.
Many of his plays were written in verse, and they typically touch on social and moral problems, such as "Winterset" (1935), which addressed the Sacco & Vanzetti trials in fictional form. The play, which won the first New York Critics Circle Award, is about a gangster who visits the children of the anarchists executed for the murder he himself committed. Anderson won the 1933 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his play "Both Your Houses," and repeated as the New York Critics Circle Award winner for "High Tor" in 1936. He wrote many historical dramas and two librettos for Kurt Weill, "Knickerbocker Holiday" (1938) and "Lost in the Stars" (1940). He was also a lyricist, his most famous creation being "September Song" from "Knickerbocker Holiday."
His plays included "Elizabeth the Queen" (1930), "Mary of Scotland " (1933), "Key Largo" (1939); "Truckline Café" (1945), "Joan of Lorraine" (1946), "Anne of the Thousand Days" (1947), and "The Bad Seed" (1954). Anderson also worked on numerous screenplays, including All Quiet on the Western Front (1930), for which he received an Academy Award nomination, Washington Merry-Go-Round (1932), Rain (1932) , Death Takes a Holiday (1934), and So Red the Rose (1935).
Plays of his that were turned into movies were "Mary of Scotland (1936), "Saturday's Children," which was filmed three times (once as "Maybe It's Love"), Winterset (1936), "Elizabeth the Queen", which became The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939), The Eve of St. Mark (1944), Knickerbocker Holiday (1944). Key Largo (1948), "Joan of Lorraine," which became Joan of Arc (1948), The Bad Seed (1956), "The Devil's Hornpipe", which became Never Steal Anything Small (1959), and Anne of the Thousand Days (1969). "What Price Glory?" was made into a silent film in 1926 and was remade by John Ford in 1952.
He published two books of poetry, "You Who Have Dreams" in 1925, and "Notes on a Dream," published posthumously in 1972. Anderson also published two collections of essays, "The Essence of Tragedy and Other Footnotes and Papers" (1939) and "Off Broadway Essays About the Theatre" (1947).
His wife Margaret died on February 26, 1931, and he remarried in 1933, taking Gertrude "Mab" Higger as his second wife. They had a daughter, Hesper, born on August 12, 1934, and when Gertrude died on March 21, 1953, he married Gilda Hazard on June 6, 1954.
Among his many honors were honorary Doctor of Literature degrees from Columbia University in 1946 and the University of North Dakota in 1958, and the National Institute of Arts and Letters' Gold Medal in Drama in 1954.
Maxwell Anderson had a stroke on February 26, 1959 and died two days later in Stamford, Connecticut. His oeuvre included over thirty published plays and over a dozen unpublished ones.1888-1959 (70 years old)
Nominations:
Writing, achievement (1930, All Quiet on the Western Front)- Director
- Writer
- Editor
Del Andrews was born on 5 October 1894 in St. Louis, Missouri, USA. Del was a director and writer, known for All Quiet on the Western Front (1930), Is That Nice? (1926) and The Hottentot (1922). Del was married to Edith E.. Del died on 27 October 1942 in Tonopah, Nevada, USA.1894-1942 (48 years old)
Nominations:
Writing, achievement (1930, All Quiet on the Western Front)- Julien Josephson was born on 24 October 1881 in Roseburg, Oregon, USA. He was a writer, known for Disraeli (1929), Fuss and Feathers (1918) and Lady Windermere's Fan (1925). He died on 14 April 1959 in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA.1881-1959 (77 years old)
Nominations:
Writing, achievement (1930, Disraeli) - Writer
- Script and Continuity Department
- Additional Crew
John Meehan, the Oscar-nominated Cando-American screenwriter and playwright best known for co-writing the classic Boys Town (1938), was born on May 8, 1884 in Lindsay, Ontario. His first dream was to be a chef, but after studying the culinary arts in Austria, he went to New York to seek fame and fortune in the theater. Meehan made his Broadway debut in 1902 as an actor in a play inspired by a story by Richard Harding Davis, "Soliders of Fortune". From 1903 to 1908 he appeared three more times as an actor on Broadway. The next time his name was associated with The Great White Way, it was as a playwright, when his play "The Very Minute" was produced in 1917, starring Cathleen Nesbitt. The show closed after 32 performances.
He acted again on Broadway in John Drinkwater's 1919 hit play "Abraham Lincoln". Five of his original plays, all comedies, were staged during the Roaring Twenties. He also sporadically acted during the days of the Jazz Age, but more frequently, he produced and directed other dramatists's works. When moving pictures began to talk, he heeded Horace Greeley's admonition "Go West, Young Man" and hightailed it to Hollywood. He returned once again to the Broadway theater for his swansong, as an actor, in 1935's "A Journey By Night". (His son, John Meehan, Jr. wrote the books for the operettas "Rosalinda" and "Helen Goes to Troy".)
Meehan was hired as a contract writer by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer at the time that Paramount was adapting his play The Lady Lies (1929) for the Big Screen, with a cast that featured Walter Huston and a young Claudette Colbert as the leads. The play had not been a success in 1928, closing after just 24 performances, but Hollywood needed writers who could write dialogue. ("The Lady Lies" was remade into four other films in four different languages, as was the custom in the early talkie period, before dubbing was perfected.) Meehan's 1927 play "Bless You, Sister" (which also lasted but 24 performances on Broadway), was adapted by Jo Swerling as The Miracle Woman (1931) for Frank Capra at Columbia, providing a choice role for Barbara Stanwyck, playing an Aimee Semple McPherson-like woman preacher.
Meehan won his first Oscar nomination soon after coming to Hollywood, in 1930, for The Divorcee (1930). He won his second Oscar nod along with co-writer Dore Schary in 1939 for "Boy's Town". M.G.M. superstars Norma Shearer in "The Divorcee" and Spencer Tracy in "Boy's Town" won Oscars for their work in Meehan screenplays.
John Meehan died in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles on November 12, 1954. He was 70 years old.1890-1954 (64 years old)
Nominations:
Writing, achievement (1930, The Divorcee)
Writing, screenplay (1939, Boys Town)- Writer
- Actor
- Director
Detroit-born Howard Estabrook entered show business as a stage actor in New York in 1904. He appeared in several films starting in 1914 and even directed a few in 1917. He left films for a career in the business world, but returned in 1921 in executive positions with various studios, then began producing films in 1924. He soon turned to screenwriting, and was responsible for several of what have come to be regarded as classics of Hollywood: Hell's Angels (1930), Cimarron (1931) (for which he won an Academy Award) and David Copperfield (1935), among others. He was also nominated for an Academy Award for his screenplay for Street of Chance (1930).1884-1978 (94 years old)
Wins:
Writing, adaptation (1931, Cimarron)
Nominations:
Writing, achievement (1930, Street of Chance)- Cinematographer
Joseph T. Rucker was, for the better part of his forty year career, a newsreel cameraman for Paramount News. He is remembered for filming the 1915 opening of the Panama Canal, the aftermath of the 1923 Tokyo earthquake, the 1927 civil war in China and Richard E. Byrd Jr.'s 1928 and 1930 expeditions to Antarctica. In the latter expedition, he and fellow cameraman, Willard Van der Veer brought back over 160,000 feet of raw footage. During the Second World War, Rucker covered the conflict in the Pacific aboard the American aircraft carrier Enterprise.
Rucker was born on 1 January, 1887, in Atlanta, Georgia, the second son of George G. and Sarah Millikan Rucker. His father, who had for a number of years been a cotton broker in Virginia, died sometime before 1900.
Rucker passed away in San Francisco on 21 October, 1957, two years after his retirement. He was survived by his wife of forty-two years, the former Cecile Kaufman (1893-1975), a daughter Frances Joy and son Joseph.1887-1957 (70 years old)
Wins:
Cinematography (1930, With Byrd at the South Pole)- Cinematographer
- Director
- Writer
Willard Van der Veer was born on 23 August 1894 in Brooklyn, New York, USA. He was a cinematographer and director, known for With Byrd at the South Pole (1930), Maintain the Right (1940) and The Crawling Hand (1963). He died on 16 June 1963 in Encino, California, USA.1894-1963 (68 years old)
Wins:
Cinematography (1930, With Byrd at the South Pole)- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Producer
Oscar-winning director of photography William Daniels was a master of black-and-white cinematographer most famous for the 21 films he shot that starred the immortal Greta Garbo between 1926 and 1939. Among the Gabro classics he lensed were The Torrent (1924), Flesh and the Devil (1926), Love (1927) (Garbo and home studio MGM's first crack at Lev Tolstoy's "Anna Karenina"), Mata Hari (1931), Grand Hotel (1932), Queen Christina (1933), the sound remake of Anna Karenina (1935), Camille (1936), and Ninotchka (1939).
He won fame for his lensing of Garbo, but to those who claimed that he was essential to his success, Daniels replied, "I didn't create a 'Garbo face.' I just did portraits of her I would have done for any star. My lighting of her was determined by the requirements of a scene. I didn't, as some say I did, keep one side of her face light and the other dark. But I did always try to make the camera peer into the eyes, to see what was there."
Though he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Cinematography for the 1930 English-language version of Anna Christie (1930) (he also shot the 1931 German-language version Anna Christie (1930)), ironically, it was his only nomination for a Garbo film. He won his Oscar in 1949 for his brilliant B+W cinematography on the classic film noir The Naked City (1948).
Daniels received two other Oscar nominations. He was President of the American Society of Cinematographers from 1961 to 1963.1901-1970 (68 years old)
Wins:
Cinematography, black and white (1949, The Naked City)
Nominations:
Cinematography (1930, Anna Christie)
Cinematography, color (1959, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof)
Cinematography, color (1964, How the West Was Won)- Cinematographer
- Director
- Camera and Electrical Department
Tony Gaudio was born Gaetano Antonio Gaudio on November 20, 1883, in Cosenza, Italy, to a professional photographer. After attended art school in Rome, he became an assistant to his father and elder brother, who were portrait photographers. Eventually he segued into cinema, starting with "Napoleon Crossing the Alps" in 1903, and he eventually shot hundreds of short subjects for Italian film companies before moving to the US in 1906. Both he and his younger brother Eugene Gaudio, who served the same apprenticeship with both the family studio and with Italian filmmakers, would emigrate to America and become prominent cinematographers (Eugene was one of the founders of the American Society of Cinematographers in 1919; Tony would become a member of the organization and then serve as president).
In New York in 1906 Tony was employed by Al Simpson to produce "song slides" that could be shown in theaters so patrons could sing along with the music. After quitting Simpson in 1908, he worked in Vitagraph's film development laboratories in New York, then moved over to Carl Laemmle's IMP (Independent Moving Picture Co.) to supervise the construction of IMP's New York laboratories. From 1910-12 he became the chief of cinematographers at IMP, where he shot Mary Pickford's films for director Thomas H. Ince (he would later shoot The Gaucho (1927) for her husband, Douglas Fairbanks.)
Laemmle had wooed Pickford away from Biograph by offering her $175 a week, thus helping create the star system (Pickford soon left Laemmle for Adolph Zukor's Famous Players, where she was paid $10,000 per week; she left Zukor for First National, where she was paid $350,000 per film). Known as "Uncle Carl", Laemmle was famous for his nepotism, which extended even to a second cousin from Alsace, France, the future director William Wyler.
Tony's own brother Eugene would work for IMP as the superintendent of its development lab before switching to cinematography himself. As for Tony, he left IMP to work for Biograph and other companies before finding a home at Metro Pictures by 1916, where his brother Eugene now worked as a director. At Metro Tony shot 10 films for director Fred J. Balshofer and eventually wound up at First National in the early 1920s through his work as a cameraman for sisters Constance Talmadge and Norma Talmadge. From 1922-25 he shot nine Norma Talmadge pictures.
Eugene had died in 1920, and from 1923-24 Tony served as president of the American Society of Cinematographers, the professional body his brother had helped create to promote standardization in the industry and to serve as a clearinghouse for information for cameramen. Tony was at the forefront of technical innovation in his craft; in 1922 he invented a viewfinder for the new Mitchell camera. In the 1920s the Hollywood motion picture industry was dominated by Bell+Howell cameras, but Mitchell established a foothold and broke through by the end of the decade. While the Bell+Howell produced a superior image due to its innovative pressure plate behind the lens, it was too noisy for sound work, which opened up the market to Mitchell. The ASC helped promote innovations such as the viewfinder. This was rooted in the fact that in the first generation of cinema, cameramen owned their own cameras and modified them themselves. To be a cameraman one also had to be a tinkerer (Tony also would later invent the camera focusing microscope).
Tony also was an expert--as were many early cameramen--in the development of film, as most cinematographers took a hands-on approach to development in order to ensure not just the quality of their images, but to achieve effects in the lab. It was while he was employed by First National as the superintendent of the studio's film labs in 1925 that he directed two feature films released by the Poverty Row studio Columbia Pictures Corp.
In the 1920s he helped photograph Douglas Fairbanks' The Mark of Zorro (1920), pioneering the use of montage, and was lighting cameraman on Fairbanks' 1927 "The Gaucho", which featured one of the earliest two-strip Technicolor sequences (Gaudio also shot two-strip Technicolor scenes for On with the Show! (1929) and General Crack (1929)). He made his reputation during the 1920s as the chief cameraman for such top directors as Allan Dwan, Frank Borzage and Marshall Neilan, as well as for tyro director Howard Hughes' dialogue scenes with Harry Perry on the aerial scenes of Hell's Angels (1930).
When First National was acquired by Warner Bros. in 1928, Gaudio moved over to the new studio, signing a long-term contract with Warners in 1930. In time, he and his fellow Italian immigrant Sol Polito would become the co-chief-cinematographers at the studio and help fashion the distinct Warner Bros. "look" that was influenced by German Expressionism.
The opinionated Tony Gaudio was prone to clash with his directors, and Oscar-winning director Lewis Milestone'--who won his first Oscar on a film lensed by Gaudio, Two Arabian Knights (1927)--nearly fired him from The Front Page (1931) (Gaudio served as the second cameraman on Milesteone's anti-war masterpiece All Quiet on the Western Front (1930), for which the director won his second Oscar, and would shoot his last film for Milestone: The Red Pony (1949), which is renowned for its mastery of color). The studio tolerated his temperament as he was a master of black and white cinematography, winning six Academy Award nominations and one Oscar from 1930 through 1946, when he was nominated for Best Color Cinematography for the first time.
Gaudio, fellow co-cinematographer-in-chief Polito, Barney McGill and Sidney Hickox were instrumental in creating the Warner Bros. "look" of the 1930s. Warners, the most progressive studio in Hollywood, was prone to filming subjects torn from the day's headlines; the Brothers Warner, as represented by studio boss Jack L. Warner, did not demand a glamorous aesthetic as did MGM, for instance (Gaudio shot Mervyn LeRoy's gangster classic Little Caesar (1931) while Polito shot I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932) for Leroy two years later). Gaudio, Polito and the other cinematographers they supervised thus were able to light their sets to evoke mood and atmosphere. The extremely versatile Gaudio shot all kinds of movies in every genre, from the prestigious A-pictures to B-movies.
Along with Polito, Gaudio shot Warners' most prestigious films, winning an Oscar for his black and white cinematography on Anthony Adverse (1936). He shot Warners' first three-strip Technicolor film, God's Country and the Woman (1937), directed by William Keighley, and, subsequently, the studio assigned Gaudio and Keighley to what was their most ambitious picture ever: The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), which was also to be shot in the difficult Technicolor. The film would eventually cost $4 million, making it the most expensive film in history to the time, but Gaudio and Keighley were removed from the project by producer Hal B. Wallis for working too slowly. The film was finished by Polito and director Michael Curtiz, though all four ultimately shared screen credit on the picture and Gaudio's footage remained in the film.
Gaudio was a regular cameraman for Bette Davis, who became the studio's greatest star during the 1930s. Gaudio originally gave Davis the glamor treatment, but by the time he shot Bordertown (1935), starring Paul Muni as a Mexican-American lawyer in a corrupt town, Gaudio didn't flinch when--shooting the film with a stark realism--he deglamorized Davis, as he would later in two period films, Juarez (1939) and The Old Maid (1939).
Critics believe that Gaudio reached the zenith of his craft on another Davis vehicle, director 'William Wyler (I)''s adaptation of W. Somerset Maugham's novel, The Letter (1940). For the picture Gaudio's camera evoked a moodiness pregnant with violence. The opening shot of the film, a slow track through the Malaysian rubber plantation that is the setting for the story about to transpire, is extremely memorable.
When Gaudio shot High Sierra (1940) for Raoul Walsh, he worked in an ultra-realistic, documentary-like fashion that was a precursor of film noir. He parted company with Warners in 1943 after shooting Background to Danger (1943) to go freelance. His next picture, Universal's Corvette K-225 (1943), brought him an Oscar nomination. He won his last Oscar nomination, for color cinematography, in 1946, for A Song to Remember (1945).
Tony Gaudio died on August 10, 1951. He was 67 years old.1883-1951 (67 years old)
Wins:
Cinematography (1937, Anthony Adverse)
Nominations:
Cinematography (1930, Hell's Angels)
Cinematography, black and white (1940, Juarez)
Cinematography, black and white (1941, The Letter)
Cinematography, black and white (1944, Corvette K-225)
Cinematography, color (1946, A Song to Remember)- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Visual Effects
Harry Perry was born on 2 May 1888. He was a cinematographer, known for Hell's Angels (1930), Wings (1927) and The Crimson Challenge (1922). He died on 9 February 1985 in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA.1888-1985 (96 years old)
Nominations:
Cinematography (1930, Hell's Angels)- Cinematographer
- Actor
- Camera and Electrical Department
Pioneering cinematographer Victor Milner acquired his fascination with the celluloid media during the days of the nickelodeon. After working as a lab assistant for a film equipment manufacturer, he joined Pathe Weekly News in the capacity of projectionist and newsreel cameraman. Among other events, he filmed the U.S. occupation of Vera Cruz during the conflict with Mexico in 1914. After moving to California in 1916, Milner was hired by the Balboa Amusement Producing Company (founded in Long Island in 1913), notably working on several westerns starring William S. Hart. He subsequently spent time under contract with Metro, Universal, Paramount (the bulk of his career: 1925-1944) and RKO (1945). A versatile craftsman and a master at creating moods (in his own words, 'painting with light'), he was equally adept at shooting unsentimental black & white films noir (The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946)), or sprawling, romantic Technicolor adventure (Reap the Wild Wind (1942)). He often worked on the films of legendary director Cecil B. DeMille, winning his only Academy Award (from nine nominations) for the epic Cleopatra (1934).
Milner retired in 1953. He was one of the founding members of the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC).1893-1972 (78 years old)
Wins:
Cinematography (1935, Cleopatra)
Nominations:
Cinematography (1930, The Love Parade)
Cinematography (1936, The Crusades)
Cinematography (1937, The General Died at Dawn)
Cinematography (1939, The Buccaneer)
Cinematography, black and white (1940, The Great Victor Herbert)
Cinematography, color (1941, North West Mounted Police)
Cinematography, color (1943, Reap the Wild Wind)
Cinematography, black and white (1951, The Furies)- Art Director
- Art Department
- Production Designer
Herman Rosse was born on 1 January 1887 in Amsterdam, Noord-Holland, Netherlands. He was an art director and production designer, known for King of Jazz (1930), East Is West (1930) and Strictly Dishonorable (1931). He died on 13 April 1965 in Nyack, New York, USA.1887-1965 (78 years old)
Wins:
Art direction (1930, King of Jazz)- Art Director
- Set Decorator
- Director
Jack Okey was born on 3 June 1889 in Los Angeles, California, USA. He was an art director and set decorator, known for Out of the Past (1947), It's a Wonderful Life (1946) and Outlaws of the Sea (1923). He was married to Marie. He died on 8 January 1963 in Hollywood, California, USA.1889-1963 (73 years old)
Nominations:
Art direction (1930, Sally)
Art direction-interior decoration, black and white (1946, Experiment Perilous)- Sound Department
- Director
- Actor
Douglas Shearer came to MGM to visit his sister, Norma Shearer, and was hired as an assistant in the camera department. When MGM decided to make sound pictures, Douglas was appointed head of the sound department. In 1928, Douglas took the silent 'White Shadows in the South Seas' to a New Jersey recording studio where he added sound effects and music. As was common in the early days, the music and sound effects were recorded, but not the dialogue. In 1929, Douglas came up with the idea of playing the sound track for a musical number so that it would be filmed in sync with the music. The film was The Broadway Melody (1929) which won the Best Picture Oscar for 1929. It was an 'All-Talking! All-SingingAll-Dancing!' movie. Douglas won his first oscar for sound recording with The Big House (1930). Douglas became one of the most innovative men in the sound field and MGM became well known for the quality of the sound in their pictures. He would develop or improve recording systems and reduce any unwanted noise. Overall, Douglas would win 12 oscars for Best Sound Recording. In 1959, he would receive an Oscar for helping co-develop MGM's Camera 65 wide screen system. His career as Recording Director would end in 1955 when he was promoted to director of technical research at MGM. He would hold this office until his retirement in 1968.1899-1971 (71 years old)
Wins:
Sound, recording (1930, The Big House)
Sound, recording (1936, Naughty Marietta)
Sound, recording (1937, San Francisco)
Sound, recording (1941, Strike Up the Band)
Effects, special effects (1945, Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo)
Effects, special effects (1948, Green Dolphin Street)
Sound, recording (1952, The Great Caruso)
Nominations:
Sound, recording (1935, Viva Villa!)
Sound, recording (1938, Maytime)
Sound, recording (1939, Sweethearts)
Effects, special effects (1940, The Wizard of Oz)
Sound, recording (1940, Balalaika)
Effects, special effects (1941, Boom Town)
Effects, special effects (1942, Flight Command)
Sound, recording (1942, The Chocolate Soldier)
Effects, special effects (1943, Mrs. Miniver)
Sound, recording (1943, Mrs. Miniver)
Sound, recording (1944, Madame Curie)
Sound, recording (1945, Kismet)
Sound, recording (1946, They Were Expendable)
Sound, recording (1948, Green Dolphin Street)
Technical achievement awards:
1936 - For their automatic control system for cameras and sound recording machines and auxiliary stage equipment.
1938 - For the design of the film drive mechanism as incorporated in the ERPI 1010 reproducer.
1942 - For pioneering the development of fine grain emulsions for variable density original sound recording in a studio production.
1964 - For the engineering of an improved Background Process Projection System.
Honorary awards:
1937 - Academy Award of Merit - For the development of a practical two-way horn system and a biased Class A push-pull recording system.
Scientific and engineering awards:
1938 - For a method of varying the scanning width of variable density sound tracks (squeeze tracks) for the purpose of obtaining an increased amount of noise reduction.
1960 - For the development of a system of producing and exhibiting wide film motion pictures known as Camera 65.- Sound Department
John E. Tribby was born on 30 October 1903 in Marshall County, Indiana, USA. He is known for Notorious (1946), Suspicion (1941) and The Case of Sergeant Grischa (1930). He died in February 1983 in Roswell, New Mexico, USA.1903-1983 (79 years old)
Nominations:
Sound, recording (1930, The Case of Sergeant Grischa)- Sound Department
Franklin Hansen was born on 2 May 1897 in Saugerties, New York, USA. He is known for Man-Eater of Kumaon (1948), Blonde for a Day (1946) and Bell Book and Candle (1958). He died on 13 January 1982 in Newport Beach, California, USA.1897-1982 (84 years old)
Wins:
Sound, recording (1934, A Farewell to Arms)
Nominations:
Sound, recording (1930, The Love Parade)
Sound, recording (1935, Cleopatra)
Sound, recording (1936, The Lives of a Bengal Lancer)
Sound, recording (1937, The Texas Rangers)- Sound Department
- Additional Crew
Oscar Lagerstrom was born on 19 November 1890 in Delhi, Minnesota, USA. He is known for Dodsworth (1936), Who Is Hope Schuyler? (1942) and A Star Is Born (1937). He was married to Grace. He died on 30 July 1974 in Los Angeles, California, USA.1890-1974 (83 years old)
Nominations:
Sound, recording (1930, Raffles)
Sound, recording (1937, Dodsworth)- Sound Department
- Music Department
George Groves was born on 13 December 1901 in St. Helens, Merseyside, England, UK. He is known for The Song of the Flame (1930), Sunrise at Campobello (1960) and The Desert Song (1929). He was married to Jane Blackman Wilmott. He died on 4 September 1976 in North Hollywood, California, USA.1901-1976 (74 years old)
Wins:
Sound, recording (1958, Sayonara)
Sound (1965, My Fair Lady)
Nominations:
Sound, recording (1930, The Song of the Flame)
Sound (1960, The Nun's Story)
Sound (1961, Sunrise at Campobello)
Sound (1963, The Music Man)
Sound (1966, The Great Race)
Sound (1967, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?)- Actor
- Director
- Producer
Jackie Cooper was born John Cooper in Los Angeles, California, to Mabel Leonard, an Italian-American stage pianist, and John Cooper. Through his mother, he was the nephew of actress Julie Leonard, screenwriter Jack Leonard, and (by marriage) director Norman Taurog. Jackie served with the Navy in the South Pacific toward the end of World War II. Then, quietly and without publicity or fanfare, compiled one of the most distinguished peacetime military careers of anyone in his profession. In 1961, as his weekly TV series Hennesey (1959) was enhancing naval recruiting efforts, accepted a commission as a line officer in the Naval Reserve with duties in recruitment, training films, and public relations. Holder of a multi-engine pilot license, he later co-piloted jet planes for the Navy, which made him an Honorary Aviator authorized to wear wings of gold-at the time only the third so honored in naval aviation history. By 1976 he had attained the rank of captain, and was in uniform aboard the carrier USS Constellation for the Bicentennial celebration on July 4. In 1980 the Navy proposed a period of active duty at the Pentagon that would have resulted in a promotion to rear admiral, bringing him even with Air Force Reserve Brigadier General James Stewart. Fresh on the heels of a second directing Emmy, he felt his absence would impact achieving a long-held goal of directing motion pictures, and reluctantly declined. (The opportunity in films never materialized.) Holds Letters of Commendation from six secretaries of the Navy. Was honorary chairman of the U.S. Navy Memorial Foundation and a charter member of VIVA, the effort to return POW-MIAs from Vietnam. Upon retirement in 1982, he was decorated with the Legion of Merit by Navy Secretary John F. Lehman Jr.. Other than Stewart, no performer in his industry has achieved a higher uniformed rank in the U.S. military. (Glenn Ford was also a Naval Reserve captain, and director and Captain John Ford was awarded honorary flag rank upon his 1951 retirement from the Naval Reserve).1922-2011 (88 years old)
Nominations:
Actor in a leading role (1931, Skippy)- 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, 1949.1893-1949 (56 years old)
Nominations:
Actor in a leading role (1931, Cimarron)- Actor
- Soundtrack
Fredric March began a career in banking but in 1920 found himself cast as an extra in films being produced in New York. He starred on the Broadway stage first in 1926 and would return there between screen appearances later on. He won plaudits (and an Academy Award nomination) for his send-up of John Barrymore in The Royal Family of Broadway (1930). Four more Academy Award nominations would come his way, and he would win the Oscar for Best Actor twice: for Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931) and The Best Years of Our Lives (1946). He could play roles varying from heavy drama to light comedy, and was often best portraying men in anguish, such as Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman (1951). As his career advanced he progressed from leading man to character actor.1897-1975 (77 years old)
Wins:
Actor in a leading role (1932, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde)
Actor in a leading role (1947, The Best Years of Our Lives)
Nominations:
Actor in a leading role (1931, The Royal Family of Broadway)
Actor in a leading role (1938, A Star is Born)
Actor in a leading role (1952, Death of a Salesman)- Actor
- Producer
- Soundtrack
The words "suave" and "debonair" became synonymous with the name Adolphe Menjou in Hollywood, both on- and off-camera. The epitome of knavish, continental charm and sartorial opulence, Menjou, complete with trademark waxy black mustache, evolved into one of Hollywood's most distinguished of artists and fashion plates, a tailor-made scene-stealer, if you will. What is often forgotten is that he was primed as a matinée idol back in the silent-film days. With hooded, slightly owlish eyes, a prominent nose and prematurely receding hairline, he was hardly competition for Rudolph Valentino, but he did possess the requisite demeanor to confidently pull off a roguish and magnetic man-about-town. Fluent in six languages, Menjou was nearly unrecognizable without some type of formal wear, and he went on to earn distinction as the nation's "best dressed man" nine times.
Born on February 18, 1890, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, he was christened Adolphe Jean Menjou, the elder son of a hotel manager. His Irish mother was a distant cousin of novelist / poet James Joyce ("Ulysses") (1882-1941). His French father, an émigré, eventually moved the family to Cleveland, where he operated a chain of restaurants. He disapproved of show business and sent an already piqued Adolphe to Culver Military Academy in Indiana in the hopes of dissuading him from such a seemingly reckless and disreputable career. From there Adolphe was enrolled at Stiles University prep school and then Cornell University. Instead of acquiescing to his father's demands and obtaining a engineering degree, however, he abruptly changed his major to liberal arts and began auditioning for college plays. He left Cornell in his third year in order to help his father manage a restaurant for a time during a family financial crisis. From there he left for New York and a life in the theater.
Adolphe toiled as a laborer, a haberdasher and even a waiter in one of his father's restaurants during his salad days, which included some vaudeville work. Oddly enough, he never made it to Broadway but instead found extra and/or bit work for various film studios (Vitagraph, Edison, Biograph) starting in 1915. World War I interrupted his early career, and he served as a captain with the Ambulance Corps in France. After the war he found employment off-camera as a productions manager and unit manager. When the New York-based film industry moved west, so did Adolphe.
Nothing of major significance happened for the fledgling actor until 1921, an absolute banner year for him. After six years of struggle he finally broke into the top ranks with substantial roles in The Faith Healer (1921) and Through the Back Door (1921), the latter starring Mary Pickford. He formed some very strong connections as a result and earned a Paramount contract in the process. Cast by Mary's then-husband Douglas Fairbanks as Louis XIII in the rousing silent The Three Musketeers (1921), he finished off the year portraying the influential writer/friend Raoul de Saint Hubert in Rudolph Valentino's classic The Sheik (1921).
Firmly entrenched in the Hollywood lifestyle, it took little time for Menjou to establish his slick prototype as the urbane ladies' man and wealthy roué. Paramount, noticing how Menjou stole scenes from Charles Chaplin favorite Edna Purviance in Chaplin's A Woman of Paris: A Drama of Fate (1923), started capitalizing on Menjou's playboy image by casting him as various callous and creaseless matinée leads in such films as Broadway After Dark (1924), Sinners in Silk (1924), The Ace of Cads (1926), A Social Celebrity (1926) and A Gentleman of Paris (1927). His younger brother Henri Menjou, a minor actor, had a part in Adolphe's picture Blonde or Brunette (1927).
The stock market crash led to the termination of Adolphe's Paramount contract, and his status as leading man ended with it. MGM took him on at half his Paramount salary and his fluency in such languages as French and Spanish kept him employed at the beginning. Rivaling Gary Cooper for the attentions of Marlene Dietrich in Morocco (1930) started the ball rolling for Menjou as a dressy second lead. Rarely placed in leads following this period, he managed his one and only Oscar nomination for "Best Actor" with his performance as editor Walter Burns in The Front Page (1931). Not initially cast in the role, he replaced Louis Wolheim, who died ten days into rehearsal. Quality parts in quality pictures became the norm for Adolphe during the 1930s, with outstanding roles given him in The Great Lover (1931), A Farewell to Arms (1932), Forbidden (1932), Little Miss Marker (1934), Morning Glory (1933), A Star Is Born (1937), Stage Door (1937) and Golden Boy (1939).
The 1940s were not as golden, however. In addition to entertaining the troops overseas and making assorted broadcasts in a host of different languages, he did manage to get the slick and slimy Billy Flynn lawyer role opposite Ginger Rogers' felon in the "Chicago" adaptation Roxie Hart (1942), and continued to earn occasional distinction in such post-WWII pictures as The Hucksters (1947) and State of the Union (1948). His last lead was in the crackerjack thriller The Sniper (1952), in which he played an (urbane) San Francisco homicide detective tracking down a killer who preys on women in San Francisco, and he appeared without his mustache for the first time in nearly two decades. Also active on radio and TV, his last notable film was the classic anti-war picture Paths of Glory (1957) playing the villainous Gen. Broulard.
Adolphe's extreme hardcore right-wing Republican politics hurt his later reputation, as he was made a scapegoat for his cooperation as a "friendly witness" at the House Un-American Activities Commission hearing during the Joseph McCarthy Red Scare era. Following his last picture, Disney's Pollyanna (1960), in which he played an uncharacteristically rumpled curmudgeon who is charmed by Hayley Mills, he retired from acting. He died after a nine-month battle with hepatitis on October 29, 1963, inside his Beverly Hills home. Three times proved the charm for Adolphe with his 1934 marriage to actress Verree Teasdale, who survived him. The couple had an adopted son named Peter. His autobiography, "It Took Nine Tailors" (1947), pretty much says it all for this polished, preening professional.1890-1963 (73 years old)
Nominations:
Actor in a leading role (1931, The Front Page)- Actress
- Writer
- Director
Once you saw her, you would not forget her. Despite her age and weight, she became one of the top box office draws of the sound era. She was 14 when she joined a theater group and she went on to work on stage and in light opera. By 1892, she was on Broadway and she later became a star comedienne on the vaudeville circuit. In 1910, she had a hit with 'Tillie's Nightmare' which Mack Sennett adapted to film as Tillie's Punctured Romance (1914) with Charles Chaplin. Marie took top billing over a young Chaplin, but her film career never took off and by 1918, she was out of films and out of work. Her role in the chorus girls' strike of 1917 had her blacklisted from the theaters. In 1927, MGM screenwriter Frances Marion got her a small part in The Joy Girl (1927) and then a co-starring lead with Polly Moran in The Callahans and the Murphys (1927) (which was abruptly withdrawn from circulation thanks to objections of Irish-American groups over its depiction of gin-guzzling Irish). Her career stalled and the 59-year old actress found herself no longer in demand. In the late 1920s she had been largely forgotten and reduced to near-poverty. Despite her last film being a financial disaster, Irving Thalberg, somewhat incredibly, sensed her potential was determined to re-build her into a star. It was a slow return in films but her popularity continued to grow. But it was sound that made her a star again. Anna Christie (1930) was the movie where Garbo talks, but everyone noticed Marie as Marthy. In an era of Harlow, Garbo and Crawford, it was homely old Marie Dressler that won the coveted exhibitor's poll as the most popular actress for three consecutive years. In another film from the same year, Min and Bill (1930) she received a best actress Oscar for her dramatic performance. She received another Academy Award nomination for Emma (1932). She had more success with Dinner at Eight (1933) and Tugboat Annie (1933). In 1934, cancer claimed her life.1868-1934 (65 years old)
Wins:
Actress in a leading role (1931, Min and Bill)
Nominations:
Actress in a leading role (1932, Emma)- Actress
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
Her father was a police lieutenant and imbued in her a military attitude to life. Marlene was known in school for her "bedroom eyes" and her first affairs were at this stage in her life - a professor at the school was terminated. She entered the cabaret scene in 1920s Germany, first as a spectator then as a cabaret singer. In 1923, she married and, although she and Rudolf Sieber lived together only 5 years, they remained married until his death. She was in over a dozen silent films in increasingly important roles. In 1929, she was seen in a Berlin cabaret by Josef von Sternberg and, after a screen test, captured the role of the cabaret singer in The Blue Angel (1930) (and became von Sternberg's lover). With the success of this film, von Sternberg immediately took her to Hollywood, introducing her to the world in Morocco (1930), and signing an agreement to produce all her films. A series of successes followed, and Marlene became the highest paid actress of her time, but her later films in the mid-part of the decade were critical and popular failures. She returned to Europe at the end of the decade, with a series of affairs with former leading men (she had a reputation of romancing her co-stars), as well as other prominent artistic figures. In 1939, an offer came to star with James Stewart in a western and, after initial hesitation, she accepted. The film was Destry Rides Again (1939) - the siren of film could also be a comedienne and a remarkable comeback was reality. She toured extensively for the allied effort in WW II (she had become a United States citizen) and, after the war, limited her cinematic life. But a new career as a singer and performer appeared, with reviews and shows in Las Vegas, touring theatricals, and even Broadway. New success was accompanied by a too close acquaintance with alcohol, until falls in her performance eventually resulted in a compound fracture of the leg. Although the last 13 years of her life were spent in seclusion in her apartment in Paris, with the last 12 years in bed, she had withdrawn only from public life and maintained active telephone and correspondence contact with friends and associates.1901-1992 (90 years old)
Nominations:
Actress in a leading role (1931, Morocco)- Actress
- Soundtrack
Irene Marie Dunne was born on December 20, 1898, in Louisville, Kentucky. She was the daughter of Joseph Dunne, who inspected steamships, and Adelaide Henry, a musician who prompted Irene in the arts. Her first production was in Louisville when she appeared in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" at the age of five. Her "debut" set the tone for a fabulous career. Following the tragic death of her father when she was 12, she moved with her remaining family to the picturesque and historic town of Madison, Indiana, to live with her maternal grandparents at 916 W. Second St. During the next few years Irene studied voice and took piano lessons in town. She was able to earn money singing in the Christ Episcopal Church choir on Sundays. After graduating from Madison High School in 1916, she studied until 1917 in a music conservatory in Indianapolis. After that she accepted a teaching post as a music and art instructor in East Chicago, Indiana, just a stone's throw from Chicago. She never made it to the school. While on her way to East Chicago, she saw a newspaper ad in the Indianapolis Star and News for an annual scholarship contest run by the Chicago Music College. Irene won the contest, which enabled her to study there for a year. After that she headed for New York City because it was still the entertainment capital of the world. Her first goal in New York was to add her name to the list of luminaries of the Metropolitan Opera Company. Her audition did her little good, as she was rejected for being too young and inexperienced. She did win the leading role in a road theater company, which was, in turn, followed by numerous plays. During this time she studied at the Chicago Music College, from which she graduated with high honors in 1926. In 1928, Irene met and married a promising young dentist from New York named Francis Dennis Griffin. She remained with Dr. Griffin until his death in 1965.
Irene came to the attention of Hollywood when she performed in "Show Boat" on the East Coast. By 1930 she was under contract to RKO Pictures. Her first film was Leathernecking (1930), which went almost unnoticed. In 1931 she appeared in Cimarron (1931), for which she received the first of five Academy Award nominations. No Other Woman (1933) and Ann Vickers (1933) the same year followed.
In 1936 (due to her comic skits in Show Boat (1936)), she was "persuaded" to star in a comedy, up to that time a medium for which she had small affection. However, Theodora Goes Wild (1936) was an instant hit, almost as popular as the more famous It Happened One Night (1934) from two years before. From this she earned her second Academy Award nomination. Later, in 1937, she was teamed with Cary Grant in The Awful Truth (1937). This helped her garner a third Academy Award nomination. She starred with Grant later in My Favorite Wife (1940) and Penny Serenade (1941).
Her favorite film was Love Affair (1939) with Charles Boyer, a huge hit in a year with so many great films, and a role for which she was again nominated for an Academy Award. Howevever, it was the tear-jerker I Remember Mama (1948) for which she will be best remembered in the role of the loving, self-sacrificing Norwegian mother. She got another nomination for that but again lost. This was the picture in which she should have won the Oscar.
She began to wean herself away from films toward the many charities and public works she championed. Her last major movie was as Polly Baxter in 1952's It Grows on Trees (1952). After that she only appeared as a guest on television. Irene knew enough to quit while she was ahead of the game and this helped keep her legacy intact.
In 1957 she was appointed as a special US delegate to the United Nations during the 12th General Assembly by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, such was her widespread appeal. The remainder of her life was spent on civic causes. She even donated $10,000 to the restoration of the town fountain in her girlhood home of Madison, Indiana, in 1976, even though she had not been there since 1938 when she came home for a visit. She died of heart failure on September 4, 1990, in Los Angeles, California.1898-1990 (91 years old)
Nominations:
Actress in a leading role (1931, Cimarron)
Actress in a leading role (1937, Theodora Goes Wild)
Actress in a leading role (1938, The Awful Truth)
Actress in a leading role (1940, Love Affair)
Actress in a leading role (1949, I Remember Mama)- Actress
- Soundtrack
Ann, born Dorothy Gatley, spent most of her childhood as an "army brat" constantly moving around before the family finally settled in New York. Ann first appeared on the stage while she spent a year attending Bryn Mawr College. She became a clerk and freelance script reader with a film company before she made her stage debut in Greenwich Village. From there she went to Broadway, and when pictures needed actors who could walk and talk, she went to Hollywood. She was signed by Pathe and made her debut, with Fredric March in Paris Bound (1929). She became a leading lady, and the roles that she played were always the same, but her co-stars changed. She was the gentle, refined heroine as in The Animal Kingdom (1932), wherein she played Daisy, the rejected fiancée of Leslie Howard. By 1933, her popularity started to decline as she appeared in a parade of tearjerkers as someone always ready to sacrifice herself for the good of others. She quit films in 1937 when she married conductor Warner Janssen, but she could not stay away. She came back five years later in Eyes in the Night (1942). Her roles after that were mature character roles for the next five years. Another break, another three films, and then in 1956 she appeared once again with Fredric March, the man with whom she started her career in The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit (1956). She continued to appear sporadically on TV in the 1960s and died at age 79 in 1981.1901-1981 (80 years old)
Nominations:
Actress in a leading role (1931, Holiday)- Director
- Writer
- Additional Crew
A successful child actor (on stage from 1907) and rather less successful romantic lead, baby-faced Norman Taurog found being behind the camera a more rewarding experience. Before becoming a director, he paid his dues as a prop man and editor. By 1919, he was put in charge of two-reel comedies, starring the comic Larry Semon. These films were made on the East Coast and it was not until 1926, that Taurog moved to Hollywood. His directing career really took off with the coming of sound, and he soon acquired a reputation as a specialist in light comedy. He also developed a singular penchant for working with children, often giving them chocolate rewards for good acting. They, in turn, called him 'Uncle Norman'. Taurog became the youngest-ever director to win an Oscar. This was for the film Skippy (1931), which featured child actor Jackie Cooper, his real-life nephew.
Taurog was under contract at Paramount from 1930 to 1936. The pick-of-the-bunch among his films - and a solid box office hit - was Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch (1934), starring the noted stage actress Pauline Lord, comedienne Zasu Pitts and the irrepressible, idiosyncratic W.C. Fields. On loan to David O. Selznick, he also did justice to Mark Twain by creating just the right atmosphere for The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1938), eliciting a strong performance from Jackie Moran in the role of Huck Finn. Initial footage had been in black & white, but Taurog discarded this and re-shot the film in Technicolor, which worked particularly well with art director Lyle R. Wheeler.
After a stint with Fox (1936-37), Taurog then had his best (and longest) spell with MGM (1938-51). His A-grade assignments for the studio included the iconic Boys Town (1938), the exuberant Broadway Melody of 1940 (1940) and the thoroughly entertaining Judy Garland musical Presenting Lily Mars (1943), based on a best-selling novel by Booth Tarkington. In 1952, he returned to Paramount, where he was utilised on the strength of his proven ability to make films economically and on time. Taurog made the most out of the feather-light scripts he was handed for a string of comedies with Dean Martin and/or Jerry Lewis. He was also a favorite of Elvis Presley, directing in total nine of his films.
As the law of diminishing returns applied, Taurog retired in 1968. He later taught at the University of California School of Cinema and remained a board member of the Director's Guild. He became blind towards the end of his life, but for his last years served as director of the Braille Institute in Los Angeles.1899-1981 (82 years old)
Wins:
Director (1931, Skippy)
Nominations:
Director (1939, Boys Town)- Director
- Actor
- Producer
The younger brother of Hollywood character player Charles Ruggles, Wesley Ruggles spent most of his early years in San Francisco. He attended university there, began a lengthy apprenticeship in stock and musical comedy and then joined Keystone in Hollywood as an actor in 1914 working alongside Syd Chaplin. Moving on to Essanay a year later, he worked briefly alongside Charles Chaplin. In 1917, he graduated to directing after being signed by Vitagraph. During the closing stages of the First World War, he served as a camera operator with the Army Signal Corps. After that it was back to the studios. Unfortunately, he found himself encumbered by routine scripts and such inane assignments as The Leopard Woman (1920). For the next few years his workload included several forgettable Ethel Clayton melodramas and a series of short comedies made at FBO, starring Alberta Vaughn. Following a spell at Universal (1927-29), Wesley had his most productive period at RKO (1931-32) and Paramount (1932-39). At RKO he directed the western blockbuster Cimarron (1931), the most expensive picture made by this studio to date, at $1.4 million. While the costs were not recouped at the box office (its loss of $565,000 was attributed to the effects of the Great Depression), it won the Best Picture Oscar at the Academy Awards. Wesley narrowly lost out to Norman Taurog (for Skippy (1931)) in the directing stakes.
At Paramount, Wesley showed his flair for comedy with Mae West's best-loved film, I'm No Angel (1933), and with three excellent vehicles for Carole Lombard: the romantic drama No Man of Her Own (1932) (co-starring Clark Gable), the entertaining, elegantly-mounted Bolero (1934) (featuring Sally Rand's famous fan dance) and the delightful comedy True Confession (1937). Moreover, he also handled the quintessential '30s tearjerker Valiant Is the Word for Carrie (1936).
By the early 1940s his career was on the decline, however. After short-term tenures at Columbia and MGM, he was signed by J. Arthur Rank as producer/director for the lavish British Technicolor musical London Town (1946). This picture turned out to be a fiasco of major proportions and brought about his premature retirement.1889-1972 (82 years old)
Nominations:
Director (1931, Cimarron)- Director
- Writer
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Josef von Sternberg split his childhood between Vienna and New York City. His father, a former soldier in the Austro-Hungarian army, could not support his family in either city; Sternberg remembered him only as "an enormously strong man who often used his strength on me." Forced by poverty to drop out of high school, von Sternberg worked for a time in a Manhattan store that sold ribbons and lace to hat makers. A chance meeting in Prospect Park, Brooklyn, led to a new career in the cleaning and repair of movie prints. This job provided an entrée to the film production industry, then flourishing in Fort Lee, New Jersey. As an apprentice film-maker, from around 1916 to the early 1920s, von Sternberg developed a lasting contempt for most of the directors and producers he worked for (an exception was Emile Chautard, who acted in some of Sternberg's films of the 1930s), and was sure that he could improve on their products. Staked to a few thousand dollars -- even then an absurdly small budget -- von Sternberg proved himself right with The Salvation Hunters (1925), which became a critical and financial hit. For the next couple of years he seesawed between acclaim and oblivion, sometimes on the same project (for instance, he received the rare honor of directing a film for Charles Chaplin, but it was shelved after only one showing and later disappeared forever). His commercial breakthrough was Underworld (1927), a prototypical Hollywood gangster film; behind the scenes, von Sternberg successfully battled Ben Hecht, the writer, for creative control. With The Last Command (1928), starring the equally strong-willed Emil Jannings, von Sternberg began a period of almost a decade as one of the most celebrated artists of world cinema. Both his film career and his personal life were transformed in the making of The Blue Angel (1930). Chosen by Jannings and producer Erich Pommer to make Germany's first major sound picture, von Sternberg gambled by casting Marlene Dietrich, then obscure, as Lola Lola, the night-club dancer who leads Jannings' character into depravity. The von Sternberg-Dietrich story, both on-screen (he directed her in six more movies) and off (he became one of her legions of lovers, more in love with her than most) is a staple of film histories. His films of the mid-'30s are among the most visionary ever made in Hollywood, but in spite of their visual sumptuousness, contemporary audiences found them dramatically inert. The films' mediocre box office and a falling-out with Ernst Lubitsch, then head of production at Paramount Pictures (Sternberg's employer), meant that after The Devil Is a Woman (1935) he would never again have the control he needed to express himself fully. In his sardonic autobiography, he more or less completely disowned all of his subsequent films. In spite (or perhaps because) of his truncated career and bitter personality, von Sternberg remains a hero to many critics and filmmakers. His best films exemplify the proposition, as he put it, that in any worthwhile film the director is "the determining influence, and the only influence, despotically exercised or not, which accounts for the worth of what is seen on the screen."1894-1969 (75 years old)
Nominations:
Director (1931, Morocco)
Director (1932, Shanghai Express)- Writer
- Director
- Actor
John Monk Saunders was born on 22 November 1895 in Hinckley, Minnesota, USA. He was a writer and director, known for The Dawn Patrol (1930), Wings (1927) and Devil Dogs of the Air (1935). He was married to Fay Wray and Avis Bissell (Hughes). He died on 11 March 1940 in Ft. Myers, Florida, USA.1895-1940 (44 years old)
Wins:
Writing, original story (1931, The Dawn Patrol)- Writer
- Director
- Additional Crew
Rowland Brown was born on 6 November 1897 in Akron, Ohio, USA. He was a writer and director, known for Angels with Dirty Faces (1938), Blood Money (1933) and Hell's Highway (1932). He was married to Karen van Ryan and Marie Helis. He died on 6 May 1963 in Costa Mesa, California, USA.1897-1963 (65 years old)
Nominations:
Writing, original story (1931, The Doorway to Hell)
Writing, original story (1939, Angels with Dirty Faces)- Director
- Writer
- Actor
Harry d'Arrast's entry into the movie industry was somewhat unusual--he was wounded while serving in the French army during WW I, and while recuperating in a military hospital met French-born American film director George Fitzmaurice, who invited him to come to Hollywood after he had recovered. He did so, and got work as a researcher and technical adviser on several films, including Charles Chaplin's A Woman of Paris: A Drama of Fate (1923), then became Chaplin's assistant on The Gold Rush (1925). He made his directorial debut in 1927 and directed seven films until he left Hollywood in 1933. Although his output was sparse, his films were universally acclaimed for their wit, sophistication, beautiful photography and smooth pacing. D'Arrast often found himself in conflict with his producers, however, for his refusal to cut corners and speed up production, and in 1933 departed Hollywood for Europe. He made one film in Spain, then returned to his home in France. He spent the rest of his life at his family estate outside of Monte Carlo, and made his living at the roulette tables in the Monte Carlo casino.1897-1968 (70 years old)
Nominations:
Writing, original story (1931, Laughter)- Douglas Z. Doty was born on 15 October 1874 in New York City, New York, USA. He was a writer, known for Laughter (1930), Fighting the Flames (1925) and The Great Sensation (1925). He was married to Josephine Whiting, Gladys Maclaghlan and Kathryn C.. He died on 20 February 1935 in Los Angeles, California, USA.1874-1935 (60 years old)
Nominations:
Writing, original story (1931, Laughter)