Gone with the Wind 1939 (LA) premiere
Thursday December 28th, Carthay Circle Theatre 6316 San Vicente Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90048
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William Clark Gable was born on February 1, 1901 in Cadiz, Ohio, to Adeline (Hershelman) and William Henry Gable, an oil-well driller. He was of German, Irish, and Swiss-German descent. When he was seven months old, his mother died, and his father sent him to live with his maternal aunt and uncle in Pennsylvania, where he stayed until he was two. His father then returned to take him back to Cadiz. At 16, he quit high school, went to work in an Akron, Ohio, tire factory, and decided to become an actor after seeing the play "The Bird of Paradise". He toured in stock companies, worked oil fields and sold ties. On December 13, 1924, he married Josephine Dillon, his acting coach and 15 years his senior. Around that time, they moved to Hollywood, so that Clark could concentrate on his acting career. In April 1930, they divorced and a year later, he married Maria Langham (a.k.a. Maria Franklin Gable), also about 17 years older than him.
While Gable acted on stage, he became a lifelong friend of Lionel Barrymore. After several failed screen tests (for Barrymore and Darryl F. Zanuck), Gable was signed in 1930 by MGM's Irving Thalberg. He had a small part in The Painted Desert (1931) which starred William Boyd. Joan Crawford asked for him as co-star in Dance, Fools, Dance (1931) and the public loved him manhandling Norma Shearer in A Free Soul (1931) the same year. His unshaven lovemaking with bra-less Jean Harlow in Red Dust (1932) made him MGM's most important star.
His acting career then flourished. At one point, he refused an assignment, and the studio punished him by loaning him out to (at the time) low-rent Columbia Pictures, which put him in Frank Capra's It Happened One Night (1934), which won him an Academy Award for his performance. The next year saw a starring role in Call of the Wild (1935) with Loretta Young, with whom he had an affair (resulting in the birth of a daughter, Judy Lewis). He returned to far more substantial roles at MGM, such as Fletcher Christian in Mutiny on the Bounty (1935) and Rhett Butler in Gone with the Wind (1939).
After divorcing Maria Langham, in March 1939 Clark married Carole Lombard, but tragedy struck in January 1942 when the plane in which Carole and her mother were flying crashed into Table Rock Mountain, Nevada, killing them both. A grief-stricken Gable joined the US Army Air Force and was off the screen for three years, flying combat missions in Europe. When he returned the studio regarded his salary as excessive and did not renew his contract. He freelanced, but his films didn't do well at the box office. He married Sylvia Ashley, the widow of Douglas Fairbanks, in 1949. Unfortunately this marriage was short-lived and they divorced in 1952. In July 1955 he married a former sweetheart, Kathleen Williams Spreckles (a.k.a. Kay Williams) and became stepfather to her two children, Joan and Adolph ("Bunker") Spreckels III.
On November 16, 1959, Gable became a grandfather when Judy Lewis, his daughter with Loretta Young, gave birth to a daughter, Maria. In 1960, Gable's wife Kay discovered that she was expecting their first child. In early November 1960, he had just completed filming The Misfits (1961), when he suffered a heart attack, and died later that month, on November 16, 1960. Gable was buried shortly afterwards in the shrine that he had built for Carole Lombard and her mother when they died, at Forest Lawn Cemetery.
In March 1961, Kay Gable gave birth to a boy, whom she named John Clark Gable after his father.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Carole Lombard was born Jane Alice Peters in Fort Wayne, Indiana, on October 6, 1908. Her parents divorced in 1916 and her mother took the family on a trip out West. While there they decided to settle down in the Los Angeles area. After being spotted playing baseball in the street with the neighborhood boys by a film director, Carole was signed to a one-picture contract in 1921 when she was 12. The film in question was A Perfect Crime (1921). Although she tried for other acting jobs, she would not be seen onscreen again for four years. She returned to a normal life, going to school and participating in athletics, excelling in track and field. By age 15 she had had enough of school, though, and quit. She joined a theater troupe and played in several stage shows, which were for the most part nothing to write home about. In 1925 she passed a screen test and was signed to a contract with Fox Films. Her first role as a Fox player was Hearts and Spurs (1925), in which she had the lead. Right after that film she appeared in a western called Durand of the Bad Lands (1925). She rounded out 1925 in the comedy Marriage in Transit (1925) (she also appeared in a number of two-reel shorts). In 1926 Carole was seriously injured in an automobile accident that resulted in the left side of her face being scarred. Once she had recovered, Fox canceled her contract. She did find work in a number of shorts during 1928 (13 of them, many for slapstick comedy director Mack Sennett), but did go back for a one-time shot with Fox called Me, Gangster (1928). By now the film industry was moving from the silent era to "talkies". While some stars' careers ended because of heavy accents, poor diction or a voice unsuitable to sound, Carole's light, breezy, sexy voice enabled her to transition smoothly during this period. Her first sound film was High Voltage (1929) at Pathe (her new studio) in 1929. In 1931 she was teamed with William Powell in Man of the World (1931). She and Powell hit it off and soon married, but the marriage didn't work out and they divorced in 1933. No Man of Her Own (1932) put Carole opposite Clark Gable for the first and only time (they married seven years later in 1939). By now she was with Paramount Pictures and was one of its top stars. However, it was Twentieth Century (1934) that showed her true comedic talents and proved to the world what a fine actress she really was. In 1936 Carole received her only Oscar nomination for Best Actress for My Man Godfrey (1936). She was superb as ditzy heiress Irene Bullock. Unfortunately, the coveted award went to Luise Rainer in The Great Ziegfeld (1936), which also won for Best Picture. Carole was now putting out about one film a year of her own choosing, because she wanted whatever role she picked to be a good one. She was adept at picking just the right part, which wasn't surprising as she was smart enough to see through the good-ol'-boy syndrome of the studio moguls. She commanded and received what was one of the top salaries in the business - at one time it was reported she was making $35,000 a week. She made but one film in 1941, Mr. & Mrs. Smith (1941). Her last film was in 1942, when she played Maria Tura opposite Jack Benny in To Be or Not to Be (1942). Tragically, she didn't live to see its release. The film was completed in 1941 just at the time the US entered World War II, and was subsequently held back for release until 1942. Meanwhile, Carole went home to Indiana for a war bond rally. On January 16, 1942, Carole, her mother, and 20 other people were flying back to California when the plane went down outside of Las Vegas, Nevada. All aboard perished. The highly acclaimed actress was dead at the age of 33 and few have been able to match her talents since.- Actress
- Writer
- Soundtrack
If a film were made of the life of Vivien Leigh, it would open in India just before World War I, where a successful British businessman could live like a prince. In the mountains above Calcutta, a little princess is born. Because of the outbreak of World War I, she is six years old the first time her parents take her to England. Her mother thinks she should have a proper English upbringing and insists on leaving her in a convent school - even though Vivien is two years younger than any of the other girls at the school. The only comfort for the lonely child is a cat that was in the courtyard of the school that the nuns let her take up to her dormitory. Her first and best friend at the school is an eight-year-old girl, Maureen O'Sullivan who has been transplanted from Ireland. In the bleakness of a convent school, the two girls can recreate in their imaginations the places they have left and places where they would some day like to travel. After Vivien has been at the school for 18 months, her mother comes again from India and takes her to a play in London. In the next six months Vivien will insist on seeing the same play 16 times. In India the British community entertained themselves at amateur theatricals and Vivien's father was a leading man. Pupils at the English convent school are eager to perform in school plays. It's an all-girls school, so some of the girls have to play the male roles. The male roles are so much more adventurous. Vivien's favorite actor is Leslie Howard, and at 19 she marries an English barrister who looks very much like him. The year is 1932. Vivien's best friend from that convent school has gone to California, where she's making movies. Vivien has an opportunity to play a small role in an English film, Things Are Looking Up (1935). She has only one line but the camera keeps returning to her face. The London stage is more exciting than the movies being filmed in England, and the most thrilling actor on that stage is Laurence Olivier. At a party Vivien finds out about a stage role, "The Green Sash", where the only requirement is that the leading lady be beautiful. The play has a very brief run, but now she is a real actress. An English film is going to be made about Elizabeth I. Laurence gets the role of a young favorite of the queen who is sent to Spain. Vivien gets a much smaller role as a lady-in-waiting of the queen who is in love with Laurence's character. In real life, both fall in love while making this film, Fire Over England (1937). In 1938, Hollywood wants Laurence to play Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights (1939). Vivien, who has just recently read Gone with the Wind (1939), thinks that the role of Scarlett O'Hara is the first role for an actress that would be really exciting to bring to the screen. She sails to America for a brief vacation. In New York she gets on a plane for the first time to rush to California to see Laurence. They have dinner with Myron Selznick the night that his brother, David O. Selznick, is burning Atlanta on a backlot of MGM (actually they are burning old sets that go back to the early days of silent films to make room to recreate an Atlanta of the 1860s). Vivien is 26 when Gone with the Wind (1939) makes a sweep of the Oscars in 1939. So let's show 26-year-old Vivien walking up to the stage to accept her Oscar and then as the Oscar is presented the camera focuses on Vivien's face and through the magic of digitally altering images, the 26-year-old face merges into the face of Vivien at age 38 getting her second Best Actress Oscar for portraying Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951). She wouldn't have returned to America to make that film had not Laurence been going over there to do a film, Carrie (1952) based on Theodore Dreiser's novel "Sister Carrie". Laurence tells their friends that his motive for going to Hollywood to make films is to get enough money to produce his own plays for the London stage. He even has his own theater there, the St. James. Now Sir Laurence, with a seat in the British House of Lords, is accompanied by Vivien the day the Lords are debating about whether the St James should be torn down. Breaking protocol, Vivien speaks up and is escorted from the House of Lords. The publicity helps raise the funds to save the St. James. Throughout their two-decade marriage Laurence and Vivien were acting together on the stage in London and New York. Vivien was no longer Lady Olivier when she performed her last major film role, The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone (1961).- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Laurence Olivier could speak William Shakespeare's lines as naturally as if he were "actually thinking them", said English playwright Charles Bennett, who met Olivier in 1927. Laurence Kerr Olivier was born in Dorking, Surrey, England, to Agnes Louise (Crookenden) and Gerard Kerr Olivier, a High Anglican priest. His surname came from a great-great-grandfather who was of French Huguenot origin.
One of Olivier's earliest successes as a Shakespearean actor on the London stage came in 1935 when he played "Romeo" and "Mercutio" in alternate performances of "Romeo and Juliet" with John Gielgud. A young Englishwoman just beginning her career on the stage fell in love with Olivier's Romeo. In 1937, she was "Ophelia" to his "Hamlet" in a special performance at Kronborg Castle, Elsinore (Helsingør), Denmark. In 1940, she became his second wife after both returned from making films in America that were major box office hits of 1939. His film was Wuthering Heights (1939), her film was Gone with the Wind (1939). Vivien Leigh and Olivier were screen lovers in Fire Over England (1937), 21 Days Together (1940) and That Hamilton Woman (1941).
There was almost a fourth film together in 1944 when Olivier and Leigh traveled to Scotland with Charles C. Bennett to research the real-life story of a Scottish girl accused of murdering her French lover. Bennett recalled that Olivier researched the story "with all the thoroughness of Sherlock Holmes" and "we unearthed evidence, never known or produced at the trial, that would most certainly have sent the young lady to the gallows". The film project was then abandoned. During their two-decade marriage, Olivier and Leigh appeared on the stage in England and America and made films whenever they really needed to make some money.
In 1951, Olivier was working on a screen adaptation of Theodore Dreiser's novel "Sister Carrie" (Carrie (1952)) while Leigh was completing work on the film version of the Tennessee Williams' play, A Streetcar Named Desire (1951). She won her second Oscar for bringing "Blanche DuBois" to the screen. Carrie (1952) was a film that Olivier never talked about. George Hurstwood, a middle-aged married man from Chicago who tricked a young woman into leaving a younger man about to marry her, became a New York street person in the novel. Olivier played him as a somewhat nicer person who didn't fall quite as low. A PBS documentary on Olivier's career broadcast in 1987 covered his first sojourn in Hollywood in the early 1930s with his first wife, Jill Esmond, and noted that her star was higher than his at that time. On film, he was upstaged by his second wife, too, even though the list of films he made is four times as long as hers.
More than half of his film credits come after The Entertainer (1960), which started out as a play in London in 1957. When the play moved across the Atlantic to Broadway in 1958, the role of "Archie Rice"'s daughter was taken over by Joan Plowright, who was also in the film. They married soon after the release of The Entertainer (1960).- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Leslie Howard Steiner was born in London to Lilian (Blumberg) and Ferdinand "Frank" Steiner. His father was a Hungarian Jewish immigrant, and his English mother was of German Jewish and mostly English descent. Leslie went to Dulwich College, then worked as a bank clerk until the outbreak of World War I, when he went into the army. In 1917, diagnosed as shell-shocked, he was invalided out and advised to take up acting as therapy. In a few years, his name was famous on the stages of London and New York. He made his first movie in 1914: (The Heroine of Mons (1914)). He became known as the perfect Englishman (slim, tall, intellectual, and sensitive), a part that he played in many movies which set women to dreaming about him. His first sound movie came out in 1930: Outward Bound (1930), an adaptation of the stage play in which he starred. In Never the Twain Shall Meet (1931) and Smilin' Through (1932), he played the Englishman role to the hilt. His screen persona could perhaps best be summed up by his role as Sir Percy Blakeney in The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934), a foppish society gentleman.
It was Howard who insisted that Humphrey Bogart get the role of Duke Mantee in The Petrified Forest (1936), a role that Bogart had played in the stage production. As he became more successful, he also became quite picky about which roles he would do, and usually performed in only two films a year. In 1939, he played the character that will always be associated with him, that of Ashley Wilkes, the honor-bound, disillusioned intellectual Southern gentleman, in Gone with the Wind (1939).
However, war clouds were gathering over England, and he devoted all his energy on behalf of the war effort. He directed films, wrote articles and made radio broadcasts. He died in 1943, when the KLM plane he was in was shot down by German fighters over the Bay of Biscay.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Olivia Mary de Havilland was born on July 1, 1916 in Tokyo, Japan to British parents, Lilian Augusta (Ruse), a former actress, and Walter Augustus de Havilland, an English professor and patent attorney. Her sister Joan, later to become famous as Joan Fontaine, was born the following year. Her surname comes from her paternal grandfather, whose family was from Guernsey in the Channel Islands. Her parents divorced when Olivia was just three years old, and she moved with her mother and sister to Saratoga, California.
After graduating from high school, where she fell prey to the acting bug, Olivia enrolled in Mills College in Oakland, where she participated in the school play "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and was spotted by Max Reinhardt. She so impressed Reinhardt that he picked her up for both his stage version and, later, the Warner Bros. film version in 1935. She again was so impressive that Warner executives signed her to a seven-year contract. No sooner had the ink dried on the contract than Olivia appeared in three more films: The Irish in Us (1935), Alibi Ike (1935), and Captain Blood (1935), this last with the man with whom her career would be most closely identified: heartthrob Errol Flynn. He and Olivia starred together in eight films during their careers. In 1939 Warner Bros. loaned her to David O. Selznick for the classic Gone with the Wind (1939). Playing sweet Melanie Hamilton, Olivia received her first nomination for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, only to lose out to one of her co-stars in the film, Hattie McDaniel.
After GWTW, Olivia returned to Warner Bros. and continued to churn out films. In 1941 she played Emmy Brown in Hold Back the Dawn (1941), which resulted in her second Oscar nomination, this time for Best Actress. Again she lost, this time to her sister Joan for her role in Suspicion (1941). After that strong showing, Olivia now demanded better, more substantial roles than the "sweet young thing" slot into which Warners had been fitting her. The studio responded by placing her on a six-month suspension, all of the studios at the time operating under the policy that players were nothing more than property to do with as they saw fit. As if that weren't bad enough, when her contract with Warners was up, she was told that she needed to make up the time lost because of the suspension. Irate, she sued the studio, and for the length of the court battle she didn't appear in a single film. The result, however, was worth it. In a landmark decision, the court said that not only would Olivia not need to make up the time, but also that all performers would be limited to a seven-year contract that would include any suspensions handed down. This became known as the "de Havilland decision": no longer could studios treat their performers as chattel. Olivia returned to the screen in 1946 and made up for lost time by appearing in four films, one of which finally won her the Oscar that had so long eluded her: To Each His Own (1946), in which she played Josephine Norris to the delight of critics and audiences alike. Olivia was the strongest performer in Hollywood for the balance of the 1940s.
In 1948 she turned in another strong showing in The Snake Pit (1948) as Virginia Cunningham, a woman suffering a mental breakdown. The end result was another Oscar nomination for Best Actress, but she lost to Jane Wyman in Johnny Belinda (1948). As in the two previous years, she made only one film in 1949, but she again won a nomination and the Academy Award for Best Actress for The Heiress (1949). After a three-year hiatus, Olivia returned to star in My Cousin Rachel (1952). From that point on, she made few appearances on the screen but was seen on Broadway and in some television shows. Her last screen appearance was in The Fifth Musketeer (1979), and her last career appearance was in the TV movie The Woman He Loved (1988).
Her turbulent relationship with her only sibling, Joan Fontaine, was press fodder for many decades; the two were reported as having been permanently estranged since their mother's death in 1975, when Joan claimed that she had not been invited to the memorial service, which she only managed to hold off until she could arrive by threatening to go public. Joan also wrote in her memoir that her elder sister had been physically, psychologically, and emotionally abusive when they were young. And the iconic photo of Joan with her hand outstretched to congratulate Olivia backstage after the latter's first Oscar win and Olivia ignoring it because she was peeved by a comment Joan had made about Olivia's new husband, Marcus Goodrich, remained part of Hollywood lore for many years.
Nonetheless, late in life, Fontaine gave an interview in which she serenely denied any and all claims of an estrangement from her sister. When a reporter asked Joan if she and Olivia were friends, she replied, "Of course!" The reporter responded that rumors to the contrary must have been sensationalism and she replied, "Oh, right--they have to. Two nice girls liking each other isn't copy." Asked if she and Olivia were in communication and spoke to each other, Joan replied "Absolutely." When asked if there ever had been a time when the two did not get along to the point where they wouldn't speak with one another, Joan replied, again, "Never. Never. There is not a word of truth about that." When asked why people believe it, she replied "Oh, I have no idea. It's just something to say ... Oh, it's terrible." When asked if she had seen Olivia over the years, she replied, "I've seen her in Paris. And she came to my apartment in New York often." The reporter stated that all this was a nice thing to hear. Joan then stated, "Let me just say, Olivia and I have never had a quarrel. We have never had any dissatisfaction. We have never had hard words. And all this is press." Joan died in 2013.
During the hoopla surrounding the 50th anniversary of GWTW in 1989, Olivia graciously declined requests for all interviews as the last of the four main stars. She enjoyed a quiet retirement in Paris, France, where she resided for many decades, and where she died on 26 July, 2020, at the age of 104.
As well as being the last surviving major cast member of some of cinema's most beloved pre-war and wartime film classics (including The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) and Gone with the Wind (1939)), and one of the longest-lived major stars in film history, Olivia de Havilland was unquestionably the last surviving iconic figure from the peak of Hollywood's golden era during the late 1930s, and her passing truly marked the end of an era.- Director
- Cinematographer
- Producer
Victor Fleming entered the film business as a stuntman in 1910, mainly doing stunt driving - which came easy to him, as he had been a mechanic and professional race-car driver. He became interested in working on the other side of the camera, and eventually got a job as a cameraman on many of the films of Douglas Fairbanks. He soon began directing, and his first big hit was The Virginian (1929). It was the movie that turned Gary Cooper into a star (a fact Cooper never forgot; he and Fleming remained friends for life). Fleming's star continued to rise during the '30s, and he was responsible for many of the films that would eventually be considered classics, such as Red Dust (1932), Bombshell (1933), Treasure Island (1934), and the two films that were the high marks of his career: Gone with the Wind (1939) and The Wizard of Oz (1939). Ironically Fleming was brought in on both pictures to replace other directors and smooth out the troubled productions, a feat he accomplished masterfully. His career took somewhat of a downturn in the '40s, and most of his films, with the exception of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941), weren't particularly successful. He ended his career with the troubled production Joan of Arc (1948), which turned out to be a major critical and financial failure.- Producer
- Actor
- Director
Robert Montgomery was born Henry Montgomery Jr., the elder son of New York businessman Henry Montgomery and his wife, Mary Weed (Barney), a native of Brooklyn, Kings County, New York. Montgomery had a younger brother, Donald. He was not related to Belinda Montgomery.
As a child, he enjoyed a privileged life. His father, Henry Montgomery, was the president of the New York Rubber Co. When Henry Montgomery died and owing to the Depression, the family fortune was gone. Henry Jr. and his younger brother, Donald, worked at a number of jobs. He later went to New York to be a writer, and on the advice of a friend, tried acting. He worked with George Cukor on the stage and his first film, at MGM, was So This Is College (1929), changing his forename.
When Norma Shearer picked him to be her leading man in Private Lives (1931), he was set. He ran the gamut of different characters over the years. He served as President of the Screen Actors Guild from 1935-38 and 1946-47.. His stay with MGM lasted 16 years, and was only interrupted by WWII when he joined the navy. He saw action in both Europe and the Pacific.
He returned to MGM in 1945 and co-starred with John Wayne in the John Ford-directed They Were Expendable (1945) and then made his directorial debut with Lady in the Lake (1946) (although he had directed a few scenes, uncredited, in They Were Expendable (1945) when John Ford took ill). He left MGM to become an independent director, preferring work behind the camera instead of in front.
A staunch Republican, he was a friendly witness before the House Un-American Activities in 1947 during the McCarthy era and then spent most of his time on television and stage. His popular show, Robert Montgomery Presents (1950), was where his daughter, Elizabeth Montgomery (who later gained lasting fame as beautiful witch Samantha Stevens on Bewitched (1964)), got her first acting job.
Robert Montgomery died of cancer on September 27, 1981, aged 77, at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan, New York City. His body was cremated and the ashes were given to the family.- Actress
- Writer
- Producer
Joan Crawford was born Lucille Fay LeSueur on March 23, 1906, in San Antonio, Texas, to Anna Belle (Johnson) and Thomas E. LeSueur, a laundry laborer. By the time she was born, her parents had separated, and by the time she was a teenager, she'd had three stepfathers. It wasn't an easy life; Crawford worked a variety of menial jobs. She was a good dancer, though, and -- perhaps seeing dance as her ticket to a career in show business -- she entered several contests, one of which landed her a spot in a chorus line. Before long, she was dancing in big Midwestern and East Coast cities. After almost two years, she packed her bags and moved to Hollywood. Crawford was determined to succeed, and shortly after arriving she got her first bit part, as a showgirl in Pretty Ladies (1925).
Three films quickly followed; although the roles weren't much to speak of, she continued toiling. Throughout 1927 and early 1928, she was cast in small parts, but that ended with the role of Diana Medford in Our Dancing Daughters (1928), which elevated her to star status. Crawford had cleared the first big hurdle; now came the second, in the form of talkies. Many stars of the silents saw their careers evaporate, either because their voices weren't particularly pleasant or because their voices, pleasing enough, didn't match the public's expectations (for example, some fans felt that John Gilbert's tenor didn't quite match his very masculine persona). But Crawford wasn't felled by sound. Her first talkie, Untamed (1929), was a success. As the 1930s progressed, Crawford became one of the biggest stars at MGM. She was in top form in films such as Grand Hotel (1932), Sadie McKee (1934), No More Ladies (1935), and Love on the Run (1936); movie patrons were enthralled, and studio executives were satisfied.
By the early 1940s, MGM was no longer giving her plum roles; newcomers had arrived in Hollywood, and the public wanted to see them. Crawford left MGM for rival Warner Bros., and in 1945 she landed the role of a lifetime. Mildred Pierce (1945) gave her an opportunity to show her range as an actress, and her performance as a woman driven to give her daughter everything garnered Crawford her first, and only, Oscar for Best Actress. The following year she appeared with John Garfield in the well-received Humoresque (1946). In 1947, she appeared as Louise Graham in Possessed (1947); again she was nominated for a Best Actress from the Academy, but she lost to Loretta Young in The Farmer's Daughter (1947). Crawford continued to choose her roles carefully, and in 1952 she was nominated for a third time, for her depiction of Myra Hudson in Sudden Fear (1952). This time the coveted Oscar went to Shirley Booth, for Come Back, Little Sheba (1952). Crawford's career slowed after that; she appeared in minor roles until 1962, when she and Bette Davis co-starred in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962). Their longstanding rivalry may have helped fuel their phenomenally vitriolic and well-received performances. (Earlier in their careers, Davis said of Crawford, "She's slept with every male star at MGM except Lassie", and Crawford said of Davis, "I don't hate [her] even though the press wants me to. I resent her. I don't see how she built a career out of a set of mannerisms instead of real acting ability. Take away the pop eyes, the cigarette, and those funny clipped words, and what have you got? She's phony, but I guess the public really likes that.")
Crawford's final appearance on the silver screen was in the flop Trog (1970). Turning to vodka more and more, she was hardly seen afterward. On May 10, 1977, Joan died of a heart attack in New York City. She was 71 years old. She had disinherited her adopted daughter Christina and son Christopher; the former wrote a tell-all book called "Mommie Dearest", The Sixth Sense published in 1978. The book cast Crawford in a negative light and was cause for much debate, particularly among her friends and acquaintances, including Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Crawford's first husband. (In 1981, Faye Dunaway starred in Mommie Dearest (1981) which did well at the box office.) Crawford is interred in the same mausoleum as fellow MGM star Judy Garland, in Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York.- Actress
- Writer
- Soundtrack
The middle of seven children, she was named, not for the heroine of "As You Like It" but for the S.S. Rosalind on which her parents had sailed, at the suggestion of her father, a successful lawyer.
After receiving a Catholic school education, she went to the American Academy of Dramatic Art in New York, having convinced her mother that she intended to teach acting. In 1934, with some stock company work and a little Broadway experience, she was tested and signed by Universal. Simultaneously, MGM tested her and made her a better offer. When she plead ignorance of Hollywood (while wearing her worst-fitting clothes), Universal released her and she signed with MGM for seven years.
For some time she was used in secondary roles and as a replacement threat to limit Myrna Loy's salary demands. Knowing she was right for comedy, she tested five times for the role of Sylvia Fowler in The Women (1939). George Cukor told her to "play her as a freak". She did and got the part. Her "boss lady" roles began with the part of reporter Hildy Johnson in His Girl Friday (1940), through whose male lead, Cary Grant, she met her future husband, Grant's house-guest at the time.
In her forties, she returned to the stage, touring "Bell, Book and Candle" in 1951 and winning a Tony Award for "Wonderful Town" in 1953. Columbia, worried the public would think she had the female lead in Picnic (1955), billed her "co-starring Rosalind Russell as Rosemary." She refused to be placed in the Best Supporting Actress category when Columbia Pictures wanted to promote her for an Academy Award nomination for her role in Picnic (1955). Many felt she would have won had she cooperated. "Auntie Mame" kept her on Broadway for two years followed by the movie version.
Oscar nominations: My Sister Eileen (1942), Sister Kenny (1946), Mourning Becomes Electra (1947), and Auntie Mame (1958). In 1972, she received the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award for contributions to charity.- Actress
- Music Department
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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.- Actor
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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.- Actress
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Hedy Lamarr, the woman many critics and fans alike regard as the most beautiful ever to appear in films, was born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler in Vienna, Austria. She was the daughter of Gertrud (Lichtwitz), from Budapest, and Emil Kiesler, a banker from Lemberg (now known as Lviv). Her parents were both from Jewish families. Hedwig had a calm childhood, but it was cinema that fascinated her. By the time she was a teenager, she decided to drop out of school and seek fame as an actress, and was a student of theater director Max Reinhardt in Berlin. Her first role was a bit part in the German film Geld auf der Straße (1930) (aka "Money on the Street") in 1930. She was attractive and talented enough to be in three more German productions in 1931, but it would be her fifth film that catapulted her to worldwide fame. In 1932 she appeared in a Czech film called Ekstase (US title: "Ecstasy") and had made the gutsy move to appear nude. It's the story of a young girl who is married to a gentleman much older than she, but she winds up falling in love with a young soldier. The film's nude scenes created a sensation all over the world. The scenes, very tame by today's standards, caused the film to be banned by the U.S. government at the time.
Hedy soon married Fritz Mandl, a munitions manufacturer and a prominent Austrofascist. He attempted to buy up all the prints of "Ecstasy" he could lay his hands on (Italy's dictator, Benito Mussolini, had a copy but refused to sell it to Mandl), but to no avail (there are prints floating around the world today). The notoriety of the film brought Hollywood to her door. She was brought to the attention of MGM mogul Louis B. Mayer, who signed her to a contract (a notorious prude when it came to his studio's films, Mayer signed her against his better judgment, but the money he knew her notoriety would bring in to the studio overrode any moral concerns he may have had). However, he insisted she change her name and make good, wholesome films.
Hedy starred in a series of exotic adventure epics. She made her American film debut as Gaby in Algiers (1938). This was followed a year later by Lady of the Tropics (1939). In 1942, she played the plum role of Tondelayo in the classic White Cargo (1942). After World War II, her career began to decline, and MGM decided it would be in the interest of all concerned if her contract were not renewed. Unfortunately for Hedy, she turned down the leads in both Gaslight (1940) and Casablanca (1942), both of which would have cemented her standing in the minds of the American public. In 1949, she starred as Delilah opposite Victor Mature's Samson in Cecil B. DeMille's epic Samson and Delilah (1949). This proved to be Paramount Pictures' then most profitable movie to date, bringing in $12 million in rental from theaters. The film's success led to more parts, but it was not enough to ease her financial crunch. She made only six more films between 1949 and 1957, the last being The Female Animal (1958).
Hedy retired to Florida. She died there, in the city of Casselberry, on January 19, 2000.- Actor
- Soundtrack
William Powell was on the New York stage by 1912, but it would be ten years before his film career would begin. In 1924 he went to Paramount Pictures, where he was employed for the next seven years. During that time, he played in a number of interesting films, but stardom was elusive. He did finally attract attention with The Last Command (1928) as Leo, the arrogant film director. Stardom finally came via his role as Philo Vance in The Canary Murder Case (1929), in which he investigates the death of Louise Brooks, "the Canary." Unlike many silent actors, sound boosted Powell's career. He had a fine, urbane voice and his stage training and comic timing greatly aided his introduction to sound pictures. However, he was not happy with the type of roles he was playing at Paramount, so in 1931 he switched to Warner Bros. There, he again became disappointed with his roles, and his last appearance for Warners was as Philo Vance in The Kennel Murder Case (1933). In 1934 Powell went to MGM, where he was teamed with Myrna Loy in Manhattan Melodrama (1934). While Philo made Powell a star, another detective, Nick Charles, made him famous. Powell received an Academy Award nomination for The Thin Man (1934) and later starred in the Best Picture winner for 1936, The Great Ziegfeld (1936). Powell could play any role with authority, whether in a comedy, thriller, or drama. He received his second Academy Award nomination for My Man Godfrey (1936) and was on top of the world until 1937, when he made his first picture with Jean Harlow, Reckless (1935). The two clicked, off-screen as well as on-screen, and shortly became engaged. One day, while Powell was filming Double Wedding (1937) on one MGM sound stage, Harlow became ill on another. She was finally taken to the hospital, where she died. Her death greatly upset both Powell and Myrna Loy, and he took six weeks off from making the movie to deal with his sorrow. After that he traveled, not making another MGM film for a year. He eventually did five sequels to "The Thin Man," the last one in 1947. He also received his third Academy Award nomination for his work in Life with Father (1947). His screen appearances became less frequent after that, and his last role was in 1955. He had come a long way from playing the villain in 1922.- Actress
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Ann Sheridan won the "Search for Beauty" contest which carried with it a Paramount screen test. Signed to a contract at 18, she was put into a number of small roles under her real name of Clara Lou Sheridan. As she got better, her name was changed to Ann. In 1936, after two dozen films, she went to Warner Brothers, which billed her as the "Oomph Girl," a name she despised -- although she certainly looked the part. She was allowed to mature into a leading star who could be the girl next door or the tough-as-nails dame. She was in a lot of comedies and a number of forgettable movies, but the public liked her, and her career flourished. She also gave great performances such as the singer in Torrid Zone (1940) and the waitress in They Drive by Night (1940). In 1948, she was dropped by Warner Bros., but came back in Howard Hawks' comedy I Was a Male War Bride (1949) with Cary Grant. She continued to make films into the 1950s but retired before the end of the decade. She starred in the soap opera Another World (1964) and the western series Pistols 'n' Petticoats (1966). Unfortunately, just as her career was reviving with this series, she died of cancer.- Actor
- Producer
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Born in Burchard, Nebraska, USA to Elizabeth Fraser and J. Darcie 'Foxy' Lloyd who fought constantly and soon divorced (at the time a rare event), Harold Clayton Lloyd was nominally educated in Denver and San Diego high schools and received his stage training at the School of Dramatic Art (San Diego). Lloyd grew up far more attached to his footloose, chronically unemployed father than his overbearing mother.
He made his stage debut at age 12 as "Little Abe" in "Tess of d'Ubervilles" with the Burwood Stock company of Omaha. Harold and his father moved to California as a result of a fortuitous accident settlement in 1913. Foxy bought a pool hall (that soon failed) while Harold attended high school. The pair were soon broke when his father suggested he try out for a job on a movie being shot at San Diego's Pan American Exposition by the Edison Company. On the set he first met Hal Roach who would be the most influential person in his professional life. Roach (admittedly a poor actor) told Lloyd that someday he'd be a movie producer and he'd make him his star.
Soon afterward, Roach inherited enough money to begin a small production company (Phun Philms, quickly renamed Rolin, with a partner who he soon bought out) and contacted Lloyd to star in the kinds of films he wanted to make: comedies. On the basis of a handful of self-produced shorts starring Lloyd, he managed to land a production contract with the U.S. branch of the French firm, Pathe, who literally paid Roach by the exposed foot of film on what films were accepted. Things were touch and go in the beginning, with improvised scenarios, outdoor shoots meaning Pathe rejected several of their first efforts, resulting in missed paydays. During his first contract with Roach he appeared in "Will E. Work" and then "Lonesome Luke" comedies, essentially cheap variations of Charles Chaplin's Little Tramp character. He abandoned the character in disgust in late 1917, adopting his "glasses" persona, an average young man capable of conquering any obstacle thrown at him. He began cementing his new image with Over the Fence (1917), that ushered in a prolific number of shorts through late 1921, often releasing 3 per month. In his "glasses" personification, Lloyd's popularity grew exponentially with each new release, but Lloyd rapidly grew dissatisfied with his relationship with his producer. Roach and Lloyd fought constantly; it's not so much that he didn't want to work for Roach, he didn't want to work for anyone - a trait he himself recognized from early on. To be fair, Roach was increasingly preoccupied with other stars (The "Our Gang" series was launched to huge success in 1922 and he also produced ''Snub Pollard" shorts, among others) and although he would always resent Lloyd's attitude and ultimate defection to Paramount, the loss of his major star wouldn't financially cripple him. Lloyd had his own quirks; he fell in love with his first co-star Bebe Daniels, who left him after it became apparent he was unable to make a commitment (however the two would remain lifelong friends). Lloyd, in his own way was decidedly complex: he could be professionally generous (often allowing debatably deserving directorial credit to members of his crew) while being notoriously cheap. Yet he practiced little financial self control in anything that concerned himself. Wildly superstitious, he engaged in strict rituals about dressing himself, leaving through the same doors as he entered, and expected his chauffeurs to know which streets were unlucky to traverse. As his finances improved with age he happily indulged himself with a myriad of hobbies that would include breeding Great Danes, amassing cars, bowling, photography, womanizing, and high-fidelity stereo systems. He was open minded about homosexuals while being practically Victorian in his ideas about raising his daughters. He had an enormous libido and rumors abounded about illegitimate children and according to Roach, chronic bouts with VD. Most traumatically, he suffered the loss of his right thumb and forefinger in an accidental prop bomb explosion on August 14, 1919, just as his career was starting to take off. Lloyd would go to great lengths to hide his disability, spending thousands on flesh-colored prosthetic gloves and hiding his right hand whenever knowingly photographed, even long after his career ended. Upon his recovery he completed work on Haunted Spooks (1920) and successfully renegotiated his contract with Pathe, which began a career ascent that would rival Chaplin's (indeed, Lloyd was more successful, considering grosses on total output as Chaplin's output soon dwindled by comparison). Lloyd began feature film production with the 4-reel A Sailor-Made Man (1921). It began as a 2-reel short but contained, in his words, "so much good stuff we were loathe to take any of it out." It became a huge hit and continued to release hit features with ever increasing grosses but split with Hal Roach (who retained lucrative re-issue rights to his earlier films) after completing The Freshman (1925), one of his finest films. Pathe's U.S. operations quickly unraveled after their U.S. representative, Paul Brunet returned to France, and Lloyd made a decisive move (Roach himself would also leave Pathe, opting for a distribution deal with MGM - Mack Sennett, also distributed by Pathe, would be financially ruined). After weighing various attractive offers, Lloyd signed an advantageous contract with Paramount and racked up another hit with For Heaven's Sake (1926), one of his weakest silent features, yet it grossed an incredible $2.591 million, nearly equaling "The Freshman" and astonishing even himself.
Lloyd could do no wrong throughout the 1920s, he consistently earned at or near $1.5 million per film with his Paramount contract, and seemed invincible. He married his second co-star Mildred Davis on February 10, 1923 and she retired from acting (replaced by Jobyna Ralston). He built a huge 32-room mansion he christened, "Greenacres" that took over 3 years to complete and the couple eventually had 3 children. His final silent film, Speedy (1928), shot on location in New York, was one of the few major hits of the sound transition period and remains (as do most of Lloyd's films) thoroughly enjoyable today. The advent of sound proved problematic for the comedian. His films were gag-driven and his writing team was wholly unaccustomed to converting their type of comedy into dialog. While his first sound effort (began as a silent), Welcome Danger (1929) grossed nearly $3 million, by any standard it's a bad film, and marked a serious decline in Lloyd's screen persona; he became a talking comedian. Ironically, as bad as the film is, it would prove to be the last solid hit of his career. His next talkie, Feet First (1930), included a climb reminiscent (but technically superior to that) of his hit Safety Last! (1923), only being in sound, it contained every grunt and groan and proved painful to watch. With a gross of less that $1 million, Lloyd would see slightly over $300,000, his smallest feature paycheck to date, and it became clear he was in trouble. Lloyd fought back with Movie Crazy (1932). Generally regarded as his finest talkie, it grossed even less than "Feet First." Lloyd left Paramount for Fox and suffered his first outright flop with his next feature, The Cat's-Paw (1934), which grossed $693,000 against a negative cost of $617,000 ---resulting in red ink on a net basis. The miracle Harold Lloyd needed to salvage his career would never happen, but he refused to go down without a fight. Amazingly, the public was oblivious to his decline, and he was widely considered as one of the few silent comedy stars to have made a successful transition through the first decade of sound. But to those within the industry, the numbers didn't add up. Back at Paramount on a 2-movie deal, Lloyd starred in The Milky Way (1936), a better-than-average comedy that pulled a world-wide gross of $1.179 million, but it had production budget exceeding $1 million, resulting in a $250,000 loss for the studio. Paramount was livid, demanding a personal guarantee from Lloyd on anything over $600,000 for his next film, Professor Beware (1938). The comedian soon discovered he couldn't complete the film within the required budget and did something unprecedented --for him at least-- he invested his own money. The final production cost was $820,275 - and it grossed a mere $796,385 - and as a result of a complex payment deal, Lloyd ended up personally losing $119,400 on its initial release (he would eventually recoup the bulk of his losses over the next 35 years). At the relatively young age of 45, Harold Lloyd's Hollywood career was effectively over. Still immensely wealthy from a conservative investment strategy, and always hyperactive, he sought out ways to occupy his time, dragging his kids on marathon movie nights all across Los Angeles and falling back on his many hobbies. Foxy, who had handled the bulk of his correspondence (almost all Lloyd's pre-1938 autographs were actually signed by Foxy) and had carefully documented his press clippings since his acting career had began, retired to Palm Springs in 1938, leaving a void in Lloyd's life. He produced two pictures for RKO, A Girl, a Guy, and a Gob (1941), and a Kay Kyser vehicle, My Favorite Spy (1942) which must have looked good on paper but went nowhere at the box office. This ended his career as a producer. He would sign a $25,000 deal with Columbia in 1943 for a comeback project that never materialized. In 1944, Lloyd was approached by director Preston Sturges who envisioned a first-rate vehicle for him entitled, The Sin of Harold Diddlebock (1947). The production launched Sturges' new California Pictures, was financed by Howard Hughes, and initially released by United Artists. It proved to be a nightmare for everyone concerned. Its $1.7 million production cost proved to be an insurmountable obstacle preventing it from profitability and the eccentric Hughes withdrew it from circulation, later retitling it "Mad Wednesday," re-editing and re-releasing it as an RKO feature in 1951 to an even more dismal box office. Lloyd would also zealously protect ownership of his material and was quite litigious. He successfully sued MGM over their unauthorized poaching of his gags on a Joan Davis vehicle, She Gets Her Man (1945) (sadly an action that put the final nail in the professional coffin of the hopelessly alcoholic Clyde Bruckman). With his career at an end, Harold renewed his interest in photography and became involved with color film experiments. Some of the earliest 2 color Technicolor tests had been shot at Greenacres in 1929. In the late 1940s he became fascinated with color 3D still photography and often visited friends on film sets. Throughout the late 40s and well into the 1960s Lloyd indulged himself with glamor models. At his death, his collection of 3D stills numbered 250,000 (the vast majority of which are nudes). Recently his granddaughter published an elaborate book of photos carefully excised from the collection. In the late 1940s Lloyd became an active member of the Shriners (he'd joined originally in 1924) and an effective administrator for their Los Angeles crippled children's hospital. Harold is reported to be the only actor that owned most of the films he appeared in (sadly many of the earliest ones were destroyed in a nitrate fire in a vault at Greenacres in 1943). This ownership gave him the ability to withhold his films from being shown on television; Lloyd feared incorrect projection speed and commercials would damage his reputation. As a result, a generation of film fans saw very few of his films and his reputation was diminished. He did release 2 compilation films, of which the first, World of Comedy (1962) was very successful. Mildred descended into alcoholism in the 1950s and died in 1969. Lloyd occupied his time with extensive travel (he thoroughly enjoyed speaking engagements where he could interact with students on the subject of silent film) and continued his pathological passion for his hobbies through the end of his life. He became interested in high fidelity stereo systems and habitually ordered several record companies' entire annual catalogs, eventually amassing an LP collection rivaling most record stores. He enjoyed cranking music to volumes that caused the inlaid gold leaf on Greenacres' ceilings to rain down on anyone below. Conversely, he balked at modernizing anything inside the mansion, seeing improvements and redecorating as things that would survive him, and thus a complete waste of money. Lloyd was diagnosed with a recurrence of cancer by his brother-in-law, Dr. John Davis (Jack Davis, who starred in early "Our Gang" shorts) and died on March 8, 1971. His son, Harold Lloyd Jr. was an alcoholic homosexual and died soon afterward. Although Lloyd left an estate valued at $12 million (in 1971 dollars), he failed to make a provision for the maintenance of Greenacres, a blunder that would seriously complicate his estate. His granddaughter Suzanne Lloyd has been largely responsible for restoring his reputation of late, working to preserve his surviving films; many have been issued on HBO Video, Thames Video. Several have been superbly restored with new musical accompaniments and are shown periodically on TCM.- Actress
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The girl who one day would be known as "Winnipeg's Sweetheart" was born at Grace Hospital on December 4, 1921, as Edna Mae Durbin. In her early childhood there were no obvious signs that one day she would be a bigger box office attraction than Shirley Temple. Renamed Deanna Durbin for show business purposes, by age 21 she was the most highly paid female star in the world. Her major motion pictures were Three Smart Girls (1936), Mad About Music (1938) and That Certain Age (1938). By the time she was 18 her income was $250,000 a year. Her voice was often described as "natural and beautiful" and her version of "One Fine Day" from Madame Butterfly, became a classic. Deanna was a Hollywood star in every way. There were Deanna Durbin dolls and dresses. An engineering firm named its so-called dream home in her honor. Her first screen kiss was described in a headline story across the continent. What makes Deanna Durbin's story different is that she was never comfortable with adulation. When she was at the top of her career as Hollywood's leading actress and singer, she turned her back on that world for a life of seclusion. Her first two marriages had failed, and before she married her third husband, director Charles David, she set one condition: he had to promise that she could have what she yearned for - "the life of nobody". Her seclusion is incomplete. She lives in the French village of Neauphlé-le-Château, and for over 35 years has resisted every approach from film companies. Her husband has told journalists that "Mario Lanza pleaded with her for years to make a film with him. But she will never go back to that life." She granted only one interview since 1949 to film historian David Shipman in 1983.- Actor
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Edgar Bergen was born on 16 February 1903 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. He was an actor and writer, known for Fun and Fancy Free (1947), The Muppet Movie (1979) and Letter of Introduction (1938). He was married to Frances Bergen. He died on 30 September 1978 in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA.- Writer
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Considered to be one of the most pivotal stars of the early days of Hollywood, Charlie Chaplin lived an interesting life both in his films and behind the camera. He is most recognized as an icon of the silent film era, often associated with his popular character, the Little Tramp; the man with the toothbrush mustache, bowler hat, bamboo cane, and a funny walk.
Charles Spencer Chaplin was born in Walworth, London, England on April 16, 1889, to Hannah Harriet Pedlingham (Hill) and Charles Chaplin, both music hall performers, who were married on June 22, 1885. After Charles Sr. separated from Hannah to perform in New York City, Hannah then tried to resurrect her stage career. Unfortunately, her singing voice had a tendency to break at unexpected moments. When this happened, the stage manager spotted young Charlie standing in the wings and led him on stage, where five-year-old Charlie began to sing a popular tune. Charlie and his half-brother, Syd Chaplin spent their lives in and out of charity homes and workhouses between their mother's bouts of insanity. Hannah was committed to Cane Hill Asylum in May 1903 and lived there until 1921, when Chaplin moved her to California.
Chaplin began his official acting career at the age of eight, touring with the Eight Lancashire Lads. At age 18, he began touring with Fred Karno's vaudeville troupe, joining them on the troupe's 1910 United States tour. He traveled west to California in December 1913 and signed on with Keystone Studios' popular comedy director Mack Sennett, who had seen Chaplin perform on stage in New York. Charlie soon wrote his brother Syd, asking him to become his manager. While at Keystone, Chaplin appeared in and directed 35 films, starring as the Little Tramp in nearly all.
In November 1914, he left Keystone and signed on at Essanay, where he made 15 films. In 1916, he signed on at Mutual and made 12 films. In June 1917, Chaplin signed up with First National Studios, after which he built Chaplin Studios. In 1919, he and Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford and D.W. Griffith formed United Artists (UA).
Chaplin's life and career was full of scandal and controversy. His first big scandal was during World War I, at which time his loyalty to England, his home country, was questioned. He had never applied for American citizenship, but claimed that he was a "paying visitor" to the United States. Many British citizens called Chaplin a coward and a slacker. This and other career eccentricities sparked suspicion with FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover and the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), who believed that he was injecting Communist propaganda into his films. Chaplin's later film The Great Dictator (1940), which was his first "talkie", also created a stir. In the film, Chaplin plays a humorous caricature of Adolf Hitler. Some thought the film was poorly done and in bad taste. However, the film grossed over $5 million and earned five Academy Award Nominations.
Another scandal occurred when Chaplin briefly dated 22 year-old Joan Barry. However, Chaplin's relationship with Barry came to an end in 1942, after a series of harassing actions from her. In May 1943, Barry returned to inform Chaplin that she was pregnant and filed a paternity suit, claiming that the unborn child was his. During the 1944 trial, blood tests proved that Chaplin was not the father, but at the time, blood tests were inadmissible evidence, and he was ordered to pay $75 a week until the child turned 21.
Chaplin also was scrutinized for his support in aiding the Russian struggle against the invading Nazis during World War II, and the United States government questioned his moral and political views, suspecting him of having Communist ties. For this reason, HUAC subpoenaed him in 1947. However, HUAC finally decided that it was no longer necessary for him to appear for testimony. Conversely, when Chaplin and his family traveled to London for the premier of Limelight (1952), he was denied re-entry to the United States. In reality, the government had almost no evidence to prove that he was a threat to national security. Instead, he and his wife decided to settle in Switzerland.
Chaplin was married four times and had a total of 11 children. In 1918, he married Mildred Harris and they had a son together, Norman Spencer Chaplin, who lived only three days. Chaplin and Harris divorced in 1920. He married Lita Grey in 1924, who had two sons, Charles Chaplin Jr. and Sydney Chaplin. They were divorced in 1927. In 1936, Chaplin married Paulette Goddard, and his final marriage was to Oona O'Neill (Oona Chaplin), daughter of playwright Eugene O'Neill in 1943. Oona gave birth to eight children: Geraldine Chaplin, Michael Chaplin, Josephine Chaplin, Victoria Chaplin, Eugene Chaplin, Jane Chaplin, Annette-Emilie Chaplin, and Christopher Chaplin.
In contrast to many of his boisterous characters, Chaplin was a quiet man who kept to himself a great deal. He also had an "un-millionaire" way of living. Even after he had accumulated millions, he continued to live in shabby accommodations. In 1921, Chaplin was decorated by the French government for his outstanding work as a filmmaker and was elevated to the rank of Officer of the Legion of Honor in 1952. In 1972, he was honored with an Academy Award for his "incalculable effect in making motion pictures the art form of the century". He was appointed Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 1975 New Year's Honours List. No formal reason for the honour was listed. The citation simply reads "Charles Spencer Chaplin, Film Actor and Producer".
Chaplin's other works included musical scores that he composed for many of his films. He also authored two autobiographical books, "My Autobiography" (1964) and its companion volume, "My Life in Pictures" (1974).
Chaplin died at age 88 of natural causes on December 25, 1977 at his home in Vevey, Switzerland. His funeral was a small and private Anglican ceremony according to his wishes. In 1978, Chaplin's corpse was stolen from its grave and was not recovered for three months; he was re-buried in a vault surrounded by cement.
Six of Chaplin's films have been selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the United States Library of Congress: The Immigrant (1917), The Kid (1921), The Gold Rush (1925), City Lights (1931), Modern Times (1936), and The Great Dictator (1940).
Charlie Chaplin is considered one of the greatest filmmakers in the history of American cinema, whose movies were and still are popular throughout the world and have even gained notoriety as time progresses. His films show, through the Little Tramp's positive outlook on life in a world full of chaos, that the human spirit has and always will remain the same.- Producer
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David O. Selznick was a son of the silent movie producer Lewis J. Selznick. David studied at Columbia University until his father lost his fortune in the 1920s. David started work as an MGM script reader, shortly followed by becoming an assistant to Harry Rapf. He left MGM to work at Paramount then RKO. He was back at MGM in 1933 after marrying Irene Mayer Selznick the daughter of Louis B. Mayer. In 1936, he finally set up his own production company, Selznick International. Three directors and fifteen scriptwriters later, Gone with the Wind (1939) was released.- Additional Crew
John Hay "Jock" Whitney, the multi-millionaire sportsman, pioneering color-movie producer, soldier, financier, philanthropist, art-collector, diplomat, and newspaper publisher was born in Elsworth, Maine on August 27, 1904. He was a descendant of John Whitney, a Puritan who settled in Massachusetts in 1635, as well as of William Bradford, who came over on the Mayflower, and his two grandfathers, one a Republican and one a Democrat, were presidential cabinet members. So socially secure he was never listed in the Social Register, Whitney denounced it as a form of social arbitration that was undemocratic. John Hay Whitney was a Scion of Society; he needed no one or nothing to tell him that. A stalwart of moderate Republicanism, Whitney was one of the ultimate symbols of the Eastern Establishment that Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan later repudiated with their neo-conservative populism.
Jock's father, William Payne Whitney, a capitalist and philanthropist born in New York City on March 20, 1876, was the son of William Collins Whitney and Flora Payne Whitney. Flora Payne Whitney was the daughter of prominent Democratic politician Henry B. Payne, who represented his Cleveland, Ohio district in the United States House of Representatives for one term from 1875 to 1877, and served one term as United States Senator from Ohio from 1885 to 1891. Henry Payne was descended, through this grandfather, from William Bradford, the Puritan governor of the Plymouth Colony.
Payne Whitney matriculated at Yale College (Class of 1898) and then studied at Harvard Law School, graduating with a Bachelor of Laws degree in 1901. Building on his several million dollars worth of inherited real estate assets, Payne Whitney soon became a leading player in New York's financial community. He eventually was appointed director or executive officer of many large corporations, including the First National Bank of New York, the Great Northern Paper Co., the Northern Finance Corp., and the Whitney Realty Co. He married Helen Hay, the daughter of the serving U.S. Secretary of State, in 1902.
Jock Whitney's mother Helen Hay Whitney was the daughter of John Hay, Jock's name-sake, who served as Lincoln's assistant private secretary, Ambassador to the United Kingdom under President McKinley, and as Secretary of State under both McKinley and Teddy Roosevelt, acquitting himself quite well during the Spanish-American War. Jock's paternal grandfather William Collins Whitney, the man who helped rid New York City of the deleterious influence of Boss Tweed's gang, was President Cleveland's Secretary of the Navy and was touted as the possible Democratic candidate for president in 1892 before Cleveland himself stood once again for re-election.
The family's New York City residence, located at 972 Fifth Avenue, was designed by Stanford White and is considered one of that great architect's finest mature works. Now the home of the French Embassy's Cultural Services department, White designed and oversaw the construction of the exterior and interiors of the house, which had been commissioned in 1902 by Payne Whitney's uncle Colonel Oliver Hazard Payne as a wedding gift for his nephew and his bride. The Colonel had put up $625,000 to build the five-story mansion, the construction of which was still under White's supervision when he was murdered in 1906. Jock's mother, Helen Hay Whitney, continued to live in the house until her death in 1944. (Jock eventually had her favorite space in the mansion, the Venetian Room, removed and preserved before the house was sold in 1949. In 1997, the room was donated to the French-American Foundation by his widow, who provided funding for its restoration.)
The 1920 census lists the Payne Whitneys as living at 972 Fifth Ave. with their two children and 13 servants. At the time, they lived around the corner from James D. Duke, the cigarette baron, and his wife Natalie and daughter Doris. Payne Whitney's uncle Oliver Hazard Payne had arranged the financial buyout of Duke's competitors to create the American Tobacco Co., though Payne Whitney and James Duke did not do business together. Fifth Avenue along the streets numbered in the 60s and 70s was the place to live for the very rich in the first half of the 20th Century, and many multimillionaires hung their bowler hats in the neighborhood. By the 1930 census, Helen Hay Whitney was listed as living with her son John Hay Whitney and 21 servants at the family's fabulous 438-acre estate Greentree in Manhasset, situated on Long Island's Gold Coast.
Jock was related to the railroad Harriman family through his sister Joan's husband Charles Payson, and to the Vanderbilts through his aunt Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, the eldest daughter of Cornelius Vanderbilt II. (She was also related to the Harrimans.) He was also related by marriage to Columbia Broadcasting System founder William Paley, who was married to his wife's sister, the former Barbara Cushing. Jock's cousins included his aunt Gertrude's son Cornelius Vanderbilt ("Sonny") Whitney, the chairman of Pan American Airways (Prescott Bush, father of the 41st President of the United States and Grandfather of the 43rd, was a Pan Am director), and his wife's brother-in-law was Vincent Astor, the son of slumlord John Jacob Astor IV, who went down with the Titanic, perishing in the North Atlantic.
Jock Whitney attended Yale College, where his major pursuits were drama and rowing. His father, grandfather and great-uncle had all been oarsmen at Yale, and his father Payne had been captain of the crew in 1898. Payne Whitney followed the Yale rowing team all his life and helped finance the team, including donating financing to build a dormitory for the crew. While at Yale, John Hay Whitney allegedly coined the term "crew cut" for the haircut that now bears the name. Yale lore holds that young Jock went to a local tonsorial palace and asked for a short "Hindenburg" military cut. It was not long after the First World War, and anything German was still unpopular. (sauerkraut had been renamed "liberty salad" during World War I.) The barber suggested to Jock that the hair-style should have a new name. They called it the "crew cut" in honor of Yale oarsmen.
After graduating in 1926 (the Yale Yearbook listed Jock's ambition as being the U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom), Whitney went on to Oxford, but the death of his father at the family's Greentree estate on May 25, 1927 necessitated his returning home. He inherited a trust fund of $20 million from his father (approximately $210 million in 2005 dollars, when factored for inflation), and would later inherit an estimated four times that amount from his mother. The money came from his paternal grandfather, William Collins Whitney, a traction magnate who consolidated New York City's street and railway lines, and his uncle, Colonel Oliver Hazard Payne, a business partner of John D. Rockefeller, Sr.
Jock Whitney also inherited his mother and father's love of horses, a predilection he shared with his sister, Joan Whitney Payson, who went on to be the first owner of the New York Metropolitan Baseball Club from the Mets' founding in 1961 until her death in 1975. Payne Whitney had been interested in horse racing, and he had established a racing stable of his own to raise thoroughbred horses. After Payne's death, Jock's mother Helen owned the famous Kentucky horse-breeding farm Greentree Stables, which Jock and his sister ran for her. In 1928, Jock became the youngest member ever elected to the Jockey Club.
A master horseman, he almost won Britain's Grand National steeplechase in 1929. Jock was enjoying a commanding and apparently safe lead when Easter Hero, his horse, twisted a plate and was beaten by a nose at the finish by a 100-to-1 long shot. Though Whitney entered the Grand National annually after his heartbreaking loss, he never again came so close to winning.
He entered four horses in the Kentucky Derby in the 1930s, Stepenfetchit, which finished 3rd in 1932, Overtime, which finished 5th in 1933, Singing Wood, which finished 8th in 1934, and Heather Broom, which finished 3rd in 1939. Jock was an outstanding polo player, with a four-goal handicap, and it was as a sportsman that John Hay Whitney made the cover of the March 27, 1933 issue of `Time' magazine.
Other horse races he was involved in were the 1952 and '56 presidential elections, where he was the major financial backer of General Dwight D. Eisenhower. As president, Ike appointed Jock ambassador to the Court of St. James, following in the footsteps of his grandfather and realizing the ambition he had mentioned in the Yale yearbook. Whitney played a major role in improving Anglo-American relations, which had been severely strained during the 1956 Suez Crisis, when Eisenhower demanded that the British, French and Israelis terminate their invasion of Egypt.
But that lay in the future. First, Hollywood beckoned.
In 1929, Jock was hired as a clerk at the princely sum of $65 per month at the firm of Lee, Higginson, where he met Langbourne Meade Williams, Jr., the son of the founder of Freeport Texas Co., the sulfur mining company that was responsible for one-third of domestic output. Williams enlisted Jock's aid in ousting the chairman of his family's company, and the two and some of their friends began buying shares of the company. Jock soon was Freeport' biggest shareholder, and with his support, Williams sacked the chairman and his senior management team in 1930. Three years later, Williams became Freeport's president and Whitney was appointed Chairman of the Board, at the age of 29. Jock remained involved with Freeport for the rest of his business days.
The straight business world didn't prove fulfilling to the young multi-millionaire, whose personal fortune was estimated at $100 million. Seeking somewhere to park those tens of millions of dollars, Jock Whitney invested in several Broadway shows, including Peter Arno's 1931 revue "Here Goes the Bride," a failure that cost him $100,000. Although Jock indulged his interests, he did not do so with the idea of losing money. Eventually, he'd achieve spectacular success as one of the angels of "Life with Father," one of the all-time longest running Broadway shows.
According to a October 1934 `Fortune' magazine article on the Technicolor Co., which he had invested in, Jock had been interested in the movie industry for quite some time:
"John Hay (Jock) Whitney, long nursing an itch to get into pictures, but needing some special advantage to make up for his late arrival, decided that color was the `edge' he was looking for."
Whitney had met Technicolor head honcho Dr. Herbert Kalmus, a racing aficionado like himself, at the Saratoga Springs race track. In 1932, Technicolor had achieved a breakthrough with its three-strip process that recreated the entire visible spectrum of color. When R.K.O. producer Merriam C. Cooper, a color movie enthusiast, broached the idea of investing in Technicolor to Jock, he, too, was enthusiastic.
Kalmus, had been dedicated to developing true color photography in motion pictures since soon after his firm was founded in 1914. Since it first marketed its early two-color process to the movie industry in the early `20s, Technicolor had been expected to assume much of the financial risk of color movie production, as the technology and its audience appeal was unproven. The first feature to be entirely filmed in two-color Technicolor, "Toll of the Sea," (1922), an adaptation of Puccini's opera "Madame Butterfly" written by future Oscar-winning screenwriter Frances Marion and starring Anna May Wong, was produced by the Technicolor Co. and released by by Metro Pictures. At that time, studios had been quite content to release "color" films that consisted of scenes shot on tinted Kodak stock, including blue for night (the other colors available from Eastman Kodak were green, red, pink, lavender, yellow, orange, light amber, and dark amber), or using hand-stenciling, in which colors were painted onto the individual frames of motion pictures.
Other movie studios, such as the newly conglomerated Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer with "Ben-Hur" (1925) and "The Big Parade" (1925), and Paramount with Cecil B. DeMille's "The Ten Commandments" (1925), added two-color Technicolor sequences to films shot primarily in black and white, but the process was imperfect. Aside from not producing the full color spectrum (the process only registered red and green, so blues were impossible to recreate on-screen), two-color Technicolor was based on the use of two film stocks of a half-thickness each on which the red and green colors were printed, then cemented together. Prints would buckle as the strip of celluloid nearest the light would contract from the heat, and a LOT of light was needed to project an early Technicolor film. Technicolor had to print up replacement reels that were constantly being shipped between its Boston, Massachusetts plant and exhibitors, with the buckled prints being ironed out by Technicolor employees before being shipped back on the exhibition circuit. It was a highly impractical state of affairs, but Kalmus was always improving the process.
Technicolor did not become popular with producers until 1928, when it introduced in an improved two-color subtractive system that allowed a single print to be struck, thus eliminating the problem with film buckling. Technicolor produced the first feature film shot in the process, "The Vikings," that year. Warner Bros., which had vaulted from an extremely minor exhibitor to a major studio by its introduction of the talkies, latched onto Technicolor as the next big thing. Other producers followed the Warner Bros. example by making features in color, with either Technicolor or one of its competitors such as the inferior bipack Cinecolor system, but audiences grew bored with the limited palette of colors two-color processes could produce. They were content with talkies for the moment. That, and the Depression that severely strained movie studios' finances, spelled the end of the first Technicolor boom.
The production of color films had virtually ceased when Technicolor introduced its first three-color process in 1932. Shot on three strips of black and white negative film simultaneously through cyan, magenta and green filters, prints that accurately reproduced the full color spectrum were optically printed using a dye-transfer process. Kalmus had convinced Walt Disney to shoot one of his Silly Symphony cartoons, "Flowers and Trees," in the new "three-strip" process, and it was a big hit with audiences and critics alike. One of the next Silly Symphonies to be shot with the process, "The Three Little Pigs," engendered such a positive audience response, it overwhelmed the features it played with. Hollywood was buzzing about color film again. According to `Fortune' magazine, "Merian Caldwell Cooper, producer for RKO-Radio Pictures, saw one of the Silly Symphonies and said he never wanted to make a black and white picture again."
The studios were willing to adopt three-color Technicolor for live-action feature production, if it could be proved viable. Shooting three-strip Technicolor required vast quantities of light, as the film had an extremely slow speed of ASA 5. That, and the bulk of the cameras and a lack of experience with three-color cinematography, equated to skepticism in the studio board rooms.
Again, the financial risk devolved unto Technicolor, but in the new, more expensive motion picture industry of the 1930s, it could not afford to finance a feature. A financial "angel" was needed, similar to a Broadway investor.
`Fortune' magazine's October 1934 article stressed that Technicolor, as a corporation, was rather remarkable in that it kept its investors quite happy despite the fact that it had only been in profit twice in all of the years of its existence, during the early boom at the turn of the decade. A well-managed company, half of whose stock was controlled by a clique loyal to Kalmus, Technicolor never had to cede any control to its bankers or unfriendly stockholders. In the mid-`30s, all the studios with the exception of M.G.M. were in the financial doldrums, and a color process that truly reproduced the visual spectrum was seen as a possible shot-in-the-arm for the ailing industry. As the Warner Bros. had shown with their talkie revolution declared by "The Jazz Singer" (1927), a great deal of money could be made in a very short time in the film industry. Jock's future business partner, David O. Selznick, would soon produce the most popular and most profitable motion picture in history, in Glorious Technicolor.
Seeing his chance, Jock Whitney joined forces with Merian C. Cooper and founded Pioneer Pictures in the spring of 1933, with a distribution deal with R.K.O. John Hay Whitney was Pioneer's president. Jock had importuned his cousin, Cornelius Vanderbilt "Sonny" Whitney, into sharing the financial risk, and the two bought a 15% stake in Technicolor as well. While there was no official corporate connection between Pioneer and Technicolor, the idea was that any initial financial losses generated by Pioneer would be made up by the appreciation of the Whitneys' stake in Technicolor, whose product they would showcase.
Jock was determined to turn out quality pictures in order to avoid the fate of the two-color process at the height of the 1929-30 Technicolor boom, when color movies got a bad name due to inferior motion pictures. Warner Bros. had gone from $30,000 in revenues in 1927 to $17,271,000 in 1929, all due to talking pictures. Hot for another innovation, Jack Warner had decided in 1929 to add two-color Technicolor sequences to his picture "Desert Song." He then made the first all-color talkie, " On With the Show," and followed that up with "Gold Diggers of Broadway" (1929), which was a huge hit, grossing $3.5 million, an amount that ranked it #6 all-time at the box-office. It seemed like Warner Bros. had another technical marvel on its hands, and other producers jumped on the bandwagon. Technicolor received over $1.5 million in down payments for future deliveries of color film. In 1929, Technicolor did $5 million in business.
The sudden vogue for color, and the resulting demand, doomed two-strip Technicolor as the firm's labs were not equipped to handle such a volume. In 1929 and `30, Technicolor produced 76.7 million feet of two-color film, ten times their labs' capacity. The sensitive development process was compromised when the lab space had to be quickly expanded, hurting the quality of the finished product. At first used in prestigious, carefully made, high-quality pictures, the boom soon led to the release of mediocre and even bad color movies. Lacking experience with color production, movie-makers continued to use B+W production techniques, using sets, makeup and lighting that were woefully inappropriate for color. Few filmmakers had the sense to correctly match color to the mood of the scenes they were shooting. In addition, two-color red-green process could not replicate all the colors of the visible spectrum, which yielded some questionable color effects. Most blues could not be shot, meaning that the sky typically could not be part of the mise-en-scène. If a bold filmmaker did include a shot of the sky, the results were ghastly.
The studios and movie producers quickly turned on Technicolor and canceled their contracts. Now reduced to supplying film primarily for short subjects, revenues plummeted to $500,000 in 1932, generating a $235,000 loss, followed the next year by a $250,000 loss on revenues of $630,000. Worse of all, due to the sins of the producers during the brief Technicolor boom, color movies, unlike talkies, were considered passé and a busted gamble.
The success of Pioneer Pictures' early product was necessary to spark a color renaissance in Hollywood, which would boost demand for Technicolor's new three-strip, three-color film, with the result that the value of Jock and Sonny's 100,000 Technicolor shares would appreciate handsomely. `Fortune' magazine observed, "[A]lthough Mr. Whitney does many things for fun he also does them for money and has never been interested in putting portions of the Whitney fortune down any sewers. But with two horses in the color-picture stakes, he can afford to use one as a pacemaker for the other.
Jock Whitney proceeded cautiously, determined to not make any mistakes that would besmirch his new baby. Pioneer produced the first short film shot in Technicolor's three-strip process, "La Cucaracha" (1934), a two-reel musical comedy that cost $65,000, approximately four times what an equivalent B+W two-reeler cost. Released by R.K.O., the short was a success in introducing the new Technicolor as a viable medium for live-action films. The three-strip process also was used in some short sequences filmed for several movies made during 1934, including the final sequence of "The House of Rothschild" (1934) over at 20th Century-Fox.
The industry was impressed. Three-color Technicolor did work and yielded spectacular, glorious results. But the studios and producers were atypically twice-shy, having been burned during the two-color Technicolor boom. Then, audiences had quickly become bored with color films, and the producers reasoned that it was color itself, not the poor films they had foisted onto the public in hopes of turning a quick buck that had been the culprit. Sound had added something fundamental to motion pictures, and had been enthusiastically, even wildly accepted by the movie-going public, essentially allowing the studios to distribute talkies of questionable quality in the marketplace and still turn a profit. Color was not seen to be in the same league as sound. But the real question for the studios came down to one consideration: Was it worth it?
The problem with Hollywood adopting Technicolor's three-strip process for feature film making, and the reason it took 30 years for color to completely chase B+W out of the movie industry versus the less-than-three for the Philistines of silence to be slain by the jawbone wielded by Al Jolson's Jazz Singer, was that the three-strip Technicolor process was expensive. The Depression had financially sapped every studio, with the exception of M.G.M. `Fortune' magazine estimated that shooting a film in three-strip Technicolor would add $135,000 to a film's production costs, $85,000 in added photographic expenses and another $50,000 in lost time due to the laborious task of learning how to make films properly in the new process. According to `Fortune', the average cost of a picture in 1934 was in the $200,000-$250,000 range. with an additional distribution cost of $200,000. "Many companies would prefer to spend the extra $135,000, if necessary, in order to get big names in the cast. For they know that names have a box-office draw and they are not at all sure about color."
In late 1934, Pioneer produced the first feature film shot in three-strip Technicolor, "Becky Sharp" (1935), which was based on the novel "Vanity Fair" by William Makepeace Thackeray. Also released by R.K.O., where David O. Selznick had been chief of production in the early `30s, it was not a large box office success, but it did show that Technicolor was now a viable medium. Pioneer also produced "The Dancing Pirate" (1936), the first musical shot in three-strip Technicolor. Selznick's own independent Selznick International Pictures, which he formed after leaving M.G.M. in 1935, used Technicolor for its `event' films such as the 1936 feature film "The Garden of Allah" (which won a special Academy Award for its color cinematography), and "A Star I Born Sacred" (1937), starring Frederic March and Janet Gaynor (which was also similarly honored with a special color cinematography Academy Award).
Jock Whitney was the major investor in Selznick International Inc., putting up $870,000 and serving as Chairman of the Board. Jock also put up half the money for the $50,000 option on Margaret Mitchell's novel "Gone With the Wind," then invested more money for the production of both "Gone With the Wind" and "Rebecca," Selznick's back-to-back Oscar winners for Best Picture of 1939 and '40. After an unprecedented run of success for an independent, Selznick International was dissolved in 1940 in order to liquidate the profits from the two pictures.
In his early years, Jock was renowned as a playboy, and though he was married to Mary Elizabeth Altemus Whitney, he was romantically linked to actress Tallulah Bankhead in New York, and to Paulette Goddard and Joan Crawford in Hollywood. It was at a lavish costume party he held in Hollywood that Clark Gable got together with Carole Lombard, the love of his life. Jock divorced his wife in 1940 after 10 years of marriage, and in 1942, he married Betsey Cushing Roosevelt, the ex-wife of James Roosevelt, the eldest son of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Betsey Maria Cushing was born on May 18, 1908 in Baltimore, Maryland to the famous neurosurgeon Dr. Harvey Cushing and his wife Katherine Crowell Cushing, who hailed from a socially prominent Cleveland family. Dr. Cushing served as professor of surgery at Johns Hopkins, Harvard and Yale Universities, and the family established itself in Boston. Betsey had two brothers, but it was her two sisters and herself who became well-known, heralded for their charm and beauty from their debutante days onward.
Mary (Minnie) Cushing, her older sister, married first husband Vincent Astor, the inheritor of $200 million in 1912 (approximately $4 billion in 2005 dollars), then divorced him and married artist James Whitney Fosburgh. Her younger sister Barbara (Babe) Cushing was first married to Standard Oil heir Stanley Mortimer, Jr., before divorcing him and marrying CBS founder William S. Paley. Babe Paley was often short-listed as one of the world's best-dressed women and became a doyenne of New York society, heralded by the likes of Truman Capote. (Both of Betsey's sisters died within several months of each other in 1978.)
Betsey Cushing Roosevelt was rumored to be FDR's favorite daughter-in-law, but she and her mother-in-law Eleanor did not care for one another. Her husband served his father as an aide at the White House, and Betsey often stood-in as hostess at the White House when Eleanor was absent. When FDR entertained King George VI and Queen Elizabeth at a picnic at the Roosevelt estate in Hyde Park, New York in 1939, Betsey was prominent at the affair. FDR asked her to accompany him as he drove the King and Queen along the Hudson River. However, Betsey was a private person, and she shielded her two children by James, Sara and Kate, from publicity.
James Roosevelt left his father's side to take a job as an aide to movie producer Samuel Goldwyn in 1938, and moved his family to Hollywood. Betsey and James Roosevelt eventually separated, and they divorced in March 1940, Betsey obtaining a decree on the grounds of desertion and cruelty. Betsey Cushing Roosevelt was granted custody of their two daughters, child support, a settlement, and alimony until her eventual remarriage. That remarriage was two years off. Having divorced his first wife the same year Betsey obtained hers, Jock eventually wooed Betsey, marrying her on March 1, 1942. They would remain husband and wife until Jock's death in 1982, and he would adopt her two daughters in 1949.
Jock Whitney served in the Army Air Force as an intelligence officer during World War II, assigned to the Office of Strategic Services. He was taken prisoner by the Germans in southern France, but he escaped within a fortnight when the train transporting him to a POW camp came under Allied fire. A patriot, he was shocked when his interactions with soldiers revealed that they had little patriotic feeling, but were serving in the war because it was something they had to do. This revelation, that other Americans did not have as bountiful a view of their country as he did, profoundly changed him.
The Whitney family had a long history of both public service and philanthropy. Payne Whitney had been a benefactor of educational and charitable institutions, making substantial gifts to Yale, to the New York Hospital, and to the New York Public Library, to which he made a $12,000,000 gift in 1923. After his death in 1927, the family financed the construction of the Payne Whitney athletic complex at Yale in his honor. The family also financed the establishment of the Payne Whitney Psychiatric Clinic at New York Presbyterian Hospital in 1932.
Jock Whitney became a noted philanthropist, creating the John Hay Whitney Foundation for educational projects in 1946. The Foundation provided fellowships to the racially and culturally deprived and had a large impact on the evolution of higher education in post-war America. He continued the family tradition by becoming a major contributor to Yale University, where he served as a trustee. An art collector specializing in French and American works, he generously gifted the Museum of Modern Art in New York and Washington's National Gallery of Art. (A Rose Period Picasso he had bought for $30,000 in 1950, "Boy With a Pipe," would be auctioned off in 2004 for a record $104.2 million, the proceeds left over from the $93 million bid price to fund the charitable Greentree Foundation established by his wife after his death).
After the war, Jock he forsook Hollywood for Wall Street, founding J.H. Whitney & Co., a highly successful investment company that is the oldest venture capital firm in the U.S. In 1958, while he was still ambassador to the United Kingdom, his company Whitney Communications Corp. bought the `New York Herald Tribune,' a bastion of liberal Republicanism and the-then paper of record of the United States. After returning to the U.S. in 1961, he became its publisher until it folded in 1966. Whitney Communications also owned and operated other newspapers, plus magazines and broadcasting stations.
John Hay Whitney survived two severe heart attacks in his life due to his great strength, but after a long illness, he died on February 8, 1982. He was survived by his wife Betsey Cushing Roosevelt Whitney, and their two children, Sara and Kate Roosevelt Whitney. Betsey Whitney, who died in 1998, had an estimated personal fortune of $700 million in 1990 (approximately $1 billion in 2005 dollars), according to `Forbes' magazine. After her death on March 25, 1998, she bequeathed eight major paintings to the National Gallery of Art, including "Self-Portrait" (1889) by Vincent van Gogh, "Marcelle Lender Dancing the Bolero in `Chilperic'" (1895-1896) by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, "Open Window, Collioure" (1905) by Henri Matisse, "The Harbor of La Ciotat "(1907) by Georges Braque, and "The Beach at Sainte-Adresse" (1906) by Raoul Dufy. After Jock's death in 1982, the National Gallery similarly had been gifted with eight paintings from his collection, including works by Edward Hopper and James McNeill Whistler.
His friend, ABC News Vice President Richard Wald, said upon his death that Jock's major interest in life was the proper organization of society and how to provide for the disadvantaged in a fiscally responsible way. Wald said his friend went to sleep at night a Democrat and would wake up a Republican. Wald also said that Jock Whitney had a marvelous time and lived a marvelous life, happy and rich in a time when Americans liked the rich. And, it might be added, in a time when the rich knew in their souls that they owed an obligation to society at large, and to the disadvantaged in particular, and tried to fulfill that obligation for the betterment of the society that had given them so much.- Additional Crew
Irene Mayer Selznick was born on 2 April 1907 in Brooklyn, New York, USA. She is known for A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), Bell Book and Candle (1958) and Dolores Del Rio and Cedric Gibbons Throw a Party (1935). She was married to David O. Selznick. She died on 10 October 1990 in New York City, New York, USA.- Actress
- Producer
- Writer
Marion Davies was one of the great comedic actresses of the silent era and into the 1930s.
Marion Cecelia Douras was born in the borough of Brooklyn, New York on January 3, 1897, the daughter of Rose (Reilly) and Bernard J. Douras, a lawyer and judge. Her parents were both of Irish descent. Marion had been bitten by the show biz bug early as she watched her sisters perform in local stage productions. She wanted to do the same. As Marion got older, she tried out for various school plays and did fairly well. Once her formal education had ended, Marion began her career as a chorus girl in New York City, first in the pony follies, and eventually found herself in the famed Ziegfeld Follies. But she wanted to do more than dance. Acting, to Marion, was the epitome of show business and aimed her sights in that direction. Her stage name came when she and her family passed the Davies Insurance Building. One of her sisters called out "Davies!!! That shall be my stage name", and the whole family took on that name.
Her first film was Runaway Romany (1917), when she was 20. Written by Marion and directed by her brother-in-law, the film wasn't exactly a box-office smash, but for Marion, it was a start and a stepping stone to bigger things. The following year Marion starred in two films, The Burden of Proof (1918) and Cecilia of the Pink Roses (1918). The latter film was backed by newspaper magnate, William Randolph Hearst. When Marion moved to California, she already was involved with Hearst. They lived together at his San Simeon castle, an extremely elaborate mansion which stands as a California landmark to this day. At San Simeon, they threw grand parties, many of them in costume. Frequent guests included Carole Lombard, Mary Pickford, Sonja Henie, and Dolores Del Río - basically all the top names in Hollywood and other celebrities including the mayor of New York City, President Calvin Coolidge, and Charles Lindbergh. Davies and Hearst would continue a long-term romantic relationship for the next 30 years. Because of Hearst's newspaper empire, Marion would be promoted as no actress before her.
She appeared in numerous films over the next few years, with The Cinema Murder (1919) being one of the most suspenseful. In 1922, Marion appeared as Mary Tudor in the historical romantic epic, When Knighthood Was in Flower (1922). It was a film into which Hearst poured in millions of dollars as a showcase for her. Although Marion didn't normally appear in period pieces, she turned in a wonderful performance, and the film turned a profit. Marion remained busy, one of the staples in movie houses around the country. At the end of the twenties, it was obvious that sound films were about to replace silents. Marion was nervous because she had a stutter when she became excited and worried she wouldn't make a successful transition to the new medium, but she was a true professional who had no problem with the change. Time after time, film after film, Marion turned in masterful performances. In 1930, two of her better films were Not So Dumb (1930) and The Florodora Girl (1930). By the early 1930s, Marion had lost her box office appeal and the downward slide began.
Had she been without Hearst's backing, she possibly could have been more successful. He was more of a hindrance than a help. Hearst had tried to push MGM executives to hire Marion for the role of Elizabeth Barrett in The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934). Louis B. Mayer had other ideas and hired producer Irving Thalberg's wife, Norma Shearer instead. Hearst reacted by pulling his newspaper support for MGM without much impact. By the late 1930s Hearst was suffering financial reversals and it was Marion who bailed him out by selling $1 million of her jewelry. Without her, the Hearst Corporation might not be where it is today. Hearst's financial problems also spelled an end to her career. Although she had made the transition to sound, other stars fared better, and her roles became fewer and further between. In 1937, a 40-year-old Marion filmed her last movie, Ever Since Eve (1937). Out of films and with the intense pressures of her relationship with Hearst, Davies turned more and more to alcohol. Despite those problems, Marion was a very sharp and savvy business woman.
When Hearst died in 1951, Marion did not really know what was going on. The night before, there had been a lot of people in the house. Marion was very upset by the large crowd of family and friends. She said it was too noisy, and they were disturbing Hearst by talking so loud. She was upset and had to be sedated. When she woke, her niece, Patricia Van Cleve Lake, and her husband, Arthur Lake, told her that Hearst was dead. Upon Patricia's death, it was revealed she had been the love child of Davies and Hearst. Marion was banned from Hearst's funeral.
She later started many charities including a children's clinic that is still operating today. She was very generous and was loved by everyone who knew her. She went through a lot, even getting polio in the 1940s. Marion married for the first time at the age of 54, to Horace Brown. The union would last until she died of cancer on September 22, 1961 in Los Angeles, California. She was 64 years old.- Director
- Actor
- Writer
Raoul Walsh's 52-year directorial career made him a Hollywood legend. Walsh was also an actor: He appeared in the first version of W. Somerset Maugham's "Rain" renamed Sadie Thompson (1928) opposite Gloria Swanson in the title role. He would have played the Cisco Kid in his own film In Old Arizona (1928) if an errant jackrabbit hadn't cost him his right eye by leaping through the windshield of his automobile. Warner Baxter filled the role and won an Oscar. Before John Ford and Nicholas Ray, it was Raoul Walsh who made the eye-patch almost as synonymous with a Hollywood director as Cecil B. DeMille's jodhpurs.
He interned with the best, serving as assistant director and editor on D.W. Griffith's racist masterpiece, The Clansman, better known as The Birth of a Nation (1915), a blockbuster that may have been the highest-grossing film of all time if accurate box office records had been kept before the sound era. He pulled triple duty on that picture, playing John Wilkes Booth, the man who assassinated President Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theater and ranked as the most notorious American actor of all time until Pee Wee Herman (Paul Reubens).
The year before The Clansman, Walsh was second unit director on The Life of General Villa (1914), also playing the Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa as a young man. Walsh got his start in the business as co-director of another Pancho Villa flick, The Life of General Villa (1914), in 1912. The movie featured footage shot of an actually battle between Villa's forces and Mexican federal troops.
In 1915, in addition to helping out the great Griffith, Walsh directed no less than 14 films, including his first feature-length film, The Regeneration (1915), which he also wrote. The movie starred silent cinema superstar Anna Q. Nilsson as a society woman turned social worker who aids the regeneration of a Bowery gang leader. It was a melodrama, but an effective one. In his autobiography, Walsh credited D.W. Griffith with teaching him about the art of filmmaking and about production management techniques. The film is memorable for its shots of New York City, where Walsh had been born 28 years earlier on March 11, 1887.
Raoul Walsh would continue to be a top director for 40 years and would not hang up his director's megaphone (if he still had one at that late in the game) until 1964. As a writer, his last script was made in 1970, meaning his career as a whole spanned seven decades and 58 years.
He introduced the world to John Wayne in The Big Trail (1930) in 70mm wide-screen in 1930. It would take nine more years and John Ford to make the Duke a star. In one three-year period at Warner Bros., he directed The Roaring Twenties (1939), They Drive by Night (1940), High Sierra (1940), The Strawberry Blonde (1941), Manpower (1941), They Died with Their Boots On (1941), and Gentleman Jim (1942), among other films in that time frame. He helped consolidate the stardom of Humphrey Bogart and Errol Flynn while directing the great James Cagney in one of his more delightful films, The Strawberry Blonde (1941). This was the same director that would elicit Cagney's most searing performance since The Public Enemy (1931) in the crime classic White Heat (1949).
Novelist Norman Mailer says that Walsh was dragged off of his death bed to direct the underrated film adaptation of Mailer's The Naked and the Dead (1958). The movie is as masculine and unsentimental as the book, an exceedingly harsh look at the power relations between men at war on the same side that includes the attempted murder of prisoners of war and the "fragging" of officers (Sergeant Croft allows his lieutenant to walk into an ambush). Walsh was at his best when directing men in war or action pictures.
Raoul Walsh seemingly recovered from Mailer's phantasmagorical death bed, as he lived another 22 years after The Naked and the Dead (1958). He died on December 31, 1980, in Simi Valley, California, at the age of 93.- 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.- Costume Designer
- Costume and Wardrobe Department
- Additional Crew
Adrian Adolph Greenburg, born in Naugatuck, Connecticut, March 3, 1903, to Gilbert and Helena (Pollack) Greenburg. He began his professional career while still attending the New York School for Fine and Applied Arts by contributing to the costumes for "George White's Scandals" in 1921. He is credited for that production by his created name of Gilbert Adrian, a combination of his father's first name and his own. He transferred to NYSFAA's Paris campus in 1922 and while there was hired by Irving Berlin. In the fall of 1922 he returned to New York and began work on Berlin's 1922-1923 edition of "The Music Box Revue". Adrian continued to work on the Berlin reviews as well as other theatrical and film projects.
His big film break was designing costumes for Mae Murray in her first M.G.M. film, The Merry Widow (1925). He was then hired by Natacha Rambova to design for the independent films of her husband, Rudolph Valentino. In mid-1925, after designing costumes for the prologue of "The Gold Rush" at Grauman's Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood, Adrian was hired by Cecil B. DeMille to become head of the wardrobe department at his new studio. When DeMille moved to M.G.M. in 1928, Adrian moved there also. When his DeMille contract expired, Adrian signed with M.G.M. and remained with that studio until 1942.
He opened his own very successful couture business and continued to do some films until such time as his business expanded, with a salon in New York as well as Beverly Hills. His fashions were sold in department stores around the U.S. and he was the recipient of the 1944 Coty Award for Fashion. He also received a Lord & Taylor award for his work on Marie Antoinette (1938) in 1938 and a special award from Parsons, the successor to NYSFAA. His last film was Lovely to Look At (1952). He retired from the fashion industry in 1952 after a heart attack. He relocated to Brazil with his wife (since 1938) actress Janet Gaynor and their son, Robin. He returned to the U.S. to do "Grand Hotel", a musical with Viveca Lindfors and Paul Muni and his last career credit was the costume design for the Broadway musical "Camelot". He was working on this production when he died of a heart attack on September 13, 1959. Adrian never received an Oscar.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Edward Arnold was born as Gunther Edward Arnold Schneider in 1890, on the Lower East Side of New York City, the son of German immigrants, Elizabeth (Ohse) and Carl Schneider. Arnold began his acting career on the New York stage and became a film actor in 1916. A burly man with a commanding style and superb baritone voice, he was a popular screen personality for decades, and was the star of such film classics as Diamond Jim (1935) (a role he reprised in Lillian Russell (1940)) Arnold appeared in over 150 films and was President of The Screen Actors Guild shortly before his death in 1956.- Music Artist
- Actor
- Producer
After high school Gene Autry worked as a laborer for the St. Louis and San Francisco Railroad in Oklahoma. Next he was a telegrapher. In 1928 he began singing on a local radio station, and three years later he had his own show and was making his first recordings. Three years after that he made his film debut in Ken Maynard's In Old Santa Fe (1934) and starred in a 13-part serial the following year for Mascot Pictures, The Phantom Empire (1935). The next year he signed a contract with Republic Pictures and began making westerns. Autry--for better or worse--pretty much ushered in the era of the "singing cowboy" westerns of the 1930s and 1940s (in spite of the presence in his oaters of automobiles, radios and airplanes). These films often grossed ten times their average $50,000 production costs. During World War II he enlisted in the US Army and was assigned as a flight officer from 1942-46 with the Air Transport Command. After his military service he returned to making movies, this time with Columbia Pictures, and finally with his own company, Flying A Productions, which, during the 1950s, produced his TV series The Gene Autry Show (1950), The Adventures of Champion (1955), and Annie Oakley (1954). He wrote over 200 songs. A savvy businessman, he retired from acting in the early 1960s and became a multi-millionaire from his investments in hotels, real estate, radio stations and the California Angels professional baseball team.- Canadian-born Cecilia Parker, daughter of a British army officer, moved with her family to Hollywood when she was a child. After graduation from high school she got a job as an extra. She did extra work for about a year before she was noticed by Fox executives, who signed her to a contract in 1931. Her career went along steadily if not spectacularly until 1937, when she was signed by MGM to play the older sister of Mickey Rooney in the "Andy Hardy" series. Although she had worked in everything from westerns to jungle serials, it's this part that people remember her for. She must have given MGM some trouble at one point, because in 1941 she was "loaned" (exiled is probably a better word) to ultra-low-rent studio PRC for one picture, a fate that usually befell actors who displeased the higher-ups at the studios. All was apparently forgiven, though, as she made five more pictures at MGM before she retired in 1942. She returned in 1958 for one final Andy Hardy film, but then went back to the real estate business she and her husband operated in Ventura, California, where she died in 1993.
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- Soundtrack
Lee Bowman made his reputation as a suave, polished leading man opposite glamorous stars like Rita Hayworth and Jean Arthur in the 1940s. The columnist Jack Sher, later a noted writer and director,,referred to him in 1944 as 'a very hot commodity' in Hollywood. A graduate from the University of Cincinnati, Bowman had studied acting at the New York Academy of Dramatic Arts, and, with the determination to succeed as a screen actor, went to tinsel town in 1934. After several bit parts, he landed his first credited screen role and made a quick impact in the screwball comedy I Met Him in Paris (1937). Sporting a thin mustache and invariably elegantly attired, Bowman quickly established an image as a smooth, wise-cracking bon vivant, most frequently in films for MGM or Columbia. He rarely enjoyed top billing - a rare exception being his co-starring role opposite Jean Arthur in the charming comedy The Impatient Years (1944) - and was often third or fourth on the list of credits as the man-about-town friend of the hero, who doesn't get the girl in the end.
Bowman gave possibly his best, and most typical screen performances in the gangster drama Kid Glove Killer (1942) and two breezy Rita Hayworth musicals, Cover Girl (1944) and, in the role of a dashing RAF pilot Tonight and Every Night (1945). He took on a more heavyweight role, less convincingly, as husband of alcoholic Susan Hayward in Smash-Up: The Story of a Woman (1947). His last film role of note was as the crippled brother of murderer Louis Hayward in Republic's gas-lit melodrama, House by the River (1950), directed by Fritz Lang. In January 1951, Bowman took over as the star of the ABC television series The Adventures of Ellery Queen (1950), replacing Richard Hart who had died suddenly. The show lasted until 1952.
With movie roles drying up, Bowman began to concentrate on working in radio and guest-starring on television, with occasional forays to the stage. On radio, his voice was heard, among others, in episodes of 'Inner Sanctum' (1945) and 'Cavalcade of America' (1946-53). He also starred in a second short-lived series (38 half-hour episodes) as private eye Jeff Thompson in Miami Undercover (1961), with former heavyweight boxer Rocky Graziano cast as his sidekick.
After retiring from the screen in 1968, Lee Bowman set about utilizing his talents as a corporate communications consultant (chairman from 1974 of the London-based Kingstree Group), media-training businessmen and politicians in public address and conversational interviewing techniques. He was also called upon to act as master of ceremonies for Republican Party conventions. Bowman died on Christmas Day in Brentwood, California, in 1979 at the age of 64.- 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.- Actress
- Producer
Mary Hay was born in Fort Bliss, Texas on August 22, 1901. She was a minor film actress whose career spans only four films. Her debut came in Hearts of the World (1918) in 1918 and her last was as Mary Lane in New Toys (1925) in 1925, a film she also produced. Mary died on June 4, 1957 in Inverness, California at the age of 55.- Genteel, ladylike British actress who was a much respected theatrical star in the 1920s and '30s, both in her own country and in the United States. Born in March 1900 in Hove, Sussex, she took to the stage at the age of seventeen as Ela Delahay in 'Charley's Aunt'. She played Peter Pan three years later and married the first of her actor husbands, Seymour Beard. By the mid '20s, Edna had become the toast of London for her performances in 'Fallen Angel' (with Tallulah Bankhead), and (in a role she made her own) as Teresa (Tessa) Sanger in 'The Constant Nymph' (opposite Noël Coward, and, subsequently, John Gielgud). With the part of Tessa she also enjoyed a successful run on Broadway in 1926, which was followed by another Margaret Kennedy play, 'Come With Me'. She married her co-star, Herbert Marshall, after divorcing Beard in 1928.
Edna started in films as early as 1921 but made little headway until Michael and Mary (1931), for which she recreated her role from the London stage. She then co-starred again with husband Herbert Marshall in Faithful Hearts (1932), but neither of these films received much international exposure. Her only Hollywood film at this time was The Key (1934), which -- though directed by Michael Curtiz -- was decidedly too 'low-key' as far as critical plaudits or the box office was concerned. She had smallish parts in other British films, notably South Riding (1938) and the original version of Alfred Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934) as the mother of kidnap victim Nova Pilbeam. Not until 1939 did a worthy motion picture role come her way in the shape of the forlorn wife whom violinist Leslie Howard deserts for Ingrid Bergman in Intermezzo (1939). Other worthy screen roles included her Catherine Apley in The Late George Apley (1947) and the housekeeper Martha in The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947), which the New York Times review of June 27 considered 'by far the best performance' in the picture. All in all, Edna's film appearances were few and far between, and only a handful adequately showcased her talents as an actress otherwise so abundantly evident from the body of her work in the theatre.
From 1939 a U.S. resident and a nationalised citizen by the early 1950s, Edna continued her frequent triumphant returns to the stage. Her most celebrated performances on Broadway were in Terence Rattigan's 'The Browning Version' as downtrodden housewife Millie Crocker-Harris and in 'Harlequinade' (1949) (both co-starred 'Maurice Evans (I)' (q)) and as the titular character 'Jane' (1952) in a play adapted by S.N. Behrman from a W. Somerset Maugham short story. Brooks Atkinson described her performance as the timorous spinster as both 'comic' and 'forceful'. In her last significant role on stage she co-starred with Brian Aherne and Lynn Fontanne in the romantic comedy 'Quadrille' (1954-55), directed by Alfred Lunt and outfitted by Cecil Beaton, who also designed the costumes. Edna retired from acting in the early 1960s and died in a clinic in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1974. - Actor
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Charles Boyer studied philosophy before he went to the theater where he gave his debut in 1920. Although he had at first no intentions to pursue a career at the movies (his first movie was Man of the Sea (1920) by Marcel L'Herbier) he used his chance in Hollywood after several filming stations all over Europe. In the beginning of his career his beautiful voice was hidden by the silent movies but in Hollywood he became famous for his whispered declarations of love (like in movies with Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich or Ingrid Bergman). In 1934 he married Pat Paterson, his first and (unusual for a star) only wife. He was so faithful to her that he decided to commit suicide two days after her death in 1978.- Actress
- Soundtrack
From mill girl to film star was the real life story of Bradford born Pat Paterson. A former Laidler Sunbeam and stage struck she left Lister's Mill office at 15 to join a touring show, After doing cabaret work in London she was seen by an agent for Fox Films and given a part in the British film The Right to Live, A five year contract with Fox followed and in America she met and married French star Charles Boyer. After making 5 films she left the business. Her marriage was a very happy one and when she died in 1978 Charles died just a few days later reputedly of as broken heart,- Actor
- Producer
- Writer
George Burns was an American actor, comedian, singer, and published author. He formed a comedy duo with his wife Gracie Allen (1895-1964), and typically played the straight man to her zany roles. Following her death, Burns started appearing as a solo performer. He once won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, and continued performing until his 90s. He lived to be a centenarian, was viewed as an "elder statesman" in the field of comedy.
Burns was born under the name "Nathan Birnbaum" in 1896, and was nicknamed "Nattie" by his family. His father was Eliezer "Louis" Birnbaum (1855-1903), a coat presser who also served a substitute cantor at a local synagogue in New York City. His mother was Hadassah "Dorah" Bluth (1857-1927), a homemaker. Both parents were Jewish immigrants, originally from the small town of Kolbuszowa in Austrian Galicia (currently part of Poland). Kolbuszowa had a large Jewish population until World War II, when the German occupation forces in Poland relocated the local Jews to a ghetto in Rzeszów.
The Birnbaums were a large family, and Burns had 11 siblings. He was the 9th eldest of the Birnbaum Children. In 1903, Louis Birnbaum caught influenza and died, during an ongoing influenza epidemic. Orphaned when 7-years-old, Burns had to work to financially support his family. He variously shined shoes, run errands, selling newspapers, and worked as a syrup maker in a local candy shop.
Burns liked to sing while working, and practiced singing harmony with three co-workers of similar age. They were discovered by letter carrier Lou Farley, who gave them the idea to perform singing in exchange for payment. The four children soon started performing as the "Pee-Wee Quartet", singing in brothels, ferryboats, saloons, and street corners. They put their hats down for donations from their audience, though their audience was not always generous. In Burns' words: "Sometimes the customers threw something in the hats. Sometimes they took something out of the hats. Sometimes they took the hats."
Burns started smoking cigars c. 1910, when 14-years-old. It became a lifelong habit for him. Burns' performing career was briefly interrupted in 1917, when he was drafted for service in World I. He eventually failed his physical exams, due to his poor eyesight.
By the early 1920s, he adopted the stage name "George Burns", though he told several different stories of why he chose the name. He supposedly named himself after then-famous baseball player George Henry Burns (1897-1978), or the also famous baseball player George Joseph Burns (1889-1966). In another version, he named himself after his brother Izzy "George" Birnbaum, and took the last name "Burns" in honor of Burns Brothers Coal Company.
Burns performed dance routines with various female partners, until he eventually married his most recent partner Gracie Allen in 1926. Burns made his film debut in the comedy short film "Lambchops" (1929), which was distributed by Vitaphone. The film simply recorded one of Burns and Allen's comedy routines from vaudeville.
Burns made his feature film debut in a supporting role of the musical comedy "The Big Broadcast" (1932). He appeared regularly in films throughout the 1930s, with his last film role for several years appearing in the musical film "Honolulu" (1939). Burns was reportedly considered for leading role in "Road to Singapore" (1940), but the studio replaced him with Bob Hope (1903-2003).
Burns and Allen started appearing as comic relief for a radio show featuring bandleader Guy Lombardo (1902-1977). By February 1932, they received their own sketch comedy radio show. The couple portrayed younger singles, until the show was retooled in 1941 and started featuring them as a married couple. By the fall of 1941, the show had evolved into a situational comedy about married life. Burns and Allen's supporting cast included notable voice actors Mel Blanc, Bea Benaderet, and Hal March.
The radio show finally ended in 1949, reworked into the popular television show "The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show" (1950-1958). Allen would typically play the "illogical" housewife, while Burns played the straight man and broke the fourth wall to speak to the audience. The couple formed the production company McCadden Corporation to help produce the show.
Allen developed heart problems during the 1950s, and by the late 1950s was unable to put up the energy needed for the show. She fully retired in 1958. The show was briefly retooled to "The George Burns Show" (1958-1959), but Burns comedic style was not as popular as that of his wife. The new show was canceled due to low ratings.
Following Allen's death in 1964, Burns attempted a television comeback by creating the sitcom "Wendy and Me" (1964-1965) about the life of a younger married couple. The lead roles were reserved for Ron Harper and Connie Stevens, while Burns had a supporting role as their landlord. He also performed as the show's narrator.
As a television producer, Burns produced the military comedy "No Time for Sergeants", and the sitcom "Mona McCluskey". As an actor, he mostly appeared in theaters and nightclubs. Burns had a career comeback with the comedy film "The Sunshine Boys" (1975), his first film appearance since World War II. He played faded vaudevillian Al Lewis, who has a difficult relationship with his former partner Willy Clark (played by Walter Matthau). The role was met with critical success, and Burns won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. At age 80, Burns was the oldest Oscar winner at the time. His record was broken by Jessica Tandy in 1989.
Burns had his greatest film success playing God in the comedy film "Oh, God!" (1977). The film 51 million dollars at the domestic box office, and was one of the greatest hits of 1977. Burns returned to the role in the sequels "Oh, God! Book II" (1980) and "Oh, God! You Devil" (1984). He had a double role as both God and the Devil in the last film.
Burns had several other film roles until the 1990s. His most notable films in this period were the musical comedy "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" (1978), the comedy film "Just You and Me, Kid" (1979), the caper film "Going in Style" (1979), and the fantasy-comedy "18 Again!" (1988). The last of the four featured him as a grandfather who exchanges souls with his grandson.
Burns' last film role was a bit part in the mystery film "Radioland Murders" (1994), which was a box office flop. In July 1994, Burns fell in his bathtub and underwent surgery to remove fluid in his skull. He survived, but his health never fully recovered. He was forced to retire from acting and stand-up comedy.
On January 20, 1996, Burns celebrated his 100th birthday, but was in poor health and had to cancel a pre-arranged comeback performance. In March 1996, he suffered from cardiac arrest and died. He was buried in Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery, Glendale, next to Gracie Allen.- Actress
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Gracie Allen was born on 26 July 1895 in San Francisco, California, USA. She was an actress and writer, known for A Damsel in Distress (1937), The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show (1950) and The Gracie Allen Murder Case (1939). She was married to George Burns. She died on 27 August 1964 in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Phyllis Brooks was born on 18 July 1915 in Boise, Idaho, USA. She was an actress, known for Dangerously Yours (1937), Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1938) and Charlie Chan in Reno (1939). She was married to Torbert H. Macdonald. She died on 1 August 1995 in Cape Neddick, Maine, USA.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Fanny Brice was a popular and influential American comedienne, singer, theatre and film actress, who made many stage, radio and film appearances but is best remembered as the creator and star of the top-rated radio comedy series, The Baby Snooks Show. Thirteen years after her death, she was portrayed on the Broadway stage by Barbra Streisand in Funny Girl. The show was made into a musical film in 1968. Born Fania Borach, in New York City, she was the third child of Rose (Stern) and Charles Borach, relatively well-off saloon owners of Hungarian Jewish descent. In 1908, she dropped out of school to work in a burlesque revue, and two years later she began her association with Florenz Ziegfeld, headlining his Ziegfeld Follies from 1910 into the 1930s. In the 1921 Follies, she was featured singing "My Man" which became both a big hit and her signature song. She made a popular recording of it for Victor Records. The second song most associated with her is "Second Hand Rose". She recorded nearly two dozen record sides for Victor and also cut several for Columbia. She is a posthumous recipient of a Grammy Hall of Fame Award for her 1921 recording of "My Man". Her films include My Man (1928), Be Yourself! (1930) and Everybody Sing (1938) with Judy Garland. Brice, Ray Bolger and Harriet Hoctor were the only original Ziegfeld performers to portray themselves in The Great Ziegfeld (1936) and Ziegfeld Follies (1946). For her contribution to the motion picture industry, she has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at MP 6415 Hollywood Boulevard.- Producer
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One of the most popular child actors in film history, Child superstar Freddie Bartholomew was born Frederick Cecil Bartholomew in Harlesden, London, the son of Lilian May (Clarke) and Cecil Llewellyn Bartholomew. From age three, he grew up in the town of Warminster under the care of his father's unmarried sister Millicent. A precocious lad, Freddie was reciting and performing on stage at three years of age, and was soon singing and dancing as well. By age six he had appeared in his first movie, a short called Toyland (1930). Three other British film appearances and the recommendation of his teacher Italia Conti led him to be cast in the MGM film David Copperfield (1935), as the title character, resulting in a seven-year MGM contract and a move to Hollywood with his aunt. The illustrious, star-studded and highly successful David Copperfield (1935) made Freddie an overnight sensation, and he went on to star in a succession of high-quality films through 1937, including Anna Karenina (1935); Professional Soldier (1935); the riveting Little Lord Fauntleroy (1936); Lloyd's of London (1936); The Devil Is a Sissy (1936); and Freddie's biggest success, Captains Courageous (1937), opposite Spencer Tracy.
Following the success of Little Lord Fauntleroy (1936), Freddie's birth parents, who were strangers to him, stepped in and attempted for seven years to gain custody of him and his fortune. His aunt Millicent attempted to offset these legal expenses and payouts by demanding a raise in Freddie's MGM salary in 1937. Another slew of court cases ensued, this time over the MGM contract, and Freddie missed a critical year's work and some golden film opportunities. By the time he resumed acting work in 1938, he was well into his teens, and audiences grew less interested in literary period pieces as World War II erupted in Europe. Following Kidnapped (1938), many of his ten remaining films through 1942 were knock-offs or juvenile military films, and only two were for MGM. The best of the films after Kidnapped (1938) were Swiss Family Robinson (1940), Lord Jeff (1938), Listen, Darling (1938), and Tom Brown's School Days (1940). His salary soared to $2,500 a week making him filmdom's highest paid child star after Shirley Temple.
In 1943, Freddie enlisted in the U.S. Air Force for a year to work in aircraft maintenance, exiting with both a back injury and American citizenship.
The additional time away from the screen had not done him any favors, though, and efforts to revive his career on film were unsuccessful. His efforts performing in regional theaters and vaudeville did not spark a comeback either. Aunt Millicent left for England when Freddie married publicist Maely Daniele in 1946 against her wishes. Freddie toured a few months in Australia doing nightclub singing and piano, but when he returned to the U.S. in 1949 he switched to television, making a gradual move from performer to host to director, at New York station WPIX. In 1954, re-married to TV cookbook author Aileen Paul, he moved to Benton & Bowles advertising agency, as a television director and producer. He remarked at the time that the millions he had earned as a child had been spent mostly on lawsuits, many of which involved headline court battles between his parents and his aunt for custody of young Freddie and his money. "I was drained dry," he said.
He became vice president of television programming in 1964, directing and producing several prominent long-running soap operas. Bartholomew retired due to emphysema by the late 1980s, and eventually moved with his third wife Elizabeth to Florida, where he died in 1992, but not before being filmed in several lovely interview segments for the lengthy 1992 documentary, MGM: When the Lion Roars (1992).- Actress
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British-born actress who appeared in both British and American films, but who found her greatest success in Hollywood second leads. After a variety of jobs, including nurse, chorus girl and milkmaid, Barnes entered vaudeville. She appeared in more than a score of short comedies with comedian Stanley Lupino before making her feature bow in 1931. Two years later she achieved prominence as one of the half-dozen wives of the King in The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933). The following year she moved to Hollywood and began a career as the smart-aleck pal of the lead or as the angry "other woman." Barnes also played numerous leading roles, but spent most of the 1930s and 40s in strong supporting parts. In 1940 she married football star (and later producer) M.J. Frankovich and after the war, they moved to Italy and appeared in several films there and elsewhere in Europe. She retired from films in 1954, but returned for a few roles in the late 60s and early 70s. She worked busily with numerous charities until her death in 1998.- Additional Crew
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George Balanchine was a Georgian-American ballet dancer and one of the foremost choreographers of the 20th century. Regarded as the founder of American ballet, he established and led the New York City Ballet for more than three decades.
Balanchine was born Georgy Melitonovich Balanchivadze, the son of Meliton Balanchivadze, a noted Georgian composer who later became the Culture Minister of the first Georgian Democratic Republic. Young Balanchine studied piano with his father from the age of 5. In 1913, he was admitted in the ballet class of the Imperial Ballet School in St. Petersburg. In 1914, he made his stage debut with the Mariinsky Imperial Ballet as Cupid in "The Sleeping Beauty" ballet by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. In 1921, he graduated as a classic ballet dancer. He also studied piano and composition at the St. Petersburg Conservatory. From 1921-24, he was a dancer with the State Academic Theatre of Opera and Ballet in Petrograd (St. Petersburg).
In 1924, he emigrated from Russia together with his first wife, ballerina Tamara Geva, whom he wed in 1923. That same year auditioned for and was hired as a dancer by impresario Sergei Diaghilev for his "Russian Ballet". A knee injury forced him to quit dancing, and Diaghilev employed him as a choreographer. From 1924-29 he created nine major ballets as well as choreographing smaller productions. He choreographed such ballets as "L'Enfant et les Sortileges" by Maurice Ravel, "Apollon Musagete" and "Le Chant du Rossignol" by Igor Stravinsky, in which he introduced then 14-year-old Alicia Markova.
After Diaghilev's death, Balanchine had a few uncertain years. He played a cameo role as a dancer in Dark Red Roses (1929) with Lydia Lopokova, a former Diaghilev ballerina. After a brief stint with the Royal Danish Ballet in Copenhagen, Balanchine moved to Monte Carlo. There, from 1930-33, he choreographed three ballets for "Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo", starring Tamara Toumanova. At that time he collaborated with Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weil. In 1933, he formed "Les Ballets" with Boris Kochno, Diaghilev's last private secretary, and made performances in London. There he was met the young American impresario Lincoln Kirstein, who invited him to start a ballet company in New York. Balanchine said, "Yes. But first, a school", and came to New York at the end of 1933. There he co-founded the School of American Ballet, which opened its doors on January 2, 1934.
In 1935, he co-founded the American Ballet, which became the resident company of the Metropolitan Opera for a few years until their separation from the Opera in 1938. Balanchine took his dancers to Hollywood. There he promoted his second wife, Vera Zorina, to several leading roles and worked as ballet choreographer in The Goldwyn Follies (1938), On Your Toes (1939), We Are Not Alone (1939), Star Spangled Rhythm (1942) and Follow the Boys (1944). In 1946, Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein founded the Ballet Society, renamed the "New York City Ballet" in 1948. It became the most innovative ballet company in the world. He choreographed the five-part series Great Performances: Dance in America (1976) for PBS and the film The Turning Point (1977).
In Christmas 1954, Balanchine staged "The Nutcracker" by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, and started the tradition of seasonal performances of this classic ballet. His choreography was re-created for the 1993 film version of the production, The Nutcracker (1993). Balanchine and New York City Ballet made a home in the New York State Theater building at Lincoln Center, designed by Philip Johnson, in 1964. The new home for Balanchine's ballet was commissioned and funded with the help of Kirstein, who served as the general director of Balanchine's ballet company from 1933-89. Their work was documented from 1933-55 by photographer George Platt Lynes. Their friends and collaborators were Gertrude Stein, Jean Cocteau, Igor Stravinsky, Pavel Tchelitchev, Cecil Beaton, Alexandra Danilova and many others.
Balanchine was married four times, all to ballerinas; he also had common-law relationships, but remained childless. He died in New York on April 30, 1983, and was laid to rest in Oakland Cemetery, Sag Harbor, New York.- Actress
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Practically born with ballet slippers on, the dark, lithe and exotic Vera Zorina had memorable careers with the Ballet Russe and, to a lesser degree, Hollywood. Born in Berlin, her father Fritz was German and mother Billie Hartwig Norwegian. She took to ballet at age 2 (she used to take her ballet slippers to bed with her) and by age 4 was performing. She received her education at the Lyceum for Girls in Berlin but was trained in dance by Olga Preobrajenska and Nicholas Legat, the latter teaching Anna Pavlova and Nijinsky at one time.
The dancing prodigy was presented to Max Reinhardt at age 12 and he in turn cast her in his "A Midsummer Night's Dream" (1929) and "Tales of Hoffman" (1931). A performance at London's Gaiety Theatre led to her entrance into the company of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo in 1933. She was encouraged to change her stage name to something Russian and exotic in style and she chose "Vera Zorina" for its authenticity and simplicity from a long list of names. She also learned Russian in the process to feel closer to her dancing compatriots. She stayed with the renowned ballet company for three years appearing everywhere from Covent Garden in London to the Metropolitan Opersa House in New York.
Again, timing proved to be on Vera's side when she won a lead role in the London company of "On Your Toes" in 1937 and was spotted by movie mogul Samuel Goldwyn, who signed her to a movie contract. The build-up was considerable and she made her official debut with the musical The Goldwyn Follies (1938). That same year she increased her visibility ten-fold by marrying noted choreographer/director George Balanchine. She followed her film debut successfully recreating her role in the movie version of On Your Toes (1939) and then played the role of a faux countess in the comedy crime caper I Was an Adventuress (1940). She impressed on Broadway with "I Married an Angel" and even more so in the 1940 musical "Louisiana Purchase" before returning to Hollywood once again to perform in the movie version of Louisiana Purchase (1941) opposite Bob Hope. She was cast as Maria in what could have been the beginning of a dramatic career in the Oscar-winning For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943), but was abruptly replaced after only two weeks of shooting by Ingrid Bergman, an action that proved detrimental to her movie career. When the sudden surge of film offers began to wane after the releases of Follow the Boys (1944) with George Raft and Lover Come Back (1946) co-starring Lucille Ball and George Brent, she bade Hollywood a prompt goodbye.
Following her divorce from Ballanchine in 1946, she married Goddard Lieberson, president of Columbia Records and a social whirlwind ensued. The prominent couple went on to have two sons, Peter and Jonathan. In later years her lilting accent was used for narrations (in several different languages, including English, German and French) on several records and in tandem with numerous classical symphony orchestras and opera houses. She also directed a production of "Herod" for Norwegian TV. Vera was active with the Lincoln Center as an adviser and director and for several seasons directed operas at the Santa Fe Opera Company in New Mexico. She died in Santa Fe of a cerebral hemorrhage in 2003, predeceased by her second husband and son Jonathan.- Actor
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After passing his screen test, Rand Brooks played a bit role in the 1938 film Love Finds a Way. He then found several other roles before landing the part of Charles Hamilton in Gone with the Wind. He went on to play small roles in films such as Laddie, And One was Beautiful, The Son of Monte Cristo, Jennie, Niagara Falls, among others. Beginning in 1946, he took over the role of Hopalong Cassidy's youthful sidekick, Lucky, and played in twelve of the feature films. Among these, which starred William Boyd as Hoppy, were The Devil's Playground, Fool's Gold, Unexpected Guest, Dangerous Venture, and Hoppy's Holiday. Brooks continued playing roles in films throughout the 1940s and into the 1950s, which also started his television career. He made co-starring appearances on series such as The Roy Rogers Show, Highway Patrol, Lassie, Wagon Train, Maverick, The Real McCoys, The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin, Bat Masterson, Laramie, Gunsmoke, The Munsters, Perry Mason, Columbo, and Bonanza, as well as nine episodes of The Lone Ranger, where he began a friendship with Clayton Moore. In 1966, Rand Brooks started Professional Ambulance Service in Glendale, California, with two used ambulances and a credit card. By 1977 his company had become the largest private ambulance 9-1-1 paramedic provider in Los Angeles County. During his ownership the company received dozens of awards and commendations and was widely recognized as one of the finest ambulance services in the country. In 1995 Brooks sold it to corporate giant American Medical Response. He lived at his ranch in Santa Barbara County with second wife Hermine, a former executive with his company, until his death in 2003. Brooks has two children; a daughter and a son, Rand Brooks Jr., who owns a trucking company in Los Angeles. Brooks can be seen portraying a police officer in the two-hour premier episode of the television series Emergency! (1972), which was first aired in January of 1972 on NBC. Rand Brooks' acting career spanned over 140 films and television series, as well as writing, producing, and directing one film called Legend of the Northwest.- Actor
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Joe E. Brown happily claimed that he was the only youngster in show business who ran away from home to join the circus with the blessings of his parents. In 1902, the ten-year-old Brown joined a circus tumbling act called the Five Marvellous Ashtons that toured various circuses and vaudeville theaters. Joe later began adding comedy bits into his vaudeville act and added more as it became popular. In 1920 he debuted on Broadway in an all-star review called "Jim Jam Jems". As he developed skits and comedy routines throughout the 1920s, he built up his confidence and his popularity soared. The same could not be said for his debut in movies. Hired for a non-comedy role in The Circus Kid (1928), he played a lion tamer whose fate is death. He didn't register with the public until he signed with Warner Brothers in 1929 to do comedy roles in the film adaptations of Broadway shows such as Sally (1929) and Top Speed (1930). Joe would be well known for his loud yell, his infectious grin and his cavernous mouth. Since many of his films revolved around sports, his natural athletic ability, combined with the physical comedy, made them hits. In Local Boy Makes Good (1931), Joe played a botanist who becomes a track star. As he had briefly played semi-pro baseball, he was a natural for films like Fireman, Save My Child! (1932), in which he played a pitcher who was also a fireman. Two of his biggest hits also involved the game of baseball, Elmer, the Great (1933) and Alibi Ike (1935). In his contract with Warners, he had it written that he would have his own baseball team at the studio to play when he was able. Joe was one of the top ten moneymaking stars for 1933 and 1936. In 1937, he left Warners to make films for David L. Loew, and it was a disaster. Most of the films were cheaply made with poor production values, and only a few were successful. Two of the better ones were Riding on Air (1937) and The Gladiator (1938). Brown always called signing with Loew his biggest professional mistake, and with Loew his popularity fell. By the end of the 1930s he was working in "B" material, which would have been unimaginable less than five years earlier. With the advent of World War II, Joe worked tirelessly to entertain the troops while his film career floundered. Their enthusiastic response enabled Joe to overcome the death of his son, Captain Donald Brown, on a training flight. In 1947 Joe was back in the biz and back on stage in a road company tour of the comedy "Harvey". His first movie role in three years was as a small-town minister in the drama The Tender Years (1948). Even though he gave a good performance, it would be another three years before he was again on the big screen, in the big-budget 1951 remake of Show Boat (1951), in which he played Cap'n Andy Hawks. When his film career became almost nonexistent, Joe worked on radio and in television. He starred as the clown in the drama The Buick Circus Hour (1952) from 1952 to 1953 and made guest appearances on a number of other shows in the 1950s and early 1960s. His peers regarded him as one of the few truly nice people in Hollywood. After a few small movie roles in the 1950s, he was discovered by a new generation as the millionaire Osgood Fielding III in Billy Wilder's classic Some Like It Hot (1959), uttering the immortal last line of the film, "Well, nobody's perfect."- Actress
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Benita Hume was a British actress whose career began on the stage in London. She was born on October 14, 1906 in London, England. After breaking into cinema in a 1925 British silent film in 1925, she transitioned nicely into sound and made two dozen films in England before travelling to the U.S. By that time she had become a leading lady and top supporting actress. In 1933, she made her first American film with MGM - "Clear All Wires."
Over the next four years, Hume would make a dozen films with MGM and RKO. Most were dramas with a couple mysteries and musicals. Only two were comedies, and although she showed very good talent for comedy and excellent chemistry with Cary Grant in "Gambling Ship" of 1933, she didn't rise to the star status she had reached in England.
In 1938, she married Ronald Colman and except for acting with him, she left her career behind. They had a popular comedy radio program in 1949-1951, "The Halls of Ivy." It was later made into a TV sitcom of the same title and stars, in 1954-55. And she and Colman appeared in some episodes of the Jack Benny Show on radio, as his woeful neighbor couple. She and Colman were also part owners of the San Ysidro Resort in Santa Barbara. Colman died in 1958, and the next year, Hume married another English actor, George Sanders. They remained married until her death in 1967 of bone cancer, with Sanders caring for her.
Among her most memorable films are "The Gay Deception" of 1935, "Looking Forward" of 1933, and "Lord Camber's Ladies" of 1932.- Actor
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Tall, suave and sophisticated Cesar Romero actually had two claims to fame in Hollywood. To one generation, he was the distinguished Latin lover of numerous musicals and romantic comedies, and the rogue bandit The Cisco Kid in a string of low-budget westerns. However, to a younger generation weaned on television, Romero was better known as the white-faced, green-haired, cackling villain The Joker of the camp 1960s TV series Batman (1966), and as a bumbling corporate villain in a spate of Walt Disney comedies, such as chasing a young Kurt Russell in the fun-packed The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes (1969). Fans and critics alike agreed that Romero was a major talent who proved himself an enduring and versatile star in an overwhelming variety of roles in a career as an actor, dancer and comedian that lasted nearly 60 years.
Cesar Romero was born of Cuban parents in New York City in February 1907. He attended the Collegiate School and Riverdale Country School before working as a ballroom dancer. He first appeared on Broadway in the 1927 production of Lady Do, and then in the stage production of Strictly Dishonorable. His first film role was in The Shadow Laughs (1933), after which he gave strong performances in The Devil Is a Woman (1935) and in the Shirley Temple favorite, Wee Willie Winkie (1937).
Critics and fans generally agree that Romero's best performance was as the Spanish explorer Cortez in Captain from Castile (1947). However, he also shone in the delightful Julia Misbehaves (1948) and several other breezy and lighthearted escapades. In 1953 he starred in the 39-part espionage TV serial Passport to Danger (1954), which earned him a considerable income due to a canny profit-sharing arrangement. Although Romero became quite wealthy and had no need to work, he could not stay away from being in front of the cameras. He continued to appear in a broad variety of film roles, but surprised everyone in Hollywood by taking on the role of "The Joker" in the hugely successful TV series Batman (1966). He refused to shave his trademark mustache for the role, and close observation shows how the white clown makeup went straight on over his much loved mustache! The appearances in Batman were actually only a small part of the enormous amount of work that Romero contributed to television. He guest-starred in dozens of shows, including Rawhide (1959), 77 Sunset Strip (1958), Zorro (1957), Fantasy Island (1977) and Murder, She Wrote (1984). However, it was The Joker for which his TV work was best remembered, and Romero often remarked that for many, many years after Batman ended, fans would stop him and ask him to chuckle and giggle away just like he did as The Joker. Romero always obliged, and both he and the fans just loved it!
With a new appeal to a younger fan base, Romero turned up in three highly popular Disney comedies: The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes (1969), Now You See Him, Now You Don't (1972) and The Strongest Man in the World (1975) as corrupt but inept villain A.J. Arno. Throughout the remainder of the 1980s Romero remained busy, and even at 78 years of age the ladies still loved his charm, and he was cast as Jane Wyman's love interest in the top-rated prime-time soap opera Falcon Crest (1981), playing Peter Stavros from 1985 to 1987.
Although Romero stopped acting in 1990, he remained busy, regularly hosting classic movie programs on cable television. A talented and much loved Hollywood icon, he passed away on New Year's Day 1994, at the age of 86.- Actor
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Born to Alice Cooper and Charles Cooper. Gary attended school at Dunstable school England, Helena Montana and Grinnell College, Grinnell, Iowa (then called Iowa College). His first stage experience was during high school and college. Afterwards, he worked as an extra for one year before getting a part in a two-reeler by the independent producer Hans Tiesler . Eileen Sedgwick was his first leading lady. He then appeared in The Winning of Barbara Worth (1926) for United Artists before moving to Paramount. While there he appeared in a small part in Wings (1927), It (1927), and other films.- Sandra Shaw was born on 27 May 1913 in Brooklyn, New York, USA. She was an actress, known for The Gay Nighties (1933), The Jack Benny Program (1950) and Dolores Del Rio and Cedric Gibbons Throw a Party (1935). She was married to Dr. John Marquis Converse and Gary Cooper. She died on 16 February 2000 in New York City, New York, USA.
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White-haired London-born character actor, a familiar face in Hollywood for more than five decades. He was born George William Crisp, the youngest of ten siblings, to working class parents James Crisp and his wife Elizabeth (nee Christy). Despite his humble beginnings, Donald was educated at Oxford University. He saw action with the 10th Hussars of the British Army at Kimberley and Ladysmith during the Boer War and subsequently moved to the United States to begin a new life as an actor.
Arriving in New York in 1906 he began as a singer in Grand Opera with the company of impresario John C. Fisher. By 1910, he had climbed his way up the ladder to become stage manager for George M. Cohan. He was a member of D.W. Griffith's original stock company in the early days of the film industry, beginning with Biograph in New Jersey and featured in The Birth of a Nation (1915) (as General Ulysses S. Grant), Intolerance (1916) and Broken Blossoms (1919). He later joined Famous Players Lasky (subsequently Paramount) and turned with some success to directing in the 1920s, on occasion also appearing in his films (as for example in Don Q Son of Zorro (1925), as Don Sebastian). By the early 30s, Crisp concentrated exclusively on acting and became one of the more prolific Hollywood character players on the scene. Though he was actually a cockney, he -- for unknown reasons -- invented a Scottish ancestry for himself early on, claiming that he was born in Aberfeldy and affected a Scottish accent throughout his career. Crisp's particular stock-in-trade types were crusty or benevolent patriarchs, stern military officers, doctors and judges. He had lengthy stints under contract at Warner Brothers (1935-42) and MGM (1943-51) with an impressive list of A-grade output to his credit: Burkitt in Mutiny on the Bounty (1935), Colonel Campbell in The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936), Maitre Labori in The Life of Emile Zola (1937), Phipps in The Dawn Patrol (1938), General Bazaine in Juarez (1939), Francis Bacon in The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939) and Sir John Burleson in The Sea Hawk (1940). He is perhaps most fondly remembered as the famous canine's original owner in Lassie Come Home (1943), Elizabeth Taylor's dad Mr. Brown in National Velvet (1944), and, above all, as the head of a Welsh mining family in How Green Was My Valley (1941) (the role which won him an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor). In a less sympathetic vein, Crisp gave a sterling performance as a ruthless tobacco planter in the underrated Gary Cooper drama Bright Leaf (1950).
Donald Crisp died in May 1974 in Van Nuys, California, at the age of 91. He is commemorated by a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Vine Street.- Writer
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- Script and Continuity Department
Jane Murfin was born on 27 October 1884 in Quincy, Michigan, USA. She was a writer and producer, known for Flapper Wives (1924), Brawn of the North (1922) and What Price Hollywood? (1932). She was married to Donald Crisp, Laurence Trimble and James Murfin. She died on 10 August 1955 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Actor
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The son of an attorney, Richard Carlson had an introspective quality to his performances and looked every inch the academic he first aspired to be. Following his graduation from the University of Minnesota with a Master's Degree in English, the tall, dark-haired youth had a brief stint as a drama teacher at his alma mater. However, deciding on the performing arts instead, he invested his money in buying his own theatre in Minneapolis and featuring himself as the star. By the age of 23, he had gained sufficient acting credentials to perform on Broadway opposite Ethel Barrymore, Jimmy Durante and Ethel Merman. Sidelining as a writer, he enjoyed moderate success publishing a number of short stories, but his play "Western Waters" was a flop on Broadway, closing after just seven performances. Just when it seemed Richard's fortunes were on the wane, he was offered a contract as actor/writer/director by the producer David O. Selznick.
After being encouraged by leading actress Janet Gaynor to make his screen bow in her motion picture The Young in Heart (1938), Richard moved to California on a permanent basis. During the next few years, he made several films (primarily at RKO), invariably in the part of the diffident juvenile. Many of these were forgettable second features, such as the supernaturally-themed Beyond Tomorrow (1940), or commercial failures, like the nostalgic Anna Neagle musical No, No, Nanette (1940). There was, however, one stellar performance: his newspaperman David Hewitt in William Wyler's brilliant adaptation of Lillian Hellman's southern melodrama The Little Foxes (1941). This was followed by another decent role in the fruity (but highly enjoyable) melodrama White Cargo (1942), and the lead in a cliched, run-of-the-mill crime picture, Highways by Night (1942). Then World War II intervened and Richard did his tour of duty. When he returned to the screen, it was without the intensity and vigor which had characterized his pre-war performances.
After several years of indifferent acting parts, Richard found renewed energy for his third-billed appearance in MGM's lavish Technicolor remake of King Solomon's Mines (1950). Perhaps surprisingly, this did not lead to further roles in A-grade features. Instead, Richard Carlson found himself the unlikely star of several sci-fi features, which have attained cult status over the passing years. Pick of the bunch was Jack Arnold's seminal It Came from Outer Space (1953) (based on a story by Ray Bradbury), with Richard in the role of a well-meaning, rather arcane astronomer, witness to an alien presence which turns out to be benign. The sincerity of his performance led to similar parts in The Magnetic Monster (1953) (with similar moralistic undertones) and the atmospheric Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954).
Though his original contract with Selznick had stipulated directing as well, Richard did not work behind the camera until 1954. Then, he unwisely accepted charge of a silly pseudo-scientific premise entitled Riders to the Stars (1954), a low-budget enterprise bogged down by verisimilitude and technobabble at the expense of drama. In the course of the next twelve years, he directed some better second features, including the westerns Four Guns to the Border (1954) and Kid Rodelo (1966), as well as a number of television episodes. He also wrote the occasional TV script, as well as contributing articles on non-fiction subjects to several magazines.
During the early fifties -- with America in the grip of McCarthyist paranoia -- Richard gained a wider audience as the star of I Led 3 Lives (1953), playing the role of Herbert A. Philbrick (1915-1993) (on whose book by the same title the series was based), who infiltrated the Communist Party on behalf of the FBI. The show proved popular enough at the time to run for three years and 115 episodes. Richard had yet another recurring part, as stalwart Colonel Ranald Mackenzie, taming the south-western frontier in Mackenzie's Raiders (1958). For the remainder of his acting career, he guested in western and detective series, including The Virginian (1962), Perry Mason (1957), The F.B.I. (1965) and Cannon (1971) . After his retirement in 1975, Richard lived the last two years of his life in Sherman Oaks, California.- Mona Carlson was born on 10 October 1918 in Texas, USA. She was an actress, known for I Love Lucy (1951) and Flight to California (1952). She was married to Richard Carlson. She died on 2 January 1990 in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA.
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Pianist, songwriter ("Wabash Moon"), composer, singer and businessman, educated in public schools and at Lyman Hall. He began his singing career in a Greenwich Village movie theatre, and was later a vocalist for the Paul Whiteman orchestra aboard the SS Leviathan. In 1927, he toured Europe and then opened his own night club, the Delmonico in New York, in 1930, which offered the chance to sing over radio. He was also a member of the board of directors of Coca-Cola and other corporations. Joining ASCAP in 1949, his chief musical collaborators included Dave Dreyer, Paul Cunningham, James Rule, and Dick Sanford. His other popular-song compositions include "California Skies", "All I Need is Someone Like You", "In the Valley of the Roses", "That's How I Spell Ireland", "Sweeten Up Your Smile", "There's Nothing New" and "Now You're in My Arms".- Barbara Bennett was born on 13 August 1906 in Palisades, New Jersey, USA. She was an actress, known for Love Among the Millionaires (1930), The Valley of Decision (1916) and Syncopation (1929). She was married to Laurent Surprenant, Jack Randall and Morton Downey. She died on 8 August 1958 in Montréal, Québec, Canada.
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Vaughn Paul was born on 5 January 1916. He was an assistant director and production manager, known for Armored Car (1937), Hired Wife (1940) and Black Diamonds (1940). He was married to Deanna Durbin and Dorthy Jane Douglas. He died on 9 June 1999 in Riverside, California, USA.- Actress
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Born into a prominent Mormon family in Utah, Laraine Day's acting career began after her parents moved to Long Beach, California, where she joined the Long Beach Players. She appeared in her first film in 1937 in a bit part, then did leads in several George O'Brien westerns. Signing a contract with MGM, she achieved popularity playing the part of Nurse Lamont in that studio's "Dr. Kildare" series. An attractive, engaging performer, she had leads in several medium-budget films for various studios, but never achieved major stardom. She was married for 13 years to baseball manager Leo Durocher, and took such an active interest in his career and the sport of baseball in general that she became known as "The First Lady of Baseball".- Actor
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English-born Leslie Fenton came to the U.S. as a child. He journeyed to Hollywood in his late teens to break into the movies, and managed to get several jobs as an actor. He became a reliable supporting actor in many pictures in the 1930s, working his way up to leads in B pictures. He switched to directing later in the decade, and turned out a number of tight, well-made action pictures and several good westerns, the best of which was probably Streets of Laredo (1949). He retired from the industry in the early 1950s.- Actress
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Ann Dvorak was the daughter of silent film star Anna Lehr and silents director Edwin McKim. She entered films at the start of sound, as a dance instructor for the lavish MGM musicals. She came to international prominence in Scarface (1932) with Paul Muni, but often complained about the lack of quality of her films, which led to arguments with her bosses at Warners. She married British actor Leslie Fenton in 1932, and came to Britain to make a few films. She contributed to the British war effort driving an ambulance. She retired from the screen in 1951, and died in 1979.- Director
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John Farrow wrote short stories and plays during his four-year career in the navy. In the late 1920s he came to Hollywood as a technical advisor for a film about Marines and stayed as a screenwriter, from A Sailor's Sweetheart (1927) through Tarzan Escapes (1936). He married Tarzan's Jane, Maureen O'Sullivan, in 1936. He began directing in 1937 (Men in Exile (1937) and West of Shanghai (1937)). He was injured while serving as a Lieutenant Commander in the Royal Navy in World War II. After that he converted to Catholicism and wrote a biography of Thomas More, a history of the Papacy, a Tahitian/English dictionary and several novels. He collaborated in the writing of several of his films and shared the Academy Award for Around the World in 80 Days (1956).- Actress
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Of Irish, English, and Scottish descent, Maureen Paula O'Sullivan was born on May 17, 1911 in Boyle, County Roscommon, Ireland. Her father was Charles Joseph O'Sullivan, an officer in the Connaught Rangers, and his wife, the former Mary Fraser (or Frazer). She was educated at Catholic schools in Dublin, Paris, and London (Convent of the Sacred Heart, Roehampton, where a fellow student was fellow future actress Vivien Leigh). Even as a schoolgirl, Maureen desired an acting career, despite her father's initial opposition. She studied hard and read widely. When the opportunity to be an actress came along, it almost dropped in her lap. American film director Frank Borzage was in Dublin in 1929, filming Song o' My Heart (1930), when the 18 year old met him. He suggested a screen test, which she took. The results were more than favorable and she won the substantial role of Eileen O'Brien, then went to Hollywood to complete filming.
Once in sunny California, Maureen wasted no time landing roles in other films such as Just Imagine (1930), The Princess and the Plumber (1930), and So This Is London (1930). She was perhaps MGM's most popular ingenue throughout the 1930s in a number of non-Tarzan vehicles. In 1932, she teamed up with Olympic medal winner Johnny Weissmuller for the first time in Tarzan the Ape Man (1932), as Jane Parker. Five other Tarzan films followed, the last being Tarzan's New York Adventure (1942). The Tarzan epics rank as one of the most memorable series ever made. Most people agree that those movies would not have been as successful as they were, had it not been for the talent, grace, and radiant beauty of O'Sullivan. But she was more than Jane Parker. She went on to roles in such films as The Flame Within (1935), David Copperfield (1935), and Anna Karenina (1935). She turned in another fine performance in Pride and Prejudice (1940). After the 1940s, however, she made fewer films, primarily for personal reasons, i.e. caring for her large family.
It isn't always easy to walk away from a lucrative career, but O'Sullivan did because she wanted to devote more time to her husband, John Farrow, an Australian-American writer, and their seven children: Michael, Patrick, Maria (a.k.a. Mia Farrow), John, Prudence, Theresa (a.k.a. Tisa Farrow), and Stephanie Farrow. The couple were married from 1936 until his death in 1963. After her last Tarzan venture she asked for release from her contract to care for her husband who had just left the U.S. Navy with typhoid. She did not retire completely and still found time to make occasional movies and television programs, as well as operate a bridal consulting service (Wediquette International).
O'Sullivan made her Broadway debut opposite Paul Ford in "Never Too Late" (November 27, 1962-April 24, 1965), a great success. She would appear on Broadway again in various vehicles through 1981, and later also co-produced two Broadway productions. Later movie patrons remember her as Elizabeth Alvorg in Peggy Sue Got Married (1986) (playing opposite fellow silver screen film veteran Leon Ames). Her final celluloid role was in The River Pirates (1988). Some made-for-television movies followed and she retired completely in 1996, two years before her death in Scottsdale, Arizona on June 23, 1998 during heart surgery. She was 87 years old.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Carole Lombard was born Jane Alice Peters in Fort Wayne, Indiana, on October 6, 1908. Her parents divorced in 1916 and her mother took the family on a trip out West. While there they decided to settle down in the Los Angeles area. After being spotted playing baseball in the street with the neighborhood boys by a film director, Carole was signed to a one-picture contract in 1921 when she was 12. The film in question was A Perfect Crime (1921). Although she tried for other acting jobs, she would not be seen onscreen again for four years. She returned to a normal life, going to school and participating in athletics, excelling in track and field. By age 15 she had had enough of school, though, and quit. She joined a theater troupe and played in several stage shows, which were for the most part nothing to write home about. In 1925 she passed a screen test and was signed to a contract with Fox Films. Her first role as a Fox player was Hearts and Spurs (1925), in which she had the lead. Right after that film she appeared in a western called Durand of the Bad Lands (1925). She rounded out 1925 in the comedy Marriage in Transit (1925) (she also appeared in a number of two-reel shorts). In 1926 Carole was seriously injured in an automobile accident that resulted in the left side of her face being scarred. Once she had recovered, Fox canceled her contract. She did find work in a number of shorts during 1928 (13 of them, many for slapstick comedy director Mack Sennett), but did go back for a one-time shot with Fox called Me, Gangster (1928). By now the film industry was moving from the silent era to "talkies". While some stars' careers ended because of heavy accents, poor diction or a voice unsuitable to sound, Carole's light, breezy, sexy voice enabled her to transition smoothly during this period. Her first sound film was High Voltage (1929) at Pathe (her new studio) in 1929. In 1931 she was teamed with William Powell in Man of the World (1931). She and Powell hit it off and soon married, but the marriage didn't work out and they divorced in 1933. No Man of Her Own (1932) put Carole opposite Clark Gable for the first and only time (they married seven years later in 1939). By now she was with Paramount Pictures and was one of its top stars. However, it was Twentieth Century (1934) that showed her true comedic talents and proved to the world what a fine actress she really was. In 1936 Carole received her only Oscar nomination for Best Actress for My Man Godfrey (1936). She was superb as ditzy heiress Irene Bullock. Unfortunately, the coveted award went to Luise Rainer in The Great Ziegfeld (1936), which also won for Best Picture. Carole was now putting out about one film a year of her own choosing, because she wanted whatever role she picked to be a good one. She was adept at picking just the right part, which wasn't surprising as she was smart enough to see through the good-ol'-boy syndrome of the studio moguls. She commanded and received what was one of the top salaries in the business - at one time it was reported she was making $35,000 a week. She made but one film in 1941, Mr. & Mrs. Smith (1941). Her last film was in 1942, when she played Maria Tura opposite Jack Benny in To Be or Not to Be (1942). Tragically, she didn't live to see its release. The film was completed in 1941 just at the time the US entered World War II, and was subsequently held back for release until 1942. Meanwhile, Carole went home to Indiana for a war bond rally. On January 16, 1942, Carole, her mother, and 20 other people were flying back to California when the plane went down outside of Las Vegas, Nevada. All aboard perished. The highly acclaimed actress was dead at the age of 33 and few have been able to match her talents since.- 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.- Actress
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Dolores del Rio was the one of the first Mexican movie stars with international appeal and who had meteoric career in the 1920s/1930s Hollywood. Del Rio came from an aristocratic family in Durango. In the Mexican revolution of 1916, however, the family lost everything and emigrated to Mexico City, where Dolores became a socialite. In 1921 she married Jaime Del Río (also known as Jaime Martínez Del Río), a wealthy Mexican, and the two became friends with Hollywood producer/director Edwin Carewe, who "discovered" del Rio and invited the couple to move to Hollywood where they launched careers in the movie business (she as an actress, Jaime as a screenwriter). Eventually they divorced after Carewe cast her in her first film Joanna (1925), followed by High Steppers (1926), and Pals First (1926). She had her first leading role in Carewe's silent version of Pals First (1926) and soared to stardom in 1928 with Carewe's Ramona (1928). The film was a success and del Rio was hailed as a female Rudolph Valentino. Her career continued to rise with the arrival of sound in the drama/romance Bird of Paradise (1932) and hit musical Flying Down to Rio (1933). She later married Cedric Gibbons, the well-known art director and production designer at MGM studios.
Dolores returned to Mexico in 1942. Her Hollywood career was over, and a romance with Orson Welles--who later called her "the most exciting woman I've ever met"--caused her second divorce. Mexican director Emilio Fernández offered her the lead in his film Wild Flower (1943), with a wholly unexpected result: at age 37, Dolores del Río became the most famous movie star in her country, filming in Spanish for the first time. Her association with Fernández' team (cinematographer Gabriel Figueroa, writer Mauricio Magdaleno and actor Pedro Armendáriz) was mainly responsible for creating what has been called the Golden Era of Mexican Cinema. With such pictures as Maria Candelaria (1944), Las abandonadas (1945) and Bugambilia (1945), del Río became the prototypical Mexican beauty. career included film, theater and television. In her last years she received accolades because of her work for orphaned children. Her last film was The Children of Sanchez (1978).- 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.- Actor
- Producer
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Once told by an interviewer, "Everybody would like to be Cary Grant", Grant is said to have replied, "So would I."
Cary Grant was born Archibald Alec Leach on January 18, 1904 in Horfield, Bristol, England, to Elsie Maria (Kingdon) and Elias James Leach, who worked in a factory. His early years in Bristol would have been an ordinary lower-middle-class childhood, except for one extraordinary event. At age nine, he came home from school one day and was told his mother had gone off to a seaside resort. However, the real truth was that she had been placed in a mental institution, where she would remain for years, and he was never told about it (he would not see his mother again until he was in his late 20s).
He left school at age 14, lying about his age and forging his father's signature on a letter to join Bob Pender's troupe of knockabout comedians. He learned pantomime as well as acrobatics as he toured with the Pender troupe in the English provinces, picked up a Cockney accent in the music halls in London, and then in July 1920, was one of the eight Pender boys selected to go to the United States. Their show on Broadway, "Good Times", ran for 456 performances, giving Grant time to acclimatize. He would stay in America. Mae West wanted Grant for She Done Him Wrong (1933) because she saw his combination of virility, sexuality and the aura and bearing of a gentleman. Grant was young enough to begin the new career of fatherhood when he stopped making movies at age 62.
One biographer said Grant was alienated by the new realism in the film industry. In the 1950s and early 1960s, he had invented a man-of-the-world persona and a style - "high comedy with polished words". In To Catch a Thief (1955), he and Grace Kelly were allowed to improvise some of the dialogue. They knew what the director, Alfred Hitchcock, wanted to do with a scene, they rehearsed it, put in some clever double entendres that got past the censors, and then the scene was filmed. His biggest box-office success was another Hitchcock 1950s film, North by Northwest (1959) made with Eva Marie Saint since Kelly was by that time Princess of Monaco.
Although Grant retired from the screen, he remained active. He accepted a position on the board of directors at Faberge. By all accounts this position was not honorary, as some had assumed. Grant regularly attended meetings and traveled internationally to support them. The position also permitted use of a private plane, which Grant could use to fly to see his daughter wherever her mother Dyan Cannon, was working. He later joined the boards of Hollywood Park, the Academy of Magical Arts (The Magic Castle - Hollywood, California), Western Airlines (acquired by Delta Airlines in 1987) and MGM.
Grant expressed no interest in making a career comeback. He was in good health until almost the end of his life, when he suffered a mild stroke in October 1984. In his last years, he undertook tours of the United States in a one-man-show, "A Conversation with Cary Grant", in which he would show clips from his films and answer audience questions. On November 29, 1986, Cary Grant died at age 82 of a cerebral hemorrhage in Davenport, Iowa.
In 1999, the American Film Institute named Grant the second male star of Golden Age of Hollywood cinema (after Humphrey Bogart). Grant was known for comedic and dramatic roles; his best-known films include Bringing Up Baby (1938), The Philadelphia Story (1940), His Girl Friday (1940), Arsenic and Old Lace (1944), Notorious (1946), An Affair to Remember (1957), North by Northwest (1959) and Charade (1963).- Actor
- Soundtrack
English-born Reginald Gardiner, graduate of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, became an established revue and musical star on the London stage in the 1930's. His first foray into the film business was in the Alfred Hitchcock-directed The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927). However, it was in Hollywood where his career really took off. At the prompting of Beatrice Lillie he departed England for America in 1935. After appearing in two of her shows he delighted Broadway audiences in "An Evening with Beatrice Lillie and Reginald Gardiner", performing a series of clever impersonations of such inanimate items as lighthouses and wallpaper.
In 1936, he appeared in his first Hollywood film, Born to Dance (1936) (starring Eleanor Powell and James Stewart), Gardiner playing a traffic cop with symphonic delusions. His instant popularity resulted in further film offers and he soon found himself in constant demand to impersonate butlers and "silly ass" upper-crust English twits. With his suave attire, thin moustache and obtuse mannerisms, he took to playing those caricatures with obvious glee. He enlivened many a film with his comic presence, most notably A Damsel in Distress (1937), The Man Who Came to Dinner (1941) (his character "Beverly Carlton" brilliantly lampooning Noël Coward) and Cluny Brown (1946). In later years, Gardiner became a regular on television as co-star of The Phyllis Diller Show (1966), and, in 1964, he returned to the stage to play Alfred P. Doolittle at the New York City Centre (the role made famous by Stanley Holloway in My Fair Lady) . John Canaday, reviewing for the New York Times, described his character as a "wonderful, boozy, abominable, bug-ridden and altogether reprehensible charmer, a kind of defrocked Boy Scout, whose love for everybody is exceeded only by his propensity for chicanery and self-indulgence".
Gardiner was also celebrated for his classic monologue, simply called 'Trains'. It so impressed King George VI that he summoned the actor to Buckingham Palace for a special performance. 'Trains' was recorded by Decca and has since become a collector's item.- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Paulette Goddard was a child model who debuted in "The Ziegfeld Follies" at the age of 13. She gained fame with the show as the girl on the crescent moon, and was married to a wealthy man, Edgar James, by the time she was 17. After her divorce she went to Hollywood in 1931, where she appeared in small roles in pictures for a number of studios. A stunning natural beauty, Paulette could mesmerize any man she met, a fact she was well aware of. One of her bigger roles in that period was as a blond "Goldwyn Girl" in the Eddie Cantor film The Kid from Spain (1932). In 1932 she met Charles Chaplin, and they soon became an item around town. He cast her in Modern Times (1936), which was a big hit, but her movie career was not going anywhere because of her relationship with Chaplin. They were secretly married in 1936, but the marriage failed and they were separated by 1940. It was her role as Miriam Aarons in The Women (1939), however, that got her a contract with Paramount. Paulette was one of the many actresses tested for the part of Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind (1939), but she lost the part to Vivien Leigh and instead appeared with Bob Hope in The Cat and the Canary (1939), a good film but hardly in the same league as GWTW. The 1940s were Paulette's busiest period. She worked with Chaplin in The Great Dictator (1940), Cecil B. DeMille in Reap the Wild Wind (1942) and Burgess Meredith in The Diary of a Chambermaid (1946). She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in So Proudly We Hail! (1943). Her star faded in the late 1940s, however, and she was dropped by Paramount in 1949. After a couple of "B" movies, she left films and went to live in Europe as a wealthy expatriate; she married German novelist Erich Maria Remarque in the late 1950s. She was coaxed back to the screen once more, although it was the small screen, for the television movie The Female Instinct (1972).- Producer
- Additional Crew
- Production Manager
Leland Hayward was born on 13 September 1902 in Nebraska City, Nebraska, USA. He was a producer and production manager, known for Mister Roberts (1955), The Sound of Music (1965) and A Shot in the Dark (1964). He was married to Pamela Harriman, Mary Raye "Nancy" Gross, Margaret Sullavan and Inez (Lola) Gibbs. He died on 18 March 1971 in Yorktown Heights, New York, USA.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Born in Norfolk, Virginia to wealthy stockbroker Cornelius Hancock Sullavan and heiress Garland Council Sullavan, Margaret Brooke overcame a muscle weakness in her childhood to go on to become a rebellious teenager at posh private schools. She went on to perform with the University Players at Harvard and made her Broadway debut in Hello, Lola in 1926. Her Christmas Day marriage in 1931 to Henry Fonda lasted only 15 months, and her later marriages to director William Wyler and agent Leland Hayward were also tempestuous. Two of her three children, Bridget and Bill, would spend some time in mental institutions, and commit suicide. Friends noted that the collapse of her family life led to her breakdown. Her condition worsened over time, until she was discovered unconscious from barbiturate poisoning in a hotel room. Her death was ruled accidental by the county coroner.- Actress
- Soundtrack
No shrinking violet this one, but despite her talent, vivacity and sheer drive, lovely and alluring blonde Evelyn Keyes would remain for the most part typed as a "B" girl on the silver screen. In spite of her ripe contributions to such superior pictures as Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941), The Jolson Story (1946), Mrs. Mike (1949), The Prowler (1951) and 99 River Street (1953), she received no significant awards during her career. In fact, film-goers seem to remember her best not for one of these exceptional co-starring parts, but for her bit role as Scarlett O'Hara's kid sister in Gone with the Wind (1939), American's most beloved epic film. Evelyn also kept Hollywood alive and kicking with two sensationalistic memoirs that chronicled her four dicey marriages, numerous affairs with the rich and famous, and negative takes on the Hollywood studio system.
Evelyn Louise Keyes was born in Port Arthur, Texas, on November 20, 1916 (for decades she would deceive the public as to her real age). Her father died when she was two, and she and her only brother and three sisters grew up living with her mother and her grandmother in Atlanta, Georgia. Taking voice, dance and piano lessons, she was hopeful of becoming a ballerina. Instead, she entered a beauty pageant or two and worked as a chorus girl before relocating to California at age 20. Shortly after her arrival in Los Angeles, a chance meeting with the legendary Cecil B. DeMille led to a Paramount Pictures contract. Stories differ as to how she met De Mille. Hollywood folklore has it that she was "discovered" by a talent scout in true Lana Turner fashion while eating at a restaurant. Another, more believable story has it that she hooked up with one of De Mille's former writers, which led to an introduction.
Nevertheless, she was groomed as a starlet and initially placed in bit and/or unbilled roles. De Mille first gave her a small part in his pirate epic The Buccaneer (1938), then placed her rather obscurely in his sprawling railroad saga Union Pacific (1939). It was David O. Selznick who gave her the bit part of whiny, bratty Suellen O'Hara, who loses her beau to the more calculating Scarlett in "Gone with the Wind". This led directly to her signing with Columbia Pictures. In 1938, just prior to the filming of GWTW, she married businessman Barton Bainbridge, her first of four. The marriage soured within a year or so, however, after she took up with Budapest-born director Charles Vidor, who directed three of her pictures: The Lady in Question (1940) (her first at Columbia), Ladies in Retirement (1941) and The Desperadoes (1943). This second marriage lasted about as long as the first (1943-1945), supposedly due to Vidor's infidelities.
At Columbia Evelyn hit pin-up status and sparked a number of war-era pictures. She played Boris Karloff's daughter in the crime horror Before I Hang (1940) and a blind woman who befriends the hideously scarred Peter Lorre in the excellent The Face Behind the Mask (1941). Still, she could not rise above her secondary status. For every one nifty "B" picture that could propel her into the higher ranks, such as Dangerous Blondes (1943), there was always a low-caliber western (Beyond the Sacramento (1940)), adventure (A Thousand and One Nights (1945)) or musical (The Thrill of Brazil (1946)) lurking about to keep her humble.
In the post-war years, a third tempestuous but highly adventurous marriage (1946-1950) to Hollywood titan John Huston made the tabloid papers practically on a weekly basis. They divorced after four years. She did some of her best work during this period, particularly as the wife of Al Jolson opposite Larry Parks' splendid impersonation. She also showed she had a strong range and earned snappy notices alongside Dick Powell in the film noir Johnny O'Clock (1947) as well as the title comedy character in The Mating of Millie (1948) co-starring Glenn Ford.
Her last (and just as questionable) marriage was to another "father figure" type, musician Artie Shaw, a womanizer if ever there was one who had already had been discarded by trophy wives Ava Gardner and Lana Turner (and five others) by the time he and Evelyn married in 1957. She had pretty much put her career on the back burner by this point. Surprisingly, this marriage lasted longer than any of their previous ones. The couple separated in the 1970s but did not divorce until 1985.
Evelyn returned to the acting fold every once in while. Scarcely on stage (she once played Sally Bowles in a theatrical production of "I Am a Camera" in 1953), she joined up with Don Ameche in a 1972 tour of the musical "No, No, Nanette". She also would show up on an episode of The Love Boat (1977) or Murder, She Wrote (1984) every now and then. She remained childless (there was one adopted child, Pedro, by Huston, but they were estranged).
Very much the traveler, Evelyn lived sporadically all over the world, including France, England and Mexico, and spoke Spanish and French fluently. She was also a writer and published a Hollywood-themed novel in her later years. Her GWTW association and tell-all memoirs in 1977 and 1991 kept her a point of interest right up until the end. Not surprisingly, this firecracker of a lady passed away on the 4th of July -- at age 91 of uterine cancer at an assisted-living residence in Montecito, California.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Born into wealth in Savannah, Georgia, on October 18, 1902, Ellen Miriam Hopkins was able to attend the finest educational institutions, including Goddard Seminary in Plainfield, Vermont, and Syracuse University in New York State. Studying dance in New York, she received her first taste of show business as a chorus girl at twenty. She appeared in local musicals before she began expanding her horizons by trying out dramatic roles four years later. By 1928, Miriam was appearing in stock companies on the East Coast, and her reviews were getting better after she had been vilified earlier in her career. In 1930, Miriam decided to try the silver screen and signed with Paramount Studios. Because she was already established on Broadway, Paramount felt it was getting a seasoned performer after the rave reviews she had received on Broadway. Her first role was in Fast and Loose (1930). The role, in which Miriam played a rebellious girl, was a good start. After appearing in 24 Hours (1931), in which she is killed by her husband, Miriam played Princess Anna in The Smiling Lieutenant (1931) opposite Maurice Chevalier. Still considered a newcomer, Miriam displayed a talent that had all the earmarks of stardom. She was to finish out the year by playing Ivy Pearson in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931). Miriam began filming The World and the Flesh (1932), which was not a box-office blockbuster. Later, she appeared in Dancers in the Dark (1932) with George Raft. The film was unexpectedly strong and enjoyable, which served as a catalyst to propel Miriam and Raft to bigger stardom. In Two Kinds of Women (1932), directed by William C. de Mille, Miriam once again performed magnificently. Later that year, she played Lily Vautier in the sophisticated comedy Trouble in Paradise (1932). A film that should have been nominated for an Academy Award, it has lasted through the years as a masterpiece in comedy. Even today, film buffs and historians rave about it. Miriam's brilliant performance in Design for Living (1933) propelled her to the top of Paramount's salary scale. Later that year, Miriam played the title role in The Story of Temple Drake (1933). Paramount was forced to tone down the film's violence and the character's rape in order to pass the Hayes Office code. Despite being watered down, it was still a box-office smash. In 1934, Miriam filmed All of Me (1934), which was less than well received. Soon, the country was abuzz as to who would play Scarlett O'Hara in Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind (1939). Miriam wanted the coveted spot, especially because she was a Southern lady and a Georgia native. Unfortunately, as we all know, she didn't win the role. As a matter of fact, her only movie role that year was in The Old Maid (1939). By that time, the roles were only trickling in for her. With the slowdown in film work, Miriam found herself returning to the stage. She made two films in 1940, none in 1941, one in 1942, and one in 1943. The stage was her work now. However, in 1949, she received the role of Lavinia Penniman in The Heiress (1949). Miriam made only three films in the 1950s, but she had begun making appearances on television programs. Miriam made her final big-screen appearance in Hollywood Horror House (1970). Nine days before her 70th birthday, on October 9, 1972, Miriam died of a heart attack in New York.- Mildred Davis was born on 22 February 1898 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. She was an actress, known for A Sailor-Made Man (1921), Safety Last! (1923) and Dr. Jack (1922). She was married to Harold Lloyd. She died on 18 August 1969 in Santa Monica, California, USA.
- Actress
- Soundtrack
An actress from the age of 6, Anita appeared with Walter Hampden in the Broadway production of Peter Ibbetson. As a juvenile actor, Anita used the name Louise Fremault and made her film debut at 9 in the film The Sixth Commandment (1924). She continued to make films as a child actor, and in 1929, Anita dropped her "Fremault" surname, billing herself by her first and second names only. Unlike many child actors, her film career continued as a teenager, and as a blue-eyed blonde, Anita became a star in Warner Brothers costume dramas such as Madame Du Barry (1934), A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935), The Story of Louis Pasteur (1936), and Marie Antoinette (1938). Anita complained that her looks often interfered with her chances to obtain serious roles. With her ethereal beauty, she continued to appear in ingénue roles into the 1940s as she played girlfriends, sisters, and daughters. By 1940, Anita was only in her mid 20s, but her career had turned to 'B' movies, and her time on the big screen ended with the rehashed Bulldog Drummond at Bay (1947). In 1956, Anita was cast as Johnny Washbrook's mother, Nell McLaughin, on the Television series My Friend Flicka (1955), the story of a boy and his black horse. Anita was also the substitute host of The Loretta Young Show (1953) when Loretta Young was recuperating from surgery. Other shows Anita hosted included Theater of Time (1957) and Spotlight Playhouse (1958). Her television guest roles included Mannix (1967) and Mod Squad (1968). Anita devoted her final years to various philanthropic causes.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Rosemary Lane of the singing Lane sisters (their actual birth name was Mullican) got her start as a vocalist with bandleader Fred Waring and His Pennsylvanians. Her career was somewhat overshadowed by that of her more famous sister, Priscilla, who was also a member of that band and who would go on to bigger and better things. Both Rosemary and Priscilla appeared in the musical Varsity Show (1937)which featured the Waring orchestra and starred Dick Powell.
With a Warner Brothers contract in hand, Rosemary starred (with another one of her sisters, Lola) in Hollywood Hotel (1937), again with Dick Powell. While she did quite well, she and the rest of the cast were seriously upstaged by Busby Berkeley's sumptuous stage design and by the 'king of swing' Benny Goodman, whose orchestra was featured in no less than eight musical numbers. She then played second fiddle to Priscilla in a series of films featuring three of the four Lane sisters (Leota was the fourth): Four Daughters (1938), Daughters Courageous (1939) and Four Wives (1939).
After that, Rosemary called it quits, commenting "that was the end of it as far as I was concerned" ( New York Times, November 27 1974). Rosemary Lane eschewed Hollywood for Broadway and enjoyed a successful run as star of George Abbott's 1941 musical comedy 'Best Foot Forward', alongside Nancy Walker and June Allyson. Her part, ironically, was that of a sophisticated, but fading film star. After 1945, Rosemary settled down in Pacific Palisades and worked for a while selling real estate.- Actor
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
- Director
After giving up college, George Murphy decided to become a dancer. Starting in 1927, he worked with his wife and partner Julie Johnson on Broadway. In 1934, after his wife retired from show business, he worked with Shirley Temple, in Hollywood, as well as Eleanor Powell, Fred Astaire, and Ronald Reagan. A Republican since 1939, in 1945 he became president of the Screen Actors Guild. He retired from the silver screen in 1952, became a TV producer and in 1964 was elected as Senator of California.- Writer
- Producer
- Script and Continuity Department
Gene Markey was born on 11 December 1895 in Jackson, Michigan, USA. He was a writer and producer, known for You're the One (1941), On the Avenue (1937) and The Hound of the Baskervilles (1939). He was married to Lucille Parker Wright, Myrna Loy, Hedy Lamarr and Joan Bennett. He died on 1 May 1980 in Miami Beach, Florida, USA.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Alan Marshal was born on 29 January 1909 in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. He was an actor, known for House on Haunted Hill (1959), The Garden of Allah (1936) and Lydia (1941). He was married to Mary Grace Borel. He died on 13 July 1961 in Chicago, Illinois, USA.- Actress
- Writer
- Additional Crew
Elsa Maxwell was born on 24 May 1881 in Keokuk, Iowa, USA. She was an actress and writer, known for Hotel for Women (1939), Stage Door Canteen (1943) and Public Deb No. 1 (1940). She died on 1 November 1963 in New York City, New York, USA.- Actress
- Soundtrack
One of the early sound era's most attractive young leading ladies, doll-faced Marian Marsh enjoyed a short yet significant film career as the star of several memorable 1930s melodramas opposite some of the cinema's best, most charismatic lead actors. Her youthful, wide-eyed innocence combined with an innate delicacy to make a storybook heroine who was the perfect counterbalance to the licentious characters who often menaced her on film. So successful was she as a damsel in distress that she quickly became typecast, which impeded her development as an actress and helped bring her film career to a premature end.
The youngest of four children of a German chocolate manufacturer and his French-English wife, the future star was born Violet Ethelred Krauth on October 17, 1913, on the island of Trinidad, British West Indies. When World War I ruined his business, Mr. Krauth moved the family to Massachusetts, where his children developed an appreciation for the arts and theater.
During the mid 1920s, Violet's older sister Jean Fenwick became a student at Paramount's Astoria studio and later a Paramount contract player. When Jean signed a contract with FBO Pictures in Hollywood, the Krauth family moved to the West Coast, where Violet attended La Conte Junior High School and later Hollywood High. In 1928 Jean helped her strikingly attractive golden-haired sister secure a screen test with Pathe Studios, which promptly signed her but dropped her after a short film appearance. After another short pact with Samuel Goldwyn, Violet, now known as Marilyn Morgan, opted to study acting and voice with Nance O'Neil. In 1929 Warners signed the 16-year-old, who changed her name once again, this time to Marian Marsh.
Despite appearances in 30 short films starring James Gleason and a small part in Hell's Angels (1930), Marian's career seemed headed to oblivion when she won the role of her life in Svengali (1931), Warner's film remake of George L. Du Maurier's 1894 novel "Trilby"; the tragic tale of an artists' model who becomes a great singing diva under the hypnotic tutelage of the malevolent Svengali (charismatically portrayed by John Barrymore). According to Miss Marsh, she was tested for the plum role several times before being selected by Barrymore, apparently because she resembled his wife, Dolores Costello.
The immense critical and financial success of the film combined with young Miss Marsh's rave reviews to raise her Hollywood stock. Selected as one of the WAMPAS Baby Stars of 1931, she became one of filmdom's top up-and-coming actresses. Hoping to exploit her growing popularity and capitalize on her ability to project warmth, sincerity and inner strength on screen, Warners cast her as virginal heroines in a series of films. Of special note were her compelling performances as the daughter of a woman driven to suicide by amoral newspaper editor Edward G. Robinson in Five Star Final (1931), a ballerina menaced by evil clubfooted puppeteer John Barrymore in The Mad Genius (1931), a sexy teen smitten with mature William Powell in The Road to Singapore (1931), and the fast talking Cinderella secretary of skirt-chasing financier Warren William in Beauty and the Boss (1932).
Just when it appeared as if Marian was on the verge of superstardom, she seemed to fall out of favor at Warners. After the critical failure of the much ballyhooed drama Under Eighteen (1931), a disappointed, exhausted Marian rebelled against the studio, which retaliated by not picking up her option. Her career never fully recovered.
After she departed Warners, the 19-year-old freelance actress compounded her problems and further diminished her reputation by accepting film work overseas and at minor studios. Although her performances in such films as The Sport Parade (1932), the British comedy Over the Garden Wall (1934) and A Girl of the Limberlost (1934) were admirable, low-budget production values and other assorted problems doomed the projects.
In 1935 Marian signed a two-year pact with Columbia Pictures and tried with some success to resurrect her foundering career. Of the eight Columbia pictures she made during the period 1935-36, four were memorable. She was excellent, if typecast, as a young girl mixed up with crooks and gangsters in the entertaining melodrama Counterfeit (1936), as the bespectacled daughter of a retailer in love with a shyster salesman in the charming B comedy Come Closer, Folks (1936), as an accursed young woman forced to marry murderer Boris Karloff in the fondly remembered suspense classic The Black Room (1935), and notably as the beautiful prostitute Sonya in Josef von Sternberg's controversial film version of Fyodor Dostoevsky's timeless novel Crime and Punishment (1935) starring Peter Lorre. Her performance in the latter is without a doubt one of the best, if not the best, of her career.
When her Columbia contract expired in 1936, Marian once again squandered her momentum and talent by appearing in routine second features. From 1937 to 1938, she made seven mostly forgettable films, the best of which was Republic's B drama Youth on Parole (1937), in which Marian was poignant as a girl suffering the rejection and prejudice associated with being a parolee.
In March 1938 Miss Marsh, long one of Hollywood's most eligible bachelorettes, wed stockbroker Albert Scott, the former husband of actress Colleen Moore. After the marriage she made only five more feature films. "I loved acting," she told author Richard Lamparski, "but I had become a professional because we needed the money. In 1938 I married a businessman and just drifted away from acting." PRC's money-starved comedy House of Errors (1942) is her last film to date.
In the late 1950s Marian, was briefly lured back to acting, appearing in an episode of the popular John Forsythe sitcom "Bachelor Father" and an episode of Schlitz Playhouse (1951) before retiring in 1959. One year later she married aviation pioneer and wealthy entrepreneur Clifford Henderson and moved to Palm Desert, California, a town Henderson founded in the 1940s.
In the 1960s Marian founded Desert Beautiful, a non-profit, all-volunteer conservation organization to promote environmental and beautification programs. "We planted palm trees along the West Coast and were the first to plant palms in the lower valley [Coachella] to Palm Springs. If you want to leave something behind, plant a tree!" she told author Dan Van Neste in a 1998 interview.
After Cliff Henderson died in 1984, Marian continued to live in the Henderson ranch house continuing her charitable work. Miss Marsh remained in Palm Desert through 2005 and died in 2006. Near her end, Miss March was less active but still committed to her beloved Desert Beautiful. She retains fond memories of her filmmaking years and expresses appreciation for the continuing interest in her career. When asked how she'd like to be remembered in 1998, the modest, ever-gracious star simply replied, "For doing my best. I think anything I've ever tried, I tried to do my best. In the end, that's all you can do!"- Actor
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Fred MacMurray was likely the most underrated actor of his generation. True, his earliest work is mostly dismissed as pedestrian, but no other actor working in the 1940s and 50s was able to score so supremely whenever cast against type.
Frederick Martin MacMurray was born in Kankakee, Illinois, to Maleta Martin and Frederick MacMurray. His father had Scottish ancestry and his mother's family was German. His father's sister was vaudeville performer and actress Fay Holderness. When MacMurray was five years old, the family moved to Beaver Dam in Wisconsin, his parents' birth state. He graduated from Beaver Dam High School (later the site of Beaver Dam Middle School), where he was a three-sport star in football, baseball, and basketball. Fred retained a special place in his heart for his small-town Wisconsin upbringing, referring at any opportunity in magazine articles or interviews to the lifelong friends and cherished memories of Beaver Dam, even including mementos of his childhood in several of his films. In "Pardon my Past", Fred and fellow GI William Demarest are moving to Beaver Dam, WI to start a mink farm.
MacMurray earned a full scholarship to attend Carroll College in Waukesha, Wisconsin and had ambitions to become a musician. In college, MacMurray participated in numerous local bands, playing the saxophone. In 1930, he played saxophone in the Gus Arnheim and his Coconut Grove Orchestra when Bing Crosby was the lead vocalist and Russ Columbo was in the violin section. MacMurray recorded a vocal with Arnheim's orchestra "All I Want Is Just One Girl" -- Victor 22384, 3/20/30. He appeared on Broadway in the 1930 hit production of "Three's a Crowd" starring Sydney Greenstreet, Clifton Webb and Libby Holman. He next worked alongside Bob Hope in the 1933 production of "Roberta" before he signed on with Paramount Pictures in 1934 for the then-standard 7-year contract (the hit show made Bob Hope a star and he was also signed by Paramount). MacMurray married Lillian Lamont (D: June 22, 1953) on June 20, 1936, and they adopted two children.
Although his early film work is largely overlooked by film historians and critics today, he rose steadily within the ranks of Paramount's contract stars, working with some of Hollywood's greatest talents, including wunderkind writer-director Preston Sturges (whom he intensely disliked) and actors Humphrey Bogart and Marlene Dietrich. Although the majority of his films of the 30's can largely be dismissed as standard fare there are exceptions: he played opposite Claudette Colbert in seven films, beginning with The Gilded Lily (1935). He also co-starred with Katharine Hepburn in the classic, Alice Adams (1935), and with Carole Lombard in Hands Across the Table (1935), The Trail of the Lonesome Pine (1936) -- an ambitious early outdoor 3-strip Technicolor hit, co-starring with Henry Fonda and Sylvia Sidney directed by Henry Hathaway -- The Princess Comes Across (1936), and True Confession (1937). MacMurray spent the decade learning his craft and developing a reputation as a solid actor. In an interesting sidebar, artist C.C. Beck used MacMurray as the initial model for a superhero character who would become Fawcett Comics' Captain Marvel in 1939.
The 1940s gave him his chance to shine. He proved himself in melodramas such as Above Suspicion (1943) and musicals (Where Do We Go from Here? (1945)), somewhat ironically becoming one of Hollywood's highest-paid actors by 1943, when his salary reached $420,000. He scored a huge hit with the thoroughly entertaining The Egg and I (1947), again teamed with Ms. Colbert and today largely remembered for launching the long-running Ma and Pa Kettle franchise. In 1941, MacMurray purchased a large parcel of land in Sonoma County, California and began a winery/cattle ranch. He raised his family on the ranch and it became the home to his second wife, June Haver after their marriage in 1954. The winery remains in operation today in the capable hands of their daughter, Kate MacMurray. Despite being habitually typecast as a "nice guy", MacMurray often said that his best roles were when he was cast against type by Billy Wilder. In 1944, he played the role of "Walter Neff", an insurance salesman (numerous other actors had turned the role down) who plots with a greedy wife Barbara Stanwyck to murder her husband in Double Indemnity (1944) -- inarguably the greatest role of his entire career. Indeed, anyone today having any doubts as to his potential depth as an actor should watch this film. He did another stellar turn in the "not so nice" category, playing the cynical, spineless "Lieutenant Thomas Keefer" in the 1954 production of The Caine Mutiny (1954), directed by Edward Dmytryk. He gave another superb dramatic performance cast against type as a hard-boiled crooked cop in Pushover (1954).
Despite these and other successes, his career waned considerably by the late 1950s and he finished out the decade working in a handful of non-descript westerns. MacMurray's career got its second wind beginning in 1959 when he was cast as the dog-hating father figure (well, he was a retired mailman) in the first Walt Disney live-action comedy, The Shaggy Dog (1959). The film was an enormous hit and Uncle Walt green lighted several projects around his middle-aged star. Billy Wilder came calling again and he did a masterful turn in the role of Jeff Sheldrake, a two-timing corporate executive in Wilder's Oscar-winning comedy-drama The Apartment (1960), with Shirley MacLaine and Jack Lemmon -- arguably his second greatest role and the last one to really challenge him as an actor. Although this role would ultimately be remembered as his last great performance, he continued with the lightweight Disney comedies while pulling double duty, thanks to an exceptionally generous contract, on TV.
MacMurray was cast in 1961 as Professor Ned Brainerd in Disney's The Absent Minded Professor (1961) and in its superior sequel, Son of Flubber (1962). These hit Disney comedies raised his late-career profile considerably and producer Don Fedderson beckoned with My Three Sons (1960) debuting in 1960 on ABC. The gentle sitcom staple remained on the air for 12 seasons (380 episodes). Concerned about his work load and time away from his ranch and family, Fred played hardball with his series contract. In addition to his generous salary, the "Sons" contract was written so that all the scenes requiring his presence to be shot first, requiring him to work only 65 days per season on the show (the contract was reportedly used as an example by Dean Martin when negotiating the wildly generous terms contained in his later variety show contract). This requirement meant the series actors had to work with stand-ins and posed wardrobe continuity issues. The series moved without a hitch to CBS in the fall of 1965 in color after ABC, then still an also-ran network with its eyes peeled on the bottom line, refused to increase the budget required for color production (color became a U.S. industry standard in the 1968 season). This freed him to pursue his film work, family, ranch, and his principal hobby, golf.
Politically very conservative, MacMurray was a staunch supporter of the Republican Party; he joined his old friend Bob Hope and James Stewart in campaigning for Richard Nixon in 1968. He was also widely known one of the most -- to be polite -- frugal actors in the business. Stories floated around the industry in the 60s regarding famous hard-boiled egg brown bag lunches and stingy tips. After the cancellation of My Three Sons in 1972, MacMurray made only a few more film appearances before retiring to his ranch in 1978. As a result of a long battle with leukemia, MacMurray died of pneumonia at the age of eighty-three in Santa Monica on November 5, 1991. He was buried in the Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City.- Alice Marble was born on 28 September 1913 in Beckwourth, California, USA. She was an actress, known for Pat and Mike (1952), Greatest Sports Legends (1972) and Who Said That? (1948). She died on 13 December 1990 in Palm Springs, California, USA.
- Actor
- Soundtrack
Rambunctious British leading man (contrary to popular belief, he was of Scottish ancestry, not Irish) and later character actor primarily in American films, Victor McLaglen was a vital presence in a number of great motion pictures, especially those of director John Ford. McLaglen (pronounced Muh-clog-len, not Mack-loff-len) was the son of the Right Reverend Andrew McLaglen, a Protestant clergyman who was at one time Bishop of Claremont in South Africa. The young McLaglen, eldest of eight brothers, attempted to serve in the Boer War by joining the Life Guards, though his father secured his release. The adventuresome young man traveled to Canada where he did farm labor and then directed his pugnacious nature into professional prizefighting. He toured in circuses, vaudeville shows, and Wild West shows, often as a fighter challenging all comers. His tours took him to the US, Australia (where he joined in the gold rush) and South Africa. In 1909 he was the first fighter to box newly-crowned heavyweight champion Jack Johnson, whom he fought in a six-round exhibition match in Vancouver (as an exhibition fight, it had no decision). When the First World War broke out, McLaglen joined the Irish Fusiliers and soldiered in the Middle East, eventually serving as Provost Marshal (head of Military Police) for the city of Baghdad. After the war he attempted to resume a boxing career, but was given a substantial acting role in The Call of the Road (1920) and was well received. He became a popular leading man in British silent films, and within a few years was offered the lead in an American film, The Beloved Brute (1924). He quickly became a most popular star of dramas as well as action films, playing tough or suave with equal ease. With the coming of sound, his ability to be persuasively debonair diminished by reason of his native speech patterns, but his popularity increased, particularly when cast by Ford as the tragic Gypo Nolan in The Informer (1935), for which McLaglen won the Best Actor Oscar. He continued to play heroes, villains and simple-minded thugs into the 1940s, when Ford gave his career a new impetus with a number of lovably roguish Irish parts in such films as She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949) and The Quiet Man (1952). The latter film won McLaglen another Oscar nomination, the first time a Best Actor winner had been nominated subsequently in the Supporting category. McLaglen formed a semi-militaristic riding and polo club, the Light Horse Brigade, and a similarly arrayed precision motorcycle team, the Victor McLaglen Motorcycle Corps, both of which led to conclusions that he had fascist sympathies and was forming his own private army. McLaglen denied espousing the far right-wing sentiments that were often attributed to him. He continued to act in films into his 70s and died, from congestive heart failure, not long after appearing in a film directed by his son, Andrew V. McLaglen.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Herbert Marshall had trained to become a certified accountant, but his interest turned to the stage. He lost a leg while serving in World War I and was rehabilitated with a wooden leg. This did not stop him from making good his decision to make the stage his vocation. He used a very deliberate square-shouldered and guided walk, largely unnoticeable, to cover up his disability. He spent 20 years in distinguished stage work in London before entering films. He almost made the transition from the stage directly to sound movies except for one silent film, Mumsie (1927), produced in Great Britain. His wonderfully mellow baritone and British accent rolled out with a minimum of mouth movement and a nonchalant ease that stood out as unique. His rather blasé demeanor could take on various nuances, without overt emotion, to fit any role he played, whether sophisticated comedy or drama, and the accent fit just as well. He filled the range from romantic lead, with several sympathetic strangers thrown in, to dignified military officer to doctor to various degrees of villainy, his unemotional delivery meshing with the cold, impassive criminal character.
He was almost 40 when he appeared in his first picture in Hollywood, The Letter (1929), a film worthy of comparison (but for the primitive sound recording) to the more famous second version (The Letter (1940)) with Bette Davis. Marshall is the murder victim in 1929 and the betrayed husband in 1940. He was heavily in demand in the 1930s, sometimes in five or six pictures a year. Perhaps his best suave comedic role was in Trouble in Paradise (1932), the first non-musical sound comedy by producer-director Ernst Lubitsch--to some, Lubitsch's greatest film. That same year, Marshall did one of his most warmly human, romantic roles in the marvelously erotic Blonde Venus (1932), with the captivating Marlene Dietrich.
Through the '40s, his roles were more of the character variety, but always substantial. He was deviously subtle as the pre-World War II peace leader actually working against peace for a veiled foreign power (Germany) in Foreign Correspondent (1940). The film was one of Alfred Hitchcock 's earliest Hollywood films and definitely an under-rated thriller. Who could forget Marshall's small but standout performance as "Scott Chavez", who at the beginning of Duel in the Sun (1946), with typical Marshall nonchalance, calmly shoots his Indian cantina-entertainer wife for her cheating ways? By the '50s, Marshall was doing fewer movies, but still in varied genres. His voice was perfect to lend credence to some early sci-fi classics, such as Riders to the Stars (1954) and Gog (1954) and the The Fly (1958). He was also busy honing his considerable talent with various early-TV playhouse programs. He also fit comfortably into episodic TV, including a rare five-episode run as a priest on 77 Sunset Strip (1958). All told, Herbert Marshall graced nearly 100 movie and TV roles with an aplomb that remains a rich legacy.- Carroll Nye was born on 4 October 1901 in Akron, Ohio, USA. He was an actor, known for Gone with the Wind (1939), King of the Wild (1931) and The Heart of Maryland (1927). He was married to Dorothy Barnes Stewart, Roberta Clementine Woodburn and Helen Lynch. He died on 17 March 1974 in North Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Actor
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Although he came to be called "Hollywood's Irishman in Residence"--and, along with good friends James Cagney, Allen Jenkins, Frank McHugh and a few others were called "The Irish Mafia"--and he often played Irish immigrants, Pat O'Brien was US-born and -bred. As a young boy the devoutly Roman Catholic O'Brien considered entering the seminary to study for the priesthood, but although he often played a Father, Monsignor or Bishop, he never actually followed through and entered the seminary. And although never a policeman, in movies he often wore the cop's badge and, although in real life he had no discernible Irish accent, he could pour on the "brogue" when the role called for it.
Pat O'Brien excelled in roles as beneficent men but could also give convincing performances as wise guys or con artists. He was a most popular film star during the 1930s and 1940s. Over almost five decades, he co-starred in nine films with Cagney, including his own screen swansong, Ragtime (1981).- Eloise Taylor was born on 3 February 1903 in Iowa, USA. She was an actress, known for Damaged Love (1931), Convict's Code (1930) and Ragtime (1981). She was married to Pat O'Brien. She died on 16 December 1987 in Santa Monica, California, USA.
- Actress
- Soundtrack
One of the brightest film stars to grace the screen was born Emilie Claudette Chauchoin on September 13, 1903, in Saint Mandé, France where her father owned a bakery at 57, rue de la République (now Avenue Général de Gaulle). The family moved to the United States when she was three. As Claudette grew up, she wanted nothing more than to play to Broadway audiences (in those days, any actress or actor worth their salt went for Broadway, not Hollywood). After her formal education ended, she enrolled in the Art Students League, where she paid for her dramatic training by working in a dress shop. She made her Broadway debut in 1923 in the stage production of "The Wild Wescotts". It was during this event that she adopted the name Claudette Colbert.
When the Great Depression shut down most of the theaters, Claudette decided to make a go of it in films. Her first film was called For the Love of Mike (1927). Unfortunately, it was a box-office disaster. She wasn't real keen on the film industry, but with an extreme scarcity in theatrical roles, she had no choice but to remain. In 1929 she starred as Joyce Roamer in The Lady Lies (1929). The film was a success and later that year she had another hit entitled The Hole in the Wall (1929). In 1930 she starred opposite Fredric March in Manslaughter (1930), which was a remake of the silent version of eight years earlier. A year after that Claudette was again paired in a film with March, Honor Among Lovers (1931). It fared well at the box-office, probably only because it was the kind of film that catered to women who enjoyed magazine fiction romantic stories. In 1932 Claudette played the evil Poppeia in Cecil B. DeMille's last great work, The Sign of the Cross (1932), and once again was cast with March. Later the same year she was paired with Jimmy Durante in The Phantom President (1932). By now Claudette's name symbolized good movies and she, along with March, pulled crowds into the theaters with the acclaimed Tonight Is Ours (1933).
The next year started a little on the slow side with the release of Four Frightened People (1934), where Claudette and her co-stars were at odds with the dreaded bubonic plague on board a ship. However, the next two films were real gems for this young actress. First up, Claudette was charming and radiant in Cecil B. DeMille's spectacular Cleopatra (1934). It wasn't one of DeMille's finest by any means, but it was a financial success and showcased Claudette as never before. However, it was as Ellie Andrews, in the now famous It Happened One Night (1934), that ensured she would be forever immortalized. Paired with Clark Gable, the madcap comedy was a mega-hit all across the country. It also resulted in Claudette being nominated for and winning the Oscar that year for Best Actress. IN 1935 she was nominated again for Private Worlds (1935), where she played Dr. Jane Everest, on the staff at a mental institution. The performance was exquisite. Films such as The Gilded Lily (1935), Drums Along the Mohawk (1939) and No Time for Love (1943) kept fans coming to the theaters and the movie moguls happy. Claudette was a sure drawing card for virtually any film she was in. In 1944 she starred as Anne Hilton in Since You Went Away (1944). Again, although she didn't win, Claudette picked up her third nomination for Best Actress.
By the late 1940s and early 1950s she was not only seen on the screen but the infant medium of television, where she appeared in a number of programs. However, her drawing power was fading somewhat as new stars replaced the older ones. In 1955 she filmed the western Texas Lady (1955) and wasn't seen on the screen again until Parrish (1961). It was her final silver screen performance. Her final appearance before the cameras was in a TV movie, The Two Mrs. Grenvilles (1987). She did, however, remain on the stage where she had returned in 1956, her first love. After a series of strokes, Claudette divided her time between New York and Barbados. On July 30, 1996, Claudette died in Speightstown, Barbados. She was 92.- Actor
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Tyrone Power was one of the great romantic swashbuckling stars of the mid-twentieth century, and the third Tyrone Power of four in a famed acting dynasty reaching back to the eighteenth century. His great-grandfather was the first Tyrone Power (1795-1841), a famed Irish comedian. His father, known to historians as Tyrone Power Sr., but to his contemporaries as either Tyrone Power or Tyrone Power the Younger, was a huge star in the theater (and later in films) in both classical and modern roles. His mother, Helen Emma "Patia" (née Reaume), (Mrs. Tyrone Power), was also a Shakespearean actress as well as a respected dramatic coach.
Tyrone Edmund Power, Jr., (also called Tyrone Power III) was born at his mother's home of Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1914. His ancestry included English, Irish, German, French Huguenot, and French-Canadian. A frail, sickly child, he was taken by his parents to the warmer climate of southern California. After his parents' divorce, he and his sister Anne Power returned to Cincinnati with their mother. There he attended school while developing an obsession with acting. Although raised by his mother, he corresponded with his father, who encouraged his acting dreams. He was a supernumerary in his father's stage production of 'The Merchant of Venice' in Chicago and held him as he died suddenly of a heart attack later that year.
Startlingly handsome, young Tyrone nevertheless struggled to find work in Hollywood. He appeared in a few small roles, then went east to do stage work. A screen test led to a contract at 20th Century Fox in 1936, and he quickly progressed to leading roles. Within a year or so, he was one of Fox's leading stars, playing in contemporary and period pieces with ease. Most of his roles were colorful without being deep, and his swordplay was more praised than his wordplay. He served in the Marine Corps in World War II as a transport pilot, and he saw action in the Pacific Theater of operations.
After the war, he got his best reviews for an atypical part as a downward-spiraling con-man in Nightmare Alley (1947). Although he remained a huge star, much of his postwar work was unremarkable. He continued to do notable stage work and also began producing films. Following a fine performance in Billy Wilder's Witness for the Prosecution (1957), Power began production on Solomon and Sheba (1959). Halfway through shooting, he suffered a heart attack during a dueling scene with George Sanders and died before reaching a hospital.
His three children, including his namesake, Tyrone William Power IV (known professionally as Tyrone Power Jr.), have all followed him in the family acting tradition.- Actress
- Soundtrack
At age 16, Annabella was chosen by Abel Gance to appear in Napoleon (1927). In the 30s, she became a star of French movies. She made movies in numerous other countries, before being called to Hollywood in 1938, where she met and married Tyrone Power. She remained in the USA until 1947. Then she attempted a comeback in France. She retired from show business in 1954.- Actor
- Additional Crew
- Writer
Actor, raconteur, art collector and connoisseur of haute cuisine are just some of the attributes associated with Vincent Price. He was born Vincent Leonard Price, Jr. in St. Louis, Missouri, to Marguerite Cobb "Daisy" (Wilcox) and Vincent Leonard Price, who was President of the National Candy Company. His grandfather, also named Vincent, invented Dr. Price's Baking Powder, which was tartar-based. His family was prosperous, as he said, "not rich enough to evoke envy but successful enough to demand respect." His uniquely cultivated voice and persona were the result of a well-rounded education which began when his family dispatched him on a tour of Europe's cultural centres. His secondary education eventually culminated in a B.A. in English from Yale University and a degree in art history from London's Courtauld Institute.
Famously, his name has long been a byword for Gothic horror on screen. However, Vincent Price was, first and foremost, a man of the stage. It is where he began his career and where it ended. He faced the footlights for the first time at the Gate Theatre in London. At the age of 23, he played Prince Albert in the premiere of Arthur Schnitzler 's 'Victoria Regina' and made such an impression on producer Gilbert Miller that he launched the play on Broadway that same year (legendary actress Helen Hayes played the title role). In early 1938, he was invited to join Orson Welles 's Mercury Theatre on a five-play contract, beginning with 'The Shoemaker's Holiday'. He gave what was described as "a polished performance". Thus established, Vincent continued to make sporadic forays to the Great White Way, including as the Duke of Buckingham in Shakespeare's 'Richard III' (in which a reviewer for the New Yorker found him to be "satisfactorily detestable") and as Oscar Wilde in his award-winning one man show 'Diversions and Delights', which he took on a hugely successful world-wide tour in 1978. While based in California, Vincent was instrumental in the success of the La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego, starring in several of their bigger productions, including 'Billy Budd' and 'The Winslow Boy'. In 1952, Vincent joined the national touring company of 'Don Juan in Hell' in which he was cast as the devil. Acting under the direction of Charles Laughton and accompanied by noted thespians Charles Boyer, Cedric Hardwicke and Agnes Moorehead, he later recalled this as one of his "greatest theatrical excitements".
As well as acting on stage, Vincent regularly performed on radio network programs, including Lux Radio Theatre, CBS Playhouse and shows for the BBC. He narrated or hosted assorted programs ranging from history (If these Walls Could Speak) to cuisine (Cooking Price-Wise). He wrote several best-selling books on his favourite subjects: art collecting and cookery. In 1962, he was approached by Sears Roebuck to act as a buying consultant "selling quality pictures to department store customers". As if that were not enough, he lectured for 15 years on art, poetry and even the history of villainy. He recorded numerous readings of poems by Edgar Allan Poe (nobody ever gave a better recital of "The Raven"!), Shelley and Whitman. He also served on the Arts Council of UCLA, was a member of the Fine Arts Committee for the White House, a former chairman of the Indian Arts & Crafts Board and on the board of trustees of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
And besides all of that, Vincent Price remained a much sought-after motion picture actor. He made his first appearance on screen as a romantic lead in Service de Luxe (1938), a frothy Universal comedy which came and went without much fanfare. After that, he reprized his stage role as Master Hammon in an early television production of 'The Shoemaker's Holiday'. For one reason or another, Vincent was henceforth typecast as either historical figures (Sir Walter Raleigh, Duke of Clarence, Mormon leader Joseph Smith, King Charles II, Cardinal Richelieu, Omar Khayyam) or ineffectual charmers and gigolos. Under contract to 20th Century Fox (1940-46), Laura (1944) provided one of his better vehicles in the latter department, as did the lush Technicolor melodrama Leave Her to Heaven (1945) which had Vincent showcased in a notably powerful scene as a prosecuting attorney. His performance was singled out by the L.A. Times as meriting "attention as contending for Academy supporting honors".
His first fling with the horror genre was Dragonwyck (1946), a Gothic melodrama set in the Hudson Valley in the early 1800's. For the first time, Vincent played a part he actually coveted and fought hard to win. His character was in effect a precursor of those he would later make his own while working for Roger Corman and American-International. As demented, drug-addicted landowner Nicholas Van Ryn, he so effectively terrorized Gene Tierney's Miranda Wells that the influential columnist Louella Parsons wrote with rare praise: "The role of Van Ryn calls for a lot of acting and Vincent admits he's a ham and loves to act all over the place, but the fact that he has restrained himself and doesn't over-emote is a tribute to his ability". If Vincent was an occasional ham, he proved it with his Harry Lime pastiche Carwood in The Bribe (1949). Much better was his starring role in a minor western, The Baron of Arizona (1950), in which he was convincingly cast as a larcenous land office clerk attempting to create his own desert baronetcy.
With House of Wax (1953) , Vincent fine-tuned the character type he had established in Dragonwyck, adding both pathos and comic elements to the role of the maniacal sculptor Henry Jarrod. It was arduous work under heavy make-up which simulated hideous facial scarring and required three hours to apply and three hours to remove. He later commented that it "took his face months to heal because it was raw from peeling off wax each night". However, the picture proved a sound money maker for Warner Brothers and firmly established Vincent Price in a cult genre from which he was henceforth unable to escape. The majority of his subsequent films were decidedly low-budget affairs in which the star tended to be the sole mitigating factor: The Mad Magician (1954), The Fly (1958) (and its sequel), House on Haunted Hill (1959), the absurd The Tingler (1959) (easily the worst of the bunch) and The Bat (1959). With few exceptions, Vincent's acting range would rarely be stretched in the years to come.
Vincent's association with the genial Roger Corman began when he received a script for The Fall of the House of Usher, beginning a projected cycle of cost-effective films based on short stories by Edgar Allen Poe. As Roderick Usher, Vincent was Corman's "first and only choice". Though he was to receive a salary of $50,000 for the picture, it was his chance "to express the psychology of Poe's characters" and to "imbue the movie versions with the spirit of Poe" that clinched the deal for Vincent. He made another six films in this vein, all of them box office winners. Not Academy Award stuff, but nonetheless hugely enjoyable camp entertainment and popular with all but highbrow audiences. Who could forget Vincent at his scenery chewing best as the resurgent inquisitor, luring Barbara Steele into the crypt in The Pit and the Pendulum (1961)? Or as pompous wine aficionado Fortunato Luchresi in that deliriously funny wine tasting competition with Montresor Herringbone (Peter Lorre) in Tales of Terror (1962)? Best still, the climactic battle of the magicians pitting Vincent's Erasmus Craven against Boris Karloff's malevolent Dr. Scarabus in The Raven (1963) (arguably, the best offering in the Poe cycle). The Comedy of Terrors (1963) was played strictly for laughs, with the inimitable combo of Price and Lorre this time appearing as homicidal undertakers.
For the rest of the 60s, Vincent was content to remain in his niche, playing variations on the same theme in City in the Sea (1965) and Witchfinder General (1968) (as Matthew Hopkins). He also spoofed his screen personae as Dr. Goldfoot and as perennial villain Egghead in the Batman (1966) series. He rose once more to the occasion in the cult black comedy The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971) (and its sequel Dr. Phibes Rises Again (1972)) commenting that he had to play Anton Phibes "very seriously so that it would come out funny". The tagline, a parody of the ad for Love Story (1970), announced "love means never having to say you're ugly".
During the 70s and 80s, Vincent restricted himself mainly to voice-overs and TV guest appearances. His final role of note was as the inventor in Edward Scissorhands (1990), a role written specifically for him. The embodiment of gleeful, suave screen villainy, Vincent Price died in Los Angeles in October 1993 at the age of 82. People magazine eulogized him as "the Gable of Gothic." Much earlier, an English critic named Gilbert Adair spoke for many fans when he said "Every man his Price - and mine is Vincent."- Edith Barrett was born on 19 January 1907 in Roxbury, Massachusetts, USA. She was an actress, known for I Walked with a Zombie (1943), Jane Eyre (1943) and Ruthless (1948). She was married to Vincent Price. She died on 22 February 1977 in Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA.
- Actor
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Walter Pidgeon, a handsome, tall and dark-haired man, began his career studying voice at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. He then did theater, mainly stage musicals. He went to Hollywood in the early 1920s, where he made silent films, including Mannequin (1926) and Sumuru (1927). When talkies arrived, Pidgeon made some musicals, but he never received top billing or recognition in these. In 1937 MGM put him under contract, but only in supporting roles and "the other man" roles, such as in Saratoga (1937) opposite Jean Harlow and Clark Gable and in The Girl of the Golden West (1938) opposite Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy. Although these two films were big successes, Pidgeon was overlooked for his contributions to them. MGM lent him out to Fox, where he finally had top billing, in How Green Was My Valley (1941). When he returned to MGM the studio tried to give him bigger roles, and he was cast opposite his frequent co-star Greer Garson. However, Garson seemed to come up on top in Blossoms in the Dust (1941) and Mrs. Miniver (1942), although Pidgeon did receive an Academy Award nomination for his role in the latter film.
Pidgeon remained with MGM through the mid-'50s, making films like Dream Wife (1953) and Hit the Deck (1955) with Jane Powell and old pal Gene Raymond. In 1956 Pidgeon left the movies to do some work in the theater, but he returned to film in 1961.
Pidgeon retired from acting in 1977. He suffered from several strokes that eventually led to his death in 1984.- Actor
- Additional Crew
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Actor Roger Pryor was considered the "poor man's Clark Gable" at Universal and Columbia studios where he held long-term contracts during the 30s and 40s. The son of the popular composer/band leader Arthur Pryor (1869-1942) and his wife Maude Russell, the mustachioed leading man used his slick, roguish looks to good effect, enabling him to become a durable co-star of breezy "B" level musicals and stylish dramas.
Born in New York City (Manhattan) close to the turn of the 20th century on August 27, 1901, Roger made his stage debut at 18 in a New Jersey stock play called "Adam and Eva." He went on to also work with the Myskle-Harder Stock Company in Connecticut. After years of touring in repertory companies, he finally hit the Broadway lights in 1925 with a production of "The Back Slapper" and went on to appear with Ruth Gordon in "Paid (1926), as well as "Saturday's Children" (1927), "The Royal Family" (1927), "See Naples and Die" (1929), "Up Pops the Devil" (1930) and "Here Goes the Bride" (1931). While he did a fine job replacing Lee Tracy in the popular classic "The Front Page," it was his role in the 1932 play "Blessed Event" that got the Universal New York movie studio paying special attention.
Taking his initial film bow opposite lovely Mary Brian in the second-string Universal musical Moonlight and Pretzels (1933) , Roger was sent straight to Hollywood where he starred in the musical I Like It That Way (1934) and the sparkling comedy I'll Tell the World (1934) both paired with equally lovely Gloria Stuart. Roger was also Heather Angel's leading man in the light comedy Romance in the Rain (1934) before appearing in his biggest pre-Code picture as one of Mae West's paramours, the prizefighting Tiger Kid, in her bawdy vehicle Belle of the Nineties (1934).
Roger continued on the "B" Hollywood romantic path for the next several years. He was part of a vaudeville trio act in the musical Wake Up and Dream (1934) with ill-fated Russ Columbo and pert blonde June Knight; appeared in Lady by Choice (1934) opposite Carole Lombard; starred in Strange Wives (1934) with June Clayworth; headlined both Straight from the Heart (1935) and Dinky (1935) opposite Mary Astor; appeared in The Headline Woman (1935) again with Heather Angel; starred in $1000 a Minute (1935) with Leila Hyams; and was front and center in To Beat the Band (1935) co-starring Helen Broderick.
Married in 1926 to Priscilla Mitchell, the mother of his only child, Roger fell in love with his co-star Ann Sothern of the romantic musical comedy The Girl Friend (1935). They were wed the following year (1936) months after his divorce was finalized. Experiencing the height of his cinematic career, Roger went on to play reporters in both The Return of Jimmy Valentine (1936) and Missing Girls (1936), an amnesiac in the comedy Ticket to Paradise (1936) and a songwriter in Sitting on the Moon (1936).
As he began to decline into second leads and support roles (often as a heavy), Roger turned more and more to radio hosting, possessing a perfectly rich voice that suited the medium quite well. He also carried on the family tradition as a dance band leader and trombonist. At one time, wife Ann Sothern briefly toured with Pryor's band but the union began to crumble and they divorced in 1943.
Roger's film career continued throughout WWII with secondary roles in such secondary films as I Live on Danger (1942), A Man's World (1942), Smart Alecks (1942), Submarine Alert (1943) and High Powered (1945). Occasional leads still came his way occasionally with Gambling Daughters (1941) and The Kid Sister (1945). The actor made his last appearance on film with the Roy Rogers/Dale Evans oater Man from Oklahoma (1945).
Though his work as a bandleader was personally satisfying, it wasn't profitable and it drove Roger into bankruptcy. In 1947, he retired from show business altogether and turned to business, finding a comfortable niche as an ad executive and vice president in charge of broadcasting at Foote, Cone and Belding advertising agency.
Roger remarried a third time and the couple settled comfortably in Florida. He died of cardiac arrest at age 72 on January 31, 1974, while in Puerta Valarta, Mexico. His elder brother, Arthur Pryor, Jr. (1897-1954) was a radio pioneer who ran a prime agency in the 1930s and 1940s.- Actress
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
Ann Sothern's film career started as an extra in 1927. Originally a redhead, she began to bleach her hair blonde for comedy roles. After working at MGM and on Broadway, Ann was signed by Columbia Pictures for Let's Fall in Love (1933). The next year she would work with Eddie Cantor in his hit Kid Millions (1934). For the next two years, Ann would appear in a number of "B" pictures until she was dropped by Columbia in 1936. She then went to RKO, where the quality of her films did not improve. She appeared in a series of "B' pictures movies with Gene Raymond, but her career was going nowhere. In 1938 she left RKO and played the tart in Trade Winds (1938), which got her a contract at MGM. She was given the lead in a "B" comedy about a brassy, energetic showgirl not salesgirl--originally intended for Jean Harlow--that wound up becoming a huge hit and spawned a series of sequels that ran until 1947: Maisie (1939). Ann also appeared in such well received features as Brother Orchid (1940), Cry 'Havoc' (1943) and A Letter to Three Wives (1949). After 1950 the roles dried up and Ann turned to television and another hit series, playing the meddlesome Susie in the 1953 series Private Secretary (1953). The series was canceled in 1957 and Ann came back in The Ann Sothern Show (1958), which ran from 1958 to 1961. In 1965, she would be the voice of the 1928 Porter in the camp classic My Mother the Car (1965). While the 1970s and 1980s were relatively quiet for Ann, she would be nominated for an Academy Award for her role as the neighbor of Lillian Gish and Bette Davis in The Whales of August (1987).- Actor
- Producer
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Mickey Rooney was born Joe Yule Jr. on September 23, 1920 in Brooklyn, New York. He first took the stage as a toddler in his parents vaudeville act at 17 months old. He made his first film appearance in 1926. The following year, he played the lead character in the first Mickey McGuire short film. It was in this popular film series that he took the stage name Mickey Rooney. Rooney reached new heights in 1937 with A Family Affair, the film that introduced the country to Andy Hardy, the popular all-American teenager. This beloved character appeared in nearly 20 films and helped make Rooney the top star at the box office in 1939, 1940 and 1941. Rooney also proved himself an excellent dramatic actor as a delinquent in Boys Town (1938) starring Spencer Tracy. In 1938, he was awarded a Juvenile Academy Award.
Teaming up with Judy Garland, Rooney also appeared in a string of musicals, including Babes in Arms (1939) the first teenager to be nominated for an Oscar for Best Actor in a leading role, Strike Up the Band (1940), Babes on Broadway (1941), and Girl Crazy (1943). He and Garland immediately became best of friends. "We weren't just a team, we were magic," Rooney once said. During that time he also appeared with Elizabeth Taylor in the now classic National Velvet (1944). Rooney joined the service that same year, where he helped to entertain the troops and worked on the American Armed Forces Network. He returned to Hollywood after 21 months in Love Laughs at Andy Hardy (1946), did a remake of a Robert Taylor film, The Crowd Roars (1932) called Killer McCoy (1947) and portrayed composer Lorenz Hart in Words and Music (1948). He also appeared in Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961), starring Audrey Hepburn and George Peppard. Rooney played Hepburn's Japanese neighbor, Mr. Yunioshi. A sign of the times, Rooney played the part for comic relief which he later regretted feeling the role was offensive. He once again showed his incredible range in the dramatic role of a boxing trainer with Anthony Quinn and Jackie Gleason in Requiem for a Heavyweight (1962). In the late 1960s and 1970s Rooney showed audiences and critics alike why he was one of Hollywood's most enduring stars. He gave an impressive performance in Francis Ford Coppola's 1979 film The Black Stallion (1979), which brought him an Academy Award nomination as Best Actor in a Supporting Role. He also turned to the stage in 1979 in Sugar Babies with Ann Miller, and was nominated for a Tony Award. During that time he also portrayed the Wizard in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz with Eartha Kitt at New York's Madison Square Garden, which also had a successful run nationally.
Rooney appeared in four television series': The Mickey Rooney Show (1954) (1954-1955), a comedy sit-com in 1964 with Sammee Tong called Mickey, One of the Boys in 1982 with Dana Carvey and Nathan Lane, and The New Adventures of the Black Stallion (1990) from 1990-1993. In 1981, Rooney won an Emmy Award for his portrayal of a mentally challenged man in Bill (1981). The critical acclaim continued to flow for the veteran performer, with Rooney receiving an honorary Academy Award "in recognition of his 60 years of versatility in a variety of memorable film performances". More recently he has appeared in such films as Night at the Museum (2006) with Ben Stiller and The Muppets (2011) with Amy Adams and Jason Segel.
Rooney's personal life, including his frequent trips to the altar, has proved to be just as epic as his on-screen performances. His first wife was one of the most beautiful women in Hollywood, actress Ava Gardner. Mickey permanently separated from his eighth wife Jan in June of 2012. In 2011 Rooney filed elder abuse and fraud charges against stepson Christopher Aber and Aber's wife. At Rooney's request, the Superior Court issued a restraining order against the Aber's demanding they stay 100 yards from Rooney, as well as Mickey's other son Mark Rooney and Mark's wife Charlene. Just prior, Rooney mustered the strength to break his silence and appeared before the Senate in Washington D.C. telling of his own heartbreaking story of abuse in an effort to live a peaceful, full life and help others who may be similarly suffering in silence.
Rooney requested through the Superior Court to permanently reside with his son Mark Rooney, who is a musician and Marks wife Charlene, an artist, in the Hollywood Hills. He legally separated from his eighth wife in June of 2012. Ironically, after eight failed marriages he never looked or felt better and finally found happiness and peace in the single life. Mickey, Mark and Charlene focused on health, happiness and creative endeavors and it showed. Mickey Rooney had once again landed on his feet reminding us that he was a survivor. Rooney died on April 6th 2014. He was taking his afternoon nap and never woke. One week before his death Mark and Charlene surprised him by reunited him with a long lost love, the racetrack. He was ecstatic to be back after decades and ran into his old friends Mel Brooks and Dick Van Patten.- Writer
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J. Walter Ruben was born on 14 August 1899 in New York City, New York, USA. He was a writer and director, known for The Phantom of Crestwood (1932), The Roadhouse Murder (1932) and The Getaway (1941). He was married to Virginia Bruce and Jane. He died on 16 August 1942 in Hollywood, California, USA.- Actress
- Soundtrack
American leading lady of the 1930s and 1940s, Virginia Bruce was born in Minnesota but grew up in Fargo, North Dakota, and came to California to attend college. Her blond good looks got her an entry into films, and after a few extra roles and bit parts she began to make serious inroads as a leading woman in secondary films and as the "other" woman in more prestigious productions. She married screen legend John Gilbert, then in his decline. Subsequently she was married to director J. Walter Ruben and to Turkish producer/director Ali Ipar, for whom she appeared in some Turkish films all but unseen in America. She died in 1982.- Producer
- Actor
- Writer
Frank Ross was born on 12 August 1904 in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. He was a producer and actor, known for The Robe (1953), The More the Merrier (1943) and The House I Live In (1945). He was married to Joan Bradshaw, Joan Caulfield and Jean Arthur. He died on 18 February 1990 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Actress
- Soundtrack
This marvelous screen comedienne's best asset was only muffled during her seven years' stint in silent films. That asset? It was, of course, her squeaky, frog-like voice, which silent-era cinema audiences had simply no way of perceiving, much less appreciating. Jean Arthur, born Gladys Georgianna Greene in upstate New York, 20 miles south of the Canadian border, has had her year of birth cited variously as 1900, 1905 and 1908. Her place of birth has often been cited as New York City! (Herein we shall rely for those particulars on Miss Arthur's obituary as given in the authoritative and reliable New York Times. The date and place indicated above shall be deemed correct.) Following her screen debut in a bit part in John Ford's Cameo Kirby (1923), she spent several years playing unremarkable roles as ingénue or leading lady in comedy shorts and cheapie westerns. With the arrival of sound she was able to appear in films whose quality was but slightly improved over that of her past silents. She had to contend, for example, with the consummately evil likes of Dr. Fu Manchu (played by future "Charlie Chan" Warner Oland). Her career bloomed with her appearance in Ford's The Whole Town's Talking (1935), in which she played opposite Edward G. Robinson, the latter in a dual role as a notorious gangster and his lookalike, a befuddled, well-meaning clerk. Here is where her wholesomeness and flair for farcical comedy began making themselves plain. The turning point in her career came when she was chosen by Frank Capra to star with Gary Cooper in the classic social comedy Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936). Here she rescues the hero - thus herself becoming heroine! - from rapacious human vultures who are scheming to separate him from his wealth. In Capra's masterpiece Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), she again rescues a besieged hero (James Stewart), protecting him from a band of manipulative and cynical politicians and their cronies and again she ends up as a heroine of sorts. For her performance in George Stevens' The More the Merrier (1943), in which she starred with Joel McCrea and Charles Coburn, she received a Best Actress Academy Award nomination, but the award went to Jennifer Jones in The Song of Bernadette (1943) (Coburn, incidentally, won for Best Supporting Actor). Her career began waning toward the end of the 1940s. She starred with Marlene Dietrich and John Lund in Billy Wilder's fluff about post-World War II Berlin, A Foreign Affair (1948). Thereafter, the actress would return to the screen but once, again for George Stevens but not in comedy. She starred with Alan Ladd and Van Heflin in Stevens' western Shane (1953), playing the wife of a besieged settler (Heflin) who accepts help from a nomadic gunman (Ladd) in the settler's effort to protect his farm. It was her silver-screen swansong. She would provide one more opportunity for a mass audience to appreciate her craft. In 1966 she starred as a witty and sophisticated lawyer, Patricia Marshall, a widow, in the TV series The Jean Arthur Show (1966). Her time was apparently past, however; the show ran for only 11 weeks.