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- American actor who entered pictures when ill health forced him to reduce his active stage career. He was raised in Williamstown, Massachusetts, where his father was a department chairman at Williams College. His mother was the well-known classical composer Mary Turner Salter. He spent many years in vaudeville and stock, and made his Broadway debut in 1912. During a 1926 tour in which he played one of the leading roles in "What Price Glory?" Salter was stricken with influenza and forced to leave the show. His health did not allow him to return to the stage as actively as before, but he did manage a play in Australia, before returning to America and making a few pictures, primarily Westerns. But his health had declined drastically since the 1926 influenza bout. He died at 42 from complications of influenza.
- Joel Teal was born on 24 December 1889 in Atlanta, Texas, USA. He was an actor, known for The Ten Thousand Dollar Trail (1921). He died on 9 May 1929 in Terrell, Texas, USA.
- William Dyer was born on 11 March 1881 in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. He was an actor, known for The Trail of the Octopus (1919), The Red Glove (1919) and Man's Desire (1919). He died on 22 December 1933 in Hollywood, California, USA.
- Largely forgotten today, glossy, beak-nosed, oval-faced actor Monroe Owsley, whose unappetizing film career lasted less than a decade, was born in Atlanta, Georgia near the turn of the century on August 11, 1900, and raised by his mother, stage actress Gertrude Owsley (1872-1936). A younger sister, Abbie, died at five months of age.
Monroe trained as an actor as a teen and started his career in such stock and repertory theatre productions as "The Meanest Girl in the World," and "Merton of the Movies." He eventually made it to Broadway in 1925 with "Young Blood."
After making a 1928 Broadway splash in the role of Ned Seton, the tipsy, ne'er-do-well scion of a well-to-do family, in Philip Barry's hit comedy "Holiday," Monroe was invited to move into films around the advent of sound. His first movie role was as a young suitor in The First Kiss (1928) starring Fay Wray, but made more of a celluloid impact when he repeated his stage role in the first filming of Holiday (1930), which starred chic socialite Ann Harding. Katharine Hepburn's more famous remake came out eight years later with Lew Ayres playing Monroe's role.
Known for his high forehead, narrow eyes and persistent sneer, Monroe usually found himself cast as the slick third wheel in a number of opulent, pre-Code romantic dramas/musicals opposite a number of the top female stars including Barbara Stanwyck in Ten Cents a Dance (1931); Claudette Colbert in Honor Among Lovers (1931); Gloria Swanson in Indiscreet (1931); Joan Crawford in This Modern Age (1931); Helen Twelvetrees in Unashamed (1932); Clara Bow in Call Her Savage (1932); Kay Francis in The Keyhole (1933); Bette Davis in Ex-Lady (1933); and Carole Lombard in Brief Moment (1933). He had the leading man role in The Woman Who Dared (1933).
Unfortunately, the role of the inebriated, elegantly despairing Ned severely typecast him in an unappealing vein as the weakling son, charming cad, jellyfish husband, or debauched "Richie Rich" type, and his career skidded downhill and further down the credit list starting in 1934. Sadly, his personal life appeared to be just as unappealing as that of his film characters, succumbing to drink, drug and gambling addictions.
After a minor role in the "B" musical The Hit Parade (1937), Monroe was involved in a Southern California car accident. This alleged triggered a fatal heart on June 7, 1937, the very same day that superstar Jean Harlow died. He was only 36. - Claudia Coleman was born on 7 July 1886 in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. She was an actress, known for Frisco Kid (1935), King of Burlesque (1936) and Little Miss Nobody (1936). She died on 17 August 1938 in Hollywood, California, USA.
- Actress
Marta Belfort was born on 27 May 1872 in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. She was an actress. She died on 29 September 1941 in Hollywood, California, USA.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Trixie Smith was born on 16 January 1900 in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. She was an actress, known for Fried Green Tomatoes (1991), Blue Jasmine (2013) and Swing! (1938). She died on 21 September 1943 in New York City, New York, USA.- Alexander Bonnyman Jr. was born on 2 May 1910 in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. He died on 22 November 1943 in Tarawa, Gilbert Islands.
- George A. McDaniel was born on 22 December 1885 in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. He was an actor, known for A Little Princess (1917), Lombardi, Ltd. (1919) and Burning Words (1923). He was married to Alice Lohr and Evelyn. He died on 20 August 1944 in San Fernando, California, USA.
- Director
- Writer
- Actor
Charles M. Seay was born on 22 May 1867 in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. He was a director and writer, known for Jan of the Big Snows (1922), The Everlasting Triangle (1914) and The Missing Twenty-Five Dollars (1914). He was married to Grace Beatrice Ballou. He died on 12 November 1944 in Palestine, Texas, USA.- Marie Shelton was born on 8 August 1902 in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. She was an actress, known for A Society Scandal (1924) and Manhandled (1924). She was married to Allan Dwan and Biesel. She died on 13 March 1949 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Writer
- Additional Crew
Margaret Mitchell was an American historical novelist and a journalist. She published only one completed novel in her lifetime, "Gone with the Wind" (1936), which covered a woman's struggle for survival through the American Civil War and the Reconstruction Era. The novel won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1937, and it was the top American fiction bestseller in 1936 and 1937. Mitchell had completed the romance novella "Lost Laysen" in her adolescence, but it was only published posthumously in 1996. A collection of Mitchell's newspaper articles was published under the title ""Margaret Mitchell: Reporter" (2000). Several of her writings from her early life have been published under the title "Before Scarlett: Girlhood Writings of Margaret Mitchell." (2000).
In 1900, Mitchell was born in Atlanta, Georgia. Her father was Eugene Mitchell (1866-1944), a prominent lawyer, politician, and historian. He served a term as the President of the Atlanta Board of Education (1911-1912), and co-founded the Atlanta Historical Society. Mitchell's mother was Maybelle Stephens Mitchell (1872-1919), a prominent suffragist leader, and a co-founder of both the League of Women Voters in Georgia and the Catholic Layman's Association of Georgia. Mitchell's paternal ancestors were Scottish-Americans, and her maternal ancestors were Irish-Americans.
During her early childhood, Mitchell lived with her family at a Jackson Street mansion, east of downtown Atlanta. The mansion was owned by Miitchell's maternal grandmother, Annie Stephens (d. 1934) , who lived with them. Stephens was reportedly a tyrant to her family, and had a somewhat adversarial relationship with her granddaughter. But Mitchell went on to interview her for "eye-witness information" about the effects of the Civil War and Reconstruction in Atlanta. Stephen's memories were one of the primary sources for "Gone with the Wind" .
Mitchell's mother had the habit of dressing her daughter in boys' pants, because she thought that they were safer than dresses. Mitchell continued dressing as a boy until she was 14, and her family nicknamed her "Jimmy" (after the comic strip character "Little Jimmy"). Mitchell was a tomboy in her childhood, and her favorite pastime was to ride her Texas plains pony. Aging Confederate soldiers tried to entertain the young girl by narrating to her gritty details of specific battles from the Civil War.
In 1912, the Mitchell family moved to a new residence at the east side of Peachtree Street. The house was located at a short distance from the Chattahoochee River. The family reportedly had concerns about the safety of their Jackson Hill home, due to its proximity to areas affected by the Atlanta Race Riot (1906). The Jackson Hill home was eventually destroyed in the Great Atlanta Fire of 1917.
By the early 1910s , Mitchell was an avid reader. Among her favorite writers were Edith Nesbit and Thomas Dixon. Mitchell started writing fairy tales and adventure stories as a hobby. Among her early works was "The Arrow Brave and the Deer Maiden" (1913), about a mixed-race "Indian" who has to endure pain to win over his love interest. Mitchell's mother kept her daughter's stories in white enamel bread boxes.
In 1914, Mitchell started attending Atlanta's Washington Seminary, a then-fashionable private girls' school. The school had over 300 students. Mitchell joined the school's drama club. She was still a tomboy, and she habitually played the male characters in performances of William Shakespeare's plays. She also joined the school's literary club, and had her stories published in the school's yearbook. Among her first published stories was the revenge-themed "Little Sister", where a little girl shoots her sister's rapist.
In 1918, Mitchell graduated and started preparing for a college education, at the insistence of her mother. Her mother chose which school Mitchell would attend, Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. At the time, it was reputedly "the best women's college in the United States". Before her college classes started, Mitchell was engaged to her first serious love interest, the army lieutenant Clifford West Henry. He was send to fight in France in July 1918, and was mortally wounded in October of the same year. Mitchell would continue mourning him for years.
In 1919, Mitchell' mother died from the flu. She was one of the many victims of a flu pandemic that had started in 1918. Mitchell arrived home from college, a day after her mother had died. She found that her mother left a short letter of advise for her, telling her to take care of herself before taking care of other causes.
Later in 1919, Mitchell dropped out of college. She did not excel in any area of academics, and her father expected her to take over the family's household. Mitchell had health problems of her own, and had an appendectomy in the autumn of 1919. Mitchell was feeling increasingly disappointed with her life's direction, as she wrote to a friend. In 1920, Mitchell made her Atlanta society debut. Shortly after, she started dressing as a flapper. In 1921, she shocked the Atlanta high society by performing an Apache dance in a charity ball, and kissing her male partner during the performance. She was consequently blacklisted from the Junior League.
In 1922, Mitchell started dating the bootlegger Berrien ("Red") Kinnard Upshaw (1901-1949). In September 1922. the couple were married against her family's wishes. They both moved in with Mitchell's father. Red was an alcoholic with a violent temper, and Mitchell suffered physical abuse at his hands. They agreed to a period of separation in December 1922, and their divorce was finalized in October 1924. In 1925, Mitchell married her second husband John Robert Marsh (1895-1952). He was Red's former roommate, and another love interest for Mitchell since 1922. Marsh had reportedly secured Mitchell's uncontested divorce, by giving Red a loan. Mitchell and her new husband set their residence at the Crescent Apartments in Atlanta, nicknaming their new home "The Dump". It would later become known as Margaret Mitchell House and Museum.
Between her two marriages, Mitchell had decided that she needed her own source of income. In 1922, she started working as a journalist for "The Atlanta Journal Sunday Magazine". Among her early successes was securing a 1923 interview with the then-popular actor Rudolph Valentino. She continued her journalistic career until May 1926. At the time of her resignation, Mitchell had suffered an ankle injury that would not heal properly. Her mobility problems prevented her from working on assignments.In her four years as a journalist, Mitchell wrote 129 feature articles, 85 news stories, and several book reviews.
Following her resignation from "The Atlanta Journal", Mitchell worked for a few months as a gossip columnist for the "Sunday Magazine". In 1926, Marsh asked his increasingly bored wife why she did not write a book of her own instead of reading thousands of them. By 1928, Mitchell started work on a historical novel of her own. In 1935, her novel was still unfinished. But the book editor Harold Latham of Macmillan read her manuscript and was convinced that it was a potential best-seller. Having secured a publisher, Mitchell spend 6 months in making revisions and checking the novel's historical references. "Gone with the Wind" was published in June 1936.
Her novel turned Mitchell into a literary celebrity, but she had no intention of writing further works. In September 1941, Mitchell christened the light cruiser USS Atlanta (CL-51). During World War II, Mitchell served as a volunteer for the American Red Cross. She raised money for the war effort by selling war bonds. In 1944, she christened the light cruiser USS Atlanta (CL-104).
On August 11, 1949, Mitchell crossed Peachtree Street with her husband. They were on their way to a movie theatre, when Mitchell was struck by a drunk driver. She was hospitalized at Grady Hospital. She died on August 16, without ever regaining consciousness. She was buried at Oakland Cemetery, Georgia. Her husband was buried by her side in 1952. Though Mitchell is long gone, her novel never went out of print. It remains popular into the 21st century. Mitchell was posthumously inducted into the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame in 2000.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Buddy Williams was born on 5 May 1896 in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. He was an actor, known for Round-Up Time in Texas (1937). He died on 16 February 1951 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Gypsy Abbott was born on 31 January 1897 in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. She was an actress, known for The Man Who Could Not Lose (1914), Who Pays? (1915) and The Criminal Code (1914). She was married to Henry King. She died on 25 July 1952 in Hollywood, California, USA.
- Writer
- Producer
- Music Department
Author and screenwriter, often preoccupied with American history as viewed from a Southern perspective. Born in Atlanta, Trotti studied writing at Columbia University and was also the first person to graduate from the University of Georgia's Henry Grady School of Journalism. In 1923, he became the youngest editor employed by a newspaper owned by the Hearst Press, The Georgian. From 1925, Trotti worked in New York for the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, moving on to Hollywood in 1932. He spent virtually his entire career at 20th Century Fox as writer/producer: from 1933 until his untimely death in 1952. He wrote screenplays for a wide range of genres, including war films, westerns, comedies and biopics. The majority of these were critical and box office hits.
Recurring motifs in Trotti's work are life in a romanticised Deep South (Steamboat Round the Bend (1935), Can This Be Dixie? (1936)), the Civil War (Young Mr. Lincoln (1939), Belle Starr (1941), The Ox-Bow Incident (1942)), pioneering history (Drums Along the Mohawk (1939), Brigham Young (1940), Hudson's Bay (1940)) and rustic, small town Americana (Cheaper by the Dozen (1950)). Invariably, his screenplays have benefited from a profound knowledge of American history and politics and his keen eye for characterisation.
His peers in the industry regarded Trotti as a man of considerable integrity. He was generally described as of quiet, self-effacing nature, possessed of strong moral convictions. His contributions were recognised thirty-one years after his death with a prestigious Screen Laurel Award from the Writer's Guild of America.- Major Merriweather was born on 31 March 1905 in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. He was married to Hattie Spruel. He died on 23 February 1953 in Chicago, Illinois, USA.
- Ed 'Smilin' Ed' McConnell was born on 12 January 1892 in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. He was married to Ruth Burroughs. He died on 24 July 1954 in Newport Beach, California, USA.
- Actor
- Soundtrack
Daniel L. Haynes was born on 6 June 1889 in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. He was an actor, known for Hallelujah (1929), The Last Mile (1932) and Mary Burns, Fugitive (1935). He was married to Rosa Belle Sims. He died on 29 July 1954 in Kingston, New York, USA.- Hennie Brown was born on 6 January 1903 in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. He was an actor, known for Misbehaving Husbands (1940). He died on 7 December 1954 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Erskine Mayer was born on 16 January 1889 in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. He died on 10 March 1957 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Cinematographer
Joseph T. Rucker was, for the better part of his forty year career, a newsreel cameraman for Paramount News. He is remembered for filming the 1915 opening of the Panama Canal, the aftermath of the 1923 Tokyo earthquake, the 1927 civil war in China and Richard E. Byrd Jr.'s 1928 and 1930 expeditions to Antarctica. In the latter expedition, he and fellow cameraman, Willard Van der Veer brought back over 160,000 feet of raw footage. During the Second World War, Rucker covered the conflict in the Pacific aboard the American aircraft carrier Enterprise.
Rucker was born on 1 January, 1887, in Atlanta, Georgia, the second son of George G. and Sarah Millikan Rucker. His father, who had for a number of years been a cotton broker in Virginia, died sometime before 1900.
Rucker passed away in San Francisco on 21 October, 1957, two years after his retirement. He was survived by his wife of forty-two years, the former Cecile Kaufman (1893-1975), a daughter Frances Joy and son Joseph.- Soundtrack
Chuck Willis was an R & B singer songwriter who crossed over into pop in the mid 1950s. He had hit recordings with "Oh What a Dream", "It's Too Late", "C.C. Rider", "Hang Up My Rock & Roll Shoes", "Betty and Dupree" and "What Am I Living For". He wrote and first recorded "I Feel So Bad" which was a 1961 worldwide million seller for Elvis Presley. Willis was known as "The King of Stroll" for the new and brief dance craze (1957-58), "The Stroll". The dance had been inspired by the mellow beat and chorus featured in his 1957 hit "C.C. Rider". He made his only prime time network TV appearance on Feb.15,1958 performing "Betty and Dupree" on the premiere of "The Saturday Night Dick Clark Show", 7 weeks before his death.- Rubberlegs Williams was born on 14 July 1907 in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. He was an actor. He died on 17 October 1962 in New York City, New York, USA.
- May Futrelle was born on 26 May 1876 in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. She was a writer, known for The Secretary of Frivolous Affairs (1915). She was married to Jacques Futrelle. She died on 29 October 1967 in Scituate, Massachusetts, USA.
- Bertha Mann was born on 21 October 1893 in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. She was an actress, known for Behind the Mask (1932), Father's Son (1931) and Caught Cheating (1931). She was married to Raymond Griffith. She died on 20 December 1967 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Writer
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
Martin Luther King Jr. was born on January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia. He was the son of Alberta Christine (Williams), a schoolteacher, and Martin Luther King Sr. a pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. For Martin the civil rights movement began one summer in 1935 when he was six years old. Two of his friends did not show up to play ball with him and Martin decided to go looking for them. When he went to one of the boys' house, their mother met him at the front door and told him in a rude tone that her son would not be coming out to play with him that day or any other day because they were white and he was black. Years later, Martin admitted that those cruel words altered the direction of his life. As a teenager, Martin went through school with great distinction. He skipped ninth and 12th grades, and excelled on the violin and as as a public speaker. One evening after taking top prize in a debate tournament, he and his teacher were riding home on the bus discussing the event when the driver ordered them to give up their seats for two white passengers who had just boarded. Martin was infuriated as he recalled, "I intended to stay right in my seat and protest," but his teacher convinced him to obey the law and they stood for the remainder of the 90-mile trip. "That night will never leave my memory as long as I live. It was the angriest I had ever been in my life. Never before, or afterward, can I remember myself being so angry," he later recalled.
Martin entered Morehouse College, his father's alma mater, when he was 15 with the intention of becoming a doctor or lawyer. After graduating from Morehouse at the age of 19, he decided to enter Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania. This private nondenominational college had only 100 students at the time, and Martin was one of six black students. This was the first time that he had lived in a community that was mostly white. He won the highest class ranking and a $1,200 fellowship for graduate school. In 1951 he entered Boston University School of Theology to to pursue his Ph.D. While at Crozer Martin had attended a lecture by Howard University President Mordecai Johnson, who spoke about Mohandas K. Gandhi, India's spiritual leader whose nonviolent protests helped to free his country from British rule, and that gave Martin the basis for positive change. It was here that he met and married his wife Coretta Scott King, who was a soprano studying at the New England Conservatory of Music. In 1954 Martin accepted a call to the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, to be its pastor. Despite Coretta's warning that it would not be safe for them in Alabama, the poorest and most racist state in the US, Martin insisted that they move there. Many local black ministers attended Martin's first sermon at the church, among them the Rev. Ralph Abernathy, who congratulated him on his speech. The two became fast friends and often discussed life in general and the challenges of desegregation in particular. Then an incident changed Martin's life forever.
On the cold winter night of December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, a 42-year-old black seamstress who worked in a downtown Montgomery department store, boarded a bus for home and sat in the back with the other black passengers. A few stops later, she was ordered to give up her seat to a white passenger who just boarded. She repeatedly refused, prompting the driver to call the police, who arrested her. In response to Mrs. Parks' courage, the town's black leaders formed the Montgomery Improvement Association and elected Martin as its leader. The first goal of the MIA was to boycott the city's bus system until public transportation laws were changed. The strike was long, bitter and violent, but eventually the city's white merchants began to complain that their businesses were suffering because of the strike, and the city responded by filing charges against Martin. While in court to appeal the charges, he learned that the U.S. Supreme Court had affirmed the decision by the Alabama Supreme Court that the local laws requiring segregation on buses were unconstitutional. The first civil rights battle was won, but for Martin it was the first of many more difficult ones. On November 29, 1959, he offered his resignation to the members of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, as several months earlier he had been elected leader of a new organization called the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). He moved his family to Atlanta and began to establish a regional network of nonviolent organizations.
In April 1961 he coordinated the SCLC and other civil-rights organizations to take two busloads of white and black passengers through the South on a "freedom ride" for publicity reasons. In Virgina and North and South Carolina there were no incidents, but in Anniston, Alabama, the ride became a rolling horror when one bus was burned and its passengers beaten by an angry racist white mob. In Birmingham, angry mobs--with some policemen joining them--greeted the bus with more violence, which was broken up when state police intervened and stopped the chaos. The violence shook Martin and he decided to abandon the freedom rides before someone was killed, but the riders insisted they complete the ride to Montgomery, where they where greeted with more violence. In January 1963 Martin arrived in Birmingham with Ralph Abernathy to organize a freedom march aimed to end segregation. Despite an injunction issued by city authorities against the gathering, the protesters marched and were attacked by the police. Three months later another march was planned with the intent to "turn the other cheek" in response to the violence by the city's police force. As the marchers reached downtown Birmgingham, the police attacked the crowd with high-pressure fire hoses and attack dogs. This time, however, the incident was witnessed across the entire country, as many network TV crews were there and broadcasting live footage of unarmed marchers being blasted to the ground by high-pressure hoses and others being bitten and mauled by snarling attack dogs, and it sparked a national outrage.
The next day, more marchers repeated the walk and more policemen attacked with fire hoses and police dogs, leading to a total of 1,200 arrests. On the third day, Martin organized another march to the city jail. This time, when the marchers approached the police, none of them moved and some even let the marchers through to continue their march. The nonviolent strategy had worked--the strikes and boycotts were cutting deeply into the city merchants' revenues, and they called for negotiations and agreed with local black leaders to integrate lunch counters, fitting rooms, restrooms and drinking fountains within 90 days. Martin was then called for a rally in Washington, DC, near the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 1963. Nearly 200,000 people stood in the intense heat listening to the speeches by the members and supporters of the NACCP. By the time Martin was called as the day's final speaker, the crowd was hot and tired. As he approached the podium, with his papers containing his prepared speech, he suddenly put them aside and decided to speak from the heart. He spoke of freedoms for blacks achieved and not yet achieved. He then spoke the words that echo throughout the world to this day: "I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed. 'We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal.' I have that dream." By mid-October 1964 Martin had given 350 civil rights speeches and traveled 275,000 miles across the country and worked for 20 hours a day.
While in an Atlanta hospital after collapsing from exhaustion, his wife brought in his room a telegram notifying him that he had won the Nobel Peace Prize. On April 1, 1968, Martin traveled to Memphis, Tennessee to meet with two of his advisers, James Bevel and Jesse Jackson, to discuss organizing a march to Washington in support of a strike by Memphis' city's sanitation workers. In the late afternoon of April 4, he stepped out onto the balcony of the Lorraine Motel where he was staying to speak with Andrew Young. As he saw Jackson and waved to him for a moment, a gunshot rang through the air and Martin Luther King Jr. was hit in the neck and fell dead from a sniper's bullet. He was dead, but the struggle that he started to continue to bring peace and end the racial conflict in the USA continues to this day.- Actor
- Writer
- Soundtrack
Rangy, red-headed and straightforward to the bone while possessing distinctively adenoidal vocal tones, this actor with a voracious appetite for high living was a fine cinematic representation of the racy and race-paced style of pre-Code Hollywood. Lee Tracy patented with peerless skill the lightning rod timing and machine gun delivery so identified with that period and would have continued on handsomely in films had severe typecasting, a hair-trigger temper and a notoriously reckless off-camera life not gotten the best of him.
Christened William Lee Tracy on April 14, 1898, the Atlanta-born actor was the son of a traveling railroad superintendent and a former school teacher. Lee attended Western Military Academy in Alton, Illinois, while growing up, and then relocated with his family to upstate New York. Lee may have studied engineering at Union College in 1918, but he also showed an interest in dramatics and was almost immediately asked to join a theater company upon his graduation. WWI interrupted his nascent stage career when he joined the army. Following his discharge, he cast aside thoughts of a theater career and instead became a U.S. Treasury agent. Within two years' time, however, he was back via the vaudeville stage and touring stock companies. This all culminated in a most auspicious Broadway debut in "The Showoff" in 1924.
It took but a couple of years for Tracy to achieve certified stardom with the George Abbott production of "Broadway" (1926), in which he played a song-and-dance man, receiving the New York Drama Critics Award for his efforts. In 1928, following more vaudeville work, Lee found his quintessential role in the form of Hildy Johnson, the hustling, fast-talking newspaperman, in Charles MacArthur and Ben Hecht's timeless play "The Front Page". If ever an actor and role fit together like a hand in a glove, this was it, and it was highly unfortunate, with all due respect to actor Pat O'Brien, that Tracy was not afforded the proper chance to transfer this prototype Broadway part to the 1931 film. During this time he was also developing an off-stage reputation as a carouser and heavy drinker.
Nevertheless, Fox Studios immediately signed Tracy and offered up a fine screen debut for him co-starring with Mae Clarke in the early talkie Big Time (1929) as the male half of a husband-and-wife vaudeville team who breaks off with his mate and falls on heavy times while she becomes a star. In Born Reckless (1930), Tracy played the first of his Walter Winchell-like, staccato-styled characters. Tracy went on to perfectly evoke his fast-talking image in such Depression-era films as the drama Liliom (1930) and the ribald comedy She Got What She Wanted (1930).
A highly impulsive man, Tracy abandoned Hollywood at this early stage of the game and returned to his former glory, Broadway, appearing to fine advantage in "Oh, Promise Me" and "Louder, Please" in 1930 and 1931, respectively. But films continued to beg for his services; this time it was Warner Bros. He contributed greatly to both the melodrama The Strange Love of Molly Louvain (1932) and the horror opus Doctor X (1932) and easily stole the proceedings, this time in a comic mode, as the cynical, scandal-sniffing columnist in Blessed Event (1932). Columbia Studios decided to get in on the action with a three-picture deal. Tracy played a no-holds-barred politico in Washington Merry-Go-Round (1932), the title role in The Night Mayor (1932) and an ex-con in Carnival (1935). In between, however, trouble started brewing with his unrestrained night life and patterned absences from the set.
A fourth big studio, MGM, took him on in 1933 with a contract boost despite his "bad boy" reputation, yet more personality problems surfaced. Despite excellent performances in such films as Clear All Wires! (1933), The Nuisance (1933), Turn Back the Clock (1933), Advice to the Forlorn (1933), and the MGM classics Dinner at Eight (1933) and Bombshell (1933), both showcasing MGM's comedic sex siren Jean Harlow, Tracy went too far. During the filming of Viva Villa! (1934) in Mexico City, Tracy displayed shocking, ungentlemanly behavior that resulted in fisticuffs with the law and a high-profile arrest on public morals charges. MGM not only kicked Tracy off the picture but felt compelled to apologize publicly to the Mexican people for his disrespect and terminate the actor's five-year contract.
Tracy freelanced thereafter, often for RKO, but the quality of his pictures began to slide and his constant rash of quicksilver reporters, columnists and press agents had worn out their welcome. He returned to the stage in both New York ("Bright Star") and London ("Idiot's Delight") and was warmly received. In the midst of it all, he married Helen Thoms Wyse, a nonprofessional, in 1938 and, defying all odds, made the marriage work. She survived him by thirty years.
With his last postwar film at the time being High Tide (1947), Tracy's looks had hardened dramatically and he looked at TV being a possible medium for his talents. Throughout the '50s and early '60s, he appeared on a number of shows, including "Kraft Television Theatre", "Wagon Train" and "Ben Casey". He also took on series leads, such as The Amazing Mr. Malone (1951), Martin Kane (1949), and New York Confidential (1959). And there was always the stage.
Tracy's last hurrah, both on Broadway and in film, was Gore Vidal's blistering political drama The Best Man (1964). Recreating his 1961 Tony-nominated role of the crusty, terminally ill U.S. president, he received his only Oscar nod for this standout part. The rest of his working years went by with less distinction. In the summer of 1968 he was diagnosed with liver cancer and succumbed to the illness on October 18 of that year in a Santa Monica hospital.- Robert Robinson was born on 10 July 1903 in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. He was an actor, known for El Diablo Rides (1939) and Cattle Queen (1951). He died on 1 September 1970 in Tampa, Florida, USA.
- Actor
- Composer
- Music Department
Fred Stewart was born on 7 December 1906 in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. He was an actor and composer, known for In the Heat of the Night (1967), Splendor in the Grass (1961) and Play of the Week (1959). He died on 5 December 1970 in New York City, New York, USA.- Actor
Raoul Freeman was born on 24 April 1894 in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. He was an actor. He died on 17 February 1971 in Redondo Beach, California, USA.- Golfing legend Bobby Jones was born in Atlanta, Georgia, on March 17, 1903. He began playing golf as a young child, and won his first tournament when he was nine years old. In 1916, at age 14, he made it to the third round of the US National Amateur tournament. Golf was not just a passion with him but almost an obsession, and while he was attending the Georgia School of Technology--from which he graduated in 1922--he continued playing golf, and his astonishing skill at the game resulted in his becoming one of the most admired sports stars of the 1920s and widely credited with making golf one of the most popular sports in the country. He won the US Open in 1923--his first major tournament win--and again in 1926, 1929 and 1930. He took the US Amateur title in 1924, 1925, 1927 and 1928 and the British Open championship in 1926, 1927 and 1930. In 1930 he took the US Open and US Amateur titles and British Open and British Amateur titles, a feat that has never been duplicated. He won a total of 13 major championships. He was a member of the US Walker Cup teams in 1922, 1924, 1926, 1928 and 1930.
In 1931 he began making a series of short instructional films, titled "How I Play Golf", for Warner Brothers Pictures, which were tremendously successful. Directed by veteran filmmaker--and duffer--George Marshall, these shorts featured many Hollywood golfing enthusiasts such as Leon Errol, Joe E. Brown and W.C. Fields, who appeared in them for the opportunity to be instructed by a man many believed to be the finest golfer in the history of the game. Jones retired from golf shortly after starting these films--since he was being paid for them he could no longer claim amateur status--and, since he was admitted to the Georgia bar in 1928 after obtaining his law degree from Emory University in 1927, he opened a law practice in Atlanta.
Jones helped to establish the Augusta National Golf Club, and in 1934 he founded the annual Masters Tournament, held at the club; it eventually became one of the most prestigious tournaments in the game.
In 1948 he suffered a spinal injury that resulted in his being confined to a wheelchair, but he continued to run his diverse business interests from his home in Atlanta. In 1958 he was accorded the singular honor of being allowed "freedom of the burgh" at St. Andrews, Scotland--the last American to receive that honor was American Revolution figure Benjamin Franklin.
Bobby Jones died in Atlanta, Georgia, on December 18, 1971. - Actress
- Additional Crew
Gladys Hanson was born on 5 September 1883 in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. She was an actress, known for The Straight Road (1914), The Climbers (1915) and The Evangelist (1916). She was married to Charles E. Cook. She died on 23 February 1973 in Atlanta, Georgia, USA.- Roy Butler was born on 4 May 1893 in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. He was an actor, known for Sky Liner (1949), House of Errors (1942) and Deputy Marshal (1949). He was married to Alice Richey. He died on 28 July 1973 in Desert Hot Springs, California, USA.
- Jack Sherrill was born on 14 April 1898 in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. He was an actor, known for The Conquest of Canaan (1916), Once to Every Man (1918) and The Woman in 47 (1916). He died on 26 November 1973 in Honolulu, Hawaii, USA.
- Jim Lee Hunt was born on 5 October 1938 in Atlanta, Texas, USA. He died on 22 November 1975 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.
- Professor Backwards was born on 10 June 1910 in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. He was an actor, known for The Best of the Ed Sullivan Show (1992), The Jimmy Dean Show (1963) and Take Two (1963). He was married to Clark, Audrey. He died on 29 January 1976 in College Park, Georgia, USA.
- Rory Mallinson was born on 27 October 1913 in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. He was an actor, known for Dark Passage (1947), Montana Belle (1952) and Rodeo King and the Senorita (1951). He was married to Eileen D. McNulty and Helen Mallinson. He died on 26 March 1976 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Glenn Hefner was born on 27 June 1896 in Atlanta, Nebraska, USA. He was married to Grace Hefner. He died on 24 July 1976 in Elmwood Park, Illinois, USA.
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Henry Hite a.k.a. Henry Mullens was hired as an actor because of his height and apparent disregard for self-embarrassment. Henry, a real-life tall guy, portrayed a hitch-hiking space-alien in Bill Rebane's stupefying sci-fi failure 'Terror At Halfday' (1965) after which Herschell Gordon Lewis was brought in to "fix" the results, resulting in what is often considered Lewis' least watchable picture, _Monster a-Go Go_.- Actress
Susan Falligant was born on 19 January 1917 in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. She was an actress. She died on 20 July 1978 in San Diego, California, USA.- Champion sprinter and politician Ralph Harold Metcalfe was born on May 29, 1910 in Atlanta, Georgia. Metcalfe grew up in Chicago, Illinois and graduated from Tilden High School in Chicago in 1930. Ralph attended Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on a track scholarship. Metcalfe won a silver medal in the men's 100 meters and a bronze medal in the men's 200 meters at the 1932 Olympics. Ralph went on to win another silver medal in the men's 100 meters and a gold medal in the men's 4x100m relay at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, Germany. Metcalfe's other notable achievements in track and field include winning the NCAA 200m three consecutive times in a row from 1932 to 1934, being the first man to break the 20-second barrier in the 220y with a record of 19.8, winning the AAU 200m in both 1935 and 1936, and equaling the record of 10.3 for the 100m six times.
Ralph graduated Marquette University with a bachelor's degree in 1936 and went on to acquire a master's degree from the University of Southern California in 1939. Metcalfe taught political science and coached track at Xavier University in New Orleans, University. Moreover, Ralph served in the transportation corps in the United States Army, where he achieved the rank of first lieutenant and was awarded the Legion of Merit medal. Metcalfe won the first of four elections as an alderman representing the South Side of Chicago in 1955. Ralph was elected to the U.S. Congress from the 1st District in Illinois in 1970. In addition, Metcalfe served on the Chicago city council under mayor Richard J. Daley, whom he famously clashed with. Ralph was running for reelection when he died of a heart attack at age 68 on October 10, 1978. - Actor
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Ray Whitley was born on 5 December 1901 in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. He was an actor, known for Sleepless in Seattle (1993), Giant (1956) and Land of the Open Range (1942). He was married to Catherine Kay Johnson. He died on 21 February 1979 in Mexico.- Actor
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Ben Lyon was your average boyish, easy-going, highly appealing film personality of the Depression-era 1930s. Although he never rose above second-tier stardom, he would enjoy enduring success both in the United States and in the UK.
Born Ben Lyon, Jr. in Atlanta, Georgia, the future singer/actor was the son of Alvine Valentine (Wiseberg) and Benjamin Bethel "Ben" Lyon, a pianist-turned-businessman, and the youngest of four. His maternal grandparents were German Jewish immigrants. Raised in Baltimore, he started performing in amateur productions as a teen before earning marquee value on Broadway opposite such stars as Jeanne Eagels.
Hollywood took notice of the baby-faced charmer and soon Ben was ingratiating filmgoers opposite silent film's most honored leading ladies. He appeared with Pola Negri in Lily of the Dust (1924), Gloria Swanson in Wages of Virtue (1924), Barbara La Marr in The White Moth (1924), Mary Astor in The Pace That Thrills (1925) and Claudette Colbert, in her only silent feature, in For the Love of Mike (1927). He advanced easily into talkies and was particularly noteworthy as the dashing hero in Howard Hughes' Hell's Angels (1930), in which Ben actually piloted his own plane (Ben had trained as a pilot during WWI) and filmed some of the airborne scenes for Hughes himself. That same year was also a banner year for him in his personal life after marrying Paramount Pictures film star Bebe Daniels, with whom he had appeared in Alias French Gertie (1930).
As both of their movie careers started to decline, the talented twosome decided to work up a husband-and-wife music hall and vaudeville act. They took their show to England and became a hit at the London Palladium. At one point he served in the U.S. Army Air Force and rose to the rank of Lt. Colonel in charge of Special Services for the U.S. Air Corps in England. Soldiers, sailors and airmen (from 1939) listened to Ben and Bebe weekly on the air waves with their popular, long-running BBC broadcast "Hi, Gang!" The couple remained in England throughout WWII performing on stage and doing their valid part to entertain and honor the troops.
After a brief postwar stay in Hollywood in 1946, where Ben had taken an executive position with Fox, the couple returned to England and headlined another popular 1950s radio show, "Life with the Lyons," which spawned two family-styled films that included children Barbara Lyon and Richard Lyon. In the early 1960s Bebe suffered multiple strokes and left the limelight, passing away in 1971. Ben remarried (to former actress Marian Nixon) and settled in the US, where he died in 1979 of a heart attack while on vacation.- Actor
- Sound Department
- Editor
Bob J. Human was born on 30 November 1917 in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. He was an actor and editor, known for Police Woman (1974), A Fire in the Sky (1978) and White Line Fever (1975). He died on 5 May 1979 in Huntington Beach, California, USA.- Bob Clayton was born on 17 August 1922 in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. He was an actor, known for The Bellboy (1960), Concentration (1958) and The $25,000 Pyramid (1974). He died on 1 November 1979 in New York City, New York, USA.
- Music Department
- Additional Crew
Felton Jarvis was born on 16 November 1934 in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. He is known for Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch (1976), Elvis (1979) and Elvis in Concert (1977). He died on 3 January 1981 in Nashville, Tennessee, USA.- Lawrence P. Neal was born on 5 September 1937 in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. He was married to Evelyn Rodgers. He died on 6 January 1981 in Hamilton, New York, USA.
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
Mary Lou Williams was born on 8 May 1910 in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. She is known for Night Teeth (2021), Boy! What a Girl! (1947) and Head in the Clouds (2004). She was married to John Williams. She died on 28 May 1981 in Durham, North Carolina, USA.- Larry McDonald was born on 1 April 1935 in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. He died on 1 September 1981 in Sea of Japan.
- Georgia Sothern was born Hazel Anderson in 1909 in Atlanta, Georgia. Georgia started her career in show business performing on stage in her uncle's vaudeville act. Sothern grew up in a poor family and had a tough time as a kid: Her father abandoned the family while both her mother and uncle died when Sothern was still only in her early teens. Alone and on her own at the age of thirteen, Georgia came up with a fake birth certificate claiming she was seventeen years old, found herself an agent, and became a burlesque striptease performer with the popular burlesque outfit Minsky's in New York City.
Known as The Human Dynamo due to her extremely fast and vivacious style of dancing, Sothern not only soon established herself as a top attraction along the Eastern wheel of burlesque, but also was a headliner at clubs in such towns as Miami, Boston, Buffalo, and New York. Moreover, in the early 1940's Georgia was featured as a main dancer in Mike Todd's hugely successful Broadway musical revue "Star and Garter" along with fellow burlesque legends Lili St. Cyr and Gypsy Rose Lee. Georgia went on to join the James E. Strates Carny tour for a period of twenty-eight weeks as well as was a featured performer in Phil Silvers's Cavalcade of Burlesque in 1952. One of the most hard-working performers in burlesque, Sothern was still plugging away well into her sixties before eventually retiring in 1977. She wrote an autobiography called "Georgia: My Life in Burlesque" that was published in 1972. Georgia died of cancer on October 14, 1981 in New York City.