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1-50 of 4,221
- Young "Sunny Jim" McKeen was featured in 39 "Newlyweds and Their Baby" shorts in the late 1920s, then went on to make a series of six sound shorts on his own. A very blond little boy, he was a contemporary of the child actors such as Allen 'Farina' Hoskins and Jackie Cooper, Davey Lee and Shirley Temple. He died of blood poisoning in 1933, at the age of 8.
- Robin Maule was born on 23 November 1924 in London, England, UK. He was an actor, known for Julius Caesar (1938) and Will Shakespeare (1938). He died on 2 March 1942 in Kent, England, UK.
- Renia Spiegel was born on 18 June 1924 in Uhrynkowce, Tarnopolskie, Second Polish Republic [now Uhrynkivts, Ternopil Oblast, Ukraine]. She died on 30 July 1942 in Przemysl, Kraków District, General Government, Nazi Germany [now Przemysl, Podkarpacie, Poland].
- Selma Meerbaum-Eisinger was born on 5 February 1924 in Cernauti, Bukovina, Romania. She was a writer, known for Poem: I Set My Foot Upon the Air and It Carried Me (2003). She died on 16 December 1942 in Concentration Camp Michailowka, Ukraine.
- Actor
Anthony Pilbeam was the younger brother of British teen star Nova Pilbeam. He followed her and their father Arnold into the acting profession, appearing in many small parts at the Theatre Royal Windsor in the early 1940s. He joined the Royal Air Force volunteer reserve and was killed on operations in a Lancaster bomber over Berlin on 3 January 1944. He was nineteen and it was his fourth operation.- One of the promising newcomers in baseball was Art Sheehan of San Francisco, California, whose AAA-League records remain unbroken. While attending Galileo High School, Art led the Galileo Lions to the three consecutive championships in '41, '42, and '43 at 18-1 with an Earned-Run-Average of 1.3 and was named MVP of '43. His image was frequently printed in the San Francisco Chronicle and San Francisco Examiner, and headlines about being recruited by the MLB soon followed. This didn't happen though, as he was drafted to serve in World War II. Although offered a position in the Coast Guard, he chose the Air Corps instead because he didn't wanna take the cowardly route. The prospective athlete was quickly promoted to Sergeant and respected by his crew. Art -only two missions from being discharged- died along with several people in his crew after their aircraft exploded. He was the only crewmate whose body wasn't recovered in the wreckage, and after weeks of being MIA was pronounced dead at the age of 20. In recognition of his service, he was subsequently awarded a Purple Heart, Air Medal, and Oak Cluster, and decades later was inducted into the San Francisco Prep Hall of Fame and Galileo Sports Hall of Fame for his brief, impressive career in baseball.
- Harlon Block was born on 6 November 1924 in Yorktown, Texas, USA. He died on 1 March 1945 in Iwo Jima, Japan.
- Peggy O'Neill was born Barbara Jeanne O'Neill in San Francisco, California. When she was eighteen she won a beauty contest and moved to Hollywood. She met producer Charles Rogers who helped her get a screen test. Peggy was given a starring role in the 1944 comedy Song Of The Open Road. Columnist Louella Parsons called her "Hollywood's newest Cinderella". During the Summer of 1944 Peggy went in a bond selling tour of Texas with Adele Mera and Gale Storm. She had small parts in the movies It's A Pleasure and The Hoodlum Saint.
Peggy impulsively married Lloyd Miner, an Army officer, on January 16 1945. They separated shortly after the wedding and Peggy moved in with her mother. In the Spring of 1945 Peggy was offered a long term contract with Paramount. She started a serious romance with screenwriter Albert Mannheimer. On April 12, 1945 Peggy had an argument with Albert. That evening she committed suicide by taking an overdose of sleeping pills. She was only twenty-one years old. Peggy was buried at Calvary Cemetery in Los Angeles. - Elizabeth Short was born July 29th, 1924, in Medford, Massachusetts, to Phoebe and Cleo Short. When she was five her father disappeared; his car was later found near a lake, apparently abandoned, which led to the belief that he had committed suicide. However, he later appeared at home and apologized to his wife for leaving the family like that. Nevertheless, she wouldn't take him back, and he left the family again and moved to the West Coast.
Elizabeth developed a passion for movies in her youth, and when she turned 19 she decided to visit her father in California. She stayed with him for a while, but it wasn't long before he kicked her out for "not doing anything with her life"; apparently he also wasn't enamored of the fact that Elizabeth was dating a lot of different men.
After moving out, Elizabeth traveled to Santa Barbara where she was arrested for underage drinking and sent back home to Massachusetts. She returned to southern California in 1946.
On January 15th, 1947, her body was found cut in half in a vacant lot in Leimert Park. It was assumed that she had died the previous day. The press named the crime "The Black Dahlia murder", mostly because of Elizabeth's dark hair and her practice of often times wearing black or dark clothing.
The murder started one of the most intense investigations in Los Angeles history, but although the police said they did have suspects, no arrests were ever made. The case still remains unsolved. - Lilian Velez was born on 3 March 1924 in Cebu City, Philippines. She was an actress, known for Ang estudyante (1947), G.I. Fever (1946) and Inday (1940). She died on 26 June 1948 in Quezon City, Philippines.
- Peter Hansmann was born on 4 April 1924. He was an actor, known for Wer bist du, den ich liebe? (1949), Geliebter Lügner (1950) and Der Ruf (1949). He died on 29 October 1949 in Munich, Germany.
- Timothy Evans was born on 20 November 1924 in Merthyr Tydfil, Merthyr, Wales, UK. He died on 9 March 1950 in HMP Pentonville, London, England, UK.
- Tom Bourdillon was born on 16 March 1924 in Quainton, Aylesbury Vale District, Buckinghamshire, England, UK. He died on 29 July 1956 in Mount Jagihorn, Baltscheider, Bernese Oberland, Switzerland.
- Zaquia Jorge was born on 6 January 1924 in Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She was an actress, known for Fantasma Por Acaso (1946), Pinguinho de Gente (1949) and A Serra da Aventura (1950). She died on 22 April 1957 in Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
- Hermann Buhl was born on 21 September 1924 in Innsbruck, Tyrol, Austria. He was a writer, known for The Climb (1986) and Nanga Parbat 1953 (1953). He was married to Eugenie Högerle. He died on 27 June 1957.
- Actor
Russell Grower was born on 5 June 1924 in Illinois, USA. He was an actor. He died on 21 February 1958 in Ontario, California, USA.- Luigi Musso was born on 28 July 1924 in Rome, Lazio, Italy. He died on 6 July 1958 in Reims, France.
- Actor
- Soundtrack
Bonar Colleano was born in New York City. His name was Bonar Sullivan, but he took on his family's stage name when he joined the Colleano family acrobatic circus act at 5, then at 12 moved to England. Bonar's mother, part of the Colleano family act in her role as a comely contortionist met his father in Australia, her home country. One of Bonar's ancestors, a boxer, had emigrated to Australia from Ireland. His descendents developed their famous family circus act. Bonar was named after his Uncle Bonar, who is well-known among circus historians for his expertise walking the wire. Bonar Colleano appeared in many British films, recognized widely as the wisecracking Yank. He had sexy, dark-haired good looks, which British females of the 1950s found irresistible, yet he spoke his lines with a puckish, Bob Hope kind of delivery. In the post-war era, he was a symbol of the many Yank GIs who had courted and married British women during World War II, fathering thousands. He married British Rank starlet, Susan Shaw, and had a son with her, actor Mark Colleano, who appeared opposite Rock Hudson in "Hornet's Nest" as a 14-year-old Italian boy. Bonar died in a road accident, coming back to London from a theatre engagement out of town. The 1958 tragedy made front page news in the English papers. Upon Bonar's death, his wife was never the same again, battling a drink problem till the end of her days in 1978. Bonar's own mother became the legal guardian of Mark and groomed him for an acting career.- Actor
John W. "Shifty" Henry was an accomplished jazz musician, equally proficient on the string bass, saxophone, oboe and trumpet, as well as a composer of no mean ability. He received his nickname while playing football for Prairie View A & M College near Houston, Texas, where he majored in music. After graduation, he moved to Los Angeles where he was in demand not only as a performer in various jazz combos and big band organizations but also as a studio musician and as a composer and arranger. One of his songs, "Let Me Go Home Whiskey", originally recorded by Amos Milburn, was recently recorded by the country group Asleep At The Wheel.- Tom T. Chamales was born on 8 August 1924 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. Tom T. was a writer, known for Go Naked in the World (1961) and Never So Few (1959). Tom T. was married to Helen O'Connell. Tom T. died on 20 March 1960 in Beverly Hills, California, USA.
- Libuse Zemková was born on 15 July 1924 in Luhacovice, Czechoslovakia [now Czech Republic]. She was an actress, known for Ctrnáctý u stolu (1943), Bohemian Rapture (1948) and Zízen (1950). She died on 12 April 1960 in Prague, Czechoslovakia.
- Marie Sabouret was born on 31 January 1924 in La Rochelle, Charente-Inférieure [now Charente-Maritime], France. She was an actress, known for Rififi (1955), Would-Be Gentleman (1958) and The Three Musketeers (1953). She died on 23 July 1960 in Saint-Jean-de-Luz, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, France.
- Producer
- Director
Ted Pope was born on 25 January 1924 in Sept-Rivières, Quebec, Canada. He was a producer and director, known for The Unforeseen (1958), Explorations (1956) and First Person (1960). He was married to Eleanor Margaret Ham. He died on 13 August 1960 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.- Jerzy Horecki was born on 9 July 1924 in Przemysl, Podkarpackie, Poland. He was an actor, known for Bialy niedzwiedz (1959) and Decyzja (1960). He died on 15 October 1960 in Kraków, Malopolskie, Poland.
- Music Department
Jack Kane was born on 29 November 1924 in London, England, UK. He is known for Startime (1959), The Steve Lawrence-Eydie Gorme Show (1958) and The Chevy Showroom Starring Andy Williams (1958). He died on 27 March 1961 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.- Served as a medic with the 118th Coast Artillary Battalion, Medical Detachment, in the US Army during WW2 attaining the rank of Tec 5. He retired from acting in 1952 and moved to El Paso in Texas, where he died in 1961. He is buried in Fort Bliss Military Cemetary in El Paso.
- Actress
- Soundtrack
Gail Russell was born in Chicago, Illinois, on September 21, 1924. She remained in the Windy City, going to school until her parents moved to California when she was 14. She was an above-average student in school and upon graduation from Santa Monica High School was signed by Paramount Studios.
Because of her ethereal beauty, Gail was to be groomed to be one of Paramount's top stars. She was very shy and had virtually no acting experience to speak of, but her beauty was so striking that the studio figured it could work with her on her acting with a studio acting coach.
Gail's first film came when she was 19 years old with a small role as "Virginia Lowry" in Henry Aldrich Gets Glamour (1943) in 1943. It was her only role that year, but it was a start. The following year she appeared in another film, The Uninvited (1944) with Ray Milland (it was also the first time Gail used alcohol to steady her nerves on the set, a habit that would come back to haunt her). It was a very well done and atmospheric horror story that turned out to be a profitable one for the studio. Gail's third film was the charm, as she co-starred with Diana Lynn in Our Hearts Were Young and Gay (1944) that same year. The film was based on the popular book of the time and the film was even more popular.
In 1945 Gail appeared in Salty O'Rourke (1945), a story about crooked gamblers involved in horse racing. Although she wasn't a standout in the film, she acquitted herself well as part of the supporting cast. Later that year she appeared in The Unseen (1945), a story about a haunted house, starring Joel McCrea. Gail played Elizabeth Howard, a governess of the house in question. The film turned a profit but was not the hit that Paramount executives hoped for.
In 1946 Gail was again teamed with Diana Lynn for a sequel to "Our Hearts Were Young and Gay"--Our Hearts Were Growing Up (1946). The plot centered around two young college girls getting involved with bootleggers. Unfortunately, it was not anywhere the caliber of the first film and it failed at the box-office. With Calcutta (1946) in 1947, however, Gail bounced back with a more popular film, this time starring Alan Ladd. Unfortunately, many critics felt that Gail was miscast in this epic drama. That same year she was cast with John Wayne and Harry Carey in the western Angel and the Badman (1947). It was a hit with the public and Gail shone in the role of Penelope Worth, a feisty Quaker girl who tries to tame gunfighter Wayne. Still later Gail appeared in Paramount's all-star musical, Variety Girl (1947). The critics roasted the film, but the public turned out in droves to ensure its success at the box-office. After the releases of Song of India (1949), El Paso (1949), and Captain China (1950), Gail married matinée idol Guy Madison, one of the up-and-coming actors in Hollywood.
After The Lawless (1950) in 1950 Paramount decided against renewing her contract, mainly because of Gail's worsening drinking problem. She had been convicted of operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of alcohol, and the studio didn't want its name attached to someone who couldn't control her drinking. Being dumped by Paramount damaged her career, and film roles were coming in much more slowly. After Air Cadet (1951) in 1951, her only film that year, she disappeared from the screen for the next five years while she attempted to get control of her life. She divorced Madison in 1954.
In 1956 Gail returned in 7 Men from Now (1956). It was a western with Gail in the minor role of Annie Greer. The next year she was fourth-billed in The Tattered Dress (1957), a film that also starred Jeanne Crain and Jeff Chandler. The following year she had a reduced part in No Place to Land (1958), a low-budget offering from "B" studio Republic Pictures.
By now the demons of alcohol had her in its grasp. She was again absent from the screen until 1961's The Silent Call (1961) (looking much older than her 36 years). It was to be her last film. On August 26, 1961, Gail was found dead in her small studio apartment in Los Angeles, California.- Tonia Hildreth was born on 7 February 1924 in Leeds, Yorkshire, England, UK. She was an actress, known for Ladies in Waiting (1949), Mystery at Mountcliffe Chase (1952) and The Six Wives of Calais (1949). She died on 2 March 1962 in Canterbury, Kent, England, UK.
- Alfred Kütt was born on 4 May 1924 in Estonia. He was an actor, known for Jahid merel (1955). He died on 12 June 1962 in Viljandi, Estonian SSR, USSR [now Estonia].
- Jared Reed was born on 1 April 1924 in Columbia, South Carolina, USA. He was an actor, known for The Philco Television Playhouse (1948), Robert Montgomery Presents (1950) and Ponds Theater (1953). He was married to Judith Emily Seaton and Janet Mary Cade. He died on 11 September 1962 in New York City, New York, USA.
- Drago Makuc was born on 20 January 1924 in Rosalnice, Slovenia. He was an actor, known for The Action (1960), The Family Diary (1961) and Srescemo se veceras (1962). He died on 8 December 1962 in Ljubljana, Slovenia.
- Actress
Jackie Cagney Miller was born on 18 May 1924 in Los Angeles, California, USA. She was an actress. She died on 28 February 1963 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Criena Rohan was born on 16 July 1924 in Albert Park, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Criena was a writer, known for The Delinquents (1989). Criena was married to Otto Ole Distler Olsen and Michael Damien Blackall. Criena died on 11 March 1963 in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
- Actor
- Writer
- Soundtrack
Mario Fabrizi was born on 25 June 1924 in Holborn, London, England, UK. He was an actor and writer, known for The Army Game (1957), The Running Jumping & Standing Still Film (1959) and Just for Fun (1963). He was married to Katherine Boyce. He died on 4 April 1963 in Willesden, London, England, UK.- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
Hans Dumke was born on 14 June 1924. He was a cinematographer, known for Allons enfants... pour l'Algérie (1962), Setkání v Lipsku (1959) and Das Stacheltier - Endstation Kanal (1957). He died on 15 August 1963.- Penelope Davidson was born on 17 May 1924 in Edinburgh, Scotland, UK. She was an actress, known for Her Best Foot Forward (1951). She died on 26 August 1963 in Mayfield, East Sussex, England, UK.
- Hugh Pryor was born on 17 October 1924 in Alabama, USA. He was an actor, known for The Silent Service (1957) and Tumbleweed: Baron of Purgatory (1959). He was married to Jacqueline Pryor. He died on 6 October 1963 in Logandale, Nevada, USA.
- J.D. Tippit was born on 18 September 1924 in Clarksville, Texas, USA. He was married to Marie Gasaway. He died on 22 November 1963 in Dallas, Texas, USA.
- Actor
- Writer
- Soundtrack
Sabu Dastagir (or Selar Shaik Sabu, depending on your resource) was born on January 27, 1924, in the little town of Mysore, India, which is nestled in the jungles of Karapur. The son of an elephant driver (mahout) in service for the Maharajah of his town, the young stable boy learned responsibility early in life when, at age 9, his father died and Sabu immediately became the ward of the royal elephant stables. As with many Hollywood success stories, good timing, and dumb luck allowed the impoverished youth a chance for a better life. By sheer chance the timid 12-year-old orphan was discovered by a British location crew while searching for a youth to play the title role (an elephant driver!) in their upcoming feature Elephant Boy (1937). Quite taken aback by his earnest looks, engaging naturalness and adaptability to wild animals and their natural habitat, the studio handed the boy a film career on a sterling silver platter and was placed under exclusive contract by the mogul Alexander Korda himself.
Sabu and his older brother (as guardian) were whisked away to England to complete the picture and became subsequent wards of the British government. They were given excellent schooling in the process and Sabu quickly learned the English language in preparation for his upcoming films. Elephant Boy (1937) was an unqualified hit and the young actor was promptly placed front and center once again in the film The Drum (1938) surrounded by an impressive British cast that included Raymond Massey and Valerie Hobson. With the parallel success of the Tarzan jungle movies in America, Hollywood starting taking a keen look at this refreshingly new boy talent when he first arrived in the U.S. for a publicity tour of the film. Again, his second film was given rave reviews, proving that Sabu would not be just a one-hit wonder.
His third film for Korda is considered one of the great true classics. In the Arabian fantasy-adventure The Thief of Bagdad (1940), Sabu plays Abu the Thief and is not only surrounded by superb actors -- notably June Duprez, John Justin, Rex Ingram (as the genie) and Conrad Veidt (as the evil Grand Vizier) -- but exceptional writing and incredible special effects. Sabu's name began stirring international ears. His last pairing with Korda was the excellent adaptation of Rudyard Kipling's classic book The Jungle Book (1942) playing Mowgli, the boy raised by wolves, who must adapt to the ways of mankind after being returned to his mother. The movie was directed by Alexander's brother Zoltan Korda.
Following this triumph, Sabu officially became the exotic commodity of Universal Pictures and he settled in America. Although initially rewarding monetarily, it proved to be undoing. Unfortunately (and too often typical), a haphazard assembly-line of empty-minded features were developed that hardly compared to the quality pictures in England under Korda. Saddled alongside the unexceptional Maria Montez and Jon Hall, his vehicles Arabian Nights (1942), White Savage (1943) and Cobra Woman (1944) were, for the most part, drivel but certainly did fit the bill as colorful, mindless entertainment.
Almost 20 years old by the time he became a citizen of the U.S. in 1944, he enlisted in the Army Air Force and earned WWII distinction in combat missions (Distinguished Flying Cross, Air Medal, among others) as a tail gunner. By the time Sabu returned to Universal and filming, the charm of his youth had worn off and the boyish stereotype impossible to escape.
Post-war audiences developed new tastes, but Sabu had no choice but to trudge on with retreads of his former glory. Films such as Tangier (1946) again opposite Ms. Montez, Man-Eater of Kumaon (1948) and Song of India (1949) opposite lovely princess Gail Russell did little to advance his career. While filming the last-mentioned movie, Sabu met and married actress Marilyn Cooper who temporarily filled in for an ailing Ms. Russell on the set. The couple went on to have two children.
Sabu actually fared better back in England during the late 40s, starring in the crime drama The End of the River (1947) and appearing fourth-billed as a native general in the exquisitely photographed Black Narcissus (1947). Daring in subject matter, the film had Deborah Kerr heading up a group of Anglican nuns who battle crude traditions, unexpected passions and stark raving madness while setting up a Himalayan order. By the mid-50s Sabu's career was rapidly approaching extinction, seeking work wherever he could find it - in low-budget Europe productions, public appearances, etc. An attempt to conjure up a TV series for himself failed. His life was further aggravated by unpleasant civil and paternity suits brought about against him. His last two pictures were supporting roles in Rampage (1963), which starred Robert Mitchum, and A Tiger Walks (1964), a thoroughly routine Disney picture which was released posthumously.
Sabu died unexpectedly at age 39 of a heart attack on December 2, 1963, at his home in Southern California and was buried at Forest Lawn Cemetery in the Hollywood Hills. Son Paul Sabu developed into an accomplished songwriter and even formed a rock band called Sabu; daughter Jasmine Sabu, who died in 2001, was a noted horse trainer whose skill was utilized occasionally for films. Although he went the way of too many of our former stars, Sabu continues to enchant and excite newer generations with his unmatched athletic skills and magnetic charm in those early adventure fantasies of yesteryear.- Born in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, the former Ruth Lee Jones moved with her family to Chicago as a young girl. She considered the Windy City her true home. And it was there in early 1940s that a local nightclub owner provided her first gig - and a new name that she would make famous. By 1959 she had earned a Grammy for her version of the song "What a Diff'rence a Day Makes." In his 2001 biography Q, music legend Quincy Jones vividly describes Washington's style, saying she "could take the melody in her hand, hold it like an egg, crack it open, fry it, let it sizzle, reconstruct it, put the egg back in the box and back in the refrigerator and you would've still understood every single syllable."
But the singer's musical gifts were offset by a wild and extravagant personal life. Married seven times, Washington battled weight problems and raced through her profits buying shoes, furs and cars in an effort to lift her spirits. Washington also tried numerous prescription medications, primarily for dieting and insomnia. A mix of the pills she was taking in 1963 caused her death, which was ruled an accident. Her gift lives on through her rich musical legacy. - Korean-born, Japanese-raised professional wrestler who was the first Japanese wrestling star. He debuted in 1951 after abandoning sumo wrestling a year earlier. His first match was a ten-minute draw against Bobby Bruns. He became a star by defeating every American wrestler that promoters could throw at him. He defeated Lou Thesz for the NWA International Heavyweight Championship on August 27, 1958. He would hold several titles in Japan and the U.S. He also trained Antonio Inoki and Giant Baba, who would go on to be two of the biggest and most important stars in the history of Puroresu (Japanese professional wrestling.) He established Japan's first formal promotion, the Japan Wrestling Association. He was stabbed on December 8, 1963 while partying in a club and died of peritonitis a week later. He was inducted into the Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame in 2006, the NWA Hall of Fame in 2011 and the WWE Hall of Fame in 2017.
- Luis Martín Santos was born on 11 November 1924 in Larache, Morocco. He was a writer, known for Tiempo de silencio (1986). He died on 21 January 1964 in Vitoria, Spain.
- Grace Metalious, the author of one of the most notorious and best-selling novels of the 1950s, was born Marie Grace de Repentigny on September 8, 1924, in Manchester, New Hampshire. Populated by multiple ethnic groups, Grace's mother downplayed their French Canadian heritage due to the discrimination directed towards the group by "native" Yankees and the Irish, who were at the top of the social structure of the New England mill town. Anxious for Grace to better herself, her mother insisted upon their living in neighborhoods in which there weren't many French Canadians, one of the last groups to emigrate to Manchester and thus, located far down on the social totem pole. From her mother, Grace learned first-hand about dissembling and hiding secrets, the revelation of which would lie at the heart of her first and most famous novel, "Peyton Place."
"Little Canada" or "le petit Canada" (a.k.a. "la petite Canada") is the name traditionally given to neighborhoods in cities and towns settled by immigrants from the Province of Quebec, known as French Canadians. Approximately 900,000 French Canadians emigrated to the United States in the period of 1840-1930, the vast majority of whom settled in New England. The immigrants typically moved to states close to Quebec, particularly those bordering the province, due to the physical proximity to Quebec and because their generally impoverished state obviated greater mobility.
The New England textile industry was a major recruiter of Quebecois laborers. The West Side of Manchester, a city with a large French Canadian population due to the hiring of substantial numbers of Quebecois to work in the textile mills in the 19th and 20th centuries, was the site of one of the more famous "Little Canadas" in the U.S. La Caisse Populaire Ste. Marie, or St. Mary's Bank, located in Manchester's Little Canada, was the first credit union chartered in the United States, the credit union being a financial institution pioneered in Quebec due to the inability of francophones, who were primarily Roman Catholic, to obtain credit from the mainly Protestant anglophone population that dominated "La belle province."
In 1968, Quebecois revolutionary Pierre Vallieres, jailed in New York City as a terrorist, wrote a book about the French Canadian population and their relationship to the Anglophone oligarchy, which sums up the French Canadian's perceived status. Indeed, during the 1972 presidential primary, the local newspaper, 'The Manchester Union Leader,' owned by the reactionary William Loeb, printed a fake letter planted by President Nixon's dirty tricks squad that had a staff member of Senator Edward Muskie, the Democratic front-runner, equating French Canadians with African Americans during a campaign stop in Florida. The so-called "Canuck letter" became a well-known Watergate artifact, referenced in the 1976 film All the President's Men (1976).
When she was 11 years old, Grace's father walked out on his family, which consisted of Grace, her mother and her two sisters. The Catholic Church frowned on divorce and until the 1980s made it very difficult for a person who was a Catholic to obtain one and remain a member of the faith in good standing. This meant that it was very unusual for a married French Canadian couple to legally dissolve their marriage in the first half of the last century. Grace and her sisters felt shame, shame for coming from a broken home and shame from the resulting social stigmatization, a psychological state underscored and deepened by the social, economic and political inferiority of the French Canadians by the Yankees (descendants of English and Scottish Protestant stock who had originally settled the state) and by the Irish, who dominated the working class and felt animosity towards the French Canadians as many had been recruited to the mills to break strikes the Irish had led.
Despite the common religion of the French Canadians and the Irish, the antipathy between the two ethnic groups ran so deep that two different Catholic church and parochial school systems evolved on the West Side of Manchester, one for the Irish and one for the French Canadians, whose ethnic youth gangs continued to fight each other through out the Depression years. Grace's mother avoided this by keeping what was left of the family rooted in the supposedly more genteel East Side on the other side of the Merrimack River that bisected Manchester and once provided power for the city's mills. The Merrimack is the same river that flows south through Lowell, Massachusetts, the hometown of another famous French Canadian, Jack Kerouac, and on through Lawrence, where singer Robert Goulet was born, on its trip to the sea. Manchester, once called "The Cottonopolis of the World" due to its huge output of textiles, was hard hit by the Great Depression, and the city's great Amoskeag mill complex went bankrupt. Hard times descended on the "Queen City" making the already hard lives of the working class even harder.
Grace escaped by writing romances in which a heroine eventually is united with the man-of-her-dreams and achieves happiness at the denouement of the story. She also appeared in school plays, which had the added benefit of taking her away from her unhappy family, a malaise exacerbated by their poverty. The family mood became even dourer when Grace met and fell in love with George Metalious, a younger boy she met at Central High School, but whose remarkable intelligence meant that he had been advanced in grade and was Grace's class contemporary. An ethnic Greek with a different faith, George was viewed disdainfully by her family, but Grace and George married over their objections in 1943.
While he went off to the Army during World War Two, a housing shortage and poverty forced Grace to undergo the ignominy of having to live on Manchester's West Side in the Squog neighborhood not far from "la petite Canada" her mother had always tried to avoid. Her last name, though, allowed her to deny her French Canadian heritage, and most of her adult acquaintances and many of her friends did not know the truth. When George returned from the war, he enrolled at the University of New Hampshire on the G.I. Bill to study education, and the family, which now consisted of the couple and their first-born, moved to Durham, New Hampshire. It was in Durham that Grace Metalious began to seriously focus on her writing. Her neglect of her house, her appearance, and her children (the Metaliouses eventually had three) earned her the disapprobation of her neighbors.
After taking his degree at UNH, George accepted an offer to be the principal at a school in Gilmanton Iron Works, New Hampshire. The family of five had to subsist on George's modest salary. Gilmanton Ironworks was the model for the fictional Peyton Place. Grace was inspired by the story of a real-life murder that had rocked New Hampshire in the post-war years, in which a young girl had shot her father who had been molesting her and hid his corpse in a barn. Grace wrote the first draft of a novel in 10 weeks in 1955. That novel was "Peyton Place."
In 1956, "Peyton Place," was accepted for publication by the New York publishing house Julian Messner. The manuscript had to be heavily edited, but when it was published in the autumn of that year, it became an unprecedented "blockbuster," surpassed in the 1950s in terms of sales only by The Bible. Though the book was panned by critics as "trash" and attacked by the moral arbiters of society, it stayed on the New York Times bestseller list for over a year and was a global hit. Her riposte to criticism that she was a poor wordsmith was, "If I'm a lousy writer, then an awful lot of people have lousy taste."
To charges that she was a dirty writer, a purveyor of filth, she responded, "Even Tom Sawyer had a girlfriend, and to talk about adults without talking about their sex drives is like talking about a window without glass."
"Peyton Place" made Grace Metalious, who had known poverty and hard times all her life, a wealthy woman. Eight million copies of "Peyton Place" were sold in hardcover, along with another 12 million paperbacks. The press made Metalious a media-star, shining the spotlight on the plump housewife dressed in dungarees who wrote a bestseller defying the conformity of the 1950s, which held that the nuclear family in which the wife was subservient to her husband and children was the ideal lifestyle. Grace earned the sobriquet "Pandora in Blue Jeans" as she had opened up a box of sin, which was then revealed to the world.
The "Peyton Place" of Metalious' novel is a small, seemingly respectable New England town that actually is a cauldron of secrets and scandal boiling just below the seemingly placid surface. Aside from depictions of sex, rape, abortion, and suicide, there is a murder trial, when young Selena Cross is tried for murdering her father, who had molested her. Even before the publication of the novel, the good citizens of Gilmanton Iron Works were outraged, convinced that Grace had shamed them by washing their dirty linen before the world and making their town synonymous with lust and perversion. Grace eventually was threatened with libel lawsuits, and the town, which demurred from buying a copy of the best-seller for its public library, refused to extend her husband's contract as school principal.
"Peyton Place" not only changed the image of Gilmanton Iron Works, but it revolutionized the image of small town America from a Norman Rockewell painting to something more akin to the Potterville (Bedford Falls) of George Bailey's nightmare in It's a Wonderful Life (1946). The term "Peyton Place" became a buzzword to describe the duality of middle class life, with its deep secrets and rampant sex beneath a hypocritical veneer of propriety. The book was banned in many cities and towns, and by the Dominion of Canada. Grace Metalious and her book were denounced from the pulpit and by politicians, who claimed it corrupted the morals of young readers.
The book was read by tens of millions of people worldwide, and Hollywood quickly closed in and bought the novel for $125,000. Producer Jerry Wald's 1957 movie of Peyton Place (1957), starring Hollywood superstar Lana Turner as Constance MacKenzie, was a hit and even garnered nine Oscar nominations. (Validating the theme of troubles boiling just beneath the surface of people's "public" lives, Turner's 14-year-old Cheryl Crane stabbed her Mafiosi boyfriend Johnny Stompanato to death with a butcher knife in her mother's bedroom less than a fortnight after the Academy Award ceremony.) The movie spawned the sequel Return to Peyton Place (1961) in 1961, based on her 1959 follow-up to her original novel. "Peyton Place" also was spun off into a high-class, prime-time TV soap opera that made Ryan O'Neal and Mia Farrow into stars.
Metalious and success did not mix well. She spent her money freely, hit the bottle, divorced her husband George, married a local disc jockey, and partied in Hollywood before eventually returning to her home state towards the end of her life. She settled in Meredith, which was the heart of New Hampshire's beautiful Lakes Region nestled among the majestic White Mountains range. Back in the Granite State, she trolled the Lake Winnipesaukee area in a drop-top Cadillac, drunk, with a succession of lovers attracted by her cash.
The "Pandora in Bluejeans" remarried George Metalious in 1960, but her destructive behavior was too far developed, and they divorced for a second time in 1963. The failure of her other novels to achieve the level of success as "Peyton Place" -- in addition to the sequel "Return to Peyton Place," she published "The Tight White Collar" in 1961 and "No Adam in Eden" in 1963 -- added to her malaise and dipsomania.
Before the war, she and her young husband George used to drink a home-brewed Greek concoction called ouzo. But for Grace, alcohol was no longer a case of sharing warmth and laughter around the kitchen table with some friends; she had become a full-blown thirty-something bottle baby. Suffering from depression and alcoholism, she quickly went through her money.
"I looked into that empty bottle and I saw myself," she said.
Thirty-nine-year-old Grace Metalious died of cirrhosis of the liver on February 25, 1964, never having achieved the peace of mind that seems to have eluded her since the days when the mother taught the young girl to deny her heritage as a way of getting along in a world whose hypocrisies Grace could not ignore. Her life story illustrated the old saw: "Be careful what you wish for: You just might get it." She was a dreamer who did not know that realizing her dream would become her nightmare.
Grace Metalious will be remembered as the first popular women writer that pried the lid of off societal hypocrisy and violence directed towards women, a small-minded world that smoothed over the horrors of life through conformity to an ideal of polite, middle-class virtues that were more honored in the breach than in the observance. Her book made possible such subsequent early "chick-lit" as Jacqueline Susann's "Valley of the Dolls." - Additional Crew
- Actress
- Soundtrack
She was born in New Bedford, Massachusetts and went to New Bedford High School. Even before graduating in 1942, she had opened a dance studio where she taught dancing. Dancing was in her blood from an early age, and she performed often at high school festivities, the Mexican Hat Dance being one of her favorites. During the WWII years, she came to Hollywood and became the protégé of Gene Kelly, whom she admired a great deal. She had fine timing and was indefatigable. Unfortunately, she was a diabetic, and this may have been the cause of her demise. She married Larry Blyden in Hollywood (purportedly on the stage of a theatre), and had two children. After her death, her husband took the children to Texas, where they had relatives, and was soon, thereafter, killed in an auto accident.- Grant Duprez was born on 7 March 1924 in Brentford, Middlesex, England, UK. He was an actor, known for Precious Bane (1957) and BBC Sunday-Night Theatre (1950). He died on 26 May 1964 in Harefield Hospital, Middlesex, England, UK.
- Evelyn Mills was born on 17 May 1924 in New York, USA. She was an actress, known for Alias Jimmy Valentine (1928), A Ship Comes In (1928) and Follow Teacher (1928). She died on 17 June 1964 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Evelyn Eaton was born on 17 May 1924 in New York, USA. She was an actress, known for The Utah Kid (1944), Fighting Fools (1949) and Finger Man (1955). She was married to Eddy King (announcer). She died on 17 June 1964 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Richard P. Beedle was born on 26 December 1924 in Los Angeles, California, USA. He was an actor, known for The Vanquished (1953) and Flight to California (1952). He was married to Corrine Audria Vance. He died on 5 July 1964 in Pisco, Peru.
- Lili Vörösmarty was born on 10 May 1924 in Cluj, Romania. She was an actress, known for Színészek a porondon (1963). She died on 20 November 1964 in Budapest, Hungary.
- Woody Wall was born on 7 November 1924 in Jackson, Mississippi, USA. He died on 20 March 1965 in Memphis, Tennessee, USA.