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1-50 of 1,091
- Actor
- Additional Crew
- Soundtrack
An old-fashioned comedian, who, by recommendation by his son Keenan Wynn, became one of the world's most beloved clowns, and one of the best actors of his time. He was born on November 9, 1886. He performed in the Ziegfeld Follies, and later had a son Keenan in 1916. He later wrote his own shows, then known as the Perfect Fool. In 1941 at age 54, he became a grandfather. He became popular for roles throughout the 1950s and 1960s, best remembered for The Ed Wynn Show (1949), and for Mary Poppins (1964) as Uncle Albert, who reflects his old style charm. He continued to perform, until he died in 1966 at age 79.- 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.- One of the most indispensable of character actors, Leo G. Carroll was already involved in the business of acting as a schoolboy in Gilbert & Sullivan productions. Aged 16, he portrayed an old man in 'Liberty Hall'. In spite of the fact, that he came from a military family, and , perhaps, because of his experience during World War I, he decided against a military career in order to pursue his love of the theatre. In 1911, he had been a stage manager/actor in 'Rutherford and Son' and the following year took this play to America. Twelve years later, Leo took up permanent residence in the United States. His first performance on Broadway was in 'Havoc' (1924) with Claud Allister, followed by Noël Coward's 'The Vortex' (1925, as Paunceford Quentin). Among his subsequent successes on the stage were 'The Green Bay Tree' (1933) as Laurence Olivier's manservant, 'Angel Street' (aka 'Gaslight',1941) as Inspector Rough, and the 'The Late George Apley' (title role). The latter, a satire on Boston society, opened in November 1944 and closed almost exactly a year later. A reviewer for the New York times, Lewis Nichols, wrote "His performance is a wonderful one. The part of Apley easily could become caricature but Mr.Carroll will have none of that. He plays the role honestly and softly." The play was filmed in 1947, with Ronald Colman in the lead role. Leo's film career began in 1934. He was cast, to begin with, in smallish parts. Sometimes they were prestige 'A pictures', usually period dramas, such as The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934) and Wuthering Heights (1939).
Leo was a consummate method actor who truly 'lived' the parts he played, and, as a prominent member of Hollywood's British colony, attracted the attention of Alfred Hitchcock. Indeed, the famous director liked him so much, that he preferred him to any American actor to play the part of a U.S. senator in Strangers on a Train (1951). A scene stealer even in supporting roles, Leo G. Carroll lent a measure of 'gravitas' to most of his performances, point in case that of the homicidal Dr. Murchison in Spellbound (1945) (relatively little screen time, but much impact !) and the professor in North by Northwest (1959). On the small screen, Leo lent his dignified, urbane presence and dry wit to the characters of Cosmo Topper and Alexander Waverly, spymaster and boss of Napoleon Solo and Ilya Kuryakin in The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1964), the part for which he is chiefly remembered.
Leo G. Carroll appeared in over 300 plays during his career and the stage remained his preferred medium. He once remarked "It's brought me much pleasure of the mind and heart. I owe the theatre a great deal. It owes me nothing" (NY Times, October 19,1972). - Director
- Writer
- Actor
Curtiz began acting in and then directing films in his native Hungary in 1912. After WWI, he continued his filmmaking career in Austria and Germany and into the early 1920s when he directed films in other countries in Europe. Moving to the US in 1926, he started making films in Hollywood for Warner Bros. and became thoroughly entrenched in the studio system. His films during the 1930s and '40s encompassed nearly every genre imaginable and some, including Casablanca (1942) and Mildred Pierce (1945), are considered to be film classics. His brilliance waned in the 1950s when he made a number of mediocre films for studios other than Warner. He directed his last film in 1961, a year before his death at 74.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Charles Ruggles had one of the longest careers in Hollywood, lasting more than 50 years and encompassing more than 100 films. He made his film debut in 1914 in The Patchwork Girl of Oz (1914) and worked steadily after that. He was memorably paired with Mary Boland in a series of comedies in the early 1930s, and was one of the standouts in the all-star comedy If I Had a Million (1932), as a harried, much-put-upon man who finally goes berserk in a china shop. Ruggles' slight stature and distinctive mannerisms - his fluttery, jumpy manner of speaking, his often befuddled look whenever events seemed about to overwhelm him, which was often - endeared him to generations of moviegoers. Memorable as Maj. Applegate the big-game hunter in the classic screwball comedy Bringing Up Baby (1938). Many will remember him as the narrator of the "Aesop's Fables" segment of the animated cartoon The Bullwinkle Show (1959). He was the brother of director Wesley Ruggles.- Actor
- Soundtrack
It seemed like Edward Everett Horton appeared in just about every Hollywood comedy made in the 1930s. He was always the perfect counterpart to the great gentlemen and protagonists of the films. Horton was born in Brooklyn, New York City, to Isabella S. (Diack) and Edward Everett Horton, a compositor for the NY Times. His maternal grandparents were Scottish and his father was of English and German ancestry. Like many of his contemporaries, Horton came to the movies from the theatre, where he debuted in 1906. He made his film debut in 1922. Unlike many of his silent-film colleagues, however, Horton had no problems in adapting to the sound, despite--or perhaps because of--his crackling voice. From 1932 to 1938 he worked often with Ernst Lubitsch, and later with Frank Capra. He has appeared in more than 120 films, in addition to a large body of work on TV, among which was the befuddled Hekawi medicine man Roaring Chicken on the western comedy F Troop (1965).- Ralph Moody was born on November 5, 1886 in St. Louis, Missouri, USA as Ralph Roy Moody, the oldest son of Franklin Jerome Moody and Ida M. Hicklin. His introduction to show business was first as an actor on the stage in pre-radio days and then as a radio personality. His first acting role was in 1900 as the boy, Heinrich, in Rip Van Winkle. At the 1904 World's Fair he sang tenor in St. Louis, Missouri, USA. He had a wide following as Uncle Abner on WIBW, CBS Radio, in the 1930's in Topeka, Kansas, USA. As Uncle Abner he was the town's barber, constable, postmaster, and chief source of information. Beginning in the mid-1940's he was a frequent radio cast member on The Roy Rogers Show. When Gunsmoke began its radio show run in 1952, Ralph Moody was one of the regular cast members. He began making film and television appearances at the age of 62. His first television roles were on three 1949-50 The Lone Ranger (1949) episodes, each time as an Indian chief with a different name. Frequently on TV westerns he had roles as an Indian, but was not type cast. His range of characters included a variety of roles with Jack Webb on Dragnet (1951). Many of his dozen appearances on The Rifleman (1958) were as Doc Burrage. He had six appearances on Bonanza (1959), most as an Indian, at the end of his 23 year acting career. He was married to Hazel B. McOwen. He died on September 16, 1971 in Burbank, California, USA.
- Actress
- Additional Crew
- Soundtrack
The possessor of one of Hollywood's gentlest faces and warmest voices, and about as sweet as Tupelo honey both on-and-off camera, character actress Spring Byington was seldom called upon to play callous or unsympathetic (she did once play a half-crazed housekeeper in Dragonwyck (1946)). Although playing the part of Mrs. March in Little Women (1933) was hardly what one could call a stretch, it did ignite a heartwarming typecasting that kept her employed on the screen throughout the 1930s and 1940s. Her first name said it all: sunny, sparkling, flowery, energetic, whimsical, eternally cheerful. She was a wonderfully popular and old-fashioned sort. By the 1950s, Spring had sprung on both radio and TV. The petite, be-dimpled darling became the star of her very own sitcom and, in the process, singlehandedly gave the term "mother-in-law" a decidedly positive ring.
She was born in Colorado Springs, Colorado, on October 17, 1886 (some sources list the year as 1893), one of two daughters born to a college professor/school superintendent. Her father Edwin died when she was quite young, and mother Helene placed the children with their maternal grandparents while she studied to become a doctor. Spring developed an early interest in the theater as a high-school teenager and ambitiously put together an acting company that toured mining camps in the Colorado Springs area. Her professional career materialized via the stock company circuit in both the U.S. and Canada. At the onset of WWI she joined a repertory company that left for Buenos Aires. There she married the company's manager, Roy Carey Chandler, and had two children by him: Phyllis and Lois. The couple remained in South America and Spring learned fluent Spanish there. About four years into the marriage, the couple divorced and Spring returned to New York with her children. She never married again.
Spring took her first Broadway bow at age 31 with a role in the comedy satire "A Beggar on Horseback", a show that lasted several months in 1924. She returned to the show briefly the following year. Other New York plays came and went throughout the 1920s, but none were certifiable hits. She did, however, gain a strong reputation playing up her fluttery comic instincts. Other shows included "Weak Sister" (1925), "Puppy Love" (1926), "Skin Deep" (1927), "To-night at Twelve" (1928) and "Be Your Age" (1929). She also played the role of Nerissa in "The Merchant of Venice" on Broadway alongside George Arliss and Peggy Wood in the roles of Shylock and Portia, respectively.
By the 1930s, Spring had established herself as a deft comedienne on stage but had made nary a dent in film. In early 1933, following major hits on Broadway with "Once in a Lifetime" (1930) and "When Ladies Meet" (1932), Spring was noticed by RKO, which had begun the casting for one of its most prestigious pictures of the year, Louisa May Alcott's classic Little Women (1933). As a testament to her talents and graceful appeal, the studio took a chance on her and gave her the role of Marmee. As mother to daughters Katharine Hepburn, Joan Bennett, Jean Parker and Frances Dee in what is still considered the best film version of the novel, Spring was praised for her work and became immediately captivated by this medium. She never returned to Broadway.
She became the quintessentially wise, concerned and understanding mother/relative in scores of films, often to her detriment. The roles were so kind, polite and conservative that it was hard for her to display any of her obvious scene-stealing abilities. As a result, she was often overlooked in her pictures. Her best parts came as a bewildered parent, snooty socialite, flaky eccentric, inveterate gossip or merry mischief-maker. From 1936 to 1939, she did a lot of mothering in the popular "Jones Family" feature film series from 1936 to 1940. but the flavorful roles she won came with her more disparate roles in Dodsworth (1936), Theodora Goes Wild (1936), The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1938) (as the Widow Douglas), When Ladies Meet (1941) (in which she recreated her Broadway triumph), and Roxie Hart (1942) (in which she played the sob sister journalist). Spring's only Oscar nomination came with her delightful portrayal of eccentric Penny Sycamore in You Can't Take It with You (1938).
Throughout the war years, she lent her patented fluff to a number of Hollywood's finest comedies, including The Devil and Miss Jones (1941), Rings on Her Fingers (1942) and Heaven Can Wait (1943). Her career began to die down in the 1950s, and, like many others in her predicament, she turned to TV. Her sparkling performance in the comedy Louisa (1950), in which she played an older lady pursued by both Edmund Gwenn and Charles Coburn, set the perfect tone and image for her Lily Ruskin radio/TV character. December Bride (1954) was initially a popular radio program when it transferred to TV. The result was a success, and Spring became a household name as everybody's favorite mother-in-law. As a widow who lived with her daughter and son-in-law, complications ensued as the married couple tried to set Lily up for marriage--hence the title. Brash and bossy Verna Felton and the ever-droll Harry Morgan were brought in as perfect comic relief.
The show ran for a healthy five seasons, and Spring followed this in 1961 with the role of Daisy Cooper, the chief cook and surrogate mother to a bunch of cowpokes in the already established western series Laramie (1959). Making her last film appearance in the comedy Please Don't Eat the Daisies (1960) as, of course, a spirited mom (this time to Doris Day), Spring, now in her 70s, started to drop off the acting radar. She eventually retired to her Hollywood Hills home after a few guest spots on such '60s shows as Batman (1966) (playing a wealthy socialite named J. Pauline Spaghetti) and I Dream of Jeannie (1965) (as Larry Hagman's mother). A very private individual in real life, Spring enjoyed traveling and reading during her retirement years. She passed away in 1971 from cancer and was survived by her two daughters, three grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.- In the 1930s, 1940s, and especially the 1950s, if a director wanted a short, fat actor to play a windy storekeeper or a raucous conventioneer, he might well cast Dick Elliott. He was one of those actors who, whenever he appeared on screen, often for less than a minute, the audience would think, "Oh, it's that guy." Yet few would ever know his name.
Elliott was certainly short, probably not much more than five foot four. And he was certainly fat. His belly was large and round, so he looked a bit like a huge ball with arms and legs. One imagined him soft and pink, and always happy. A Hobbit, perhaps. Santa Claus without the whiskers. And like another short, fat actor, Eugene Pallette, Elliott had a distinctive voice. Not the bullfrog basso that rumbled out of Pallette's gullet, but higher-pitched, whiny, or honey-smooth as the role demanded, with an "sh" in place of a lot of "s" sounds.
Elliott appeared in over 240 films. He was most often cast as judges, mayors, newspaper reporters, policemen, and blowhards, usually one who can't stop talking except when he'd burst into a loud laugh that bordered on a cackle.
As was the case with many character actors who never became featured players, not much record remains of his personal life. He was born Richard Damon Elliott on April 30, 1886, in Salem, Massachusetts. His gravestone says he was a loving husband and father. And we know he began performing in stock in 1931 and was on stage for nearly thirty years before his film debut, including appearing in the long-running hit, "Abie's Irish Rose." Other than that, we have only his film and television appearances to go on, and I'll mention some highlights.
His first movie was Central Airport (1933), and he was Ned Buntline in Annie Oakley (1935) with Barbara Stanwyck in 1935. He was perfect for the role of Marryin' Sam in Li'l Abner (1940), was amusing as the Judge in Christmas in Connecticut (1945), again starring Stanwyck, and made the most of his small role as a Whiskey Drummer in The Dude Goes West (1948) with Eddie Albert. Many film fans remember him best for another small role, as the man on the porch in the holiday perennial It's a Wonderful Life (1946), who tells James Stewart to stop jabbering and go ahead and kiss Donna Reed. Often his role in a film was so small his character didn't even have a name, and was sometimes listed in the cast simply as "Fat Man." He did have a good part in the under appreciated film Park Row (1952). His last film role was in Go, Johnny, Go! (1959).
The advent of television opened up a whole new world of roles. An unending stream of weekly comedies, dramas, and even variety shows needed performers. Some featured character actors like Gene Lockhart and Cecil Kellaway might star in an episode of an anthology series. Actors who had little screen time in films became invaluable featured players, and a few even attained the Holy Grail of being a series regular, Elliott among them. In the fifties he appeared in dozens and dozens of TV shows, including Dick Tracy (1950), in which he had a recurring role as Chief Murphy, My Little Margie (1952), Adventures of Superman (1952), I Love Lucy (1951), I Married Joan (1952), in which his character was called "Fatso," December Bride (1954), and Rawhide (1959). One of his best roles was in the episode The Rain Wagon (1955), in which he played Osgood Falstaff, the Shakespeare-quoting rainmaker who is secretly a bank robber. It was rare for Elliott to play a villain, but he pulls it off, making his eyes look devious and sinister -- a cuddly fat man, but don't turn your back on him. At the other extreme, he often played Santa Claus on Christmas episodes of the Jimmy Durante, Red Skelton, and Jack Benny shows.
To many people, Elliott will always be remembered as Mayor Pike in The Andy Griffith Show (1960) Sadly, Elliott died during the second season of the show, on December 22, 1961, in Burbank, California.
Dick Elliott was one of those character actors who were almost anonymous, though they lit up the screen in short roles. Fortunately, because of "It's a Wonderful Life" every Christmas and "The Andy Griffith Show" in frequent reruns, his fans can still delight in the little fat man. - Actor
- Producer
- Director
Sessue Hayakawa was born in Chiba, Japan. His father was the provincial governor and his mother a member of an aristocratic family of the "samurai" class. The young Hayakawa wanted to follow in his father's footsteps and become a career officer in the Japanese navy, but he was turned down due to problems with his hearing. The disappointed Hayakawa decided to make his career on the stage. He joined a Japanese theatrical company that eventually toured the United States in 1913. Pioneering film producer Thomas H. Ince spotted him and offered him a movie contract. Roles in The Wrath of the Gods (1914) and The Typhoon (1914) turned Hayakawa into an overnight success. The first Asian-American star of the American screen was born.
He married actress Tsuru Aoki on May 1, 1914. The next year his appearance in Cecil B. DeMille's sexploitation picture The Cheat (1915) made Hayakawa a silent-screen superstar. He played an ivory merchant who has an affair with the Caucasian Fannie Ward, and audiences were "scandalized" when he branded her as a symbol of her submission to their passion. The movie was a blockbuster for Famous Players-Lasky (later Paramount), turning Hayakawa into a romantic idol for millions of American women, regardless of their race. However, there were objections and outrage from racists of all stripes, especially those who were opposed to miscegenation (sexual contact between those of different races). Also outraged was the Japanese-American community, which was dismayed by DeMille's unsympathetic portrayal of a member of their race. The Japanese-American community protested the film and attempted to have it banned when it was re-released in 1918.
The popularity of Hayakawa rivaled that of Caucasian male movie stars in the decade of the 1910s, and he became one of the highest-paid actors in Hollywood. He made his career in melodramas, playing romantic heroes and charismatic heavies. He co-starred with the biggest female stars in Hollywood, all of whom were, of course, Caucasian. His pictures often co-starred Jack Holt as his Caucasian rival for the love of the white heroine (Holt would later become a top action star in the 1920s),
Hayakawa left Famous Players-Lasky to go independent, setting up his own production company, Haworth Pictures Corp. Through the end of the decade Haworth produced Asian-themed films starring Hayakawa and wife Tsuru Aoki that proved very popular. These movies elucidated the immigrant's desire to "cross over" or assimilate into society at large and pursue the "American Dream" in a society free of racial intolerance. Sadly, most of these films are now lost.
With the dawn of a new decade came a rise in anti-Asian sentiment, particularly over the issue of immigration due to the post-World War I economic slump. Hayakawa's films began to perform poorly at the box office, bringing his first American movie career to an end in 1922. He moved to Japan but was unable to get a career going. Relocating to France, he starred in La bataille (1923), a popular melodrama spiced with martial arts. He made Sen Yan's Devotion (1924) and The Great Prince Shan (1924) in the UK.
In 1931 Hayakawa returned to Hollywood to make his talking-picture debut in support of Anna May Wong in Daughter of the Dragon (1931). Sound revealed that he had a heavy accent, and his acting got poor reviews. He returned to Japan before once again going to France, where he made the geisha melodrama Yoshiwara (1937) for director Max Ophüls. He also appeared in a remake of "The Cheat" called Forfaiture (1937), playing the same role that over 20 year earlier had made him one of the biggest stars in the world.
After the Second World War he took a third stab at Hollywood. In 1949 he relaunched g himself as a character actor with Tokyo Joe (1949) in support of Humphrey Bogart, and Three Came Home (1950) with Claudette Colbert. Hayakawa reached the apex of this, his third career, with his role as the martinet POW camp commandant in The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), which brought him an Academy Award nomination for Best Suporting Actor. His performance as Col. Saito was essential to the success of David Lean's film, built as it was around the battle of wills between Hayakawa's commandant and Alec Guinness' Col. Nicholson, head of the Allied POWs. The film won the Best Picture Academy Award, while Lean and Guiness also were rewarded with Oscars.
Hayakawa continued to act in movies regularly until his retirement in 1966. He returned to Japan, becoming a Zen Buddhist priest while remaining involved in his craft by giving private acting lessons.
Ninety years after achieving stardom, he remains one of the few Asians to assume superstar status in American motion pictures.- Actor
- Composer
- Additional Crew
Al Jolson was known in the industry as "The World's Greatest Entertainer," for well over 40 years. After his death his influence continued unabated with such performers as Sammy Davis Jr., Elvis Presley, Mick Jagger, David Bowie, Jackie Wilson and Jerry Lee Lewis all mentioning him as an inspiration.
Al Jolson was born Asa Yoelson in Seredzius, Lithuania, to a Jewish family, the son of Naiomi Etta (Cantor) and Moise Rubin Yoelson, who emigrated alone to Washington, D.C., to establish himself. After four years he sent for his family. Nine months later his wife died (apparently during childbirth), which devastated the eight-year-old Asa. Young Al would soon find his outlet in the theater. Soon he was singing with his older brother, Harry, for senators and soldiers. He entertained the troops that were headed for the Spanish-American War.
Jolson's career in vaudeville started with his brother in New York, but never really got off the ground. Different partners allowed Jolson to experiment, but it was as a solo act in San Francisco that he finally hit it big. He was signed eventually by Lew Dockstaders' Minstrels. It is important to note that, although performing in blackface, Dockstader's was not a minstrel show in the traditional sense of the "Tambo and Bones" variety of the previous century. It was a sophisticated, topical, Broadway-style revue. The myth lingers to this day that Jolson was a minstrel. He most certainly was not.
Jolson's stay in vaudeville was relatively short, as his talent was quickly recognized by the Shubert Brothers, who signed him to appear in the opening show of their new Winter Garden Theater on Broadway in April of 1912. Thus began what many consider to be the greatest career in the history of Broadway. Not a headliner initially, Jolson soon became "King of the Winter Garden," with shows specifically written for him. "Winter Garden" and "Jolson" became synonymous for close to 20 years. During that time Jolson received reviews that have yet to be matched. Audiences shouted, pleaded and often would not allow the show to proceed, such was the power of his presence. At one performance in Boston, the usually staid and conservative Boston audience stopped the show for 45 minutes! He was said to have had an "electric' personality, along with the ability to make each member of the audience believe that he was singing only to them.
In 1927 Jolson starred in the New York-shot The Jazz Singer (1927) and the rest is film history. But just before it was theatrically released, producer, Warner' His appearance in that film, nowadays considered a somewhat creaky, stodgy and primitive museum piece, electrified audiences and caused a sensation. Jolson was bigger than ever and Hollywood came a-calling. However, Jolson on film was a pale version of Jolson on stage. His screen appearances, with some exceptions, are stiff and wooden. Though he continued into the 1930s to star on radio, he was no longer quite the star he had been.
During World War II, Jolson entertained troops in Africa and Sicily but was cut short by a bout of malaria and pneumonia. Always a favorite with audiences, he continued to entertain in the United States when he met his fourth wife, Erle Chenault Galbraith, an x-ray technician.
By the mid-'40s, though. his stardom had faded quite a bit. Columbia Pictures, inspired by the success of Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942), decided that a Jolson biography might work as well. In 1946 it released The Jolson Story (1946), with song-and-dance man Larry Parks miming to Jolson's vocals. It was the surprise smash hit of the season and the highest grossing film of the year. Parks received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. Jolson was now as big, or bigger, than ever. So successful was the film that Columbia made a sequel, Jolson Sings Again (1949), which remains one of a few biography sequels in film history (Funny Girl/Funny Lady - the story of fellow Winter Garden performer Fannie Brice is another rare example). It was also quite successful at the box office. So big had Jolson's star risen that in 1948, when Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra and Perry Como were at their peaks, Jolson was voted "The Most Popular Male Vocalist" by a Variety poll.
In 1950, against his doctor's orders, Jolson went to Korea to entertain his favorite audience, American troops. While there his health declined and shortly after his return to the U.S. he suffered a massive heart attack and died.- Actor
- Soundtrack
"You must remember this, a kiss is still a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh; the fundamental things apply, as time goes by...". . The gentleman who crooned this now legendary tune for the morose Humphrey Bogart and moist-eyed Ingrid Bergman at Rick's Cafe Americain amid the bleak WWII backdrop was none other than 56-year-old Arthur "Dooley" Wilson, an African-American actor and singer who earned a comfortable niche for himself in film history with this simple, dramatic, piano-playing scene.
Dooley was born Arthur Wilson in Tyler, Texas. His exact year of birth was debated for years, listed in reference books as either 1886 or 1894. His grave marker, however, at Angelus Rosedale Cemetery in Los Angeles gives the year 1886. At age 12 he performed in minstrel shows and later became a fixture in black theater in both Chicago and New York (circa 1908). He received the nickname "Dooley" while working in the Pekin Theatre in Chicago, because of his then-signature Irish song "Mr. Dooley," which he usually performed in whiteface as an Irishman. In subsequent years Dooley displayed his musical skills in various forms. As a vaudevillian, drummer and jazz band leader, he entertained both here and in 1920s European tours (Paris, London, etc). From the 1930s to the 1950s he focused on theatrical musicals and occasional films.
Appearing in such diverse Broadway plays as the comedy "Conjur Man Dies (1936) and the melodrama "The Strangler Fig" (1940), along with various Federal Theater productions for Orson Welles and John Houseman. This exposure led directly to his signing on as a contract player with Paramount Pictures in Hollywood. He unfortunately began things off in era stereotypes as porters, chauffeurs and the like. Unhappy with his movie roles he was about to abandon Hollywood altogether when Paramount lent him out to Warner Bros. for the piano-playing role of Sam and the rest is history. In Casablanca (1942), Dooley immortalized the song "As Time Goes By" as boss and nightclub owner Rick Blaine (Bogart) and lost true love Ilsa Lund (Bergman) briefly rekindled an old romantic flame. While paid only $350 a week for his services, Dooley achieved his own immortality as well. However, he was not a pianist in real life and was dubbed while fingering the keyboard. In addition to "As Time Goes By," Dooley's character did warm renditions of "It Had To Be You," "Shine," "Knock On Wood" and "Parlez-moi d'amour."
Back on the live stage Dooley portrayed an escaped slave in the musical "Bloomer Girl" (1946) and, as a result, made another song famous, "The Eagle and Me," which went on for inclusion in the Smithsonian recordings compilation "American Musical Theatre." He graced approximately twenty other motion pictures in all, including the war-era musicals Stormy Weather (1943) and Higher and Higher (1943).
In his final season of performing (1952-1953) Dooley was a regular on the TV sitcom Beulah (1950) which starred Ethel Waters. He played the title maid's boyfriend Bill Jackson and Dooley was the second of three actors who would play the role during its three-season run. Dooley died of natural causes on May 30, 1953, and was survived by wife, Estelle, who subsequently passed away in 1971.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Olin Howland had a career in movies which stretched from the 20s, up through the time he passed away, in the late 50s. After a few attempts at films in the silent era, Olin began to appear regularly in the sound pictures of the 1930s. His roles were usually in mysteries and dramas, and he became a western character actor in the 'horse operas' put out by Republic in the 1940s. One of his most memorable roles was also one of his last; he appeared in First Stop (1955), as the owner of a broken down motel in the middle of nowhere, which the Ricardo's and Mertz's are forced to stay at for the night (and which the can't leave because the car's steering wheel was mysteriously *stolen*.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Bernard Gorcey was born in Russia. He immigrated to the United States with his family and was raised on the Lower East Side of Manhattan attending school at The Educational Alliance where he performed in the Children's Educational Theatre. He was mentored by Mark Twain who introduced him to producers and impresarios on Broadway who subsequently cast him in his first role in the show Tom Jones in 1907 and toured with the show in the U.S. and Canada through April 1908.
Thereafter, Bernard found no work as a character actor and was forced to join his family in Long Branch New Jersey where he partnered with his father to run a tailoring business for four years. He returned to the Broadway stage in 1912 starring in several prominent roles produced by notable figures such as Arthur Hammerstein. He toured around the nation with these shows returning to New York to marry Josephine Condon of Boston
Bernard enjoyed continued successes on Broadway and toured several times around the country with these shows. He and Josephine had three sons, Fred in 1915, Leo in 1917 and David in 1921. In 1922, Bernard enjoyed his greatest hit on Broadway in Abie's Irish Rose, a show that broke records, running some 2,327 performances. Popular lore has Bernard participating over the entire run. But he left the show and joined Arthur Hammerstein and other theatrical notables for a long stretch of successes through 1928.
In 1928, Bernard enjoyed his first screen success, traveling to Hollywood to film Abie's Irish Rose. Hollywood was slow to recognize his value. During this time, he was in demand on the Vaudeville circuits as well as in radio. He returned to the stage in several efforts in New York and around the country (meeting a young Archie Leach/Cary Grant in summer stock in St. Louis) while continuing to experiment with film. He shot several shorts across the Hudson River with the budding Fleischer Brothers organization between 1931 and 1934.
It was only in 1940 that Bernard saw his breakthrough into major filmdom when he took a significant role in the Charles Chaplin film The Great Dictator. Thereafter he relocated to Hollywood, finding sporadic work with major studios and stars as he developed his reputation as a unique character actor. He can be seen along-side his son, Leo and with Ida Lupino and John Garfield, in Out of the Fog, with Paul Henreid, Thomas Mitchell and Laird Cregar in Joan of Paris, and with Bela Lugosi in Black Dragons.
He became associated with the efforts of his son Leo Gorcey's film franchise that morphed from the Dead End Kids into the East Side Kids at Monogram Studios in 1943. But he did not begin his signature role of Louie, the Sweetshop owner in the Bowery Boys series until the second of those, In Fast Company, in 1943. Joining sons Leo and David, he completed forty of the films in the series, interspersing these with cameos in major studio pictures and appearances in television with Joan Davis in her I Married Joan series with Jim Backus.
Bernard was the victim of a traffic accident in August 1955 and died at age 69 on September 11th of that year.- At 22, George Zucco decided to begin his stage career in earnest in the Canadian provinces in 1908. In the course of the following decade, he also performed in an American vaudeville tour with his young wife, Frances, in a routine called "The Suffragette." As World War I grew in scale, Zucco returned to England to join the army. He saw action and was wounded in his right arm by gunfire. Subsequent surgery partially handicapped the use of two fingers and a thumb. However, having honed his theatrical talents, he proceeded to enter the London stage scene and was rewarded with a developing career that made him a leading man as the 1920s progressed. By 1931 he began working in British sound films, his first being The Dreyfus Case (1931) with Cedric Hardwicke. What followed were 13 B-grade movies through 1935, until The Man Who Could Work Miracles (1936) with Roland Young and Ralph Richardson. Zucco was on his way to America and Broadway by late 1935. He had signed to play Disraeli opposite Helen Hayes in the original play "Victoria Regina," which ran from December 1935 to June 1936. After that came a Hollywood contract and his first American picture, Sinner Take All (1936). Zucco had a sharp hawk nose, magnetic dark eyes, and an arching brow that fit well with authoritative and intimidating characters. That same year, he was in the second installment of the "Thin Man" series, followed by a series of supporting roles in nine films in 1937, usually typed as an English doctor or lord character. They were good supporting roles in "A" films, but he was also taking on darker characters. This was evident in Charlie Chan in Honolulu (1938) and more so with Arrest Bulldog Drummond (1938). Here, he was Rolf Alferson, alias the criminal mastermind "The Stinger," who could administer a poisonous sting from a needle at the tip of his cane. It was a typical pop movie in the pulp mystery/horror genre with the usual sort of ending, but it started him on the road as a Hollywood arch villain. That same year, he was cast as Professor Moriarty, the brilliant archenemy of the world's most famous detective in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1939). Also that year, he and Hardwicke reunited to play the dark clerical heavies in the classic The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939). Although into the early 1940s Zucco was still getting some variety in shady roles, he was increasingly accepting parts as mad doctors--ancient and otherwise--starting with The Mummy's Hand (1940), the sequel to the original The Mummy (1932). Although this was made by the relatively major Universal Pictures, Zucco began grinding out outlandish horror stuff for bottom-of-the-barrel Producers Releasing Corp. (PRC). It would be incorrect to say he sold out to the horror genre, though, even if horror buffs have made him their own. Into the later 1940s, he was still giving good accounts as nobles, judges and not-so-mad doctors in such "A" hits as Captain from Castile (1947), Joan of Arc (1948), and Madame Bovary (1949). Zucco was in real life an engaging personality and was also known as a very dependable actor. He suffered a stroke not long after his final film, David and Bathsheba (1951), once more in Egyptian garb but this time not even credited. He retired and lived on in fragile health. He evidently recovered his health enough to be offered the role of the mad scientist in Voodoo Woman (1957), but he declined. About that time, his health required a move to a nursing home, where he lived out his last years with dignity.
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- Director
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
If ever there was a Great Dane in Hollywood it was Jean Hersholt - and one of its great hearts as well. He was from a well-known Danish stage and entertainment family that had toured throughout Europe performing with young Jean as an essential cast member. He graduated from the Copenhagen Art School and continued expanding his stage experience and evidently decided early that he wanted to work in films. He did just two very early (1906) silent films in Germany. Hersholt emigrated from Denmark to the US while still a young man in 1913. Like many another European he came to America to seek further opportunities. Unlike many other European actors who appeared on Broadway in their early American careers, Hersholt never trod The Great White Way. He moved on to Hollywood in 1914 where the future of silent movies had taken the lead. He started as a movie extra then progressed into small feature player roles from 1915 through 1917. For that latter year he had no less than 17 bit parts.
By the 1920s his roles were substantial feature pieces, but most of these were as villains - in fact, a concoction of really vile characters. His theater experience serving him well, he played them so well that he much sought after by directors. Several of his 1920s films were landmarks of the silent era, an early one being The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921) which helped propel Rudolf Valentino into the stellar heights. Hersholt became popular and well paid. And certainly his signature silent role was the lead character of Marcus Schouler in the Erich von Stroheim great film Greed (1924), based on the novel McTeague. Stroheim, who spent far more time in front of the camera as an actor, was already well know as a task master and perfectionist director. He went through 42 reels of film for the picture - a numbing nine hours of screen time (shown only once at that length in a private studio screening). He cut the film to five hours, but it was further whittled to a bit over two for release, causing Stroheim to quip bitterly of the editor, "The only thing he had on his mind was his hat!" The powerful film was still there, but the massive editing resulted in whole roles disappearing, not to mention some telltale continuity. Stroheim's need for realism resulted in the climax of the movie to be shot in Death Valley. Still hot in the fall time, Hersholt endured like a veteran but required a hospital stay after sweating away 27 pounds.
Fortunately into the later 1920s Hersholt's roles expanded into a more realistic balance of characters-more virtuous roles - but still some shady fellows and especially the unsuspected, and thus surprising, guilty party in the ever popular murder mysteries. He worked for Samuel Goldwyn for about a year (1923-1924), for Paramount from 1927 through 1929, and several other studios during the period. By the end of the silent era, including those early primitive part mono features with small bits of audio music, sound effects, or dialog, Hersholt was a tried veteran of 75 films. His first all mono sound film was The Climax (1930) and despite a Germanic accent, he had a pleasant, mellow voice and a camera friendly presence that ensured him continued success. The variety ran the gamut from a sturdy supporting part in Grand Hotel (1932), to supporting Boris Karloff and a pretty hot Myrna Loy in The Mask of Fu Manchu (1932), and doing the same in Dinner at Eight (1933). Busy with nine movies in 1930, he also moved into people's living rooms on radio as well during that year.
Of course, for some time Hersholt was a mature actor-simply meaning he had many secondary roles as doctors and professors and nobles of many sorts and increasingly he appeared as benign fatherly types. Father roles of the 20s continued into the 30s - augmented with grandfather roles as well. He was the father of Sonja Henie in that charismatic champion ice skater's first Hollywood film One in a Million (1936), and he is perhaps best remembered as the embittered but deeply caring grandfather of Shirley Temple in the beloved Heidi (1937). But it was another role as a doctor that would provide a continuing vehicle for Hersholt and something of a fateful direction for the actor. The mid-30s were abuzz with the births of the Dionne Quintuplets in Canada. Hollywood jumped on it with usual alacrity, highlighting the story and the officiating obstetrician, Dr. Dafoe, who was translated into Dr. John Luke, in The Country Doctor (1936). Hersholt brought the right ingredients to the part of Luke and two years later a sequel followed, Five of a Kind (1938). Hersholt thought the character good medicine all round and was enthusiastic about a series of movies, but Dafoe himself blocked this idea. Nevertheless, in 1937 Hersholt had already germinated a new radio series to continue portraying a dedicated and kindly small town doctor. For a character name Hersholt turned to his most beloved author, his countryman, literary light Hans Christian Andersen, for a name-Dr. Christian. It was a hit and, and he convinced RKO Radio Pictures to bankroll a series of six Dr. Christian films (1939-41).
These latter and a few other films would mark the end of Hersholt's film career, but he was so very busy otherwise. His familiarity with Andersen was a scholarly avocation and labor of love, furthered by enthusiastic collecting of a library of important Andersen editions and related bibliography (which would later go to the Library of Congress). His English translation (see Trivia below) of the Andersen corpus of fairy tales (including his addition of several other Andersen stories from the author's private papers) remains perhaps the most comprehensive and best effort-even more so for Hersholt personal interpretation of Andersen. Hersholt would also write several articles about Andersen and edit The Andersen-Scudder-Letters (1948). Among other literary pursuits Hersholt also co-wrote a novel based on his Dr. Christian character.
It was in Hersholt's generous nature to give back something in gratitude for the acting career afforded him in Hollywood. His payment was rich indeed: the Motion Picture Relief Fund, the retirement home and hospital inspired by it and generated from it (see Trivia below), and the great charitable work that Hersholt would perform were paid back with two Academy Awards, the second after his tenure as president of the Academy. These special honors would be the seed of the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award (see Trivia below). But in 1956 Hersholt was dying of cancer - and yet that would not stop him from one more good turn. His beloved Dr. Christian character was going to TV (produced by the Ziv Studios), and he was asked to symbolically pass the baton to the new Dr. Christian, Macdonald Carey. With a tremendous effort, Hersholt, now withered to 95 pounds braved the first episode shooting, capping his life with one last magnificent example of his humanity.- Director
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Actor / director John Cromwell was born December 23, 1887, in Toledo, OH. He made his Broadway debut on October 14, 1912, in Marian De Forest's adaptation of Louisa May Alcott's "Little Women" at the Playhouse Theatre. The show was a hit, running for a total of 184 performances. Cromwell appeared in another 38 plays on Broadway between February 24, 1914--when he appeared in Frank Craven's "Too Many Cooks" at the 39th Street Theatre (a hit show he co-directed with Craven that ran for a total of 223 performances)--and October 31, 1971, when he closed with "Solitaire/Double Solitaire" at the John Golden Theatre after 36 performances. In addition to "Cooks", Cromwell directed or staged 11 plays and produced seven plays on Broadway. Among the highlights of his Broadway acting career were his multiple appearances as a Shavian actor. He was "Charles Lomax" in the original Broadway production of George Bernard Shaw's "Major Barbara" in 1915 (Guthrie McClintic, who married Katharine Cornell in 1921 and became a notable Broadway director, played a butler) and as "Capt. Kearney" in the revival of "Captain Brassbound's Conversion" the following year (McClintic played "Marzo"). He also appeared as "Brother Martin Ladvenu" in Katharine Cornell's 1936 "Saint Joan", directed by McClintic, and played "Freddy Eynsford Hill" in Cedric Hardwicke's 1945 revival of "Pygmalion", starring Gertrude Lawrence as "Eliza Doolittle" and Raymond Massey as "Henry Higgins".
As for William Shakespeare, he played "Paris" to Katharine Cornell's "Juliet" and Maurice Evans' "Romeo" in McClntic's "Rome and Juliet" in 1935, and appeared as "Rosenkrantz" in McClintic's 1936 Broadway staging of "Hamlet", with John Gielgud in the title role, Lillian Gish as "Ophelia" and Judith Anderson as "Gertrude". He also appeared as "Lennox" in the 1948 revival of Shakespeare's "Scottish Play", with Michael Redgrave as "Macbeth" and Flora Robson as "Lady Macbeth" (young actors also featured in the play who went on to renown were Julie Harris, Martin Balsam and Beatrice Straight). Cromwell won a Tony Award as Best Featured Actor in a Play in 1952 for "Point of No Return", in which he supported Henry Fonda, and appeared as the father, "Linus Larabee Sr.", in "Sabrina Fair" the next year.
With the advent of sound pictures, Cromwell went "Hollywood" in 1929, appearing in The Dummy (1929) in support of Ruth Chatterton and Fredric March. He also co-directed two talkies with A. Edward Sutherland that year, Close Harmony (1929) and The Dance of Life (1929) (he had a bit part as a doorman in the latter). After learning the craft of directing, he directed The Mighty (1929) with George Bancroft, in which he made innovative use of sound. He also directed Jackie Coogan in Tom Sawyer (1930) the next year. He made his name with Ann Vickers (1933) in 1933 and Of Human Bondage (1934) in 1934, two films he shot for RKO based on novels by the preeminent writers Sinclair Lewis and W. Somerset Maugham. Both movies ran into censorship trouble. Lewis' "Ann Vickers" featured Irene Dunne as a reformer and birth control advocate who has a torrid extramarital affair. The novel had been condemned by the Catholic Church, and the proposed movie adaptation proved controversial. The Studio Relations Committee, headed by James Wingate (whose deputy was future Production Code Administration head Joseph Breen, a Roman Catholic intellectual) condemned the script as "vulgarly offensive" before production began. The SRC, which oversaw the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors Association's Production Code, refused to approve the script without major modifications, but RKO production chief Merian C. Cooper balked over its excessive demands. Though studio head B.B. Kahane protested the SRC's actions to MPPDA President Will Hays, the studio agreed to make "Ann Vickers" an unmarried woman at the time of her affair, thus eliminating adultery as an issue, and the film received a Seal of Approval. The battle over "Ann Vickers" was one of the reasons the more powerful PCA was created in 1934 to take the place of the SRC.
Joseph Breen, now head of the PCA, warned that the script for W. Somerset Maugham's "Of Human Bondage" was "highly offensive" because the prostitute "Mildred", whom the protagonist, medical student "Philip Carey", falls in love with, comes down with syphilis. Breen demanded that Mildred be turned into less of a tramp, that she be afflicted with tuberculosis rather than syphilis and that she be married to Carey's friend whom she cheats on him with. RKO gave in on every point, as the PCA, unlike the SRC, had the ability to levy a $25,000 fine for violations of the Production Code. Despite the changes, chapters of the Catholic Church's Legion Of Deceny condemned the film in Chicago, Detroit, Omaha and Pittsburgh. Despite a picket line manned by local priests in Chicago, Cromwell's film broke all records at the Hippodrome Theater when it played there in August 1934. Five hundred people had to be turned away opening night. It seemed that wherever the Legion of Decency had condemned the film, it played to capacity crowds. In 1935 Breen ruled that "Of Human Bondage" would have to be changed if RKO wished to re-release it.
Other major films Cromwell directed include Little Lord Fauntleroy (1936), The Prisoner of Zenda (1937), Algiers (1938), Abe Lincoln in Illinois (1940), Since You Went Away (1944) and Anna and the King of Siam (1946). In 1951 he directed The Racket (1951) starring Robert Mitchum, Lizabeth Scott, and Robert Ryan; he had appeared in the original staging of the Broadway play by Bartlett Cormack on which the movie was based back in 1927.
Busy on Broadway in the 1950s, it was seven years before he directed another film, The Goddess (1958), with a screenplay by Paddy Chayefsky and starring Kim Stanley. He directed two more minor films before calling it quits as a movie director in 1961. As a director, Cromwell eschewed flashy camera work, as he felt it detracted from both the story and the actors' performances. Late in his life director Robert Altman cast Cromwell as an actor in two of his films, 3 Women (1977) and A Wedding (1978).
John Cromwell died on September 26, 1979, in Santa Barbara, CA.- Director
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- Writer
Frank Lloyd was an unpretentious, technically skilled director, who crafted several enduring Hollywood classics during the 1930's. He started out as a stage actor and singer in early 1900's London and was well-known as an imitator of Harry Lauder. After several years in music hall and with touring repertory companies, Lloyd emigrated to Canada in 1909 and joined the travelling theatrical troupe of Winnipeg entrepreneur C.P. Walker. In between acting, he made ends meet by working as a repair man on telegraph lines. While in Edmonton, Alberta, he met and married the German-American soubrette Alma Haller. Lloyd spent several months on the vaudeville circuit and in burlesque shows on the West Coast before marking his arrival in Hollywood with an acting contract at Universal in 1913. After two years of consistently poor critical notices, he gave up the acting profession for good and turned his skills to writing and directing.
In two years at Fox, 1917-19, he directed some fifteen films, often starring the popular matinée idol William Farnum. The majority were Zane Grey westerns (including an early version of Riders of the Purple Sage (1918)) and adaptations of classic literature (such as A Tale of Two Cities (1917) and Les Misérables (1917)). After a spell with Samuel Goldwyn, Lloyd joined First National/Warner Brothers (1922-31) and became the resident specialist in period drama and swashbuckling adventure. As his reputation grew, he was given charge of his own production unit. Among his most famous films during this period are Oliver Twist (1922), with Jackie Coogan in the title role and Lon Chaney as Fagin; The Eternal Flame (1922), a historical drama based on a novel by Honoré de Balzac; and The Sea Hawk (1924), with Milton Sills. In 1929, Lloyd became the second director to receive a coveted Academy Award, for The Divine Lady (1928), one of three films for which he had been nominated.
Much of Lloyd's acclaim is based on his work during the 1930's. At Fox (1931-34), he directed Noël Coward's Cavalcade (1933), and the historical fantasy Berkeley Square (1933) -- both with meticulous attention to geographic and period detail. Immensely popular at the box office, the former won Lloyd his second Oscar and returned $ 5 million in grosses from a production cost of $1.25 million. 'Berkeley Square' was described by the New York Times as "an example of delicacy and restraint" and "in a class by itself" (September 14, 1933). Lloyd's brief stint at MGM in 1935 culminated in the greatest success of his career. Mutiny on the Bounty (1935) won the Best Picture Oscar in its year and heaped praise on the director for maintaining strong narrative cohesion throughout, and for eliciting superb performances from stars Clark Gable (as Fletcher Christian) and Charles Laughton (as Captain Bligh). Lloyd continued in the same vein with the rollicking Foreign Legion adventure Under Two Flags (1936) and the sweeping (though historically inaccurate), big budget western epic Wells Fargo (1937). Also at Paramount, and, once again with his own production unit , he filmed the romantic story of adventurer-poet François Villon, If I Were King (1938), with excellent production values and superb acting from Ronald Colman and Basil Rathbone.
After completing a two-year contract at Columbia (1940-41), Lloyd served in World War II in command of the 13th Air Force Combat Camera Unit, turning out short documentaries. He rose to the rank of major and was decorated with the Legion of Merit. After the war, he temporarily retired to life on his Carmel Valley ranch, but made a brief comeback after the death of his wife Alma. His swan song for Republic Studio was the story of the Battle of the Alamo, The Last Command (1955), a suitably-titled finale to the career of one of the great action directors of the period. Lloyd has a star on the Walk of Fame on Hollywood Boulevard.- Actor
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James Burke was born on 24 September 1886 in New York City, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for The Maltese Falcon (1941), Charlie Chan's Murder Cruise (1940) and At the Circus (1939). He was married to Eleanor Durkin. He died on 23 May 1968 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Actor
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For more than three decades, Henry King was the most versatile and reliable (not to mention hard-working) contract director on the 20th Century-Fox lot. His tenure lasted from 1930 to 1961, spanning most of Hollywood's "golden" era. King was renowned as a specialist in literary adaptations (A Bell for Adano (1945), The Sun Also Rises (1957)) and for his nostalgic depictions of rural or small-town America (Margie (1946)). Much of his work was characterized by an uncomplicated approach and a vivid visual style rather than cinematic tricks or technical individuality. For the most part it was his meticulous attention to detail, and his reliance on superior plots and good acting, that got the job done. King was, above all, an astute judge of talent. He introduced Ronald Colman to American audiences in The White Sister (1923), drawing a mustache on the actor's clean-shaven face with a retouching pencil--the real thing later becoming a Colman trademark. King discovered Gary Cooper and cast him in a leading dramatic role in his outdoor western The Winning of Barbara Worth (1926), over the initial objections of producer Samuel Goldwyn who thought Coop was just another "damn cowboy". Goldwyn quickly changed his mind after seeing the rushes. Other King discoveries included the lovely Jean Peters (in Captain from Castile (1947)) and Tyrone Power, whom he actively promoted to the point of badgering studio boss Darryl F. Zanuck to star him in Lloyd's of London (1936). Power subsequently became one of Fox's most popular stars.
All in all, not bad for a guy who had left school at 15 to work for the Norfolk & Western Railroad. After enduring the machine shops for a few years, King found more suitable employment as an apprentice actor with the touring Empire Stock Company, where he often performed song-and-dance routines in blackface. During his travels he befriended comedy actress Pearl White. While accompanying her on a visit to the Lubin film studio in Philadelphia in 1913, he was somehow talked into trying out as an actor. Before long King found himself cast as assorted western villains in scores of one-reelers. Moving to California the following year, he graduated to romantic leads in full-length feature films with the Balboa Amusement Company, often co-starring opposite popular child actress Marie Osborne. King's directing career began in 1915 and gathered momentum after he joined The American Film Manufacturing Company, and, subsequently, Thomas H. Ince. His first success was the army comedy 23 1/2 Hours' Leave (1919). By 1921 King fronted his own production company, Inspiration Pictures, releasing through First National. The rustic southern drama Tol'able David (1921) was his next critically acclaimed picture, but not until joining Goldwyn at United Artists (1925-30) did he manage to turn out a consistent string of hits, including The White Sister (1923) and Romola (1924)--both shot on location in Italy--and the archetypal tearjerker Stella Dallas (1925). For King, the transition to sound pictures was a mere formality.
In 1930 King qualified for his pilot's license and began busily scouting locations from the air, earning him the sobriquet "The Flying Director". When not airborne or on the golf course (his other passion), he demonstrated his amazing versatility with box-office hits across a wide variety of genres: striking and colorful swashbucklers (The Black Swan (1942)); romantic or religious melodramas--their sentimentality well-tempered so they never seemed maudlin--such as (The Song of Bernadette (1943) and Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing (1955)); epics (In Old Chicago (1938), with its splendid recreation of the 1871 great fire, the entire enterprise filmed at a staggering cost of $1.8 million); popular musicals (Alexander's Ragtime Band (1938), Carousel (1956)); psychological war drama (Twelve O'Clock High (1949)); and uncompromisingly tough, offbeat westerns (The Gunfighter (1950) and the underrated The Bravados (1958)). The latter three all starred King's preferred leading actor, Gregory Peck. Peck was also on hand for The Snows of Kilimanjaro (1952), reputedly Ernest Hemingway's favorite among all his filmed adaptations. Of course, King also had his occasional failures. Topping that list was Zanuck's pet project, the biopic Wilson (1944). Overly serious to the point of being dour, its pacifist message was lost to an audience in the middle of a world war. King's other notable dud, near the end of his career, was Beloved Infidel (1959). Badly miscast, the film chronicling the affair between F. Scott Fitzgerald and Hollywood gossip columnist Sheilah Graham was played out, inaccurately, as a genteel and overly glossy romance.
Though nominated for two Academy Awards for Best Director, King failed to snag the coveted trophy. However, he did win a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Directors Guild of America in 1956. More importantly, perhaps, he seems to have enjoyed his work, stating in a 1978 interview, "I've had more fun directing pictures than most people have playing games" (New York Times, July 1 1982).- Florence Lawrence was the first film player whose name was used to promote her films and the studio (Independent Moving Pictures Company [IMP]) for which she worked. Before her, actors and actresses worked anonymously, partly out of fear that stage managers would refuse to hire them if they were found to be working in films and partly because movie executives didn't want to put much money into the production of these short, practically disposable films, and didn't want their players to become well known and start demanding higher salaries. Lawrence was on the stage from age three, appearing in musicals and plays, whistling and playing the violin. At 20 she was cast in the Edison production of Daniel Boone (1907), and that led to work at Vitagraph Studios. From there she was hired by Biograph, where she refined and perfected her craft under the direction of D.W. Griffith. In 1909 she left Biograph to seek more recognizable employment at another film company. As a result she was blacklisted by the Motion Picture Trust, headed by Thomas A. Edison, to which most motion-picture producers belonged and which held the patents on most film production equipment and would not allow any companies that did not belong to the Trust to use them. Carl Laemmle started IMP in late 1909, and refused to join the Motion Picture Trust. The Trust took action--both legal and otherwise--to discourage Laemmle from producing films on his own. Lawrence and her husband, director Harry Solter, signed on as IMP's first featured players. In 1910 Laemmle, partly out of anger over the Trust's actions--such as hiring thugs to attack his film crews and wreck his equipment--decided to advertise the fact that he had Miss Lawrence. She made the first personal appearance of a film star in St. Louis, MO, that March, and the resulting publicity made her famous (and also increased the grosses on her--and Laemmle's--films). Other film companies soon followed suit, and the names of film actors and actresses began to appear in all segments of the media. Lawrence worked for IMP for a year, then spent another year at Lubin before she began her own production company, Victor, where she worked on and off until 1914. After a stage accident in which she injured her back, she retired from films, only to be lured back in 1916 for her first feature, Elusive Isabel (1916). It was unsuccessful. She tried a comeback again in 1921; that, too, was unsuccessful. She settled into bit parts and character roles through the 1920s and 1930s. She committed suicide in 1938 after years of unhappiness and illness. She was found in her apartment on Dec. 27, 1938 and died soon afterward in hospital.
- John Davidson was born on 25 December 1886 in New York City, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for Dick Tracy vs. Crime, Inc. (1941), Adventures of Captain Marvel (1941) and Perils of Pauline (1933). He died on 16 January 1968 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
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Iowa-born Chester Conklin was raised in a coal-mining area by a devoutly religious father who hoped that his son would go into the ministry. However, Chester got the performing bug one day when he gave a recitation at a community singing festival and won first prize. Knowing his father would never approve of his desire to become a comedian, he left home. One night in St. Louis he caught a vaudeville act by the famous team of Joe Weber and Lew Fields, who were doing what was called at the time a "Dutch" act. Conklin thought that he could do that act himself, and better, so he decided to develop a character patterned after his boss at the time, a German baker named Schultz. Schultz had a thick accent and a very bushy "walrus"-type mustache, which Conklin appropriated for his new character. He managed to break into vaudeville with this act and spent several years on tour with various stock companies. Eventually he secured a job as a clown with a traveling circus. After seeing several of Mack Sennett's Keystone Kops shorts in theaters, Conklin went to the Sennett studio and applied for a job there. Sennett hired him as a Keystone Kop (at $3 a day). He stayed with Sennett for six years, and became famous for his pairing with burly comic Mack Swain in a series of "Ambrose and Walrus" shorts and appeared in several of Charles Chaplin's shorts for the studio (Chaplin adapted Conklin's "walrus" mustache as part of the costume for his "Little Tramp" character). Conklin was approached by Fox Films to do a series of comedy shorts, and when Sennett refused to match the offer Fox made, Conklin left Sennett and signed with Fox. He stayed with Fox for several years, then freelanced for several independent producers in a series of comedy shorts. Conklin worked steadily into the sound era, and retired from the screen in 1966. His last movie was the well-received Western comedy A Big Hand for the Little Lady (1966), in which his character was named "Chester."- Frederick Worlock was born on 14 December 1886 in London, England, UK. He was an actor, known for One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961), How Green Was My Valley (1941) and Spartacus (1960). He was married to Elsie Ferguson and Olive Noble. He died on 1 August 1973 in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA.
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- Soundtrack
Sam McDaniel was born on 28 January 1886 in Wichita, Kansas, USA. He was an actor, known for The Great Lie (1941), I Was Framed (1942) and Captains Courageous (1937). He died on 24 September 1962 in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA.