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Handsome American leading man who developed into one of Hollywood's greatest and most popular Western stars. Born to George and Lucy Crane Scott during a visit to Virginia, Scott was raised in Charlotte, North Carolina in a wealthy family. After service with the U.S. Army in France in World War I, he attended Georgia Institute of Technology but, after being injured playing football, transferred to the University of North Carolina, from which he graduated with a degree in textile engineering and manufacturing. He discovered acting and went to California, where he met Howard Hughes, who obtained an audition for him for Cecil B. DeMille's Dynamite (1929), a role which went instead to Joel McCrea. He was hired to coach Gary Cooper in a Virginia dialect for The Virginian (1929) and played a bit part in the film. Paramount scouts saw him in a play and offered him a contract. He met Cary Grant, another Paramount contract player, on the set of Hot Saturday (1932) and the pair soon moved in together. Their on-and-off living arrangement would last until 1942. Scott married and divorced wealthy heiress Marion DuPont in the late 1930's. He moved into leading roles at Paramount, although his easy-going charm was not enough to indicate the tremendous success that would come to him later. He was a pleasant figure in comedies, dramas and the occasional adventure, but it was not until he began focusing on Westerns in the late 1940s that he reached his greatest stardom. His screen persona altered into that of a stoic, craggy, and uncompromising figure, a tough, hard-bitten man seemingly unconnected to the light comedy lead he had been in the 1930s. He became one of the top box office stars of the 1950s and, in the Westerns of Budd Boetticher especially, a critically important figure in the Western as an art form. Following a critically acclaimed, less-heroic-than-usual role in one of the classics of the genre, Ride the High Country (1962), Scott retired from films. A multimillionaire as a result of canny investments, Scott spent his remaining years playing golf and avoiding film industry affairs, stating that he didn't like publicity. He died in 1987 survived by his second wife, Patricia Stillman, and his two adopted children, Christopher and Sandra. He is buried in Charlotte, North Carolina.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Irene Marie Dunne was born on December 20, 1898, in Louisville, Kentucky. She was the daughter of Joseph Dunne, who inspected steamships, and Adelaide Henry, a musician who prompted Irene in the arts. Her first production was in Louisville when she appeared in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" at the age of five. Her "debut" set the tone for a fabulous career. Following the tragic death of her father when she was 12, she moved with her remaining family to the picturesque and historic town of Madison, Indiana, to live with her maternal grandparents at 916 W. Second St. During the next few years Irene studied voice and took piano lessons in town. She was able to earn money singing in the Christ Episcopal Church choir on Sundays. After graduating from Madison High School in 1916, she studied until 1917 in a music conservatory in Indianapolis. After that she accepted a teaching post as a music and art instructor in East Chicago, Indiana, just a stone's throw from Chicago. She never made it to the school. While on her way to East Chicago, she saw a newspaper ad in the Indianapolis Star and News for an annual scholarship contest run by the Chicago Music College. Irene won the contest, which enabled her to study there for a year. After that she headed for New York City because it was still the entertainment capital of the world. Her first goal in New York was to add her name to the list of luminaries of the Metropolitan Opera Company. Her audition did her little good, as she was rejected for being too young and inexperienced. She did win the leading role in a road theater company, which was, in turn, followed by numerous plays. During this time she studied at the Chicago Music College, from which she graduated with high honors in 1926. In 1928, Irene met and married a promising young dentist from New York named Francis Dennis Griffin. She remained with Dr. Griffin until his death in 1965.
Irene came to the attention of Hollywood when she performed in "Show Boat" on the East Coast. By 1930 she was under contract to RKO Pictures. Her first film was Leathernecking (1930), which went almost unnoticed. In 1931 she appeared in Cimarron (1931), for which she received the first of five Academy Award nominations. No Other Woman (1933) and Ann Vickers (1933) the same year followed.
In 1936 (due to her comic skits in Show Boat (1936)), she was "persuaded" to star in a comedy, up to that time a medium for which she had small affection. However, Theodora Goes Wild (1936) was an instant hit, almost as popular as the more famous It Happened One Night (1934) from two years before. From this she earned her second Academy Award nomination. Later, in 1937, she was teamed with Cary Grant in The Awful Truth (1937). This helped her garner a third Academy Award nomination. She starred with Grant later in My Favorite Wife (1940) and Penny Serenade (1941).
Her favorite film was Love Affair (1939) with Charles Boyer, a huge hit in a year with so many great films, and a role for which she was again nominated for an Academy Award. Howevever, it was the tear-jerker I Remember Mama (1948) for which she will be best remembered in the role of the loving, self-sacrificing Norwegian mother. She got another nomination for that but again lost. This was the picture in which she should have won the Oscar.
She began to wean herself away from films toward the many charities and public works she championed. Her last major movie was as Polly Baxter in 1952's It Grows on Trees (1952). After that she only appeared as a guest on television. Irene knew enough to quit while she was ahead of the game and this helped keep her legacy intact.
In 1957 she was appointed as a special US delegate to the United Nations during the 12th General Assembly by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, such was her widespread appeal. The remainder of her life was spent on civic causes. She even donated $10,000 to the restoration of the town fountain in her girlhood home of Madison, Indiana, in 1976, even though she had not been there since 1938 when she came home for a visit. She died of heart failure on September 4, 1990, in Los Angeles, California.- Actor
- Soundtrack
A stocky, friendly-faced character actor, Ford was born Samuel Jones in England, where the brutality of his childhood rivaled anything that Charles Dickens ever dreamed up. He lived for a while in an orphanage after being separated from his parents. While still young, he was sent to a Toronto branch of the orphanage. There, he began a cycle that involved living in 17 foster homes, the longest being with a farm family that treated him like a slave. At age 11 he ran away and joined a vaudeville troupe called the Winnipeg Kiddies, with whom he stayed until 1914. He then joined a friend named Wallace Ford, and the two 'hoboed" their way into the United States. After the friend was crushed to death by a railroad car, he took the name Wallace Ford in his friend's memory and found work in theatrical troupes and repertory companies. On Broadway he acted in "Abraham Lincoln," "Abie's Irish Rose," and "Bad Girl." He left Broadway in 1932 to appear with Joan Crawford in Possessed (1931); he also landed the lead in MGM's notorious Freaks (1932), although his fellow actors proved more memorable. He also co-starred as Walter Huston's amoral brother in one of the studio's few full-blown gangster melodramas, The Beast of the City (1932), starring Jean Harlow in arguably her most hard-bitten role. In all he appeared in over 200 films, including five directed by John Ford (The Last Hurrah (1958), The Whole Town's Talking (1935), They Were Expendable (1945), The Lost Patrol (1934), and The Informer (1935)). He also appeared with Henry Fonda in the TV series "The Deputy," which ran from 1959 to 1960. Ford died of a heart attack soon after his last memorable role as "Old Pa" in the hit Sidney Poitier drama A Patch of Blue (1965).- Bess Flowers was born on 23 November 1898 in Sherman, Texas, USA. She was an actress, known for We Faw Down (1928), Sinister Hands (1932) and Silks and Saddles (1936). She was married to William S. Holman and Cullen Tate. She died on 28 July 1984 in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Actor
- Soundtrack
The parents of Frank McHugh ran their own stock company and he was on the stage as a child. When he was 10 he was part of an act that include his brother Matt McHugh and sister Kitty McHugh. After vaudeville and other stock companies, Frank debuted on Broadway "The Fall Guy" (1925). In 1930 he was hired at Warner Brothers as a contract player. Frank would usually play the sidekick to the lead actor and would provide the comedy relief in tense situations - if it were called for. With his nervous laugh and hangdog look, he appeared in over 90 movies in the first dozen years he worked at Warners. He would also appear with another very busy character actor, Allen Jenkins, in a dozen or so films. McHugh would be a mechanic, a song plugger, a pilot, a baseball player or a newspaperman, and would either be married or get the girl only if the girl was not the one the hero was interested in. Over the years he would work with most of the stars that Warners employed. By the early 1950s his film career started winding down. From 1964 to 1965 he played the role of Willis Walter on The Bing Crosby Show (1964).- Actress
- Script and Continuity Department
- Writer
Bessie Love was born in Texas. Her cowboy father moved the family to Hollywood, where he became a chiropractor. As the family needed money, Bessie's mother sent her to Biograph Studios, hoping she would become an actress. D.W. Griffith saw she was pretty and had some acting talent, and put her in several of his films, also giving her a small part in Intolerance (1916). Bessie became popular with audiences and worked with Douglas Fairbanks in Reggie Mixes In (1916) and William S. Hart in The Aryan (1916). She then moved to Vitagraph and starred in a number of comedy-dramas. In the 1920s she began to act in more mature roles, such as Those Who Dance (1924), and also began working on the stage. She performed the first screen "Charleston" dance in The King on Main Street (1925), and gave one of her best performances in Dress Parade (1927). When sound movies came into vogue, she made a number of them and received an Academy Award nomination for The Broadway Melody (1929). By 1931, however, her career was over. She moved to England in 1935 and entertained the troops during World War II. By the 1950s she started playing small roles in movies such as No Highway in the Sky (1951). She played in a handful of low-budget films from the 1950s through the 1970s. In the 1980s she appeared in the big-budget Ragtime (1981) which starred James Cagney, and later that year in Reds (1981) which starred Warren Beatty.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Character actress Shirley Booth could play everything in all facets of show business, whether it was Miss Duffy the Tavern Owner's Man Crazy Daughter on "Duffy's Tavern", the sassy maid on TV's Hazel (1961) or the pathetic woman in Come Back, Little Sheba (1952). For those who only know her through her sitcom, it might be hard to believe she was a seasoned theatrical veteran, having appeared on Broadway from 1925-70. She was highly regarded as a stage actress and ranks as one of the premier talents of the 20th-century theatre.- Actress
- Soundtrack
The daughter of a retired sea captain and his much-younger wife, actress Norma Varden was born and raised in turn-of-the-century London. A piano prodigy, she studied in Paris and appeared in concert in England during her teenage years. Acting, however, became her career of choice, studying at the Guildhall School of Music. She took her very first stage bow in a production of Peter Pan. In the adult role of Mrs. Darling, she was actually younger than the actors playing her children. In years to come, Norma would play a number of mature, lady-like roles that were much older than she was.
She performed Shakespeare in repertory and was at first cast in dramatic plays such as The Wandering Jew (1920-her West End debut) and Hamlet (1925) as the Player Queen. In various acting companies, she eventually found a flair for comedy and became the resident character comedienne for the famous Aldwych Theatre farce-ers from 1929 to 1933 à la Marx Bros. foil Margaret Dumont. Finding success there in the comedies A Night Like This and Turkey Time, she later recreated both roles on British film a couple of years later. She went on to prove herself a minor but avid scene-stealer in such movies as Evergreen (1934), The Iron Duke (1934), Stormy Weather (1935) and East Meets West (1936), quickly finding an amusing niche as a haughty society maven. She played both benevolent and supercilious with equal ease -- her height (5'7-1/2"), elongated oval face, vacant manner, plummy voice and slightly drowsy eyes adding immensely to the look and amusement of her characters.
In the early 1940s, the veteran actress visited California, accompanied by her ailing, widowed mother, for a take on the warmer climate and decided to permanently settle. Again, she found herself in demand as a now silvery-haired duchess, queen or Lady something, albeit in less meaty, sometimes even unbilled parts. Although she could dress down when called upon as a bar maid, nurse and landlady, she usually was asked to provide the requisite atmosphere for glossy, opulent settings. Her more noticeable roles came as lecherous Robert Benchley's wealthy, put-upon wife in The Major and the Minor (1942); the vile Lady Abbott in Forever Amber (1947); the giddy socialite nearly strangled by Robert Walker in Hitchcock's classic Strangers on a Train (1951); the impressively bejeweled wife of Charles Coburn, whom Marilyn Monroe fawns over in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953); and the Von Trapp housekeeper Frau Schmidt in The Sound of Music (1965).
Norma became a steadfast radio and TV comedy foil during the 40s, 50s and 60s, often at the mercy of a Lucille Ball or Jack Benny. Her longest radio part was as Basil Rathbone's housekeeper on his Sherlock Holmes radio series. On TV, she appeared in such shows as Mister Ed (1961), The Beverly Hillbillies (1962), Bewitched (1964) and Batman (1966) She had recurring roles as Betty Hutton's aunt on The Betty Hutton Show (1959) and as Shirley Booth's neighbor on Hazel (1961). Never married, Norma's mother passed away in 1969, and the actress retired shortly after. She died of heart failure in 1989, a day before her 91st birthday.- Writer
- Director
- Producer
Preston Sturges' own life is as unlikely as some of the plots of his best work. He was born into a wealthy family. As a boy he helped out on stage productions for his mother's friend, Isadora Duncan (the scarf that strangled her was made by his mother's company, Maison Desti). He served in the U.S. Army Signal Corps during WWI. Upon his return to Maison Desti, he invented a kissproof lipstick, Red-Red Rouge, in 1920. Shortly after his first marriage, his mother demanded that he return control of the company to her. Kicked out of Maison Desti, he turned to inventing. A tickertape machine, an intaglio photo-etching process, an automobile and an airplane were among his some of his commercially unsuccessful inventions. He began writing stories and, while recovering from an appendectomy in 1929, wrote his first play, "The Guinea Pig". In financial trouble over producing his plays, he moved to Hollywood in 1932 to make money. It wasn't long before he became frustrated by the lack of control he had over his work and wanted to direct the scripts he wrote. Paramount gave him this chance as part of a deal for selling his script for The Great McGinty (1940), at a cheap price. The film's success launched his career as writer/director and he had several hits over the next four years. That success emboldened him to become an independent filmmaker, but that did not last long--he had a string of commercial failures and acquired a reputation as an expensive perfectionist. He moved to France to make what turned out to be his last movie, The French, They Are a Funny Race (1955). He died at the Algonquin Hotel, New York City, in 1959.- Because of his heavy generically "European" accent and Slavic-sounding surname (not an uncommon one among Czechs or Slovaks), many people assumed Oscar Homolka was Eastern European or Russian. In fact, he was born in Vienna (then Austria-Hungary), the multicultural capital of a large multi-ethnic empire at the time. It was there he began his successful stage career, which eventually led him to Hollywood. Homolka was one of the many Austrian and specifically Viennese actors (many of them Jewish) who fled Europe for the U.S. with the rise to power of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party. Although often typecast in villainous roles - Communist spies, Soviet-bloc military officers or scientists and the like - he was nominated for an Oscar for his portrayal of Uncle Chris in I Remember Mama (1948).
- Actor
- Soundtrack
After military service during the First World War, Chandler studied at the University of Illinois, financing his studies by playing jazz violin in a band. During the early 1920's, he returned to the vaudeville circuit and began in films from 1928. Most of his early efforts were short one- and two-reel comedies, arguably his best being The Fatal Glass of Beer (1933) with W.C. Fields. While he mostly appeared in comedy and had countless bit parts, he later proved that he could handle meatier assignments, such as the simple-minded husband of Ginger Rogers, Amos, in Roxie Hart (1942). George was a protege of director William A. Wellman , who used him in twenty of his films.
On television, he made his mark as the jovial, well-remembered Uncle Petrie in Lassie (1954). He also had many good guest spots in other series, a particularly enjoyable one being the old man who sells a haunted Model A to dubious second-hand car dealer Jack Carson(with interesting results) in The Twilight Zone (1959) episode 'The Whole Truth' (1961). Prior to replacing Ronald Reagan as president of the Screen Actor's Guild, Chandler had been treasurer for twelve years (1948-60).- Director
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
- Art Department
Henry Hathaway, son of a stage actress and manager, started his career as a child actor in westerns directed by Allan Dwan. His movie career was interrupted by World War I. After his discharge he briefly tried a career in finance but returned to Hollywood to work as an assistant director under such directors as Frank Lloyd, Paul Bern, Josef von Sternberg and Victor Fleming, whom Hathaway credited for his eventual success. In 1932 he directed his first picture, Heritage of the Desert (1932), a western. His approach has been described as uncomplicated and straightforward, while at the same time noted for their striking visual effects and unusual locations. He had a reputation as being difficult on actors, but stars such as John Wayne and Marilyn Monroe benefited under his direction. Although Hathaway was a highly successful and reliable director working within the Hollywood studio system, his work has received little attention from critics.- Harold Bennett was born on 17 November 1898 in Hastings, East Sussex, England, UK. He was an actor, known for Are You Being Served? (1972), Are You Being Served? (1977) and Whack-O! (1956). He died on 15 September 1981 in London, England, UK.
- Actress
- Soundtrack
Lotte Lenya was a Tony Award-winning and Academy award-nominated actress and singer. While best remembered in the U.S. for her supporting role as Rosa Klebb in the classic Bond film From Russia with Love (1963), she is celebrated in Germany for her ground-breaking performances in the plays of Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht and her recordings of songs from those works.
She was born Karoline Wilhelmine Charlotte Blaumauer on October 18, 1898, in Vienna, Austria (at that time Austro-Hungarian Empire), into a working class family. Young Lenya was fond of dancing. In 1914 she moved to Zurich, Switzerland. There she began using her stage name, Lotte Lenya. In Swizerland she studied classical dance, singing and acting and made her stage debut at the Schauspielhaus. In 1921 she moved to Berlin and blended in the city's cosmopolitan cultural milieu. In 1924 she met composer Kurt Weill, and they married in 1926. She performed in several productions of 'The Threepenny Opera', which became an important step in her acting career.
In 1933, with the rise of Nazism in Germany, Lotte Lenya escaped from the country. At the same time, being stressed by the circumstances of life, she divorced from Kurt Weil, to be reunited with him two years later. In 1935 both emigrated to the United States and remarried in 1937. After Kurt Weill's death, she dedicated her efforts to keeping Weill's music played in numerous productions worldwide. In 1957 she won a Tony award for her role as Jenny, performed in English, in a Broadway production of 'The Threepenny Opera'.
Lotte Lenya shot to international fame with her portrayal of Contessa Magda Terbilli-Gozales, Vivien Leigh's friend in The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone (1961). The role brought Lenya an Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actress. She gained additional fame after she appeared as Rosa Klebb, former head of operations for SMERSH/KGB, and now a sadistic Spectre agent with poisonous knife in her shoe, in From Russia with Love (1963). She died of cancer on November 27, 1981, in New York. She is entombed with Kurt Weill in a mausoleum, in Mount Repose Cemetery, in Haverstraw, New York, USA.- Director
- Writer
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Coming from a lower class family Mizoguchi entered the production company Nikkatsu as an actor specialized in female roles. Later he became an assistant director and made his first film in 1922. Although he filmed almost 90 movies in the silent era, only his last 12 productions are really known outside of Japan because they were especially produced for Venice (e.g The Life of Oharu (1952) or Sansho the Bailiff (1954). He only filmed two productions in color: Yôkihi (1955) and Taira Clan Saga (1955).- Actress
- Soundtrack
Before Arlette-Leonie Bathiat went to the movies she was a secretary and had posed several times as a model for different painters and photographers. In 1920 she debuted on stage at a theatre. She only began to work in movies after 1930. After World War II she was condemned to prison for having been the lover of a German official during the ocupation of France. In 1963 she had an accident which left her almost blind. Her most important movies were filmed and directed by Marcel Carné ("Hotel du Nord (1938)" or "Enfants du Paradis, Les (1945)").- Actor
- Soundtrack
Pittsburgh-born and -raised character actor Regis Toomey, of Irish descent, took an early interest in the performing arts and initially studied drama at the university of his home town. One of four children of Francis X. and Mary Ellen Toomey, John Regis Toomey initially pondered a law career, but acting won out and he gradually established himself as a musical stage performer. Dropping his first name for acting purposes, he was touring in a production of "Little Nellie Kelly" in England when he developed an acute case of laryngitis. The severity of the problem forced a serious rethinking of his career goals.
With the birth of sound pictures, Toomey made an auspicious debut with Alibi (1929) starring Chester Morris where a climactic death scene sparked controversy--and a movie career that would include almost 200 pictures and a number of other notorious death scenes. His lead/second lead status opposite such stars as Clara Bow, Constance Bennett, Barbara Stanwyck and Evelyn Brent fell away within a few years, and he found more work in streetwise character roles. Fast-paced crime action was his forte and he was prevalent throughout the 1930s and 1940s. He appeared in many classic films including 'G' Men (1935), Meet John Doe (1941), The Big Sleep (1946), Rachel and the Stranger (1948) and Spellbound (1945). In 1955 he played Uncle Arvide of The Salvation Army in Guys and Dolls (1955) alongside Marlon Brando, Frank Sinatra, Jean Simmons and Vivian Blaine, a role for which he is still well remembered.
In the 1950s he found employment on TV as a good guy, typically playing judges, sheriffs, businessmen and police sergeants. He was a regular on The Mickey Rooney Show (1954). Fellow one-time singer Dick Powell became a friend and Powell, having turned producer, saw to it that Toomey had involving roles on a couple of his TV series such as Richard Diamond, Private Detective (1956) and Burke's Law (1963). He was later a regular on Petticoat Junction (1963). Toomey played roles well past his 80th year.
His marriage (from 1925) to Kathryn Scott produced two children. They met in 1924 when he appeared in a musical production of "Rose Marie" that Kathryn assistant choreographed. Toomey died of natural causes on October 12, 1991, at the Motion Picture Country House in Woodland Hills, California at age 93.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Queenie Smith was born in New York City in 1898. She is described as 5 feet 1 inch with blue eyes and blonde hair and weighing 108 pounds. Her father was English and mother, German. She was educated at public schools, including the Horace Mann School, and matriculated at age 13 with the Ballet School of Metropolitan Opera. While a teenager, Queenie was solo danseuse of the Metropolitan Opera Company in "Aida", "Samson and Delilah", "Faust", and "La Traviata". She also appeared in musical comedies including "Helen of Troy, New York", "Sitting Pretty", "Tip Toes", "Hit the Deck", and "The Street Singer". She appeared in "Lilly Turner", "The Greeks Had a Word for It", "Little Women", "Three Cornered Moon", "Uncle Tom's Cabin" and "Every Thursday".- A tall (6'3"), handsome, debonair, immaculately-groomed British leading man best known for his pipe-smoking chaps, Londoner John Loder (né John Muir Lowe), was born on January 3, 1898, the son of a British general. Attending both the Eton and the Royal Military colleges, he followed his distinguished father into the army and fought at Gallipoli during World War I, where he served until the British withdrew its forces.
A German prisoner of war in 1918, Loder remained in Germany following his release and was assigned military duties on behalf of the Inter-Allied Commission. Loder eventually went into business establishing a pickle factory in Potsdam with a partner. Loder began to develop an interest in acting at one point and wound up in a few German film dance bits Dance Fever (1925), Madame Doesn't Want Children (1926)).
Progressing into featured/co-star parts in such films as Die weiße Spinne (1927) and Die Sünderin (1928) (The Sinner), Loder returned briefly to England in 1927 where he was third-billed as the "veddy English" Lord Harborough in the elegant melodrama The First Born (1928) starring lovely Madeleine Carroll and Miles Mander (who also wrote and directed). Following this the young actor made the transatlantic trip to the United States where talkies had become the new rage. Loder continued in the same fashion as before with third-wheel roles in such female superstar vehicles as Paramount's first talkie The Doctor's Secret (1929) starring Ruth Chatterton, as well as Her Private Affair (1929) starring Ann Harding and Lilies of the Field (1929) starring Corinne Griffith. While Loder showed much promise, his on-camera persona was a bit too cut and dried for American tastes. Following secondary roles in The Racketeer (1929), Sweethearts and Wives (1930), Parisian Gaities (1931) and having gained no ground pursuing leading man stardom, he returned to England.
Back in his homeland, Loder was able to embellish his resumé with more plush, princely leads and co-leads such as in Money for Speed (1933), co-star Ida Lupino's first big film; You Made Me Love You (1933) starring Ida's father Stanley Lupino with ice-cream blonde Thelma Todd as his love interest; the musicals Love, Life & Laughter (1934) and Sing As We Go! (1934) both opposite Gracie Fields; the heavy drama Java Head (1934) in a romantic triangle with Anna May Wong and Elizabeth Allan; the classic romantic adventure Lorna Doone (1934) starring as John Ridd opposite sweet and lovely The Little Woman (1954); the circus adventure drama This Woman Is Mine (1935); the murder mystery The Silent Passenger (1935); the romantic comedy It Happened in Paris (1935); the sparkling comedy Queen of Hearts (1936) again opposite Gracie Fields; in the Boris Karloff mad doctor horror opus The Man Who Lived Again (1936) as the clean-cut hero for damsel Anna Lee; in the classic adventure King Solomon's Mines (1937) and murder mystery Non-Stop New York (1937) both again with Ms. Lee; the historical costumer Katia (1938) opposite Danielle Darrieux in the title role; and a trio of crime dramas -- Anything to Declare? (1938), Murder Will Out (1939) and the title role in Maxwell Archer, Detective (1940).
When WWII hit Britain, Loder returned to America where he fell immediately into secondary patrician, military and assorted stuffed shirt roles in "A" pictures (How Green Was My Valley (1941), One Night in Lisbon (1941), The Murderer Lives at Number 21 (1942), Now, Voyager (1942), Old Acquaintance (1943), Passage to Marseille (1944), The Hairy Ape (1944)) and leads in "B" level programmers (The Brighton Strangler (1945), Jealousy (1945), A Game of Death (1945), Woman Who Came Back (1945), The Wife of Monte Cristo (1946)).
As his film career declined in the late 1940's, Loder made his Broadway debut in For Love or Money in 1947, the same year he became an American citizen. He subsequently moved to TV work in the 1950's with guest appearances on several anthology series. His last films included The Story of Esther Costello (1957), Woman and the Hunter (1957), Gideon of Scotland Yard (1958), The Secret Man (1958) and The Firechasers (1971).
Loder had quite a lively private life. Divorced five times, two of his wives were actresses -- his second was French star Micheline Cheirel and his third was Hollywood goddess Hedy Lamarr. He co-starred in the film noir Dishonored Lady (1947) with Lamarr and second-billed Dennis O'Keefe. His first son, theatrical/literary agent Robin William Lowe (1925-2002), was born out of wedlock. He had three children (James, Denise and Anthony) by Lamarr.
Returning to England in later years, Loder penned his autobiography, Hollywood Hussar, in 1977. His general health declined noticeably and in 1982, entered a Kensington nursing home. He died in London, aged 90, in 1988, the day after Christmas. - Mildred Davis was born on 22 February 1898 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. She was an actress, known for A Sailor-Made Man (1921), Safety Last! (1923) and Dr. Jack (1922). She was married to Harold Lloyd. She died on 18 August 1969 in Santa Monica, California, USA.
- Actor
- Writer
- Soundtrack
Rangy, red-headed and straightforward to the bone while possessing distinctively adenoidal vocal tones, this actor with a voracious appetite for high living was a fine cinematic representation of the racy and race-paced style of pre-Code Hollywood. Lee Tracy patented with peerless skill the lightning rod timing and machine gun delivery so identified with that period and would have continued on handsomely in films had severe typecasting, a hair-trigger temper and a notoriously reckless off-camera life not gotten the best of him.
Christened William Lee Tracy on April 14, 1898, the Atlanta-born actor was the son of a traveling railroad superintendent and a former school teacher. Lee attended Western Military Academy in Alton, Illinois, while growing up, and then relocated with his family to upstate New York. Lee may have studied engineering at Union College in 1918, but he also showed an interest in dramatics and was almost immediately asked to join a theater company upon his graduation. WWI interrupted his nascent stage career when he joined the army. Following his discharge, he cast aside thoughts of a theater career and instead became a U.S. Treasury agent. Within two years' time, however, he was back via the vaudeville stage and touring stock companies. This all culminated in a most auspicious Broadway debut in "The Showoff" in 1924.
It took but a couple of years for Tracy to achieve certified stardom with the George Abbott production of "Broadway" (1926), in which he played a song-and-dance man, receiving the New York Drama Critics Award for his efforts. In 1928, following more vaudeville work, Lee found his quintessential role in the form of Hildy Johnson, the hustling, fast-talking newspaperman, in Charles MacArthur and Ben Hecht's timeless play "The Front Page". If ever an actor and role fit together like a hand in a glove, this was it, and it was highly unfortunate, with all due respect to actor Pat O'Brien, that Tracy was not afforded the proper chance to transfer this prototype Broadway part to the 1931 film. During this time he was also developing an off-stage reputation as a carouser and heavy drinker.
Nevertheless, Fox Studios immediately signed Tracy and offered up a fine screen debut for him co-starring with Mae Clarke in the early talkie Big Time (1929) as the male half of a husband-and-wife vaudeville team who breaks off with his mate and falls on heavy times while she becomes a star. In Born Reckless (1930), Tracy played the first of his Walter Winchell-like, staccato-styled characters. Tracy went on to perfectly evoke his fast-talking image in such Depression-era films as the drama Liliom (1930) and the ribald comedy She Got What She Wanted (1930).
A highly impulsive man, Tracy abandoned Hollywood at this early stage of the game and returned to his former glory, Broadway, appearing to fine advantage in "Oh, Promise Me" and "Louder, Please" in 1930 and 1931, respectively. But films continued to beg for his services; this time it was Warner Bros. He contributed greatly to both the melodrama The Strange Love of Molly Louvain (1932) and the horror opus Doctor X (1932) and easily stole the proceedings, this time in a comic mode, as the cynical, scandal-sniffing columnist in Blessed Event (1932). Columbia Studios decided to get in on the action with a three-picture deal. Tracy played a no-holds-barred politico in Washington Merry-Go-Round (1932), the title role in The Night Mayor (1932) and an ex-con in Carnival (1935). In between, however, trouble started brewing with his unrestrained night life and patterned absences from the set.
A fourth big studio, MGM, took him on in 1933 with a contract boost despite his "bad boy" reputation, yet more personality problems surfaced. Despite excellent performances in such films as Clear All Wires! (1933), The Nuisance (1933), Turn Back the Clock (1933), Advice to the Forlorn (1933), and the MGM classics Dinner at Eight (1933) and Bombshell (1933), both showcasing MGM's comedic sex siren Jean Harlow, Tracy went too far. During the filming of Viva Villa! (1934) in Mexico City, Tracy displayed shocking, ungentlemanly behavior that resulted in fisticuffs with the law and a high-profile arrest on public morals charges. MGM not only kicked Tracy off the picture but felt compelled to apologize publicly to the Mexican people for his disrespect and terminate the actor's five-year contract.
Tracy freelanced thereafter, often for RKO, but the quality of his pictures began to slide and his constant rash of quicksilver reporters, columnists and press agents had worn out their welcome. He returned to the stage in both New York ("Bright Star") and London ("Idiot's Delight") and was warmly received. In the midst of it all, he married Helen Thoms Wyse, a nonprofessional, in 1938 and, defying all odds, made the marriage work. She survived him by thirty years.
With his last postwar film at the time being High Tide (1947), Tracy's looks had hardened dramatically and he looked at TV being a possible medium for his talents. Throughout the '50s and early '60s, he appeared on a number of shows, including "Kraft Television Theatre", "Wagon Train" and "Ben Casey". He also took on series leads, such as The Amazing Mr. Malone (1951), Martin Kane (1949), and New York Confidential (1959). And there was always the stage.
Tracy's last hurrah, both on Broadway and in film, was Gore Vidal's blistering political drama The Best Man (1964). Recreating his 1961 Tony-nominated role of the crusty, terminally ill U.S. president, he received his only Oscar nod for this standout part. The rest of his working years went by with less distinction. In the summer of 1968 he was diagnosed with liver cancer and succumbed to the illness on October 18 of that year in a Santa Monica hospital.- Philadelphia-born Eleanor Boardman had always wanted to be an actress, and as soon as she graduated high school she headed for New York to conquer Broadway. When Broadway proved not quite ready to be conquered yet, she took whatever jobs she could find, including one as an artist's model. In that capacity she heard that the Selwyn Organization, a major producer of Broadway plays, was looking for girls with no stage experience. Since she was more than qualified in that respect, she tried out for the job and before she knew it she was in the chorus line of "Rock-a-Bye-Baby" until the show closed three months later. She then got a job in another Selwyn production, "A Very Good Young Man", but that show closed not long after opening. It was at this time that a casting director for Goldwyn Pictures hit the Broadway scene looking for new faces. She tested for him and impressed him enough that he finally picked her out of a pool of more than 1000 young girls who tested for the opportunity to go to Hollywood. She made her first film in 1922 and stayed in the business until 1935, when she retired. She was married twice, first to director King Vidor from 1926-1931, then to director Harry d'Abbadie d'Arrast from 1940 to his death in 1968. She died in Santa Barbara, CA, in 1991.
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This distinctive-looking, bushy-browed, heavy-set Welsh character actor played dozens of rustics, sea captains, sheriffs, priests and police officers during a forty-year long career, starting in 1926. His was the perfect face for period drama. At the peak of his popularity, Owen co-starred as a first mate in Captain David Grief (1957), a South Seas adventure based on stories by Jack London. During the 1940's and 50's, he was prolific on radio, lending his voice to crime dramas like "Pursuit" (CBS, 1949-52) and "Pete Kelly's Blues". His best-known role was that of alcoholic 'wharf-bum' Jocko Madigan, drunk ex-doctor friend and sidekick of star Jack Webb, in "Pat Novak for Hire". He also voiced Towser in One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961)).- Director
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The son of an affluent architect, Eisenstein attended the Institute of Civil Engineering in Petrograd as a young man. With the fall of the tsar in 1917, he worked as an engineer for the Red Army. In the following years, Eisenstein joined up with the Moscow Proletkult Theater as a set designer and then director. The Proletkult's director, Vsevolod Meyerhold, became a big influence on Eisenstein, introducing him to the concept of biomechanics, or conditioned spontaneity. Eisenstein furthered Meyerhold's theory with his own "montage of attractions"--a sequence of pictures whose total emotion effect is greater than the sum of its parts. He later theorized that this style of editing worked in a similar fashion to Marx's dialectic. Though Eisenstein wanted to make films for the common man, his intense use of symbolism and metaphor in what he called "intellectual montage" sometimes lost his audience. Though he made only seven films in his career, he and his theoretical writings demonstrated how film could move beyond its nineteenth-century predecessor--Victorian theatre-- to create abstract concepts with concrete images.- Actor
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Morgan Farley was born on 3 October 1898 in Mamaroneck, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for High Noon (1952), Soylent Green (1973) and Star Trek (1966). He died on 11 October 1988 in San Pedro, California, USA.