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Janet Gaynor was born Laura Gainor on October 6, 1906, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. As a child, she & her parents moved to San Francisco, California, where she graduated from high school in 1923. She then moved to Los Angeles where she enrolled in a secretarial school. She got a job at a shoe store for the princely sum of $18 per week. However, since L.A. was the land of stars and studios, she wanted to try her hand at acting. She managed to land unbilled bit parts in several feature films and comedy shorts. She bided her time, believing "Good things come to those who wait." She didn't have to wait too long, either. In 1926, at the age of 20, she turned in a superb performance as Anna Burger in The Johnstown Flood (1926). The Hollywood moguls knew they had a top star on their hands and cast her in several other leading roles that year, including The Shamrock Handicap (1926), The Blue Eagle (1926), The Midnight Kiss (1926) and The Return of Peter Grimm (1926). The next year she turned in acclaimed performances in two classic films, 7th Heaven (1927) and Sunrise (1927). Based on the strength of those two films plus Street Angel (1928), Janet received the very first Academy Award for best actress. This was the first and only time an actress won the Oscar for multiple roles. When "talkies" replaced silent films, Janet was one of the few who made a successful transition, not only because of her great acting ability but for her charming voice as well. Without a doubt, Janet had already lived a true rags-to-riches story. Throughout the mid-1930s she was the top drawing star at theaters. She turned in grand performances in several otherwise undistinguished films.
Then came A Star Is Born (1937). She was very convincing as Vicki Lester (aka Esther Blodgett), struggling actress trying for the big time. Told by the receptionist at Central casting "You know what your chances are? One in a hundred thousand," Esther/Vicki replies, "But maybe--I'm that one." For her outstanding performance she was nominated for another Oscar, but lost to Luise Rainer's performance in The Good Earth (1937), her second in as many tries. After appearing in The Young in Heart (1938), Janet didn't appear in another film until 1957's Bernardine (1957). Her last performance was in a Broadway version of Harold and Maude. Although the play was a flop, Janet's performance salvaged it to any degree - she still had what it took to entertain the public. On September 14, 1984, Janet passed away from pneumonia in Palm Springs, California, at the age of 77.- Extremely popular silent star of the 1920s. Her popularity was enhanced when she co-starred with Rudolph Valentino in The Sheik (1921) and The Son of the Sheik (1926). She made her screen debut at Essanay Studios in 1915. While she was popular in the 1920s (thanks to the patronage of her lover, Jesse Lasky), her popularity had slipped by the time she briefly retired from the screen in 1927. Divorces, lawsuits and mental health battles all took their toll on her. Ayres returned to the movies almost immediately after but had difficulty re-establishing herself. She hoped that a bit part in Souls at Sea (1937) would lead to a comeback but it did not. She died three years later of a cerebral hemorrhage.
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Mary MacLaren was born on 19 January 1896 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. She was an actress, known for The Three Musketeers (1921), Creaking Stairs (1919) and Shoes (1916). She was married to Robert S. Coleman and Colonel George Herbert Young. She died on 9 November 1985 in Hollywood, California, USA.- Silent-screen star May McAvoy was born in an upscale area of New York City. Her well-to-do family owned and operated a large livery stable situated where the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel now stands. She initially wanted to be a teacher but became intrigued with show business after watching a friend rehearse a show at a nearby vaudeville theater. A model whose first job was a commercial for Domino Sugar, she moved into extra work in films and received her first major break with The Devil's Garden (1920) co-starring Lionel Barrymore. Stardom was hers, however, as the lead in Sentimental Tommy (1921), which led to a Paramount contract.
McAvoy later stated that she was not content to play whatever part the studio might choose for her and she demanded quality. She claimed that Cecil B. DeMille wanted her as the leading lady for _Adam's Rib (1923)_ but she balked at bobbing her hair and wearing the required pelt for the caveman sequence. She believed that he was able to have her unofficially suspended because of her refusal. Whatever her reasons for leaving Paramount, May bought out her contract and freelanced for the next six years. McAvoy wound up flourishing in such movies as The Enchanted Cottage (1924), Tessie (1925) and Lady Windermere's Fan (1925), while replacing Gertrude Olmstead as Esther in her best known silent film, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925). Mostly forgotten today except by more devoted film enthusiasts, May nevertheless holds a steadfast position in film history thanks to her co-starring role in Hollywood's first talkie, The Jazz Singer (1927) opposite Al Jolson, which is actually a silent film with several sound musical and speaking sequences; she herself had no talking scenes. Coincidentally, May also starred in England's first all-talking picture The Terror (1928). She retired after her marriage in 1929 and bore one son, Patrick. She returned to films for a decade and a half in the 1940s for MGM but never received any screen credit for these parts (her final role was as an extra in Ben-Hur (1959). She was widowed in 1973 and died a decade later of a heart attack. - Actress
- Soundtrack
Greta Ruzt-Nissen was born in Oslo, Norway, on January 30, 1905. As a young girl she studied dance and had intended to make a career out of it. For a while she did, but when she was 19 she appeared in her first big-screen production, The Wanderer (1925). Afterwards she made several more films, but she was one of those who lost much work due to the advent of sound films. One setback for her was when she was chosen for the lead in Hell's Angels (1930) by Howard Hughes but then replaced by Jean Harlow because of her heavy Norwegian accent. The film shot Harlow to stardom. Throughout the 1930s Greta stayed fairly busy. Obviously some roles were better than others, but she never got the breakout role she wanted so badly. After Danger in Paris (1937), Greta left the screen forever. On May 17, 1988, she died of Parkinson's disease. She was 83 years old.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Though she is little remembered today, silent screen star Carmel Myers had a high-flying career in her heyday and was ranked among the screen's most glamorous and enticing vamps. She was born at the turn of the century in San Francisco, the daughter of immigrant parents. Her father, a rabbi, emigrated from Australia and her mother from Austria. Her older brother, Zion Myers, would grow up to become a successful writer and director in Hollywood. The family moved to Los Angeles when she was in her early teens and her father, an acquaintance of director D.W. Griffith, advised Griffith on the biblical scenes for his movie Intolerance (1916), for which Carmel received a bit role as a dancer.
Signed by Universal, Carmel rose quickly up the ranks appearing with Rudolph Valentino in A Society Sensation (1918) and All Night (1918). She later branched out and worked for other studios. She appeared in her most prestigious film over at MGM. In the epic extravaganza Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925), she portrayed Iras, the evil Egyptian seductress out to snare both Ramon Navarro and Francis X. Bushman. Outrageously adorned, she was a tremendous hit and MGM signed her up for their pictures The Devil's Circus (1926) and Tell It to the Marines (1926), with each showcase striving to outdo the costumes she wore for "Ben-Hur."
Carmel managed the transition into talkies but, due to her age, started appearing more and more in support roles until she was left with nothing but bits. In the 1950s she tried television and made her debut in July 1951 with an interview show called, fittingly, The Carmel Myers Show (1951), in which she bantered with such show biz elite as Richard Rodgers and Sigmund Romberg, but the show lasted only one season. Married three times, she turned to real estate and also founded Carmel Myers, Inc. in which she distributed French fragrances. She died on November 9, 1980.- Mary Jane Irving was born on 20 October 1913 in Columbia, South Carolina, USA. She was an actress, known for The White Lie (1918), Scotty of the Scouts (1926) and The Godless Girl (1928). She was married to Robert Carson. She died on 17 July 1983 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
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Lively, buxom character actress Mary Boland made a name for herself playing vacuous or pixilated motherly types during the 1930s. One of her most memorable performances was as the addle-brained Mrs. Rimplegar of Three Cornered Moon (1933), who gives away her family fortune to a swindler because he seemed like 'such a nice young man'. She also made a series of popular homespun comedies under contract to Paramount, in which she co-starred opposite Charles Ruggles. She was notable as a social snob in Ruggles of Red Gap (1935), the oversexed and alcoholic Countess DeLave in The Women (1939) and as Mrs. Bennet in MGM's classic Pride and Prejudice (1940). For all her scatty or matronly character roles in the movies, Mary Boland had once been a star comedienne on Broadway.
Born in Philadelphia, the daughter of traveling actor William A. Boland (who happened to be on tour at her birth), she was educated at Sacred Heart Convent in Detroit. At 25, Mary appeared in her first play, 'Strongheart', and was on Broadway two years later in 'The Ranger', with Dustin Farnum. She started in silent films in 1915, her debut being Thomas H. Ince's 'The Edge of the Abyss'. After a wartime interval, entertaining troops on the Western Front during World War I, she made a return to the stage and had notable successes with the comedies 'Clarence' (1919-20,with Alfred Lunt) as Mrs.Wheeler, 'Meet the Wife' (1923-24,with a young Humphrey Bogart) and 'Cradle Snatchers' (1925-26), starring as Susan Martin. These performances established her as one of theaters foremost comediennes, ideally cast as dithery wives and mothers, or social climbers.
Mary's film career ended in 1950 and she appeared in her last play, 'Lullaby', in 1954. She retired to live out the rest of her days in her suite at the Essex House in New York.- Carol Dempster was born on 9 December 1901 in Duluth, Minnesota, USA. She was an actress, known for Sally of the Sawdust (1925), That Royle Girl (1925) and Isn't Life Wonderful (1924). She was married to Edwin S Larsen. She died on 1 February 1991 in La Jolla, California, USA.
- A former stage actress, Dorothy Phillips was married to actor/director/producer Allen Holubar. They were known as two of the screen's most prominent players--her the star, he the director/producer. Dorothy was well known in Hollywood as one of the most warm-hearted, approachable stars in the business. After the advent of sound, however, her career faded and she could be seen in a handful of films as an extra. Although a major star in her time and one of the best loved of that era, her passing was barely mentioned, other than in local papers.
- Vilma Bánky appeared in Hungarian, Austrian and French movies between 1920 and 1925, the year in which Samuel Goldwyn signed her, in Budapest, to a Hollywood contract. In Hollywood she was billed as the "The Hungarian Rhapsody". In the mid and late 1920s she was Goldwyn's biggest money maker, especially playing with Ronald Colman. Her best-known works were with Rudolph Valentino: daughter of a Russian aristocrat in The Eagle (1925) and an Arab dancer in The Son of the Sheik (1926). Her first talking movie was This Is Heaven (1929). She toured the U.S. in "Cherries Are Ripe" with her husband Rod La Rocque in 1930-1 and, the next year, went with him to Germany to make her last film.
- Lilyan Tashman was born on October 23, 1896 in Brooklyn, New York to Rose (Cook) from Germany and Morris Tashman from Bialystock, Poland. After toying with stage work, Lilyan made her film debut with Experience (1921), followed the next year by Head Over Heels (1922) (this was at a time when some studios and their performers were turning out one film per week. She had no other offers for 1923, but her constant rounds of the casting offices finally did some good. In 1924 she appeared in no fewer than 6 films. For a while she averaged 7 films per year. She was one of relatively few performers who easily made the transition to the sound era, In 1934 she finished filming Frankie and Johnnie (1936) and went into a New York City hospital to have some tumors removed; she died there on March 21, 1934 at age 37. The film was released two years after her death.
- Her parents were both stage actors, so Priscilla Dean began her career as an infant in their productions. She made her film debut at age 14 in a series of one-reelers for Biograph and several other studios. In 1911 she was hired by Universal Pictures and soon gained popularity as the female lead in the comedy series of Eddie Lyons and Lee Moran. Her appearance in the serial The Gray Ghost (1917) propelled her to stardom, and she began appearing in many of Universal's most prestigious productions. The coming of sound damaged her career, however, and by the early 1930s she was appearing in low-budget films for minor independent studios.
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Bebe Daniels already had toured as an actor by the age of four in a stage production of "Richard III". She had her first leading role at the age of seven and started her film career shortly after this in movies for Imperial, Pathe and others. At 14 she was already a film veteran, and was enlisted by Hal Roach to star as Harold Lloyd's leading lady in his "Lonesome Luke" shorts, distributed by Pathe. Lloyd fell hard for Bebe and seriously considered marrying her, but her drive to pursue a film career along with her sense of independence clashed with Lloyd's Victorian definition of a wife. The two eventually broke up but would remain lifelong friends. Bebe was sought out for stardom by Cecil B. DeMille, who literally pestered her into signing with Paramount. Unlike many actors, the arrival of sound posed no problem for her; she had a beautiful singing voice and became a major musical star, with such hits as Rio Rita (1929) and 42nd Street (1933). In 1930 she married Ben Lyon, with whom she went to England in the mid-'30s, where she became a successful West End stage star. She and her husband also had their own radio show in London, and became the most popular radio team in the country--especially during World War II, when they refused to return to the US and stayed in London, broadcasting even during the worst of the "blitz".
They later appeared in several British films together as their radio characters. Her final film was one in that series, The Lyons Abroad (1955).- Actress
- Soundtrack
One of the brightest film stars to grace the screen was born Emilie Claudette Chauchoin on September 13, 1903, in Saint Mandé, France where her father owned a bakery at 57, rue de la République (now Avenue Général de Gaulle). The family moved to the United States when she was three. As Claudette grew up, she wanted nothing more than to play to Broadway audiences (in those days, any actress or actor worth their salt went for Broadway, not Hollywood). After her formal education ended, she enrolled in the Art Students League, where she paid for her dramatic training by working in a dress shop. She made her Broadway debut in 1923 in the stage production of "The Wild Wescotts". It was during this event that she adopted the name Claudette Colbert.
When the Great Depression shut down most of the theaters, Claudette decided to make a go of it in films. Her first film was called For the Love of Mike (1927). Unfortunately, it was a box-office disaster. She wasn't real keen on the film industry, but with an extreme scarcity in theatrical roles, she had no choice but to remain. In 1929 she starred as Joyce Roamer in The Lady Lies (1929). The film was a success and later that year she had another hit entitled The Hole in the Wall (1929). In 1930 she starred opposite Fredric March in Manslaughter (1930), which was a remake of the silent version of eight years earlier. A year after that Claudette was again paired in a film with March, Honor Among Lovers (1931). It fared well at the box-office, probably only because it was the kind of film that catered to women who enjoyed magazine fiction romantic stories. In 1932 Claudette played the evil Poppeia in Cecil B. DeMille's last great work, The Sign of the Cross (1932), and once again was cast with March. Later the same year she was paired with Jimmy Durante in The Phantom President (1932). By now Claudette's name symbolized good movies and she, along with March, pulled crowds into the theaters with the acclaimed Tonight Is Ours (1933).
The next year started a little on the slow side with the release of Four Frightened People (1934), where Claudette and her co-stars were at odds with the dreaded bubonic plague on board a ship. However, the next two films were real gems for this young actress. First up, Claudette was charming and radiant in Cecil B. DeMille's spectacular Cleopatra (1934). It wasn't one of DeMille's finest by any means, but it was a financial success and showcased Claudette as never before. However, it was as Ellie Andrews, in the now famous It Happened One Night (1934), that ensured she would be forever immortalized. Paired with Clark Gable, the madcap comedy was a mega-hit all across the country. It also resulted in Claudette being nominated for and winning the Oscar that year for Best Actress. IN 1935 she was nominated again for Private Worlds (1935), where she played Dr. Jane Everest, on the staff at a mental institution. The performance was exquisite. Films such as The Gilded Lily (1935), Drums Along the Mohawk (1939) and No Time for Love (1943) kept fans coming to the theaters and the movie moguls happy. Claudette was a sure drawing card for virtually any film she was in. In 1944 she starred as Anne Hilton in Since You Went Away (1944). Again, although she didn't win, Claudette picked up her third nomination for Best Actress.
By the late 1940s and early 1950s she was not only seen on the screen but the infant medium of television, where she appeared in a number of programs. However, her drawing power was fading somewhat as new stars replaced the older ones. In 1955 she filmed the western Texas Lady (1955) and wasn't seen on the screen again until Parrish (1961). It was her final silver screen performance. Her final appearance before the cameras was in a TV movie, The Two Mrs. Grenvilles (1987). She did, however, remain on the stage where she had returned in 1956, her first love. After a series of strokes, Claudette divided her time between New York and Barbados. On July 30, 1996, Claudette died in Speightstown, Barbados. She was 92.- Evalyn Knapp was an American film actress, with a film career spanning the years 1929 to 1943. In the 1930s, she was a leading actress in then-popular B-movie serial films. Her most memorable role was that protagonist Pauline Hargraves in the film serial Perils of Pauline (1933).
In 1906, Knapp was born in Kansas City, the largest city in Missouri by population and area. She was the younger sister of bandleader Orville Knapp. Orville started out as a professional musician in the bands of Vincent Lopez and Leo Reisman. He then joined the Coon-Sanders Original Nighthawk Orchestra, the first Kansas City jazz band to achieve national recognition. He eventually formed his own bands, one in New York City and another in Los Angeles. During the 1920s, one of the musicians in Orville's band was Curly Howard. Curly later became famous as an actor and comedian, serving as a member of the comedy team The Three Stooges.
Evalyn started her acting career in silent films, but at the dawn of the sound era. Her first credited role was in the short film At the Dentist's (1929). Starting with minor, unnamed characters, she graduated to playing leading roles by 1931. She was the leading lady in the pre-code drama film Smart Money (1931), where her co-stars included Edward G. Robinson and James Cagney.
In 1931, Knapp had an accident during a hike. She fell from a cliff and fractured two vertebrae. She spent several months in a hospital and had to relearn how to walk.
In 1932, Knapp was selected as one of the year's WAMPAS Baby Stars. This was a promotional campaign which honored young actresses each year, whom they believed to be on the threshold of movie stardom. At 26-years-old, Knapp was the oldest actress selected that year. The other "Baby Stars" of 1932 included (by order of birth years): Lilian Bond, June Clyde, Dorothy Wilson, Ruth Hall, Gloria Stuart, Marion Shockley, Ginger Rogers, Toshia Mori, Dorothy Layton, Boots Mallory, Eleanor Holm, Mary Carlisle, Lona Andre, and Patricia Ellis.
In 1933, Knapp starred in the film serial Perils of Pauline (1933) and received top billing in the comedy film His Private Secretary (1933). In the film she was the love interest of irresponsible playboy Dick Wallace, who motivates him to change his life. The role of Wallace was played by 26-years-old John Wayne, who was relatively obscure at the time.
In 1934, Knapp was the leading lady in the Western film In Old Santa Fe (1934). The film is remembered as the first screen appearance of Gene Autry, who sung a rendition of "Wyoming Waltz." The film served as a screen test for Autry, who proceeded to be cast in several "singing cowboy" films.
Also in 1934, Knapp married Dr. George A. Snyder. Her wedding gift was reportedly a yacht.
By the early 1940s, Knapp's career had declined. Her last credited role was a small part in the crime comedy Roar of the Press (1941), concerning a newlywed reporter who investigates murders instead of going on a honeymoon. Her last known role was that Miss Morris, Dr. O'Brien's Secretary, in the comedy Two Weeks to Live (1943). The film was a spin-off of the radio comedy serial "Lum and Abner" (1931-1954).
Knapp retired from acting at the age of 37. Following her retirement, she concentrated on her family life. She remained married to Snyder, until his death in 1977. She became a widow at the age of 71.
In 1981, Knapp died St. Vincent's Hospital in Los Angeles, dying from heart disease. She died five days before her 75th birthday. Her remains were cremated, and her ashes were scattered at sea. - Ruth Dwyer was born on 25 January 1898 in Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA. She was an actress, known for The Reckless Age (1924), The Lurking Peril (1919) and Seven Chances (1925). She was married to William Jackie. She died on 2 March 1978 in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA.
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Dubbed "The Sweetest Girl in Pictures", Mary Brian started life as Louise Byrdie Datzler. She was born in Corsicana, Texas, and went to high school in Dallas. Her widowed mother had big plans for young Louise and took her to California in 1923, with the intention of getting her into the film business. After several unsuccessful attempts, a bathing beauty competition in Long Beach resulted in a second-prize letter of introduction to Herbert Brenon at Paramount and the girl with the dark brown curls and blue/gray eyes wound up being screen-tested for the role of Wendy in Peter Pan (1924), co-starring Betty Bronson and Esther Ralston (with whom she would form lifelong friendships). She not only got the part but a five-year contract with Paramount (1925-30) and a new name.
In 1926 she became one of the WAMPAS Baby Stars, which further enhanced her popularity. During the next few years she played ornamental leads and second leads as adolescent heroines, co-eds and ingénues. Many of those early silent features no longer exist today (Paris at Midnight (1926), among others), though surviving reels of some, like The Air Mail (1925), can still be accessed at the Library of Congress. Mary effortlessly made the transition from silents to talkies, co-starring with Gary Cooper as a feisty schoolmarm on the frontier in The Virginian (1929). One of her biggest hits was as Gwen Cavendish in the urbane comedy The Royal Family of Broadway (1930), with Ina Claire and Fredric March. A thinly disguised caricature of the private lives of the Barrymore dynasty, it hit the mark to the extent that Ethel Barrymore even threatened to sue Paramount. Mary acted three times opposite W.C. Fields, first as his daughter in Running Wild (1927), later reprising her role for The Man on the Flying Trapeze (1934) (the third was Two Flaming Youths (1927), another lost film).
Signing up for another four-year contract, Mary was one of the all-star cast in the musical Paramount on Parade (1930) and then was given another good part in the first talkie version of The Front Page (1931). However, she was dropped from her contract (alongside her more illustrious colleagues Fay Wray and Jean Arthur) when Paramount began to forsake innocence and charm in favor of glamour and sophistication. From 1932 Mary freelanced and also performed occasionally in vaudeville at the Palace Theater. Arguably her last good picture was the romantic comedy Hard to Handle (1933), with James Cagney as a grifter (hilariously promoting grapefruit diets, spoofing his infamous scene with Mae Clarke in The Public Enemy (1931)). In 1936 Mary went to England, where she co-starred opposite Cary Grant in The Amazing Adventure (1936). She then made several pictures for Poverty Row companies such as Majestic and Monogram, including the low-budget potboiler I Escaped from the Gestapo (1943).
Mary's motion picture career faded after 1937 and she turned towards the stage. In 1940 she went on tour with "Three after Three" , alongside Simone Simon and Mitzi Green and later entertained American troops in the South Pacific as part of the USO. In the 1950's, she enjoyed a brief resurgence on television as the mother of a "Gidget"-type teen in the syndicated sitcom Meet Corliss Archer (1954). After the death of her second husband, the film editor George Tomasini, Mary spent her retirement fulfilling a lifelong passion for portrait painting.- Like many another pretty girl, Edna Murphy got to Hollywood via modeling. She was a top New York photographer's model when she made her film debut in 1918. By 1920 she had worked her way up to starring roles, and Fox put her in a serial, Fantomas (1920), that was quite well received. She made films for a couple of more studios before she finally signed with Pathe, which put her back in serials again. Her career never really got out of serials or B pictures, and, having married producer/director Mervyn LeRoy in 1927, she retired from the screen in 1933.
- Lean, fair-haired Catherine Dale Owen, acclaimed as one of the world's ten most beautiful women of 1925, had the dubious distinction of co-starring in the film which did most to ruin John Gilbert's career in talking pictures. For most of the players concerned, His Glorious Night (1929) was anything, but. Provoking first giggles, then raucous laughter from the audience, Gilbert's excessively passionate declarations of love came out sounding high-pitched (either due to a problem with his voice or the sound recording of the time) and became all-the-more ridiculous, as they were delivered to Owen's icily phlegmatic Princess Orsolini (though the New York Times described her performance as 'captivatingly aloof'). In combination with the over-the-top dialogue (by Willard Mack), the total effect was comical rather than romantic.
Catherine Dale Owen graduated from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and first appeared on Broadway in 'Little Women' in 1920. She appeared in several other productions during the 1920's, notably 'Trelawny of the Wells'. There was something very 'upper crust' about many of her performances (she did come from a well-to-do family in Louisville, Kentucky) and tended to feel most at home playing society or aristocratic types. In her films, reviewers chiefly commented about her 'uncommon beauty'. She was decorative (but little else) in The Case of Sergeant Grischa (1930). Arguably, her most successful role on the screen was in the first all-technicolour, all-sound musical, The Rogue Song (1930), opposite Lawrence Tibbett. A contemporary review declared "beauty is impersonated by Catherine Dale Owen, whose charms suffice for any picture" (NY Times, January 29, 1930). As it turned out, in the absence of a greater acting range, charms alone did not suffice, and, after another four minor films, Catherine graced the screen no more. - Actress
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Kitty Kelly was born on 27 April 1902 in New York City, New York, USA. She was an actress, known for Beginner's Luck (1935), So Proudly We Hail! (1943) and Men of Chance (1931). She died on 29 June 1968 in Hollywood, California, USA.- Born on her father's farm in Green Ridge, Missouri, the youngest of five children. Moved with her family to Springfield, Missouri, where she grew up. Joined the Diemer Theatre Company during her second year of high school, and went on the road with a touring stock company at age 18, in 1907. Signed by the Powers Film Co. in New York in 1910, and proceeded to work thereafter for many companies in starring roles. In 1914, she starred in Pathe's The Perils of Pauline, the fifth serial chapter play ever made. She became an international star therein and was the leading heroine of serial films for the next several years. Following an unsuccessful attempt to achieve the same success in feature films, and with her health deteriorating, she retired in 1923, living in France until her death in 1938.
- Back in the day, winning the title of "Miss America" sometimes provided a springboard to Hollywood and a film career as a leading lady. This was certainly true in the case of California-born Rosemary La Planche.
Born on October 11, 1923, in the Southern California city of Glendale, Rosemary and her older sister Louise La Planche (by four years) both expressed a desire to perform as children. Each found work as a toddler in a silent movie before focusing on a normal public school upbringing. The interest in acting didn't wane in either of them, however, and during her years at John Marshall High School, Rosemary was cast in minor roles in two of Deanna Durbin Universal film vehicles.
In the meantime, both girls entered the beauty pageant circuit. Louise earned the title of "Miss Catalina" in 1939 and then "Miss North America" the following year. This notoriety led to a minor MGM career with bits in such films as Strike Up the Band (1940) and Ziegfeld Girl (1941). Rosemary followed suit by being crowned both "Miss California" and "Miss America" in 1941. This led to a featured role in the Hal Roach "B' film Prairie Chickens (1943) and a minor RKO contract that included unbilled bits as various "tootsie" types as hat check girls and chorines.
The oval-faced Rosemary finally hit leading lady status, albeit minor and brief, with two cult "Poverty Row" horrors -- Strangler of the Swamp (1945) and Devil Bat's Daughter (1946), a sequel to the Bela Lugosi camp classic The Devil Bat (1940) in which she plays Lugosi's daughter who is tormented by her father's memory. Following this, Columbia signed her up and she was put in as the female lead in the serial Jack Armstrong (1947) starring John Hart.
In 1947 the actress married radio host and producer Harry Koplan and had two children by him, slowly letting her movie career fade away as she focused more and more on family life. Her last role was in the Republic cliffhanger Federal Agents vs. Underworld, Inc. (1949) before retiring. Rosemary did have a Hollywood talk radio show in which she talked about fashion. In addition, she and her husband were given a three-day-a-week radio show as well. Scattered TV and commercial appearances came and went with assignments on such TV comedies as "Hennessey" and "The Donna Reed Show".
Once she retired, Rosemary focused on oil painting and exhibited her work from time to time. The family moved to Gallup, New Mexico where husband Harry continued to produce local TV programs until his death in 1973. Rosemary returned to the Los Angeles area but little was heard from her until her death from cancer at Glendale Adventist Hospital on May 6, 1979, at age 55. Both she and her husband were interred at San Fernando Mission Cemetery in Mission Hills, California. Louise, who showed up in the original silent The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923) and appeared primarily in uncredited roles throughout her 1930s and 1940s MGM and Paramount movie career, outlived her sister by over 40 years, dying at age 93 in 2012. - Actress
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American leading lady of the 1930s and 1940s, Virginia Bruce was born in Minnesota but grew up in Fargo, North Dakota, and came to California to attend college. Her blond good looks got her an entry into films, and after a few extra roles and bit parts she began to make serious inroads as a leading woman in secondary films and as the "other" woman in more prestigious productions. She married screen legend John Gilbert, then in his decline. Subsequently she was married to director J. Walter Ruben and to Turkish producer/director Ali Ipar, for whom she appeared in some Turkish films all but unseen in America. She died in 1982.- Actress
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Mary Louise Brooks, also known by her childhood name of Brooksie, was born in the Midwestern town of Cherryvale, Kansas, on November 14, 1906. She began dancing at an early age with the Denishawn Dancers (which was how she left Kansas and went to New York) and then with George White's Scandals before joining the Ziegfeld Follies, but became one of the most fascinating and alluring personalities ever to grace the silver screen. She was always compared to her Lulu role in Pandora's Box (1929), which was filmed in 1928. Her performances in A Girl in Every Port (1928) and Beggars of Life (1928), both filmed in 1928, proved to all concerned that Louise had real talent. She became known, mostly, for her bobbed hair style. Thousands of women were attracted to that style and adopted it as their own. As you will note by her photographs, she was no doubt the trend setter of the 1920s with her Buster Brown-Page Boy type hair cut, much like today's women imitate stars. Because of her dark haired look and being the beautiful woman that she was, plus being a modern female, she was not especially popular among Hollywood's clientele. She just did not go along with the norms of the film society. Louise really came into her own when she left Hollywood for Europe. There she appeared in a few German productions which were very well made and continued to prove she was an actress with an enduring talent. Until she ended her career in film in 1938, she had made only 25 movies. After that, she spent most of her time reading and painting. She also became an accomplished writer, authoring a number of books, including her autobiography. On August 8, 1985, Louise died of a heart attack in Rochester, New York. She was 78 years old.- Actress
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Marion Davies was one of the great comedic actresses of the silent era and into the 1930s.
Marion Cecelia Douras was born in the borough of Brooklyn, New York on January 3, 1897, the daughter of Rose (Reilly) and Bernard J. Douras, a lawyer and judge. Her parents were both of Irish descent. Marion had been bitten by the show biz bug early as she watched her sisters perform in local stage productions. She wanted to do the same. As Marion got older, she tried out for various school plays and did fairly well. Once her formal education had ended, Marion began her career as a chorus girl in New York City, first in the pony follies, and eventually found herself in the famed Ziegfeld Follies. But she wanted to do more than dance. Acting, to Marion, was the epitome of show business and aimed her sights in that direction. Her stage name came when she and her family passed the Davies Insurance Building. One of her sisters called out "Davies!!! That shall be my stage name", and the whole family took on that name.
Her first film was Runaway Romany (1917), when she was 20. Written by Marion and directed by her brother-in-law, the film wasn't exactly a box-office smash, but for Marion, it was a start and a stepping stone to bigger things. The following year Marion starred in two films, The Burden of Proof (1918) and Cecilia of the Pink Roses (1918). The latter film was backed by newspaper magnate, William Randolph Hearst. When Marion moved to California, she already was involved with Hearst. They lived together at his San Simeon castle, an extremely elaborate mansion which stands as a California landmark to this day. At San Simeon, they threw grand parties, many of them in costume. Frequent guests included Carole Lombard, Mary Pickford, Sonja Henie, and Dolores Del Río - basically all the top names in Hollywood and other celebrities including the mayor of New York City, President Calvin Coolidge, and Charles Lindbergh. Davies and Hearst would continue a long-term romantic relationship for the next 30 years. Because of Hearst's newspaper empire, Marion would be promoted as no actress before her.
She appeared in numerous films over the next few years, with The Cinema Murder (1919) being one of the most suspenseful. In 1922, Marion appeared as Mary Tudor in the historical romantic epic, When Knighthood Was in Flower (1922). It was a film into which Hearst poured in millions of dollars as a showcase for her. Although Marion didn't normally appear in period pieces, she turned in a wonderful performance, and the film turned a profit. Marion remained busy, one of the staples in movie houses around the country. At the end of the twenties, it was obvious that sound films were about to replace silents. Marion was nervous because she had a stutter when she became excited and worried she wouldn't make a successful transition to the new medium, but she was a true professional who had no problem with the change. Time after time, film after film, Marion turned in masterful performances. In 1930, two of her better films were Not So Dumb (1930) and The Florodora Girl (1930). By the early 1930s, Marion had lost her box office appeal and the downward slide began.
Had she been without Hearst's backing, she possibly could have been more successful. He was more of a hindrance than a help. Hearst had tried to push MGM executives to hire Marion for the role of Elizabeth Barrett in The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934). Louis B. Mayer had other ideas and hired producer Irving Thalberg's wife, Norma Shearer instead. Hearst reacted by pulling his newspaper support for MGM without much impact. By the late 1930s Hearst was suffering financial reversals and it was Marion who bailed him out by selling $1 million of her jewelry. Without her, the Hearst Corporation might not be where it is today. Hearst's financial problems also spelled an end to her career. Although she had made the transition to sound, other stars fared better, and her roles became fewer and further between. In 1937, a 40-year-old Marion filmed her last movie, Ever Since Eve (1937). Out of films and with the intense pressures of her relationship with Hearst, Davies turned more and more to alcohol. Despite those problems, Marion was a very sharp and savvy business woman.
When Hearst died in 1951, Marion did not really know what was going on. The night before, there had been a lot of people in the house. Marion was very upset by the large crowd of family and friends. She said it was too noisy, and they were disturbing Hearst by talking so loud. She was upset and had to be sedated. When she woke, her niece, Patricia Van Cleve Lake, and her husband, Arthur Lake, told her that Hearst was dead. Upon Patricia's death, it was revealed she had been the love child of Davies and Hearst. Marion was banned from Hearst's funeral.
She later started many charities including a children's clinic that is still operating today. She was very generous and was loved by everyone who knew her. She went through a lot, even getting polio in the 1940s. Marion married for the first time at the age of 54, to Horace Brown. The union would last until she died of cancer on September 22, 1961 in Los Angeles, California. She was 64 years old.- Actress
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A schoolteacher who became a stage actress (briefly), Lois Wilson entered films in 1916 at Paramount (her sisters, Diana Kane and Connie Lewis, also worked as actresses). Wilson played leading roles well into the sound era, and after she retired from the screen she worked sporadically in television and again appeared on stage.- Actress
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A mining engineer's daughter, blond, blue-eyed Betty Compson began in show business playing the violin in a Salt Lake City vaudeville establishment for $15 a week. Following that, she went on tour, accompanied by her mother, with an act called 'The Vagabond Violinist'. Aged eighteen, she appeared on the Alexander Pantages Theatre Circuit, again doing her violin solo vaudeville routine, and was spotted there by comedy producer Al Christie. Christie quickly changed her stage name from Eleanor to Betty. For the next few years, she turned out a steady stream of one-reel and two-reel slapstick comedies, frequently paired with Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle.
In 1919, Betty was signed by writer-director George Loane Tucker to co-star opposite Lon Chaney as Rose in The Miracle Man (1919). The film was a huge critical and financial success and established Betty Compson as a major star at Paramount (under contract from 1921 to 1925). One of the more highly paid performers of the silent screen, her weekly earnings exceeded $5000 a week at the peak of her career. She came to own a fleet of luxury limousines and was able to move from a bungalow in the hills overlooking Hollywood to an expensive mansion on Hollywood Boulevard. From 1921, Betty also owned her own production company. She went on to make several films in England between 1923 and 1924 for the director Graham Cutts.
During the late 1920's, Betty appeared in a variety of dramatic and comedic roles. She received good reviews acting opposite George Bancroft as a waterfront prostitute in The Docks of New York (1928), and was even nominated for an Academy Award for her portrayal of a carnival girl in The Barker (1928). She gave a touching performance in The Great Gabbo (1929), directed by her then husband James Cruze, as the assistant of a demented ventriloquist (Erich von Stroheim), with whom she is unhappily in love. That same year, she appeared in RKO's first sound film, Street Girl (1929), and was briefly under contract to that studio, cast in so-called 'women's pictures' such as The Lady Refuses (1931) and Three Who Loved (1931).
The stature of her roles began to diminish from the mid 1930s, though she continued to act in character parts until 1948.
Betty's personal fortunes also declined. This came about primarily as a result of her marital contract to the alcoholic Cruze, whom she had divorced in 1929. For several years, Cruze had failed to pay his income tax and Betty (linked financially to Cruze) ended up being sued by the federal government to the tune of $150,000. This forced her to sell her Hollywood villa, her cars and her antiques.
In later years, Betty Compson developed her own cosmetics label and ran a business in California producing personalized ashtrays for the hospitality industry.- Actress
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Mary Doran was a graduate of New York's Columbia University where she excelled in drama classes. Having abandoned initial aspirations of becoming a teacher, the wavy-haired, blonde then attended the respected Ned Wayburn Dancing Academy - like countless other hopeful actresses - to learn tap dancing. She first appeared on stage in 'Betsy' (1926), a rare flop by Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. (and Rodgers & Hart), then in the hit 'Rio Rita'. While on Broadway, she was spotted by MGM talent scouts. Her film career lasted just eight years, from the beginning of her contract in 1928 to 1936. She briefly featured as a leading lady in at least one major film: The Broadway Melody (1929). After that, her name descended to the lower depths of the cast list, though she did have a funny bit in the Harold Lloyd screwball comedy Movie Crazy (1932). From the mid-30's, Mary was relegated to bit parts and 'quota quickies' and called it a day.- Actress
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In a career that covered six decades, Constance Collier evolved into one of Broadway and London's finest tragediennes during the first half of the 1900s. While the regal, dark-featured beauty who bore classic Romanesque features enjoyed a transcontinental career like a number of her contemporaries, her theatre success did not encourage an enviable film career. It wasn't until her senior years that Constance engaged in a number of well-regarded supporting performances on screen. Later respect also came as one of Hollywood's premiere drama and voice coaches.
She was born Laura Constance Hardie in Windsor, Berkshire on January 22, 1878, the only child of Auguste Cheetham and Eliza Georgina (Collier) Hardie, both minor professional actors. Young Constance made her stage debut at the age of three as a fairy in a production of "A Midsummer Nights Dream" and the die was cast. By age 6 she was appearing with famed actor/manager Wilson Barrett in "The Silver King". An early break occurred in her teens (1893) when the tall, under-aged beauty was given consent by her parents to become a member of the famed George Edwardes-Hall "Gaiety Girls" dance troupe. Groomed extensively in singing, dancing and elocution, she managed to stand out among those others in the chorus line and went on to featured status in two of Edwardes-Hall's biggest hits, "A Gaiety Girl" and "The Shop Girl" (both 1894).
Legit ingénue roles in "Her Advocate", "Tommy Atkins" and "The Sign of the Cross" followed. Just after the turn of the century (1901) she was invited to join the theatre company of the esteemed Herbert Beerbohm Tree, who had been searching for a comparably tall leading lady to play opposite him. She remained with his company at His Majesty's Theatre for six years where she built up a formidable classical resumé. Alongside Sir Herbert in such plays as "Ulysses", "The Eternal City" and "Nero", Constance also proved a fine Shakespearean with her Olivia, Viola, Portia, Mistress Ford and Cleopatra at the top of the list. She also made a noteworthy Nancy Sykes in "Oliver Twist" which she toured extensively both here and abroad. During this time (1905), she married British-born actor Julian L'Estrange and together they became an internationally respected stage couple.
Ms. Collier made a successful American stage debut in 1908 with "Samson" at the Garrick Theatre in New York opposite well-known American actor/playwright William Gillette, thereby placing herself solidly among the most popular and respected actresses of the day. Among her subsequent Broadway offerings were "Israel" (1909), "Trelawney of the Wells" (1911), "Oliver Twist" (1912), "Othello" (1915) and "The Merry Wives of Windsor" (1917).
Sir Herbert and Constance both appeared as extras in the silent D.W. Griffith classic Intolerance (1916). While still in the U.S., he filmed Macbeth (1916) with Constance as his Lady Macbeth. Not only was the Shakespearean film poorly received but her starring appearances in two other silents released earlier that year, The Tongues of Men (1916) and The Code of Marcia Gray (1916), were also overlooked.
Tragedy struck in October of 1918. She and her husband, L'Estrange, had begun a Broadway run together of "The Ideal Husband" only a month earlier. During the run he contracted the deadly Spanish influenza which had spread worldwide and died of pneumonia at the untimely age of 40. The grief-stricken actress finished the play's run into November then returned to England where she appeared in the films The Impossible Woman (1919), Bleak House (1920) and The Bohemian Girl (1922). Among her London theatre successes were "Our Betters" (1923) at the Globe Theatre, which ran for over twelve months, and "Hamlet" wherein she played Queen Gertrude opposite John Barrymore's Great Dane (1925) at the Haymarket Theatre. Constance also moved into writing and penned her own play "Forever", which was based on the George L. Du Maurier novel "Peter Ibbetson". She then co-wrote with actor/friend Ivor Novello the play "The Rat" (1924), in which Novello starred and which Collier produced.
The advent of sound provided the exciting opportunity for the eloquent Collier to work in the U.S., but not necessarily as an actress. By helping established silent film stars transition into talkies, she became Hollywood's foremost drama and voice coach. Finding less and less time for stage work, she directed a Broadway production of "Camille" in 1931. She did, however, manage to appear in productions of "Peter Ibbetson" (1931), which she also staged, "Dinner at Eight (1932) and "Hay Fever" (1933) all in New York. Her final Broadway curtain call was taken as Madame Bernardi in "Aries Is Rising" (1939) at New York's Golden Theatre.
In later years, she continued to coach (among her students were Marilyn Monroe) and write, but she also found time to return to the large screen in a dozen or so films, usually providing stately support. She appeared in a range of movies from the Shirley Temple vehicle Wee Willie Winkie (1937) to the film noir piece The Dark Corner (1946). Better known roles during this period include those in Stage Door (1937), playing, quite appropriately and amusingly, the resident drama coach, An Ideal Husband (1947), excellent as Lady Markby, and Alfred Hitchcock's Rope (1948). Her last film was Whirlpool (1950).
Constance Collier died of natural causes in New York on April 25, 1955, and left behind her 1929 memoirs "Harlequinade". She had no children.- Actress
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Leila Hyams was one of the top leading ladies of the early talkie pre-code years. She was a likable, pleasing actress with a charming presence. She had much spark, personality and charisma, and a touch of down-to-earthiness and naturalness that won over movie fans; they could relate to her. A versatile, excellent actress she was, able to conform to any role and maintain that special heartfelt sincerity she always displayed in her role. Freaks (1932) was her best-known movie, in which she played Venus and gave a compassionate performance. Her image on screen was beautiful but not conceited, not high and mighty, tough but sweet and she had sex appeal but always came across as a lady who managed to keep her innocence. Those were the qualities that carried her to fame and set her apart from the other leading ladies of early Hollywood.- Actress
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Nina Mae McKinney is known as the seductress "Chick" from Hallelujah (1929), the first all-black, all-sound musical. Even though she was acknowledged as a great actress, singer and dancer by audiences in the U.S. and Europe, today she is mostly forgotten. She certainly had the looks, enthusiasm, and acting talent to succeed. But as she and other black women of her time learned, there wasn't much work for a black woman other than as a maid, "mammy" figure, or prostitute. Hollywood was scared to take a chance on an attractive black woman, to make her into a glamorous sex symbol as they would with an attractive white actress. There would be no true glamorous black female sex symbol until Lena Horne's arrival in 1942. Nina learned, as did other black actresses, that there was little success to be had after an initial big splash.
McKinney was born in 1913 in the small town of Lancaster, South Carolina, eventually to become an international figure as an actress, singer and band leader. Her given name was Nannie Mayme McKinney. Her parents, Hal and Georgia McKinney, moved from Lancaster to New York City and left the child with her great-aunt, Carrie Sanders. "Aunt Carrie" lived in a small apartment in the backyard of Col. Leroy Springs, father of businessman and flying ace Elliott White Springs. Aunt Carrie worked as a cook and housekeeper for the Springs family. As soon as Nannie Mayme was old enough she ran errands for Lena Jones Springs, who gave her a bicycle to ride to the post office to pick up the mail. Nannie Mayme's first public performances were riding stunts, or "cutting capers", as amazed bystanders called it. She appeared in plays at the black Lancaster Industrial School (founded by Springs), where she quickly learned the lines of the entire cast.
At about age 13 she headed for New York to stay with her mother, Georgia Crawford McKinney. Choosing Nina Mae as her stage name, she managed to get a job as a chorus girl in the Broadway play "Blackbirds". Her lively performance caught the attention of MGM producer/director King Vidor, who gave her a starring role in Hallelujah (1929). It was the first all-black sound musical features, even though many theaters billed the film as "a story of murder and redemption in the Deep South." This melodrama was not widely acclaimed at the time, but movie historians now see it as an interesting introduction to black theater (one critic described it as having "a crude power").
Nina was signed by MGM to a five-year contract, but in that period she made only two films, Safe in Hell (1931) and Reckless (1935) (in which she didn't even appear on screen; she dubbed Jean Harlow's songs). Hollywood could accept black character actresses like Hattie McDaniel and Butterfly McQueen having a close relationship with white characters in a film, but would not allow a beautiful black actress the same natural role. However, her first film gave her the opportunity to appear in a number of all-black cast or black-themed films, including Sanders of the River (1935) with Paul Robeson, Dark Waters (1944) and Pinky (1949) (as Rozelia), which is considered her finest film.
She had much more success on stage. She played Jeanne Eagels' role in "Rain" at Harlem's famed Apollo Theatre. She proved that she could well have become one of America's enduring performers--she had the talent, the beauty, and the star power, but she realized that the doors to real success were permanently barred to her in Hollywood. She soon left the U.S. for Europe. She made film and stage appearances all over the Continent, from Paris and London to Dublin and Budapest, and became known as "The Black Garbo".
When war broke out in Europe she returned to New York, where she married jazz musician Jimmy Monroe and put together a band and toured the country. In the 1950s and 1960s she lived in Athens, Greece, where she was known as the "Queen of Night Life." In the late 1960s she came back to New York but did not perform, and died in New York City in 1967, at age 54, of a heart attack. Her death went virtually unnoticed; trade papers such as Variety and black publications such as Jet and Ebony didn't even print an obituary, and one newspaper that did only called her an "entertainer" and didn't name the church where the funeral would be held.
Not everyone forgot her, though; in her home town of Lancaster, South Carolina, on a wall across from the Courthouse, is a mural with portraits of famous people from Lancaster. Among them two faces stand out. One is former President Andrew Jackson. The other is Nina.- She was one of the archetypal flappers of the Jazz Age. Blonde, blue-eyed and impeccably coiffured, we recall Gwen Lee as tall, blonde flibbertigibbets and gold-digging vamps in films of the late 1920s and early '30s. Gwen was born in Nebraska and attended school in Omaha. Having suitably shortened her name from 'Gwendolyn LePinski' to 'Gwen Lee', she began her career as a department store model. An early foray to the stage as a dancer then led to her 'discovery' by the director Monta Bell and a contract with MGM in 1925. Gwen was named a WAMPAS baby star in 1928 and was duly rewarded with starring or co-starring roles in pictures like Lucky Boy (1929), A Lady of Chance (1928) and The Actress (1928). Once it became apparent that silent pictures were on the way out she began to ardently take voice lessons. Her time in the limelight turned out to be rather brief, alas. Her career and public image took a substantial hit when the synchronization of an early talkie, Untamed (1929), went badly awry: during a dancing sequence with Robert Montgomery, poor Gwen could be heard mouthing the dialogue of her partner (and vice versa) -- no doubt to the great amusement of the audience. Not long after, her dizzy screen personae apparently carried over into real life, as she was twice sued by department stores for non-payment of goods. In 1931, she was also taken to court by her mother who claimed guardianship, charging that her daughter was 'incompetent to handle her affairs'. Inevitably, Gwen's movie roles declined both and quality and in quantity. Down to bit parts, her career came to a swift end in 1938 after appearing in a bottom-of-the-bill potboiler at one of the Poverty Row outfits. After that, she faded from the scene. Gwen died in Reno, Nevada, in 1961, almost forgotten, at the age of 56.
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Sultry, sleepy-eyed Argentine brunette Mona Maris was born Rosa Emma Mona Maria Marta Capdevielle, of Spanish-French parentage. Her well-to-do background ensured a quality education with an emphasis on foreign languages. Mona mastered three of them, but, alas, English was not among them. This mattered little early on, as her career began in silent films in 1925, first in England and France, then with Universum AG in Germany. Moving to the U.S. in 1929, she was signed by Fox to co-star opposite Warner Baxter in two above-average westerns: Romance of the Rio Grande (1929) and the The Arizona Kid (1930) (in which she was rather overshadowed by a young Carole Lombard). In fairness, neither film gave her much to do, except be ornamental. In 'Arizona Kid', she was also unwisely permitted to sing, which was not her forte. Combined with her rather strained command of English, it was somewhat inevitable that she would find herself relegated to acting in a string of Spanish-language versions of American films.
Mona Maris is remembered today less for her sojourn in Hollywood, than for her on-screen chemistry with legendary singer Carlos Gardel in the musical drama Cuesta abajo (1934). Filmed in Argentina, it co-starred Mona as a femme fatale and proved to be her defining screen role. She auditioned for the part via telephone from the Paramount lot (having just completed shooting of Kiss and Make-Up (1934)) for French-born director Louis J. Gasnier, winning out over fellow candidates Raquel Torres and Rosita Montenegro. "Cuesta abajo" was well-received upon its release in the U.S., becoming the most successful Spanish-language film up to that time. Following Gardel's untimely death in 1935, Mona absented herself from the screen for six years.
She returned to Hollywood again in the early 40's, free-lancing for most of the majors, in films like The Falcon in Mexico (1944) and Tampico (1944). Even though, her English was now fluent, she remained mostly typecast as south-of-the-border senoritas. After an uncredited bit in the Bob Hope comedy Monsieur Beaucaire (1946), her career wound down with a third-billed part in a third rate swashbuckler for Republic, The Avengers (1950). Shortly after that, she called it a day and in 1960 retired to Lima, Peru, with her second husband, Dutch millionaire Herman Rick.- Actress
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Creamy-complexioned brunette Marion Shilling was a beauty inclined to be overlooked when recalling those fairly well-known "B" leading ladies of the 1930s. Born in 1910, the Denver-born actress started her career promisingly enough with a featured role in MGM's Wise Girls (1929). From there she moved to lead and second lead status opposite William Powell in Shadow of the Law (1930) and Constance Bennett in The Common Law (1931). Among others, she appeared top billed in what would be considered "women's pictures" such as Forgotten Women (1931) and Shop Angel (1932). Although Marion was a charming addition to any film, her career began to wane within a few years, however, and she soon was relegated to love interest roles in poverty-row pictures. Westerns became her particular genre, with "prairie flower" roles opposite Buck Jones in the serial The Red Rider (1934) and Stone of Silver Creek (1935), Tim McCoy in The Westerner (1934) and Rex Bell in Idaho Kid (1936), among others. She retired from films at age 25 after co-starring with Hoot Gibson and Rex Lease in the oater Cavalcade of the West (1936). The following year she married a real estate mogul, a union that would last over 50 years. Little heard from over the years, Marion received a Golden Boot Award in 2002 from the Motion Picture and Television Fund for her contributions to the western genre. She died at age 93 of natural causes in Torrance, California.- Actress
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One of the finest, if relatively short-lived, character actresses of Hollywood, during the 1930s and 1940, Gladys George was born into an acting family who were literally on the road at the time of her birth.
Her parents were actually English and touring with a Shakespearean theater company in Patten, Maine, when she was born (although usually noted as 1900, other sources put it as late as 1904). Her parents stayed in America, and by the time she was 3, they formed a vaudeville family act; The Three Clares (Gladys's middle name).
Beginning then, George would focus herself on developing an acting career.
As George gained experience, she developed an interest in the stage and while still in her teens, she first trod the Broadway boards in 1918 in the original play "The Betrothal", the star being Isadora Duncan. Her experience in stock meshed with her natural talent and a face to frame the emotion of great pathos as well as hard cased and worldly wise. She was in good hands when she worked for the famous Broadway star Pauline Frederick, who made a fortune on ' The Great White Way', and via her touring stock company.
Frederick's career took on new dimension when she turned to film as well (1915), and George was probably influenced to follow her.
George began working in silent films - first as the young female romantic lead in Red Hot Dollars (1919) and would steadily move in lead and good costarring roles through 1921.
Around this time, George was severely burned in an accident which caused a delay in her early film career. She returned to stock and married for the first time.
By 1934, she had a new husband - the millionaire manufacturer, Edward H Fowler who was able to further her career. After only a month into her next show (Queer People)'s run, George abruptly left the company, when Paramount offered her a screen test. After the test, MGM signed her for a contract. Her first film was not surprisingly an adapted play, Straight Is the Way (1934). In this, her first sound picture, George played the mouthy bad girl to good effect, displaying her acting ability.
In her personal life, she had a socialite's talent for partying, and alcohol, and romance on the edge. She had only been married to Fowler about a year when he found her with her leading man from her then-Broadway hit comedy, Personal Appearance (ironically, she played a carousing, man-hungry star, and the press loved the coincidence).
Her next film was not until 1936 and as a loan-out to Paramount, but it was pay-dirt for George, as the mother-against-the-world, in Valiant Is the Word for Carrie (1936),George made her role the film's focus, and she was so good at that she received a Best Actress nomination for that year. It and perhaps her personal life had much to do with her biggest role the next year, Madame X (1937), as the long suffering soap opera-like Jacqueline Floriot.
Though some mark it as the beginning of a downturn to character roles, George pulled out all the stops, and played the role of Madame du Barry, in Marie Antoinette (1938) (starring, Norma Shearer with real gumption
Sadly, over the next year, physical changes caused by her carousing lifestyle were becoming more apparent (as the speakeasy owner, Panama Smith in The Roaring Twenties (1939) with its famous ending of the fatally wounded James Cagney staggering up the church steps after having rubbed out old rival Humphrey Bogart. He staggers back down diagonally and falls professionally face up with George quickly kneeling next to him. 'He used to be a big shot', she says as the police arrive).
In the 1940s, George spent a year-or-so on Broadway,and was cast in several soap opera B-films, where she alternated between sympathetic, or tough-as-nails characters. She was usually right on, but the roles were throwaways, compared to what she was capable of doing.
Her most well-remembered role of this period was as the widow of murdered detective, Miles Archer, in the legendary The Maltese Falcon (1941) (with Humphrey Bogart, once again). One is hard-put to even recognize her in black lace, mourning profiles and the few lines she has.
The same year she had a good comedic lead role, displaying her range - from hard headed to soft hearted with the Dead End Kids in Hit the Road (1941).
But a standout role of the decade was so small, and yet it was subtlety nuanced for showing how she excelled at displaying pathos of the human condition, in the great classic of post-World War II homecoming, The Best Years of Our Lives (1946). As Hortense Derry, she was the second wife of aging failure Pat Derry (played by Roman Bohnen). That they lived near poverty's starkly shown in their 'home'; a hovel under an overpass. George, frowzy with little makeup and clutching her old threadbare robe, eagerly patronizing and quick to speak, with a slight edge in her voice.
Except for showing some of the old fire in her supporting role in Flamingo Road (1949), George only appeared in a few more roles; including a couple of brief TV appearances in the early 1950s.
Sadly, Gladys George was worn out; her hard living lifestyle, having caused her serious afflictions, including cirrhosis of the liver, advancing throat cancer, and cumulative heart disease. Though she's listed as having passed away due to a stroke, there was suspicion that she had taken an overdose of sleeping pills to put an end to her story.- Actress
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Trained as a ballet dancer she turned to acting. Stage work at Det ny Teater and Det kongelige Teater without much success. Started acting in films in 1917 with much more appeal. In her silent film career, she worked with some of the worlds most prominent directors. Her low key but intense acting made her characters very believable. After a long hiatus, she reappeared in 1942 in small parts.- Phyllis Crane was born on 7 August 1914 in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. She was an actress, known for Three Little Pigskins (1934), So This Is College (1929) and The Forward Pass (1929). She died on 12 October 1982 in New York City, New York, USA.
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About as reliable as one could ever find, character actress Mary Treen was a familiar face to most and could always be counted on to bring a bit of levity to any film scene. A minor actress for much of her career, she managed to secure a plain, unassuming niche for herself in 40s, 1950s/60s Hollywood.
She was born Mary Louise Summers in St. Louis, Missouri in 1907, her father dying while she was still an infant. Raised in Southern California by her mother, who once performed under the stage name Helene Sullivan, and her stepfather, a physician, she attended Westlake School for Girls as well as a convent where she tried out successfully in school plays.
Treen began dancing in vaudeville shows and revues before seeking her fame in the movies. Tall (5'9") and stringy-framed, she formed a musical comedy duo with Marjorie Barnett, who was 5'3", billing themselves as "Treen and Barnett: Two Unsophisticated Vassar Co-eds". Much of the comedy was centered around their difference in height. Not a beauty by Hollywood standards, she relied on humor to get attention. In 1934, Warner Brothers signed her up after seeing her in a local play.
After three years, she freelanced. Her scores of pudgy-cheeked nurses, waitresses, career girls, wallflowers and confidantes enhanced many a comedy or, at the very least, offered a brief respite in a heavier drama. A few of her highlights would include such films as Kentucky Moonshine (1938), I Love a Soldier (1944) (the role was written especially for her), Don Juan Quilligan (1945), and the Christmas classic It's a Wonderful Life (1946) (as James Stewart's cousin Tilly). In later years both Jerry Lewis and Elvis Presley utilized her talents in their movie vehicles.
She was given a bit more to do on television and actually stole some scenes as maid/baby nurse Hilda Hinkelmeyer on The Joey Bishop Show (1961) for three seasons. She typically guested on lightweight sitcoms such as "The Andy Griffith Show", "Green Acres", "Here's Lucy", "Happy Days", and "The Dukes of Hazzard".
Perhaps because she could play old maid types so easily in later years, she was often thought to have never married. She actually did marry in 1944 to Herbert C. Pearson, a wholesale liquor dealer. They had no children. He died in 1965. She later moved in with her ex-vaudeville partner, Marjorie Barnett-Klein, also widowed. In later years the two performed their old routines to the delight of other senior citizens. Treen was living in Balboa Beach, California when she died of cancer in 1989, aged 82.- Joan Peers was born on 19 August 1909 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. She was an actress, known for Applause (1929), Around the Corner (1930) and Tol'able David (1930). She died on 11 July 1975 in San Francisco, California, USA.
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Judith Furse was born on 4 March 1912 in Camberley, Surrey, England, UK. She was an actress and producer, known for Black Narcissus (1947), Carry on Spying (1964) and Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939). She died on 29 August 1974 in Canterbury, Kent, England, UK.- Actress
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Mary Astor was born Lucile Vasconcellos Langhanke on May 3, 1906 in Quincy, Illinois to Helen Marie Vasconcellos, an American of Portuguese and Irish ancestry from Illinois, and Otto Ludwig Langhanke, a German immigrant. Mary's parents were very ambitious for her and wanted something better for her than what they had, and knew that if they played their cards right, they could make her famous. Recognizing her beauty, they pushed her into various beauty contests. Luck was with Mary and her parents because one contest came to the attention of Hollywood moguls who signed her when she was 14.
Mary's first movie was a bit part in The Scarecrow (1920). It wasn't much, but it was a start. Throughout 1921-1923 she continued her career with bit or minor roles in a number of motion pictures. In 1924, she landed a plum assignment with a role as Lady Margery Alvaney opposite the great John Barrymore in the film Beau Brummel (1924). This launched her career to stardom, as did a lively affair with Barrymore. However, the affair ended before she could star with him again in the classic Don Juan (1926). By now, Mary was the new cinematic darling, with each film packing the theaters.
By the end of the 1920s, the sound revolution had taken a stronghold on the industry, and Mary was one of those lucky actresses who made the successful transition to "talkies" because of her voice and strong screen presence. Mary's career soared to greater heights. Films such as Red Dust (1932), Convention City (1933), Man of Iron (1935), and The Prisoner of Zenda (1937) kept her star at the top. In 1938, she turned out five feature films that kept her busy and in the spotlight. After that, she churned out films at a lesser rate. In 1941 she won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role as Sandra Kovac in The Great Lie (1941). That same year she appeared in the celebrated film The Maltese Falcon (1941), but her star soon began to fall.
Because of her three divorces, her first husband Kenneth Hawks' death in a plane crash, alcoholism, a suicide attempt, and a persistent heart condition, Mary started to get smaller film roles. She appeared in only five productions throughout the 1950s. Her final fling with the silver screen was as Jewell Mayhew in Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964).Although it was her final film, she had appeared in a phenomenal 123 motion pictures in her entire career.
Mary lived out her remaining years confined to the Motion Picture Country Home, where she died of a heart attack on September 25, 1987. She was 81.- Actress
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Isabel Jewell, like other actresses in Hollywood in the 1930s, suffered from chronic typecasting. The diminutive, platinum-haired daughter of a doctor and medical researcher seemed to be often playing hard-boiled, tough-talking broads: gangster's molls, dumb blondes, prostitutes and, of course, poor "white trash" Emmy Slattery in Gone with the Wind (1939). However, she also played ordinary 'nice' next-door girl types, for example in Marked Men. While stardom eluded her for the most part, she nonetheless remained a busy supporting actress with an impressive array of A-budget films to her credit. Signed as an MGM contract player, she reputedly earned up to $3,000 a week -- a small fortune at the time. Isabel was educated at St. Mary's Academy in Minnesota and at Hamilton College in Kentucky. After years in stock companies (including an 87-week stint in Lincoln, Nebraska), she hit the big time after getting a part on Broadway in "Up Pops the Devil" (1930). With just three hours of rehearsal time, she delivered her performance to great critical acclaim and had even better reviews as a fast-talking telephone operator in "Blessed Event". She reprised this role in the screen version of Blessed Event (1932) and her movie career was effectively launched. While her parts were often small, they could also be memorable, as in Ceiling Zero (1936) and Marked Woman (1937). Other acting highlights include her consumptive prostitute finding salvation in Lost Horizon (1937), and her poignant against-type performance as an ill-fated seamstress on her way to the guillotine in A Tale of Two Cities (1935).
In the 1940s and '50s, her roles diminished from small to bits to uncredited and she fell on hard times: in 1959 she got into trouble with the law in Las Vegas for passing bad checks and, two years later, spent five days in jail for drunk driving. She was found dead in her home in April 1972, aged just 64. One of her two former husbands was writer-producer-director Owen Crump (1903-1998). A lasting memory of Isabel Jewell is her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Vine Street.- Actress
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Rosalind Marquis was born on 11 September 1915 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. She was an actress, known for Gold Diggers of 1937 (1936), Talent Scout (1937) and Marked Woman (1937). She was married to William L Waller, Thomas E. Saxe Jr and Edwin Diamond Axton II. She died on 12 June 2006 in Naples, Florida, USA.- Mayo Methot was born on 3 March 1904 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. She was an actress, known for Jimmy the Gent (1934), Virtue (1932) and Counsellor at Law (1933). She was married to Humphrey Bogart, Percy Tredegar Morgan Jr. and John M. La Mond. She died on 9 June 1951 in Portland, Oregon, USA.
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Beginning as a chorus girl at age 14, Ruth Chatterton became a Broadway star with "Daddy Long Legs" in 1914. She appeared in such shows as "Mary Rose" and "Come Out of the Kitchen" before moving to Hollywood in 1925. As her film career faded in the late 1930s, she returned to the stage in revivals, and radio and TV performances, including "Hamlet." In the 1950s, she began a successful writing career. She had no children.- Merna Kennedy was born on 7 September 1908 in Kankakee, Illinois, USA. She was an actress, known for The Circus (1928), Ghost Valley (1932) and The Big Chance (1933). She was married to Forrest Brayton and Busby Berkeley. She died on 20 December 1944 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Madge was born as Margaret Philpott in Texas. She got her start in theater working with a stock company in Denver. Put under a personal contract by a Broadway producer, Madge got her big break when she replaced Helen Hayes in the Broadway play "Dear Brutus". Her success as a stage actress led to her being signed by Fox Pictures. After appearing in a number of movies in the early 20's, Madge was best remembered for her performances in 'Lorna Doone (1922)' and 'The Iron Horse (1924)'. A strong will contrasted the screen image of innocence and led to disagreements over roles by the late 20's. Madge had been cast in a number of movies each year and was in Fox's first dialogue feature 'Mother Knows Best (1928)'. But her refusal to work in the film 'The Trial of Mary Dugan', which was bought expressly for her, led to her contract with Fox being terminated. It would be 3 years until she returned to the screen in the cult favorite 'White Zombie (1932)' with Bela Lugosi, but her career was not going anywhere as Madge was just one of those old silent stars. For the next few years, she appeared in a small number of low budget films and by 1936 her film career was over. In 1943, she would again appear in the headlines when she shot her lover, millionaire A. Stanford Murphy after he jilted her to marry another woman. She did marry two other men, Carlos Bellamy, whose last name she kept, and then to Logan F. Metcalf. Both marriages ended in divorce. She has no children.
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A brassy, blue-eyed platinum blonde of the 1930s in the Jean Harlow tradition. Joan was the daughter of Hollywood cinematographer Charles Rosher and appeared as a child in Mary Pickford movies (on which her father worked as cameraman) billed as Dorothy Rosher. She acted in some amateur dramatics as well but seems to have had little professional training. However, The Times in 1929 referred to her "extraordinary speaking and singing voice" at this crucial period when sound pictures began to replace silent cinema. When she was signed by Universal for King of Jazz (1930), she adopted the stage name Joan Marsh. A fairly busy actress alternating leads and second leads throughout the decade and into the mid-40s, she is perhaps best remembered opposite Warner Oland in Charlie Chan on Broadway (1937) and as Dimples in Road to Zanzibar (1941). Long under contract to MGM, she was also featured in two Greta Garbo films, Inspiration (1931) and Anna Karenina (1935). In lighter fare her characters tended to have names like Beanie, Toots or Cuddles. It seems, Joan Marsh was also an accomplished dancer, especially adept at the two most popular dances of the era, the Charleston and the Black Bottom. On screen she performed a ballroom routine with Edward J. Nugent in Dancing Feet (1936). On radio, Joan replaced Beatrice Lillie as hostess of the musical variety show Flying Red Horse Tavern in 1936, as well providing the vocals for Lennie Hayton's Orchestra.
Joan's first husband was the screenwriter Charles Belden, her second, Captain John Morrill of Army Air Transport Command.
Her hobbies included horse riding, tennis and golf.
Joan retired from acting after her final picture for Poverty Row outfit Monogram in 1944 and in later years owned a Los Angeles stationary business, Paper Unlimited.- Actress
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Dolores Costello was once known as the Goddess of the Silent Screen but is probably best remembered today as Drew Barrymore's grandmother. She was born in 1905 to actors Maurice Costello and Mae Costello. Her father began his film career in 1908 and soon became the most popular matinée idol of his day. He gave Dolores and her sister Helene Costello their screen debuts in 1911. Dolores appeared in numerous pictures throughout the 1910s and the early 1920s, mostly with her father and sister. She later appeared on the New York stage with her sister in "George White Scandals of 1924." They were then signed by Warner Bros. where Dolores met future husband John Barrymore.
Barrymore soon made Dolores his costar in The Sea Beast (1926). During their lengthy kissing scene Dolores fainted in John's arms. They married in 1928 despite the misgivings of her mother, who would die the following year at age 45. They had two children, DeDe in 1931 and John Drew Barrymore in 1932. Dolores took time off from her movie career in the early 1930s to raise her young children. Her sister Helene and her new husband, actor Lowell Sherman, successfully convinced Dolores to divorce Barrymore in 1935, mainly because of his excessive drinking.
After the divorce Dolores returned to acting, appearing in several big-budget pictures, and her career seemed to be back on track. Her physical appearance, however, was greatly damaged from the harsh studio makeup used in the early years. The skin on her cheeks was in the process of deteriorating, forcing her into early retirement. She lived in semi-seclusion on her Southern California avocado farm, Fallbrook Ranch, where much of the memorabilia and papers from both the Barrymore and Costello family were destroyed in a flood.- Actress
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Vivacious, blonde Mae Clarke was exposed to cinema from an early age, her father being an organist in a motion picture cinema. Growing up in Atlantic City, New Jersey, she learned how to dance. At the tender age of 13 she was already performing in nightclubs and amateur theatricals. In 1924, she was one of "May Dawson's Dancing Girls", a New York cabaret act, where she was "discovered" by producer Earl Lindsay and promptly cast in a minor part at the Strand Theatre on Times Square. She then performed as a dancer and burlesque artist at the Strand Roof nightclub, situated above the theatre (which was managed by Lindsay) and at the Everglades Club, earning $40 a week. While there she struck up a lifelong friendship with fellow actress Ruby Stevens, who would later change her name to Barbara Stanwyck.
In 1926, Clarke got her first chance in "legitimate" theater, appearing in the drama "The Noose" with Stanwyck and Ed Wynn. This was followed by the musical comedy "Manhattan Mary" (1927). The following year (1928), at age 17, she married her first husband, Lew Brice, brother of Fanny Brice. After further vaudeville experience, Clarke was screen-tested by Fox and landed her first movie role in 1929. While she was top-billed in films like Nix on Dames (1929), she was clearly headed for B-movie status and left Fox just over a year later. This resulted in better roles for her, though she was generally cast in "hard-luck" roles. She played prostitute Molly Malloy in the hugely successful Lewis Milestone-directed The Front Page (1931)) and, on the strength of this performance, was signed by Carl Laemmle Jr. at Universal and cast to star in Waterloo Bridge (1931) as a ballerina-turned-streetwalker, a part made famous by Vivien Leigh in the sanitized MGM remake, Waterloo Bridge (1940). Reviewer Mordaunt Hall described Clarke's complex performance as "capital" (New York Times, September 5, 1931).
Also in 1931, she had the brief and uncredited (but iconic) role for which she will always be known: the hapless girlfriend on the receiving end of a grapefruit pushed into her face by James Cagney in The Public Enemy (1931). She later appeared with Cagney (a close friend in real life) in still more adversarial scenes, in Lady Killer (1933) and Great Guy (1936). She had some feisty comedy roles in Three Wise Girls (1931) with Jean Harlow, and starring in Parole Girl (1933). She was third-billed in James Whale's Frankenstein (1931), as Elizabeth, the title character's bride-to-be. Her best moment in the film -- one of sheer terror -- comes when she is confronted by the monster (Boris Karloff) in her own bedroom. Sadly, Clarke's career suffered several major setbacks, beginning in 1932, from which it never fully recovered. She had a nervous breakdown in June of that year (and another in 1934), most likely caused by overwork and marital problems. This was followed by a serious car accident in March of 1933. In addition to that, her sexy screen personae became restricted by the new, strict Hollywood Production Code.
When she returned to the screen it was to be in B-pictures. She had some rewarding parts in some films for Republic, notably The House of a Thousand Candles (1936) and the civil war romance Hearts in Bondage (1936), with Lew Ayres. Despite an image change from frizzy blonde to brunette she had few opportunities to shine after 1938, except, perhaps, as heroine of the Republic serial King of the Rocket Men (1949). By the beginning of the 1950's, she was largely reduced to doing cameos and walk-on roles, at best playing minor parts in westerns. She did, however, make several notable appearances on television, particularly on The Loretta Young Show (1953).
Clarke, a star of Pre-Code Hollywood, fell on hard financial times towards the end of her life. After her last film appearance in Watermelon Man (1970), she retired to the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital in the Woodland Hills section of Los Angeles and devoted her remaining years to her favorite hobby: painting in the style of Swiss abstract artist Paul Klee. She died there of cancer in 1992, aged 81.- Actress
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Brunette Dorothy Jordan was a graduate of Southwestern University and the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. Trained as a ballerina, she first graced the stage as a chorus girl in top flight musicals, like "Funny Face" (1927), with Fred Astaire, and "Treasure Girl" (1928), with Gertrude Lawrence and Clifton Webb. This led to what turned out to be a fairly short and desultory movie career, beginning with a run-of-the-mill thriller, Black Magic (1929). Dorothy was soon cast as assorted sultry dames in Devil-May-Care (1929) and Call of the Flesh (1930), opposite Latin star Ramon Novarro. Rather more demure was her Bianca, the overtly obedient (but deceptively cunning) younger sister of Kate (Mary Pickford) in The Taming of the Shrew (1929). Contemporary critics were frequently unimpressed with Dorothy's acting, whether it was speaking her lines too quickly (Hell Bound (1931)) or delivering them as a 'memory citation' (Beloved Bachelor (1931)). She gave rather better account of herself in more downtrodden waif-like roles, notably as Marie Dressler's daughter in Min and Bill (1930), as an unwed mother in Bondage (1933) and as simple-minded Southern girl Betty Wright in The Cabin in the Cotton (1932).
After her marriage to famed producer Merian C. Cooper in 1933 -- and finding decent roles ever harder to come by -- Dorothy gave up acting to raise a family. She emerged from retirement in 1937, unsuccessfully screen testing for the role of Melanie in Gone with the Wind (1939). She made a second comeback upon her husband's successful entreaties to a long-term friend and collaborator, the director John Ford. Dorothy appeared in supporting roles in three of Ford's films, before leaving the screen for the final time. In her later years, she became somewhat reticent about discussing her career as a movie actress.- Adrienne Dore was born on 23 May 1910 in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, USA. She was an actress, known for Beyond London Lights (1928), The Famous Ferguson Case (1932) and The Rich Are Always with Us (1932). She was married to Burt Kelly. She died on 26 November 1992 in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Loretta Blake was born on 17 April 1898 in Ohio, USA. She was an actress, known for Ghosts (1915), A Little Princess (1917) and The Absentee (1915). She was married to Nat G. Deverich. She died on 30 July 1981 in Los Angeles California, USA.
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Laura La Plante was 15 years old when she entered films as a Christie Comedy Bathing Beauty. By 1921, she had played a number of roles including a Tom Mix Western called The Big Town Round-Up (1921) for Fox and The Old Swimmin' Hole (1921) for First National. Laura, now 17, next signed with Universal, where she appeared in shorts, serials and many supporting roles. Over the next few years, she would become one of the leading stars at Universal and acted in in dramas, mysteries and comedies. Some of her more important films were the adventure Crooked Alley (1923), the comedy Sporting Youth (1924), the drama Smouldering Fires (1925) and the mystery The Cat and the Canary (1927). One of her successful comedies, Skinner's Dress Suit (1926), was directed by her husband, William A. Seiter. When sound came to Universal, she was one of the silent film stars who made the transition. She played a leading role in the sound film Show Boat (1929) and made her first all-talking picture with Hold Your Man (1929). By 1930, she decided that she had enough and left Universal, which terminated her contract. She went to England, where she would appear in a few more films over the years. Laura returned to Hollywood in 1935, where she again retired from the screen.- Actress
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Virginia-born Mary Duncan went to Hollywood after critics praised her acting in the lead in "The Shanghai Gesture" on Broadway. While making Five and Ten (1931), she became friends with the film's lead, Marion Davies. The two women attended a polo match, where Davies introduced Duncan to Stephen "Laddie" Sanford, an international polo star and director of the Bigelow-Sanford Carpet Company. She and Sanford married in 1933, after which she retired from films and moved with him to Palm Beach, Florida. They also maintained three homes in the New York area.
In retirement, she devoted herself to philanthropic works, doing in major fund-raising for several charities. In addition, the Sanfords were socially very prominent, and for many years the former Mary Duncan reigned as the grande dame of Palm Beach society. A neighbor who became a close friend was Rose Kennedy, mother of President John F. Kennedy. Those whom the Sanfords entertained at their mansion included the King and Queen of Jordan and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. She continued her charity work until very late in life, and died quietly in her sleep, aged 98.- Actress
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Manya Roberti was born on 2 March 1908 in Kiev, Kiev Governorate, Russian Empire. She was an actress, known for The Spider (1931) and Delicious (1931). She was married to Louis Schneider and Irvin Russell Deibert. She died in December 1983.- Actress
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Jean Parker was born Lois Mae Green in 1915. Her father was Lewis Green, a gunsmith and hunter, and her mother was Pearl Melvina Burch (later known professionally as Mildred Brenner), one of 18 children of a pioneer family that came to Montana from Missouri and Iowa. Jean's maternal grandfather was a Presbyterian minister.
Parker was an accomplished gymnast and dancer, and was adopted by the Spickard family of Pasadena during her formative years when both her father and mother were unemployed during the Great Depression. As Lois Green, she entered a poster-painting contest and won for portraying Father Time. Ida Koverman, assistant to MGM studio chief Louis B. Mayer, heard that a pretty teenage girl had won the contest; she contacted the would-be starlet, and had Mayer offer her an MGM contract.
Parker made several important films in her career, including The Ghost Goes West (1935) with Robert Donat; Sequoia (1934) with Russell Hardie, shot in the Sequoia National Forest near Springville, California; Little Women (1933) with Joan Bennett and Katharine Hepburn; Operator 13 (1934) with Marion Davies; and many other films.
After several successful cross-country trips entertaining injured servicemen during World War II, Parker wed and divorced Curt Grotter of the Braille Institute in Los Angeles; and moved on to New York to star in the play "Loco". She also starred on Broadway in "Burlesque" with Bert Lahr, and in the hit "Born Yesterday", filling in for Judy Holliday. Parker's fourth and last husband, actor Robert Lowery, played opposite her as Brock in the play for a short stint. By this marriage, Parker bore her only child, a son, Robert Lowery Hanks.
Parker died on November 30, 2005 at the Motion Picture Country Home and Hospital in Woodland Hills, California, aged 90, from a stroke. She was survived by her son and two granddaughters, Katie and Nora Hanks.- Actress
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Born in January, 1901, Mary Eaton was one of 'The Seven Little Eatons' famous in the '20s and '30s. In fact, she received the greatest fame of her fellow performing brothers Joseph Eaton and Charles Eaton and sisters Pearl Eaton and Doris Eaton. Sister Evelyn was a stage manager and brother Robert was never lured into the business. The star of both the 1920 and 1922 editions of the Ziegfeld Follies, blond Mary was Florenz Ziegfeld's backup in case his biggest star, Marilyn Miller, proved too recalcitrant. Eaton later replaced Miller as Eddie Cantor's leading lady in the phenomenally successful Broadway hit_Kid Boots (1923)_ and again in 1927 in Sunny. But Mary was a natural for talking picture stardom and was teamed with an aging Broadway juvenile, Oscar Shaw, in the Marx Brothers_The Cocoanuts (1929)_. She followed that up in the lead role of the all star cast_Glorifying the American Girl (1929)_. However, fame fades quickly and the Eaton family found themselves unwanted by the end of the '30s, on stage and on film. Mary, Pearl and Charles turned to alcohol. Mary married three alcoholics and died young of severe cirrhosis of the liver in 1948 aged 47. Pearl was murdered in her Manhatten Beach apartment in 1958 aged 60. The crime has never been solved. Charles died in 2004, aged 94. Doris died in 2010, aged 106.- Nancy Drexel was born on 6 April 1910 in New York City, New York, USA. She was an actress, known for Mason of the Mounted (1932), Partners (1932) and Speed Madness (1932). She was married to Thomas H. Ince Jr.. She died on 19 November 1989 in San Juan Capistrano, California, USA.
- Virginia got her start with a Milwaukee stock company and also did some film work with Essanay Studios in 1917 Chicago. Back in the theater, it would be 3 more years before she was brought out to Hollywood to act as leading lady to Bert Lytell. Virginia would continue to appear in films throughout the decade and she would be an established star at Universal by the mid 20's. The bulk of her films would be between 1924 and 1927. While she had no trouble adjusting to sound in The Isle of Lost Ships (1929), which she made at First National, her big salary and declining appeal both conspired to end her film career. Unable to find a suitable studio, she would make her last film The Last Zeppelin (1930) at Tiffany Studios. In 1931, she married Charles Farrell and retired from the screen to live in Beverly Hills before moving to Palm Springs.
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Dixie Lee was born on 4 November 1909 in Harriman, Tennessee, USA. She was an actress, known for Redheads on Parade (1935), Love in Bloom (1935) and Night Life in Reno (1931). She was married to Bing Crosby. She died on 1 November 1952 in Holmby Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA.- Actress
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Thelma Todd was born in Lawrence, Massachusetts, an industrial city near the New Hampshire state line. She was a lovely child with good academic tendencies, so much so that she decided early on to become a schoolteacher. After high school she went on to college but at her mother's insistence entered several beauty contests (apparently her mother wanted her to be more than just a "schoolmarm"). Thelma was so successful in these endeavors that she entered on the state level and won the title of "Miss Massachusetts" in 1925 and went on to the "Miss America" pageant; though she didn't win, the pageant let her be seen by talent scouts looking for fresh new faces to showcase in films. She began to appear in one- and two-reel shorts, mostly comedy, which showcased her keen comic timing and aptitude for physical comedy--unusual in such a beautiful woman.
She had been making shorts for Hal Roach when she was signed to Paramount Pictures. Her first role--at age 21--was as Lorraine Lane in 1927's Fascinating Youth (1926), a romantic comedy that was Paramount's showcase vehicle for its new stars. Thelma received minor billing in another film that year, God Gave Me Twenty Cents (1926). The next year she starred with Gary Cooper and William Powell in the western Nevada (1927). That year also saw her in three more films, with The Gay Defender (1927) being the most notable. It starred Richard Dix as a man falsely accused of murder.
As the 1920s closed, Thelma began to get parts in more and more films. In 1928 and 1929 alone she was featured in 20 pictures, and not just comedies--she also did dramas and gothic horror films. Unlike many silent-era stars whose voices didn't fit their image or screen persona, Thelma's did. She had a bright, breezy, clear voice with a pleasant trace of a somewhat-aristocratic but unsnobbish New England accent and easily made the transition to sound films. In 1930 she added 14 more pictures to her resume, with Dollar Dizzy (1930) and Follow Thru (1930) being the most notable. The latter was a musical with Thelma playing a rival to Nancy Carroll for the affections of Buddy Rogers. It was a box-office hit, as was the stage production on which it was based. The following year Thelma appeared in 14 more films, among them Let's Do Things (1931), Speak Easily (1932), The Old Bull (1932), and On the Loose (1931). Her most successful film that year, however, was the Marx Brothers farce Monkey Business (1931). While critics gave the film mixed reviews, the public loved it. In 1932 Thelma appeared in another Marx Brothers film directed by Norman Z. McLeod, Horse Feathers (1932). She also starred in This Is the Night (1932), a profitable film which featured Cary Grant in his first major role. In 1934 Thelma made 16 features, but her career would soon soon come to a grinding halt. In 1935 she appeared in such films as Twin Triplets (1935) and The Misses Stooge (1935), showcasing her considerable comic talents. She also proved to be a savvy businesswoman with the opening of "Thelma Todd's Sidewalk Café", a nightclub/restaurant that catered to show-business people. Unfortunately, it also attracted some shady underworld types as well, and there were rumors that they were trying to take over her club and use it as a gambling establishment to fleece the wealthy Hollywood crowd. According to these tales, Thelma and her boyfriend, director Roland West, wouldn't sell their establishment once they found out what the gangsters had in mind, which incurred the enmity of the wrong people with whom to have differences of opinion. Whether or not the stories were true, on December 16, 1935, 29-year-old Thelma was found dead in her car in her garage in Los Angeles. Her death was ruled suicide-by-carbon-monoxide-poisoning. At the time, as today, many felt that her death was actually a murder connected to the goings-on at her club, a theory that was lent credence by the fact that no one who knew her had ever seen her depressed or morose enough to worry about her committing suicide. Another factor that aroused suspicion was that her death was given a cursory investigation by the--at the time--notoriously corrupt Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office and the case was quickly and unceremoniously closed. Her death has remained controversial to this day.
Three films she made before her death weren't released until the following year: Hot Money (1936), An All American Toothache (1936), and The Bohemian Girl (1936). The latter saw her quite substantial role cut down so much that she was barely glimpsed in the picture. Thelma had made an amazing 115 films in such a short career, and her beauty and talent would no doubt have taken her right to the top if not for her untimely demise.- Actress
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This pretty, apple-cheeked brunette was in many supporting roles in many 1930s and 1940s films. She is best remembered as a supporting player in Columbia two-reel comedies, opposite such legends as the Three Stooges, Buster Keaton, Andy Clyde, and Harry Langdon. Dorothy made her stage debut at the tender age of just 2 ½, in East Lynne at the Portland Theatre. She became "Ms. Maine" in a beauty contest, selected by Rudolph Valentino. Her stage roles included Helen Of Troy, Young Sinners, and Springtime For Henry. Dorothy entered films in 1932, and appeared in numerous roles in movie such as Under Eighteen (1931), As the Earth Turns (1934) (as leading lady Jean Muir's troublesome stepsister), I Give My Love (1934), High Sierra (1940), and Manpower (1941). Thanks to the wonder of television, and the constant popularity of the Three Stooges, she is seen almost daily around the world wherever the Stooge shorts are aired. Some of Dorothy's hobbies were swimming, roller-skating, painting, and poetry. She retired from the big screen in 1942, and married musician Paul Drake soon thereafter. They were married until her passing on August 9, 1990.- Actress
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Wynne Gibson was born on 3 July 1898 in New York City, New York, USA. She was an actress, known for Children of Pleasure (1930), The Crosby Case (1934) and Double Cross (1941). She was married to John Gallaudet. She died on 15 May 1987 in Laguna Niguel, California, USA.- Making her film debut as an extra in 1917, Leatrice Joy soon graduated to playing opposite comics Billy West and Oliver Hardy. Director Cecil B. DeMille took her under his wing and starred her in several of his films. Often playing career girls dressed in mannish suits, or sophisticated society girls, she is generally credited with starting the bobbed-hair craze in the 1920s. She retired shortly after the advent of sound, but made occasional appearances in small supporting roles over the years.
- Known for her genteel ways and stately beauty in tea service drama, British actress Nora Swinburne was born Elinore Johnson on July 24, 1902, in Bath, England. Performing on stage as both actress and dancer from the age of 10, her father, Henry Swinburne Johnson, manufactured toys for a living.
She was a member of Clive Currie's Young Players in 1914 and appeared in shows during that year. Educated at Rosholme College, she trained for the arts at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Building up her stage reputation with such pieces as "Suzette" (1917), "Yes, Uncle!" (1918), "Scandal" (1919), and the title role in "Tilly of Bloomsbury" (1921), her attractiveness proved quite suitable for films, entering silent pictures in 1920. She appeared in a handful of sophisticated fare throughout the early part of the decade such as Branded (1920), The Fortune of Christina McNab (1921), Hornet's Nest (1923), and A Girl of London (1925).
Divorced from actor Francis Lister, she was married to actor Edward Ashley at the time she met Esmond Knight while appearing in the play "Wise Tomorrow" in 1937. Actually, both actors were married at the time, but they engaged in a long, discreet affair until both were free. They finally married in the late 1940s and enjoyed a long union together. They would appear in several plays over the years from "Autumn Crocus" (1939) to "The Cocktail Party" (1974). Ms. Swinburne enjoyed great theatrical success playing the role of Dinah Lot in the play "Lot's Wife" (1938), which she subsequently reproduced under her own management, and later replaced Diana Wynyard in the memorable war drama "Watch on the Rhine" in 1943.
By the advent of sound, Ms. Swinburne had been related to opulent supports in films, usually appearing as ladylike mothers or socialite types in plush Gainsborough dramas. Some of her later films would include Perfect Understanding (1933), The Citadel (1938), The Man in Grey (1943), Man of Evil (1944), Jassy (1947), Christopher Columbus (1949), Quartet (1948), The River (1951) (with husband Knight), Quo Vadis (1951) (as Pomponia), Helen of Troy (1956) (as Hecuba), Decision at Midnight (1965) (again with Knight), Interlude (1968) and Anne of the Thousand Days (1969).
An avid gardener by nature, Ms. Swinburne would die of old age in 2000, thirteen years after husband Knight. - Actress
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Born into a show-business family--her father was a director and her mother was a film cutter--Virginia Grey made her film debut at age 10 as Eva in Uncle Tom's Cabin (1927). After a few more films as a child actress, she left the business to finish her schooling. Returning to films as an adult in the 1930s, she started out getting extra work and bit parts, but soon graduated to speaking roles and was eventually signed to a contract by MGM. The studio gave her leading parts in "B" pictures and supporting roles in "A" pictures. She left MGM in 1942 and went out on her own, working at almost every studio in Hollywood. She worked steadily in both films and TV, and retired from the business in 1970.- Actress
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Colleen Moore was born Kathleen Morrison in Port Huron, Michigan. Her father was an irrigation engineer and his job was good enough to provide the family a middle-class environment. She was educated in parochial schools and studied at the famed Detroit Conservatory. Colleen's family moved to Atlanta, Georgia, and later to Tampa, Florida, where she spent some of her happiest years. She described her childhood as a happy one where her parents were very much in love. In fact, she claims she never heard her parents argue with each other, although she admitted they had their differences. As a child she was fascinated with films and the queens of the day such as Marguerite Clark and Mary Pickford and kept a scrapbook of those actresses; she even kept a blank space for the day when she would be a famous star and could put her picture there. When a neighbor down the street from her had a piano delivered, Colleen talked the deliverymen into taking the wooden packing crate to her house, and she set it up as a stage. It was the beginning of her career, as she and her friend performed plays for the other neighborhood children. By 1917 she would be on her way to becoming a star. Colleen's uncle, Walter C. Howey, was the editor of the "Chicago Tribune" and had helped D.W. Griffith make his films The Birth of a Nation (1915) and Intolerance (1916) more presentable to the censors. Knowing of his niece's acting aspirations, Hovey asked Griffith to help her get a start in the motion picture industry. No sooner had she arrived in Hollywood than she found herself playing in five films that year, The Savage (1917) being her first. Her first starring role was as Annie in Little Orphant Annie (1918). Colleen was on her way. She also starred in a number of westerns opposite Tom Mix, but the movie that defined her as a "flapper" was the classic Flaming Youth (1923), in which she played Patricia Fentriss. By 1927 she was the top box-office draw in the US, pulling in the phenomenal sum of $12,500 a week (unlike many other young, highly-paid actresses, however, Colleen did not spend her money frivolously. Instead, she put it into the stock market, making very shrewd investments). She successfully made the transition into the "talkie" era of sound films. Her final film role was as Hester Prynne in The Scarlet Letter (1934). She did make one final appearance in the TV mini-series Hollywood (1980), but it was her silver screen appearances that mattered most. After she retired she wrote two books on investing and went so far as to marry two stockbrokers. On January 25, 1988, Colleen died of an undisclosed ailment in Paso Robles, California. She was 88.- Actress
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Pola Negri was born in Lipno, Poland, and moved to Warsaw as a child. Living in poverty with her mother, a teenage Pola auditioned and was accepted to the Imperial Ballet. Due to an illness that ended her dancing career, she soon switched to the Warsaw Imperial Academy of Dramatic Arts and became an actress. By 17 she was a star on the Warsaw stage, but World War I would soon change the theater scene. Without the theater, Pola turned to films. With her new career in pictures and her stage success in "Sumurun", she went to Berlin and was teamed with German director Ernst Lubitsch. The Lubitsch-Negri combination was very successful and the roles that Pola played were earthy, exotic, strong women. One of her films, Passion (1919), was optioned and retitled "Passion" for exhibition in America. The film was such a success that by 1922 she and Lubitsch were both given contracts to work in Hollywood. While her first few films showed some success, they were overshadowed by her reported romances with such stars as Charles Chaplin and Rudolph Valentino. Forbidden Paradise (1924), made with Lubitsch, and Hotel Imperial (1927) were two of her more successful films. However, three things conspired to end her career in Hollywood: (1) The perception that her mourning for Rudolph Valentino was insincere, though Negri did describe him as the love of her life; (2) The Hays Office codes that would not allow her to show the very traits that made her a sex-siren in Europe; (3) Her thick Polish accent would not play in the sound pictures that were coming into vogue.
Pola Negri returned to Europe and eventually made films for UFA, which was under Nazi management. In 1941 she returned to America penniless. She made Hi Diddle Diddle (1943) and became an American citizen in 1951. Her next and last movie was The Moon-Spinners (1964).
She died of pneumonia in San Antonio, TX, in 1987.- Actress
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Joyzelle Joyner was born on 27 August 1905 in Alabama, USA. She was an actress, known for Just Imagine (1930), The Sea Beast (1926) and Close Harmony (1929). She was married to Phil Rosen. She died on 30 November 1980 in California, USA.- Thelma Hill was born Thelma Floy Hillerman in Emporia, Kansas. Her family moved to Los Angeles, California during her early teen years. Living just blocks from the Mack Sennett studio, Thelma became one of the star struck, wide eyed girls who hung out near the studio peering through the gates. It took her five years, but eventually, using her womanly wiles, she weaseled her way through the gates and quickly caught the eye of Sennett himself and F. Richard "Dick" Jones, a producer and director who would work with Thelma in over a dozen films.
Thelma did bit parts and extra work throughout her school years, working weekends and during vacations. Because of her youth, beauty, and spunk, she quickly became "everybody's protégé."
When Mack Sennett revived his famous "Bathing Girls," Thelma the first to don the suit, as most of her parts up till then had been in bathing suits. In her first movie, "Picking Peaches," she had dived off a pier.
Because of her "mah jongg" bathing suit, she became quickly known as the "Mah Jongg Bathing Girl," although she'd already carried around a nickname since her first days on the set: "Pee-Wee," the little black-eyed youngster who grew up on the old lot.
As she matured she was hired to double for Mabel Normand, who, because of a roaring cocaine habit often showed up late for work or not at all. It was about this time that Thelma became a flapper; a style of women who were known for their androgynous bodies, flimsy and revealing clothing, and the traditional male behaviors smoking, heavy drinking, and casual sex. It was the drinking that eventually led to Thelma's downfall. Near the end of her first year in film, 1924, her big break came when she got the lead opposite Ralph Graves in the two reel comedy "Love's Sweet Piffle" directed by Edgar Kennedy.
Thelma was the first Sennett bathing beauty, and one of the few, to make it into feature films. She starred opposite Ben Turpin in "The Prodigal Bridegroom," and got one of the two female leads in the hilarious Laurel & Hardy "Two Tars" in 1928.
When Hollywood brought Jimmy Murphy's comic strip "Toots and Casper" to life on the big screen, Thelma got top billing opposite Bud Duncan as Casper, with Cullen Johnson as Buttercup and George Gray as Casper's boss. The series ran from 1927 through 1929.
One biographer wrote that she starred opposite a solo Stan Laurel (in "Pie-Eyed") but calling 24 seconds on the screen as a starring role seems a stretch.
Everyone in Hollywood knew Thelma was a real trooper with a knack for comedy. She willingly dropped her good looks to don thick black-rimmed glasses and a wild hairdo and work on two reel comedies rather than full length dramatic films. No part was too small for her. Later, during talkies, she played a bit part of a patient in the waiting room in W. C. Fields' "The Dentist." Today, all copies have been so cut up and repaired that her short scene has been lost.
She left Mack Sennett for a short stint with the Film Booking Offices of America (FBO) (also known as FBO Pictures Corporation) in 1927, and afterwards was signed by MGM to play a role in "The Fair Coed." It was about this time that she got engaged to St. Elmo Boyce, her director on the "Toots and Casper" shorts and a former Sennett cinematographer. Boyce and Hill both had drinking problems, Boyce having DUI arrests on his record. The relationship and Boyce's career began to fizzle and Boyce committed suicide in 1930 by poisoning. He'd just finished work on Columbia Pictures' most expensive film to date, "Dirigible."
Thelma Hill did not make the transition to talkies well. Her drinking and depression were starting to take their toll. She began working free lance for a variety of studios. She had made over 20 films in 1929, but with the advent of talkies and the end of frenetic slapstick comedy, she would work on just seven films over the next five years.
Her first sound film was "The Golfers" with the Sennett studios. Her next role was in a musical called "Two Plus Fours" featuring Bing Crosby as one of the Rhythm Boys. She took a small role in Frank Capra's drama, "The Miracle Woman," starring Barbara Stanwyck, a few more small, uncredited parts, one short educational film starring a very, very young Shirley Temple, and ended her career in 1934 at "The Lot of Fun," Hal Roach Studios, in the movie "Mixed Nuts." Her role was small, but unforgettable as she becomes the target of a professor of entomology's Arabian Sand Fleas.
She married John Sinclair (I), W. C. Fields' stunt double and gag writer, and settled into the role of housewife less than ten minutes away from the original Mack Sennett studios.
Whether fueled by her depression or her husband's hanging around with W. C. Fields, famous for his drinking, Thelma drank away her health and youth and died before her thirty-second birthday in 1938.
Biographers mistakenly attribute her cause of death to acute alcohol poisoning (erroneously reported as a "stomach ailment" in her obituary), but records show she had spent the last month of her life at the Edward Merrill Sanitarium (mistakenly listed in Culver City; actually in Venice, CA). She had been diagnosed with chronic alcoholism in 1932 and with pellagra (a B-vitamin deficiency, specifically niacin, often found in alcoholics) in 1937. The effects of malnutrition caused by alcoholism affect all organs in the body, and her official cause of death following an autopsy was cerebral hemorrhage.
Her body was cremated and the ashes were interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park. - Actress
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Sally Starr was born in Pittsburgh. She first attracted attention as a chorus girl in George White's 'Scandals'. (She announced scenes and said 'thankyou'). Gus Edwards caught her singing and dancing in a Los Angeles revue. He introduced Starr to director Sam Wood who cast her opposite Robert Montgomery in the early talkie So This Is College (1929). She was promoted by MGM as a peppy girl who apparently caught the bus to and from the studio every day. Her dark brown hair and eyes, and five feet and 104 pounds stature led to her being dubbed by Photoplay as "a vest pocket edition of Clara Bow".- She traced her lineage back to the first Spanish governor of California. Her great-grandfather on her mother's side was Hungarian-born Agoston Haraszthy, dubbed the father of Californian viticulture. Leggy, olive-complexioned Natalia Ringstrom grew up and was educated in the San Francisco Bay area. Little is known of her early years, except that she was trained in traditional Spanish dance (including La Jota, the folk dance of Aragon), and, while still in her early teens, travelled the short distance to San Francisco to perform in cabaret. She was spotted there as a blossoming talent by the renowned ballroom dancers Fanchon and Marco, eventually joining their revue on tour. Next stop: Broadway. Now billed as Natalie Kingston, she was featured as one of the chorines of the 1920 "Brevities" at the Winter Garden Theatre. There was to be no career on the stage, however, since Natalie returned to California, soon to becoming a Mack Sennett Bathing Beauty.
Natalie joined Sennett's Keystone 'Fun Factory' sometime in 1923. Over the next three years, the soulful-eyed brunette worked her way steadily up the cast list, from ornamental bit parts and walk-ons to fifth billing(Romeo and Juliet (1924)); fourth (Wall Street Blues (1924)); third (Galloping Bungalows (1924)); to finally co-starring with comic greats Harry Langdon, Billy Bevan and Ben Turpin in a series of classic two-reel farces, including Remember When? (1925) and His First Flame (1927) (as a gold digger). When Natalie eventually left Sennett for Paramount, she had every intention of finding 'serious' dramatic work. Instead, the studio continued to use her as a bankable comedy asset in three back-to-back six-reel features: Wet Paint (1926), Miss Brewster's Millions (1926) and The Cat's Pajamas (1926), all palpable box-office hits. In between flappers and 'nice girls', Natalie also had a turn as a vamp in Eddie Cantor's Kid Boots (1926). Her first dramatic role finally arrived as second lead in Ronald Colman's The Night of Love (1927). By this time, her status had grown by virtue of being selected a WAMPAS Baby Star by the Western Association of Motion Picture Advertisers (an event for actresses deemed to have potential, usually accompanied by substantial media coverage). Now under contract at First National, Natalie was given full star billing for her role as a Russian sculptress in the military burlesque Lost at the Front (1927).
The following year, she came to the fore as girl castaway Mary Trevor in Tarzan the Mighty (1928). The film generated sufficient revenue for Universal to warrant an immediate sequel, Tarzan the Tiger (1929), in which Natalie continued on as the heroine (albeit now as the screen's fifth 'Jane'). From then, it was pretty much all downhill. With the advent of talking pictures, Natalie became one of many silent stars and starlets who, for one reason or another, failed to make the transition. There were a few supporting roles in B-graders with prophetic titles like Forgotten (1933). Her final credited effort was an incongruously cast romantic comedy, His Private Secretary (1933), starring a very young John Wayne. After that, Miss Kingston faded from the scene and back into obscurity. - Actress
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Pert, curly-haired Ruth Hiatt was born Ruth Redfern, a WAMPAS Baby Star of 1924, former child actress, dancer and comedienne. She had moved with her family from San Diego and made her screen bow at age eleven. Ruth was briefly under contract with the Lubin company in 1915, later moving on to Educational and then to Mack Sennett's Keystone. Gravitating towards comedy, she was helped along the way by a close friendship with the writer/director Lloyd Bacon, who introduced her to star comedian Lloyd Hamilton. Hamilton, who had been looking for a suitable leading lady, was impressed after meeting the personable, dimple-cheeked and (most of all) photogenic,lass.
One of Ruth's first feature film roles was a small part in Douglas Fairbanks's epic swashbuckler Robin Hood (1922). However, she established herself primarily as a leading lady of one- and two-reelers, often cast in slapstick farce opposite comics like Hamilton (Going East (1924)) or Harry Langdon (Saturday Afternoon (1926)). At the height of her popularity, she co-starred in all 23 instalments of the 'Smith Family' series of domestic comedies (1926-28).
As the 1920's drew to a close, Ruth wisely varied her repertoire and managed to weather the transition from silent pictures to sound. She now showed up in anything from crime dramas (Shanghai Rose (1929)) to Ken Maynard westerns (Sunset Trail (1932)). Ruth continued on in supporting roles of ever diminishing size until 1941, notably as the 'whispering nurse' in The Three Stooges Oscar-nominated short Men in Black (1934). After her retirement from acting, she established a make-up business.- Actress
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Mary Ann Jackson was born on January 14, 1923. She was one of the earliest child stars of the twenties and thirties. Although she was better known as one of the child performers from the famed "Our Gang" comedies that are still popular today, Mary Ann began her film career at the age of four in 1927's "Smith's Pony." Although she didn't make any full length motion pictures during 1928, Mary Ann more than made up for it the following year when she appeared in six major pictures such as "Bouncing Babies" and "Lazy Days." After eight films in 1930 and six in 1931, Mary Ann left the film world after "Little Daddy" at the age of eight.- Actress
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Alice Day began her film career as a Mack Sennett Bathing Beauty in her mid-teens, and by age 18 was starring in features. Her younger sister, Marceline Day, was also an actress, but Alice never managed to eclipse her sister's career. She was soon working mainly in B pictures and shorts, and managed to stay steadily employed at various studios until 1932 when she retired after Gold (1932).- Actress
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Born Mildred Linton in Ottumwa, Iowa on December 12, 1909, Karen Morley was adopted by a well-to-do family who moved to Los Angeles in the mid-1920s. She enrolled at Hollywood High School and studied for a career in medicine at UCLA, but a class in theater changed her career ambitions.
After studying at Pasadena Playhouse, she was signed by Fox Studios and her big chance came when producer Howard Hughes selected her to play the blond moll in the 1932 crime epic, Scarface (1932), Morley was put on a contract by MGM and starred in such early 1930s movies as Mata Hari (1931) (with Greta Garbo), Arsène Lupin (1932) (with John Barrymore), Dinner at Eight (1933) (with Jean Harlow), as well as films with Lionel Barrymore, Wallace Beery and Boris Karloff. In 1934, Morley left MGM after arguments about her roles and her private life, including her intention to start a family and her marriage to director Charles Vidor. She continued working as a freelance performer, appearing in King Vidor's Our Daily Bread (1934), Michael Curtiz' Black Fury (1935) and Pride and Prejudice (1940).
In 1947, her screen career came to a halt when she testified before the House Committee on Un-American Activities and refused to answer questions about her possible enrollment in the Communist Party. Afterward, she continued promoting left-wing causes and married actor Lloyd Gough. In 1954, she ran unsuccessfully as a New York lieutenant governor candidate for the American Labor Party. Morley died March 8, 2003 at the Motion Picture Country House in Woodland Hills.- Actress
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Charlotte acted on stage from the age of five. At thirteen, she made her Broadway debut in 'Courage' (1928), two year later reprising her role for the screen version. Paramount wanted to cast an unknown actress in the title role of Alice in Wonderland (1933) and picked Charlotte from 7000 applicants worldwide (she was 57th to audition). Unfortunately, the picture flopped -- despite an excellent supporting cast which featured the likes of W.C. Fields, Cary Grant, Gary Cooper and Edna May Oliver. Charlotte then appeared as Bo-Peep in March of the Wooden Soldiers (1934) with Laurel & Hardy, but, thereafter, finding meatier roles few and far between. She had one final fling with the movies as the perfunctory female lead in Monogram's Bowery Blitzkrieg (1941), opposite the East Side Kids. She seems to have lost heart after that and returned to acting in stock theater. Charlotte eventually left L.A. and relocated to southern California where she had a lengthy tenure as the executive secretary to the Roman Catholic Archbishop of San Diego.- Actress
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A performer since childhood (she was widely known then as "Cuddles"), pert and pretty, raven-haired Lila Lee was brought to Hollywood by Paramount mogul Jesse L. Lasky and debuted in a starring role with The Cruise of the Make-Believes (1918) as a poor girl supported by a rich admirer. Following her appearance as a servant wench in Cecil B. DeMille's Male and Female (1919), Paramount starting grooming her to eventually supplant the highly temperamental and troublesome Gloria Swanson. Lila's talent, however, was lighter in weight and, though she enjoyed great popularity in such films as Blood and Sand (1922) with Rudolph Valentino, Another Man's Wife (1924), The Midnight Girl (1925), Love, Live and Laugh (1929) co-starring George Jessel and The Unholy Three (1930) opposite Lon Chaney, Swanson had little to worry about. A series of bad judgments and highly publicized bouts with illness led to Lila's swift decline. She made a few dismal comebacks on stage and in TV soaps in the 1950s but to little fanfare. Her last picture was as a hayseed mom in the deservedly obscure Cottonpickin' Chickenpickers (1967). Her actor-turned-writer son James Kirkwood Jr., however, earned fame on his own for penning the play "P.S. Your Cat Is Dead" and the musical "A Chorus Line." Lila died of a stroke in 1973.- Actress
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An actress from the age of 6, Anita appeared with Walter Hampden in the Broadway production of Peter Ibbetson. As a juvenile actor, Anita used the name Louise Fremault and made her film debut at 9 in the film The Sixth Commandment (1924). She continued to make films as a child actor, and in 1929, Anita dropped her "Fremault" surname, billing herself by her first and second names only. Unlike many child actors, her film career continued as a teenager, and as a blue-eyed blonde, Anita became a star in Warner Brothers costume dramas such as Madame Du Barry (1934), A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935), The Story of Louis Pasteur (1936), and Marie Antoinette (1938). Anita complained that her looks often interfered with her chances to obtain serious roles. With her ethereal beauty, she continued to appear in ingénue roles into the 1940s as she played girlfriends, sisters, and daughters. By 1940, Anita was only in her mid 20s, but her career had turned to 'B' movies, and her time on the big screen ended with the rehashed Bulldog Drummond at Bay (1947). In 1956, Anita was cast as Johnny Washbrook's mother, Nell McLaughin, on the Television series My Friend Flicka (1955), the story of a boy and his black horse. Anita was also the substitute host of The Loretta Young Show (1953) when Loretta Young was recuperating from surgery. Other shows Anita hosted included Theater of Time (1957) and Spotlight Playhouse (1958). Her television guest roles included Mannix (1967) and Mod Squad (1968). Anita devoted her final years to various philanthropic causes.- Katherine Grant was born on May 1, 1904 in Los Angeles, California. Her parents divorced and her father passed away in 1921. At the age of eighteen she won the Miss Los Angeles beauty contest and competed in the Miss America pageant. Katherine worked as a professional dancer and to make extra money she posed nude for an art study project. She made her film debut in the comedy short Saturday Morning and was offered a contract with Hal Roach. In 1923 she appeared in more than a dozen films including A Man About Town and Frozen Hearts. As her career took off the photographer who had taken her nude photos started to extort her. Katherine reported the man to the police and the scandalous photos did not hurt career. By 1925 she had become one of Hal Roach's favorite comedy vamps and he signed her to a new five year contract. Katherine worked with Oliver Hardy in Wild Papa and with Charley Chase in The Uneasy Three.She and Charley also performed in a vaudeville act together.
Unfortunately Katherine struggled with her weight and went on starvation diets to stay thin. On December 8, 1925, she was the victim of a hit-and-run accident. Doctors told her to take a break from acting but she returned to work a few days later. In the Spring of 1926 Katherine suffered a nervous breakdown on the set and was put in a sanitarium. Newspaper reports blamed the breakdown on her extreme dieting. Sadly Katherine would never make another film. Her health continued to get worse and she started suffering from dementia. Eventually she was sent to to Patton State Hospital in San Bernardino where she would live the rest of her life. Katherine died on April 2, 1937 from pulmonary tuberculosis. She was only thirty-two years old. Katherine was buried in an unmarked grave at Evergreen cemetery in Los Angeles, California. Fans of the late actress honored her with a marked headstone, in a special ceremony, on August 27, 2016. - Lassie Lou Ahern, who enjoyed a substantial career in 1920s Hollywood working with the likes of Will Rogers, Charley Chase, Helen Holmes, and the team of Ronald Colman and Vilma Banky, has passed away in Prescott, Arizona, USA, due to complications of the flu. After decades of relative obscurity, interest in her life and filmography won her a new audience of fans during her final years owing to a renewed cultural appreciation of silent cinema and to efforts made toward restoring her final silent film. Along with surviving star "Baby Peggy" (Diana Serra Cary), 99, Ahern was the last Hollywood performer with deep roots in motion pictures before the coming of sound. Brimming with stories, details, and information, her loss finds our relationship to silent cinema moving from living history to simply that of history.
She was born four blocks away from the Ambassador Hotel in Hollywood. Her father, Fred Ahern, was a real estate agent who had Will Rogers as a leading client as Culver City was being formed. After meeting Lassie and her older sister Peggy, Rogers encouraged Ahern to take his daughters to Hal Roach studios to be cast in parts calling for children, and soon they earned ancillary roles in the Our Gang. Rogers took an active interest in Lassie, ensuring she had parts in his films. Throughout her life, with great fondness, she considered him her "real" father. She made her debut in Roach's first full-length movie, an adaptation of The Call of the Wild (1923), and soon was regularly cast in Charley Chase comedies and as the object of rescue in the popular serials of Helen Holmes. In pictures such as Webs of Steel (1925), Lassie, like Holmes, supplied her own dangerous stunt work. Meanwhile she appeared in productions by independent producers (The Dark Angel for Samuel Goldwyn, Hell's Highroad for Cecil B. DeMille, Robes of Sin for William Russell [all 1925]), as well as features at major studies (John Ford's now lost film Thank You and Excuse Me starring Norma Shearer [both 1925]), before landing a contract with Universal in the mid-1920s.
She found her biggest success in the epic Uncle Tom's Cabin (1927), in which she landed the part of Little Harry over hundreds of boys who auditioned for the role. Shot largely on location on the Mississippi River, she appeared in the legendary sequence featuring the escape across the ice floes. While the movie would be the object of a spate of bad fortune that led to its taking more than a year and a half to make, it was the highlight of her career and won her excellent notices. Of her acting, biographer Jeffrey Crouse, in an extended interview conducted with her in 2013 for Film International, has written that, "though by today's standards she fails to convince as a boy, she commits fully to the movie in such an animated, engaging way that she provides it with a color splash which sweetly enlivens the picture." It ended up becoming the third most expensive 1920s Hollywood production after Ben Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925) and Old Ironsides (1926), and like those other films it lost money at the box office.
At Universal she had her own dressing room (it had once been Conrad Nagel's) and star on the door. An entire clothing line was named after her ("Lassie Lou Classics"), and her name and image were used to endorse such brands as Sunkist oranges, Buster Brown shoes, and Jean Carol frocks. At the same time, she was cast in the rare Jewish-themed drama Surrender (1927) opposite Mary Philbin and, in his only American film, Ivan Mozhukhin. She also appeared as an Arab girl in The Forbidden Woman (1927) starring Jetta Goudal and Joseph Schildkraut. Schildkraut, who would later win an Oscar for playing Captain Alfred Dreyfus in The Life of Emile Zola (1937), announced at the wrap party that he was so impressed by her acting skills that he considered her his "favourite co-star." That year also saw her cast as the co-lead opposite rising child star Frankie Darro in the FBO production Little Mickey Grogan. It was her swan song to silent pictures, and alongside her part as Little Harry, her role as the street urchin Susan Dale was the one of which she was most proud.
The late 1920s saw a spate of proto-gangster films (Underworld [1927], Ladies of the Mob [1928], and Thunderbolt [1929]), and alarmed by the rising depiction of screen violence, Fred Ahern took his daughters out of pictures. Instead, he opened a dance studio, only blocks from MGM, called "Ahern's Allied Arts." There--besides dance styles such as ballet and tap--acrobatics, rope tricks, and music were taught. Ernest Belcher, Marge Champion's father, had been Lassie's dance instructor, and indeed she had been a trained dancer before the studio opened, amply showing off her skills in Uncle Tom's Cabin and Little Mickey Grogan. From 1932 to 1939, the sisters successfully toured the world together in a variety of venues, even appearing on screen (marvelous in 1937's Hollywood Party). Their act broke up when each sister decided to marry.
While Peggy permanently retired from performing, Lassie returned to Hollywood in 1941 with husband Johnny Brent, a former Dixieland drummer who was employed for years as a musician for studio orchestras. She danced in City of Lost Girls (1941) and in the early musicals Donald O'Connor made at Universal (1943's Top Man and Mister Big and 1945's Patrick the Great). She was effusive in her praise for O'Connor, openly regarding him as the finest performer she ever worked with. She was also nearly cast opposite Jennifer Jones in The Song of Bernadette (1943), and had a bit part with Joseph Cotten in George Cukor's Gaslight (1944). When she returned to the screen decades later, it was not on the big one but on television, in small parts in episodes of The Odd Couple; Love, American Style; and other popular series.
In middle age, she not only was a travel agent but for more than thirty years taught dance to generations of students at the Ashram Spa near San Diego, with Renee Zellweger and Cindy Crawford among her pupils. In the 1970s, while researching an upcoming role in which she was to be cast as a madam, Faye Dunaway approached Lassie for walking lessons because of her commanding posture.
Besides her late husband and sister, Lassie's half-brother Fred had also worked in the industry, notably as a production designer for Alfred Hitchcock in five pictures he made for the Master of Suspense from the period of Spellbound (1945) to Stage Fright (1950). Lassie leaves behind three children, Cary, Debra, and John. She told Crouse in 2013, "It's gratifying to experience such interest in my work from you and so many others from around the world. Fan letters, especially from Germany and Spain, still arrive at my mailbox at a rate that amazes me."
An original 35-mm nitrate copy of Little Mickey Grogan has been found in the Lobster Films Archive in Paris. Crouse and co-producer Eric Grayson are working to restore it. - Actress
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Dorothy Granger was one of the first members of SAG when the Screen Actors Guild was founded in 1933. A Texas beauty contest winner at the age of thirteen, Dorothy's career ran from a long-running two-reel series, as the wife of Leon Errol for RKO, to the long-running television series Death Valley Days (1952) with Ronald Reagan. 'Dott-ee,' as Stan Laurel would call her, worked as a young foil with Laurel & Hardy, a damsel-in-distress for The Three Stooges, and a prop for Lucille Ball to pop in Perfectly Mismated (1934). From one short comedy to another, she worked with every popular comic or comedy team of the twenties and thirties, from Bert Wheeler to W.C. Fields. But Dorothy wanted to be a dramatic actress. She appealed to her funny buddy Andy Devine, who told her, "Put on a petticoat and you'll work forever." She did, and she did. In the forties, it was western after western, working with Lon Chaney Jr. and Devine in North to the Klondike (1942), Randolph Scott and Broderick Crawford in When the Daltons Rode (1940), Robert Young and Betty Grable in Sweet Rosie O'Grady (1943), and Gene Autry in Blue Montana Skies (1939). Tiring of westerns, Dorothy ventured into everything from horrors with Bela Lugosi to musicals to the Charlie Chan series with Sidney Toler. By the fifties, she'd hit her stride, working episodic TV, regularly on The Abbott and Costello Show (1952), Cameo Theatre (1950) with James Drury, and The Jack Benny Program (1950). But like the westerns, Dorothy's style had passed, reducing her to bit roles in films like Dondi (1961) with Walter Winchell and David Janssen, New York Confidential (1955) with Anne Bancroft, and Raintree County (1957) with Montgomery Clift. Devine was right - the petticoat was the most natural wardrobe for Dorothy, since she spent most of her career in petticoats and covered wagons. Dorothy accepted that the West was done. Ending her career with over 250 films, she quit. The three most enjoyable things for Dorothy were making movies, her affair with Clark Gable, and watching her grandnephew, Alex Wilde, grow as an actor.- Actress
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Mitzi Green, also known as Mitze Green, was born Elizabeth Keno in The Bronx on October 22, 1920. At age 3, she began appearing in her parents' vaudeville act. In the early 1930s, she starred in several popular films with Paramount Pictures, including Tom Sawyer (1930) and Huckleberry Finn (1931). She became known as "Little Mitzi," and she was the first child star to sign for a multi-picture contract with Paramount. Green had a natural talent for comedy and mimicry, and audiences were impressed by her uncanny imitations of Greta Garbo and George Arliss. She was also a gifted singer, performing two songs in Girl Crazy (1932). But her career as "Little Mitzi" would not last. Green matured quickly, and at age 14 she was cast in an adult role in Transatlantic Merry-Go-Round (1934), which marked the end of her career as a child star. Green left Hollywood and spent the next several years performing on Broadway and in night clubs. She starred in the original Broadway production of Rogers' and Hart's Babes in Arms, where she introduced the classic song "My Funny Valentine." During this time she appeared in only one film, Santa Fe Trail (1940), in which she had a bit part. Green's career as an adult star in Hollywood began in 1952, when she re-emerged on screen in Lost in Alaska (1952), opposite Abbott and Costello. She also appeared in Bloodhounds of Broadway (1952) and the sitcom So This Is Hollywood (1955), in which she played a perceptive stunt woman. After many years of retirement, Green died of cancer on May 24, 1969, in Huntington Beach, California. She was 48. She is buried in Eden Memorial Park Cemetery in Mission Hills, California.- Actress
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Independent, outspoken Constance Bennett, the first of the Bennett sisters to enter films, appeared in New York-produced silents before a chance meeting with Samuel Goldwyn led to her Hollywood debut in Cytherea (1924). She abandoned a burgeoning career in silents for marriage to Philip Plant in 1925; after they divorced, she achieved stardom in talkies from 1929. The hit Common Clay (1930) launched her in a series of loose lady and unwed mother roles, but she really excelled in such sophisticated comedies as The Affairs of Cellini (1934), Ladies in Love (1936), Topper (1937) and Merrily We Live (1938). Her classy blonde looks, husky voice and unerring fashion sense gave her a distinctive style. In the 1940s she made fewer films, working in radio and theatre; shrewd in business, she invested wisely and started businesses marketing women's wear and cosmetics. Loving conflict, she feuded with the press and enjoyed lawsuits. Her last marriage, to a U.S. Air Force colonel, was happy and gave her a key role coordinating shows flown to Europe for occupying troops (1946-48) and the Berlin Airlift (1948-49), winning her military honors. Still young-looking, she died suddenly at age 60 shortly after completing the last of her 57 films.- Actress
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As an avid movie fan, Dorothy got her chance to go to Hollywood when she won a Salt Lake City beauty contest sponsored by Universal Pictures. Signed by Universal after her successful screen test, Dorothy became one of the many contract actors working in small bit parts. She became well known due to her roles in series and serial movies from 'College Love (1929)' to 'The Last Frontier (1932)'. Dorothy appeared in a number of low budget Westerns such as 'In Old Cheyenne (1931)' and 'The Fighting Marshal (1932)'. Over the years that she appeared in Westerns, she worked with actors such as Jack Hoxie, Hoot Gibson, Wild Bill Elliott and John Wayne. By 1933, Dorothy found that her roles had become so small that in the film 'King Kong (1933)', she would be credited as "Girl". For the rest of the decade, she appeared in but a handful of films which were mostly 'B' movie Westerns. After that, she left films.- Marguerite de la Motte was trained as a dancer, reputedly by the great ballerina Anna Pavlova, and entered films in 1918. She played opposite Douglas Fairbanks in many of his productions. Like many performers of the silent era, however, she was not able to sustain her career with the coming of talkies, and was soon relegated to smaller roles in minor productions.
- Anna Quirentia Nilsson, popularly known as "Anna Q", who was born on March 30th, 1888, in Ystad, Sweden, emigrated to the United States in 1905. The 5'7" Nilsson used her blonde beauty to become a famous model for well-known fashion photographers and fine artists. In 1907 she was chosen the most beautiful girl in the US and in 1911 made her film debut in Molly Pitcher (1911). She was an overnight sensation, becoming a silent film superstar in the first decade of the 20th century. In 1914 she was chosen the most beautiful actress "in the world" and Photoplay magazine named her "the ideal American girl" in 1919.
She appeared in films by the top studios in Hollywood, including Goldwyn, Famous Players (Paramount), Metro and First National. Her movie career continued to flourish in the 1920s, the decade of the flapper and bathtub gin, the so-called Jazz Age. In 1926 she was chosen the most popular actress. However, she suffered a major setback in 1928, when she was thrown off a horse and fractured her thigh. To her relatives in Sweden she wrote " . . . no tragedy is greater than mine. I am still a young star and suddenly everything is lost". Her fans supported her with some 30,000 letters a month and Nilsson tried to rush her convalescence. It made a bad situation worse and doctors needed to shorten her leg.
In 1931 Nilsson was back before the camera, but her stardom was unfortunately in the past. She appeared in approximately 40 more films until she retired in 1954. She was one of the bridge players (a.k.a. the "wax works") in Norma Desmond's mansion in Sunset Blvd. (1950), appearing with her former co-star, silent film superstar and prominent victim of sound, H.B. Warner. Four years later, she appeared in a small part in her motion-picture swan-song, the classic musical Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954).
Anna Q. Nillson died on February 11, 1974, six weeks shy of her 85th birthday. - Actress
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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.- Ynez Seabury was born on 26 June 1907 in Portland, Oregon, USA. She was an actress, known for The Girl of the Golden West (1938), Madam Satan (1930) and When a Girl Loves (1924). She was married to Vernon Keith White and Walter William Costello. She died on 11 April 1973 in Sherman Oaks, California, USA.
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The younger sister of actress Alice Day, Marceline achieved stardom in the mid-1920s, appearing opposite such stars as John Barrymore and Lon Chaney. Adept at comedy, she also starred with such top comics as Buster Keaton and Harry Langdon. Her career faltered in the early 1930s, however, and she was soon reduced to appearing in low-budget thrillers and action pictures. She retired in the mid-1930s.- Peggy Cartwright was born on 14 November 1912 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. She was an actress, known for A Lady of Quality (1924), Magic Night (1932) and The Third Generation (1920). She was married to Bill Walker and Phil Baker. She died on 13 June 2001 in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.
- Married to director/writer Scott Pembroke, daughter of actor Lew Short and sister of actress Florence Short. Gertrude Short was in vaudeville for five years then moved to the legit stage and onto Hollywood in 1922. From 1924 to 1925, Short played in a series of "Telephone Girl" comedies, directed by her husband. She continued playing telephone operators in several of her sound films. In fact, her last screen appearance was as an operator in the film Week-End at the Waldorf (1945). During WWII Short left the screen to work at Lockheed and stayed there until she retired in 1967.
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Cute-as-a-button, diminutive (5'2"), green-eyed brunette Sally O'Neil (sometimes billed as Sally O'Neill was a silent and early sound leading lady who maintained her leading status throughout her movie career. Born on October 23, 1908, in Bayonne, New Jersey, her father, Thomas Francis Patrick Noonan, was a judge and her mother, Hannah Kelly, a one-time singer with the Metropolitan Opera. One of 11 children, Sally's younger sister, who billed herself as Molly O'Day, became a well-known movie actress around the same time.
Sally was educated in a convent and started in vaudeville where she was billed as "Chotsie Noonan" (her real name was Virginia Louise Concepta Noonan). She started in silents at age 17 and found an early penchant for playing unassuming Pickford-like innocents in short films.
Sally moved quickly into starring roles with the lightweight feature film Don't (1925) opposite John Patrick that was billed as "a rip-roaring picture of rebellious youth!" in which she plays a Clara Bow-type party girl. She quickly found stardom with her second film, the dramedy Sally, Irene and Mary (1925) co-starring as flighty, naïve chorus girl Mary opposite the more worldly Constance Bennett and virtuous Joan Crawford. As a result of this success, she was named (as was sister Molly) a Wampas Baby Star in 1926.
The actress became a mildly popular MGM commodity (in both lead and second lead categories) in a number of films, including Mike (1926) opposite William Haines; the comedy The Auction Block (1926) starring Charles Ray and Eleanor Boardman in which she played a third wheel flirt; the action romancer Battling Butler (1926) opposite Buster Keaton; the sports comedy Slide, Kelly, Slide (1927) again opposite Haines; the title romantics in both Frisco Sally Levy (1927) and Becky (1927); and the dramedy The Callahans and the Murphys (1927) as the Callahan daughter of feisty Marie Dressler.
Elsewhere for other studios, Sally co-starred with her sister Molly in the silent romantic drama The Lovelorn (1927) as well as the dramatic features Mad Hour (1928) and Bachelor's Paradise (1928) and the romantic musical comedy Broadway Fever (1929).
Possessing a strong New Jersey accent and developing a severe case of stage fright did not help things come the advent of talking pictures. While Sally certainly maintained in pictures for nearly another decade, her star diminished and she never made it into the top tier. Such representative early sound films include another feature opposite sister Molly (Sisters (1930)) and the flashy title roles in Kathleen Mavourneen (1930) and The Brat (1931). She played a Broadway gold-digger in Ladies Must Love (1933); a vixen in the drama By Appointment Only (1933); a woman caught between two men in the adventure Sixteen Fathoms Deep (1934); and a female reporter in Too Tough to Kill (1935). Her last picture was a starring role as an Irish lass in the obscure British production Kathleen (1937).
Following this, Sally faded view, but turned to Broadway with "When We Are Married" (1939) and "The Old Foolishness" (1940). She also toured with the USO until the 1950s. Divorced from James Kenaston in 1952, Sally married businessman Stewart S. Battles a year later. They divorced in 1957, but would remarry. She died of pneumonia at the age of 59 on June 18, 1968.- Actress
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Nora Bennett Schilling was born in Chester, Illinois. She grew up and went to school near St. Louis. After modeling for a time, she went to visit a friend in California and was noticed by someone in the film industry. She successfully passed her screen test and began playing small parts in silent films in 1927, taking on the name Lane. In her 17 year career she played in over 80 films. Her notable works include her role as Zerelda in Jesse James (1927), her role as Sally in The Cisco Kid (1931), the villainous role of Goldie in Western Frontier (1935), as well as her supporting part in Jimmy the Gent (1934) which starred James Cagney and Bette Davis. She played in four Hopalong Cassidy films, two of which she was cast as the widowed ranch owner, Nora Blake. In her personal life, she was noted as an excellent swimmer and won many awards. On August 5, 1931, she and fellow actors Warner Baxter and Edmund Lowe were involved in a Southern Pacific train crash 20 miles east of Yuma, Arizona, but managed to escape uninjured. In 1941 she married Burdette Henney and retired from movies in 1944. The two lived a happy marriage until tragedy struck in 1948 when they went on a fishing trip in Bishop, California, during which Nora's husband died suddenly of a heart attack. On October 16, exactly one month after Burdette's death, the grief stricken widow shot herself dead after leaving a note to her step-son, simply saying she could not go on without him.- Marjorie Beebe grew up in Missouri before coming to California as a teenager with her mother. By 1924 she had been hired by Universal but it was only when she joined Fox that her career took off. Her talent for comedy became apparent. She played support in a number of Fox features before being given the title role in "The Farmer's Daughter" (1928). She got excellent reviews for her performance and was hailed as the best comedienne to emerge for many years.
Mack Sennett, The King of Comedy, was also impressed and within a year she had joined him. Marjorie Beebe's career changed in two ways. Instead of appearing in feature length movies she now starred in Sennett's two reel shorts. Instead of silent movies henceforth she appeared in talkies. She appeared in around forty shorts for Sennett many of which he had specially written for her. The titles were often named for her and she played a character called Marge. One of them "Cowcatcher's Daughter" (1931) was clearly a nod to her earlier Fox triumph. She was also leased out to other studios including Paramount and Vitaphone. Sennett declared that Beebe had the potential to be the greatest comedienne the screen had ever seen.
Sennett went bust in 1933 and Marjorie Beebe's career never recovered. She reverted to features and to support roles where her comic talents were frankly wasted. In 1940 she retired permanently from the movie business. She dabbled in property and lived in reasonable contentment with her last husband (there had been brief marriages in the 1930s) Andy Andersen. - Lilian Hall Davis was born June 23, 1898, in Mile End, London, England, the daughter of a London cab driver. For publicity purposes, she changed the spelling of her name to to the tonier Lillian Hall-Davis and reported her birthplace as the more fashionable Hampstead, London. She began acting in films in 1917 and by the early 1920s, Hall-Davis was one of the leading actresses of British silent film. She was Alfred Hitchcock's favorite actress during the early days of his career. He directed her in The Ring (1927) and The Farmer's Wife (1928) Hall-Davis was married to Walter Pemberton, a British stage actor. Her last film was a supporting role in Her Reputation (1931). By 1933, her film career was over, she was being treated for neurasthenia and was suffering a nervous breakdown. On October 25, 1933, she locked herself in the kitchen of her home in Golders Green, turned on the gas, stuck her head in the oven, and cut her throat with her brother's straight razor. Her 14-year-old son Grovsvenor, came home from school, found her suicide note in the hall and summoned the neighbors for help. They were too late. Hall-Davis was dead at the age of 34.
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Born to a huge, poor family in Soho in London's West End, Jessie Matthews became a big stage star in the late 1920s and 1930s, enjoying some crossover success in musical films. Her career never quite relaunched after the war, though, but she staged a comeback when she replaced the lead actress in the radio soap "Mrs Dale's Diary" in the 1960s. Her life was blighted by breakdowns of relationships and her own struggles with bad health and insecurity, and she wound up, amazingly, buried in an unmarked grave (only rectified after a TV documentary in the late 1980s brought this to light--beg, steal or borrow a copy of BBC's Timewatch (1982) documentary series episode "Catch A Fallen Star"). An amazing life.- French-born Francine Larrimore arrived in the United States as a child and first appeared on stage at the age of 12 in 'Where There's a Will' in 1910. A member of the Adler dynasty of actors (cousin of Luther, Stella and Jay Adler), she had her first major theatrical successes in the Rudolf Friml musical 'Sometime' (1918) and in the comedy 'Nice People'(1921), with Tallulah Bankhead and Katharine Cornell. She was best known for her portrayals of exuberant 'pouty girls', but she could also dance, had a good singing voice and a talent for delivering humorous lines. At the height of her theatrical fame in 1926, Francine created the role of Chicago showgirl Roxie Hart at the Music Box Theatre in New York (a part played on screen by Ginger Rogers in 1942). Her one significant foray into talking pictures, John Meade's Woman (1937), was poorly received and Francine promptly returned to the stage. Her last performance was in 'Temporarily, Mrs. Smith', in 1946. Her first husband was the well-known songwriter Con Conrad.