Advanced search
- TITLES
- NAMES
- COLLABORATIONS
Search filters
Enter full date
to
or just enter yyyy, or yyyy-mm below
to
Only includes names with the selected topics
to
or just enter yyyy, or yyyy-mm below
to
1-50 of 782
- Actress
- Soundtrack
Lupe Velez was born on July 18, 1908, in San Luis Potosi, Mexico, as Maria Guadalupe Villalobos Velez. She was sent to Texas at the age of 13 to live in a convent. She later admitted that she wasn't much of a student because she was so rambunctious. She had planned to become a champion roller skater, but that would change. Life was hard for her family, and Lupe returned to Mexico to help them out financially. She worked as a salesgirl for a department store for the princely sum of $4 a week. Every week she would turn most of her salary over to her mother, but she kept a little for herself so she could take dancing lessons. With her mature shape and grand personality, she thought she could make a try at show business, which she figured was a lot more glamorous than dancing or working as a salesclerk. In 1924 Lupe started her show business career on the Mexican stage and wowed audiences with her natural beauty and talent. By 1927 she had emigrated to Hollywood, where she was discovered by Hal Roach, who cast her in a comedy with Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy. Douglas Fairbanks then cast her in his feature film The Gaucho (1927) with himself and wife Mary Pickford. Lupe played dramatic roles for five years before she switched to comedy. In 1933 she played the lead role of Pepper in Hot Pepper (1933). This film showcased her comedic talents and helped her to show the world her vital personality. She was delightful. In 1934 Lupe appeared in three fine comedies: Strictly Dynamite (1934), Palooka (1934) and Laughing Boy (1934). By now her popularity was such that a series of "Mexican Spitfire" films were written around her. She portrayed Carmelita Lindsay in Mexican Spitfire (1939), Mexican Spitfire Out West (1940), The Mexican Spitfire's Baby (1941) and Mexican Spitfire's Blessed Event (1943), among others. Audiences loved her in these madcap adventures, but it seemed at times that she was better known for her stormy love affairs. She married one of her lovers, Johnny Weissmuller, but the marriage only lasted five years and was filled with battles. Lupe certainly did live up to her nickname. She had a failed romance with Gary Cooper, who never wanted to wed her. By 1943 her career was waning. She went to Mexico in the hopes of jump-starting her career. She gained her best reviews yet in the Mexican version of Naná (1944). Bolstered by the success of that movie, Lupe returned to the US, where she starred in her final film as Pepita Zorita, Ladies' Day (1943). There were to be no others. On December 13, 1944, tired of yet another failed romance, with a part-time actor named Harald Maresch, and pregnant with his child, Lupe committed suicide with an overdose of Seconal. She was only 36 years old.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Seemingly suave, cultivated actor by nature, definitely huge in both talent and girth, and capable of playing much older than he was, Hollywood of the early '40s tragically lost Laird Cregar before it could fully comprehend on how to best utilize his obvious gifts. He was born Samuel Laird Cregar in a well-to-do section of Philadelphia, eventually dropping his first name after forging an acting career. At age eight his parents sent him to England and enrolled him at the Winchester Academy. During his school's off time, his pique in acting escalated after being employed as a page boy with the Stratford-on-Avon Players. Thereafter, his mind was set to become a professional actor. Returning to the U.S., he attended Episcopal Academy in Philadelphia and the Douglas Adams School in Longport, New Jersey. Again, he found meager jobs, such as an usher, in order to stay close to the theater. Awarded a scholarship to the Pasadena Community Playhouse, he trained there for two years before going out on his own and finding minor work on the bi-coastal stage and finding minuscule parts in films.
Laird's break came of his own making. After witnessing Robert Morley's triumph in the title role of "Oscar Wilde" on Broadway, Laird set upon finding backing for his own version of the play. Debuting in Los Angeles and finding resounding success there as well as in San Francisco, film studios began competing for his services with Twentieth Century-Fox winning out. He made his feature debut opposite Paul Muni in Hudson's Bay (1940) in the boisterous role of a fur trapper and solidified his movie standing by appearing flamboyantly as a bullfighting critic at odds with Tyrone Power's matador in the popular Technicolor classic Blood and Sand (1941). He then went on to show a scene-stealing prowess for stylish farce as one of Jack Benny "suitors" in the drag comedy Charley's Aunt (1941).
By the time Laird cut a mean, sinister path in I Wake Up Screaming (1941), playing a detective so insanely hung up on a murdered girl (Carole Landis) that he deliberately frames an innocent man (Victor Mature) for her crime, it was obvious films could rely on him for any of their comedic or dramatic ventures. There seemed nothing he couldn't do, but it was obvious audiences loved him as the 300 lb. man you love to hate - goaded on by his nefarious doings in the film noir classic This Gun for Hire (1942) starring Alan Ladd and Rings on Her Fingers (1942) with Gene Tierney.
On the Los Angeles theater front he gave Monty Woolley a run for the money in Woolley's signature stage role of Sheridan Whiteside in "The Man Who Came to Dinner". Along with the good came some contrived roles in a few mediocre films ranging from training officers to hammy-styled pirates. Even so, he usually stood out among the other actors in some fashion. He even played the Devil himself in the exquisitely humor-laced Ernst Lubitsch comedy Heaven Can Wait (1943).
His film career was capped by his definitive Jack the Ripper in The Lodger (1944). Investing the psychotic role with an intense, gripping realism and off-putting, oily charm, he led a brilliantly seasoned cast and relished a death scene in the film (in truth, the real-life serial killer was never caught) that dared to forever stereotype him as a Sydney Greenstreet-like villain. Unfortunately, his early death robbed film audiences of seeing what course Laird's career would have taken. Sure enough, his last celluloid offering in Hangover Square (1945) was as another despicable character with murder on its maniacal mind. Top-lining a cast that included Linda Darnell (as an object of his affection), and George Sanders, he this time portrayed a temperamental composer who suffers from a split personality disorder and, prone to periodic blackouts, commits brutal murders. Another compelling death scene had his mad character wildly pounding out a concerto while the room around him goes up in flames and the ceiling crashes down on him.
Laird's obsession with avoiding the inevitable stereotype as a "heavy heavy" and wistful pursuit of a romantic leading man career compelled him to go on a reckless, unsupervised crash diet (from 300 lbs to 200 lbs), which is evident by his drastically trimmed-down look in his last film. This proved too strenuous on his system and he was forced to undergo surgery for a severe stomach disorder. His 30-year-old heart gave out on the morning of December 9, 1944, only days after his operation. He was survived by his mother.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Jessie Ralph was a sailor's daughter, who first came to the stage at the age of 16, performing with a stock company in either Boston, Massachusetts, or Providence, Rhode Island (accounts differ). The year was 1880, and it took Jessie another 26 years to make her debut on the Great White Way in "The Kreutzer Sonata". Already a seasoned actress, she enjoying third billing. Her screen career started with one and two reelers as early as 1915, but her proper entry into Hollywood did not come about until 1933.
For more than 20 years, plump, down-to-earth Jessie made her reputation as a character actress on Broadway playing an assortment of nurses, maids and aunts. She was used in musicals by George M. Cohan and acted in Shakespearean roles, from "Twelfth Night" to "Romeo and Juliet". She was nurse to Jane Cowl's Juliet in the 1923 play which ran for an unprecedented 174 performances and co-starred Eva Le Gallienne and Katharine Cornell (amazing, when considering that the star was already 39 years old!). Like other successful actresses of the stage, Jessie was brought to Hollywood to reprise a Broadway hit role, in this case her Aunt Minnie in Child of Manhattan (1933).
After half a lifetime in the theatre, Jessie's sojourn in Hollywood was relatively brief but marked by a series of memorable performances. She was the definitive incarnation of the endearing nurse Peggotty in David Copperfield (1935) and played Greta Garbo's loyal maid Nanine in Camille (1936). She was the matriarch of the Whiteoaks of Jalna (1935), an adaptable society matron in San Francisco (1936) and harridan of a mother-in-law to W.C. Fields, Hermisillo Brunch, in The Bank Dick (1940). Whether in comedy or drama, as a Chinese aunt in both stage and screen versions of The Good Earth (1937), or a kindly sorceress in The Blue Bird (1940), Jessie gave consistently good value for money. The New York Times review of October 12, 1935, wrote of her performance in I Live My Life (1935): "Jessie Ralph as the tyrannical head of the family, proves again that she is the best of the screen grandmothers".
Jessie retired from acting in 1941 after having a leg amputated and died three years later.- Music Department
- Actor
- Composer
Alton Glenn Miller was born on March 1, 1904, in Clarinda, Iowa; the son of Lewis Elmer and Mattie Lou Cavender Miller. He started his music studies when his father gave him a mandolin. He soon traded the mandolin for an old horn. In 1916 he switched to trombone. In 1923, he enrolled in the University of Colorado, but after a year, he dropped out of school and moved to Los Angeles, where he joined Ben Pollack's band. He spent most of his time playing gigs and attending auditions.
In 1928, Miller moved to New York, where he played session gigs and made orchestrations. At that time he studied with the Russian musician and mathematician Joseph Schillinger, whose star apprentice was George Gershwin. Miller took Schillinger's instruction on orchestration of a practice exercise, which he developed into the song "Moonlight Serenade", making a small fortune with it. In 1934, Miller joined the Dorsey Brothers' Orchestra for a year, then organized an American band for Ray Noble, and made his debut at the Rainbow Room in New York's Rockefeller Center. The special sound of his band was developed in Miller's orchestration by using the "crystal chorus" and other inventive ways of arrangement.
Miller recorded his own band first time for Columbia Records on April 25, 1935. His instrumental "Solo Hop" reached the Top Ten in 1935, but he did not organize an orchestra under his own name until March of 1937. That band ultimately failed, and in 1938 he reorganized with many different musicians. In 1939, Miller and his new band got an engagement at the Glen Island Casino in New Rochelle, NY, which was a major spot with a radio wire. In 1939, he scored seventeen Top Ten hits, including such songs, as "Sunrise Serenade", "Moonlight Serenade", "Stairway to the Stars", "Moon Love", "Over the Rainbow", "Blue Orchids", "The Man With the Mandolin", and other popular songs, which he composed or orchestrated. Miller scored 31 Top Ten hits in the year 1940, and another 11 Top Ten hits in 1941.
His number one hits included "Song of the Volga Boatmen", "You and I", "Chattanooga Choo Choo", from his first film, 'Sun Valley Serenade'. Miller worked with the vocalists Tex Beneke, Ray Eberle, and the Modernaires with Paula Kelly. On February 10, 1942, Miller was presented with the first ever "Gold record" for "Chattanooga Choo Choo" and scored another 11 Top Ten hits in 1942. That was the first full year of his country's participation in the Second World War.
Although he was well beyond draft age Miller still strongly wanted to use his talents to help the war effort. After being turned down for a Navy commission he applied to the Army and was accepted with the rank of Captain. On September 27, 1942 he gave his last performance as a civilian. The Army assigned him to the Army Air Forces at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. He first organized a marching band, then built a large dance band with over two dozen jazz players and 21 string musicians. From January 1943 to June 1944 the Glenn Miller AAF Band made hundreds of live performances, "I Sustain the Wings" radio broadcasts, while previously-unreleased recordings by the former civilian band scored another 10 Top Ten hits in the year 1943. Miller took his band to Britain in June 1944. There he performed for the allied troops and did radio shows. His last recording of 20 new songs was made weeks before his death; it was released only in 1995.
After the liberation of France, now-Major Glenn Miller wanted to bring his music closer to the troops serving on the Continent and arranged to have the band transferred to Paris. He planned to travel ahead of time to prepare for the full orchestra's arrival but bad weather delayed his flight. On December 15, 1944 he accepted an invitation from another officer who was going to Paris on what turned out to be an unauthorized flight. He apparently was unaware that the plane's pilot was inexperienced in winter flying, and more tragically, that the small UC-64 "Norseman" transport had been suffering from fuel-system problems.
The plane never arrived in Paris, and on December 24, 1944 the AAF officially reported it and its crew as MIA (Missing in Action), under the presumption that it had gone down in the English Channel. In 1985, the British Ministry of Defence came up with explanation of Miller's disappearance, claiming that his plane was struck by a British bomb dropped in the waters by returning RAF pilots. Subsequent research has given credence to the alternate hypothesis that the plane crashed due to icing of its fuel system in the cold air over the Channel. However no wreckage, remains, or IDs have ever been found, precluding any definitive explanation. Glenn Miller was eventually officially declared dead; at his daughter's request a memorial tombstone was placed in Memorial Section H, Number 464-A on Wilson Drive in Arlington National Cemetery in April of 1992,- Mildred Harris was born on 29 November 1901 in Cheyenne, Wyoming, USA. She was an actress, known for The Doctor and the Woman (1918), For Husbands Only (1918) and The Price of a Good Time (1917). She was married to William Peter Fleckenstein, Everett Terrence McGovern and Charles Chaplin. She died on 20 July 1944 in Hollywood, California, USA.
- Richard Fiske was born on 20 November 1915 in Shelton, Washington, USA. He was an actor, known for Across the Sierras (1941), The Officer and the Lady (1941) and North from the Lone Star (1941). He was married to Marjorie Jean McGregor. He died on 10 August 1944 in La Croix-Avranchin, Manche, France.
- Actor
- Director
- Writer
Bud Jamison was born on 15 February 1895 in Vallejo, California, USA. He was an actor and director, known for Three Little Beers (1935), Their First Tintype (1920) and Captain Caution (1940). He was married to Georgia Kathleen Holland. He died on 30 September 1944 in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA.- Actor
- Writer
- Director
Langdon first performed when he ran away from home at the age of 12-13 to join a travelling medicine show. In 1903 he scored a lasting success in vaudeville with an act called "Johnny's New Car" which he performed for twenty years. In 1923, he signed with Principal Pictures as a series star, but transferred to the Mack Sennett Studio when Mack Sennett bought the contract. Early in his film career, he had the good fortune to work regularly with the young Frank Capra. The two developed a unique character of an innocent man-child who found himself in dramatic and hazardous circumstances with only providence and good luck making him come out on top. This character clicked with the public and Langdon enjoyed a streak of artistic and commercial successes using it with Capra's direction. Unfortunately, he began to take the praise of his talent too seriously and broke with Capra so he could hog all the glory himself with his films. This proved to be a disastrous mistake as his first film "Three's a Crowd", a sickeningly sentimental film that plainly showed that he did not even approach the talent and skill of Capra which was needed to keep his character style viable. It has been also speculated the public was getting tired of Langdon's character, which contributed to Langdon's first solo film being an artistic and commercial failure. That film was the first in a series of bombs that ruined Langdon's career and relegated him to minor films from third string companies for the rest of his life.- 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.
- Grete Berger was born on 11 February 1883 in Jägerndorf, Moravia, Austria-Hungary [now Krnov, Czech Republic]. She was an actress, known for Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler (1922), The Student of Prague (1913) and Ein Sommernachtstraum in unserer Zeit (1914). She was married to Hanns Heinz Ewers. She died on 23 May 1944 in KZ Auschwitz, Germany.
- Dick Purcell was born on 6 August 1905 in Greenwich, Connecticut, USA. He was an actor, known for Captain America (1944), Mystery House (1938) and Heroes in Blue (1939). He was married to Ethelind Terry. He died on 10 April 1944 in Hollywood, California, USA.
- Actor
- Writer
- Soundtrack
This movie cowboy was actually born in New Jersey just before the turn of the 20th century, the son of a Protestant minister. He sang in his father's church choir, and after graduating high school he attended the private Blair Academy and then continued his musical training at New York's famous Julliard School (then known as the Institute of Musical Arts). Upon graduation he enlisted in the army and saw combat during World War I in France. After his discharge he taught music for a time in Bernards (NJ) High School.
His musical career picked up some steam and he was hired by the American Opera Company, but after a while decided he was just spinning his wheels there and tried his luck on Broadway. He fared better on The Great White Way, and by the mid-'30s he had made enough of a name for himself that Hollywood came calling, and he headed west to make musicals. He appeared in about a half-dozen of them, then branched out to other genres, showing up in some dramas and even a western or two. He bounced around the lower-level studios for a while, then in 1941 he landed a job with bottom-rung Producers Releasing Corp. (PRC) for a series of singing westerns in which he would star as "The Lone Rider". PRC was not, to be charitable, noted for its lavish production values and the films were pretty threadbare. In 1942 "B" western star Robert Livingston became available after his contract with Republic Pictures ended. Houston was reportedly unhappy with the paltry pay scale at PRC and PRC was unhappy that his "Lone Rider" series wasn't doing better than it was. Livingston, who had been part of the well-received "Three Mesquiteers" series at Republic, was considered by PRC to be a bigger box-office draw than Houston. The combination of all these factors did not bode well for Houston's career, and after his 11th picture for PRC in 1942 he was let go and replaced by Livingston.
Houston left the movie business after that, and in 1944 he collapsed on a street in Hollywood, dead of a heart attack.- Actor
- Director
- Writer
Gerron fled to France (because he was Jewish), then settled in Amsterdam in 1933. He was arrested by the SS in 1943 and was sent to Theresienstadt in 1944 to direct a staged documentary intended to persuade world public opinion that Jews were well treated in concentration camps. He made a film called "The Fuhrer Donates a City to the Jews" or in German "Der Fuhrer schenkt den Juden eine Stadt". After he completed the film he was sent to Auschwitz where he was murdered.- Actor
- Writer
- Additional Crew
Richard Bennett was born on 21 May 1870 in Deer Creek, Indiana, USA. He was an actor and writer, known for The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), Damaged Goods (1914) and The Eternal City (1923). He was married to Aimee Raisch Hastings, Adrienne Morrison and Grena Heller. He died on 22 October 1944 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- John Dilson was born on 18 February 1891 in Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for The Man with Nine Lives (1940), Drums of Fu Manchu (1940) and Gang Bullets (1938). He died on 1 June 1944 in Ventura, California, USA.
- Writer
- Additional Crew
- Soundtrack
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was born into a family of old provincial nobility. Failing his final exams at a preparatory school, he entered the École des Beaux-Arts to study architecture. In 1921, he began military service in the 2nd Regiment of Chasseurs, and sent to Strasbourg for pilot training. The next year, he obtained his license, and was offered a transfer to the air force. But his fiancée's family objected, so he settled in Paris and took an office job. His engagement ultimately broke off, and he worked at several jobs over the next few years without success.
By 1926, he was flying again. He became one of the pioneers of international postal flight in the days when aircrafts had few instruments and pilots flew by the seat of their pants. He worked on the Aéropostale between Toulouse and Dakar. His first tale, L'Aviateur (The Aviator), was published in the magazine Le Navire d'Argent. In 1928, he published his first book, Courrier-Sud (Southern Mail), and flew the Casablanca/Dakar route. He became the director of Cap Juby airfield in Rio de Oro, Sahara. In 1929, he moved to South America where he was appointed director of the Aeroposta Argentina Company. In 1931, Vol de Nuit (Night Flight), which won the Prix Femina, was published. He married Salvadoran artist and writer Consuelo Suncin Sandoval de Gómez, who became the model for the temperamental Rose in Le Petit Prince. Theirs was a stormy union as Saint-Exupéry traveled frequently and indulged in numerous affairs.
During World War II, he was in New York City, but returned to France to join a squadron based in the Mediterranean. Now 44, he agreed to collect data on German troop movements in the Rhone River Valley. He took off the night of July 31, 1944, and was never seen again. A lady reported having seen a plane crash around noon on August 1st near the Bay of Carqueiranne. A body wearing a French uniform was found several days later, and buried. In 1998, a fisherman found a silver chain bracelet south of Marseille which was identified as being Saint-Exupéry's. On April 7, 2004, officials confirmed that the wreckage of a Lockheed Lightning P-38 found on the seabed off the coast of Marseille in 2000 was Saint-Exupéry's.
Further research in 2006 by the dive team which recovered the wreckage located a German pilot who was flying a mission at the Bay of Carqueiranne at the time Saint-Exupéry's plane went down. Horst Rippert acknowledged that he shot at the plane, but did not report it, possibly because he was not sure he actually downed it. When the Germans heard American radio broadcasts that Saint-Exupéry was missing, Rippert said he knew that the plane he downed was his. Rippert idolized Saint-Exupéry, read all his books, and had been bothered by the incident his whole life. He told the dive team he would not have shot at the plane had he known it was Saint-Exupéry's.- Robert Frazer was born on 29 June 1891 in Worcester, Massachusetts, USA. He was an actor, known for White Zombie (1932), The Vampire Bat (1933) and The Tiger Woman (1944). He was married to Mildred Bright. He died on 17 August 1944 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Henrietta Crosman was born on 2 September 1861 in Wheeling, West Virginia, USA. She was an actress, known for Charlie Chan's Secret (1935), The Right to Live (1935) and The Royal Family of Broadway (1930). She was married to Maurice Campbell and Sedley Brown. She died on 31 October 1944 in Pelham Manor, New York, USA.
- Actor
- Soundtrack
Jess Lee Brooks a.k.a Jesse Brooks was an exceptional actor. He appeared in many of the top Black Cinema movies of the time, always playing the role of the caring policemen trying to warn the gangsters before it's too late, a father who would die for his kids. Whatever he played he was always a guardian angel over ones he cared for, the only time he would do wrong was if you wronged him or a loved one. Movie audiences felt as though they knew him when seeing him off-screen because on-screen his natural, love, kind word for all and protective persona reminded them of their father. Even in Hollywood films, he often outshone many of the white leading stars with his strong presence like in Sullivan's Travels where he gave an emotional performance that no one will ever forget after seeing it. Brooks died in 1944 and got respectful obituaries written about him. He was a man who wasn't afraid of being emotional or loving but was the definition of a man.- A man of seemingly inexhaustible talents, Stephen Butler Leacock (born December 30, 1869) easily juggled being a humorist, essayist, teacher, political economist, lecturer, and historian. He received many awards and honorary degrees, among them the Lorne Pierce Medal; the Leacock Medal for Humour was established in his honor and has been awarded annually since 1947 to the best humorous book by a Canadian author. At the height of his career from 1915 through 1925, Leacock was undeniably the English-speaking world's best-known humorist. His parents, Peter Leacock and Agnes Emma Butler, had been secretly married; Agnes was three years older than her new husband. When Leacock was about 7, his large family (ultimately ten brothers and sisters) moved to Canada and settled on a 100-acre farm. Despite living a hard life on the farm, and having a charming but shiftless alcoholic father, Leacock was fortunate in that his mother believed strongly in a good education. With her devoted support and guidance, he did well in school, and graduated in 1887 as Head Boy from Upper Canada College. He received a B.A. from the University of Toronto in 1891. During this time, he wrote humorous articles for magazines for extra income. In 1900, he married Beatrix Hamilton, daughter of a well-to-do Toronto businessman. Her death from breast cancer in 1925 grieved him greatly, but he kept his anguish private, and spearheaded fundraisers to aid cancer research. Among his professional accomplishments, Leacock was appointed to full professor at McGill University in 1908. He was also appointed William Dow Professor of Political Economy and chair of the Department of Economics and Political Science, a position he held for 30 years until his forced retirement at age 65. Leacock's prolific written observations--sharp, funny, and timely--were critically applauded and loved by the public. He published what many consider his literary masterpiece, "Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town," in 1912. Leacock wrote two excellent biographies: "Mark Twain," published in 1932, and "Charles Dickens, His Life and Work," in 1933. In 1935, he published "Humour: Its Theory and Technique." He died of throat cancer in 1944, leaving his autobiography, "The Boy I Left Behind Me," unfinished. It was published in 1946. But death did not sweep him from Canada's cherished memory. To mark the 100th anniversary of Leacock's birth, the government of Canada issued a six-cent stamp in his honor in 1969. Leacock's former homes were declared historic sites, more awards were heaped upon him posthumously, and in 1970, a mountain in the Yukon's Saint Elias range was named after him.
- Actor
- Additional Crew
Tall, heavy-set character actor Alan Dinehart dropped out of school to join a repertory company. He had extensive stage experience (including some 27 appearances on Broadway) and, by the time he was signed by Fox in 1931, he had worked not only as an actor but as a stage manager and writer. On screen he appeared for the most part in "B" pictures, notable exceptions being the MGM musical blockbuster Born to Dance (1936) and the 20th Century-Fox classic family drama Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1938). Dinehart specialized in portraying blustering or shifty businessmen, crooked politicians or racketeers. While he is usually described as a supporting player, he actually started out in the early 1930s playing leading roles opposite some of the major female stars of the period.
However, Dinehart's characters were rarely sympathetic. In Street of Women (1932) he essayed an architect who, bored with his society wife, indiscreetly keeps a mistress (Kay Francis) on the side. In Supernatural (1933) he was true to form as the phony spiritualist fleecing a wealthy socialite, played by Carole Lombard; and in Jimmy the Gent (1934) he was an urbane con artist in competition with James Cagney. On rarer occasions Alan found gainful employment as more benevolent characters, point in case his theatrical impressario Theodore von Eltz in Dance, Girl, Dance (1933). All of these performances attracted good reviews from Mordaunt Hall of the New York Times, ranging from "excellent" to "bearing up valiantly".
In unlikely contrast to his self-styled image of "Hollywood's most versatile villain", Dinehart had strong comedic inclinations, co-authoring several comedy plays towards the later stages of his career. The last and most successful of these, "Separate Rooms" (1940-1941), with Dinehart top-billed alongside Glenda Farrell and Lyle Talbot, became one of the longest-running non-musical plays on Broadway at the time, finally closing after 613 performances. Alan's son, Mason Alan Dinehart, followed in his father's footsteps and also became an actor, featured in several westerns and on television from the late 1940's.- Director
- Writer
- Producer
Former playwright George B. Seitz left the theater for Hollywood in 1913, and before long he was turning out screenplays for action serials such as The Perils of Pauline (1914), The Exploits of Elaine (1914), and The Iron Claw (1916). In addition to writing and sometimes starring in these productions, he began to direct them as well, with great success. A prolific director, Seitz, unlike many of his B-picture colleagues, survived the transition from silents to talkies quite well, and directed everything from comedies to dramas to westerns at most of the studios around town. Although he spent a good amount of time at Columbia, he came to be most closely associated with MGM, where he directed - among others - almost all of the entries in the fondly remembered "Andy Hardy" series.- Writer
- Producer
- Director
What a life! Edgar Selwyn was born Edgar Simon on October 20, 1875, in Cincinnati, OH. As a child he and his family lived in Toronto, Canada, before moving to Selma, AL, where his parents died. He moved to Chicago at the age of 17 to seek his fortune, but Fortune would not let the young man take her as his mistress. Penniless, one night he decided to commit suicide and jumped off a bridge spanning the Chicago River. Instead of drowning, he landed on ice. Picking himself up, he made his way back to shore, where he was promptly accosted by a stickup artist, who jammed a gun into his back. "Your money or your life!" the thug thundered in time-honored fashion. The calm Selwyn replied, "My life." The perplexed thief began conversing with his intended victim, with the result that they both went to a pawnshop, where the gun was pawned and the proceeds divided between the two. This real-life comedy-drama served as the basis for Selwyn's 1915 play "Rolling Stones."
Busted flat in Chicago, Selwyn moved to New York in the 1890s, where he eventually achieved success as an actor, playwright and theatrical producer. First, though, he had to struggle. He became a haberdasher, selling neckties for $9 a week. Subsequently, he found employment as an usher at the Herald Square Theatre at the princely wage of 50 cents a night, but was soon was fired for imitating actor Richard Mansfield, who was starring in a play at the theater.
Actor-impresario William Gillette hired Selwyn for "Secret Service" in 1896, in which he played the role of a Confederate soldier, for $8 a week. Later he became the assistant stage manager for Gillette's company at the same salary. Gillette believed in the "realism of action," and minimized unnecessary dialog in favor of physical action that would elucidate the characters' behavior, a production philosophy that influenced the nascent movie industry, which, of course, was silent. Eventually Selwyn left Gillette and toured with a stock company, which put on his first play, the one-act "A Night in Havana."
After his apprenticeship in stock companies in Rochester, NY, and at New York City's Third Avenue Theatre, Selwyn made it back to Broadway in 1899, appearing in "The King's Musketeers" at the Herald Square Theatre, where he had first ushered. The next year he appeared in Augustus Thomas' "Arizona", moving with the production to London in 1902. Other plays he performed in on Broadway before becoming a star were Charles Frohman's 1902 production of "Sherlock Holmes", with his former employer Gillette in the title role, and two plays starring Ethel Barrymore: "Sunday" in 1904 and a 1905 revival of Henrik Ibsen's masterpiece "A Doll's House", with Barrymore as Nora Helmer.
Selwyn appeared in George M. Cohan's stinker "Popularity" in 1906. That same year he turned to playwriting, with his "It's All Your Fault" running for 32 performances at the Majestic in September 1908. His adaptation of Anglo-Canadian writer Gilbert Parker's novel about French-Canadians, "Pierre and His People", hit the Broadway boards that October, running for 32 performances as "Pierre of the Plains" (it was made into a movie in 1914, Pierre of the Plains (1914), starring Selwyn and produced by his own company, the All Star Feature Film Corp.; it was remade by MGM in 1942 as Pierre of the Plains (1942), with John Carroll). "The Country Boy" opened at the Liberty on August 30, 1910, and ran for 143 performances. According to his "New York Times" obituary, Selwyn had the biggest success of his career as a dramatist as playwright-star of his own original play "The Arab" in 1911. This drama was made into a film in 1915 (The Arab (1915)) by Cecil B. DeMille, with Selwyn recreating his stage role.
His first musical, "The Wall Street Girl", opened at George M. Cohan's Theatre on June 1, 1912, and ran for 56 performances. The book was written by Broadway playwright Margaret Mayo, Selwyn's first wife. He produced "Within the Law" that same year, and it was a huge success, generating a net profit of $1 million (approximately $19 million in 2003 dollars) in the days just before the advent of federal income tax. He also produced his wife's play "Her First Divorce", which ran for eight performances at the Comedy Theatre in 1913.
Edgar's younger brother Archibald Selwyn had followed him to New York and gone into business with a loan from the theatrical literary agent Elisabeth Marbury. Archibald had acquired the rights to operate a Coney Island concession that required the purchase of a penny-slot weighing machine, which he did with Marbury's money. After much frustration with the rusting machine, Arch and his partner one day garnered 1,300 pennies from a Coney Island crowd mindful of their waists. The two partners promptly lost their loot, which was wrapped in a blanket, although they did recover it from a restaurant trash can. It was time for a new career for Arch.
Edgar, Arch and future Broadway producer-director Crosby Gaige launched Selwyn & Company, Inc., in 1914, a theatrical production company and play brokerage that Edgar headed as president until 1924. The Selwyn Theater was built in 1918 at 229 W. 42nd St. behind their six-floor office building. It was inaugurated on Oct 2, 1918, with "Information Please", co-written by Jane Cowl, who had appeared in "Within the Law" and acted in other Edgar Selwyn plays. Its second offering was Edgar's own "The Crowded Hour", which opened 11 days after the end of World War I.
Construction of the theater--which was rechristened in 2000 as the American Airlines Theater--was bankrolled by infamous gambler Arnold Rothstein, the man who fixed the 1919 World Series (one of the inspirations for the character of Meyer Wolfsheim in F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby," Rothstein pioneered New York's narcotics trade, in addition to being a gangster, swindler and political fixer).
The most popular play to appear at the Selwyn was Edna Ferber's and George S. Kaufman's "The Royal Family," which burlesqued the Barrymore family. Opening on December 28, 1927, the play, which was produced by Broadway legend Jed Harris, ran for 345 performances.
The Selwyns also built the Times Square Theater on 42nd Street in 1920. It opened with Edgar's own play, "The Mirage," which turned out to be a hit that ran for six months. The second play at the theater, Avery Hopwood's "The Demi-Virgin," ran for eight months. Eight of the 23 plays that followed these two inaugural hits were successful, and its boards were trod by the likes of Beatrice Lillie, Tallulah Bankhead and Robert Cummings. Gertrude Lawrence co-starred with the young Laurence Olivier and Noël Coward in Coward's 1931 hit comedy "Private Lives" at the theater. Other famous productions there were "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" in the 1926-1927 season, "The Front Page" in 1928 and "Strike Up the Band" in 1930.
The Times Square Theater's exterior featured an open-colonnaded limestone facade that had an entrance for the Selwyns' Apollo Theater. Built in 1919 as a movie-cum-vaudeville house named The Bryant, it was taken over by the Selywns in 1920 and rebuilt. It was converted to a legitimate theater showcasing plays and musicals, sharing a single marquee with the Times Square Theater.
The Apollo didn't have its first hit until 1923's "Poppy," starring W.C. Fields. The theater then was taken over exclusively for George White's "Scandals," a Ziegfeld Follies-like show that ran annually from 1924-31. The productions were famous for their chorus lines of gorgeous--and undressed--showgirls. The Apollo closed as a legitimate theater after the musical "Blackbirds of 1933" flopped, lasting only 25 performances. It then began showing movies until it was acquired by the Minskys, who ran it as a burlesque theater from 1934-37. In 1938 the Apollo transformed itself into a movie theater specializing in foreign films, then devolved into a Times Square grindhouse, an incarnation that lasted many years.
In 1933 the Times Square Theater ceased to be a legitimate theater after the closing of the play "Forsaking All Others," starring Tallulah Bankhead. Produced by Arch Selwyn, it opened on March 1, 1933, and closed after 110 performances. The theater was refitted as a movie house in 1934, as was the Selwyn, before being converted into a retail store in 1940. The Selwyn degenerated into one of Times Square's many double-feature grindhouses before being reclaimed as a theater in the 1990s, when the Wooster Group staged "The Hairy Ape" there in 1997.
Edgar Selwyn personally produced the Anita Loos comedy "Gentleman Prefer Blondes" in 1926, which ran for 199 performances at the family's Times Square Theater. He was also the producer of the musical "Strike up the Band", with music and lyrics by George Gershwin and Ira Gershwin and a book by Morrie Ryskind, based on George S. Kaufman's libretto, and the play racked up 191 performances at the Times Square in 1930. Edgar's last Broadway productions were "Fast Service" in 1931, a flop that lasted only seven performances at the Selwyn, and "The Wookey" ten years later, which ran for 134 performances at the Plymouth. His brother Arch continued to produce on Broadway throughout the 1930s.
Although Selwyn wrote many plays solo and in collaboration, the new medium of motion pictures was to become his future. Edgar and Arch Selwyn started producing films in 1912 through their All Star Feature Films Corp. In December 1916 they merged their company with that of producer Samuel Goldfish, creating the Goldwyn Pictures Corp. The symbol of the new company was a reclining lion, surrounded by a banner made from a strip of celluloid film, reading, in Latin, "Ars Gratia Artis" ("Art for Art's Sake"). Designed by advertising-publicity guru Howard Dietz, who later became a Broadway lyricist and movie executive, it adorned the front gate of the studio's Culver City, CA, production facilities, which ranked with the finest in the film industry (the inspiration for the original "Leo the Lion" likely were the stone lions fronting the New York Public Library on 44th St., which was across from the All Star Feature Corp.'s offices.)
Edgar's wife Margaret Mayo, a success in her own right as a playwright, and Broadway impresario Arthur Hopkins also were partners in the deal, but the dominant figure at Goldwyn Pictures and Goldwyn Distributing was Sam Goldfish. Goldfish, a founding partner of the Jesse L. Lasky Feature Film Co. in 1914, was forced out of that company in early 1916 when studio chief Jesse L. Lasky more closely integrated his production company with Adolph Zukor's Famous Players Film Co. The two firms served as the basis of Paramount Pictures. Goldfish, who had immigrated to Canada as Schmuel Gelbfisz, liked the name of his new company so well he adopted it as his surname--thus the world was introduced to Samuel Goldwyn.
Disliked by his partners, he dominated Goldwyn Pictures for three years until he lost an ownership struggle in September 1920. He resigned and, tired of partners, became an independent producer, a status he maintained for the rest of his career. Subsequently, the Goldwyn-less Goldwyn Pictures bought the old Triangle Studios in Los Angeles and leased two more New York studios while ceasing operations in New Jersey. The company eventually was merged with Loew's Inc.'s Metro Pictures in 1924 through a stock swap, creating Metro-Goldwyn, which subsequently merged with Louis B. Mayer Productions, with Louis B. Mayer as studio chief. The "Leo the Lion" trademark was adopted by MGM, and after being modified, would become one of the most famous and enduring trademarks in history.
Selwyn was hired by MGM as a writer-director in 1929. There he directed the Broadway star Helen Hayes to an Academy Award in the melodrama The Sin of Madelon Claudet (1931). Divorced from Margaret Mayo, Selwyn married Ruth Selwyn (born Ruth Wilcox), who was 30 years his junior. The marriage made him the brother-in-law of Loew's Inc. President Nicholas M. Schenck, who was married to Ruth's sister Pansy (aka Pansy Schenck).
Marcus Loew, the capo di tutti capo of MGM, was a firm believer in nepotism. Going along with the family tradition, Selwyn put his wife Ruth in several of the films he directed and produced. He mentored Ruth's brother, Fred M. Wilcox, who eventually became a director at MGM himself (Lassie Come Home (1943) and the sci-fi classic Forbidden Planet (1956)). Selwyn adopted Ruth's son Russell from an earlier marriage (Edgar and Ruth eventually divorced),
When Louis B. Mayer replaced the position of central producer with a "college of cardinals" concept of production units after Irving Thalberg's 1932 heart attack, Selwyn became a producer. He eventually served as Mayer's editorial assistant while simultaneously running his own production unit.
Edgar Selwyn died at the age of 68 at Los Angeles' Cedars of Lebanon Hospital on February 14, 1944, from a cerebral hemorrhage he had suffered the previous night. He was survived by his brother, Arch, two sisters, Mrs. Michael Isaacs and Mrs. S. M. Goldsmith, and his stepson, Russell "Rusty" Selwyn.- Additional Crew
Erwin Rommel, aka "The Desert Fox", was one of Adolf Hitler's most able generals during WWII. He joined the German army in 1910 and won awards for bravery in WW I. He was in the 7th Tank Division at the outbreak of WW II and headed the push to the English Channel. Promoted to the rank of lieutenant general, Rommel led the German army in Africa (known as The Afrika Korps) in its mostly successful North African campaign. He drove the British in Libya back to to El Alamein. This led to his promotion to the rank of Field Marshal. Eventually outmaneuvered by British Gen. Bernard L. Montgomery, he returned to Germany, where he was given charge of the defense of northern France. Implicated in the July 1944 plot to assassinate Hitler, he chose suicide rather than execution.- Actor
- Writer
Edwin Stanley was a bespectacled, white haired, distinguished-looking actor who was trained in live theater and who, except a few silent pictures, stayed in that medium until he reached the age of 51. In 1932, he made his screen debut in talking pictures in "Virtue". Thereafter, Stanley appeared in over 200 movies, specializing in officials such as doctors, lawyers, judges, producers, etc. Stanley appeared in several serials, including those featuring Dick Tracy and Flash Gordon. Stanley worked up until his death in 1944.