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- Actor
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James Byron Dean was born February 8, 1931 in Marion, Indiana, to Mildred Marie (Wilson) and Winton A. Dean, a farmer turned dental technician. His mother died when Dean was nine, and he was subsequently raised on a farm by his aunt and uncle in Fairmount, Indiana. After grade school, he moved to New York to pursue his dream of acting. He received rave reviews for his work as the blackmailing Arab boy in the New York production of Gide's "The Immoralist", good enough to earn him a trip to Hollywood. His early film efforts were strictly small roles: a sailor in the Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis overly frantic musical comedy Sailor Beware (1952); a GI in Samuel Fuller's moody study of a platoon in the Korean War, Fixed Bayonets! (1951) and a youth in the Piper Laurie-Rock Hudson comedy Has Anybody Seen My Gal (1952).
He had major roles in only three movies. In the Elia Kazan production of John Steinbeck's East of Eden (1955) he played Cal Trask, the bad brother who could not force affection from his stiff-necked father. His true starring role, the one which fixed his image forever in American culture, was that of the brooding red-jacketed teenager Jim Stark in Nicholas Ray's Rebel Without a Cause (1955). George Stevens' filming of Edna Ferber's Giant (1956), in which he played the non-conforming cowhand Jett Rink who strikes it rich when he discovers oil, was just coming to a close when Dean, driving his Porsche Spyder race car, collided with another car while on the road near Cholame, California on September 30, 1955. He had received a speeding ticket just two hours before. At age 24, James Dean was killed almost immediately from the impact from a broken neck. His very brief career, violent death and highly publicized funeral transformed him into a cult object of apparently timeless fascination.- Actress
- Writer
- Additional Crew
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.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Shemp Howard was born Samuel Horwitz in Brooklyn, New York, USA. He was also the brother of fellow stooges Moe Howard and Curly Howard. Larry Fine was not related to any of the other stooges.
When not working with The Three Stooges, Shemp made a lot of feature film appearances, such as The Bank Dick (1940) with W.C. Fields. Shemp, Moe, Larry and Curly appeared in only one short together -- Hold That Lion! (1947). In it, Curly appears as an uncredited train car passenger. Watch for the man with the hat on his face. This was a short, non-speaking cameo, due to a stroke Curly suffered the prior year.- Actress
- Writer
Theda Bara was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, as Theodosia Goodman, on July 29, 1885. She was the daughter of a local tailor and his wife. As a teenager Theda was interested in the theatrical arts and once she finished high school, she dyed her blond hair black and went in pursuit of her dream. By 1908 she was in New York in search of roles. That year she appeared in "The Devil", a stage play. In 1911 she joined a touring company. After returning to New York in 1914, she began making the rounds of various casting offices in search of work, and was eventually hired to appear in The Stain (1914) as an extra, but she was placed so far in the background that she was not noticed on the screen. However, it was her ability to take direction which helped her gain the lead role as the "vampire" in A Fool There Was (1915) later that year, and "The Vamp" was born. It was a well-deserved break, because Theda was almost 30 years old, at a time when younger women were always considered for lead roles. She became the screen's first fabricated star. Publicists sent out press releases that Theda was the daughter of an artist and an Arabian princess, and that "Theda Bara" was an anagram for "Arab Death"--a far cry from her humble Jewish upbringing in Cincinnati. The public became fascinated with her--how could one resist an actress who allowed herself to be photographed with snakes and skulls? Theda's second film, later that year for the newly formed Fox Studios, was as Celia Friedlander in Kreutzer Sonata (1915). Theda was hot property now and was to make six more films in 1915, finishing up with Carmen (1915). The next year would prove to be another busy one, with theater patrons being treated to eight Theda Bara films, all of which would make a great deal of money for Fox Films, and in 1917 Fox headed west to Califoria and took Theda with them. That year she starred in a mega-hit, Cleopatra (1917). This was quickly followed by The Rose of Blood (1917). In 1918 Theda wrote the story and starred as the Priestess in The Soul of Buddha (1918). After seven films in 1919, ending with Lure of Ambition (1919), her contract was terminated by Fox, and her career never recovered. In 1921 she married director Charles Brabin and retired. In 1926 she made her last film, Madame Mystery (1926), and promptly went back into retirement, permanently, at the age of 41. She tried the stage briefly in the 1930s but nothing really set the fires burning. A movie based on her life was planned in the 1950s, but nothing ever came of it. On April 7, 1955, Theda Bara died of abdominal cancer at the age of 69 in Los Angeles, California. There has been no one like her since.- Actress
- Additional Crew
- Soundtrack
Carmen Miranda was born Maria do Carmo Miranda da Cunha on February 9, 1909, near Porto, Portugal, in the town of Marco de Canavezes. Not long after her birth her family moved to Brazil, where her father was involved in the produce business. The family settled in the then-capital city of Rio de Janeiro. ' After leaving school, Carmen got a job at a local store, and often began singing on the job. Before long she was discovered and got a singing job on a local radio station. She ultimately got a recording contract with RCA. By 1928 she was a genuine superstar in Brazil. As with other popular singers of the era, she eventually made her way into the film world. She made her debut in the Brazilian documentary A Voz do Carnaval (1933). Two years later she appeared in her first feature film, Alô, Alô, Brasil (1935).
However. it was Estudantes (1935) that seemed to solidify Carmen in the minds of the Brazilian movie audiences. Now they realized she could act as well as sing. Although there was three years between "Alo, Alo Carnaval" and Banana-da-Terra (1939), Carmen continued to churn out musical hits in Brazil. The latter film would be the last in her home country.
In late 1939 Carmen arrived, with much fanfare in the press, in New York City. She was now ready to capture Americans' hearts with her talent. She appeared in some musical revues on Broadway and, just as everyone thought, was a huge hit. In 1940 Carmen was signed to appear in the Twentieth Century-Fox production Down Argentine Way (1940), with Betty Grable and Don Ameche. The only complaint that critics had was the fact that Carmen was not on the screen enough.
In 1941 she was, again, teamed with Ameche in addition to Alice Faye in That Night in Rio (1941). The film was extremely popular with the theater patrons. Her unique songs went a long way in making her popular. It was after Week-End in Havana (1941) that American cartoon artists began to cash in on Carmen's ever-growing popularity. In the 1930s and 1940s cartoons were sometimes shown as a prelude to whatever feature film was showing. Sure enough, the cartoon version of Carmen came wriggling across the screen, complete with her trademark fruit hat and wide, toothy grin.
In 1942 Carmen starred in Springtime in the Rockies (1942) with Betty Grable and Cesar Romero, both of whom she had worked with before. It was shortly after this that America began adopting her style of dress as the latest fad. 1944 saw her in three films: Something for the Boys (1944), Four Jills in a Jeep (1944) and Greenwich Village (1944). The first two did well at the box-office, but the last one left a lot to be desired. It was her last busy year in film. Carmen made one film each in 1945, '46, '47 and '48. After that she didn't make a film for two years, until Nancy Goes to Rio (1950), a production for MGM. Once again didn't make a film for several years, returning with Scared Stiff (1953).
She did stay busy, singing on the nightclub circuit and appearing on the relatively new medium of television. However, "Scared Stiff" was her final performance on the silver screen. On August 4, 1955, she suffered a heart attack, although she didn't realize it at the time, during a video taping of The Jimmy Durante Show (1954). She went home after attending a party.
Early the next morning, on August 5, Carmen suffered a fatal heart attack. She was just 46 years old. Her body was flown to her adopted country of Brazil, where her death was declared a period of national mourning.- Paul Harvey was born on 10 September 1882 in Sandwich, Illinois, USA. He was an actor, known for Spellbound (1945), Calamity Jane (1953) and Algiers (1938). He was married to Merle Stanton and Ottye Henrietta Cramer (actress). He died on 15 December 1955 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Actor
- Soundtrack
Pittsburgh-born John Hodiak was one of several up-and-coming male talents who managed to take advantage of the dearth of WWII-era superstars (MGM's Clark Gable, Van Johnson, Robert Taylor and James Stewart, among others) who were off serving their country. John's early death at age 41, however, robbed Hollywood of a strong player and promising character star.
Born on April 16, 1914, the eldest of four (one daughter was adopted), John was eight years old when his middle-class family moved to a thriving Polish community in a suburb of Detroit, Michigan. His father, Walter, was born in the Ukraine and his mother, Anna, was Polish. Expressing interest in music and drama at an early age, he was encouraged by his father who had appeared in amateur shows. He found roles in school plays (done in Hungarian or Polish), sang in the Ukrainian church choir, played the clarinet, and even took diction lessons. Not to be outdone, his athletic skills were also put on display. At one point, he was considered by the St. Louis Cardinals for their farm league but he declined the offer in favor of pursuing an acting career.
Following high school, John found work as a golf caddy and stockroom clerk (at a Chevrolet company) before breaking into radio (WXYZ) in Detroit and (later) Chicago. His more notable roles was as the title figure in "L'il Abner" (a role created on radio) and in the serials "Ma Perkins" and "Wings of Destiny". While in Chicago he was noticed by MGM talent agent Marvin Schenck and signed. Proud of his heritage, he refused to change his name to a more marquee-friendly moniker despite mogul Louis B. Mayer's concerns. Hodiak made his debut as a walk-on in A Stranger in Town (1943), and had a bit part in one of Ann Sothern's "Maisie" series Swing Shift Maisie (1943) before becoming her leading man in a subsequent entry (Maisie Goes to Reno (1944)) the following year.
His inability to sign up for military duty due to his high blood pressure ended up giving him a starring career. Attention started being paid after he played Lana Turner's soldier husband in Marriage Is a Private Affair (1944). An interested Alfred Hitchcock then borrowed John for the role of Kovac, the torpedoed ship's crew member, in one of his classic war dramas Lifeboat (1944) starring the irrepressible Tallulah Bankhead at 20th Century-Fox. The studio was so impressed with John's work in this that it cast him in two other quality films: Sunday Dinner for a Soldier (1944) and A Bell for Adano (1945), both of which showed off his quiet but rugged charm.
In the former he played the patriotic title role and co-starred with Anne Baxter. No sparks as of yet between these two, but a year or so later they reconnected at a party and started dating. They married on July 6, 1946. The second film, the exquisitely sensitive and moving war picture A Bell for Adano (1945) made him a star by Hollywood standards. Co-starring a rather miscast Gene Tierney (as a blonde Italian village girl) and William Bendix, John was more than up to the challenge of playing the role of U.S. Major Joppolo, originally created on Broadway by Fredric March. The irony of it all is that the actor never found better roles (at MGM) than the ones he filmed while lent out to Fox.
Back at MGM, John went through the usual paces. He was overlooked in the rousing Judy Garland vehicle The Harvey Girls (1946), but seemed much more at home in the film noir Somewhere in the Night (1946) and in the WWII drama Homecoming (1948) that starred Clark Gable and Lana Turner, with John and wife Anne Baxter serving as second leads.
With MGM's male roster of talent back home now from the war, John was unceremoniously relegated to second leads that supported the top-tier actors, including Gable, Spencer Tracy, Robert Walker, James Stewart and Robert Taylor. While several of his subsequent post-war films drew desultory reviews, notably the Greer Garson "Miniver" sequel The Miniver Story (1950), Hedy Lamarr's so-called tale of intrigue A Lady Without Passport (1950), and the Clark Gable western Across the Wide Missouri (1951), John did manage to co-star in two of MGM's more stirring war pictures -- Command Decision (1948) and Battleground (1949). Occasionally deemed "glum" and "wooden" by his harsher critics, John's MGM contract expired in 1951 and he began to freelance. Most of the work that followed were starring roles in low-budget entries. Battle Zone (1952) had John and Stephen McNally as two Korean war photographers distracted by the lovely Linda Christian, and Conquest of Cochise (1953) featured a miscast John as the famed Indian warrior.
John reaped better rewards on the stage during this time. Receiving excellent reviews following his 1952 Broadway debut as the sheriff in "The Chase" (he received the Donaldson Award), the actor returned to Broadway as Lieutenant Maryk in "The Caine Mutiny Court Martial (1954) co-starring Henry Fonda. He was extremely disappointed when former fellow MGM player Van Johnson was cast as the lieutenant in the acclaimed film version starring Humphrey Bogart as Captain Queeg.
The father of daughter Katrina Baxter Hodiak, who was born in 1951, John and Anne's varied backgrounds (he was middle class and she more high society -- her grandfather being the renowned Frank Lloyd Wright) and their busy film careers created significant problems. They divorced on January 27, 1953. John later built a home for his parents and younger brother in Tarzana, California and eventually lived there with them. His later years grew difficult and were plagued by self-doubt, a diminishing career and an equally diminishing social life.
John's key Broadway success in "Mutiny" led to a fine comeback role on screen as a prosecuting attorney in Trial (1955), finding "guest artist" work on dramatic TV as well. What might have led to a strong resurgence, however, was sadly cut short. On the morning of October 19, 1955, 41-year-old John suffered a coronary thrombosis and died instantly while shaving in the bathroom of his home. He was on his way to the 20th Century-Fox lot to complete final work on his last film, On the Threshold of Space (1956), when he was stricken.
The movie was released posthumously with John's role left intact. While no previous record of a heart ailment, per se, was ever uncovered, the hypertension that kept him out of the service, at a relatively young age, no doubt contributed to his death. It was an extreme shock to lose someone so relatively young, and even sadder for those he loved and left behind, including his 4-year-old daughter. Katrina Hodiak later became a composer, an actress and a theater director). John was interred at the Calvary Cemetery in Los Angeles.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Suzan Ball, a second cousin of Lucille Ball, was born on March 3, 1934, in Jamestown, New York. She came to Hollywood with her family in 1941. She sang with the Mel Baker Orchestra from 1948-1953. Her first part in Hollywood was as a harem girl in Aladdin and His Lamp (1952) at Monogram. She got an interview with the talent department of Universal-International and signed a contract. In 1952 she was proclaimed "The New Cinderella Girl of 1952". She had a fleeting romance with Scott Brady, who she met on the set of Untamed Frontier (1952), and they planned to marry. She then filmed City Beneath the Sea (1953) and fell for Anthony Quinn, who was still married. Their romance lasted only a year because Quinn was still in love with his wife, Katherine DeMille. Suzan was proclaimed one of the most important "New Stars of 1953" by Hedda Hopper. On her next film, East of Sumatra (1953), she suffered an injury to her right leg during a dance number. Later in 1953, while filming War Arrow (1953), she was told by doctors that her leg had developed tumors. Later that year at home, she slipped on some spilled water and broke her leg. She was rushed to the hospital and operated on to remove the tumors. The operation was not a success and she was told that amputation of her right leg would be necessary. In December of 1953, she became engaged to Richard Long. On January 12, 1954, her leg was amputated. On April 4th, 1954, she was married to Long in Santa Barbara wearing an artificial limb. Some guests in attendance at her wedding were Rock Hudson, Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh, David Janssen and Jeff Chandler. In May 1955 she embarked on a nightclub tour. In July, while rehearsing a scene for an episode of Climax! (1954), she collapsed and was rushed to the hospital. Doctors found that the cancer had spread to her lungs. On August 5th, 1955, Suzan died of cancer, only six months after her 21st birthday. She fought her battle with cancer for 16 months and lost. She was buried at Forest Lawn Cemetary. Her husband Richard was always praised for his love and devotion to Suzan during her long illness.- Actor
- Writer
- Soundtrack
Hungarian-born S.Z. Sakall was a veteran of German, Hungarian and British films when he left Europe because of the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi movement. In Hollywood from shortly after the outbreak of World War II, Sakall began appearing in comedies and musicals, often playing a lovable if somewhat excitable and/or befuddled uncle, businessman or neighborhood eccentric. Memorable as the waiter in Casablanca (1942) and as a somewhat lecherous Broadway producer in Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942). He retired from films in 1954 and died of a heart attack in Hollywood in 1955.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Ona Munson was born Owena Elizabeth Wolcott on June 16, 1903 in Portland, Oregon. She took singing and dancing lessons when she was a child. At the age of fourteen, Ona moved to New York City with her mother. She began her career performing in vaudeville. In 1919 she made her Broadway debut in George White's Scandals. She appeared in several hit Broadway shows including No, No, Nanette and Hold Everything. Ona married stage actor Edward Buzzell in 1926. She went to Hollywood in 1930 to make the comedy Going Wild (1930). Soon after, she divorced her husband and started dating director Ernst Lubitsch. She starred in The Hot Heiress (1931) with Ben Lyon and in Broadminded (1931) with Joe E. Brown. Ona returned to Broadway in 1933 for a production of Hold Your Horses. While appearing in the show Ghosts she had a brief romance with actress Alla Nazimova. She also had relationships with Greta Garbo, Tallulah Bankhead, and director Dorothy Arzner. In 1939 she was cast as Belle Watling, a Southern madam, in Gone with the Wind (1939). The movie was a huge success but Ona ended up being typecast in similar roles. She got rave reviews playing a madam again in the film The Shanghai Gesture (1941).
Ona had a passionate love affair with playwright Mercedes de Acosta. She said they shared "the deepest spiritual moment that life brings". Worried about being outed as a lesbian she ended the romance and married Stewart McDonald, a loan administrator, in 1941. Their marriage was an arrangement since Stewart was also gay. During World War 2 she was chosen to be "Hollywood's official hostess" and acted as a godmother to hundreds of soldiers. She made some movies at Warner Brothers but her career stalled. Her final film was the thriller The Red House (1947). Ona divorced Stewart and married French painter Eugene Berman in 1950. This was another lavender marriage to a gay man. The couple moved to an apartment in The Belnord on Manhattan's Upper West Side. During the early 1950s Ona appeared in a few television shows. Unfortunately she was plagued by health problems and became very depressed. On February 1955 she committed suicide by taking an overdose of sleeping pills. She was fifty-one years old. Ona left a note that said "This is the only way I know to be free again ... Please don't follow me." She is buried at Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York.- Relatively new to Hollywood, handsome Robert Francis was a rising young actor and deemed California's "Golden Boy" on the verge of 1950's cinematic stardom, when on July 31 , 1955, he, along with two others, perished in a private plane crash just after takeoff in Burbank, California.
Robert Charles Francis was born on February 26, 1930, in Glendale, California, where his parents ran a family pharmacy. Growing up he showed early interests in art and in sports, particularly skiing. As a teen he attended Pasadena City College from 1946 to 1948 after completing the tenth grade at Wilson Junior High School. He graduated with a "junior college degree.
The teenager had major designs on becoming an Olympic skier (he was taught by his older brother and the young boy was a ski shop operator at one point). Fate stepped in, however, when he was spotted by a Hollywood talent scout while sunning near the Santa Monica pier. Told his handsome, likable, all-American looks could make a cinematic impression, he decided to take a chance and began signed up for acting classes.
A three-year stint in the U.S. Army (1950-1953) interrupted this progress but, following his discharge, he attended the Batomi Schneider Drama Workshop (Ms. Schneider was a Universal drama coach). Max Arnow, head talent at Columbia, took a liking to Robert and managed to set up a screen test for studio head Harry Cohn who was looking for fresh talent for an upcoming film The Caine Mutiny (1954). Though his inexperience showed through in the test, Robert's courteous but quiet intensity and manly inner rebellion sparked an certain interest in Cohn and the young man was signed to a contract.
Not only did Columbia give Robert the prime role of Ensign Willie Keith in The Caine Mutiny (1954), Bob held his own alongside a formidable group of male stalwarts including Humphrey Bogart, José Ferrer, Van Johnson and Fred MacMurray. His scenes also included a romantic subplot opposite dark-haired beauty May Wynn, who took her stage moniker from the character she played in this film. Robert, sporting the 1950s brush-cut standard of the day, was voted one of Screen World's "Promising Personalities of 1954" upon the successful release of the movie.
Clean-cut and athletic, the young actor continued to show exceptional poise and restraint in his next three co-leads as well, finding a strong niche as odd-man-out military types. Capitalizing on his promising debut, Robert was top-billed in the western They Rode West (1954) as a cavalry captain who bucks against the system and his captain Philip Carey as he selflessly tends to Indians during a malaria epidemic . His co-star, again, was Ms. Wynn again as well as the lovely Donna Reed.
Top-billed as well in his third film, The Bamboo Prison (1954), which was similar but not quite up to the Oscar-winning standards of Stalag 17 (1953) as it reveals the brutalities of POW life, Robert plays a Korean War POW sergeant who attempts to extract valuable information from his captors. He co-stars opposite Brian Keith, as a fellow POW corporal, who initially thinks (as do the other American POWs) that Robert is a traitor for "cooperating" with the enemy.
Robert's fourth and final film was a third-billed part as an ill-fated West Point cadet in the sentimental John Ford bio-drama The Long Gray Line (1955) starring Tyrone Power as a legendary Irish-born West Point sergeant and Maureen O'Hara his altruistic wife. The picture did well.
While Columbia was keen on propelling Robert to top-grade stardom, Robert was showing a strong, keen interest in aviation. At one point, this ill-fated passion put him into contact with eccentric producer/director/aviator billionaire Howard Hughes and the two men frequently went flying together, with young Francis often at the controls of Hughes' planes
Just two weeks before Robert was to start filming a loan-out picture, MGM's romantic western Tribute to a Bad Man (1956) starring James Cagney, Robert decided to pilot a Beechcraft Bonanza owned by friend and fellow actor Joe Kirkwood Jr.. Also on board would be Kirkwood's business partner, the Hollywood agent George Irving Meyer, 38, an experienced WW II pilot, and his lady friend, aspiring actress Audrey Ann Schneider (aka Ann Russell), 24. Immediately following their shaky takeoff from Lockheed Air Terminal in Burbank, the plane's engine sputtered and lost power. Francis, a still relatively inexperienced pilot, managed to avoid a crowd at nearby Valhalla Cemetery, and crashed into a parking lot where it burst into flames, killing all three instantly.
The 25-year-old actor was survived by his parents, James William and Lillian Warnock Francis, and an older brother and sister (Bill, Lillian). He was buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park. Actor Don Dubbins was recast in the Cagney film. A tragic ending for such a promising young man who had a major career cruelly taken from him. - Having worked as a telephone operator at age 13 and a fashion model afterwards, Alice Joyce joined the Kalem film company at 20, making her debut in The Deacon's Daughter (1910), and achieved popularity as a charming, proper leading lady in many shorts. After Vitagraph bought out Kalem, Joyce began appearing in the company's features, and her career soared. She was so popular as an ingénue that she was still playing those parts into her late 20s, but eventually she switched to older, more mature roles. She played Clara Bow's mother in Bow's wildly popular film Dancing Mothers (1926). After retiring from the screen, she married director Clarence Brown.
- Actress
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Born in interwar Prague as Miroslava Stanclová, her father died and she was adopted by a Jewish doctor, the psychoanalyst Dr. Oskar Leo Stern (1900-1972) who married her mother, Miroslava (née Becka; 1898-1945). Dr. and Mrs. Stern had a son, Ivo (1931-2011), the actress's half-brother. The family was, at one point, interned in a concentration camp after they fled their native Czechoslovakia in 1939. They sought refuge in various Scandinavian countries before emigrating to Mexico in 1941.
After winning a beauty contest in Mexico City, young Miroslava spent some time in Los Angeles studying acting. Due to her European features and accent, she rarely found roles other than mysterious women or foreign beauties. She was eventually offered a role in what would become her last and most remembered film: Luis Buñuel's The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz (1955).
Soon after the film wrapped, she committed suicide reportedly because the man she loved married another woman. In a macabre coincidence, the premiere of The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz (1955), in which a mannequin in her likeness is incinerated, was released during her own cremation in a Mexican graveyard. Her short, tragic life inspired a short story in 1990, and a film, Miroslava (1993).- Actor
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James Millican was born on 17 February 1910 in Palisades, New Jersey, USA. He was an actor, known for Winchester '73 (1950), The Man from Laramie (1955) and I Died a Thousand Times (1955). He was married to Dorothy Eleanor Gumbrell. He died on 24 November 1955 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- The movie character actor Skelton Knaggs, who was possessed of one of the most unusual visages ever to grace motion pictures, was born Skelton Barnaby Knaggs in the Hillsborough district of Sheffield, England on June 27, 1911. Before he became known for his unusual physical appearance that was put to good use in many horror films and thrillers, he was a man of the theater: he learned his craft after moving to London to study acting at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Upon graduation, he became a Shakespearean actor, appearing on stage in Shakespeare's Cymbeline, but he is known as a movie actor, first plying that trade in English quota quickies in the 1930s, making his debut in The High Command (1936), in support of Lionel Atwill. At the end of the decade, as the war clouds gathered over Europe, he appeared in Michael Powell's U-Boat 29 (1939) with Conrad Veidt.
After moving to Los Angeles, California, Knaggs found steady work in Hollywood movies. His diminutive frame and eccentric-looking looking appearance led to him being type-cast in sinister parts, usually in horror movies. Knaggs was employed by directors for his ability to inject a menacing mood into a picture through his unique presence alone.
He made his American film debut in the 1939 Poverty Row potboiler Torture Ship (1939) for the Producers Distributing Corporation. Knaggs appeared as a murderer shanghaied by a mad doctor played by Irving Pichel, who indulged his penchant for medical research on a ship stocked with criminals as a floating laboratory, the villains used as guinea pigs for glandular experiments. He next appeared in the Victor McLaglen picture Diamond Frontier (1940) at Universal. He did not appear again in motion pictures until 1943, when he was cast in Thumbs Up (1943) at Republic. From then on, he had a busy movie career for the next 12 years.
Along with his classical acting training, Knaggs' looks and demeanor (to say nothing about that memorable name) enabled him to make the transition to higher-budgeted films produced by the major studios, although he remained typecast in creepy roles. He became a regular supporting player in Universal Pictures B horror picture unit, popping up in such classics of the genre as House of Dracula (1945) (in which he appeared as the rabble rouser "Steinmuhl"). Other memorable roles came in The Invisible Man's Revenge (1944) and Terror by Night (1946), the latter movie being the penultimate entry in the Basil Rathbone & Nigel Bruce Sherlock Holmes series at Universal. In the Holmes movie, Knaggs has a role as a stealthy assassin.
Typed in malevolent supporting parts from the beginning of his career in Hollywood, it was a genre ghetto that he could not break out of. However, it did provide him with the finest role of his career, and the one part that came closest to a starring role, the mute Finn in producer Val Lewton's The Ghost Ship (1943) (directed by Mark Robson). Knaggs played a Finnish seaman in the psychological thriller (a mute, though his character narrates the film's key sections with an internal voice-over monologue). Despite turning in a fine performance in one of the seminal classics of the horror genre, Knaggs' reputation did not gain much luster as "The Ghost Ship" was withdrawn from distribution soon after its release due to legal problems, not going back into circulation until the mid-1990s.
He played villains in Dick Tracy vs. Cueball (1946) and Dick Tracy Meets Gruesome (1947) (in which the spectacularly unattractive Knaggs mocks Boris Karloff's "gruesome" face).
Knaggs briefly returned to England in the late 1940s, marrying Thelma Crawshaw in 1949. Returning to Hollywood as the decade of the 1950s approached, Knaggs appeared the lab assistant of mad doctor 'Alan Napier' in the 1949 Bowery Boys film "Master Minds" (featuring 'Glenn Strange' as the monster "Atlas"), as a villain in Columbia's science-fiction serial Captain Video: Master of the Stratosphere (1951), and as one of the sidekicks of Robert Newton's Blackbeard, the Pirate (1952). The last film in which he appeared was Fritz Lang's Moonfleet (1955).
In 1955, Knaggs died of cirrhosis of the liver at the age of 43. His like will likely never be seen again! - Albert Einstein was born in Ulm, Kingdom of Württemberg, to a German Jewish family. He was the son of Pauline (Koch) and Hermann Einstein, a featherbed salesman. Albert began reading and studying science at a young age, and he graduated from a Swiss high school when he was 17. He then attended a Swiss Polytechnic, where he met his first wife. He graduated in 1900, and became a Swiss citizen in 1901. He began working at the Swiss Patent Office and continued his scientific studies. He taught at universities in Prague, Zurich, and Berlin, and continued his research in physics. The onset of World War II led him to move to the United States, and he was granted a post at the Institute for Advanced Study in New Jersey. Einstein was heavily involved in attempting to bring about world peace in his later life, and he continued his scientific research until his death in 1955.
- Actress
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Nana Bryant was born on 23 November 1888 in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA. She was an actress, known for Harvey (1950), Brewster's Millions (1945) and Theodora Goes Wild (1936). She was married to F Clifford Earl Thompson and Phineas Gourley McLean (Ted MacLean). She died on 24 December 1955 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Actress
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Betty Ann Davies was born on 24 December 1910 in London, England, UK. She was an actress, known for It Always Rains on Sunday (1947), The Man in Black (1950) and She Knew What She Wanted (1936). She was married to Alexander Blackford. She died on 14 May 1955 in Manchester, England, UK.- Actor
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Prolific Irish character actor Thomas J. Dugan was born in Dublin on New Year's Day 1889. At a young age, his family moved to Philadelphia, where Dugan attended high school. He had a good tenor voice so, after leaving school, he decided to pursue a career in show business. Before appearing on stage, Dugan performed in minstrel and traveling medicine shows that were popular at the time. He played in musical comedies in New York City and vaudeville theaters such as Earl Carroll's Vanities before eventually becoming a comedian on Broadway.
Dugan began his acting career in 1927 with roles in some obscure silent movies. He was lucky enough to be cast in Lights of New York (1928), the very first feature film with all synchronous dialogue (The Jazz Singer (1927) was the first movie to use audible dialogue, but it still used title cards). His best-known films are Ernst Lubitsch's satirical World War II comedy To Be or Not to Be (1942) and the Gene Kelly/Frank Sinatra/Esther Williams musical Take Me Out to the Ball Game (1949).
Over the years, Dugan appeared in more than 260 films, appearing on silver screens frequently until a road accident in California took his life on March 7, 1955. He was 66 years old at the time of his death.- Actor
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During the heyday of German silent cinema, Rudolf Klein-Rogge was the prototype for the master criminal, the irredeemable arch villain or mad scientist. Born in Cologne, he served as a cadet in a Prussian military academy before finishing his matriculation. He then began to attend acting classes and studying art history in Berlin and Bonn, making his debut on the stage in 1909. After playing in theatres in towns and cities along the Rhine and northern Germany for nearly ten years, he started making films in 1919.
His villainous roots first came to the fore in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), but he really established his reputation in a series of classic expressionist films written by his then-wife Thea von Harbou and directed by Fritz Lang. Of these, the most memorable were his forceful Moriarty-inspired portrayals of the titular character in Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler (1922), and its later sequel, The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (1933). The latter, which has an evil mastermind directing his empire from a madhouse, was so obviously aimed at the Hitler regime, that it was banned by Joseph Goebbels. Klein-Rogge's other noteworthy appearances include King Etzel in Die Nibelungen: Siegfried (1924) and Die Nibelungen: Kriemhild's Revenge (1924); and his insane scientist C.A. Rothwang, creator of the robot creature in Fritz Lang's masterpiece Metropolis (1927). A powerful personality possessed of an almost hypnotic stare and a strong, resonant voice, Klein-Rogge continued on through the 1930's in supporting roles. However, the period of expressionist cinema in Germany had all but run its course and he died in relative obscurity in Graz, Austria, in April 1955.- Actor
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Victor Daniels was given the title of "Chief" in an honorary capacity and identified himself as Cherokee although his background is vague. His application for a social security number lists his birth date as April 12, 1899, and his birth-place as Arizona. Thundercloud was the eldest of nine children born to Jesus Daniels and Tomaca Daniels (as indicated on his social security application). But on his marriage record to Mildred Turner in 1925, he said his name was "Victor Vazquez."
Raised on a ranch in Arizona, he claimed he was educated at the University of Arizona at Tucson but the Office of the Registrar checked their databases and found no attendance record for a Victor Daniels. He worked in cattle ranches and rodeos in addition as a mining foreman, boxer and guide before entering movies as a stuntman in 1929.
By 1935, Hollywood had given him the professional name of "Chief Thundercloud" and he was appearing in acting roles, many of them uncredited. For the next two decades he played strong, grim roles in such "B" westerns as Cyclone of the Saddle (1935), Ramona (1936), The Great Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok (1938), Young Buffalo Bill (1940), North West Mounted Police (1940), The Law Rides Again (1943), Romance of the West (1946), Davy Crockett, Indian Scout (1950) and Santa Fe (1951). He eventually earned screen credit for his tribe members and chiefs, typecast more as evil than good.
Chief Thundercloud is probably best known for creating the role of faithful sidekick "Tonto" in the serial The Lone Ranger (1938) and its sequel The Lone Ranger Rides Again (1939). He also played the title role of Paramount Pictures' Geronimo (1939). On TV, he appeared in such programs as "Death Valley Days," "The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin," "My Little Margie" and "Buffalo Bill, Jr."
Following an uncredited part as a chief in the classic western The Searchers (1956), he died at age 56 following surgery for stomach cancer in Ventura County, California on November 30, 1955. Twice married, he was survived by second wife Frances, a former singer, and their two children. He was buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in the Los Angeles area.
Not to be confused with noted Chief Thunder Cloud (1856-1916), a Blackfoot tribe member and Army scout who went on to perform with P.T. Barnum and his Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show.- Actor
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Olaf Hytten was born on 3 March 1888 in Glasgow, Scotland, UK. He was an actor, known for The Good Earth (1937), California Straight Ahead! (1937) and Drums of Fu Manchu (1940). He died on 11 March 1955 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Actor
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After attending the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, Kentucky-born Tom Powers signed with Vitagraph Pictures at 21 years of age, in 1911. He stayed there for two years, then shortly thereafter traveled to England, appearing there in both stage productions and films. When he returned to the US he made a few more pictures, but stopped making movies in 1917 and concentrated exclusively on stage work. He didn't appear onscreen again until 1944, when he acceded to Billy Wilder's request to play Mr. Dietrichson, Barbara Stanwyck's doomed husband, in Double Indemnity (1944). He made up for lost time over the next 12 years, appearing in dozens of pictures--often as a detective, army officer, District Attorney or other authority figure--until 1955, when he died of heart failure in November of that year (his last film, The Go-Getter (1956), was released after his death).- Actor
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Walter Hampden was one of the great American stage actors and the only performer, aside from Maurice Evans, to play Hamlet three times on Broadway in the post-World War I-era. Born Walter Hampden Dougherty on June 30, 1879, in Brooklyn, New York, he learned his craft in London, where he made his debut as a professional actor in 1901 with the Frank Benson Stock Company. He spent six years apprenticing in England, where he was thoroughly trained as a classical actor. When he returned to the US in 1907, he toured with the great Russian actress Alla Nazimova in a presentation of the plays of Henrik Ibsen.
Hampden played "Hamlet" on Broadway in 1918-1919, in 1925 (with Ethel Barrymore as his Ophelia at his own Hampden's Theatre), and in 1934. His greatest role was that of Edmond Rostand's "Cyrano de Bergerac," a part he first performed in 1923 and that he repeated four more times on the Great White Way.
In 1925 he took over management of the Colonial Theatre, a vaudeville house on Upper Broadway, and renamed it Hampden's Theatre. After christening his house with his second Hamlet on October 10, 1925, he played there with his own company through 1930. Later, Hampden helped launch the American Repertory Theatre, playing Cardinal Wolsey in William Shakespeare's "Henry VIII."
Hampden became revered as the grand old man of the American theater. He was president of the Players' Club for 27 years. His last distinguished role on Broadway was in Arthur Millers parable of McCarthyism, "The Crucible," capping a career that spanned a half-century.
Walter Hampden died on June 11, 1955, just three weeks shy of his 76th birthday.- Actor
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Bernard Gorcey was born in Russia. He immigrated to the United States with his family and was raised on the Lower East Side of Manhattan attending school at The Educational Alliance where he performed in the Children's Educational Theatre. He was mentored by Mark Twain who introduced him to producers and impresarios on Broadway who subsequently cast him in his first role in the show Tom Jones in 1907 and toured with the show in the U.S. and Canada through April 1908.
Thereafter, Bernard found no work as a character actor and was forced to join his family in Long Branch New Jersey where he partnered with his father to run a tailoring business for four years. He returned to the Broadway stage in 1912 starring in several prominent roles produced by notable figures such as Arthur Hammerstein. He toured around the nation with these shows returning to New York to marry Josephine Condon of Boston
Bernard enjoyed continued successes on Broadway and toured several times around the country with these shows. He and Josephine had three sons, Fred in 1915, Leo in 1917 and David in 1921. In 1922, Bernard enjoyed his greatest hit on Broadway in Abie's Irish Rose, a show that broke records, running some 2,327 performances. Popular lore has Bernard participating over the entire run. But he left the show and joined Arthur Hammerstein and other theatrical notables for a long stretch of successes through 1928.
In 1928, Bernard enjoyed his first screen success, traveling to Hollywood to film Abie's Irish Rose. Hollywood was slow to recognize his value. During this time, he was in demand on the Vaudeville circuits as well as in radio. He returned to the stage in several efforts in New York and around the country (meeting a young Archie Leach/Cary Grant in summer stock in St. Louis) while continuing to experiment with film. He shot several shorts across the Hudson River with the budding Fleischer Brothers organization between 1931 and 1934.
It was only in 1940 that Bernard saw his breakthrough into major filmdom when he took a significant role in the Charles Chaplin film The Great Dictator. Thereafter he relocated to Hollywood, finding sporadic work with major studios and stars as he developed his reputation as a unique character actor. He can be seen along-side his son, Leo and with Ida Lupino and John Garfield, in Out of the Fog, with Paul Henreid, Thomas Mitchell and Laird Cregar in Joan of Paris, and with Bela Lugosi in Black Dragons.
He became associated with the efforts of his son Leo Gorcey's film franchise that morphed from the Dead End Kids into the East Side Kids at Monogram Studios in 1943. But he did not begin his signature role of Louie, the Sweetshop owner in the Bowery Boys series until the second of those, In Fast Company, in 1943. Joining sons Leo and David, he completed forty of the films in the series, interspersing these with cameos in major studio pictures and appearances in television with Joan Davis in her I Married Joan series with Jim Backus.
Bernard was the victim of a traffic accident in August 1955 and died at age 69 on September 11th of that year.- Abigail Adams was born Margaret Thomas Adams on January 11, 1922. During her freshman year at the University of North Carolina she was discovered by modeling agent Harry Conover. She dropped out of school and moved to New York City to be a model. She made her film debut in the 1942 comedy Moonlight Masquerade. For a short time she used the stage name Tommye Adams. On January 22, 1942 she married 41-year-old actor Lyle Talbot; the marriage was annulled just eight months later. Abigail was romantically involved with Tony Martin, Mickey Rooney, and pianist Jose Iturbi. She began a turbulent romance with actor George Jessel in 1944; he was 23 year older and had three ex-wives. They broke up and got back together numerous times. Abigail had bit parts in more than a dozen films, including Bathing Beauty and Marriage Is A Private Affair. In March 1945 she was arrested for hit-and-run driving; the charges were dropped when George Jessel testified in her defense.
Abigail's apartment was destroyed in a fire in December 1947. By that time she had a serious drinking problem and her career was in trouble. Her last film was the 1948 comedy The Fuller Brush Man. George proposed to her with a heart-shaped diamond ring but refused to set a wedding date. They continued to have an on-again/off-again relationship. Abigail started singing in nightclubs and wrote a screenplay. She suffered from severe insomnia and began taking sleeping pills at night. In 1950 she attempted suicide by slashing her wrists. She was arrested on December 12, 1954 for public intoxication and ended up her relationship soon after. On February 13, 1955, at only 33 years old, she died after overdosing on sleeping pills. She was found in her bed wearing a blue nightgown. The police ruled her death as accidental but many believe she committed suicide. She was buried at Evergreen Cemetery in Charlotte, North Carolina. - Writer
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Robert Riskin was born on 30 March 1897 in New York City, New York, USA. He was a writer and producer, known for It Happened One Night (1934), You Can't Take It with You (1938) and Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936). He was married to Fay Wray. He died on 20 September 1955 in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA.- Director
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One of the workhorses in Warner Brothers' stable of directors in the 1930s, Lloyd Bacon didn't have a career as loaded with classic films as many of his more famous contemporaries. What few "classics" he had his hand in (42nd Street (1933), Footlight Parade (1933)) are so overshadowed by the dazzling surrealistic choreography of Busby Berkeley that casual film buffs today often forget they were actually directed by Bacon. While his resume lacks the drama of failed productions and tales of an unbridled ego, he consistently enriched the studio's coffers, directing a handful of its biggest hits of the late 1920s and 1930s. Bacon's career amounts to that of a competent--and at times brilliant--director who did the best with the material handed to him in assembly-line fashion.
Lloyd Bacon was born in San Jose, California, on January 16, 1890, into a theatrical family (his father was Frank Bacon, a playwright and stage actor). His parents enlisted all the Bacon children onto the stage. Despite having a strong interest in law as a student at Santa Clara College, Lloyd opted for an acting career after appearing in a student production of "The Passion Play." In 1911 he joined David Belasco's Los Angeles Stock Company (with Lewis Stone), touring the country and gaining good notices in a Broadway run of the hit "Cinderella Man", and gaining further experience during a season of vaudeville. He switched gears in 1915 and took a stab at silent Hollywood, playing the heavy in several of Gilbert M. 'Broncho Billy' Anderson's shorts and pulling double duty as a stunt man. With America's entry into World War I in 1917, Bacon enlisted in the Navy and was assigned to the Photo Department. This began a lifelong admiration for the service and might explain the Navy being a favorite recurring theme in many of his films.
After the war's end Bacon moved from Mutual (Charles Chaplin's studio at the time) to Triangle as a comedy actor. It was at this point that he got his first taste of directing-- he had let everyone at the studio know he had an interest in helming a picture, and when the director of a now forgotten Lloyd Hamilton comedy short fell ill, Bacon was given his chance. Constantly moving, he joined tightwad producer Mack Sennett as a gag writer. Sennett, sensing a bargain, happily accommodated Lloyd's desire to become a full-time director by early 1921. The Sennett studio was already in an irreversible decline during Bacon's tenure there but it allowed the novice director to gain a wealth of experience. He apprenticed for Sennett until joining Warner Brothers in 1925, an association that would last a remarkable 18 years and begin when the working-man's studio was building a strong stable of contract directors that included Michael Curtiz, Alan Crosland, John G. Adolfi and Mervyn LeRoy.
Although Lloyd never became known for a particular style other than a well-placed close up, his ability to bring in an entertaining film on time and within budget earned him such enormous respect from the five Warner Brothers that he was soon handed control over important projects, including The Singing Fool (1928), Al Jolson's follow-up to The Jazz Singer (1927), which grossed an unheard-of (for Warners, at least) $4,000,000 in domestic receipts alone-- the studio's #1 hit for 1928. Bacon was rewarded by becoming the highest paid director on the studio lot, earning over $200,000 a year throughout the Depression. He was called upon to direct the studio's big-budget production of Moby Dick (1930), which garnered good notices, but it's a version that's barely remembered today.
The 1930s saw Bacon assigned to the assembly line; aside from the Busby Berkeley-choreographed films, he directed many of James Cagney's crowd-pleasing two-week wonders, including Picture Snatcher (1933) (Cagney once remarked that the schedule on that picture was so tight that, one time after he and the cast had rehearsed a particular scene, Cagney said, "OK, Lloyd, are you ready to shoot?" Bacon grinned and said, "I just did!") and The Irish in Us (1935). As a reward, he was occasionally afforded more time and money on productions such as Here Comes the Navy (1934) and Devil Dogs of the Air (1935). He also directed Cagney's return effort after his ill-advised move to cheapjack Grand National Pictures after one of his periodic salary disputes with studio head Jack L. Warner-- the badly miscast if frenetic Boy Meets Girl (1938). This was one of Cagney's least critically acclaimed Warner Brothers films of the 1930s, but a smash hit for the studio.
During his years at Warners, Bacon gained a reputation as a clothes horse, the dapper director arriving on the set dressed to the nines, wearing expensive hats that he would hurl around the set when expressing his dissatisfaction (he ruined a lot of hats) at an actor's performance or missed cue. Bacon continued to turn out profitable films for the studio until moving to 20th Century-Fox in 1944 (a logical move, since the recently discharged Darryl F. Zanuck knew Bacon from his early days at Warners). He stayed at Fox until 1949, then bounced among Columbia, Fox, Universal and finally the chaotically-run RKO in 1954.
He worked virtually until his death from a cerebral hemorrhage at age 65.- His father was a physician in Rochester, New York, who died when Wilcox was 16. He attended the University of Southern California but soon dropped out. A talent scout spotted him in a summer-stock production of "The Petrified Forest" and a series of "B" movies followed. In 1937 he married Florence Rice, daughter of sportswriter Grantland Rice. They divorced two years later. Wilcox left Hollywood at the start of World War II to serve in the Army, first as a private and eventually as a captain. In 1950 he married the twice-divorced Diana Barrymore who chronicled their bouts with alcoholism in her 1957 autobiography, "Too Much, Too Soon." (She dedicated the book to him.) Wilcox was making a train trip back to his hometown of Rochester when he was found dead in his berth.
- Stocky, bespectacled English character actor, whose career began in the music halls. Educated at Dover College, Oliver Burchett Clarence acted in repertory theatre from 1890. He then worked as a member of actor-manager Frank Benson's troupe for a number of years. During the First World War, he served as a special constable. After the war, Clarence undertook extensive classical training in Britain and America and subsequently accumulated a long list of credits on London's Shakespearean stage. A regular in British films from 1930, he was generally well-cast in period drama or comedy, often as cloth-capped working class types, priests or likable old dodderers. O.B. Clarence retired from acting at the age of eighty.
- Minor film player Francis Pierlot came to Hollywood in 1939 at the age of 63 with the notion that he would retire rather quickly. Instead he played a steady stream of small character roles in a film career that spanned well over a decade. Born July 15, 1875 in France, Pierlot came to the United States when he was still a child and was raised in Boston. His first contact with the entertainment business was as a theatre usher at the age of 13. He eventually played vaudeville and was a reliable performer on Broadway throughout the 20s and 30s with such shows as "Please Get Married" (1919), Gentlemen of the Press" (1928) and Knickerbocker Holiday (1938). In the 40s he shifted to films, never appearing in any flashy parts that would jump out at you but a reliable sort nevertheless. He played a number of benign, gray-haired fellows, usually well-dressed, respected and quite approachable. His many films include The Captain Is a Lady (1940), Henry Aldrich, Editor (1942), Hit the Hay (1945), Two Guys from Milwaukee (1946), The Flame and the Arrow (1950), and, It Happens Every Thursday (1953). On TV he occasionally played "Mr. Hubert" on Jack Carson's show in the early 50s. Pierlot died of a heart attack in Hollywood in 1955.
- Michael Chekhov was a Russian actor in the Moscow Art Theatre who emigrated to America and made a career in Hollywood, earning himself an Oscar nomination.
He was born Mikhail Aleksandrovich Chekhov in St. Petersburg, Russia in 1891. His mother, Natalya Golden, was Jewish, and his father, Aleksandr Chekhov, was a brother of writer Anton Chekhov. Anton wrote of his four-year-old nephew in 1895, "I believe that he has a growing talent." From 1907-11 he studied classic drama and comedy at Suvorin Theater School in St. Petersburg, graduating with honors as actor. In St. Petersburg he met Konstantin Stanislavski who invited him to join the Moscow Art Theater. The two became good friends and partners in propelling the Moscow Art Theater to international fame. Later Stanislavsky wrote that Michael Chekhov was a genius.
His film career began in 1913 with a role in 'Tryokhsotletie tsarstvovaniya doma Romanovykh (1913)' (aka Tercentenary of the Romanov Dynasty), followed by a few more roles in Russian silent films. It was during the Russian Revolution of 1917 that his beloved first wife, Olga Tschechowa, divorced him. He was devastated and suffered from depression and alcoholism for the rest of his life.
Between 1922 and 1928 he led the second Moscow Art Theater, earning himself a reputation as teacher, actor and director who brought innovations experimenting with symbolism and acmeist poetry. Chekhov updated the Stanislavsky's acting method, by blending it with yoga, theosophy, psychology and physiology, and adding his own ideas of transformation of actor's consciousness through psychological gesture and movement techniques for entering a special state of subconscious creativity. His idea of using an actor's own intuition and creative imagination was a departure from the original method of his teacher, Stanislavsky.
Chekhov ignored the communist regime and was attacked by the Soviets for joining the Anthroposophic Society. In 1928 he was fired from the Moscow Art Theatre and eventually left Russia. In Europe, he taught his acting method and also made a big success in German films, co-starring with his ex-wife Olga Tschechowa, who was then living in Germany with her second husband. In 1931 he founded the Chekhov Theatre, with support from Rachmaninov, Bohner and Morgenstern, and in 1935 he brought the Chekhov Theatre on tour to New York. He taught acting in France, Austria, Latvia, Lithuania, and in England before WWII. In 1938 he moved to the United States, where he started his own school, and also successfully directed Dostoyevsky's "Demons" on Broadway. Then he was introduced to Hollywood by Sergei Rachmaninoff.
In 1945 Chekhov played his best known film role, psychiatrist Brulov in Spellbound (1945). He received an Academy Award nomination for the role and became a member of the American Film Academy in 1946. At that time, he taught his acting method in Hollywood. In 1953 he published a book about his method, "To The Actor", with preface written by Yul Brynner. His students included Gregory Peck, Marilyn Monroe, Gary Cooper, Ingrid Bergman, Anthony Quinn, Jack Palance, Feodor Chaliapin Jr., Elia Kazan, Clint Eastwood, Yul Brynner and many other Hollywood actors and directors.
At the end of his life Chekhov reunited with his daughter Ada Tschechowa in California. He died in 1955 in Beverly Hills, and was laid to rest in the Forest Lawn Cemetery in Los Angeles. - Actor
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Swedish born classical stage star Arthur Donaldson born in Norsholm, Sweden in 1869. A well-known stage actor and a light opera baritone singer. Moved to the United States in 1883 and began his stage career in the 1890's, he originated the role of 'The Prince of Pilsen' in 1903. Handsome performer who often played high class gentlemen in more than 80 movies, making his film debut in 'A Lad from Old Ireland' for the Kalem Film Co in 1910. During the early 1910's he returned to Sweden, appearing in operettas at Oscarsteatern and also made two Swedish films (one as director) before going back to America. He became one of the best regarded character actors of the World War I era including as a German General in 'For France' at Vitagraph Film Co in 1917, one of his most memorable roles was that of George III in D.W. Griffith's 'America' in 1920. In 1925 he produced and directed 'Retribution' an experimental sound film intended for a Swedish-speaking audience, ironically, sound ultimately put an end to his screen career, he returned to the stage permanently in 1927, making his Broadway directorial debut in 1934 with 'The Green Stick'. He died in Long Island, New York in 1955 age 86.- Music Department
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Charles Christopher Parker Jr. was born on August 29, 1920, in a suburb of Kansas City, Missouri, to Charles Parker Sr. and his 18-year-old wife Addie. His father ran out on the family when Charlie was just a little boy. When he was 11 his mother bought him an alto saxophone for his birthday. By the time he was 15 Charlie was working as a musician in the flourishing Kansas City jazz scene. He also began drinking heavily and using drugs, which were also a part of the KC jazz scene, as were illegal after-hours gambling casinos.
Charlie became more experienced by playing with various bands, including those of Lawrence Keyes and Harlan Leonard, before joining Jay McShann's band in 1940. The band was widely heard on radio across the country, so Charlie's saxophone playing became well known, even though people didn't know his name, so he became known as the Yardbird, or just The Bird. While still in Kansas City, Charlie reached a breakthrough: tired of playing solo with the same scales, he discovered that if he used a higher interval of the chords from a popular song or melody line, with a pianist or guitarist adding the appropriate new chords, he finally could play the sound he always had been hearing in his head. Essentially turning the melody line inside out, he began experimenting with this new style, which became known as "bebop".
Charlie played with McShann in New York City until 1942, when he left for brief stints with the bands of pianist Earl 'Fatha' Hines and singer Billy Eckstine. The association with the Hines Orchestra was a significant one because of the other musicians, who included trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie. By 1945 Charlie was back in New York and leading his own small groups. He got married, but continued to live like a nomad, traveling from place to place and spending almost every other night in a hotel or boarding house. He also became a drug addict, and as his addiction increased so did his appetite, and he began putting on weight.
Charlie took part in the first bebop recording session in 1945. With Gillespie and Miles Davis, he recorded songs like "Billie's Bounce" and "Koko" for Savoy Records. Not long afterward, he recorded such classic songs as "A Night in Tunisia" and "Yardbird Suite" for another small label, Dial Records. In the late 1940s Charlie toured Europe, where he was received like visiting royalty. He made several tours of Cuba, where he began experimenting with large string sections and Afro-Cuban rhythms. After a few years of relative stability, however, Charlie began a downward slide. He got hooked back on drugs again (heroin was his favorite), he began nodding out on bandstands, getting into fistfights and pawning his saxophones for drug money. Aware of the effects of drug use, he chastised younger sax players who emulated his heroin use.
By the early 1950s Charlie's drinking and drug use made him gray and prematurely lined. His self-abuse began to infringe on his musical ability. During this time, Charlie was befriended by a wealthy European baroness who was living in New York, loved his jazz music and helped him out when he needed it. In early 1955, on his way to a gig in Boston, Charlie stopped by her apartment for a visit. Alarmed by his obvious ill health, she had her personal doctor examine him, which revealed that he had stomach ulcers and many other health problems, the result of his years of drinking and drug use. The doctor recommended hospitalization, but the stubborn Charlie refused to consider it. The baroness got him to rest at her place for a few days.
On March 12, 1955, the baroness found Charlie Parker dead, slumped over in an easy chair in front of the TV set in her apartment. He was 34 years old. An autopsy revealed such damage to the inside of his body that the doctor who performed the autopsy thought Charlie was a man at least 50 years old. Charlie Parker's legend grew even larger after his death. Fans scrawled "Bird Lives!" on walls of jazz clubs from New York, to Los Angeles, to Paris, France. To this day, more than 40 years after his death, Bird remains jazz's single most venerated figure.- Elspeth Dudgeon was born on 4 December 1871 in London, England, UK. She was an actress, known for The Old Dark House (1932), Becky Sharp (1935) and Mystery House (1938). She died on 11 December 1955 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Actor
- Soundtrack
Richard 'Skeets' Gallagher was born on 28 July 1891 in Terre Haute, Indiana, USA. He was an actor, known for Idiot's Delight (1939), Possessed (1931) and Lightning Strikes Twice (1934). He was married to Pauline Mason and Irene Martin. He died on 22 May 1955 in Santa Monica, California, USA.- A former professional prizefighter, Robert Kent entered films after gaining experience on the legitimate stage. His career consisted mostly of playing leads in "B" pictures. His "biggest" picture was probably The Country Girl (1954), in which he was billed eighth, but he specialized in westerns, action/adventure films and serials, appearing in such pictures as Gang Bullets (1938), The Phantom Creeps (1939) and Twilight on the Trail (1941).
- Thomas Mann was probably Germany's most influential author of the 20th century, receiving the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1929. Born on 6 June 1875 in Lübeck, his family moved to Munich in 1893, where he lived until 1933 and wrote some of his most successful novels like "Buddenbrocks" (1901), "Death in Venice" (1912) or "The Magic Mountain" (1924). After the Nazi takeover, the humanist and anti-fascist, married to Katia Pringsheim, daughter of a secular Jewish family, emigrated to Switzerland, then to Princeton and Pacific Palisades in the United States, where he finished his great tetra-logy "Joseph and His Brothers" in 1942. Two years later, he became a naturalized US citizen, but finally returned to Europe in 1952. The famous analyst and critique of the German and European soul died on 12 August 1955 in Kilberg near Zurich.
- Writer
- Actor
- Director
James Agee, Pulitzer Prize winning author, was born in Knoxville in 1909. The intense writer was to enjoy little real success in his lifetime, but after death won accolades. In 1958 he won the Pulitzer Prize in fiction for his uncompleted biographical novel A Death in the Family. Agee also wrote the classic Let Us Now Praise Famous Men with Walker Evans and the Oscar nominated screenplay for The African Queen with John Huston. Agee also appeared in a film and several TV shows while working in Hollywood. He died in 1955, only 45 years old, of a heart attack in NYC.- Harry Hayden was born on 8 November 1882 in Nova Scotia, Canada. He was an actor, known for The Velvet Touch (1948), Two Sisters from Boston (1946) and Hail the Conquering Hero (1944). He was married to Lela Bliss. He died on 24 July 1955 in West Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Actor
- Soundtrack
Eddie Borden was born on 1 May 1888 in Deer Lodge, Tennessee, USA. He was an actor, known for Jungle Bride (1933), The Dove (1927) and Belle of the Nineties (1934). He died on 1 July 1955 in Hollywood, California, USA.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Lynne Carver was born on 13 September 1916 in Douglas, Arizona, USA. She was an actress, known for The Bride Wore Red (1937), Dulcy (1940) and Everybody Sing (1938). She was married to John Burt, William J. Mullaney, Nicholas Nayfack and R. C. McClung. She died on 12 August 1955 in New York City, New York, USA.- Actress
- Soundtrack
The enigmatic actress remains one of the most interesting figures in German film. Although she achieved stardom early in her career, the tragic Sybille Schmitz could never fit in with her surroundings. Too "alien looking" for Hollywood, Schmitz never migrated to America like her more glamorous peers and began losing roles in her native Germany as well due to her vaguely Semitic appearance and ties to the Jewish community. After the war, like many former UFA stars, Sybille was seen as a painful reminder of the Third Reich and she was once more displaced by the optimistic "new look" actresses. With acting being her sole reason to thrive, Sybille Schmitz began to drink heavily and rely on drugs as her career sank lower and lower. She finally committed suicide under mysterious circumstances on April 13, 1955, while being "cared for" by a corrupt lesbian doctor she was living with at the time of her death.- Writer
- Script and Continuity Department
Robert E. Sherwood, a brilliant multifaceted writer, was born to Arthur Murray and Rosina Emmet Sherwood, educated at the Milton Academy (Massachusetts) and Harvard, and was wounded while serving with the Canadian Black Watch in WWI. His literary career started with jobs as movie critic at Vanity Fair and Life magazines, but he became a full-time writer with the success of his play "The Road to Rome" in 1927. His first movie writing job came in 1924, rewriting the subtitles for The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923). Over the years he worked with most of the major talents in the film business, including Alexander Korda, George S. Kaufman and Samuel Goldwyn, often working without credit. During WWII Sherwood served in a number of posts, most notably as director of the overseas branch of the Office of War Information (OWI). He resigned in 1944 and returned to film writing, winning an Oscar for his script for The Best Years of Our Lives (1946). Sherwood received numerous literary awards throughout his career, including the Pulitzer Prize in 1936, '39, '41, and '49, and the Bancroft Prize for distinguished writing in American history in 1949.- Writer
- Director
- Producer
Had been out of work and was pretty much broke when he killed himself. He borrowed Buster Keaton's gun and after eating a meal that he could not pay for, shot himself. There are two stories; One says it was in the restroom of the cafe on Santa Monica Blvd, and the other story states he did it in the phone booth. His last real work was directing Buster Keaton on his local Los Angeles tv show on KTTV. This was in the early fifties and it was live. The show ran for just a year, but was popular. KTTV was having money problems and could not keep it on the air. The few tapes that survived show Keaton doing his typical gags, many that had been re-worked from his past glory.- Wilson Benge was born on 1 March 1875 in Greenwich, London, England, UK. He was an actor, known for Raffles (1930), The Bat Whispers (1930) and Bulldog Drummond (1929). He was married to Sarah L. Benge. He died on 1 July 1955 in Hollywood, California, USA.
- George Sky Eagle was born on 15 November 1888 in Michigan, USA. He was an actor, known for She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949). He died on 6 March 1955 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Jessie Arnold was born on 3 December 1884 in Lyons, Michigan, USA. She was an actress, known for The Dark Mirror (1920), The Wager (1912) and Shoes (1916). She died on 5 May 1955 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Dale Carnegie (originally Carnagey) was a pioneer in corporate training programs and the developer of famous courses in self-improvement, public speaking and interpersonal skills. His best know book, "How to Win Friends and Influence People," first published in 1936, remains popular ever since.
He was born Dale Breckenridge Carnagey, on November 24, 1888, in Maryville, Missouri. His father, named John William Carnagey, was a poor farmer. His mother, named Amanda Elizabeth Carnagey (nee Harbison), worked with his father on the farm. The family was in debt, and as a young boy he had to get up at 4 A. M. every day to milk the cows and help on the farm, then to go to school. He managed to get through school and graduated from the State Teacher's College in Warrensburg, Missouri.
Dale Carnagey's first job was selling correspondence learning courses to farmers. Then he worked as a salesman for Armour & Company, the largest slaughterhouse and meatpacking company in Chicago. He was selling their meats, soap, lard, and other byproducts. Armour & Company was notorious for low compensation and also for banning unionization. Carnagey was the most successful salesman in Omaha, and made his sales territory the national leader of the company.
In 1911 he quit the job as a salesman in order to pursue a lifelong dream to become a lecturer with then popular adult education courses in Chautauqua, near Jamestown, New York. However, he ended up instead attending the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City, then he tried acting with a touring troupe, but the production where he played a role soon ended. He returned to New York, unemployed and nearly broke, and was living at the YMCA on the 125 Street. There he tried writing but without any success.
In 1912 Dale Carnagey persuaded the YMCA hostel manager to allow him to teach a class on public speaking. He got himself a classroom in return for 80% of the net proceeds. Carnagey was improvising from his first session, and as he run out of material, he suggested that students speak about "something that made them angry." Carnagey noticed that the technique made his students unafraid to speak before an audience. Although the same technique was known since ancient philosophical schools, and has been widely used in group therapy, albeit Dale Carnagey developed his own approach. He quickly became a successful teacher capitalizing on the average American's desire to have more self-confidence.
In 1913 Dale Carnagey published his first bestselling book: "Public Speaking and Influencing Men in Business" (1913-1932 with updates and revisions). In 1914 he was earning 500 dollars a week, which at that time was the price of a new Ford Model T. In 1916 Dale Carnagey was able to rent the New York's main venue, the Carnegie Hall, and his lectures were sold out. In 1919 he changed the spelling of his name from Carnagey to Carnegie. In 1926 he published the first collection of his writings titled "Public Speaking: a practical Course for Business Men." The book became a bestseller, and the author became rich. However, he lost all his savings in the stock market crash of 1929.
Dale Carnegie learned to accept the worst that can happen, then proceed to improve on the worst. His own experience was the source for his bestselling books: "Public Speaking and Influencing Men in Business" and "How to Win Friends and Influence People" (1936). The latter book had 17 printings in the first year. He also wrote "Lincoln the Unknown," a biography of president Abraham Lincoln. Carnegie developed famous courses on self-improvement, salesmanship, and corporate training programs, as well, as programs for improvement in public speaking skills and interpersonal skills.
Dale Carnegie died at age 66, of a Hodgkin's lymphoma, complicated with uremia, on November 1, 1955, in Forest Hills, New York. He was laid to rest in the Belton cemetery, Cass County, Missouri, USA.
Over 50 million copies of Dale Carnegie's books were sold worldwide, translated in about 40 languages. In the late 1950s Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev visited America with top Soviet experts for learning and using the most efficient American business techniques in the Soviet government. Carnegie's books were then translated into Russian for exclusive use by the privileged leadership of the Soviet Communist party and the KGB. Carnegie's books were disallowed to general Russian public until 'perestroika' reforms were initiated by Mikhail Gorbachev.
The Dale Carnegie Course is a popular tool for a shy person to overcome social anxiety in a tough business environment. It was completed by millions of students in 75 countries. Though the course has been criticized by some for it's somewhat manipulative techniques and self-promotional goals, it remains in demand. The Dale Carnegie course teaches that students should be sincere and genuine in their interests to their partner or to the object of their business. Carnegie was an early proponent of responsibility assumption; his core idea was that behavior of other people may be changed by changing one's reaction to them. - Eva Moore was born on 9 February 1868 in Brighton, East Sussex, England, UK. She was an actress, known for The Old Dark House (1932), A Cup of Kindness (1934) and Blind Justice (1934). She was married to H.V. Esmond. She died on 27 April 1955 in Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, UK.