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- Actress
- Soundtrack
Billie Burke was born Mary William Ethelbert Appleton Burke on August 7, 1885 in Washington, D.C. Her father was a circus clown, and as a child she toured the United States and Europe with the circus (before motion pictures and after the stage, circuses were the biggest form of entertainment in the world). One could say that Billie was bred for show business. Her family ultimately settled in London, where she was fortunate to see plays in the city's historic West End, and decided she wanted to be a stage actress. At age 18, she made her stage debut and her career was off and running. Her performances were very well received and she became one of the most popular actresses to grace the stage. Broadway beckoned, and since New York City was now recognized as the stage capital of the world, it was there she would try her luck. Billie came to New York when she was 22 and her momentum did not stop. She appeared in numerous plays and it was only a matter of time before Hollywood came calling, which is exactly what happened. She made her film debut in the lead role in Peggy (1916). The film was a hit, but then again most films were, as the novelty of motion pictures had not worn off since The Great Train Robbery (1903) at the turn of the century. Later that year, she appeared in Gloria's Romance (1916). In between cinema work, she would take her place on the stage because not only was it her first love, but she had speaking parts. Billie considered herself more than an actress--she felt she was an artist, too. She believed that the stage was a way to personally reach out to an audience, something that could not be done in pictures. In 1921, she appeared as Elizabeth Banks in The Education of Elizabeth (1921), then she retired. She had wed impresario Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. of the famed Ziegfeld Follies and, with investments in the stock market, there was no need to work.
What the Ziegfelds did not plan on was "Black October" in 1929. Their stock investments were wiped out in the crash, which precipitated the Great Depression, and Billie had no choice but to return to the screen. Movies had become even bigger than ten years earlier, especially since the introduction of sound. Her first role of substance was as Margaret Fairlfield in A Bill of Divorcement (1932). As an artist, she loved the fact that she had dialog, but she had to work even harder because her husband had died the same year as her speaking debut - and work she did. One of her career highlights came as Mrs. Millicent Jordan in David O. Selznick's Dinner at Eight (1933), co-starring Lionel Barrymore, Wallace Beery, John Barrymore and Jean Harlow - heady company to be sure, but Billie turned in an outstanding performance as Mrs. Jordan, the scatterbrained wife of a man whose shipping company is in financial trouble and who was trying to get someone to loan his company money to help stave off disaster. Her character loved to give dinner parties because a dinner affair at the Jordans had a reputation among New York blue-blood society as the highlight of the season. With all the drama and intrigue going on around her, her main concern is that she is one man short of having a full seating arrangement. The film was a hit and once again Billie was back on top. In 1937, she had one of her most fondly remembered roles in Topper (1937), a film that would ultimately spin off two sequels, and all three were box-office hits. In 1938, Billie received her first and only Academy Award nomination for her portrayal of Emily Kilbourne in Merrily We Live (1938). This was probably the best performance of her screen career, but she was destined to be immortalized forever in the classic The Wizard of Oz (1939). At 54 years of age - and not looking anywhere near it - she played Glinda, the Good Witch of the North. The 1940s saw Billie busier than ever--she made 25 films between 1940 and 1949. She made only six in the 1950s, as her aging became noticeable. She was 75 when she made her final screen appearance as Cordelia Fosgate in John Ford's Western Sergeant Rutledge (1960). Billie retired for good and lived in Los Angeles, California, where she died at age 85 of natural causes on May 14, 1970.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Burt Mustin was a salesman most of his life, but got his first taste of show business as the host of a weekly radio variety show on KDKA Pittsburgh in 1921. He appeared onstage in "Detective Story" at Sombrero Playhouse in Phoenix Arizona, and played the janitor in the movie version, (Detective Story (1951)), after moving to Hollywood. Hundreds of screen appearances later, he announced his retirement while filming an episode of Phyllis (1975). In the episode, his character married Mother Dexter, played by actress Judith Lowry. Lowry died one month before, and Mustin died one month after the episode aired.- Edgar Stehli was born on 12 July 1884 in Lyon, Rhône, France. He was an actor, known for Executive Suite (1954), 4D Man (1959) and Atlantis: The Lost Continent (1961). He was married to Emeline C Greenough. He died on 25 July 1973 in Upper Montclair, New Jersey, USA.
- Joseph Sweeney was born on 26 July 1884 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. He was an actor, known for 12 Angry Men (1957), The United States Steel Hour (1953) and Armstrong Circle Theatre (1950). He died on 25 November 1963 in New York City, New York, USA.
- Actor
- Soundtrack
Short, chubby-framed, twinkle-eyed, ever-huggable Charles Winninger was a veteran vaudevillian by the time he arrived in talking films. Born in a trunk to Austrian immigrant show biz folk in Athens, Wisconsin, on May 26, 1884, he was the son of Rosalia (Grassler) and Franz Winninge, a violinist. He was initially christened Karl Winninger. He left school while quite young (age 8) to join and tour with his parent's vaudeville family act which was called Winninger Family Concert Co. Upon his parents' retirement, he and his five brothers went off to play in various stock and repertory companies. On film Charlie found an "in" with silent comedy shorts between 1915-1916 but never truly settled into the movie business until the advent of sound.
In the meantime Broadway made great use of his musical comedy talents, marking his debut with "The Yankee Girl" in 1910 which also featured actress (and later stage star) Blanche Ring. He married Blanche in 1912 and the couple went on to star together quite frequently in vaudeville and on Broadway, including the musical "When Claudia Smiles" (1914) in which Blanche played the title role. Throughout the 1920s there were plenty of roles for Charlie on the Great White Way including a stint with the Ziegfeld Follies (1920), several Winter Garden productions, and in such musical comedy showcases as "The Broadway Whirl" (1921) (with Blanche), "The Good Old Days" (1923), "No, No, Nanette" (1925) and "Yes, Yes, Yvette" (1927). His most significant contribution was originating the role of beloved Cap'n Andy in "Showboat" (1927). Playing the Kern/Hammerstein musical for two years straight, he eagerly returned to the role on Broadway in 1932.
With the success of "Show Boat," Hollywood started taking more of an interest in the grey-haired song-and-dance man for character roles. Such early talking movies included the slapstick comedy Soup to Nuts (1930) with Ted Healy and The Three Stooges. Though Charlie was known for adding his immeasurable touch to the comedy genre (Flying High (1931) and Woman Chases Man (1937)), he was also a warm-hearted presence in heavier pictures as well, including the melodramas Bad Sister (1931) with Bette Davis and The Sin of Madelon Claudet (1931) with Helen Hayes, and rugged adventures Gun Smoke (1931) and White Fang (1936). Although he did not play his famous stage role in the 1929 version, Charlie was thankfully able to preserve his beloved Cap'n Andy to film in the superb Irene Dunne/Allan Jones remake of Show Boat (1936). He became so associated with the riverboat captain that he was asked to create several variations of the character on radio.
Charlie was relied upon for his benign, errant dads, old-theater entertainers, lovable drunks and other rather wanderlust types in film, characters that usually represented old-fashioned common sense or mores. He was quite entertaining in such classics as Nothing Sacred (1937), Three Smart Girls (1936) and Destry Rides Again (1939). In the 1940s he brightened up a number of MGM comedies and musicals including Babes in Arms (1939), Little Nellie Kelly (1940), Ziegfeld Girl (1941), When Ladies Meet (1941), Broadway Rhythm (1944), and Living in a Big Way (1947). One of his last important roles was playing Will Rogers' Judge Priest role in director John Ford's film The Sun Shines Bright (1953), is only leading film role. He and wife Blanche never appeared together in a film although Blanche did play herself in the film If I Had My Way (1940), a film that featured Charlie. His Broadway swan song was in "Music in the Air" in 1951 and his final film occurred about a decade later with Raymie (1960). He also played Santa Claus in the hour-long entertainment The Miracle of the White Reindeer (1960) that same year.
TV roles dominated much of his work in the 50s. On the one-season The Charles Farrell Show (1956) he played the star's dear old dad. Divorced from wife Blanche in 1951, Charlie subsequently married stage actress-turned-novelist and screenwriter Gertrude Walker whom he originally met on Broadway when he returned to "Show Boat" in 1932 (Gertrude played the role of Lottie). Retired for many years, Charlie died in 1969 following an extended illness at the age of 84.- Additional Crew
- Producer
- Actor
Mayer was born Lazar Meir in the Ukraine and grew up in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada after his parents fled Russian oppression in 1886. He had a brutal childhood, raised in poverty and suffering physical and emotional abuse from his nearly-illiterate peddler father. In the early 1890s, he changed his name to Louis and fudged his birth date to reflect the more "patriotic" date of July 4, 1885. He moved to Boston in 1904 and struggled as a scrap-metal dealer until he was able to purchase a burlesque house. Although he made large sums by showing films (he made a sizable fortune off The Birth of a Nation (1915)), his early business ventures favored legitimate theater in New England. As his theater empire expanded, he had acquired and refurbished enough small movie theaters that he was able to move his business to Los Angeles and venture into movie production in 1918. Along with Samuel Goldwyn and Marcus Loew of Metro Pictures, he formed a new company called Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM).
Over the next 25 years, MGM was "the Tiffany of the studios," producing more films and movie stars than any other studio in the world. Mayer became the prime creator of the enduring Hollywood of myth, home to stars like Clark Gable, Judy Garland, Joan Crawford, and Jean Harlow. Mayer became the highest-paid man in America, one of the country's most successful horse breeders, a political force and Hollywood's leading spokesman. Both he and MGM reached their peaks at the end of World War II, and Mayer was forced out in 1951. He died of leukemia in 1957.- Wonderfully talented German-born actor, capable of tremendous comedic and dramatic performances, usually as some type of pompous bureaucrat or similarly arrogant individual. Ruman was born on October 11, 1884, in Hamburg, Germany, and actually studied electrotechnology in college before making the switch to acting. He served with the Imperial German Forces in World War I before coming to the United States in 1924. He became friendly with playwright George S. Kaufman and critic Alexander Woollcott and was regularly appearing in high-quality stage productions on Broadway.
With the advent of talkies, he was kept very busy in the cinema and became a favorite of the Marx Brothers, appearing as stiff-shirted NYC opera owner Herman Gottlieb in the comedy classic A Night at the Opera (1935). He played a know-it-all surgeon crossing swords with Groucho Marx over what exactly was wrong with hypochondriac Margaret Dumont in A Day at the Races (1937). and a dual role in A Night in Casablanca (1946). With his German accent, he was also a regular in several WWII espionage thrillers, including Confessions of a Nazi Spy (1939), They Came to Blow Up America (1943), and The Hitler Gang (1944), and gave a superb portrayal of the two-faced POW guard Schulz in the splendid Stalag 17 (1953). He was also popular with famed director Ernst Lubitsch, who cast Ruman in Ninotchka (1939), and To Be or Not to Be (1942). In all, he notched up over 100 feature film appearances as well as guest star spots on many TV shows.
Ruman suffered ill health for the final two decades of his life and passed away on February 14, 1967, from a heart attack. - Actor
- Producer
- Art Department
His real name was Theodor Friedrich Emil Janenz, and in the early 1900s, he was already working in the theater under Max Reinhardt's company. Important movies where he defined himself as a convincing actor were Passion (1919) and Quo Vadis? (1924), followed by The Last Laugh (1924) (aka The Last Laugh) in 1924 and Variety (1925) (aka Variety) in 1925. In 1928, he became the first male leading actor to receive the academy award for The Last Command (1928) directed by Josef von Sternberg. In 1929, Stenberg directed him in his world famous movie The Blue Angel (1930) (aka The Blue Angel) co-starring the young Marlene Dietrich (her first role). Later on, he concentrated on theater and dedicated his acting skills to the Nazi regime and also took part in the realization of Ohm Krüger (1941) in 1941, an expensive anti-British film production. When the Second World War ended, the US government cleaned his image, and he converted to Catholicism. He played in a few more German movies, but his career never recaptured its brilliance.- Silent screen leading man in films from 1915-1932. He left films in 1932 due to the arrival of sound. He was hit by a car on September 13, 1951, never fully recovered from his injuries and died on December 2, 1957.
- Actor
- Writer
- Director
Former stage actor and playwright - he wrote over 150 plays and vaudeville sketches - Hugh Herbert went, in the early 1930s to Hollywood, as a comedian. In the 1930s he worked mostly for Warner Bros., impersonating often eccentric millionaires, tycoons and dimwitted professors. In a few movies he collaborated on the screenplays, e.g. on "Gold Diggers of 1935" and "Hit Parade of 1941".- Writer
- Director
- Producer
Oscar Micheaux, the first African-American to produce a feature-length film (The Homesteader (1919)) and a sound feature-length film (The Exile (1931)), is not only a major figure in American film for these milestones, but because his oeuvre is a window into the American history and psyche regarding race and its deleterious effects on individuals and society. He also is a pioneer of independent cinema. Though the end products of his labors often were technically crude due to budgetary constraints, Micheaux the filmmaker is a symbol of the artist triumphing against great odds to bring his vision to the public while serving in the socially important role of critical spirit. "One of the greatest tasks of my life has been to teach that the colored man can be anything," Micheaux said. He used the new medium of the motion picture to communicate his ideas in order to rebut racism and to raise the consciousness of African-Americans in an age of segregation and overt, legal racism. As a filmmaker, Micheaux was "50 years ahead of his time", according to Kansas Humanities Council Board member Martin Keenan, the chairman of the Oscar Micheaux Film Festivals in Great Bend, Kansas, in 2001 and 2003. Oscar Micheaux was born in 1884, in Metropolis, Illinois, one of 13 children of former slaves. When he was 17 years old he left home for Chicago, where he got a job as a Pullman porter, one of the best jobs an African-American could get in the days of Jim Crow laws that separated the races and were an official bulwark of racism. Inspired by the self-help, assimilationist teachings of Booker T. Washington and the "Go West" pioneer philosophy of Horace Greeley, Micheaux acquired two 160-acre tracts of land in Gregory County, South Dakota, in 1905, despite no previous experience in farming. His experiences as a homesteader were the basis for his first novel, "The Conquest: The Story of a Negro Pioneer", which was published in 1913. He rewrote it into his most famous novel, "The Homesteader" (1917), which he self-published and distributed, selling it door-to-door to small businessmen and homesteaders in small towns, white people with whom he lived and did business with. "The Homesteader" not only elucidated Micheaux's understanding of societal cleavages but proselytized for assimilating black and white communities. He was firmly dedicated to the idea of art as a didactic medium. Micheaux lost his homestead in 1915 due to financial losses caused by a drought. He moved to Sioux City, Iowa, where he established the Western Book and Supply Co. He continued to write novels, selling them himself, door-to-door. Meanwhile, brothers George Johnson and Noble Johnson, African-American movie pioneers who ran the Lincoln Motion Picture Co. in Los Angeles, wanted to make "The Homesteader" into a film. They tried to buy the rights to the novel but would not meet Micheaux's demands that he direct it and that it be made with a large budget. After his demands were refused, Micheaux reorganized Western Book and Supply as the Micheaux Film and Book Co. in Chicago. He began to raise money for his own film version of "The Homesteader". Micheaux returned to the white businessmen and farmers around Sioux City, Iowa, where he still maintained an office, and sold them stock in his new company. In this way he was able to raise enough capital to begin filming his novel in Chicago, which was then a major film production center. The film came in at eight reels, making it the first feature-length film made by an African-American. "Race films"--as films made for black audiences were called until the advent of the modern civil rights movement in the 1950s--and even "mainstream" films had been mostly shorts up to that time. Even Charles Chaplin didn't make his first feature-length film until 1921, with The Kid (1921). The Homesteader (1919) premiered in Chicago on February 20, 1919. An ad for the movie placed in the "Chicago Defender", the premier newspaper for African-Americans, heralded the film as the "greatest of all Race productions" and claimed it was "destined to mark a new epoch in the achievements of the Darker Races . . . every Race man and woman should cast aside their skepticism regarding the Negro's ability as a motion picture star, and go and see, not only for the absorbing interest obtaining therein, but as an appreciation of those finer arts which no race can ignore and hope to obtain a higher plan of thought and action." His next film, Within Our Gates (1920), was his response to D.W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation (1915), a film that had glorified the Ku Klux Klan and justified the violent oppression of African-Americans to prevent miscegenation. Though Griffith's flawed masterpiece was the most popular movie until the release of another Civil War potboiler called Gone with the Wind (1939) in 1939, it was loathed by African-Americans due to its crude and hateful racial stereotypes. "Within These Gates" was made to rebut Griffith and show that the reality of racism in the US was that African-Americans were more likely to be lynched and exploited by whites than the reverse. The movie showed African-American and white communities that the racism of the dominant society could be challenged. Micheaux's place in history was assured as he injected an African-American perspective, via the powerful medium of the motion picture, into the American consciousness. Working out of Chicago, he subsequently made more than 30 films over the next three decades, including musicals, comedies, westerns, romances and gangster films. Some of the popular themes in his work were African-Americans passing for white, intermarriage and legal injustice. He used actors from New York's Lafayette Players and always cast his actors on the basis of type, with light-skinned African-American actors typically playing the leads and darker-skinned blacks the heavies. That trait was part of the consciousness of the African-American community (and mirrored the very racism that he inveigled against) that persists to this day, and Micheaux was severely chastised for it by later critics. However, no critic could deny the importance of Micheaux's movies, as they were a radical departure from Hollywood's racist portrayals of blacks as lazy dolts, Uncle Toms, Mammies and dangerous bucks. As the most successful and prolific of black filmmakers, Micheaux was vital to African-American and overall American consciousness by providing a diverse portfolio of non-stereotyped black characters, as well as images and stories of African-American life. He married Alice B. Russell in March 1926, and the two remained married until his death in March 1951. He was buried at Great Bend Cemetery, Great Bend, Kansas.- Actor
- Director
- Writer
Fred Kelsey was born on 20 August 1884 in Sandusky, Ohio, USA. He was an actor and director, known for On Trial (1928), The Lone Wolf Strikes (1940) and Red-Haired Alibi (1932). He was married to Katherine Miller. He died on 2 September 1961 in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA.- Ms. Nesbit, artists' model and chorus girl, was at the heart of what was known at the time as the Crime of the Century. Her abusive husband, Pittsburgh millionaire Harry Thaw, murdered 52-year old architect and socialite Stanford White (of the firm McKim, Mead, and White), who had taken advantage of 16-year old Evelyn and subsequently become her lover a couple of years before she married Thaw. Harry Thaw's mother mother quickly financed propaganda, even a film, to portray her son as a protector of women's virtue; at the same time, the media reported the very-married White's many other transgressions involving young women. After his first trial ended in a hung jury, Thaw was retried in 1908 and found insane. He was sent away to a mental institution for the criminally insane in upstate New York, from which he which he escaped once; in 1915 he was released with reputation untarnished--a homicidal hero.
- Werner Krauss was born on 23 June 1884 in Gestungshausen, Sonnefeld, Bavaria, Germany. He was an actor, known for The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), Paracelsus (1943) and Robert Koch: The Battle Against Death (1939). He was married to Liselotte Graf, Maria Bard and Paula Saenger. He died on 20 October 1959 in Vienna, Austria.
- Harry S. Truman was the 33rd president of the United States, serving from 1945 to 1953. A lifetime member of the Democratic Party, he previously served as a U.S. senator from the state of Missouri from 1935 to 1945. He was chosen as incumbent president Franklin D. Roosevelt's running mate for the 1944 presidential election. Truman was inaugurated as the 34th vice president in 1945 and served for less than three months until President Roosevelt died. Now serving as president, Truman implemented the Marshall Plan to rebuild the economy of Western Europe and established both the Truman Doctrine and NATO to contain the expansion of communism. He proposed numerous liberal domestic reforms, but few were enacted by the Conservative Coalition that dominated the Congress.
- Actor
- Soundtrack
For over 30 years he was a fixture in Hollywood films that were set in England, Ireland or Scotland, His first film appearance was as Jock Gordon in The Lilac Sunbonnet (1922) which told the story of a supposedly innocent young girl who is anything but as an ingenue. Harvey played a man smitten with love. During his time in Hollywood, he made some 116 films 14 of which were silents, when sound came his character roles developed with the sound of his voice often being cast as a cockney tradesman, family gardener or a pub inhabitant. His more famous roles came in the 30's when he was cast as Beamish , part of a scheming safari group in the Johnny Weissmuller film Tarzan the Ape Man (1932). In 1933, he was cast as Herbert the innkeeper, in the classic The Invisible Man (1933) opposite Una O'Connor as his wife and they all but stole the film from Claude Rains. Other roles included Bradshaw in Frank Capra's Broadway Bill (1934), Twiddle in The Wolf Man (1941), and Mr Huggins in Mrs. Miniver (1942).- 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.- Actress
- Soundtrack
When her Hollywood career began in 1934, Mary Nash was already a veteran performer, having appeared in vaudeville and on Broadway. Following a brief appearance as a dancer in 1904, she joined Ethel Barrymore in a 1905 off- Broadway production, 'Alice-Sit-by-the-Fire'. This was followed by 'Captain Jinks' and 'The Silver Box' with the same company, and in 1915 she acted in George Bernard Shaw's play 'Major Barbara' at the Playhouse Theatre. The versatile actress was as adept at comedy ('Captain Applejack',1921-22) as she was in drama (Cassie in 'Uncle Tom's Cabin,1933).
She is best remembered on screen for being nasty to Shirley Temple in Heidi (1937) and The Little Princess (1939), and for playing Katharine Hepburn's elegant and proper society mother in The Philadelphia Story (1940). In addition, she gave excellent value-for-money in the role of Emma Louise in Come and Get It (1936) and as the ill-fated queen in the technicolor adventure Cobra Woman (1944). Mary Nash was briefly married to the actor José Ruben ((1888-1969).- Actor
- Stunts
- Additional Crew
Frank Hagney was born on 20 April 1884 in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. He was an actor, known for It's a Wonderful Life (1946), Ride Him, Cowboy (1932) and The Sea Beast (1926). He was married to Edna M. Keating Shephard and Ethel Scott. He died on 25 June 1973 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Actor
- Director
- Writer
J.M. Kerrigan was born on 16 December 1884 in Dublin, Ireland. He was an actor and director, known for Gone with the Wind (1939), 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954) and The Wolf Man (1941). He died on 29 April 1964 in Hollywood, California, USA.- Yet another underrated performer from the Golden Age of British films was Scottish-born character actress Jean Cadell. Jean commenced her professional stage career in 1906 with "The Inspector General" at the old Scala Theatre in the London borough of Camden. Via a stint with the Glasgow Repertory, she then made her way to Broadway (1911) and London (1912), where she appeared in small roles at major venues like the Strand and Criterion Theatres, specialising in comedy plays (her favourite was George Bernard Shaw). Though she maintained a busy theatrical career throughout, she also acted in films from 1919. During the silent era, she usually played youthfully temperamental and emancipated women. As she advanced in age, her manner became increasingly salty. This, combined with her sharp features, flaming red hair and steely blue eyes led to her being more often than not typecast as acerbic spinsters or imperious dowagers. She had a brief sojourn in Hollywood as Mrs. Micawber (opposite the inimitable W.C. Fields) in David Copperfield (1935). Back in England, she gave valuable support in Pygmalion (1938) (as Mrs. Pearce), The Young Mr. Pitt (1942) (Mrs. Sparry, sternly instructing Robert Donat to "always keep-a-hold of nurse for fear of finding something worse") and the fondly-remembered Ealing classic Whisky Galore! (1949) (as Mrs. Campbell). Jean rounded off her career with a starring role in her penultimate film, the caper comedy A Taste of Money (1961), as an ageing spinster concocting the 'perfect' Soho bank heist.
- Actor
- Soundtrack
William Austin was born on 12 June 1884 in Georgetown, British Guiana [now Guyana]. He was an actor, known for It (1927), Redheads on Parade (1935) and In Love with Love (1924). He died on 15 June 1975 in Newport Beach, California, USA.- Mimi Aguglia was born in Palermo, Sicily, on a theater stage in 1884, when her mother, Giuseppina Aguglia, a famous Sicilian actress, was playing Desdimona in William Shakespeare's "Othello". The newborn was named Giroloma in honor of her grandfather, but everyone called her by her nick name: Mimi. Before she was four years old, Mimi was singing and dancing as a warm-up act before her mother's dramatic performances. By age 16 she was given supporting roles and soon became a major leading lady. At 18 she met Baron Vincenzo Ferrau, a Sicilian nobleman, and soon, against her parents' wishes, Mimi and Vincenzo eloped. Together with her theatrical colleagues, Angelo Musco and Giovanni Grasso, the first Sicilian Theatrical Company was born, with Vincenzo as the producer. The company began touring Italy, performing plays in the Sicilian dialect and became so successful that they expanded their tour throughout Europe and played command performances before heads of state, including the Kings of Spain and England as well as the King of Croatia. Mimi became one of the leading theatrical divas of her time and enjoyed the company of such personages as international opera star Enrico Caruso and the inventor of the wireless telegraph (known more commonly as radio), Guglielmo Marconi. She then began to do plays in Spanish and English. Her international tours soon included the US, Canada and Central and South America. In Mexico her company's performance even created a cease-fire between revolutionary leader Pancho Villa's forces and federal troops during the Mexican revolution, so all could enjoy her performance. While in New York, writer Henry Miller saw her perform and included a multi-page glowing critique of her work in one of his major novels, "Plexus, the Rosy Cruisfixion". In 1945 Mimi became a naturalized American citizen and expanded her work to include motion pictures in the US, Italy and Mexico. She had three children, one of whom, Argentina Brunetti, became a leading American motion picture character actress and journalist. Mimi continued to work as a character actress into her 80s. In 1970 she died of a stroke at the Motion Picture Country Home in Woodland Hills, California.
- Actress
- Soundtrack
What becomes a legend most? For the beloved Russian-born entertainer Sophie Tucker, it was most definitely the live stage. The stage was her home. She fed off a live audience and it's what made her the sensation she was. Seeing her up close and personal was to get the very best of her. Movies and TV were too restrictive to capture the true essence of Sophie Tucker. For well over five decades, she performed everywhere -- Broadway, vaudeville, cabaret, clubs and burlesque.
This gutsy, irrepressible "Jazz Age Hot Mamma" was born Sonya Kalish in Russia in 1884 just as her family was about to emigrate to the United States. They left when she was a mere three months old, settling in Hartford, Connecticut. She started performing as a youngster in her parent's small restaurant, occasionally singing and playing the piano for tips. Marrying in her teens to a ne'er-do-well, she was forced to continue at the restaurant to support a family of three (including baby boy Bert). Within a short time, however, she divorced, left her child with her parents, and headed to nearby New York with visions of stardom. Changing her name to the more suitable marquee moniker of "Sophie Tucker" (her ex-husband's name was Louis Tuck), she proceeded to take the town by storm.
Sophie started out in amateur shows. Not a beauty by any stretch, she was grossly overweight and quickly found that self parody and racy comedy, punctuated by her jazzy musical style, would become the backbone of her popularity. Playing at various dives, she earned a minor break in 1906 after earning a singing/piano-playing gig on the vaudeville circuit. Disguised in blackface, she played ragtime music. Her humor, of course, came at the expense of her weight but, with such ditties as "Nobody Loves a Fat Girl, But Oh How a Fat Girl Can Love," she had audiences eating out of the palm of her hand. They were laughing with her, not at her. One night her makeup kit was stolen and she was forced to stand in front of the curtain and entertain without it. The audience went crazy for her and the rest is history. She never wore blackface again.
Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. caught her act and started her off in his Follies shows in 1909. She proved to be such a scene-stealer, however, that other top female headliners refused to be on the same billing with her. She went on instead to headline her own shows. A cross between the sex-minded Mae West and the homely, self-effacing Fanny Brice, Sophie relied on aggressive sexual innuendo to win over her crowds. She had a faux confidence about her sexuality, dressing up with opulent, come-hither costumes. She gave advice to both women and married men in such songs as "You've Got to Make It Legal, Mr. Siegel." Sophie played The Palace -- vaudeville's "A" No. 1 showcase. She made huge hits out of such naughty novelty songs as "Who Paid the Rent for Mrs. Rip van Winkle When Rip Van Winkle Went Away?" These songs stayed with her act for decades. Sophie was also a pioneer recording artist, recording her famous signature song "Some of These Days" for the Edison Company on February 24, 1911. She re-recorded the song in 1926. Other big hits would include "After You've Gone," "Cheatin' On Me" and "My Yiddishe Mama."
Her blockbuster success in America aggressively spread into Europe. Upon returning from her first trip to Berlin in 1925, however, things had changed. Vaudeville was dying and she started looking into radio and films as a viable means of livelihood. Radio, yes, but films were a major disappointment. She was too bawdy and larger-than-life for the small lens. Besides, she really couldn't act. Nevertheless, in 1929, Sophie made her film debut as an night club singer in Honky Tonk (1929) in which she sang her ever-popular "Some of These Days" in addition to "I Never Want to Get Thin" and "I'm the Last of the Red Hot Mamas." She went on to share the spotlight with Judy Garland in Thoroughbreds Don't Cry (1937), in which she played a non-singing boarding house owner. She would showcase her signature tune "Some of These Days" twice more in movies, in Broadway Melody of 1938 (1937) and Follow the Boys (1944).
In the 1930s Tucker brought a wave of burlesque-styled nostalgia into her show, now billing herself as "The Last of the Red Hot Mamas." She had a hit Broadway musical comedy with "Leave It to Me" in 1938-1939 which co-starred the comedy team of William Gaxton and Victor Moore, along with a debuting Mary Martin. With her financial success, she started the Sophie Tucker foundation in 1945.
In the 1950s and early 1960s the woman, hailed as "The First Lady of Show Business," made frequent TV appearances on the popular variety and talk shows of the day. She remained a favorite both here and abroad, especially in London music halls where she once greeted King George with an earthy "Hiya, King!" On April 13, 1963, a Broadway musical entitled "Sophie" opened with Libi Staiger in the title role, based on Sophie's early life (until 1922). It closed after eight performances.
Sophie went on doing her thing until the very end, playing the Latin Quarter only months before her death. She had developed lung cancer and died at age 82 of lung and kidney complications in 1966. She was interred at Emanuel Cemetery in Wethersfield, Connecticut, her home state. For Sophie Tucker, a true legend, it was either her way or the highway, and the audiences embraced her for it.- Charity Grace was born on 27 April 1884 in St. Louis, Missouri, USA. She was an actress, known for Peter Gunn (1958), 77 Sunset Strip (1958) and Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955). She died on 28 November 1965 in St. Louis, Missouri, USA.
- Torben Meyer was born on 1 December 1884 in Århus, Denmark. He was an actor, known for Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), Sullivan's Travels (1941) and The Last Warning (1928). He died on 22 May 1975 in Hollywood, California, USA.
- Roy Wells Gordon was the third of four sons born to John W. Gordon and Nancy Ellen Wells Gordon. He was born October 18, 1884 in Beaver Village, Pike County, Ohio. The family soon moved to Portsmouth, Ohio, where Roy grew up. He was always interested in the theater and acting, and decided to make it his profession. In the 1910s, 20s, and early 30s, he performed in dramas and musicals (he was a tenor) in Portsmouth, Ohio; Columbus, Ohio; Baltimore, Maryland; Chicago, Illinois, and on Broadway in New York City. In the late 1930s, Roy moved to Los Angeles, California to become a motion-picture actor; this was his profession for the rest of his life. He performed as a supporting actor in a wide variety of credited and uncredited roles; in his later years, he often played bankers, businessmen, judges, senior military officers and other men of authority. He also performed in numerous TV series. He died at the age of 87 on July 23, 1972 in Encino, Los Angeles County, California.
- John Butler was born on 1 May 1884 in Canada. He was an actor, known for Torchy Runs for Mayor (1939), We Who Are Young (1940) and Mob Town (1941). He died on 9 October 1967 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
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Nora Allene Simmons was born and grew up in Zebulon, Georgia. For a time, she was a grammar school teacher in Stone Mountain. She began her career as an entertainer with a traveling Chautauqua troupe and later served as official storyteller for the Joel Chandler Harris Memorial Association in Atlanta. After briefly appearing on Broadway, she spent two years with Jane Addams at Hull House in Chicago.
In the 1920s, she became a staff artist at KGO radio in San Francisco. Although producers reportedly told her at first that she would never make it in radio or films if she did not lose her natural Southern accent, this proved not to be the case. Although she was white (Caucasian), she originated the "Colored Supplement" of NBC's Morning Magazine and wrote the "Magnolia, Henry and Charlie" episodes which provided the comedy features of the Wednesday morning program. She also wrote the Monday night feature, "Plantation Echoes".
In 1930, she accepted an invitation to Honolulu to appear as a guest artist on a radio station there. Instead, she returned to Atlanta temporarily due to homesickness. She soon returned to Los Angeles and radio, and later had several minor roles in motion pictures during the 1930s and 1940s.
Branching out into television roles, she still appeared in a few movies, even traveling to Italy in 1962 to appear as Marcello Mastroianni's grandmother in director Federico Fellini's 8½ (1963). Never having married, she retired in the late 1960s and returned to Georgia, living on Social Security until her death in 1980, aged 96.- Although he occasionally played honest police officials or army officers, New York-born C. Henry Gordon excelled at playing oily, duplicitous villains, whether gangsters, businessmen or evil rulers. Among the many evildoers he portrayed, his most memorable would have to be the murderous Surat Khan, who massacred prisoners, women and children, in the classic Errol Flynn swashbuckler The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936).
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Sam Ash was born on 28 August 1884 in Campbell County, Kentucky, USA. He was an actor, known for Stage Mother (1933), Circus Shadows (1935) and A Man Betrayed (1936). He died on 20 October 1951 in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA.- Actor
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One of the finest teamsters in Hollywood screen history, Osborne handled the reins for horse-drawn coaches and wagons in countless westerns and historical photoplays from the early 20's through late 50's. And with his weathered, rumpled look, his Texas drawl and his nasal twang, he was often called upon to portray a seedy outlaw in any of those same westerns.- Harry Antrim was born on 27 August 1884 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. He was an actor, known for Tomorrow Is Another Day (1951), The Heiress (1949) and Words and Music (1948). He was married to Bernice Gorman. He died on 18 January 1967 in Hollywood, California, USA.
- Stuart Holmes, born Joseph Liebchen, was a silent screen leading man (from 1909) who starred in Fox's first feature film, Life's Shop Window (1914), filmed on Staten Island for $4,500. Being of somewhat menacing demeanour, the cold-eyed, moustachioed Holmes quickly discovered his penchant for playing dastardly villains of French, Italian or Russian extraction. He was highly rated by critics for his Grand Duke Michael in The Prisoner of Zenda (1922) and for Alexander, nemesis of Tess of the D'Urbervilles (1924). His characters rarely ever survived the final reel. After leaving Fox, Holmes joined Metro for similar work and then segued into character parts after the coming of sound. He was signed as a Warner Brothers extra in the mid-30's and continued to amass uncredited or cameo bits until his retirement in 1964, by which time he had appeared in some 530 films. His wife, Blanche Maynard, was a well-known Hollywood astrologer and Holmes himself (when not busy on screen) spent his free time wood-carving. He was reputedly rather good at it.
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A stage actress who was an alumni of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, Helen Gardner made her film debut with Vitagraph Pictures in 1911. In that year she appeared in Vanity Fair (1911), to critical acclaim. The next year she formed her own film production company, Helen Gardner Productions--as far as is known, the first film actress to do so--to make feature films that would be directed by her husband, Charles L. Gaskill. Her best known picture during that period was Cleopatra (1912). After making films on her own for a few years, she returned to Vitagraph in 1915 only to retire shortly thereafter, although she did return in the early '20s for a few small parts.- Actor
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This dark-haired, suave American-born matinée idol of French ancestry abandoned a medical career after receiving favorable reviews for his performance in a school play at McGill University in Montreal.
He then went on to study drama at the Stanhope Wheatcroft School of Acting in New York, toured in Vaudeville and with stock companies before performing at the Winter Garden with his own troupe of players.
Cody's first appearance on screen was in short films with the Balboa Amusement Company. He then worked for Thomas H. Ince and Mack Sennett, advancing to full-length features by 1917, initially playing villains.
As his popularity soared, he gravitated to starring roles as amusing rogues and debonair bon vivants in dramas and light comedies, often with a continental background.
He was a noted wit and much sought-after as a speaker at Hollywood parties. Though slightly encumbered by his rather pronounced French accent, Cody had just begun to make an impact in early talkies, when he unexpectedly died in his sleep due to heart disease.
His first spouse was the famous silent screen comedienne Mabel Normand, who also died prematurely. Their short, rather unhappy union had reputedly been the result of a practical joke.- Actor
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Coming from a Mormon family in Utah, James Cruze was reportedly part Ute Indian. He worked as a fisherman to pay his way through drama school. Among his former wives were actresses Betty Compson (also from Utah) and Marguerite Snow. He was also married to Alberta McCoy (died on July 7, 1960), who is interred in the Columbarium at Hollywood Forever Cemetery (unmarked). Many of the films Cruze directed in the 1920s and 1930s have been lost. He directed a large variety of films, from Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle slapstick two-reelers to suspense thrillers to big-budget epics. In 1929 he appeared before a grand jury in Los Angeles that was investigating an accident on one of his films in which one man was killed and others were injured, one of many run-ins Cruze had with the law. He used the name Cruze on screen, but in real life remained James Bosen.- Actor
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James C. Morton was born on 25 August 1884 in Helena, Montana, USA. He was an actor and director, known for A Daughter of Uncle Sam (1918), Lucky Devils (1941) and She's Dangerous (1937). He died on 24 October 1942 in Reseda, California, USA.- Born Hilda Gentle on June 9, 1884, in Edmonton, London, England, Hilda Barry was a very active British character actress who had a very long and extensive career as well in comedies as in dramas. She appeared in over 150 roles on stage, on the big screen and on television. She died on Tuesday, May 29th, 1979 at the age of 94.
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Jimmy Conlin was born on 14 October 1884 in Camden, New Jersey, USA. He was an actor, known for Sullivan's Travels (1941), Calling Philo Vance (1940) and The Sin of Harold Diddlebock (1947). He was married to Dorothy Julia Ryan, Myrtle Glass and Lillian Grace Steel (actress). He died on 7 May 1962 in Encino, California, USA.- Actor
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Owen McGiveney was born on 4 May 1884 in Preston, Lancashire, England, UK. He was an actor, known for Scaramouche (1952), Pat and Mike (1952) and The Outer Limits (1963). He died on 31 July 1967 in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA.- Actor
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Nicholas Joy was born on 31 January 1884 in Paris, France. He was an actor and writer, known for Desk Set (1957), Joan of Arc (1948) and New Wine (1941). He was married to Hildreth Elizabeth Sisson Riddle, Florence A. Seeligsberg (fashion designer) and Claudia G.. He died on 16 March 1964 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.- Writer
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Anna Eleanor Roosevelt was an American political figure, diplomat, and activist. She served as the first lady of the United States from 1933 to 1945, during her husband President Franklin D. Roosevelt's four terms in office, making her the longest-serving first lady of the United States. Roosevelt served as United States Delegate to the United Nations General Assembly from 1945 to 1952. President Harry S. Truman later called her the "First Lady of the World" in tribute to her human rights achievements.- Actor
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In his earlier days, Halliday seems to have relished the life of an adventurer. At one time he fought with the British Army during the Boer War. As a mining engineer he then dug for gold nuggets in Nevada, rapidly made a fortune and lost it as quickly. He eventually switched to the more peaceful pursuit of acting, initially in Gilbert & Sullivan operettas, then in dramatic plays on Broadway from 1912 to 1936 (lastly in "Tovarich", as Prince Alexandrovitch). Though Brooklyn-born, Halliday was raised in England and often adopted an upper-crust British accent. An incisive and debonair actor with a penchant for sophisticated comedy, he received good reviews as co-star of The Woman Accused (1933) with Cary Grant and Nancy Carroll. He was very much at home playing caddish bon vivants, gleeful villains (such as in Terror Aboard (1933)) or wily arch rogues (notably Desire (1936) with Marlene Dietrich). Halliday had another pivotal role in Intermezzo (1939) and was then cast to best advantage as Katharine Hepburn's charming philanderer of a father in The Philadelphia Story (1940). He died in Honolulu, Hawaii, from a heart ailment in October 1947 at the age of 67.- Actor
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Jack C. Smith was born on 27 October 1884 in Hudson, Massachusetts, USA. He was an actor, known for The Phantom Creeps (1939), Frontier Scout (1938) and Arizona Days (1937). He was married to Ruth ?. He died on 14 January 1944 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Josephine Dillon was born on 26 January 1884 in Colorado, USA. She was an actress, known for The Lady and the Monster (1944). She was married to Clark Gable. She died on 10 November 1971 in Verdugo, California, USA.
- Red Wing was born on February 13, 1884 on the Winnebago Reservation, Nebraska, USA as Lillian St. Cyr. Her parents were Julia De Cora (Winnebago) and Mitchell St. Cyr (French Canadian and Sauk). She was graduated in 1902 from the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania. Red Wing was an actress known for her feature role in one of Hollywood's first feature Westerns The Squaw Man (1914). She had previously acted in many short films for Biograph, Bison and Pathe. She was married to James Young Deer (aka James Young Johnson), a producer and director. She retired from acting in the 1920s and died on March 13, 1974 in New York City, New York, USA.
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Kathleen Howard was born on 27 July 1884 in Clifton, Ontario, Canada. She was an actress and writer, known for It's a Gift (1934), Ball of Fire (1941) and Death Takes a Holiday (1934). She was married to Edward Kellogg Baird (lawyer). She died on 15 August 1956 in Hollywood, 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.
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Born in 1884, virile and dashing silent screen idol Owen Moore, equipped with incredibly handsome reddish and ruddy features, came to America with his family from Ireland at the age of 11. After some stage work, he entered films at the Biograph Studio in 1908 and appeared in many of D.W. Griffith's early productions.
Owen was Mary Pickford's stylish leading man in her early career-starters and they secretly married in 1911. Some of their classic pictures together include Cinderella (1914), in which he played her Prince Charming, and Mistress Nell (1915). Mary left Owen for Douglas Fairbanks, however, and the couple eventually divorced in 1920. A couple of years later Owen met and wed silent film actress Kathleen Perry, a marriage that lasted until his sudden death of a heart attack at age 54. This couple also made several pictures together.
A talented singer in his own right, Owen's timing was off for he was much too old to see what kind of impression he could have made in musicals come the advent of sound. A popular romantic leading man during his heyday, his career took a nosedive once talkies arrived. His last film would be Janet Gaynor's A Star Is Born (1937), in which he played a movie director.
Owen's brothers Tom Moore and Matt Moore were also popular leading men at around the same time, but Owen was probably the best known due to his association with Pickford. The three of them appeared together in only one feature film, Side Street (1929). His mother Mary Moore was a character actress for a time, featured in Clara Kimball Young's film Lola (1914). She eventually quit the business, returned to the British Isles and became Lady Wyndham, and died there in 1931. Two other siblings were also briefly actors, Mary Moore and Joe Moore (aka Joseph Moore), but they died young and remain much lesser known. Owen died fairly young himself at age 54 of a heart attack in 1939.