Advanced search
- TITLES
- NAMES
- COLLABORATIONS
Search filters
Enter full date
to
or just enter yyyy, or yyyy-mm below
to
Only includes names with the selected topics
to
or just enter yyyy, or yyyy-mm below
to
1-7 of 7
- Peter Murray-Hill was born on 20 April 1908 in Bushey Heath, Hertfordshire, England, UK. He was an actor, known for Rhythm Serenade (1943), House of Mystery (1940) and The House of the Arrow (1940). He was married to Phyllis Calvert. He died on 25 November 1957 in England, UK.
- Actor
- Producer
- Writer
Raymond Griffith was born on January 23, 1895 in Boston, Massachusetts into a theatrical family. His parents, James Henry Griffith and Mary Guichard, were both actors, as were his grandfather, Gerald Griffith, and his great grandfather, Thomas Griffith. Young Raymond made his stage debut when he was 15 months old and by the age of seven played the eponymous lead in "Little Lord Fauntleroy." By the time he was eight, he was playing a female role in "Ten Nights in a Barroom."
A childhood case of respiratory diphtheria permanently damaged his vocal chords, and when he was a young boy, Raymond lost his voice while playing a part in "The Witching Hour." "Photoplay" magazine's May 1925 issue reported that his voice went out while he was letting out a scream as his character was about to be beaten, as was required by the script.
"The audience heard a piercing shriek from the boy as he cringed before the whip. That was all. The terror on the boy's face was the terror of realism; he was stricken dumb. He could not speak a line after that scream. He has never spoken a line from the stage since then. His recovery was so gradual that he could not speak above a whisper for years, and he has never recovered the full carrying power, which the stage demands."
The loss of voice was permanent. No longer able to act, Raymond joined a circus, then worked as a dancer and dance teacher at New York City's Grand Central Palace. He subsequently joined the vaudeville circuit, eventually undertaking a European tour with a company of French pantomimists.
Eventually, he joined the U.S. Navy in 1910, when he was 15 years old, and served a two year hitch. Many sources claim his both year as 1890, which likely is the date he gave the Navy in order to enlist.
It has been claimed that after his discharge, he went to California in 1914 where he was hired as an extra by Vitagraph while visiting a friend on a set. Another story has him arriving in California as part of a vaudeville tour and staying to appear in the movies, getting his first job with Kalem in 1915. What is known for sure is that he was working for the L-KO Motion Picture Kompany in 1915, and that he left the studio in early 1916 to work for Mack Sennett, probably primarily as a gag man and scenario writer, though he did perform in Sennett's comedy shorts.
Except for a brief stay at Fox, Griffith worked for Sennett until moving to Triangle in 1917, where he worked as a movie comedian as well as a gagman and scenario writer. Drafted for service in World War I, Griffith was not inducted because of his vocal problems.
Griffith returned to Sennett in 1918, and stayed with him for three years. Eventually, he did less acting and focused more on scenario writing. Leaving Sennett in June 1921 for Marshall Neilan, Griffith returned to acting. The association with Neilan lasted until the Fall of 1922, when he signed with Goldwyn Pictures.
Griffith's first movie for his new studio was the mystery-melodrama "Red Lights" (1924). He appeared in Tod Browning's "The Day of Faith (1923)" with Eleanor Boardman and 'Tyrone Power, Sr.' and "The White Tiger" (1923) with Priscilla Dean and Wallace Beery for Goldwyn, though the latter film was ultimately released by Universal. After the Browning picture, Griffith made just one more movie for Goldwyn, "Nellie, the Beautiful Cloak Model" (1924) with Hobart Bosworth and Mae Busch before signing on with Famous Players-Lasky (Paramount).
During his Goldwyn period, Griffith created an acting style uniquely his own that was a hybrid of the comedic and the dramatic. In his Goldwyn films he played detectives & journalists and characters not entirely on the side of the law. His characters were not explicitly comic, but the characterizations were infused with Griffith's panache, spiced with comic business that occasionally crossed the threshold into slapstick. The style often tipped the scenarios over into farce. It was this style that attracted the attention of Paramount.
The first movie Griffith made at Paramount was Cecil B. DeMille's "Changing Husbands" (1924). His turn in "Paths to Paradise" (1925) won him the highest critical praise, and "Screenland" predicted that he would soon become Charles Chaplin's top rival. In 1926, he made the Civil War comedy "Hands Up!" (1926) that is widely considered his best comedy. Movie critic Walter Kerr wrote in his 1975 book "The Silent Clowns "'Hands Up!' contains some work that is daring for its period, certainly and some that is masterfully delicate, the work of an inventive, unaggressive, amiably iconoclastic intelligence."
He continued to do highly praised work in 1926, but his two films of 1927 failed to engender positive reviews. Griffith and Paramount subsequently terminated his contract "by mutual consent."
On January 8, 1928, Raymond Griffith married the stage and film actress Bertha Mann, and they spent a six-month honeymoon in Europe. Griffith didn't appear in any movies in 1928, although he reportedly had several projects in development, including one with 'Howard Hughes' (qv. The couple's first child, Raymond, Jr., tragically was stillborn on June 6, 1929. They had a second child, Michael, who was born on July 16, 1931, and adopted a daughter, Patricia, in 1933. They were married almost 29 years, until Griffith's death.
When Griffith returned to movie-making, he was faced with the prospect of sound. He soldiered on despite his vocal handicap, and made two sound short subjects in 1929.
Alas, it was impossible to be a featured actor in the new medium with a voice that barely rose above a whisper. He made one last appearance, uncredited, as the French soldier whom Lew Ayres mortally wounds and then shares his shell-hole for the night in the classic All Quiet on the Western Front (1930). Because of his wounds, the French soldier cannot speak above a whisper, which enabled Griffith to play the role. The scene, in which the French soldier slowly dies, is made harrowing and haunting by Griffith's performance. Griffith's final appearance onscreen turned out to be one of the most memorable in movie history.
Griffith retired from acting, but not from the movies. He continued to work in the movie industry as a production supervisor and associate producer.
Raymond Griffith was dining at Los Angeles' Masquers Club, a private establishment for actors and producers, on November 25, 1957, when he choked on some food and died of asphyxia. He was 62 years old.- Writer
- Actor
- Additional Crew
Peter B. Kyne was one of the most prolific writers, of both novels and short stories, in American literature. He was born in San Francisco, CA, in 1880. His father owned a cattle ranch, and Kyne worked on it with his father while he went to school. He attended business school with an eye to helping out at the ranch, but his instructors noted his knack for writing and advised him to become a writer.
After holding a variety of jobs, Kyne lied about his age and joined the army, serving with an infantry regiment during the 1898 Spanish-American War and later was posted to the Philippines to help battle a guerrilla campaign by Filipino nationalists. After separation from the army, Kyne again held a succession of jobs, and in 1905 got hired as a reporter for the San Francisco Morning Call. His experiences covering the waterfront there piqued his interest in seamen, a subject that he used in many of his later novels (especially the "Cappy Ricks" series, about a feisty old salt who runs his own steamship line).
He had been writing short stories for quite some time, but it wasn't until after he was married in 1910 that he began to get them published, often in some of the most respected magazines of the day, such as Collier's and The Saturday Evening Post. His first novel, "The Three Godfathers", was published in 1913, and was a major success. It was made into several films, the most famous one starring John Wayne (3 Godfathers (1948)). Many of Kyne's short stories and novels were turned into movies, and in the 1930s it seemed like it was impossible to go into a theater and not see a film based on a Kyne story. He also worked on the screenplays of some of the films based on his books. His last novel, "Dude Woman", was published in 1940.
Peter B. Kyne died in San Francisco in 1957.- Per Hjern was born on 21 August 1899 in Trollhättan, Västra Götalands län, Sweden. He was an actor, known for Skåningar (1944), Ebberöds bank (1946) and Blå himmel (1955). He died on 25 November 1957 in Malmo, Sweden.
- Writer
- Producer
Armando Curcio was born on 25 May 1900 in Naples, Campania, Italy. He was a writer and producer, known for Tarantella napoletana (1953), Condannatelo! (1953) and Guaglio (1948). He died on 25 November 1957 in Rome, Lazio, Italy.- Victor Colani was born on 30 October 1895 in Zittau, Saxony, Germany. He was an actor, known for Echte Perlen (1919), Das Haus gegenüber (1918) and Die Blitzzentrale (1921). He died on 25 November 1957 in The Hague, Zuid-Holland, Netherlands.
- Prince George of Greece and Denmark was born on 24 June 1869 in Corfu, Greece. He was married to Marie Bonaparte. He died on 25 November 1957 in Saint-Cloud, Hauts-de-Seine, France.