The Best Actor 1934
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The name may have been forgotten, especially today (seven decades later), but the portly, apoplectic, exasperated figure on the 1930s screen wasn't. While his film career, save a couple of silents, lasted a paltry seven years (1932-1939), character actor Walter Connolly certainly ran the distance. While some film historians complain that a number of his performances were annoying or overbaked, he was for the most part applauded for his zesty contributions to a number of comedy classics. Frank Capra's Lady for a Day (1933), Broadway Bill (1934) and It Happened One Night (1934), not to mention the Carole Lombard/Fredric March screwball farce Nothing Sacred (1937) as news reporter March's hot-headed editor boss are sure-fire examples.
The Cincinnati, Ohio native was born on April 8, 1887 and schooled there. The son of the head of the Western Union relay office, he attended St. Xavier College and the University of Dublin in Ireland before making his New York debut in 1910 in an outdoor presentation of "As You Like It". For the next year or so he was a member of E.H. Sothern's touring company and played supporting roles in a number of Shakespearean shows on the road. After a few silent pictures left him unimpressed with film-making, he turned to the Broadway stage in the 1920s and scored quite well. Somewhat short and tubby, it was not difficult for the jowly, mustachioed actor to seize laughs and he found his share in such outings as "The Talking Parrot" (1923), "Applesauce" (1925), "The Springboard" (1927), "The Happy Husband" (1928), "Stepping Out" (1929), "Your Uncle Dudley" (1930), "Anatol" (1931), "Six Characters in Search of an Author" (1931), "The Good Fairy" (1932) and "The Late Christopher Bean" (1932).
With his talents as a stage farceur firmly established, it was time to make a second attempt at a film career and Hollywood (specifically, Columbia) wisely opened their doors to him. Interestingly, his debut in a full-length talking picture came at age 45 in the form of a drama, Washington Merry-Go-Round (1932), where he was third-billed as a rather benign senator. For the next seven years Connolly, often playing older than he really was, could be found everywhere giving good fluster to the greatest and glossiest of stars -- Janet Gaynor, Carole Lombard, Clark Gable, Jean Harlow, Myrna Loy, Paul Muni, Spencer Tracy, and Ginger Rogers, among hordes of others.
Every now and then he was asked to hold up a film, as with his leading roles in the drama Whom the Gods Destroy (1934), the Hecht/MacArthur comedy/drama Soak the Rich (1936), and the whodunnits Father Brown, Detective (1934) (as the title priest/gumshoe) and The League of Frightened Men (1937) (as supersleuth Nero Wolfe). Connolly's archetypal fuming was on full display in the comedies She Couldn't Take It (1935) with George Raft and Joan Bennett and Fifth Avenue Girl (1939) with Ginger Rogers. His last role was as the great composer himself in the highly fictional The Great Victor Herbert (1939), although it wasn't the leading role.
Connolly married actress Nedda Harrigan in 1920. The two appeared together in the Broadway comedies "Treat 'Em Rough" (1926) and "Merry Andrew" (1929). They had one daughter, actress Ann Connolly (1924-2006), who also appeared on stage and played the grownup Wendy in the 'Mary Martin' /Cyril Ritchard Broadway production of "Peter Pan" in 1954. Ironically, Connolly, whose obesity was probably a contributing factor to his fatal stroke suffered on May 28, 1940, received his final divorce decree on the day he died. He was only 53.1594 points- Actor
- Director
- Writer
Charles Vanel was a French actor. His film career lasted for 76 years, from 1912 to 1988. He appeared in over 200 films.
Vanel often worked under famous directors, such as Luis Buñuel, Henri-Georges Clouzot, Jacques Feyder, and Alfred Hitchcock. A career highlight was his role as truck driver Jo in the thriller film "The Wages of Fear" (1953). In France, it was the 4th highest earning film of the year. The film won both the Golden Bear and the Palme d'Or.
Vanel won the Best Actor award of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival , for his role as Wolf Andergast in the drama film "L'affaire Maurizius" (1954).
Vanel had a supporting role in the thriller film "To Catch a Thief" (1955) as restaurant owner Monsieur Bertani, who is a veteran of the French Resistance. In retrospect, the film was considered one of Hitchcock's strongest films.
Vanel won the Best Actor award of the San Sebastian International Film Festival, for his role as Albatrasse in the thriller film "Burning Fuse" (1957).
In 1979, Vanel received a Honorary César Award for his career. In 1981, he won the Best Supporting Actor award in the David Di Donatello Awards, for his role as pater familias Donato Giuranna in the drama film "Three Brothers".
Vanel's last film role was in the film "Les Saisons du plaisir" (1988). He died in April 1989, at the age of 96.1569 points- Actor
- Soundtrack
It seemed like Edward Everett Horton appeared in just about every Hollywood comedy made in the 1930s. He was always the perfect counterpart to the great gentlemen and protagonists of the films. Horton was born in Brooklyn, New York City, to Isabella S. (Diack) and Edward Everett Horton, a compositor for the NY Times. His maternal grandparents were Scottish and his father was of English and German ancestry. Like many of his contemporaries, Horton came to the movies from the theatre, where he debuted in 1906. He made his film debut in 1922. Unlike many of his silent-film colleagues, however, Horton had no problems in adapting to the sound, despite--or perhaps because of--his crackling voice. From 1932 to 1938 he worked often with Ernst Lubitsch, and later with Frank Capra. He has appeared in more than 120 films, in addition to a large body of work on TV, among which was the befuddled Hekawi medicine man Roaring Chicken on the western comedy F Troop (1965).1547 points- Actor
- Producer
- Soundtrack
William Clark Gable was born on February 1, 1901 in Cadiz, Ohio, to Adeline (Hershelman) and William Henry Gable, an oil-well driller. He was of German, Irish, and Swiss-German descent. When he was seven months old, his mother died, and his father sent him to live with his maternal aunt and uncle in Pennsylvania, where he stayed until he was two. His father then returned to take him back to Cadiz. At 16, he quit high school, went to work in an Akron, Ohio, tire factory, and decided to become an actor after seeing the play "The Bird of Paradise". He toured in stock companies, worked oil fields and sold ties. On December 13, 1924, he married Josephine Dillon, his acting coach and 15 years his senior. Around that time, they moved to Hollywood, so that Clark could concentrate on his acting career. In April 1930, they divorced and a year later, he married Maria Langham (a.k.a. Maria Franklin Gable), also about 17 years older than him.
While Gable acted on stage, he became a lifelong friend of Lionel Barrymore. After several failed screen tests (for Barrymore and Darryl F. Zanuck), Gable was signed in 1930 by MGM's Irving Thalberg. He had a small part in The Painted Desert (1931) which starred William Boyd. Joan Crawford asked for him as co-star in Dance, Fools, Dance (1931) and the public loved him manhandling Norma Shearer in A Free Soul (1931) the same year. His unshaven lovemaking with bra-less Jean Harlow in Red Dust (1932) made him MGM's most important star.
His acting career then flourished. At one point, he refused an assignment, and the studio punished him by loaning him out to (at the time) low-rent Columbia Pictures, which put him in Frank Capra's It Happened One Night (1934), which won him an Academy Award for his performance. The next year saw a starring role in Call of the Wild (1935) with Loretta Young, with whom he had an affair (resulting in the birth of a daughter, Judy Lewis). He returned to far more substantial roles at MGM, such as Fletcher Christian in Mutiny on the Bounty (1935) and Rhett Butler in Gone with the Wind (1939).
After divorcing Maria Langham, in March 1939 Clark married Carole Lombard, but tragedy struck in January 1942 when the plane in which Carole and her mother were flying crashed into Table Rock Mountain, Nevada, killing them both. A grief-stricken Gable joined the US Army Air Force and was off the screen for three years, flying combat missions in Europe. When he returned the studio regarded his salary as excessive and did not renew his contract. He freelanced, but his films didn't do well at the box office. He married Sylvia Ashley, the widow of Douglas Fairbanks, in 1949. Unfortunately this marriage was short-lived and they divorced in 1952. In July 1955 he married a former sweetheart, Kathleen Williams Spreckles (a.k.a. Kay Williams) and became stepfather to her two children, Joan and Adolph ("Bunker") Spreckels III.
On November 16, 1959, Gable became a grandfather when Judy Lewis, his daughter with Loretta Young, gave birth to a daughter, Maria. In 1960, Gable's wife Kay discovered that she was expecting their first child. In early November 1960, he had just completed filming The Misfits (1961), when he suffered a heart attack, and died later that month, on November 16, 1960. Gable was buried shortly afterwards in the shrine that he had built for Carole Lombard and her mother when they died, at Forest Lawn Cemetery.
In March 1961, Kay Gable gave birth to a boy, whom she named John Clark Gable after his father.1529 points- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Leslie Howard Steiner was born in London to Lilian (Blumberg) and Ferdinand "Frank" Steiner. His father was a Hungarian Jewish immigrant, and his English mother was of German Jewish and mostly English descent. Leslie went to Dulwich College, then worked as a bank clerk until the outbreak of World War I, when he went into the army. In 1917, diagnosed as shell-shocked, he was invalided out and advised to take up acting as therapy. In a few years, his name was famous on the stages of London and New York. He made his first movie in 1914: (The Heroine of Mons (1914)). He became known as the perfect Englishman (slim, tall, intellectual, and sensitive), a part that he played in many movies which set women to dreaming about him. His first sound movie came out in 1930: Outward Bound (1930), an adaptation of the stage play in which he starred. In Never the Twain Shall Meet (1931) and Smilin' Through (1932), he played the Englishman role to the hilt. His screen persona could perhaps best be summed up by his role as Sir Percy Blakeney in The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934), a foppish society gentleman.
It was Howard who insisted that Humphrey Bogart get the role of Duke Mantee in The Petrified Forest (1936), a role that Bogart had played in the stage production. As he became more successful, he also became quite picky about which roles he would do, and usually performed in only two films a year. In 1939, he played the character that will always be associated with him, that of Ashley Wilkes, the honor-bound, disillusioned intellectual Southern gentleman, in Gone with the Wind (1939).
However, war clouds were gathering over England, and he devoted all his energy on behalf of the war effort. He directed films, wrote articles and made radio broadcasts. He died in 1943, when the KLM plane he was in was shot down by German fighters over the Bay of Biscay.1511 points- Actor
- Soundtrack
Along with fellow actors Lon Chaney, Bela Lugosi and Vincent Price, Boris Karloff is recognized as one of the true icons of horror cinema, and the actor most closely identified with the general public's perception of the "Monster" from the classic Mary Shelley novel "Frankenstein". William Henry Pratt was born on November 23, 1887, in Camberwell, London, England, UK, the son of Edward John Pratt Jr., the Deputy Commissioner of Customs Salt and Opium, Northern Division, Indian Salt Revenue Service, and his third wife, Eliza Sarah Millard.
He was educated at London University in anticipation that he would pursue a diplomatic career; however, he emigrated to Canada in 1909, joined a touring company based out of Ontario and adopted the stage name of "Boris Karloff." He toured back and forth across the U.S. for over 10 years in a variety of low budget theater shows and eventually ended up in Hollywood, reportedly with very little money to his name. Needing cash to support himself, Karloff secured occasional acting work in the fledgling silent film industry in such pictures as The Deadlier Sex (1920), Omar the Tentmaker (1922), Dynamite Dan (1924) and Tarzan and the Golden Lion (1927), in addition to a handful of serials (the majority of which, sadly, have not survived). Karloff supplemented his meager film income by working as a truck driver in Los Angeles, which allowed him enough time off to continue to pursue acting roles.
His big break came in 1931 when he was cast as "the Monster" in the Universal production of Frankenstein (1931), directed by James Whale, one of the studio's few remaining auteur directors. The aura of mystery surrounding Karloff was highlighted in the opening credits, as he was listed as simply "?". The film was a commercial and critical success for Universal, and Karloff was instantly established as a hot property in Hollywood. He quickly appeared in several other sinister roles, including Scarface (1932) (filmed before Frankenstein (1931)), the black-humored The Old Dark House (1932), as the namesake Chinese villain of Sax Rohmer's Dr. Fu Manchu novels in The Mask of Fu Manchu (1932), as the undead Im-ho-tep in The Mummy (1932) and as the misguided Prof. Morlant in The Ghoul (1933). He thoroughly enjoyed his role as a religious fanatic in John Ford's The Lost Patrol (1934), although contemporary critics described it as a textbook example of overacting.
He donned the signature make-up, neck bolts and asphalt spreader's boots again to play the Frankenstein Monster twice, in the sensational Bride of Frankenstein (1935) and the less thrilling Son of Frankenstein (1939). Karloff, on loan to Fox, appeared in one of the best of the Warner Oland Charlie Chan films, Charlie Chan at the Opera (1936), before beginning his own short-lived Mr. Wong detective series. He was a wrongly condemned doctor in Devil's Island (1938), shaven-headed executioner "Mord the Merciless" in Tower of London (1939), another misguided scientist in The Ape (1940), a crazed scientist surrounded by monsters, vampires and werewolves in House of Frankenstein (1944), a murderous cabman in The Body Snatcher (1945) and a Greek general fighting vampirism in the Val Lewton thriller Isle of the Dead (1945).
While Karloff continued appearing in a plethora of films, many of them were not up to the standards of his previous efforts, including appearances in two of the hokey Bud Abbott and Lou Costello monster films (he had appeared with them in an earlier, superior film, Bud Abbott Lou Costello Meet the Killer Boris Karloff (1949), of which theater owners often added his name to the marquee), the low point of the Universal-International horror film cycle. During the 1950s he was a regular guest on many high-profile TV shows, including The Milton Berle Show (1948), Tales of Tomorrow (1951), The Veil (1958), The Donald O'Connor Show (1954), The Red Skelton Hour (1951) and The Dinah Shore Chevy Show (1956), to name a few, and he appeared in a mixed bag of films, including Sabaka (1954) and Voodoo Island (1957). On Broadway, he appeared as the murderous Brewster brother in the hit "Arsenic and Old Lace" (his role, or rather the absence of him in it, was amusingly parodied in the 1944 film version) and 10 years later he enjoyed a long run in "Peter Pan," perfectly cast as "Captain Hook."
His career experienced something of a revival in the 1960s thanks to hosting the TV anthology series Thriller (1960) and indie director Roger Corman, with Karloff contributing wonderful performances in The Raven (1963), The Terror (1963), the ultra-eerie Black Sabbath (1963) and the H.P. Lovecraft-inspired Die, Monster, Die! (1965). Karloff's last great film role was as Byron Orlok, an aging horror film star on the brink of retirement confronting a modern-day sniper in the Peter Bogdanovich film Targets (1968). In 1970, he played the blind sculptor Franz Badulescu in Cauldron of Blood (1968) which was produced, directed and written by Edward Mann, who had also come to the art of film from the stage and the theater. His TV career was capped off by achieving Christmas immortality as both the voices of the titular character and the narrator of Chuck Jones's perennial animated favorite, How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1966). Four low-budget Mexican-produced horror films starring an ailing Karloff were released in the two years after his death; however, they do no justice to this actor. In retrospect, he never took himself too seriously as an actor and had a tendency to downplay his acting accomplishments. Renowned as a refined, kind and warm-hearted gentleman with a sincere affection for children and their welfare, Karloff passed away on February 2, 1969 from emphysema. Respectful of his Indian roots and in true Hindu fashion, he was cremated at Guildford Crematorium, Godalming, Surrey, England, UK, where he is commemorated by a plaque in Plot 2 of the Garden of Remembrance.1477 points- Actor
- Soundtrack
Fredric March began a career in banking but in 1920 found himself cast as an extra in films being produced in New York. He starred on the Broadway stage first in 1926 and would return there between screen appearances later on. He won plaudits (and an Academy Award nomination) for his send-up of John Barrymore in The Royal Family of Broadway (1930). Four more Academy Award nominations would come his way, and he would win the Oscar for Best Actor twice: for Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931) and The Best Years of Our Lives (1946). He could play roles varying from heavy drama to light comedy, and was often best portraying men in anguish, such as Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman (1951). As his career advanced he progressed from leading man to character actor.1469 points- Actor
- Soundtrack
William Powell was on the New York stage by 1912, but it would be ten years before his film career would begin. In 1924 he went to Paramount Pictures, where he was employed for the next seven years. During that time, he played in a number of interesting films, but stardom was elusive. He did finally attract attention with The Last Command (1928) as Leo, the arrogant film director. Stardom finally came via his role as Philo Vance in The Canary Murder Case (1929), in which he investigates the death of Louise Brooks, "the Canary." Unlike many silent actors, sound boosted Powell's career. He had a fine, urbane voice and his stage training and comic timing greatly aided his introduction to sound pictures. However, he was not happy with the type of roles he was playing at Paramount, so in 1931 he switched to Warner Bros. There, he again became disappointed with his roles, and his last appearance for Warners was as Philo Vance in The Kennel Murder Case (1933). In 1934 Powell went to MGM, where he was teamed with Myrna Loy in Manhattan Melodrama (1934). While Philo made Powell a star, another detective, Nick Charles, made him famous. Powell received an Academy Award nomination for The Thin Man (1934) and later starred in the Best Picture winner for 1936, The Great Ziegfeld (1936). Powell could play any role with authority, whether in a comedy, thriller, or drama. He received his second Academy Award nomination for My Man Godfrey (1936) and was on top of the world until 1937, when he made his first picture with Jean Harlow, Reckless (1935). The two clicked, off-screen as well as on-screen, and shortly became engaged. One day, while Powell was filming Double Wedding (1937) on one MGM sound stage, Harlow became ill on another. She was finally taken to the hospital, where she died. Her death greatly upset both Powell and Myrna Loy, and he took six weeks off from making the movie to deal with his sorrow. After that he traveled, not making another MGM film for a year. He eventually did five sequels to "The Thin Man," the last one in 1947. He also received his third Academy Award nomination for his work in Life with Father (1947). His screen appearances became less frequent after that, and his last role was in 1955. He had come a long way from playing the villain in 1922.1446 points- Actor
- Soundtrack
Warner Oland was born Johan Verner Olund in the small village of Nyby in Bjurholm parish in the county of Vasterbotten, Sweden, on October 3, 1879. Bjurholm is situated about 60 kilometers outside the town of Umea. His family emigrated to the US on October 15, 1892. His father Jonas was a shopkeeper and his mother was Maria Johanna (nee Forsberg).
After finishing grade school and working on Broadway during his 20s, Oland settled in California in the early 1910s, where he worked odd jobs. The movie industry was in its beginning stages in Hollywood, and Johan Olund--changing his name to the more Americanized "Warner Oland"--worked as a stage actor for a while before getting small parts in films in the 1910s and 1920s. As Hollywood made the transition from silent to sound pictures in the late 1920s (Oland co-starred in Warner Brothers' groundbreaking part-talkie The Jazz Singer (1927)), he began landing more prominent roles.
His greatest success came in 1931 when he was cast in the role of Charlie Chan, a Honolulu-based Chinese-American police detective in Charlie Chan Carries On (1931), based on the popular detective mystery series by Earl Derr Biggers [1884-1933] which was produced by Fox Films. His performance as the seemingly mild-mannered but razor-sharp Asian detective won him critical acclaim, which resulted in his playing Chan again in the sequel, The Black Camel (1931).
The success of the Chan character turned into a cash cow for Fox Studios and Oland became a valuable property. It seems incredible today, but in Fox's pre-Shirley Temple period, Oland was considered the only guaranteed profit maker on the lot. He became wealthy and bred miniature schnauzers. Although seemingly happy, Oland became increasingly dependent upon alcohol and exhibited bizarre delusional behavior after periods of drinking.
Oland appeared in a total of 16 Charlie Chan feature films from 1931 to 1937. The Chan films were budgeted approaching 1930s A-picture levels (approximately $275,000) and were usually shot within tight 30-day schedules, three films per year (sadly, a number of these have apparently been lost). The series was pretty much the only guaranteed profit-maker the ailing studio could bank on during the days leading to its takeover by ex-Warner's production chief Darryl F. Zanuck in 1935, that resulted in its transformation from Fox Films into Twentieth Century-Fox.
From 1931 to 1935 Oland did other films besides the Chan series, but he was increasingly relegated to roles that didn't vary much beyond mysterious Asians, and in mid-1935 he became so identified as Charlie Chan that he was assigned to the series exclusively. His last eight films were all Chan entries, usually co-starring Keye Luke, who played Chan's Number One Son. While considered somewhat stereotypical today, these films were met with wide critical acclaim and all were hugely profitable. The best of the series is generally considered to be Charlie Chan at the Opera (1936), featuring lavish set design and a particularly effective menacing villain in Boris Karloff.
Oland's physical and mental problems slowly began to catch up to him, and in 1937 he was said to have suffered a nervous breakdown apparently due to some kind of mental dementia. The Fox executives, knowing that Oland was one of its biggest money earners, kept his alcoholism and mental problems hidden from the public. In November 1937, Edith, his wife of 30 years, filed for divorce. In January 1938 "Charlie Chan at (the) Ringside" began production at Fox's Western Avenue lot under the direction of James Tinling with an increasingly erratic Oland. After a few days shooting inside Studio 6, Oland walked out and never returned. He was heard complaining the studio was possessed by voodoo and feared contracting pneumonia. Over the next month there were numerous negotiations between Oland and SAG (Oland had been an early member) and production was briefly resumed, then suspended after Oland again failed to report to work. He was hospitalized and released, then decided to return to his mother's home in Sweden. Oland's film career, unbeknown to him, was over. In the interim, producer Sol M. Wurtzel, desperate to salvage the property, ordered the Chan picture reworked as Mr. Moto's Gamble (1938), with minor supporting cast changes. Successful negotiations were made with the Biggers' estate and the film was quickly shot with Peter Lorre and released April 7, 1938. The film itself remains an anachronism in the Moto series, as it contains much Chan-like dialog, tacked on Moto-esque action scenes and a guest-starring role by Keye Luke. Regardless, it was also a hit.
During his visit to Sweden, Oland negotiated a reconciliation with Edith but contracted bronchial pneumonia and died there on August 6, 1938, at age 57. Ironically, Fox contract (and Chan series) director John G. Blystone died the same day.
Numerous actors were tested to fill Oland's shoes as Charlie Chan, among them Cy Kendall, Walter Connolly, J. Edward Bromberg, Noah Beery Jr., Michael Visaroff and Leo Carillo (Kendall and Connelly had played Chan on radio). The series continued at Fox for another 11 entries with Sidney Toler, who was signed by Zanuck in mid-October 1938. Toler injected more humor into the character as scripts became somewhat more pedestrian. By 1942 Fox considered the series exhausted and it would ultimately be sold to low-budget studio Monogram Pictures and continue on even after Toler's death in 1947 with Roland Winters in the role through six dismal films into 1949.
In a postscript, Fox director Norman Foster paid a subtle tribute to Oland in the next Moto film, Mr. Moto's Last Warning (1938). During that movie's production in August 1938, cast and crew learned of Oland's passing in his native Sweden. Over the title Charlie Chan in Honolulu (1938), on the bill of the Sultana Theatre of Variety, they placed the banner "Last Day."1433 points- Actor
- Soundtrack
Edward Arnold was born as Gunther Edward Arnold Schneider in 1890, on the Lower East Side of New York City, the son of German immigrants, Elizabeth (Ohse) and Carl Schneider. Arnold began his acting career on the New York stage and became a film actor in 1916. A burly man with a commanding style and superb baritone voice, he was a popular screen personality for decades, and was the star of such film classics as Diamond Jim (1935) (a role he reprised in Lillian Russell (1940)) Arnold appeared in over 150 films and was President of The Screen Actors Guild shortly before his death in 1956.1432 points- Actor
- Producer
- Director
President of the Dramatic Club at Cornell University, Franchot Tone gave up the family business for acting, making his Broadway debut in "The Age of Innocence".
Tone then went into movies for MGM, making his film debut (at Paramount Pictures) in The Wiser Sex (1932). With his theatrical background, Tone became one of the most talented movie actors in Hollywood.1421 points- Harry Baur was born on 12 April 1880 in Paris, France. He was an actor, known for Life Dances On (1937), The Golem: The Legend of Prague (1936) and Les Misérables (1934). He was married to Rika Radifé and Rose Grane. He died on 8 April 1943 in Paris, France.868 points
- Takeshi Sakamoto was born on 21 September 1899 in Hyogo, Japan. He was an actor, known for A Story of Floating Weeds (1934), Passing Fancy (1933) and An Inn in Tokyo (1935). He died on 10 May 1974 in Hyogo-ken, Japan.809 points
- Actor
- Writer
- Soundtrack
Maurice Chevalier's first working job was as an acrobat, until a serious accident ended that career. He turned his talents to singing and acting, and made several short films in France. During World War I he enlisted in the French army. He was wounded in battle, captured and placed in a POW camp by the Germans. During his captivity he learned English from fellow prisoners. After the war he returned to the film business, and when "talkies" came into existence, Chevalier traveled to the US to break into Hollywood. In 1929 he was paired with operatic singer/actress Jeanette MacDonald to make The Love Parade (1929). Although Chevalier was attracted to the beautiful MacDonald and made several passes at her, she rejected him firmly, as she had designs on actor Gene Raymond, who she eventually married. He did not take rejection lightly, being a somewhat vain man who considered himself quite a catch, and derided MacDonald as a "prude". She, in turn, called him "the quickest derrière pincher in Hollywood". They made three more pictures together, the most successful being Love Me Tonight (1932). In the late 1930s he returned to Europe, making several films in France and England. World War II interrupted his career and he was dogged by accusations of collaboration with the Nazi authorities occupying France, but he was later vindicated. In the 1950s he returned to Hollywood, older and gray-headed. He made Gigi (1958), from which he took his signature songs, "Thank Heaven for Little Girls" and "I Remember it Well". He also received a special Oscar that year. In the 1960s he made a few more films, and in 1970 he sang the title song for Walt Disney's The Aristocats (1970). This marked his last contribution to the film industry.808 points- Actor
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John Barrymore was born John Sidney Blyth on February 15, 1882 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. An American stage and screen actor whose rise to superstardom and subsequent decline is one of the legendary tragedies of Hollywood. A member of the most famous generation of the most famous theatrical family in America, he was also its most acclaimed star. His father was Maurice Blyth (or Blythe; family spellings vary), a stage success under the name Maurice Barrymore. His mother, Georgie Drew, was the daughter of actor John Drew. Although well known in the theatre, Maurice and Georgie were eclipsed by their three children, John, Lionel Barrymore, and Ethel Barrymore, each of whom became legendary stars. John was handsome and roguish. He made his stage debut at age 18 in one of his father's productions, but was much more interested in becoming an artist.
Briefly educated at King's College, Wimbledon, and at New York's Art Students League, Barrymore worked as a freelance artist and for a while sketched for the New York Evening Journal. Gradually, though, the draw of his family's profession ensnared him, and by 1905, he had given up professional drawing and was touring the country in plays. He survived the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, and in 1909, became a major Broadway star in "The Fortune Hunter". In 1922, Barrymore became his generation's most acclaimed "Hamlet", in New York and London. But by this time, he had become a frequent player in motion pictures. His screen debut supposedly came in An American Citizen (1914), though records of several lost films indicate he may have made appearances as far back as 1912. He became every bit the star of films that he was on stage, eclipsing his siblings in both arenas.
Though his striking matinee-idol looks had garnered him the nickname "The Great Profile", he often buried them under makeup or distortion in order to create memorable characters of degradation or horror. He was a romantic leading man into the early days of sound films, but his heavy drinking (since boyhood) began to take a toll, and he degenerated quickly into a man old before his time. He made a number of memorable appearances in character roles, but these became over time more memorable for the humiliation of a once-great star than for his gifts. His last few films were broad and distasteful caricatures of himself, though in even the worst, such as Playmates (1941), he could rouse himself to a moving soliloquy from "Hamlet". He died on May 29, 1942, mourned as much for the loss of his life as for the loss of grace, wit, and brilliance which had characterized his career at its height.804 points- Actor
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- Producer
Educated at the University of Toronto & Balliol College, Oxford, he joined the Canadian Field Artillery in World War I, served in France & was wounded. His first appearance was in a stage production in Siberia, during the multi-nation intervention of 1918 - 1919. Raymond returned to Canada & his family farm implement business , Massey-Harris Tractor Company, after the war, although footlights proved a greater allure than plowshares. He appeared at the Everyman Theatre, London in "In the Zone" in 1922 and from then his acting career never looked back. As adept in front of arc lights as the footlights, he was signed up for a 5 year contract by Alexander Korda. Major Massey was invalided from the Canadian Army in 1943. Raymond was devoted to his American wife Dorothy, to whom he referred all queries and problems. He had an ardent radio following in the States and became an American citizen. This was natural as his mother and maternal grandmother were Americans. A bad traveler, Raymond hated the sea and airplanes. A good sportsman, he excelled at golf and fishing, A scholar, he loved good literature. A modest man, he regarded himself as supremely uninteresting.791 points- Actor
- Soundtrack
Nigel was, from the beginning, typecast as bumbling English aristocrats, military types or drawing room society snobs and, within the narrow parameters of his range, he was very, very good at playing these parts. Nigel Bruce was born in Mexico, where his father, Sir William W. Bruce, worked as an engineer. His family was part of English aristocracy, ever since Charles I. bestowed a baronetcy upon them in 1629 (William's older brother Michael held the hereditary title). Nigel was educated in England at Grange, Stevenage and Abingdon. His first job was at a stockbroker's firm. During World War I, he served in the British Army (like his future co-star, Basil Rathbone) where he received a serious leg wound and was for some time confined to a wheelchair.
Following his discharge, he turned to acting in 1919, but it wasn't until ten years later that he achieved a breakthrough in Noël Coward's 'This was a Man' on Broadway. Then followed the performance which was to set the standard for all his later work in Hollywood: the 1931 comedy "Springtime for Henry". On the strength of his performance as Johnny Jelliwell, Fox offered Nigel the opportunity to reprise his role in the 1934 movie. Soon after that, Nigel was cast to star as British detective Bertram Lynch in a minor thriller, Murder in Trinidad (1934). The contemporary New York Times Review (May 16,1934) was skeptical about the film's merit, but found Nigel's performance 'compelling'. After that followed a gallery of endearingly stereotypical 'Britishers': Squire Trelawny in Robert Louis Stevenson's classic Treasure Island (1934), the Prince of Wales in The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934), Professor Holly in She (1935) and Sir Benjamin Warrenton in The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936). All, without exception, were roles in which Nigel felt perfectly at home.
In 1939, he teamed up with Basil Rathbone for the first two Holmes/Watson movies, The Hound of the Baskervilles (1939) and The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1939), filmed at 20th Century Fox. Both films had an authentic period feel for Victorian England and the chemistry between the two stars was just right. Three years later, Rathbone was contractually obliged to make a further series of twelve Holmes pictures at Universal, again co-starring Nigel as Dr. Watson. Nigel portrayed his lovable self in two Hitchcock classics Rebecca (1940) (as Major Giles Lacy) and Suspicion (1941) (as 'Beaky').
A prominent member of the resident English colony in Hollywood, Nigel Bruce at one time captained the cricket club established by fellow actor and compatriot C. Aubrey Smith in 1932 (other members included P.G. Wodehouse, Boris Karloff, Ronald Colman and David Niven).791 points- Jean Dasté was born on 18 August 1904 in Paris, France. He was an actor, known for The Grand Illusion (1937), L'Atalante (1934) and Z (1969). He was married to Marie-Hélène Dasté. He died on 15 October 1994 in Saint-Priest-en-Jarez, Loire, France.767 points
- Actor
- Writer
- Director
The son of a sausage-maker, Michel Simon was conscripted into the Swiss Army at the start of World War I, but was thrown out through a combination of tuberculosis and general insubordination. He was variously a boxer, photographer, general handyman and right-wing anarchist, finally becoming a stage actor in Geneva in 1920. His reputation soon grew, and he moved to Paris in 1923, appearing in his first film in 1925 (the same year he played Boudu for the first time on stage). With the coming of sound, Simon became firmly established as one of France's outstanding character actors, doing unforgettable work for Jean Renoir (La Chienne (1931), Boudu Saved from Drowning (1932)), Jean Vigo (L'Atalante (1934)) and Marcel Carné (Port of Shadows (1938), Bizarre, Bizarre (1937)). In the 1950s he worked less frequently, partly thanks to an accident involving makeup dye that paralyzed part of his body and face. Despite this, he still managed to appear in films right up to his death in 1975.767 points- Actor
- Costume and Wardrobe Department
- Additional Crew
Bela Lugosi was born Béla Ferenc Dezsö Blaskó on October 20, 1882, Lugos, Hungary, Austria-Hungary (now Lugoj, Romania), to Paula de Vojnich and István Blaskó, a banker. He was the youngest of four children. During WWI, he volunteered and was commissioned as an infantry lieutenant, and was wounded three times.
A distinguished stage actor in his native Hungary, Austria-Hungary, he began his stage career in 1901 and started appearing in films during World War I, fleeing to Germany in 1919 as a result of his left-wing political activity (he organized an actors' union). In 1920 he emigrated to the US and made a living as a character actor, shooting to fame when he played Count Dracula in the legendary 1927 Broadway stage adaptation of Bram Stoker's novel. It ran for three years, and was subsequently, and memorably, filmed by Tod Browning in 1931, establishing Lugosi as one of the screen's greatest personifications of pure evil. Also in 1931, he became a U.S. citizen. Sadly, his reputation rapidly declined, mainly because he had been blacklisted by the main studios and had no choice but to accept any part (and script) handed to him, and ended up playing parodies of his greatest role, in low-grade poverty row films. Due to shady blacklisting among the top Hollywood studio executives, he refused to sell out or to compromise his integrity, and therefore ended his career working for the legendary Worst Director of All Time, Edward D. Wood Jr..
Lugosi was married to Ilona Szmik (1917 - 1920), Ilona von Montagh (? - ?), and Lillian Arch (1933 - 1951). He is the father of Bela Lugosi Jr. (1938). Lugosi helped organize the Screen Actors Guild in the mid-'30s, joining as member number 28.
Bela Lugosi died of a heart attack August 16, 1956. He was buried in a Dracula costume, including a cape, but not the ones used in the 1931 film, contrary to popular--but unfounded--rumors.759 points- Actor
- Soundtrack
A dapper, debonair, darkly attractive leading man of 1920s stage and '30s screen, actor David Manners was born Rauff de Ryther Duan Acklom on April 30, 1900, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. A highly serviceable, if sometimes overshadowed, co-star opposite Hollywood's top 1930s female superstars, It seems ironic that, out of all these beautiful leading lady co-stars, his best-remembered pairings were opposite Dracula and the Mummy!
Of well-to-do stock, David was the son of British parents Lilian Manners Acklom and writer George Moreby Acklom, who was, at the time, the headmaster of Harrow House School, a renowned private boarding school in Halifax. His mother's lineage alleges Lady Diana Cooper and the Duke of Rutland as descendants, while his father's family tree includes Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Moving to New York City in 1907, his father found work as a major editor and literary advisor for the publishing firm E.P. Dutton. Employed while young as an assistant publisher, it seemed David might follow into his father's career footsteps. Instead he returned to Canada to study forestry at the University of Toronto. While there he joined the university's theatre group and, through them, made his debut at the city's Hart House Theatre in the Euripides' play "Hippolytus".
Against his father's steadfast objections, Manners left college in early 1923, with only months away from graduation, when he was invited to join Basil Sydney's Touring Co. Firmly dedicated now to performing, he settled in New York City after the tour and enrolled at the Trinity School of drama where he first performed as Fernando in "The Tempest". He subsequently became a member of Eva Le Gallienne's Civic Repertory Co. in New York. One theatre highlight was appearing in the 1924 Broadway play "Dancing Mothers" with legendary Helen Hayes at the Booth Theatre.
In Los Angeles from 1927, David made an uncredited film debut in the action adventure The Sky Hawk (1929) headlining lovely Helen Chandler. It was famed director James Whale who opened the doors wide open while searching out a film cast for Journey's End (1930) after its highly successful Broadway run. Witnessing David's work in a New York play, Whale hired him to portray idealistic, innocent-eyed 2nd Lt. Raleigh opposite star Colin Clive's Capt. Stanhope. The film was critically acclaimed and it paved the way for David to play glossy romantic co-stars.
Following David and lovely Frances Dade played the third and fourth-billed love interest behind stars Lowell Sherman and Alice Joyce in the romantic comedy He Knew Women (1930), the nascent film actor moved right to the head of the class with the crime drama Sweet Mama (1930) opposite Tessa Wells, who tries to save him from a gangster's life. He next played Caliph Abdallah opposite Loretta Young's Marsinsah in the musical fantasy Kismet (1930) and then found himself entangled in a romantic quartet with Young, Conway Tearle and Myrna Loy in the romancer The Truth About Youth (1930). By this time David had reached heartthrob status playing these well-bred gents, finding himself occasionally on the "top 10" list of popular film actors.
Reunited with Helen Chandler in the family drama Mother's Cry (1930), David's next role as John Harker (opposite Chandler playing the ill-fated Mina) would become his most famous. As the nagging nemesis to Bela Lugosi's lethal Count in Universal's granddaddy of horror classics, Dracula (1931), the Harker role would follow him the rest of his life. This visibility allowed a permanent "in" as a glitzy movie charmer opposite Hollywood's finest lady divas. His bevy of beautiful stars included Barbara Stanwyck in the Frank Capra drama The Miracle Woman (1931); Constance Bennett in Lady with a Past (1932); Kay Francis in Man Wanted (1932); Katharine Hepburn in A Bill of Divorcement (1932); and Loretta Young once again in They Call It Sin (1932).
David reunited with his "Dracula" stars Lugosi and Edward Van Sloan (who played Van Helsing) with the murder mystery The Death Kiss (1932), then hopped aboard the "horror express" once again in his second classic, The Mummy (1932), wherein he plays a similar damsel-saving Harker role (Frank Whemple) out to outdo Boris Karloff's nefarious creature. As usual, David continued with ritzy co-leads and second leads in such films as From Hell to Heaven (1933) starring Carole Lombard; The Devil's in Love (1933) with Loretta Young once again; and The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934) starring Claudette Colbert. A third terror opus had Dave joining both Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi in the horror stars' first pairing). In The Black Cat (1934), David and his newlywed wife are menaced by Karloff's Satanic architect.
After playing the title role in the mystery horror Mystery of Edwin Drood (1935), a starring role as an ex-con arrested for a syndicate murder in the crime mystery The Perfect Clue (1935), a featured role in a lesser Katharine Hepburn feminist film A Woman Rebels (1936), and a lead role in the "B" level Canadian crime drama Lucky Fugitives (1936), David, tired of the Hollywood grind and pretentiousness, called it quits in films. Returning to stage tours and summer stock, he showed up on Broadway in the short-lived plays "Truckline Café" (with a cast including a young Marlon Brando) and "Hidden Horizon", both in early 1946. At the end of the year he served as a Broadway replacement in a revival of "Lady Windemere's Fan". In 1953, Manners retired from acting entirely.
Early back in 1933, Manners had bought and designed a ranch in the Mojave desert, which he called Rancho Yucca Loma. After Hollywood, he spent much time there making home movies, writing and painting. In 1941 he published his first novel Convenient Season, which was followed by a second, Under Running Laughter, in 1943. Both were published by E.P. Dutton. David was once married briefly (1929-1932) to Suzanne Bushnell. In 1948, he established a long-term personal relationship with playwright Frederic William ("Bill") Mercer (1918-1978). The couple remained together in California until Bill's death.
After his Hollywood years, David re-intensified his strong spiritual interest and took a path that resulted in a number of philosophical writings. Look Through: An Evidence of Self Discovery was published in 1971 and his esoteric book Awakening from the Dream of Me came out in 1987. His journal writings, from 1973 on, were published posthumously as The Wonder Within You in 2006. The nonagenarian's health began to decline in 1993 and on December 23, 1998, he died at a Santa Barbara facility at the age of 97.759 points- Actor
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
- Soundtrack
John Davis Lodge was the grandson of Massachusetts Senator Henry Cabot Lodge ) and the brother of Henry Cabot Lodge Jr.
There was a saying in Boston, portraying the capital of the Bay State as "the land of the bean & the cod/Where the Lodges talk only to the Cabots/And the Cabots talk only to God." John Lodge was both a Cabot AND a Lodge, a thorough and thoroughly bred blue-blood to boot. However, before realizing that politics flowed through his veins, John Lodge - who was born in Washington, D.C. - humored himself with acting, that other public speaking sport that ranks among the world's oldest professions, and it was as an actor that the general public first got to know him.
John was born a year after his brother, debuting in the world on October 20, 1903. His father was the patrician playwright and poet George Lodge and his mother was the former Matilda Frelinghuysen Davis. He grew up in Washington and in Paris before being educated at the Evans School in Mesa, Arizona and the Middlesex School in Concord, Massachusetts. He attended Harvard College (Class of 1925) and Harvard Law School ('29), with a year of graduate study at Paris' Ecole de Droit in between. At Middlesex, he had indulged his interest in school theatricals, and he continued as an amateur thespian while matriculating at Harvard, playing leads in Hasty Pudding Club shows and French Club productions.
It was in Cambridge, Massachusetts during his undergraduate days that he met his future wife, the Italian-born Francesca Braggioti. While men played female roles in drag at Hasty Pudding Club shows, this was not so at the French Club theatricals (where the plays were presented in the French tongue). Francesca, who was both a dancer and a choreographer, often appeared in the French Club plays when there was wont of a female. The couple were married in 1929.
The newlyweds settled in New York City, where Lodge obtained employment as a law clerk in a prestigious Wall Street firm. In 1930, the couple's daughter Lily Lodge, a future actress and drama coach, entered the world with a kick of her wee legs and a hearty scream. Lily's mama Francesca, ever the trouper, pursued her own dance career after recovering from the birth, branching out into acting on Broadway and at small theaters when she wasn't kicking up her own heels. While Lilly's papa John didn't join his wife for any professional tripping of the light fantastic, he did indulge his own acting bones by joining Francesca in the New York Amateur Comedy Club's production of Noël Coward's "The Young Idea." The Coward comedy (the credits for which claim "The Snarks" as producer) played three performances on Broadway in March 1932.
It was the Great Depression, and despite John Lodge's patrician background, Francesca felt the need to generate some coin (gold specie wasn't outlawed until 1933 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt - Groton '00; Harvard '03, though he claimed allegiance to the Class of '04 despite finishing his undergraduate studies in three years - who most people of Lodge's class considered a class traitor) by hiring on to dub Greta Garbo's newly made sound films into Italian. Garbo had been a silent-film superstar in Francesca's native Italy, and the task was an important one, as the proper presentation of a speaking Garbo was critical to her future success in Italy. The job necessitated that Francesca move to Culver City, California for six months to perform the task at the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio.
Thus, fate intervened in John Lodge's life, separate from the accident of his birth. In the late summer of 1932, he took a vacation to California to join Francesca. In Santa Monica, while playing in a celebrity tennis tournament, he was spotted by talent agent Ad Schulberg. Lodge agreed to a screen-test, which was scripted by his prep school buddy John Lee Mahin, a successful screenwriter. The screen-test led to an offer of a six-month contract from Paramount Pictures at $75 a week.
Lodge's patrician family was aghast that he would even think of such as thing as leaving his law career for the then-disreputable "profession" of movie-making. For six weeks, Lodge dithered over accepting the offer. Paramount, anxious to sign the tall and handsome blue-blood, upped its offer to $275 a week (approximately $3,300/week in 2005 dollars), which at the time was a considerably greater sum than most New York City lawyers earned. Lodge signed the contact. While he did understand his family's dismay over his uprooting himself from a respectable avocation in the upright and proper Establishment East for a Prodigal Son-like journey to the Babylon on the sun-kissed and faintly wicked Left Coast to live the life of a Hollywood player, what he didn't count on was Mae West. His family was concerned over his new career route, while - if gossip was correct - Miss West was sure to be concerned over another root entirely.
As soon as the Paramount publicity department began ballyhooing the signing of their latest discovery, Mae West - who was not only Paramount's biggest star but had single-handedly taken the studio out of bankruptcy - decided she wanted the handsome young Lodge to play the male lead in her new movie, "She Done Him Wrong," an adaptation of her notorious stage hit "Diamond Lil." Lodge heard about West's interest, and as he was in no desire himself to further humiliate his family by associating with the notorious Mae West (West had been arrested and jailed for obscenity in New York in 1928 over her play "Sex"), he decided to nix the role. Lodge informed Paramount that he would not accept West's offer to co-star in her new picture and that he would prefer to learn the movie-acting craft by being cast initially in smaller parts.
No unknown had ever turned down such a big role before, but Paramount acquiesced. Lodge would later express regrets over his refusal of the part in "She Done Him Wrong," which became one of the top box office hits of 1933 and made the man whom Mae West chose to replace him in the role - Cary Grant - a star. Her first film at Paramount, "Night After Night," had introduced George Raft to Hollywood. No, John Lodge never became a star, but he did become the governor of Connecticut. Politics turned out to be his fate, after all. But before that milestone, there were movies to make, and a war to be fought.
After making three minor pictures at Paramount, the studio lent him out to R.K.O, where he made George Cukor's classic "Little Women" (1933). The apogee of his career came in 1934-35, when he appeared in two more classics: Josef von Sternberg's "The Scarlet Empress" (1934) in support of the legendary Marlene Dietrich at Paramount, and "The Little Colonel' at 20th Century-Fox, where he portrayed the father of another future actor-turned-politician (and yet another screen legend), Shirley Temple. That was about it. He made one more movie for Paramount, the mystery "Menace" (1934), and then became a freelance. In all, he appeared in 21 movies altogether between 1932 and 1940, including several that were shot in Europe, such as Maurice Tourneur's "Königsmark" (1935), which was made in France, and "Bulldog Drummond at Bay" (1937) and "Queer Cargo" (1938), which were shot in Great Britain. (John Lodge thus becomes an answer to a trivia question: name the actors who have played Bulldog Drummond.)
In January 1941, Lodge returned to Broadway after his less than auspicious 1932 interlude to appear as "The Young Man" in the musical "Night of Love." The musical, produced by the Schuberts, lasted twice as long as Lodge's previous engagement, closing after seven performances. He had better luck in his next play, Lillian Hellman's anti-fascist drama "Watch on the Rhine," in which he played David Farrelly. The play opened at the Martin Beck Theatre on April 1, 1941 and closed eleven months later, on February 21, 1942, bowing out after a total of 378 performances. John Lodge was ending his acting career with a hit.
World War II came to the United States during the run of his last play, and Lodge became a naval officer in August 1942. Capitalizing on his language skills and his molarity with Europe, the U.S. Navy made Lodge a liaison officer between the French and U.S. Fleets. In his over-three-years of service, Lodge reached the rank of Lieutenant Commander and was decorated with the rank of Chevalier in the French Legion of Honor and with the Croix de Guerre with Palm by General Charles de Gaulle. (He would later make the rank of Captain in the U.S Naval Reserve.) After he was demobilized, in January 1946, Lodge made his home in of Westport, Connecticut and joined the family business: politics.
In November 1946, he became the second movie actor ever elected to high office, winning a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives as a Republican. (The Democrat Helen Gahagan Douglas had become the first when she was elected from California's 14th District in 1944.) He won a second term in 1948, but resigned his seat in 1950 to run for governor. He was elected, and took office as Connecticut's 50th governor in January 1951. His wife, Francesca, proved to be the most active First Lady in Connecticut history, opening the governor's mansion to the public. She served as a patron of the arts, promoting concerts and theater and serving as a founding member of the American Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Connecticut.
After his bid for a second gubernatorial term ended in defeat in 1954, President Eisenhower appointed Lodge U.S. Ambassador to Spain, where he served from 1955 to 1961. While the Republicans were out of power in Washington during the 1960s, Lodge was the National President of Junior Achievement, Inc. from 1963-64, served as a Delegate and Floor Leader at the 1965 Connecticut Constitutional Convention, and was the Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Policy Research Institute at the University of Pennsylvania from 1964-69. After Nixon was elected President in 1968, he appointed Lodge as U.S. Ambassador to Argentina, where he served from 1969 to 1974. Later, for the most successful actor-cum-politician in history, President Ronald Reagan, he served as the U.S. Ambassador to Switzerland from 1983-85 and as a member of the U.S delegation to the United Nations. (Lodge's tours as the ambassador to Spain and Switzerland were fitting, as he was a bigger star in Europe than he had ever been in the United States.)
John Davis Lodge died in New York City on October 29, 1985, nine days after his 83rd birthday, and was buried at Arlington National Cemetery. The Connecticut Turnpike (Interstate-95) was named the Governor John Davis Lodge Turnpike in his honor. His widow, Francesca Lodge, died on February 25, 1998 at her home in Marbella, Spain. She was 95 years old.751 points- Actor
- Music Department
Johnny Weissmuller was born as Peter Johann Weißmüller in Freidorf, today a district of the city of Timisoara in Romania, then a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Weissmuller would later claim to have been born in Windber, Pennsylvania, probably to ensure his eligibility to compete as part of the US Olympic team. Weissmüller was one of two boys born to Petrus Weissmuller, a miner, and his wife Elisabeth Kersch, who were both Banat Swabians, an ethnic German population in Southeast Europe. A sickly child, he took up swimming on the advice of a doctor. He grew to be a 6' 3", 190-pound champion athlete - undefeated winner of five Olympic gold medals, 67 world and 52 national titles, holder of every freestyle record from 100 yards to the half-mile. In his first picture, Glorifying the American Girl (1929), he appeared as an Adonis clad only in a fig leaf. After great success with a jungle movie, MGM head Louis B. Mayer, via Irving Thalberg, optioned two of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan stories. Cyril Hume, working on the adaptation of Tarzan the Ape Man (1932), noticed Weissmuller swimming in the pool at his hotel and suggested him for the part of Tarzan. Weissmuller was under contract to BVD to model underwear and swimsuits; MGM got him released by agreeing to pose many of its female stars in BVD swimsuits. The studio billed him as "the only man in Hollywood who's natural in the flesh and can act without clothes". The film was an immediate box-office and critical hit. Seeing that he was wildly popular with girls, the studio told him to divorce his wife and paid her $10,000 to agree to it. After 1942, however, MGM had used up its options; it dropped the Tarzan series and Weissmuller, too. He then moved to RKO and made six more Tarzans. After that he made 13 Jungle Jim (1948) programmers for Columbia. He retired from movies to run a private business in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.746 points- Actor
- Soundtrack
Neil Hamilton's show business career began when he secured a job as a shirt model in magazine ads. He became interested in acting and joined several stock companies. He got his first film role in 1918, but received his big break from D.W. Griffith in The White Rose (1923).
After performing in several more Griffith films, Hamilton was signed by Paramount in the late 1920s and soon became one of that studio's most popular leading men. His rugged good looks and sophisticated demeanor kept him steadily employed, and he worked for just about every studio in Hollywood, from glittering MGM to rock-bottom PRC. Hamilton worked steadily over the years, and grew gracefully into mature supporting parts. He is probably best known to modern-day audiences, however, as Police Commissioner Gordon in the TV series Batman (1966).746 points- Actor
- Additional Crew
- Soundtrack
William Claude Rains, born in the Clapham area of London, was the son of the British stage actor Frederick Rains. The younger Rains followed, making his stage debut at the age of eleven in "Nell of Old Drury." Growing up in the world of theater, he saw not only acting up close but the down-to-earth business end as well, progressing from a page boy to a stage manager during his well-rounded learning experience. Rains decided to come to America in 1913 and the New York theater, but with the outbreak of World War I the next year, he returned to serve with a Scottish regiment in Europe. He remained in England, honing his acting talents, bolstered with instruction patronized by the founder of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, Herbert Beerbohm Tree. It was not long before his talent garnered him acknowledgment as one of the leading stage actors on the London scene. His one and only silent film venture was British with a small part for him, the forgettable -- Build Thy House (1920).
In the meantime, Rains was in demand as acting teacher as well, and he taught at the Royal Academy. Young and eager Laurence Olivier and John Gielgud were perhaps his best known students. Rains did return to New York in 1927 to begin what would be nearly 20 Broadway roles. While working for the Theater Guild, he was offered a screen test with Universal Pictures in 1932. Rains had a unique and solid British voice-deep, slightly rasping -- but richly dynamic. And as a man of small stature, the combination was immediately intriguing. Universal was embarking on its new-found role as horror film factory, and they were looking for someone unique for their next outing, The Invisible Man (1933). Rains was the very man. He took the role by the ears, churning up a rasping malice and volume in his voice to achieve a bone chilling persona of the disembodied mad doctor. He could also throw out a high-pitched maniac laugh that would make you leave the lights on before going to bed. True to Universal's formula mentality, it cast him in similar roles through 1934 with some respite in more diverse film roles -- and further relieved by Broadway roles (1933, 1934) for the remainder of his contract. By 1936, he was at Warner Bros. with its ambitious laundry list of literary epics in full swing. His acting was superb, and his eyes could say as much as his voice. And his mouth could take on both a forbidding scowl and the warmest of smiles in an instant. His malicious, gouty Don Luis in Anthony Adverse (1936) was inspired. After a shear lucky opportunity to dispatch his young wife's lover, Louis Hayward, in a duel, he triumphs over her in a scene with derisive, bulging eyes and that high pitched laugh -- with appropriate shadow and light backdrop -- that is unforgettable.
He was kept very busy through the remainder of the 1930s with a mix of benign and devious historical, literary, and contemporary characters always adapting a different nuance -- from murmur to growl -- of that voice to become the person. He culminated the decade with his complex, ethics-tortured Senator "Joe" Paine in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939). That year he became an American citizen. Into the 1940s, Rains had risen to perhaps unique stature: a supporting actor who had achieved A-list stardom -- almost in a category by himself. His some 40 films during that period ranged from subtle comedy to psychological drama with a bit of horror revisited; many would be golden era classics. He was the firm but thoroughly sympathetic Dr. Jaquith in Now, Voyager (1942) and the smoothly sardonic but engaging Capt. Louis Renault -- perhaps his best known role -- in Casablanca (1942). He was the surreptitiously nervous and malignant Alexander Sebastian in Notorious (1946) and the egotistical and domineering conductor Alexander Hollenius in Deception (1946). He was the disfigured Phantom of the Opera (1943) as well. He played opposite the challenging Bette Davis in three movies through the decade and came out her equal in acting virtuosity. He was nominated four times for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar -- but incredibly never won. With the 1950s the few movies left to an older Rains were countered by venturing into new acting territory -- television. His haunted, suicidal writer Paul DeLambre in the mountaineering adventure The White Tower (1950), though a modest part, was perhaps the most vigorously memorable film role of his last years. He made a triumphant Broadway return in 1951's "Darkness at Noon."
Rains embraced the innovative TV playhouse circuit with nearly 20 roles. As a favored 'Alfred Hitchcock' alumnus, he starred in five Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955) suspense dramas into the 1960s. And he did not shy away from episodic TV either with some memorable roles that still reflected the power of Claude Rains as consummate actor -- for many, first among peers with that hallowed title.743 points- Actor
- Director
- Writer
Robert Donat's pleasant voice and somewhat neutral English accent were carefully honed as a boy because he had a stammer and took elocution lessons starting at age 11 to overcome the impediment. It was not too surprising that freedom from such a vocal embarrassment was encouragement to act. His other handicap, acute asthma, did not deter him. At the age of 16 he began performing Shakespeare and other classic roles in a number of repertory and touring companies throughout Britain. In 1924 he joined Sir Frank Benson's repertory company, and later he was with the Liverpool Repertory Theater.
His work was finally noticed by Alexander Korda, who gave him a three-year film contract. Three minor films were followed by his role as Katherine Howard's lover, Thomas Culpepper, in the hit The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933). Donat's style of acting, whether comic or dramatic, was usually reserved, with the subtleties of face and voice being his talents to complement the role. A top draw in Britain, he went to Hollywood for The Count of Monte Cristo (1934), but he did not care for the Hollywood scene--the fishbowl lifestyle of the movie star. "Cristo" gave him the opportunity for Captain Blood (1935), but he eventually declined. (With a nod to hindsight, it is hard to think of anyone but a fresh-faced Flynn doing the role.) Although he would have contracts with MGM, Warner Bros. and RKO through the remainder of the 1930s, he begged off many a film role or broke commitments, ostensibly because of health problems, though, along with being finicky about roles, he was also such a conscientious actor that lack of confidence sometimes stymied his forward progress.
Hollywood usually had to shoot in England if it wanted him badly enough. And that was not a problem after the box office reception given The 39 Steps (1935), the big hit for Alfred Hitchcock. There was a hint of whimsy in Donat's face that worked especially well with the sophisticated comedic elements that crept into several of his dramatic roles. His portrayal of individualist Canadian Richard Hannay--which registered with North Americans both above and below the 49th parallel--in "Steps" was the first of such popular characters. Some of Hitch's famous on-the-set practical jokes ensued on the first day of shooting "Steps." The first scene was the escape on the moors from the master spy's henchmen by Donat and Madeleine Carroll handcuffed together. Donat and Carroll had not met before this, and Hitchcock handcuffed them together hours before filming so that they could get very well acquainted. He insisted he had misplaced the key when in fact he had slipped it to a studio security officer for safekeeping.
Hitchcock attempted to land Donat for three other roles, Sabotage (1936) and Secret Agent (1936) and Rebecca (1940), but illness, commitments, and more illness, respectively, supposedly kept Donat from accepting each. Hollywood would be treated in kind, for Donat was more dedicated to stage work. Hollywood did get him for The Citadel (1938), for which he was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar. He won the Oscar the next year for perhaps his best known role in Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939) (MGM's with Greer Garson). Since 1939 was one of the most competitive film years in Hollywood history, Donat's reward for his mild Mr. Chipping was something of a stunner. This was the year of Gone with the Wind (1939), and Clark Gable as Rhett Butler seemed a shoo-in for best actor. But there is something of a myth that since both pictures were from MGM and "Wind" had so many nominations (including best actor, actress, and picture), MGM head and strongman Louis B. Mayer used his weight to spread the wealth toward "Chips".
Unlike other British actors who came to work in America during World War II, Donat stayed in Britain. He did mostly theater but also some British films--only four--with one for Korda and one for Carol Reed. Only six more films were allotted Donat after the war and into the 1950s, all but one British productions. He starred, directed and co-wrote The Cure for Love (1949) and starred in The Magic Box (1951), a well-crafted and delightful (if a bit fictionalized) salute to the history of the British film industry. By 1955, all of Donat's acting efforts required a bottle of oxygen kept off stage and at the ready as his health continued to turn toward the worse. The Inn of the Sixth Happiness (1958), a Twentieth Century Fox production shot in the UK, was Donat's final film. His fragility was poignantly obvious on screen, and he died shortly after the film was finished. He received a posthumous Special Citation from the USA National Board of Review and was nominated for a Best Actor Golden Globe. It was a career for Robert Donat that should have gone on, yet it was filled with many notable screen memories just the same.742 points- Actor
- Additional Crew
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Tall, distinguished, aristocratic Louis Calhern seemed to be the poster boy for old-money, upper-crust urban society, but he was actually born Carl Vogt, to middle-class parents in New York City. His family moved to St. Louis when he was a child, and it was while playing football in high school there that he was spotted by a representative of a touring acting troupe and hired as an actor. He returned to New York to work in the theater, but his career was interrupted by military service in France in World War I. He returned to the stage after the war, and eventually broke into films. Although his regal bearing would seem to pigeonhole him in aristocratic parts in serious drama, he proved to be a very versatile actor, as much at home playing a comic foil to The Marx Brothers in Duck Soup (1933) as he was as Buffalo Bill to Betty Hutton's Annie Oakley in Annie Get Your Gun (1950) or, most memorably, the lawyer involved with the criminal gang in The Asphalt Jungle (1950). Married four times, he was in Tokyo, Japan, filming The Teahouse of the August Moon (1956) when he suffered a fatal heart attack.742 points- Actor
- Soundtrack
Warren William, the stalwart leading man of pre-Production Code talkies, was born Warren William Krech on December 2, 1894 in Aitkin, Minnesota, the son of a newspaper publisher. William originally planned to become a journalist, but he had a change of heart, and instead went to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and trained to become an actor. He served in the military in France during World War I, remaining in that country after the Armistice to tour with a theatrical company.
He made his Broadway debut as William Warren in the H.G. Wells play "The Wonderful Visit" in 1924. While appearing in 17 more plays on Broadway from 1924 to 1930, he also managed to appear in three silent pictures under his own name, Warren Krech. His only substantial role was in his first flicker, Fox's The Town That Forgot God (1922). In 1923, he played a credited bit part in support of "Perils of Pauline" star Pearl White in her last serial photoplay, Plunder (1923) but he went uncredited in a bit part in the Roaring Twenties/John Gilbert-as-bootlegger movie, Twelve Miles Out (1927).
Possessed of a first-rate speaking voice, rich, deep, and mellifluous, he was a natural for the talkies, and in 1931, he joined the stock company at Warner Bros., the studio that gave the world cinema sound. Projecting a patrician persona, Warren William initially thrived in the all-talking pictures. He appeared in a lead role in his first talkie, Honor of the Family (1931), an adaptation Honoré de Balzac's novel "Cousin Pons." Subsequently, he appeared as second leads and leads in support of the likes of Dolores Costello (Drew Barrymore's grandmother), H.B. Warner, Walter Huston, and Marian Marsh, before headlining The Mouthpiece (1932) as a district attorney who quits for the other side of the law, defending mobsters before a last reel conversion. It was his break-through role, followed up by a turn as a crooked campaign manager with more than just the affairs of state on his mind in The Dark Horse (1932). He then moved on to leading roles in A-list pictures, including the high-suds soap opera Three on a Match (1932), the classic musical Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933), Frank Capra's Lady for a Day (1933), and the original Imitation of Life (1934) starring Claudette Colbert and Louise Beavers.
William's outstanding performances in these roles include Skyscraper Souls (1932), The Match King (1932), and Employees' Entrance (1933). He also broadened his range to play the fraudulent clairvoyant in The Mind Reader (1933).
The early 30s was the apogee of William's career. He appeared opposite strong female stars, including Barbara Stanwyck, Claudette Colbert, Bette Davis, Ann Dvorak and Loretta Young.
With his patrician looks and bearing, William was loaned out to Cecil B. DeMille to play the patrician's patrician, Julius Caesar, again opposite of Ms. Colbert in Cleopatra (1934), a typical prodigal DeMille production in which Henry Wilcoxon avenged his mentor's assassination by rousing the rabble. William went on as the second Sam Spade (renamed Ted Shayne) in the "Maltese Falcon" remake Satan Met a Lady (1936) with Bette Davis. He eventually found himself in B-films. The same year he played Caesar, he made his inaugural and terminal appearance as William Powell's premier replacement in the role of Philo Vance in The Dragon Murder Case (1934), a character he would resurrect five years later in The Gracie Allen Murder Case (1939).
After making his first appearance as the cinema sleuth Vance, William returned to his roots as a court-room advocate, cast as the first Perry Mason in The Case of the Howling Dog (1934). After four films, he was replaced as Erle Stanley Gardner's A-#1 attorney in 1936 by former silent screen heart-throb Ricardo Cortez, the man who had first played Sam Spade, in the original The Maltese Falcon (1931). Before leaving the studio, William appeared in one more picture under contract at Warners Bros., the A-list Stage Struck (1936); then the erstwhile Warners trouper trooped over to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer for a few years, to work as a character actor.
Another movie series beckoned and William appeared as Michael Lanyard's "The Lone Wolf," in nine movies made by Columbia from 1939 to 1943 beginning with The Lone Wolf Spy Hunt (1939). Of the ten actors who appeared as "The Lone Wolf" in the 30 years the series ran, off and on, from 1919 until 1949, he made twice as many films as his nearest competitor (which included such top stars as Thomas Meighan and Melvyn Douglas). William continued to act in character parts calling for a patrician presence until his premature death in 1948.
Personally, Warren William was a shy and retiring type. Speaking of him, five-time Warners co-star Joan Blondell said that William "was an old man even when he was a young man." According to San Francisco critic Mick LaSalle's 2002 book "Dangerous Men: Pre-Code Hollywood and the Birth of the Modern Man" (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2002), William, who quite unlike his early Warner Bros.' stereotype as a heartless "love 'em and leave 'em"-style seducer, remained married to one woman throughout his adult life. He was an active inventor with multiple patents, designing one of the first recreational vehicles, reportedly so he could continue to sleep while being driven to the studio in the morning.
Warren William died in Hollywood on September 24, 1948, of multiple myeloma.740 points- Actor
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Actor, composer, songwriter, guitarist and author. He moved from Broadway acting (1928-1932) into films, touring America with his wife and daughter, and did some recordings. He was the executive producer at the El Camino Playhouse in California. Joining ASCAP in 1953, his chief musical collaborator was Perry Botkin. His popular-song compositions include "Good Ship Lalapaloo" and "Two Shillelagh O'Sullivan".739 points- Actor
- Additional Crew
- Producer
Fred Astaire was born in Omaha, Nebraska, to Johanna (Geilus) and Fritz Austerlitz, a brewer. Fred entered show business at age 5. He was successful both in vaudeville and on Broadway in partnership with his sister, Adele Astaire. After Adele retired to marry in 1932, Astaire headed to Hollywood. Signed to RKO, he was loaned to MGM to appear in Dancing Lady (1933) before starting work on RKO's Flying Down to Rio (1933). In the latter film, he began his highly successful partnership with Ginger Rogers, with whom he danced in 9 RKO pictures. During these years, he was also active in recording and radio. On film, Astaire later appeared opposite a number of partners through various studios. After a temporary retirement in 1945-7, during which he opened Fred Astaire Dance Studios, Astaire returned to film to star in more musicals through 1957. He subsequently performed a number of straight dramatic roles in film and TV.739 points- Actor
- Soundtrack
This dark, debonair, dashing and extremely distinguished Austrian actor was christened Adolf Wohlbrück in Vienna, the scion of a family of circus clowns. He broke away easily from generations of tradition as the circus life had no appeal whatsoever to Walbrook.
Trained by the legendary director Max Reinhardt, Walbrook's reputation grew on both the Austrian and German stages. In between he managed a couple of undistinguished roles in silent films. Billed as Adolf Wohlbrück, the youthfully handsome actor graced a number of romantic films come the advent of sound beginning in 1931. Among them Waltz War (1933) and the gender-bending comedy Victor and Victoria (1933), which later served as the inspiration and basis for Blake Edwards' own Victor/Victoria (1982) starring wife Julie Andrews. Hollywood beckoned in the late 30s for Walbrook to re-shoot dialog for an upcoming international picture The Soldier and the Lady (1937) again playing Michael Strogoff, a role he had played impeccably in both previous French and German adaptations. With the rise of oppression in Nazi Germany he moved to Great Britain and took his trademark mustache and dark, handsome features to English language films where he went on to appear to great effect.
Portraying a host of imperious kings, bon vivants and and foreign dignitaries over the course of his career, he played everything from composer Johann Strauss to the Bavarian King Ludwig I. With a tendency for grand, intense, over-the-top acting, he was nevertheless quite impressive in a number of portrayals. Such included the sympathetic German officer in the landmark Powell and Pressburger satire The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943) and gentle pacifist in another of their collaborations 49th Parallel (1941); as Prince Albert in the black-and-white glossy costumer Victoria the Great (1937) immediately followed by its color remake Queen of Destiny (1938) both opposite Anna Neagle's Queen Victoria; and, most notably, as the obsessively demanding impresario opposite ballerina Moira Shearer in the romantic melodrama The Red Shoes (1948). His stiff and stern military officers were just as notable which included sterling work in The Queen of Spades (1949) and last-speaking English film I Accuse! (1958).
He retired from films at the end of the 1950s, and in later years returned to the European stage and included television roles to his resume. He died in Germany in 1967 of a heart attack.734 points- Actor
- Writer
- Soundtrack
Hans Moser, whose real name is Jean Juliet, was trained in theater by the court actor Josef Moser. He later took his last name and combined it with the German translation of his first name. In 1897 he had his first engagement in Bohemia. He later took part in a traveling theater that took him through the country. He settled in Josefstadt in 1903 and was hired at the local theater. Four years later he was back on tour with the theater through Austro-Hungarian territory. Moser appeared in revues, cabarets and theaters in Vienna in 1910. He took part in the First World War. Afterwards he worked again as a member of a cabaret. Moser began his film work in 1922.
Three years later he returned to Josefstadt. There he played theater under Max Reinhardt. He favored roles in literary works by Johann Nepomuk, Odön von Horvath and Arthur Schnitzler. He later made a career in television. He particularly shone in comic roles as a small, often odd, studious man with his mumbles and erratic movements, which made him known to a larger audience. His popularity in these comic roles made him famous even after death. In expert circles, Hans Moser is considered one of the most important film comedians. In his roles he often portrayed lower-class men, such as in the melodrama "Masquerade" from 1934, in which he played a gardener. In the Schubert film "Leise beg my songs" from 1934, Moser played a pawnbroker. He could be seen as a waiter, a servant or a maid for everything as well as in many other roles.
With his often quirky, strange manner and mumbling, he became one of the most popular German-speaking film actors of the 1950s. His film partners included Heinz Rühmann and Theo Lingen. In the Erich Neuberg production of "The Stories from the Vienna Woods" from 1964, he was seen in one of his most successful adult roles. This also included the play "The Farmer as a Millionaire" by Ferdinand Reimund, which was staged by Rudolf Steinböck for the Salzburg Festival. He previously appeared alongside Romy Schneider as her grandfather in the film "The Beautiful Liar" by Axel von Ambesser. His other films include "The City without Jews" (1924), "Burgtheater" (1936), "The Thirteen Chairs" (1938), "The Disgust" (1939), "Vienna Stories" (1940) , "Schrammeln" (1943), "Der Hofrat Geiger" (1947), "Der Herr Chancellor" (1948), "Hello Serviceman" (1951) or "Die Fledermaus" (1962).
Hans Moser died on June 19, 1964 in Vienna.734 points- Actor
- Writer
- Producer
Charles Laughton was born in Scarborough, Yorkshire, England, to Eliza (Conlon) and Robert Laughton, hotel keepers of Irish and English descent, respectively. He was educated at Stonyhurst (a highly esteemed Jesuit college in England) and at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (received gold medal). His first appearance on stage was in 1926. Laughton formed own film company, Mayflower Pictures Corp., with Erich Pommer, in 1937. He became an American citizen 1950. A consummate artist, Laughton achieved great success on stage and film, with many staged readings (particularly of George Bernard Shaw) to his credit. Laughton died in Hollywood, California, aged 63.730 points- Actor
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Tall, oval-faced, fair-haired, sensitive-looking Douglass Montgomery was born in Los Angeles on October 29, 1909, the son of a jeweler. Graduating from Los Angeles High School, he sought early experience at the Pasadena Playhouse. Deciding to move to New York to pursue the stage, he was quickly typed as dashing suitors in romantic and social dramas.
After his discovery by an MGM agent and his resulting studio contract, Douglass's marquee name was immediately changed to Kent Douglass so as not to be mistaken for the studio's major star Robert Montgomery. A handsome and dapper dramatic "second lead" opposite some of MGM's powerhouse actresses, he supported Joan Crawford in her vehicle Paid (1930), which was his debut film, and, more memorably, Katharine Hepburn in Little Women (1933) as "Laurie" opposite Hepburn's "Jo." Other "second lead" MGM credits include Daybreak (1931) starring Ramon Novarro and Helen Chandler, Five and Ten (1931) with Marion Davies and Leslie Howard, and two films as co-lead: the romantic WWI drama Waterloo Bridge (1931), directed by James Whale, as "Roy Cronin" opposite Mae Clarke's "Myra," and the melodrama A House Divided (1931), directed by William Wyler, as the son of Walter Huston and love interest to Helen Chandler.
Montgomery's stay at MGM was very brief, and when he left in 1932 he immediately changed his name back to his real name. Now a freelancing agent, Douglass went on to play leads or second leads in such films as Paramount's 8 Girls in a Boat (1934) opposite Dorothy Wilson, Universal's Little Man, What Now? (1934) co-starring Margaret Sullavan, Fox's Music in the Air (1934) starring Gloria Swanson, Universal's Mystery of Edwin Drood (1935) with Claude Rains and Heather Angel, and Universal's Lady Tubbs (1935) starring Alice Brady.
Montgomery scored well with his first top-billed role as the frail, alcoholic 19th century "Swanee River" composer Stephen Foster in the "poverty row" biopic Harmony Lane (1935) with Evelyn Venable and Adrienne Ames as his lady loves. This success was followed by a co-starring role opposite Constance Bennett in Everything Is Thunder (1936) as well as a top-billed role in the British comedy Tropical Trouble (1936); a lead role as spoiled playboy Life Begins with Love (1937) opposite Jean Parker, who played "Beth" in his version of Little Women (1933); the crime drama Counsel for Crime (1937); and a fourth-billed role in the Bob Hope comedy-mystery classic The Cat and the Canary (1939).
Montgomery's career was interrupted by World War II service with the Royal Canadian Air Force, after which he moved to Great Britain and made a few films there. He played American pilot John Hollis in Johnny in the Clouds (1945) starring Michael Redgrave and John Mills, played an amnesiac in the romantic drama Woman to Woman (1947), flew to Rome to play an American composer in the Italian romancer Sinfonia fatale (1947) ("When in Rome") with Marina Berti and Sarah Churchill, and starred in his last film, the melodrama Forbidden (1949) with Hazel Court.
On March 14, 1952, Montgomery married British actress Kay Young, who was previously married to actor Michael Wilding. Young and Montgomery remained married until his death. Moving to TV work, he and Kay eventually moved to the States, and he finished his career with guest appearances in such anthology shows as "Cameo Theatre" "Robert Montgomery Presents," "Kraft Theatre," and "TV Reader's Digest," in which he ably played the title roles in stories about "Peer Gynt," "Robert Louis Stevenson" and "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde."
Douglass Montgomery died of spinal cancer in Norwalk, Connecticut, aged 58, on July 23, 1966.727 points- Actor
- Soundtrack
Donald Woods, a prolific cinema and television character actor whose career spanned 75 films and 150 TV programs over 40 years, was born Ralph L. Zink on December 2, 1906, in Brandon, Manitoba. (He legally changed his name to Donald Woods in 1945.) His family eventually departed Canada for California, and young Ralph was raised in Burbank. He became an actor after graduating from the University of California at Berkeley.
The self-described "King of the Bs" made his reputation playing in low-budget, B-unit westerns and mysteries, and later was a popular guest actor on TV programs, including western shows such as Wagon Train (1957). He also appeared in nearly 100 stage productions and was busy on the radio. In the 1950s, Woods hosted two TV series, The Orchid Award (1953) and Hotel Cosmopolitan (1957) and was a regular on the series Tammy (1965).
After his acting career was over, Donald Woods established himself as a successful real estate broker in Palm Springs, California. It was there that he died on March 5, 1998, at the age of 91.725 points- Actor
- Producer
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Once told by an interviewer, "Everybody would like to be Cary Grant", Grant is said to have replied, "So would I."
Cary Grant was born Archibald Alec Leach on January 18, 1904 in Horfield, Bristol, England, to Elsie Maria (Kingdon) and Elias James Leach, who worked in a factory. His early years in Bristol would have been an ordinary lower-middle-class childhood, except for one extraordinary event. At age nine, he came home from school one day and was told his mother had gone off to a seaside resort. However, the real truth was that she had been placed in a mental institution, where she would remain for years, and he was never told about it (he would not see his mother again until he was in his late 20s).
He left school at age 14, lying about his age and forging his father's signature on a letter to join Bob Pender's troupe of knockabout comedians. He learned pantomime as well as acrobatics as he toured with the Pender troupe in the English provinces, picked up a Cockney accent in the music halls in London, and then in July 1920, was one of the eight Pender boys selected to go to the United States. Their show on Broadway, "Good Times", ran for 456 performances, giving Grant time to acclimatize. He would stay in America. Mae West wanted Grant for She Done Him Wrong (1933) because she saw his combination of virility, sexuality and the aura and bearing of a gentleman. Grant was young enough to begin the new career of fatherhood when he stopped making movies at age 62.
One biographer said Grant was alienated by the new realism in the film industry. In the 1950s and early 1960s, he had invented a man-of-the-world persona and a style - "high comedy with polished words". In To Catch a Thief (1955), he and Grace Kelly were allowed to improvise some of the dialogue. They knew what the director, Alfred Hitchcock, wanted to do with a scene, they rehearsed it, put in some clever double entendres that got past the censors, and then the scene was filmed. His biggest box-office success was another Hitchcock 1950s film, North by Northwest (1959) made with Eva Marie Saint since Kelly was by that time Princess of Monaco.
Although Grant retired from the screen, he remained active. He accepted a position on the board of directors at Faberge. By all accounts this position was not honorary, as some had assumed. Grant regularly attended meetings and traveled internationally to support them. The position also permitted use of a private plane, which Grant could use to fly to see his daughter wherever her mother Dyan Cannon, was working. He later joined the boards of Hollywood Park, the Academy of Magical Arts (The Magic Castle - Hollywood, California), Western Airlines (acquired by Delta Airlines in 1987) and MGM.
Grant expressed no interest in making a career comeback. He was in good health until almost the end of his life, when he suffered a mild stroke in October 1984. In his last years, he undertook tours of the United States in a one-man-show, "A Conversation with Cary Grant", in which he would show clips from his films and answer audience questions. On November 29, 1986, Cary Grant died at age 82 of a cerebral hemorrhage in Davenport, Iowa.
In 1999, the American Film Institute named Grant the second male star of Golden Age of Hollywood cinema (after Humphrey Bogart). Grant was known for comedic and dramatic roles; his best-known films include Bringing Up Baby (1938), The Philadelphia Story (1940), His Girl Friday (1940), Arsenic and Old Lace (1944), Notorious (1946), An Affair to Remember (1957), North by Northwest (1959) and Charade (1963).719 points- Actor
- Soundtrack
Rambunctious British leading man (contrary to popular belief, he was of Scottish ancestry, not Irish) and later character actor primarily in American films, Victor McLaglen was a vital presence in a number of great motion pictures, especially those of director John Ford. McLaglen (pronounced Muh-clog-len, not Mack-loff-len) was the son of the Right Reverend Andrew McLaglen, a Protestant clergyman who was at one time Bishop of Claremont in South Africa. The young McLaglen, eldest of eight brothers, attempted to serve in the Boer War by joining the Life Guards, though his father secured his release. The adventuresome young man traveled to Canada where he did farm labor and then directed his pugnacious nature into professional prizefighting. He toured in circuses, vaudeville shows, and Wild West shows, often as a fighter challenging all comers. His tours took him to the US, Australia (where he joined in the gold rush) and South Africa. In 1909 he was the first fighter to box newly-crowned heavyweight champion Jack Johnson, whom he fought in a six-round exhibition match in Vancouver (as an exhibition fight, it had no decision). When the First World War broke out, McLaglen joined the Irish Fusiliers and soldiered in the Middle East, eventually serving as Provost Marshal (head of Military Police) for the city of Baghdad. After the war he attempted to resume a boxing career, but was given a substantial acting role in The Call of the Road (1920) and was well received. He became a popular leading man in British silent films, and within a few years was offered the lead in an American film, The Beloved Brute (1924). He quickly became a most popular star of dramas as well as action films, playing tough or suave with equal ease. With the coming of sound, his ability to be persuasively debonair diminished by reason of his native speech patterns, but his popularity increased, particularly when cast by Ford as the tragic Gypo Nolan in The Informer (1935), for which McLaglen won the Best Actor Oscar. He continued to play heroes, villains and simple-minded thugs into the 1940s, when Ford gave his career a new impetus with a number of lovably roguish Irish parts in such films as She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949) and The Quiet Man (1952). The latter film won McLaglen another Oscar nomination, the first time a Best Actor winner had been nominated subsequently in the Supporting category. McLaglen formed a semi-militaristic riding and polo club, the Light Horse Brigade, and a similarly arrayed precision motorcycle team, the Victor McLaglen Motorcycle Corps, both of which led to conclusions that he had fascist sympathies and was forming his own private army. McLaglen denied espousing the far right-wing sentiments that were often attributed to him. He continued to act in films into his 70s and died, from congestive heart failure, not long after appearing in a film directed by his son, Andrew V. McLaglen.718 points- Actor
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A stocky, friendly-faced character actor, Ford was born Samuel Jones in England, where the brutality of his childhood rivaled anything that Charles Dickens ever dreamed up. He lived for a while in an orphanage after being separated from his parents. While still young, he was sent to a Toronto branch of the orphanage. There, he began a cycle that involved living in 17 foster homes, the longest being with a farm family that treated him like a slave. At age 11 he ran away and joined a vaudeville troupe called the Winnipeg Kiddies, with whom he stayed until 1914. He then joined a friend named Wallace Ford, and the two 'hoboed" their way into the United States. After the friend was crushed to death by a railroad car, he took the name Wallace Ford in his friend's memory and found work in theatrical troupes and repertory companies. On Broadway he acted in "Abraham Lincoln," "Abie's Irish Rose," and "Bad Girl." He left Broadway in 1932 to appear with Joan Crawford in Possessed (1931); he also landed the lead in MGM's notorious Freaks (1932), although his fellow actors proved more memorable. He also co-starred as Walter Huston's amoral brother in one of the studio's few full-blown gangster melodramas, The Beast of the City (1932), starring Jean Harlow in arguably her most hard-bitten role. In all he appeared in over 200 films, including five directed by John Ford (The Last Hurrah (1958), The Whole Town's Talking (1935), They Were Expendable (1945), The Lost Patrol (1934), and The Informer (1935)). He also appeared with Henry Fonda in the TV series "The Deputy," which ran from 1959 to 1960. Ford died of a heart attack soon after his last memorable role as "Old Pa" in the hit Sidney Poitier drama A Patch of Blue (1965).718 points- Actor
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Sometime in the early 1930s, Denny was between scenes on a movie set when he met a neighborhood boy who was trying to fly a bulky gas-powered model plane. When he tried to help by making an adjustment on the machine, Denny succeeded only in wrecking it. But this launched his infatuation with model aviation, and his new hobby grew into Reginald Denny Industries, maker of model plane kits.
When the U.S. Army began hunting for a better and safer way to train anti-aircraft gunners than using targets towed by piloted planes, Denny and his associates Walter Righter and Paul Whittier began work on a radio-controlled target drone, and their third prototype won them an Army contract. Radioplane was formed in 1940, and during WWII produced nearly 15,000 target drones (the RP-5A) for the Army. Radioplane was later purchased by Northrop in 1952.718 points- Actor
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Ricardo Cortez was born Jacob Krantz in New York City, New York, the son of Sarah (Lefkowitz) and Moses/Morris Krantz, Austrian Jewish immigrants who moved to New York just before he was born. His brother was cinematographer Stanley Cortez, who also changed his surname. Cortez worked a number of jobs while he trained as an actor. When Jacob he arrived in Hollywood to work in movies in 1922, the Rudolph Valentino craze was in full bloom. Never shy about changing a name and a background, the studio transformed Jacob Krantz into "Latin Lover" Ricardo Cortez from Spain. Such was life in Hollywood.
Starting with small parts, the tall and dark Cortez was being groomed by Paramount to be the successor to Valentino, but Cortez would never be viewed (or consider himself) as the equal to the late sex symbol. A popular star, he was saddled in a number of run-of-the-mill romantic movies that would depend more on his looks than on the script--pictures such as Argentine Love (1924) and The Cat's Pajamas (1926) did little to extend his range as an actor. He did show that he had some range with his role in Pony Express (1924), but roles like that were few and far between.
Cortez' career, unlike some other silent-screen stars, survived the advent of sound, and he would play Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon (1931) (aka "Dangerous Female"). Never a great actor, Cortez was cast as the smirking womanizer in a number of films and would soon slide down into "B" movies. He played a newspaper columnist in Is My Face Red? (1932), a home wrecker in A Lost Lady (1934), a killer in Man Hunt (1936) and even Perry Mason in The Case of the Black Cat (1936).
After 1936 Cortez hit a dry patch as far as acting work was concerned and tried his hand at directing. His career as a director ended after a half-dozen movies and his screen career soon followed. He retired from the screen and returned to Wall Street, where he had worked as a runner decades before. This time he returned as a member of one of Wall Street's top brokerage firms and lived a comfortable life.718 points- Actor
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Stan Laurel came from a theatrical family, his father was an actor and theatre manager, and he made his stage debut at the age of 16 at Pickard's Museum, Glasgow. He traveled with Fred Karno's vaudeville company to the United States in 1910 and again in 1913. While with that company he was Charles Chaplin's understudy, and he performed imitations of Chaplin. On a later trip he remained in the United States, having been cast in a two-reel comedy, Nuts in May (1917) (not released until 1918). There followed a number of shorts for Metro, Hal Roach Studios, then Universal, then back to Roach in 1926. His first two-reeler with Oliver Hardy was 45 Minutes from Hollywood (1926). Their first release through MGM was Sugar Daddies (1927) and the first with star billing was From Soup to Nuts (1928). Their first feature-length starring roles were in Pardon Us (1931). Their work became more production-line and less popular during the war years, especially after they left Roach and MGM for Twentieth Century-Fox. Their last movie together was The Bullfighters (1945) except for a dismal failure made in France several years later (Utopia (1950)). In 1960 he was given a special Oscar "for his creative pioneering in the field of cinema comedy". He died five years later.717 points- Actor
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Although his parents were never in show business, as a young boy Oliver Hardy was a gifted singer and, by age eight, was performing with minstrel shows. In 1910 he ran a movie theatre, which he preferred to studying law. In 1913 he became a comedy actor with the Lubin Company in Florida and began appearing in a long series of shorts; his debut film was Outwitting Dad (1914). He appeared in he 1914-15 series of "Pokes and Jabbs" shorts, and from 1916-18 he was in the "Plump and Runt" series. From 1919-21 he was a regular in the "Jimmy Aubrey" series of shorts, and from 1921-25 he worked as an actor and co-director of comedy shorts for Larry Semon.
In addition to appearing in two-reeler comedies, he found time to make westerns and even melodramas in which he played the heavy. He is most famous, however, as the partner of British comic Stan Laurel, with whom he had played a bit part in The Lucky Dog (1921). in the mid-1920s both he and Laurel wee working for comedy producer Hal Roach, although not as a team. In a moment of inspiration Roach teamed them together, and their first film as a team was 45 Minutes from Hollywood (1926). Their first release for Roach through MGM was Sugar Daddies (1927) and the first with star billing was From Soup to Nuts (1928). They became a huge hit as a comedy team, and after several years of two-reelers, Roach decided to star them in features, their first of which was Pardon Us (1931).
They clicked with audiences in features, too, and starred in such classics as Way Out West (1937), March of the Wooden Soldiers (1934) and Block-Heads (1938). They eventually parted ways with Roach and in the mid-1940s signed on with Twentieth Century-Fox.
Unfortunately, Fox did not let them have the autonomy they had at Roach, where Laurel basically wrote and directed their films, though others were credited, and their films became more assembly-line and formulaic. Their popularity waned and less popular during the war years, and they made their last film for Fox in 1946.
Several years later they made their final appearance as a team in a French film, a troubled and haphazard production eventually, after several name changes, called Utopia (1950), generally regarded to be their worst film. Hardy appeared without Laurel in a few features, such as Zenobia (1939) with Harry Langdon, The Fighting Kentuckian (1949) in a semi-comedic role as a frontiersman alongside John Wayne and Riding High (1950), in a cameo role. He died in 1957.717 points- Actor
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British leading man of primarily American films, one of the great stars of the Golden Age. Raised in Ealing, the son of a successful silk merchant, he attended boarding school in Sussex, where he discovered amateur theatre. He intended to attend Cambridge and become an engineer, but his father's death cost him the financial support necessary. He joined the London Scottish Regionals and at the outbreak of World War I was sent to France. Seriously wounded at the battle of Messines--he was gassed--he was invalided out of service scarcely two months after shipping out for France. Upon his recovery he tried to enter the consular service, but a chance encounter got him a small role in a London play. He dropped other plans and concentrated on the theatre, and was rewarded with a succession of increasingly prominent parts. He made extra money appearing in a few minor films, and in 1920 set out for New York in hopes of finding greater fortune there than in war-depressed England. After two years of impoverishment he was cast in a Broadway hit, "La Tendresse". Director Henry King spotted him in the show and cast him as Lillian Gish's leading man in The White Sister (1923). His success in the film led to a contract with Samuel Goldwyn, and his career as a Hollywood leading man was underway. He became a vastly popular star of silent films, in romances as well as adventure films. The coming of sound made his extraordinarily beautiful speaking voice even more important to the film industry. He played sophisticated, thoughtful characters of integrity with enormous aplomb, and swashbuckled expertly when called to do so in films like The Prisoner of Zenda (1937). A decade later he received an Academy Award for his splendid portrayal of a tormented actor in A Double Life (1947). Much of his later career was devoted to "The Halls of Ivy", a radio show that later was transferred to television The Halls of Ivy (1954). He continued to work until nearly the end of his life, which came in 1958 after a brief lung illness. He was survived by his second wife, actress Benita Hume, and their daughter Juliet Benita Colman.715 points- Actor
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Gene Raymond was born on August 13, 1908, in New York City as Raymond Guion. He was a child performer and a Broadway veteran by the age of 12. Blond, husky, and handsome, he enjoyed his greatest popularity in the 1930s and early 1940s. His big break came in Personal Maid (1931). He was soon cast in classics such as Red Dust (1932) (opposite Jean Harlow and Clark Gable) and in Ex-Lady (1933) (as the husband of Bette Davis 's character). His career continued to grow with a starring role in Sadie McKee (1934) (opposite Joan Crawford).
Soon after, he met and fell in love with one of MGM's stars, actress/singer Jeanette MacDonald. They married in 1937. In 1941, he and Jeanette were cast opposite one another in Smilin' Through (1941), their only picture together. In 1948, Raymond tried his hand at directing and producing with Million Dollar Weekend (1948), but it was not a very successful venture. In 1949, he and MacDonald decided to slow down their careers: she left the movies, and he became very selective on the ones he did. They spent the next 14 years traveling and staying active in Hollywood society.
In 1963, MacDonald, who suffered from heart disease, had an arterial transplant, and Raymond tried to nurse her back to health. In 1965, she had a heart attack and died with her husband by her side. This brought an end to their 28-year marriage, one of Hollywood's longest-lasting, although the union was childless. Every year after her death, he attended the Jeanette MacDonald International Fan Club convention in Los Angeles. He shared stories with her fans and friends, a thing he once said he would do "till Jeanette and I are together again".713 points- Actor
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Not much is known about the early life of darkly handsome "B" cowboy actor Tom Keene, who was born George Duryea on December 30, 1896, in Rochester, New York. However, he did arrive in Hollywood in the late 1920s after college studies at Columbia and Carnegie Tech and immediately made an impact as the leading man of the silent films The Godless Girl (1928), a Cecil B. DeMille picture opposite Lina Basquette, the social drama Marked Money (1928) and the MGM western Tide of Empire (1929) opposite Renée Adorée. Known for his sharp, pleasant looks and fitness, George continued in leads and seconds leads with such early talkies as the Sophie Tucker musical comedy Honky Tonk (1929) co-starring Lila Lee and the comedy romancer The Dude Wrangler (1930) with Ms. Basquette again.
In 1930, Tom found a strong above-the-title niche for several years as a cowboy hero of RKO "Poverty Row" westerns and given the more rugged marquee name of "Tom Keene." Such oaters include Pardon My Gun (1930), Sundown Trail (1931), Renegades of the West (1932), The Saddle Buster (1932), The Cheyenne Kid (1933), Cross Fire (1933) and Son of the Border (1933). Unlike other sagebrush stars of the time, such as Lash La Rue or William Boyd ("Hopalong Cassidy"), Tom's heroes took on different names and appearances -- wearing both black and white western outfits and hats -- and his characters were not two-fisted men by nature. As a result, he remained a second-string, less identifiable Western star for the duration of his career. He would also appear alongside or secondary to such other western stars such as Randolph Scott in Sunset Pass (1933) and Buster Crabbe in both Drift Fence (1936) and Desert Gold (1936)
Tom went on to star in several other "Poverty Row" western vehicles for not only Crescent Pictures Corporation (The Glory Trail (1936), Rebellion (1936), Old Louisiana (1937) (co-starring a very young Rita Hayworth), Battle of Greed (1937), Under Strange Flags (1937), Drums of Destiny (1937)), but for Monogram Pictures (God's Country and the Man (1937), Where Trails Divide (1937), The Painted Trail (1938), Wanderers of the West (1941), Western Mail (1942), Where Trails End (1942), Arizona Roundup (1942)).
The third, declining phase in Tom's film career occurred at this point. Changing his marquee name yet again to "Richard Powers," he pursued lesser roles in more quality non-westerns and even pursued stage work (Broadway's "The Barber Had Two Sons" in 1943) to help squelch the rugged stereotype, but it didn't work. Films during this period include Up in Arms (1944), the serial The Great Alaskan Mystery (1944), the Roy Rogers western Lights of Old Santa Fe (1944) (as a villain), San Quentin (1946), Dick Tracy's Dilemma (1947), Seven Keys to Baldpate (1947), Crossfire (1947), Berlin Express (1948), Red Planet Mars (1952), Dig That Uranium (1955), the cult "worst movie" classic Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957) and the Rowan & Martin comedy film Once Upon a Horse... (1958). 1950's TV appearances included "Sky King," "The Adventures of Superman," "Hopalong Cassidy," "General Electric Theatre," "The Abbott and Costello Show," "The Millionaire," a recurring role in Disney's "Corky and White Shadow" series (as Sheriff Martin), "Fury," "Casey Jones" and "Ozzie and Harriet."
Tom retired in 1958 and delved into real estate and insurance fields for the short remainder of his life. Dying of cancer on August 4, 1963, Tom was survived by his second wife, Florence Ramsey, and a stepson. He was formerly married to actress Grace Stafford, who also provided the cartoon voice of Woody Woodpecker.713 points- Actor
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Famed actor, composer, artist, author and director. His talents extended to the authoring of the novel "Mr. Cartonwine: A Moral Tale" as well as his autobiography. In 1944, he joined ASCAP, and composed "Russian Dances", "Partita", "Ballet Viennois", "The Woodman and the Elves", "Behind the Horizon", "Fugue Fantasia", "In Memorium", "Hallowe'en", "Preludium & Fugue", "Elegie for Oboe, Orch.", "Farewell Symphony (1-act opera)", "Elegie (piano pieces)", "Rondo for Piano" and "Scherzo Grotesque".708 points- Actor
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By the time that he was 20, Lewis Stone had turned prematurely grey. He enlisted to fight in the Spanish American War and when he returned, he returned to be a writer. This turned to acting and he began to appear in films during the middle teens. His career was again interrupted by war as he served in the cavalry during World War I. After the war, he returned to films and quickly graduated to lead roles. With his distinguished look and grey hair, he was able to play the roles of well mannered romantic men. In 1921, Lewis starred in Don't Neglect Your Wife (1921). In the next year, he starred with Alice Terry, who played the heroine, and Ramon Novarro in The Prisoner of Zenda (1922) and Scaramouche (1923). In 1924, Metro merged into the new MGM where Lewis remained for the rest of his career. He was busy over the next few years and garnered an Academy Award nomination for The Patriot (1928). In 1928, he appeared in the first of a series of pictures with Greta Garbo. In A Woman of Affairs (1928) he played the older doctor, a friend of the family. But two years later in Romance (1930), he played her lover.
Lewis made the transition from silent to sound with The Trial of Mary Dugan (1929), which starred Norma Shearer. Sound did not cause Lewis any problems and he continued to be busy with his roles as the distinguished lead. The Big House (1930) was highly successful for MGM and he appeared in other popular movies such as The Phantom of Paris (1931) with John Gilbert and Red-Headed Woman (1932) with Jean Harlow. He appeared with Garbo in Inspiration (1931), Mata Hari (1931), Grand Hotel (1932) and Queen Christina (1933). In the late 30s he took on a role for which he was long remembered - the role of Judge James Hardy who had a son named Andy. Judge Hardy was the father audiences wanted in the late 30s early 40s. He was kind, intellectual, fair and as patient as he had to be with Andy, played by Mickey Rooney. This series occupied most of his screen time until it ended and he did slow down during the late 40s. In the 50s he continued to appear in a number of pictures including remakes of the two he had made 30 years before with Alice Terry. He suffered a heart attack and died in 1953 after appearing in over 200 films.708 points- Actor
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William Claude Dukenfield was the eldest of five children born to Cockney immigrant James Dukenfield and Philadelphia native Kate Felton. He went to school for four years, then quit to work with his father selling vegetables from a horse cart. At eleven, after many fights with his alcoholic father (who hit him on the head with a shovel), he ran away from home. For a while he lived in a hole in the ground, depending on stolen food and clothing. He was often beaten and spent nights in jail. His first regular job was delivering ice. By age thirteen he was a skilled pool player and juggler. It was then, at an amusement park in Norristown PA, that he was first hired as an entertainer. There he developed the technique of pretending to lose the things he was juggling. In 1893 he was employed as a juggler at Fortescue's Pier, Atlantic City. When business was slow he pretended to drown in the ocean (management thought his fake rescue would draw customers). By nineteen he was billed as "The Distinguished Comedian" and began opening bank accounts in every city he played. At age twenty-three he opened at the Palace in London and played with Sarah Bernhardt at Buckingham Palace. He starred at the Folies-Bergere (young Charles Chaplin and Maurice Chevalier were on the program).
He was in each of the Ziegfeld Follies from 1915 through 1921. He played for a year in the highly praised musical "Poppy" which opened in New York in 1923. In 1925 D.W. Griffith made a movie of the play, renamed Sally of the Sawdust (1925), starring Fields. Pool Sharks (1915), Fields' first movie, was made when he was thirty-five. He settled into a mansion near Burbank, California and made most of his thirty-seven movies for Paramount. He appeared in mostly spontaneous dialogs on Charlie McCarthy's radio shows. In 1939 he switched to Universal where he made films written mainly by and for himself. He died after several serious illnesses, including bouts of pneumonia.706 points- Actor
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Few actors ever managed a complete image transition as thoroughly as did Dick Powell: in his case, from the boyish, wavy-haired crooner in musicals to rugged crime fighters in film noirs. Powell grew up in the town of Little Rock, Arkansas, one of three brothers (one of them, Howard, ended up as vice president of the Illinois Central Railroad). He worked his way through schooling, sidelining as a soda jerk and a grocery clerk before entering the world of show biz as a singer (tenor) and banjo player with the Royal Peacock Orchestra in Louisville, Kentucky. He then got a gig with the Charlie Davis band and toured with them throughout the mid-west, appearing at dance halls and picture theaters. He next worked as a master of ceremonies and this rounded him off as an entertainer even before he was signed by a Warner Brothers talent scout in 1932. Looking rather younger than his actual years, Powell soon found himself typecast as clean-cut singing juveniles in a series of exuberant musicals with lavish production numbers like 42nd Street (1933), one of two dozen similar pictures he made for the studio.
In 1935, Powell's salary amounted to $70,000. Two years later, he had become one of Hollywood's top ten box office stars, yet was paid just half of what he had earned as an MC. A keen businessman with an eye for profit, Powell had already invested wisely in land and property. When he left Warners in 1939 with no discernible acting opportunities in sight, he was in no way short of money. He was, however, desperate to escape his image, declaring "I knew I wasn't the greatest singer in the world and I saw no reason why an actor should restrict himself to any one particular phase of the business". He fairly jumped at the chance to act in non-singing roles, joining Paramount in 1940 to appear opposite Ellen Drew in the sparkling Preston Sturges comedy Christmas in July (1940). This was followed by two marital farces featuring his then-wife, Joan Blondell, both efforts receiving only a lukewarm response at the box-office. Still dissatisfied with lightweight roles, Powell lobbied hard to get the lead (eventually scored by Fred MacMurray) in Double Indemnity (1944) but was knocked back. Instead, he was slotted into more of the same fare, refused to comply and was suspended.
His box office credo now at a low ebb, Powell tried his luck at RKO and at last managed to secure a lucrative role: that of hard-boiled private eye Philip Marlowe in Raymond Chandler's Murder, My Sweet (1944). The author himself approved of the casting, though the director (Edward Dmytryk) fought off initial misgivings. The result proved nothing if not a tangible hit for RKO. Bosley Crowther of the New York Times remarked " ...and while he may lack the steely coldness and cynicism of a Humphrey Bogart, Mr. Powell need not offer any apologies. He has definitely stepped out of the song-and-dance, pretty-boy league with this performance". In short order, offers suddenly kept coming. Having successfully reinvented himself, Powell now found steady work on radio, respectively as "Richard Rogue" and then "Richard Diamond, Private Eye". In films, he remained on cue for wise-cracking tough guy roles in Cornered (1945) and Johnny O'Clock (1947). His most challenging role yet was as best-selling novelist James Lee Bartlow in MGM's epic drama The Bad and the Beautiful (1952)]. Powell also dabbled at directing, though he only helmed six pictures in total: among them a minor film noir, Split Second (1953)], and an above-average submarine drama, The Enemy Below (1957)]. Having quit film acting in the mid-50s, he began to concentrate primarily on producing TV drama as host and executive producer of his own award-winning anthology show, The Dick Powell Theatre (1961). He was also co-founder and managing director of Four Star Television (which had its studios where Republic had formerly existed and which would subsequently become CBS Cinema Center).
Dick Powell died prematurely of lung cancer in January 1963 at the age of 58. He was survived by his third wife, the actress June Allyson.705 points- Actor
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One of Hollywood's preeminent male stars of all time, James Cagney was also an accomplished dancer and easily played light comedy. James Francis Cagney was born on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City, to Carolyn (Nelson) and James Francis Cagney, Sr., who was a bartender and amateur boxer. Cagney was of Norwegian (from his maternal grandfather) and Irish descent. Ending three decades on the screen, he retired to his farm in Stanfordville, New York (some 77 miles/124 km. north of his New York City birthplace), after starring in Billy Wilder's One, Two, Three (1961). He emerged from retirement to star in the 1981 screen adaptation of E.L. Doctorow's novel "Ragtime" (Ragtime (1981)), in which he was reunited with his frequent co-star of the 1930s, Pat O'Brien, and which was his last theatrical film and O'Brien's as well). Cagney's final performance came in the title role of the made-for-TV movie Terrible Joe Moran (1984), in which he played opposite Art Carney.705 points