The Best Actress 1935
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Ruth Elizabeth Davis was born April 5, 1908, in Lowell, Massachusetts, to Ruth Augusta (Favor) and Harlow Morrell Davis, a patent attorney. Her parents divorced when she was 10. She and her sister were raised by their mother. Her early interest was dance. To Bette, dancers led a glamorous life, but then she discovered the stage, and gave up dancing for acting. To her, it presented much more of a challenge.
After graduation from Cushing Academy, she was refused admittance to Eva Le Gallienne's Manhattan Civic Repertory. She enrolled in John Murray Anderson's Dramatic School and was the star pupil. She was in the off-Broadway play "The Earth Between" (1923), and her Broadway debut in 1929 was in "Broken Dishes". She also appeared in "Solid South". Late in 1930, she was hired by Universal, where she made her first film, called Bad Sister (1931). When she arrived in Hollywood, the studio representative who went to meet her train left without her because he could find no one who looked like a movie star. An official at Universal complained she had "as much sex appeal as Slim Summerville" and her performance in "Bad Sister" didn't impress.
In 1932, she signed a seven-year deal with Warner Brothers Pictures. Her first film with them was The Man Who Played God (1932). She became a star after this appearance, known as the actress that could play a variety of very strong and complex roles. More fairly successful movies followed, but it was the role of Mildred Rogers in RKO's Of Human Bondage (1934) that would give Bette major acclaim from the film critics. She had a significant number of write-in votes for the Best Actress Oscar, but didn't win. Warner Bros. felt their seven-year deal with Bette was more than justified. They had a genuine star on their hands. With this success under her belt, she began pushing for stronger and more meaningful roles. In 1935, she received her first Oscar for her role in Dangerous (1935) as Joyce Heath.
In 1936, she was suspended without pay for turning down a role that she deemed unworthy of her talent. She went to England, where she had planned to make movies, but was stopped by Warner Bros. because she was still under contract to them. They did not want her to work anywhere. Although she sued to get out of her contract, she lost. Still, they began to take her more seriously after that.
Returning after losing her lawsuit, her roles improved dramatically. In 1938, Bette received a second Academy Award win for her work in Jezebel (1938) opposite the soon-to-be-legendary Henry Fonda. The only role she didn't get that she wanted was Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind (1939). Warners wouldn't loan her to David O. Selznick unless he hired Errol Flynn to play Rhett Butler, which both Selznick and Davis thought was a terrible choice. It was rumored she had numerous affairs, among them George Brent and William Wyler, and she was married four times, three of which ended in divorce. She admitted her career always came first.
She made many successful films in the 1940s, but each picture was weaker than the last and by the time her Warner Brothers contract had ended in 1949, she had been reduced to appearing in such films as the unintentionally hilarious Beyond the Forest (1949). She made a huge comeback in 1950 when she replaced an ill Claudette Colbert in, and received an Oscar nomination for, All About Eve (1950). She worked in films through the 1950s, but her career eventually came to a standstill, and in 1961 she placed a now famous Job Wanted ad in the trade papers.
She received an Oscar nomination for her role as a demented former child star in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962). This brought about a new round of super-stardom for generations of fans who were not familiar with her work. Two years later, she starred in Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964). Bette was married four times.
In 1977 she received the AFI's Lifetime Achievement Award and in 1979 she won a Best Actress Emmy for Strangers: The Story of a Mother and Daughter (1979). In 1977-78 she moved from Connecticut to Los Angeles and filmed a pilot for the series Hotel (1983), which she called Brothel. She refused to do the TV series and suffered a stroke during this time.
Her last marriage, to actor Gary Merrill, lasted ten years, longer than any of the previous three. In 1985, her daughter Barbara Davis ("B.D.") Hyman published a scandalous book about Bette called "My Mother's Keeper." Bette worked in the later 1980s in films and TV, even though a stroke had impaired her appearance and mobility. She wrote a book, "This 'N That", during her recovery from the stroke. Her last book was "Bette Davis, The Lonely Life", issued in paperback in 1990. It included an update from 1962 to 1989. She wrote the last chapter in San Sebastian, Spain.
Sadly, Bette Davis died on October 6, 1989, of metastasized breast cancer, in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Hauts-de-Seine, France. Many of her fans refused to believe she was gone.2882 points- Actress
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Picture-pretty brunette Margaret Lindsay was one of a number of pleasant, sweet-natured ingénues who could do no wrong in a score of 1930s stylish Hollywood pictures. Such altruistic love interests were often overlooked in pictures that were carried by the flashy histrionics of a jaunty James Cagney or temperamental Bette Davis, both of whom she supported in several films. Ergo, while she was a lovely distraction and a highly capable talent, Margaret failed to ignite and command the attention of a truer star.
The Dubuque, Iowa-born lovely was christened Margaret Kies in real life, the eldest of six (she had four sisters (Helen, Jane, Lori, Mickie), one brother (Jack)). Her father, a druggist, enrolled her at the National Park Seminary in Washington, DC. The acting bug hit Margaret quite early, however, and she subsequently attended New York's American Academy of Dramatic Arts to pursue her dream. Unable to find work in New York, she traveled to England for further speech and acting study. Here she made her professional stage debut and gained experience and confidence in such plays as "Escape," "By Candlelight," and "Death Takes a Holiday". With her resume now consisting of strong theatre credits, she returned to the States hoping to finally make a mark on Broadway, but again her career stalled. While waiting for a show of hers to open following production delays (eventually she co-starred on Broadway opposite Roland Young in "Another Love Story"), Margaret had a number of screen tests arranged for her. Shelving her Iowa-based roots, Universal took an interest in the "British stage actress" and signed her on. She made her debut in Okay America! (1932) and toiled in a few minor roles before taking full advantage of her "English tea rose" reputation with a small but noticeable part in the "all-British" grand-scale epic film Cavalcade (1933) as an optimistic honeymooner on board the fateful H.M.S.Titanic.
Warner Bros. then picked up her option and began featuring her gracefully opposite such magnanimous stars as Leslie Howard, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., George Arliss and Humphrey Bogart. "Americanized" as a lead and second lead, she was able to drop the British pretense and appeared opposite Cagney in Lady Killer (1933), Devil Dogs of the Air (1935), Frisco Kid (1935) and 'G' Men (1935). The studio had her work as a second-lead to Ms. Davis as well in such films as Fog Over Frisco (1934) and Bordertown (1935). Of note, she supported Davis in both her Oscar-winning "Best Actress" pictures -- Dangerous (1935) and Jezebel (1938). She also took on a Davis castoff role in Garden of the Moon (1938), a musical in which Margaret did not sing.
Margaret's longstanding problem was that she was either involved in minor pictures that would do nothing to advance her career or was handed oblique secondary roles in "A" pictures wherein she played the star's best friend, light romantic rival or socialite. One of Margaret's sisters, Jane Gilbert was briefly an actress in the late 1930s/early '40s and was once married to Perry Mason (1957) co-star William Hopper, who played private investigator Paul Drake.
Following one of her best roles as Hepzibah in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The House of the Seven Gables (1940), Margaret signed up with Columbia in the recurring "Ellery Queen" series (seven in all) as mystery writer Nikki Porter opposite either Ralph Bellamy or William Gargan's title crime solver. Probably her best remembered role, this renewed popularity did not guarantee "A" pictures and she remained for the most part in second tier filming. One of her more atypical roles came as a man-baiting saloon girl in The Vigilantes Return (1947). In the 1940s, she replenished her film resume with secondary ladylike roles behind Joan Bennett in Scarlet Street (1945), Lana Turner in Cass Timberlane (1947) and Barbara Stanwyck in B.F.'s Daughter (1948). Margaret also sought work on TV and on the legit stage in the next decade. Her final film was in typically pleasant mode as Nurse Colman in Tammy and the Doctor (1963) showcasing a nubile Sandra Dee.
Margaret never married in real life but remained close to her family. Her dating companions were typically "safe" stars such as Cesar Romero, Richard Deacon, and even Liberace. For much of her time in Hollywood, Margaret shared a home with a close sister. She died at age 70 in Los Angeles of emphysema in the spring of 1981.2165 points- Actress
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British stage and film actress Elizabeth Allan was born in Skegness, Lincolnshire. She made her stage debut at the age of 17; her movie debut came about four years later with an appearance in the Hercule Poirot mystery Alibi (1931).
At the beginning of her career, Allan mainly appeared in films for Julius Hagen's Twickenham Studios, but later signed a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. 1935 was a good year for the actress, with roles in two Charles Dickens adaptations: - David Copperfield (1935) and A Tale of Two Cities (1935) - and the star-studded horror Mark of the Vampire (1935).
Allan's relationship with MGM became strained after they announced her for a leading part in The Citadel (1938), only to then replace her with Rosalind Russell. Not long following this incident, Allan was again replaced in a successful picture, this time by Greer Garson in Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939). This was the final straw for Allan, and she successfully sued the studio, thus terminating her contract with them.
By the 1950s, Allan was taking on character roles. Notable movies of this period include No Highway in the Sky (1951), The Heart of the Matter (1953), and The Haunted Strangler (1958) (which turned out to be her final film). She also appeared on the UK version of the game show What's My Line (1951) as a panelist, which got her awarded with Great Britain's Top Female TV Personality of 1952.
Allan was married to agent Wilfred O'Bryen from 1932 to his death in 1977. She passed away on July 27, 1990 at the age of 80.1537 points- Actress
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She was born Edna May Nutter, a child of solid New England stock, on 9th November 1883 in Malden, Massachusetts. The daughter of Ida May and Charles Edward Nutter, Edna was a descendant of the 2nd American president John Adams and his son, the 6th American president John Quincy Adams. In addition, her father's stepfather, Samuel Oliver, had a mother named Julia Adams who was descended from another John Adams (born 1724). Miss Oliver took an early interest in the stage, and she would quit school at the age of 14 to pursue her ambitions in the theater. Despite abandoning traditional schooling, Edna continued to study the performing arts, including speech and piano. One of her first jobs was as pianist with an all female orchestra which toured America around the turn of the century. By 1917 she had achieved success on Broadway in the hit play "Oh, Boy". By 1923 she had appeared in her first film. Edna May Oliver seems to have been born to play the classics of American and British literature. Some of her most memorable film roles were in adaptations of works of Charles Dickens. Although some have described her as plain or "horse faced", Edna May Oliver's comedic talents lent a beautiful droll warmth to her characters. She was usually called upon to play less glamorous roles such as a spinsters, but she played them with such soul, wit, and depth that to this day she remains one of the best loved of Hollywood's character actresses. A fine example of her comedic talent can be found in Laugh and Get Rich (1931). Here we find her playing a role almost autobiographical in nature, that of a proud woman with Boston roots who has married "down". As the plot unwinds, she is invited to a society gala despite her modest circumstances. At the gala she becomes tipsy. With a frolicsome air Edna May seems to use the role to gently mock her real self. Her slightly drunk character seizes upon a bit of flattery, and alluding to her old New England family, proudly proclaims to each who will listen, "I am a Cranston. That explains everything!". In real life, Edna May Oliver was a Nutter, and perhaps that explains everything. Edna May Oliver married stock broker David Pratt in 1928, but the marriage ended in divorce five years later. In 1939 she received an Oscar nomination for her supporting role as Widow McKlennar in the picture Drums Along the Mohawk (1939). That was to be one of her last films. Miss Oliver was struck ill in August of 1942. Although she seemed to recover briefly, she was re-admitted to Los Angeles's Cedars of Lebanon hospital in October Her dear friend actress Virginia Hammond flew out from New York to stay by her bedside. Edna May Oliver died on her 59th birthday, 9th November 1942. Virginia Hammond was with her and said, "She died without ever being aware of the gravity of her condition. She just went peacefully asleep."1537 points- Actress
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This marvelous screen comedienne's best asset was only muffled during her seven years' stint in silent films. That asset? It was, of course, her squeaky, frog-like voice, which silent-era cinema audiences had simply no way of perceiving, much less appreciating. Jean Arthur, born Gladys Georgianna Greene in upstate New York, 20 miles south of the Canadian border, has had her year of birth cited variously as 1900, 1905 and 1908. Her place of birth has often been cited as New York City! (Herein we shall rely for those particulars on Miss Arthur's obituary as given in the authoritative and reliable New York Times. The date and place indicated above shall be deemed correct.) Following her screen debut in a bit part in John Ford's Cameo Kirby (1923), she spent several years playing unremarkable roles as ingénue or leading lady in comedy shorts and cheapie westerns. With the arrival of sound she was able to appear in films whose quality was but slightly improved over that of her past silents. She had to contend, for example, with the consummately evil likes of Dr. Fu Manchu (played by future "Charlie Chan" Warner Oland). Her career bloomed with her appearance in Ford's The Whole Town's Talking (1935), in which she played opposite Edward G. Robinson, the latter in a dual role as a notorious gangster and his lookalike, a befuddled, well-meaning clerk. Here is where her wholesomeness and flair for farcical comedy began making themselves plain. The turning point in her career came when she was chosen by Frank Capra to star with Gary Cooper in the classic social comedy Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936). Here she rescues the hero - thus herself becoming heroine! - from rapacious human vultures who are scheming to separate him from his wealth. In Capra's masterpiece Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), she again rescues a besieged hero (James Stewart), protecting him from a band of manipulative and cynical politicians and their cronies and again she ends up as a heroine of sorts. For her performance in George Stevens' The More the Merrier (1943), in which she starred with Joel McCrea and Charles Coburn, she received a Best Actress Academy Award nomination, but the award went to Jennifer Jones in The Song of Bernadette (1943) (Coburn, incidentally, won for Best Supporting Actor). Her career began waning toward the end of the 1940s. She starred with Marlene Dietrich and John Lund in Billy Wilder's fluff about post-World War II Berlin, A Foreign Affair (1948). Thereafter, the actress would return to the screen but once, again for George Stevens but not in comedy. She starred with Alan Ladd and Van Heflin in Stevens' western Shane (1953), playing the wife of a besieged settler (Heflin) who accepts help from a nomadic gunman (Ladd) in the settler's effort to protect his farm. It was her silver-screen swansong. She would provide one more opportunity for a mass audience to appreciate her craft. In 1966 she starred as a witty and sophisticated lawyer, Patricia Marshall, a widow, in the TV series The Jean Arthur Show (1966). Her time was apparently past, however; the show ran for only 11 weeks.1507 points- Actress
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Ginger Rogers was born Virginia Katherine McMath in Independence, Missouri on July 16, 1911, the daughter of Lela E. Rogers (née Lela Emogene Owens) and William Eddins McMath. Her mother went to Independence to have Ginger away from her husband. She had a baby earlier in their marriage and he allowed the doctor to use forceps and the baby died. She was kidnapped by her father several times until her mother took him to court. Ginger's mother left her child in the care of her parents while she went in search of a job as a scriptwriter in Hollywood and later to New York City. Mrs. McMath found herself with an income good enough to where she could send for Ginger. Lelee became a Marine in 1918 and was in the publicity department and Ginger went back to her grandparents in Missouri. During this time her mother met John Rogers. After leaving the Marines they married in May, 1920 in Liberty, Missouri. He was transferred to Dallas and Ginger (who treated him as a father) went too. Ginger won a Charleston contest in 1925 (age 14) and a 4-week contract on the Interstate circuit. She also appeared in vaudeville acts which she did until she was 17 with her mother by her side to guide her. Now she had discovered true acting.
She married in March 1929, and after several months realized she had made a mistake. She acquired an agent and she did several short films. She went to New York where she appeared in the Broadway production of "Top Speed" which debuted Christmas Day, 1929. Her first film was in 1929 in A Night in a Dormitory (1930). It was a bit part, but it was a start. Later that year, Ginger appeared, briefly, in two more films, A Day of a Man of Affairs (1929) and Campus Sweethearts (1930). For awhile she did both movies and theatre. The following year she began to get better parts in films such as Office Blues (1930) and The Tip-Off (1931). But the movie that enamored her to the public was Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933). She did not have top billing, but her beauty and voice were enough to have the public want more. One song she popularized in the film was the now famous, "We're in the Money". Also in 1933, she was in 42nd Street (1933). She suggested using a monocle, and this also set her apart. In 1934, she starred with Dick Powell in Twenty Million Sweethearts (1934). It was a well-received film about the popularity of radio.
Ginger's real stardom occurred when she was teamed with Fred Astaire where they were one of the best cinematic couples ever to hit the silver screen. This is where she achieved real stardom. They were first paired in 1933's Flying Down to Rio (1933) and later in 1935's Roberta (1935) and Top Hat (1935). Ginger also appeared in some very good comedies such as Bachelor Mother (1939) and Fifth Avenue Girl (1939), both in 1939. Also that year, she appeared with Astaire in The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle (1939). The film made money but was not anywhere successful as they had hoped. After that, studio executives at RKO wanted Ginger to strike out on her own.
She made several dramatic pictures, but it was 1940's Kitty Foyle (1940) that allowed her to shine. Playing a young lady from the wrong side of the tracks, she played the lead role well, so well in fact, that she won an Academy Award for her portrayal. Ginger followed that project with the delightful comedy, Tom, Dick and Harry (1941) the following year. It's a story where she has to choose which of three men she wants to marry. Through the rest of the 1940s and early 1950s she continued to make movies but not near the caliber before World War II. After Oh, Men! Oh, Women! (1957) in 1957, Ginger didn't appear on the silver screen for seven years. By 1965, she had appeared for the last time in Harlow (1965). Afterward, she appeared on Broadway and other stage plays traveling in Europe, the U.S., and Canada. After 1984, she retired and wrote an autobiography in 1991 entitled, "Ginger, My Story".
On April 25, 1995, Ginger died of natural causes in Rancho Mirage, California. She was 83.1443 points- Actress
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Irene Marie Dunne was born on December 20, 1898, in Louisville, Kentucky. She was the daughter of Joseph Dunne, who inspected steamships, and Adelaide Henry, a musician who prompted Irene in the arts. Her first production was in Louisville when she appeared in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" at the age of five. Her "debut" set the tone for a fabulous career. Following the tragic death of her father when she was 12, she moved with her remaining family to the picturesque and historic town of Madison, Indiana, to live with her maternal grandparents at 916 W. Second St. During the next few years Irene studied voice and took piano lessons in town. She was able to earn money singing in the Christ Episcopal Church choir on Sundays. After graduating from Madison High School in 1916, she studied until 1917 in a music conservatory in Indianapolis. After that she accepted a teaching post as a music and art instructor in East Chicago, Indiana, just a stone's throw from Chicago. She never made it to the school. While on her way to East Chicago, she saw a newspaper ad in the Indianapolis Star and News for an annual scholarship contest run by the Chicago Music College. Irene won the contest, which enabled her to study there for a year. After that she headed for New York City because it was still the entertainment capital of the world. Her first goal in New York was to add her name to the list of luminaries of the Metropolitan Opera Company. Her audition did her little good, as she was rejected for being too young and inexperienced. She did win the leading role in a road theater company, which was, in turn, followed by numerous plays. During this time she studied at the Chicago Music College, from which she graduated with high honors in 1926. In 1928, Irene met and married a promising young dentist from New York named Francis Dennis Griffin. She remained with Dr. Griffin until his death in 1965.
Irene came to the attention of Hollywood when she performed in "Show Boat" on the East Coast. By 1930 she was under contract to RKO Pictures. Her first film was Leathernecking (1930), which went almost unnoticed. In 1931 she appeared in Cimarron (1931), for which she received the first of five Academy Award nominations. No Other Woman (1933) and Ann Vickers (1933) the same year followed.
In 1936 (due to her comic skits in Show Boat (1936)), she was "persuaded" to star in a comedy, up to that time a medium for which she had small affection. However, Theodora Goes Wild (1936) was an instant hit, almost as popular as the more famous It Happened One Night (1934) from two years before. From this she earned her second Academy Award nomination. Later, in 1937, she was teamed with Cary Grant in The Awful Truth (1937). This helped her garner a third Academy Award nomination. She starred with Grant later in My Favorite Wife (1940) and Penny Serenade (1941).
Her favorite film was Love Affair (1939) with Charles Boyer, a huge hit in a year with so many great films, and a role for which she was again nominated for an Academy Award. Howevever, it was the tear-jerker I Remember Mama (1948) for which she will be best remembered in the role of the loving, self-sacrificing Norwegian mother. She got another nomination for that but again lost. This was the picture in which she should have won the Oscar.
She began to wean herself away from films toward the many charities and public works she championed. Her last major movie was as Polly Baxter in 1952's It Grows on Trees (1952). After that she only appeared as a guest on television. Irene knew enough to quit while she was ahead of the game and this helped keep her legacy intact.
In 1957 she was appointed as a special US delegate to the United Nations during the 12th General Assembly by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, such was her widespread appeal. The remainder of her life was spent on civic causes. She even donated $10,000 to the restoration of the town fountain in her girlhood home of Madison, Indiana, in 1976, even though she had not been there since 1938 when she came home for a visit. She died of heart failure on September 4, 1990, in Los Angeles, California.1412 points- Actress
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Elsa Sullivan Lanchester was born into an unconventional a family at the turn of the 20th century. Her parents, James "Shamus" Sullivan and Edith "Biddy" Lanchester, were socialists - very active members of the Social Democratic Federation (SDF) in a rather broad sense - and did not believe in the institution of marriage and being tied to any conventions of legality, for that matter. Her mother had actually been committed to an asylum in 1895 by her father and older brothers because of her unmarried state with James. The incident received worldwide press as the "Lanchester Kidnapping Case."
Elsa had a great desire to become a classical dancer and to that end at age 10 her mother enrolled her at the famed Isadora Duncan's Bellevue School in Paris in 1912. But the uncertainties of WW1 brought her home after only two years. At age 12, she was sent to a co-educational boarding school in Kings Langley, Hertfordshire, England, to teach dance classes in exchange for her education and board. In 1918, she was hired as a dance teacher at Margaret Morris's school on the Isle of Wight.
Next to dance, she loved the music halls of the period, so in 1920 she debuted in a music hall act as an Egyptian dancer. About the same time she founded the Children's Theater in Soho, London and taught there for several years. She made her stage debut in 1922 in the West End play "Thirty Minutes in a Street." In 1924 she and her partner, Harold Scott, opened a London nightclub called the Cave of Harmony. They performed one-act plays by Pirandello and Chekhov and sang cabaret songs. She would later collect and record these and many others. The spot was frequented by literati like Aldous Huxley, H.G. Wells and also James Whale, working in London theater and soon to be directing on Broadway and Hollywood's most famous horror films. Lanchester kept busy including, on her own admission, posing nude for artists. During a 1926 comic performance in the Midnight Follies at London's Metropole, a member of the British Royal family walked out as she sang, "Please Sell No More Drink to My Father." She closed her nightclub in 1928 as her film career began in earnest.
Perhaps not beautiful in the more conventional sense, Lanchester was certainly pretty as a young woman with a turned-up nose that gave her a pert, impish expression, all the more striking with her large, expressive dark eyes and full lips. She had a lithe figure that she carried with the assuredness of her dancing background. Her voice was bright and distinctive, and had a delightful rush and trill that had an almost Scottish burr quality. What clicked on stage would do the same in the movies.
Her first film appearance was actually in an amateur movie by friend and author Evelyn Waugh called The Scarlet Woman: An Ecclesiastical Melodrama (1925). Her formal film debut was in the British movie One of the Best (1927). She continued stage work and became associated in 1927 with a rather self-possessed but keenly dedicated actor, Charles Laughton. He appeared with her in three of four films Lanchester did in 1928. (Three of these were written for her by H.G. Wells). They did a few plays as well and wed in 1929. According to Lanchester, after two years, she discovered Laughton was homosexual but they remained married until his death in 1962. Lanchester declared in a 1958 interview that she kept to a separate career path from her husband. They appeared together on occasion, moving through 1931 with several smart play-like films including Potiphar's Wife (1931) with Laurence Olivier. She had done the play "Payment Deferred" in London in 1930 and followed it to Broadway in 1931.
MGM offered her a contract in 1932. In 1933 Alexander Korda was casting his The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933) and decided that Laughton was the perfect choice - and his wife would be just as perfect as one of Henry's six wives. Her versatility pointed to a part with some comedic elements and fitting more into a caricature. She looked most like Hans Holbein's famous portrait of Anne of Cleves (Henry's fourth wife who was actually somewhat more homely than the painter depicted). In costume Lanchester was charming if not striking. Her interpretation of Anne was a perfect integration with herself, and her scene with Laughton informally playing cards on the marriage bed and deciding on annulment is a high point of the movie.
Of course, it would be hard to mention her film career of the 1930s without mentioning the one role that would forever dog her, Bride of Frankenstein (1935). Having come to Hollywood with Laughton in 1932 (but not permanently until 1939), Lanchester did only a few films up to 1935 and was disappointed enough with Hollywood's reception to return to London for a respite. She was quickly called back by an old friend from London, stage and film associate James Whale, now the noted director of Frankenstein (1931) and The Invisible Man (1933). He wanted her for two parts in Bride: author Mary Shelley and the bride. A central joke of the movie build-up was the tag lines: "WHO will be The Bride of Frankenstein? WHO will dare?"
Indeed, it was no honeymoon for her. For some ten days, Lanchester was wrapped in yards of bandage and covered in heavy makeup. The stand-on-end hairdo was accomplished by combing it over a wire mesh cage. Lanchester was in real agony with her eyes kept taped wide open for long takes - and it showed in her looks of horror. Her monster's screaming and hissing sounds (based on the sounds of Regents Park swans in London) were taped and then run backward to spook-up the effect. She was delightfully melodramatic and picturesque as Wollstonecraft, and her bride would become iconic. Many have considered Bride of Frankenstein (1935) the best of the golden age horror movies.
Lanchester stood out in her next movie with Laughton the next year, Korda's dark Rembrandt (1936), but she only did a few more films for the remainder of the decade. Through the 1940s she was doubly busy - a couple of films per year while regenerating her beloved musical revue sketches. She performed for 10 years at the Turnabout Theater in Hollywood, using old London music hall/cabaret songs and others written for her. Later she would have to split her time further doing a similar act at a supper club called The Bar of Music. By the later 1940s she had become rather matronly, and the roles would settle appropriately. But she always lent her sparkle, as with her charming maid Matilda in The Bishop's Wife (1947). She would be nominated for best supporting actress in Come to the Stable (1949).
She entered the 1950s busy with road touring of her nightclub act with pianist J. Raymond Henderson (who went by "Ray" and who is sometimes confused with popular songwriter Ray Henderson). There was a series of tours to complement Laughton's famous reading tours, called Elsa Lanchester's Private Music Hall which ended in 1952; Elsa Lanchester--Herself which ended in 1961; and once more in 1964 at the Ivar Theater. She was equally busy with a stock of film roles and a large share of TV playhouse theater. She made ten movies with Laughton, the last of which, Witness for the Prosecution (1957) garnered her second supporting actress nomination. But her dizzy Aunt Queenie Holroyd of Bell Book and Candle (1958) is a fond remembrance of that time.
With the two decades from the 1960s to early 1980s, Lanchester was a fixture on episodic TV and an institution in Disney and G-rated fare - perhaps a bit ironic for the unconventional Lanchester. She wrote two autobiographies: "Charles Laughton and I" (1938) and "Elsa Lanchester: Herself" (1983), both recalling her nearly 100 roles before the camera. Lanchester remained humorously reflective in regard to her film career, describing it as "...large parts in lousy pictures and small parts in big pictures." It was the mix of silly, bawdy, and outrageous in her revues that was her great joy: "I was content because I was fully aware that I did not like straight acting but preferred performing direct to an audience. You might call what I do vaudeville. Making a joke, especially impromptu, and getting a big laugh is just plain heaven."807 points- Actress
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Elegant, quintessentially British Valerie Hobson was the daughter of a British army officer. She studied dancing at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) and appeared onstage for the first time at age 16, but she contracted a case of scarlet fever and decided to give up dancing for acting. She journeyed to Hollywood, but became disillusioned with the studio system and returned to Britain, where she was often cast in aristocratic roles.
She married producer Anthony Havelock-Allan and subsequently appeared in many of his films. They divorced in 1952. She then married politician -- and future notorious sex-and-espionage-scandal figure -- John Profumo and gave up her acting career. She stood strongly by Profumo during that distasteful period. In her later years she was devoted to charity work. She died in 1998, aged 81.807 points- Actress
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Born in Norfolk, Virginia to wealthy stockbroker Cornelius Hancock Sullavan and heiress Garland Council Sullavan, Margaret Brooke overcame a muscle weakness in her childhood to go on to become a rebellious teenager at posh private schools. She went on to perform with the University Players at Harvard and made her Broadway debut in Hello, Lola in 1926. Her Christmas Day marriage in 1931 to Henry Fonda lasted only 15 months, and her later marriages to director William Wyler and agent Leland Hayward were also tempestuous. Two of her three children, Bridget and Bill, would spend some time in mental institutions, and commit suicide. Friends noted that the collapse of her family life led to her breakdown. Her condition worsened over time, until she was discovered unconscious from barbiturate poisoning in a hotel room. Her death was ruled accidental by the county coroner.802 points- The original ash-blonde "iceberg maiden", Madeleine Carroll was a knowing beauty with a confident air, the epitome of poise and "breeding". Not only did she have looks and allure in abundance, but she had intellectual heft to go with them, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts from Birmingham University at the age of 20. The daughter of a French mother and an Irish father, she briefly held a position teaching French at a girls seminary near Brighton, but was by this time thoroughly determined to seek her career in the theatre--much to her dad's chagrin. Madeleine's chance arrived, after several failed auditions (and in between modeling hats), in the shape of a small part as a French maid in a 1927 West End production of "The Lash". Her film debut followed within a year and stardom was almost instantaneous. By the time she appeared in The W Plan (1930), Madeleine had become Britain's top female screen star. That is not to say, however, that she was a gifted actress from the outset. In fact, she learned her trade on the job, finding help along the way from established thespians such as Seymour Hicks and Miles Mander. Most of her early films tended to focus on that exquisite face, and bringing out her regal, well-bred--if rather icy--personality. Her beautiful speaking voice enabled her to make the transition to sound pictures effortlessly.
Following a year-long absence from acting (and marriage to Capt. Philip Astley of the King's Guards) she returned to the screen, having been tempted with a lucrative contract by Gaumont-British. The resulting films, Sleeping Car (1933) and I Was a Spy (1933), were both popular and critical successes and prompted renewed offers from Hollywood. However, on loan to Fox, the tedious melodrama The World Moves On (1934) did absolutely nothing for her career and she quickly returned to Britain--a fortuitous move, as it turned out. Alfred Hitchcock had been on the lookout for one of the unattainable, aloof blondes he was so partial to, whose smoldering sexuality lay hidden beneath a layer of ladylike demeanor (other Hitch favorites of that type included Grace Kelly and Kim Novak). Madeleine fitted the bill perfectly. The 39 Steps (1935), based on a novel by John Buchan, made her an international star. The process was not entirely painless, however, as Hitchcock "introduced" Madeleine to co-star Robert Donat by handcuffing them together (accounts vary as to how long, exactly, but it was likely for several hours) for "added realism". In due course the enforced companionship got the stars nicely acquainted and helped make their humorous banter in the film all the more convincing.
Hitchcock liked Madeleine and attempted to repeat the success of "The 39 Steps" with Secret Agent (1936), but with somewhat diminished results (primarily because Donat had to pull out of the project due to illness and Madeleine's chemistry with John Gielgud was not on the same level as it was with Donat). Nonetheless, her reputation was made. After Alexander Korda sold her contract, she ended up back in Hollywood with Paramount. Initially she was signed for one year (1935-36), but this was extended in 1938 with a stipulation that she make two pictures per year until the end of 1941. The studio publicity machine touted Madeleine as "the most beautiful woman in the world". This was commensurate with her being given A-grade material, beginning with The General Died at Dawn (1936), opposite Gary Cooper. For once, Madeleine portrayed something other than a regal or "squeaky clean" character, and she did so with more warmth and élan than she had displayed in her previous films. She then showed a humorous side in Irving Berlin's On the Avenue (1937); had Tyrone Power and George Sanders fight it out for her affections in Lloyd's of London (1936) (on loan to Fox); and turned up as a particularly decorative--though in regard to acting, underemployed--princess, in The Prisoner of Zenda (1937). Thereafter she had hit the peak of her profession in terms of salary, reportedly making $250,000 in 1938 alone. For the remainder of her Hollywood tenure, Madeleine co-starred three times with Fred MacMurray (the most enjoyable encounter was Honeymoon in Bali (1939)), and opposite Bob Hope in one of his most fondly remembered comedies, My Favorite Blonde (1942). Then it all started to come to an end.
Having lost her sister Guigette during a German air attack on London in October 1940, Madeleine devoted more and more of her time to the war effort, becoming entertainment director for the United Seamens Service and joining the Red Cross as a nurse under the name Madeleine Hamilton. She was unable to rekindle her popularity after the war, her last film of note being The Fan (1949), a dramatization of Oscar Wilde's play. She made a solitary, albeit very successful, attempt at Broadway, with a starring role in the comedy "Goodbye, My Fancy" (1948), directed by and co-starring a young Sam Wanamaker. There were a few more TV and radio appearances but, for all intents and purposes, her career had run its course. Britain's most glamorous export to Hollywood became increasingly self-deprecating, rejecting further overtures from producers. Instead, she became more committed to charitable works on behalf of children, orphaned or injured as the result of the Second World War.
Madeleine spent the last 21 years of her life in retirement, first in Paris, then in the south of Spain. Two of her four ex-husbands included the actor Sterling Hayden and the French director/producer Henri Lavorel. Last of the quartet was Andrew Heiskell, publisher of 'Life' magazine. She died in Marbella in October 1987. In her private life, the trimmings of stardom seemed to have mattered little to Madeleine. As to her status as a sex symbol, she was once said to have quipped to a group of collegians who had voted her the girl they'd most like to be marooned with on a desert island, that she would not object, provided at least one of them was a good obstetrician!785 points - Actress
- Writer
Lucie Mannheim was born on 30 April 1899 in Berlin, Germany. She was an actress and writer, known for The 39 Steps (1935), Der Ball (1931) and Bunny Lake Is Missing (1965). She was married to Marius Goring. She died on 18 July 1976 in Braunlage, Lower Saxony, Germany.785 points- Actress
- Additional Crew
Heather Grace Angel was born in Oxford, England, on February 9, 1909. She dabbled on the stage for a time before coming to California to try her luck on the screen. Heather was 20 years old when she landed a bit part for the 1929 film, Bulldog Drummond (1929). Although she didn't know it at the time, she would become a staple of that particular series eight years hence. That movie would be her only foray onto celluloid for two years. When Heather did return, she did so in 1931's A Night in Montmartre (1931). Not only did she land a part, but it was the leading role in the picture, starring as Annette Lefevre. Later that year, she again landed the leading role in the acclaimed The Hound of the Baskervilles (1931). Throughout the 1930s, Heather's services were in high demand. She kept very busy in such productions as Men of Steel (1932), Charlie Chan's Greatest Case (1933), Orient Express (1934), and Daniel Boone (1936). In 1937, she began playing Phyllis Clavering in the serial about Bulldog Drummond. Audiences delighted in catching the latest adventures of Drummond. After the last Drummond film, Bulldog Drummond's Bride in 1939, Heather went on her way in other films. Although she didn't have the leading role, she did appear in top movies such as 1940's Kitty Foyle (1940) and Pride and Prejudice (1940) and in 1943's Cry 'Havoc' (1943). After Lifeboat (1944) in 1944, Heather wasn't seen again on the silver screen until The Saxon Charm (1948) in 1948. As with other actresses, Heather's time had come and gone. Her last appearance anywhere was in 1979's television mini-series, Backstairs at the White House (1979) when she played President 'Harry Truman''s mother-in-law. On December 13, 1986, Heather died in Santa Barbara, California, of cancer. She was 77 years old.779 points- Actress
- Writer
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Françoise Rosay was born on 19 April 1891 in Paris, France. She was an actress and writer, known for Carnival in Flanders (1935), The Halfway House (1944) and Nobody's Children (1951). She was married to Jacques Feyder. She died on 28 March 1974 in Montgeron, Essonne, France.776 points- Actress
- Soundtrack
Rochelle Hudson was born on 6 March 1916 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA. She was an actress, known for Imitation of Life (1934), The Officer and the Lady (1941) and Born Reckless (1937). She was married to Robert Louis Mindell, Charles Kenneth Brust Jr., Richard Francis Hyland and Harold Edward Mexia Thompson. She died on 17 January 1972 in Palm Desert, California, USA.762 points- Actress
- Soundtrack
Lively, buxom character actress Mary Boland made a name for herself playing vacuous or pixilated motherly types during the 1930s. One of her most memorable performances was as the addle-brained Mrs. Rimplegar of Three Cornered Moon (1933), who gives away her family fortune to a swindler because he seemed like 'such a nice young man'. She also made a series of popular homespun comedies under contract to Paramount, in which she co-starred opposite Charles Ruggles. She was notable as a social snob in Ruggles of Red Gap (1935), the oversexed and alcoholic Countess DeLave in The Women (1939) and as Mrs. Bennet in MGM's classic Pride and Prejudice (1940). For all her scatty or matronly character roles in the movies, Mary Boland had once been a star comedienne on Broadway.
Born in Philadelphia, the daughter of traveling actor William A. Boland (who happened to be on tour at her birth), she was educated at Sacred Heart Convent in Detroit. At 25, Mary appeared in her first play, 'Strongheart', and was on Broadway two years later in 'The Ranger', with Dustin Farnum. She started in silent films in 1915, her debut being Thomas H. Ince's 'The Edge of the Abyss'. After a wartime interval, entertaining troops on the Western Front during World War I, she made a return to the stage and had notable successes with the comedies 'Clarence' (1919-20,with Alfred Lunt) as Mrs.Wheeler, 'Meet the Wife' (1923-24,with a young Humphrey Bogart) and 'Cradle Snatchers' (1925-26), starring as Susan Martin. These performances established her as one of theaters foremost comediennes, ideally cast as dithery wives and mothers, or social climbers.
Mary's film career ended in 1950 and she appeared in her last play, 'Lullaby', in 1954. She retired to live out the rest of her days in her suite at the Essex House in New York.751 points- Actress
- Soundtrack
Classic comedienne Zasu Pitts, of the timid, forlorn blue eyes and trademark woebegone vocal pattern and fidgety hands, was born to Rulandus and Nellie (Shay) Pitts, the third of four children on January 3, 1894. Her aged New York-native father, who lost a leg back in the Civil War era, had settled the family in Kansas by the time ZaSu was born but relocated to Santa Cruz, California, when she was 9, seeking a warmer climate and better job opportunities. She attended Santa Cruz High and somehow rose above her excessively shy demeanor to join the school's drama department. She went on to cultivate what was once deemed her negative qualities by making a career out of her unglamorous looks and wallflower tendencies in scores and scores of screwball comedy treasures.
Pitts made her stage debut in 1915 and was discovered two years later by pioneer screenwriter Frances Marion, who got her work, though in small, obscure parts, in vehicles for such Paramount stars as Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford. Mary cast her in another of her films to greater effect and the rest is history. She grew in popularity following a series of Universal one-reeler comedies and earned her first feature-length lead in King Vidor's Better Times (1919). She met and married matinée idol Tom Gallery in 1920 and paired up with him in several films, including Bright Eyes (1921), Heart of Twenty (1920), Patsy (1921), and A Daughter of Luxury (1922).
Their daughter Ann was born in 1922. In 1924 the actress, now a reputable comedy farceur, was given the greatest tragic role of her career in Erich von Stroheim's epic classic Greed (1924), an over-four-hour picture cut down by the studio to less than two. The surprise casting initially shocked Hollywood but showed that she could draw tears and pathos as well as laughs with her patented doleful demeanor. The movie has grown tremendously in reputation over time, although it failed initially at the box office due to its extensive cutting.
Trading off between comedy shorts and features, she earned additional kudos in such heavy dramas as Sins of the Fathers (1928), The Wedding March (1928), also helmed by Von Stroheim, and War Nurse (1930). Still, by the advent of sound, which was an easy transition for Pitts, she was fully secured in comedy. One bitter and huge disappointment for her was when she was replaced in the war classic All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) by Beryl Mercer after her initial appearance drew unintentional laughs from preview audiences. She decided, however, to make the most of a not-so-bad situation. She had them rolling in the aisles in such wonderful and wacky entertainment as The Dummy (1929), Finn and Hattie (1931), The Guardsman (1931), Blondie of the Follies (1932), Sing and Like It (1934), and Ruggles of Red Gap (1935). She also excelled deliciously in her comedy partnerships with stunning blonde comedienne Thelma Todd (in short films) and gangly comedian Slim Summerville (in features).
Breezing through the 1940s in assorted films, she found work in vaudeville and on radio as well, trading quivery banter with Bing Crosby, Al Jolson, and Rudy Vallee, among others. She also tackled Broadway, making her debut in the mystery "Ramshackle Inn" in 1944. The play, which was written especially for her, fared quite well and, as a result, took the show on the road frequently in later years. Postwar films continued to give Pitts the chance to play comic snoops and flighty relatives in such quality fare as Life with Father (1947), but into the 1950s she started focusing on TV. This culminated in her best known series role, playing second banana to cruise line social director Gale Storm in The Gale Storm Show: Oh! Susanna (1956) [aka "Oh, Susannah"]. As Nugie, the shipboard beautician and partner-in-crime, she made the most of her timid, twitchy mannerisms.
Sadly, ill health dominated Pitts' later years when she was diagnosed with cancer in the mid-1950s. She bravely carried on, continuing to work until the very end, making brief appearances in The Thrill of It All (1963) and the all-star comedy epic It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1963). Having married a second time after her divorce from Gallery, the beloved sad sack comedienne passed away at age 69 on June 6, 1963, leaving behind a gallery of scene-stealing worrywarts for all to enjoy.751 points- Actress
- Soundtrack
Kitty Carlisle Hart wore a cloak of many professional and elegant colors. Actress, opera singer, Broadway performer, TV celebrity, game show panelist, patron of the arts, and, at age 95, this vital woman continued her six-decade musical odyssey with songs and reminisces in her one-woman show: "Kitty Carlisle Hart: An American Icon," which toured from her beloved New York to Los Angeles. She developed pneumonia soon after her tour folded toward the end of 2006 and passed away of congestive heart failure in April of 2007.
Kitty Carlisle Hart was born Catherine Conn (pronounced "Cohen") on September 3, 1910 in New Orleans, Louisiana, to a family of German Jewish ancestry. Her father, Dr. Joseph Conn, was a gynecologist who died when she was only ten. Her very ambitious mother, Hortense (Holzman), escorted Kitty to Europe in 1921 with the intentions of marrying her off, Grace Kelly-style, into European royalty. When that plan didn't pan out, they stayed in Europe where Kitty received her adult education in Switzerland, London, Paris and Rome. She finally zeroed in on her acting career after being accepted into London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, and also went on to train at the Theatre de l'Atelier in Paris.
She and her mother eventually returned to New York in 1932 wherein she first apprenticed with the Bucks County Playhouse in New Hope, Pennsylvania. She attracted notice quite early in her career. Billed as Kitty Carlisle, she found radio work and made her first appearance on the musical stage in the title role of "Rio Rita." The legitimately-trained singer went on to appear in a number of operettas, including 1933's "Champagne Sec" (as Prince Orlofsky), as well as the musical comedies "White Horse Inn" (1936) and "Three Waltzes" (1937).
Her early ingénue movie career included warbling in the musical mystery Murder at the Vanities (1934), and alongside Allan Jones amidst the zany goings-on of the Marx Brothers in the classic farce A Night at the Opera (1935). She also played a love interest to Bing Crosby's in two of his lesser known musical outings Here Is My Heart (1934) and She Loves Me Not (1934).
Films were not her strong suit, however, and she returned to her theatre roots. Appearing in her first dramatic productions "French Without Tears" and "The Night of January 16th" in 1938, she went on to grace a number of chic and stylish plays and musicals throughout the 40s, including "Walk with Music (1940), "The Merry Widow" (1943, "Design for Living (1943) and "There's Always Juliet" (1944). She subsequently performed in Benjamin Britten's 1948 American premiere of "The Rape of Lucretia." In 1946, she married Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Moss Hart and appeared in a number of his works including his classic "The Man Who Came to Dinner" (1949) and the witty Broadway comedy "Anniversary Waltz" (1954). The couple had two children. He died in 1961 and she never remarried, spending much of her existing time keeping his name alive to future generations.
It was the small screen that would make Kitty a welcome household commodity. The steadfast panelist of several quiz shows in the 1950s, it was the popular game show To Tell the Truth (1956) that anointed her game show doyenne and icon. A regular panelist for some 20 years, she appeared on each and every revamped format from its 1956 inception to its 2002 syndicated version. Known for her stately presence, infectious laugh, pouffy dark Prince Valiant hairstyle, and sweeping couture gowns on the show, audiences reveled at her effortless class to these simple parlor games. She also was a substitute panelist for other popular game shows such as "What's My Line?" and "I've Got a Secret."
In later years, she became an important society maven of New York City, an avid patron and zealous supporter of the performing arts. Appointed to various state-wide councils, she was chairman of the New York State Council of the Arts in 1976 and served in that capacity for 20 years, also serving on the boards of various New York City cultural institutions. A noted lecturer, the civic-minded Carlisle Hart was active in administrative capacities as well, notably as Chairman of Governor Rockefeller's Conference on Woman (1966) and as special consultant to the Governor on women's opportunities. At one time she wrote the column "Kitty's Calendar" for Women's Unit News.
Kitty never stopped entertaining. Making her Metropolitan debut on New Year's Eve 1966 as Prince Orlovsky in "Die Fledermaus," she joined the touring production the following year. She appeared in concert with the Philadelphia Orchestra and appeared with the Boston Opera Company at one point. She added stature to a number of summer stock plays including "Kiss Me Kate," "The Marriage-Go-Round" and her husband's "Light Up the Sky." Returning to Broadway as a replacement for Dina Merrill in the 1983 revival of "On Your Toes," she was later spotted in Woody Allen's Radio Days (1987) and Six Degrees of Separation (1993).
Carlisle penned her autobiography, Kitty, in 1988. In the millennium, she appeared in a number of documentary films and TV movies. She died on April 17, 2007, at age 96, in Manhattan.749 points- Celia Montalván was born on 17 August 1902 in Mexico, Distrito Federal, Mexico. She was an actress, known for Toni (1935), Club verde (1945) and Milagros de la Guadalupana (1926). She was married to José Carles Peyró. She died on 10 January 1958 in Mexico, Distrito Federal, Mexico.738 points
- Actress
- Soundtrack
Carole Lombard was born Jane Alice Peters in Fort Wayne, Indiana, on October 6, 1908. Her parents divorced in 1916 and her mother took the family on a trip out West. While there they decided to settle down in the Los Angeles area. After being spotted playing baseball in the street with the neighborhood boys by a film director, Carole was signed to a one-picture contract in 1921 when she was 12. The film in question was A Perfect Crime (1921). Although she tried for other acting jobs, she would not be seen onscreen again for four years. She returned to a normal life, going to school and participating in athletics, excelling in track and field. By age 15 she had had enough of school, though, and quit. She joined a theater troupe and played in several stage shows, which were for the most part nothing to write home about. In 1925 she passed a screen test and was signed to a contract with Fox Films. Her first role as a Fox player was Hearts and Spurs (1925), in which she had the lead. Right after that film she appeared in a western called Durand of the Bad Lands (1925). She rounded out 1925 in the comedy Marriage in Transit (1925) (she also appeared in a number of two-reel shorts). In 1926 Carole was seriously injured in an automobile accident that resulted in the left side of her face being scarred. Once she had recovered, Fox canceled her contract. She did find work in a number of shorts during 1928 (13 of them, many for slapstick comedy director Mack Sennett), but did go back for a one-time shot with Fox called Me, Gangster (1928). By now the film industry was moving from the silent era to "talkies". While some stars' careers ended because of heavy accents, poor diction or a voice unsuitable to sound, Carole's light, breezy, sexy voice enabled her to transition smoothly during this period. Her first sound film was High Voltage (1929) at Pathe (her new studio) in 1929. In 1931 she was teamed with William Powell in Man of the World (1931). She and Powell hit it off and soon married, but the marriage didn't work out and they divorced in 1933. No Man of Her Own (1932) put Carole opposite Clark Gable for the first and only time (they married seven years later in 1939). By now she was with Paramount Pictures and was one of its top stars. However, it was Twentieth Century (1934) that showed her true comedic talents and proved to the world what a fine actress she really was. In 1936 Carole received her only Oscar nomination for Best Actress for My Man Godfrey (1936). She was superb as ditzy heiress Irene Bullock. Unfortunately, the coveted award went to Luise Rainer in The Great Ziegfeld (1936), which also won for Best Picture. Carole was now putting out about one film a year of her own choosing, because she wanted whatever role she picked to be a good one. She was adept at picking just the right part, which wasn't surprising as she was smart enough to see through the good-ol'-boy syndrome of the studio moguls. She commanded and received what was one of the top salaries in the business - at one time it was reported she was making $35,000 a week. She made but one film in 1941, Mr. & Mrs. Smith (1941). Her last film was in 1942, when she played Maria Tura opposite Jack Benny in To Be or Not to Be (1942). Tragically, she didn't live to see its release. The film was completed in 1941 just at the time the US entered World War II, and was subsequently held back for release until 1942. Meanwhile, Carole went home to Indiana for a war bond rally. On January 16, 1942, Carole, her mother, and 20 other people were flying back to California when the plane went down outside of Las Vegas, Nevada. All aboard perished. The highly acclaimed actress was dead at the age of 33 and few have been able to match her talents since.735 points- Actress
- Soundtrack
Olivia Mary de Havilland was born on July 1, 1916 in Tokyo, Japan to British parents, Lilian Augusta (Ruse), a former actress, and Walter Augustus de Havilland, an English professor and patent attorney. Her sister Joan, later to become famous as Joan Fontaine, was born the following year. Her surname comes from her paternal grandfather, whose family was from Guernsey in the Channel Islands. Her parents divorced when Olivia was just three years old, and she moved with her mother and sister to Saratoga, California.
After graduating from high school, where she fell prey to the acting bug, Olivia enrolled in Mills College in Oakland, where she participated in the school play "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and was spotted by Max Reinhardt. She so impressed Reinhardt that he picked her up for both his stage version and, later, the Warner Bros. film version in 1935. She again was so impressive that Warner executives signed her to a seven-year contract. No sooner had the ink dried on the contract than Olivia appeared in three more films: The Irish in Us (1935), Alibi Ike (1935), and Captain Blood (1935), this last with the man with whom her career would be most closely identified: heartthrob Errol Flynn. He and Olivia starred together in eight films during their careers. In 1939 Warner Bros. loaned her to David O. Selznick for the classic Gone with the Wind (1939). Playing sweet Melanie Hamilton, Olivia received her first nomination for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, only to lose out to one of her co-stars in the film, Hattie McDaniel.
After GWTW, Olivia returned to Warner Bros. and continued to churn out films. In 1941 she played Emmy Brown in Hold Back the Dawn (1941), which resulted in her second Oscar nomination, this time for Best Actress. Again she lost, this time to her sister Joan for her role in Suspicion (1941). After that strong showing, Olivia now demanded better, more substantial roles than the "sweet young thing" slot into which Warners had been fitting her. The studio responded by placing her on a six-month suspension, all of the studios at the time operating under the policy that players were nothing more than property to do with as they saw fit. As if that weren't bad enough, when her contract with Warners was up, she was told that she needed to make up the time lost because of the suspension. Irate, she sued the studio, and for the length of the court battle she didn't appear in a single film. The result, however, was worth it. In a landmark decision, the court said that not only would Olivia not need to make up the time, but also that all performers would be limited to a seven-year contract that would include any suspensions handed down. This became known as the "de Havilland decision": no longer could studios treat their performers as chattel. Olivia returned to the screen in 1946 and made up for lost time by appearing in four films, one of which finally won her the Oscar that had so long eluded her: To Each His Own (1946), in which she played Josephine Norris to the delight of critics and audiences alike. Olivia was the strongest performer in Hollywood for the balance of the 1940s.
In 1948 she turned in another strong showing in The Snake Pit (1948) as Virginia Cunningham, a woman suffering a mental breakdown. The end result was another Oscar nomination for Best Actress, but she lost to Jane Wyman in Johnny Belinda (1948). As in the two previous years, she made only one film in 1949, but she again won a nomination and the Academy Award for Best Actress for The Heiress (1949). After a three-year hiatus, Olivia returned to star in My Cousin Rachel (1952). From that point on, she made few appearances on the screen but was seen on Broadway and in some television shows. Her last screen appearance was in The Fifth Musketeer (1979), and her last career appearance was in the TV movie The Woman He Loved (1988).
Her turbulent relationship with her only sibling, Joan Fontaine, was press fodder for many decades; the two were reported as having been permanently estranged since their mother's death in 1975, when Joan claimed that she had not been invited to the memorial service, which she only managed to hold off until she could arrive by threatening to go public. Joan also wrote in her memoir that her elder sister had been physically, psychologically, and emotionally abusive when they were young. And the iconic photo of Joan with her hand outstretched to congratulate Olivia backstage after the latter's first Oscar win and Olivia ignoring it because she was peeved by a comment Joan had made about Olivia's new husband, Marcus Goodrich, remained part of Hollywood lore for many years.
Nonetheless, late in life, Fontaine gave an interview in which she serenely denied any and all claims of an estrangement from her sister. When a reporter asked Joan if she and Olivia were friends, she replied, "Of course!" The reporter responded that rumors to the contrary must have been sensationalism and she replied, "Oh, right--they have to. Two nice girls liking each other isn't copy." Asked if she and Olivia were in communication and spoke to each other, Joan replied "Absolutely." When asked if there ever had been a time when the two did not get along to the point where they wouldn't speak with one another, Joan replied, again, "Never. Never. There is not a word of truth about that." When asked why people believe it, she replied "Oh, I have no idea. It's just something to say ... Oh, it's terrible." When asked if she had seen Olivia over the years, she replied, "I've seen her in Paris. And she came to my apartment in New York often." The reporter stated that all this was a nice thing to hear. Joan then stated, "Let me just say, Olivia and I have never had a quarrel. We have never had any dissatisfaction. We have never had hard words. And all this is press." Joan died in 2013.
During the hoopla surrounding the 50th anniversary of GWTW in 1989, Olivia graciously declined requests for all interviews as the last of the four main stars. She enjoyed a quiet retirement in Paris, France, where she resided for many decades, and where she died on 26 July, 2020, at the age of 104.
As well as being the last surviving major cast member of some of cinema's most beloved pre-war and wartime film classics (including The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) and Gone with the Wind (1939)), and one of the longest-lived major stars in film history, Olivia de Havilland was unquestionably the last surviving iconic figure from the peak of Hollywood's golden era during the late 1930s, and her passing truly marked the end of an era.733 points- Actress
- Producer
- Writer
Marion Davies was one of the great comedic actresses of the silent era and into the 1930s.
Marion Cecelia Douras was born in the borough of Brooklyn, New York on January 3, 1897, the daughter of Rose (Reilly) and Bernard J. Douras, a lawyer and judge. Her parents were both of Irish descent. Marion had been bitten by the show biz bug early as she watched her sisters perform in local stage productions. She wanted to do the same. As Marion got older, she tried out for various school plays and did fairly well. Once her formal education had ended, Marion began her career as a chorus girl in New York City, first in the pony follies, and eventually found herself in the famed Ziegfeld Follies. But she wanted to do more than dance. Acting, to Marion, was the epitome of show business and aimed her sights in that direction. Her stage name came when she and her family passed the Davies Insurance Building. One of her sisters called out "Davies!!! That shall be my stage name", and the whole family took on that name.
Her first film was Runaway Romany (1917), when she was 20. Written by Marion and directed by her brother-in-law, the film wasn't exactly a box-office smash, but for Marion, it was a start and a stepping stone to bigger things. The following year Marion starred in two films, The Burden of Proof (1918) and Cecilia of the Pink Roses (1918). The latter film was backed by newspaper magnate, William Randolph Hearst. When Marion moved to California, she already was involved with Hearst. They lived together at his San Simeon castle, an extremely elaborate mansion which stands as a California landmark to this day. At San Simeon, they threw grand parties, many of them in costume. Frequent guests included Carole Lombard, Mary Pickford, Sonja Henie, and Dolores Del Río - basically all the top names in Hollywood and other celebrities including the mayor of New York City, President Calvin Coolidge, and Charles Lindbergh. Davies and Hearst would continue a long-term romantic relationship for the next 30 years. Because of Hearst's newspaper empire, Marion would be promoted as no actress before her.
She appeared in numerous films over the next few years, with The Cinema Murder (1919) being one of the most suspenseful. In 1922, Marion appeared as Mary Tudor in the historical romantic epic, When Knighthood Was in Flower (1922). It was a film into which Hearst poured in millions of dollars as a showcase for her. Although Marion didn't normally appear in period pieces, she turned in a wonderful performance, and the film turned a profit. Marion remained busy, one of the staples in movie houses around the country. At the end of the twenties, it was obvious that sound films were about to replace silents. Marion was nervous because she had a stutter when she became excited and worried she wouldn't make a successful transition to the new medium, but she was a true professional who had no problem with the change. Time after time, film after film, Marion turned in masterful performances. In 1930, two of her better films were Not So Dumb (1930) and The Florodora Girl (1930). By the early 1930s, Marion had lost her box office appeal and the downward slide began.
Had she been without Hearst's backing, she possibly could have been more successful. He was more of a hindrance than a help. Hearst had tried to push MGM executives to hire Marion for the role of Elizabeth Barrett in The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934). Louis B. Mayer had other ideas and hired producer Irving Thalberg's wife, Norma Shearer instead. Hearst reacted by pulling his newspaper support for MGM without much impact. By the late 1930s Hearst was suffering financial reversals and it was Marion who bailed him out by selling $1 million of her jewelry. Without her, the Hearst Corporation might not be where it is today. Hearst's financial problems also spelled an end to her career. Although she had made the transition to sound, other stars fared better, and her roles became fewer and further between. In 1937, a 40-year-old Marion filmed her last movie, Ever Since Eve (1937). Out of films and with the intense pressures of her relationship with Hearst, Davies turned more and more to alcohol. Despite those problems, Marion was a very sharp and savvy business woman.
When Hearst died in 1951, Marion did not really know what was going on. The night before, there had been a lot of people in the house. Marion was very upset by the large crowd of family and friends. She said it was too noisy, and they were disturbing Hearst by talking so loud. She was upset and had to be sedated. When she woke, her niece, Patricia Van Cleve Lake, and her husband, Arthur Lake, told her that Hearst was dead. Upon Patricia's death, it was revealed she had been the love child of Davies and Hearst. Marion was banned from Hearst's funeral.
She later started many charities including a children's clinic that is still operating today. She was very generous and was loved by everyone who knew her. She went through a lot, even getting polio in the 1940s. Marion married for the first time at the age of 54, to Horace Brown. The union would last until she died of cancer on September 22, 1961 in Los Angeles, California. She was 64 years old.731 points- Actress
- Soundtrack
Mary Astor was born Lucile Vasconcellos Langhanke on May 3, 1906 in Quincy, Illinois to Helen Marie Vasconcellos, an American of Portuguese and Irish ancestry from Illinois, and Otto Ludwig Langhanke, a German immigrant. Mary's parents were very ambitious for her and wanted something better for her than what they had, and knew that if they played their cards right, they could make her famous. Recognizing her beauty, they pushed her into various beauty contests. Luck was with Mary and her parents because one contest came to the attention of Hollywood moguls who signed her when she was 14.
Mary's first movie was a bit part in The Scarecrow (1920). It wasn't much, but it was a start. Throughout 1921-1923 she continued her career with bit or minor roles in a number of motion pictures. In 1924, she landed a plum assignment with a role as Lady Margery Alvaney opposite the great John Barrymore in the film Beau Brummel (1924). This launched her career to stardom, as did a lively affair with Barrymore. However, the affair ended before she could star with him again in the classic Don Juan (1926). By now, Mary was the new cinematic darling, with each film packing the theaters.
By the end of the 1920s, the sound revolution had taken a stronghold on the industry, and Mary was one of those lucky actresses who made the successful transition to "talkies" because of her voice and strong screen presence. Mary's career soared to greater heights. Films such as Red Dust (1932), Convention City (1933), Man of Iron (1935), and The Prisoner of Zenda (1937) kept her star at the top. In 1938, she turned out five feature films that kept her busy and in the spotlight. After that, she churned out films at a lesser rate. In 1941 she won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role as Sandra Kovac in The Great Lie (1941). That same year she appeared in the celebrated film The Maltese Falcon (1941), but her star soon began to fall.
Because of her three divorces, her first husband Kenneth Hawks' death in a plane crash, alcoholism, a suicide attempt, and a persistent heart condition, Mary started to get smaller film roles. She appeared in only five productions throughout the 1950s. Her final fling with the silver screen was as Jewell Mayhew in Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964).Although it was her final film, she had appeared in a phenomenal 123 motion pictures in her entire career.
Mary lived out her remaining years confined to the Motion Picture Country Home, where she died of a heart attack on September 25, 1987. She was 81.731 points- Madeleine Ozeray was born on 13 September 1908 in Bouillon-sur-Semois, Belgium. She was an actress, known for Liliom (1934), La guerre des valses (1933) and Le père Chopin (1945). She died on 29 March 1989 in Paris, France.728 points
- Actress
- Soundtrack
Ann, born Dorothy Gatley, spent most of her childhood as an "army brat" constantly moving around before the family finally settled in New York. Ann first appeared on the stage while she spent a year attending Bryn Mawr College. She became a clerk and freelance script reader with a film company before she made her stage debut in Greenwich Village. From there she went to Broadway, and when pictures needed actors who could walk and talk, she went to Hollywood. She was signed by Pathe and made her debut, with Fredric March in Paris Bound (1929). She became a leading lady, and the roles that she played were always the same, but her co-stars changed. She was the gentle, refined heroine as in The Animal Kingdom (1932), wherein she played Daisy, the rejected fiancée of Leslie Howard. By 1933, her popularity started to decline as she appeared in a parade of tearjerkers as someone always ready to sacrifice herself for the good of others. She quit films in 1937 when she married conductor Warner Janssen, but she could not stay away. She came back five years later in Eyes in the Night (1942). Her roles after that were mature character roles for the next five years. Another break, another three films, and then in 1956 she appeared once again with Fredric March, the man with whom she started her career in The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit (1956). She continued to appear sporadically on TV in the 1960s and died at age 79 in 1981.709 points- Actress
- Director
- Writer
Ida was born in London to a show business family. In 1932, her mother took Ida with her to an audition and Ida got the part her mother wanted. The picture was Her First Affaire (1932). Ida, a bleached blonde, went to Hollywood in 1934 playing small, insignificant parts. Peter Ibbetson (1935) was one of her few noteworthy movies and it was not until The Light That Failed (1939) that she got a chance to get better parts. In most of her movies, she was cast as the hard, but sympathetic woman from the wrong side of the tracks. In The Sea Wolf (1941) and High Sierra (1940), she played the part magnificently. It has been said that no one could do hard-luck dames the way Lupino could do them. She played tough, knowing characters who held their own against some of the biggest leading men of the day - Humphrey Bogart, Ronald Colman, John Garfield and Edward G. Robinson. She made a handful of films during the forties playing different characters ranging from Pillow to Post (1945), where she played a traveling saleswoman to the tough nightclub singer in The Man I Love (1946). But good roles for women were hard to get and there were many young actresses and established stars competing for those roles. She left Warner Brothers in 1947 and became a freelance actress. When better roles did not materialize, Ida stepped behind the camera as a director, writer and producer. Her first directing job came when director Elmer Clifton fell ill on a script that she co-wrote Not Wanted (1949). Ida had joked that as an actress, she was the poor man's Bette Davis. Now, she said that as a director, she became the poor man's Don Siegel. The films that she wrote, or directed, or appeared in during the fifties were mostly inexpensive melodramas. She later turned to television where she directed episodes in shows such as The Untouchables (1959) and The Fugitive (1963). In the seventies, she made guest appearances on various television show and appeared in small parts in a few movies.709 points- Actress
- Additional Crew
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Ann Dvorak was the daughter of silent film star Anna Lehr and silents director Edwin McKim. She entered films at the start of sound, as a dance instructor for the lavish MGM musicals. She came to international prominence in Scarface (1932) with Paul Muni, but often complained about the lack of quality of her films, which led to arguments with her bosses at Warners. She married British actor Leslie Fenton in 1932, and came to Britain to make a few films. She contributed to the British war effort driving an ambulance. She retired from the screen in 1951, and died in 1979.707 points- Actress
- Soundtrack
Elizabeth Mary Furness was born on January 3, 1916 in New York City. She was a teenage model with the Powers agency and appeared in secondary roles in more than 35 movies. She is best remembered as the highly paid television spokesperson for Westinghouse Electric Corporation. She later moved on to consumer affairs and appeared as the consumer affairs expert on NBC's Today (1952) for 16 years. Betty Furness died at age 78 of stomach cancer on April 2, 1994 in New York City.707 points- Actress
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
Her father was a police lieutenant and imbued in her a military attitude to life. Marlene was known in school for her "bedroom eyes" and her first affairs were at this stage in her life - a professor at the school was terminated. She entered the cabaret scene in 1920s Germany, first as a spectator then as a cabaret singer. In 1923, she married and, although she and Rudolf Sieber lived together only 5 years, they remained married until his death. She was in over a dozen silent films in increasingly important roles. In 1929, she was seen in a Berlin cabaret by Josef von Sternberg and, after a screen test, captured the role of the cabaret singer in The Blue Angel (1930) (and became von Sternberg's lover). With the success of this film, von Sternberg immediately took her to Hollywood, introducing her to the world in Morocco (1930), and signing an agreement to produce all her films. A series of successes followed, and Marlene became the highest paid actress of her time, but her later films in the mid-part of the decade were critical and popular failures. She returned to Europe at the end of the decade, with a series of affairs with former leading men (she had a reputation of romancing her co-stars), as well as other prominent artistic figures. In 1939, an offer came to star with James Stewart in a western and, after initial hesitation, she accepted. The film was Destry Rides Again (1939) - the siren of film could also be a comedienne and a remarkable comeback was reality. She toured extensively for the allied effort in WW II (she had become a United States citizen) and, after the war, limited her cinematic life. But a new career as a singer and performer appeared, with reviews and shows in Las Vegas, touring theatricals, and even Broadway. New success was accompanied by a too close acquaintance with alcohol, until falls in her performance eventually resulted in a compound fracture of the leg. Although the last 13 years of her life were spent in seclusion in her apartment in Paris, with the last 12 years in bed, she had withdrawn only from public life and maintained active telephone and correspondence contact with friends and associates.707 points- One of the many "also rans" or "might-have-beens" in 1930's Hollywood was a blonde beauty queen of Swedish/Austrian ancestry, named Irene Ware. She was actually born Irene Ahlberg in Pelham, New York and first plied her trade as a stenographer before other endeavours piqued her interest. Aged eighteen, she ran second in an International Beauty Contest (which went by the misnomer of 'Miss Universe') in Galveston, Texas. The $1000 prize money would have gone a long way to enabling her start in showbiz. She duly made it that very year, joining the ensemble of Earl Carroll's Sketchbook on Broadway. Irene seemed to have possessed just the right blend of talent, charisma and sex appeal, since she managed to replace Lillian Roth for a top-billed spot in the 1930 edition of the "Vanities". Before the show had even run its course, Irene Ahlberg signed a two-year contract with Fox and changed her surname to Ware.
In only her second Hollywood outing, she was assigned the role of the female lead in Chandu the Magician (1932), opposite co-stars Edmund Lowe (as Chandu) and Bela Lugosi (as the evil Roxor). The picture itself was critically derided as naive and implausible, but most reviewers found the newcomer's performance refreshingly unaffected (this was by no means commonplace: the practice of overacting and histrionics persisted for years after the advent of sound, a holdover from previous decades). The New York Times critic praised Irene as "a charming juvenile". Ultimately, that meant little. For her next ten outings with Fox, she was destined for ornamental second leads in bad pictures or barely glimpsed in uncredited bits in average ones. When her contract expired in 1934, she signed with Universal but fared no better. Her single role of note saw her paired with Lugosi once again, this time as a dancer obsessed over by a maniacal Poe-fixated surgeon in The Raven (1935). Reviews called this "the season's worst horror film", and a tepid affair it definitely was. Irene's performance may have been one of few redeeming qualities, her Jean Thatcher being rather less annoyingly helpless and fragile than the typical heroines of the genre. "The Raven" spelled the end of her career. In its aftermath came B-movies with Poverty Row outfits like Monogram and Invincible. In 1940, Irene Ware called it quits and faded into obscurity, to be seen in pictures 'nevermore'.702 points - Frances Drake was born on 22 October 1912 in New York City, New York, USA. She was an actress, known for Mad Love (1935), The Preview Murder Mystery (1936) and The Invisible Ray (1935). She was married to David Brown and Lt. Cecil John Arthur Howard. She died on 18 January 2000 in Irvine, California, USA.702 points