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1-26 of 26
- Actress
- Soundtrack
A performer since childhood (she was widely known then as "Cuddles"), pert and pretty, raven-haired Lila Lee was brought to Hollywood by Paramount mogul Jesse L. Lasky and debuted in a starring role with The Cruise of the Make-Believes (1918) as a poor girl supported by a rich admirer. Following her appearance as a servant wench in Cecil B. DeMille's Male and Female (1919), Paramount starting grooming her to eventually supplant the highly temperamental and troublesome Gloria Swanson. Lila's talent, however, was lighter in weight and, though she enjoyed great popularity in such films as Blood and Sand (1922) with Rudolph Valentino, Another Man's Wife (1924), The Midnight Girl (1925), Love, Live and Laugh (1929) co-starring George Jessel and The Unholy Three (1930) opposite Lon Chaney, Swanson had little to worry about. A series of bad judgments and highly publicized bouts with illness led to Lila's swift decline. She made a few dismal comebacks on stage and in TV soaps in the 1950s but to little fanfare. Her last picture was as a hayseed mom in the deservedly obscure Cottonpickin' Chickenpickers (1967). Her actor-turned-writer son James Kirkwood Jr., however, earned fame on his own for penning the play "P.S. Your Cat Is Dead" and the musical "A Chorus Line." Lila died of a stroke in 1973.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Maurice Lionel Gosfield was born on January 28, 1913 in New York City, but raised in Philadelphia and later Evanston, Il., where he began acting with the Ralph Bellamy and Melvyn Douglas Players, later joining the summer stock theater circuit in 1930. He made his Broadway debut as Manero in the play Siege in 1937, and his other stage credits included The Petrified Forest, Three Men on a Horse and Room Service.
During World War II, he served in the U.S. Army as a Tech 4 in the 8th Armored Division.
From 1955 to 1959, Gosfield played Pvt. Duane Doberman in The Phil Silvers Show (originally titled You'll Never Get Rich in it's first season). In the biography of the show's creator Nat Hiken, he detailed the casting of the role and the effect that Gosfield had on him, the producer and Phil Silvers when he appeared in front of them:
"The dumpy, spectacularly ugly Maurice Gosfield ambled into an open casting call one day, brandishing an enormous list of credits. A handful of his bit parts on stage are easy enough to confirm; more difficult to pin down are his claims of two-thousand radio credits and one hundred TV appearances...None of the man's background, though, really mattered to Hiken and Silvers once they got a good look at him. Nat had already picked someone to play the most woebegone member of Bilko's platoon (Maurice Brenner), but immediately he knew that here was the man born for the part." Brenner was later recast as Pvt. Irving Fleischman.
In 1959, Gosfield was nominated for a Primetime Emmy for Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series. He was also the voice of Benny the Ball in the animated cartoon series Top Cat (1961-62), which was partially based on the Sergeant Bilko series.
On October 14, 1964, while Gosfield was performing in a play at New York Theatre, he kept losing his balance and repeatedly falling asleep. He was diagnosed as having critical hypertension and was given seven different medications, which he was told to take for the rest of his life. On October 17, he suffered a heart attack and was rushed to New York Hospital, where he was reportedly not breathing and CPR was performed. After he was admitted, his condition improved, and as a result his close friend Arnold Stang (the voice of Top Cat) told him that a remake of Top Cat was in the works, and that his role was waiting for him when he recovered. Tragically, only two hours after Stang left, Gosfield suffered a second and instantly fatal heart attack on October 19, 1964, and Stang was phoned the next morning. He then broke the sad news to producers William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, who were both devastated by Gosfield's sudden death, and they decided not to make a new Top Cat series, as they could not find an adequate replacement for Benny the Ball's voice.
Maurice Gosfield was buried at Long Island National Cemetery, Suffolk County, New York.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Pencil-mustachioed character actor in Hollywood films of the '30s and '40s, cast perennially as a reeling, incoherent, comic drunk, often clad in evening clothes and satin high hat. In an effort to make his characterizations convincing, he often followed drunks and watched their movements closely in order to copy them. In real life, he was a total abstainer from alcohol.- American actor of silent films. A native of Albany, New York, the son of a railroad engineer, he began a career in government, serving as confidential stenographer and then secretary to Governor William Sulzer of New York. Sulzer's impeachment and removal from office left Crane without a job, and he obtained a commission in the U.S. Navy. While stationed at the Navy's San Diego, California submarine base, Crane met a number of visiting movie personalities including Allan Dwan, who suggested the handsome young officer try the movies. Following the war, he did so, making his debut in 1919. He gained work as a leading man, but more frequently played darker roles. An attack of pleurisy led him to a rest cure in the resort of Saranac Lake, New York. Pneumonia developed and he died three months later, aged 37.
- George Victor Martin was born on 16 December 1900 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. George Victor was a writer, known for Pals of the Silver Sage (1940) and Our Vines Have Tender Grapes (1945). George Victor died on 26 November 1959 in Saranac Lake, New York, USA.
- Director
- Writer
- Editor
Fred Sullivan was a pioneering filmmaker in New York State's Adirondack Park. He attended film school in Boston and came to the Adirondacks to direct his first feature, Cold River. Fred died suddenly while playing basketball at Paul Smith's College.- Writer
- Actress
Emma-Lindsay Squier was born on 1 December 1892 in Marion, Indiana, USA. She was a writer and actress, known for Dancing Pirate (1936), The Angry God (1948) and The Magical World of Disney (1954). She died on 16 September 1941 in Saranac Lake, New York, USA.- Evelyn Ellis was born on 2 February 1894 in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. She was an actress, known for The Lady from Shanghai (1947), The Joe Louis Story (1953) and A Son of Satan (1924). She died on 5 June 1958 in Saranac Lake, New York, USA.
- Gus Pixley was born in November 1879 in San Francisco, California, USA. He was an actor, known for An 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' Troupe (1913), The Girl from Porcupine (1921) and The Hungarian Nabob (1915). He was married to Mary Malatesta. He died on 2 June 1923 in Saranac Lake, New York, USA.
- Baseball was a popular sport in its first 30 years, but it had always lacked one thing: a superstar. The 19th century was full of great players who won great popularity, but one thing the period lacked was a superstar the masses could idolize. The sport eventually did find its first superstar in the form of Christy Mathewson, a handsome, college-educated gentleman who stood as the shining star in the brutal world of early baseball.
Matty, as he was known, seemed to have been the embodiment of Frank Meriwell, the virtuous baseball hero in a popular serial of the time. His only character flaw seemed to have been his arrogance, but his performance on the field justified this arrogance. He had a good grasp of the standard pitches, the fastball, the curve ball and the change-up, and he had perfected a reverse-curve ball that made him one of the most dominating pitchers of the era. It is known today as a screwball, but players back them called it a fade-away, for it seemed to fade away from the hitter's line of sight. He threw all of these pitches with pinpoint precision. To top it off, Mathewson had a degree of intelligence that was almost impossible to find in early baseball. He was book-smart, having been educated at Bucknell College, in a sport where many of the players could barely read and write, and was known to have been a terrific checkers player. And he was smart on the field. It was Christy Mathewson who coined the phrase, "You can learn little from victory. You can learn everything from defeat."
Mathewson was a child of a wealthy farmer. He played an active role during his three years in college, and was a star athlete in three sports. During the summers he would play in various minor-league teams. He was purchased by the Giants, but was released after going 0-3 in his first major league season in 1900. He was later signed by both the Philadelphia Athletics (of the brand-new American League) and the Cincinnati Reds. To complicate things, the Reds mysteriously traded Mathewson to the Giants for the burned-out fireballer Amos Rusie. Forced to decide whether to return to the Giants or enter the American League, Mathewson decided to stick with the latter. He was good but not great in his first two full seasons with the Giants. He pitched a no-hitter, but went 34-34. The Giants manager tried to convert Mathewson to an infielder in 1902, but when new manager John J. McGraw arrived, he encouraged Mathewson to give pitching all he had, and Mathewson delivered. He won at least 30 games in the next three seasons (30, 33, 31) and, alongside Joe McGinnity, led the Giants to consecutive pennants in 1904 and 1905. In 1905 he pitched in his first World Series. Having already pitched a no-hitter, he continued his dominance by hurling three complete game shutouts as the Giants easily topped the A's. Mathewson won a career-high 37 games in 1908, but the one win he couldn't get turned out to be the most important. A playoff game was required between the Giants and the Cubs after they were tied in the regular season (after a legendary game that deserves a thread of its own), as he lost 4-2 to Mordecai Brown. The Cubs went on to win the World Series, and never won again: The Curse of the 1908 Giants (that darned Billy goat gets too much credit.)
Mathewson never failed to win at least 20 games in a staggering 12 consecutive seasons (1903-1914). His 300th win came in his 23-win 1912 season. Needing only 11 wins to get to the milestone after 1911, Mathewson won the first ten games quickly. His 300th career victory came on June 13, 1912 against none other than the Chicago Cubs. He was unable to get even with Brown. Instead, he topped staff ace 'Larry Cheney' for a 4-3 victory. Mathewson teamed up with Rube Marquard to bring the Giants another pennant that year, but suffered a rare mental lapse in the deciding game of the World Series and eventually lost to the Boston Red Sox. After a 24-win season in 1914, Mathewson's arm began fading in 1915, and went 8-14 while pitching half as much as he used to. Mathewson was asked to manage the Reds in the middle of 1916, and so Giants management agreed to trade the fading Mathewson to Cincinnati, where he finally got his revenge for the embarrassing loss to Brown in his 373rd and final career win.
Mathewson continued to manage the Reds after his career ended, and he turned the pitiful Reds from a cellar-dweller to a .500 club. In 1918, he was one of many players (and former players) that enlisted in the Army to fight in the Great War. Mathewson was assigned to train recruits how to put on gas masks, and was unfortunately exposed to mustard gas during a drill, and it permanently injured his lungs. After the war, Mathewson went to coach for the Giants, but was bothered by a nasty cough. Doctors discovered that Matty had contracted tuberculosis, a potentially fatal lung disease. Mathewson moved to a sanitarium, where he stayed for a few years to recuperate. As soon as he showed improvement, Mathewson purchased the Boston Braves in 1923 with James McDonough and Emil Fuchs, the former attorney for the Giants. However, the team was always in dire financial straits, and Fuchs was eventually forced to sell the team when not even bringing Babe Ruth over from the Yankess could turn things around. Matty's health steadily worsened, and eventually he had to return to the sanitarium.
His death crushed not only the baseball world, but also the nation, for they had lost one of their earliest and most beloved sports heroes. Nobody was sadder than John J. McGraw, who loved Mathewson as though he was the son McGraw never had. In 1936, Mathewson was one of the first five men that were elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. It may be arguable that there were better pitchers than Matty, but there's no denying that Mathewson was one of baseball's finest gentlemen. - Actor
- Soundtrack
Songwriter ("Georgia Moonlight", "Steamboat Rag"), composer, pianist and publisher, educated at the Charlottenberg Conservatory and other music studies in Italy and Austria. He returned to the USA in 1901 and became a vaudeville pianist and entertainer. During World War I, he served in the 89th Division of the Allied Expeditionary Forces. He led dance orchestras, and was active in music for three years throughout the Panama Canal Zone. He joined ASCAP in 1921, and formed his own publishing company. Collaborating musically with George Norton and Paul Cunningham, his other song compositions include "My Melancholy Baby", "My Kathleen", "Please Take a Letter, Miss Brown", "Romance Rides the Range Tonight", "There's a New Moon in the Sky Tonight", "There'll Be a Jubilation Bye and Bye", and "Only Ashes Remain".- Script and Continuity Department
- Additional Crew
Felicia Manheim was born on 16 August 1927. She is known for The Ladykillers (1955), The Man in the White Suit (1951) and The Love Lottery (1954). She died on 10 June 2009 in Saranac Lake, New York, USA.- Owen Martin was born on 16 December 1888 in County Monaghan, Ireland, UK. He was an actor, known for The Pajama Game (1957), The Parson and the Bully (1911) and A Mail Bride (1932). He died on 4 May 1960 in Saranac Lake, New York, USA.
- Art Department
- Set Decorator
- Actor
Tony DeGregorio was a set decorator and actor, known for Star Trek Phase II (2004). He was married to Denise Raspini. He died on 23 January 2012 in Saranac Lake, New York, USA.- Percy Carr was born on 25 August 1873 in Kingston upon Thames, England, UK. He was an actor, known for One Exciting Night (1922), The Ragged Edge (1923) and Vincennes (1923). He died on 22 November 1926 in Saranac Lake, New York, USA.
- Composer
- Soundtrack
Silvio Hein was born on 15 March 1879 in New York City, New York, USA. He was a composer, known for Charity (1916), M*A*S*H (1972) and The Lambs' All-Star Gambol (1914). He was married to Anna V. Mooney. He died on 19 December 1928 in Saranac Lake, New York, USA.- Macey Harlam was born on 27 April 1873 in New York City, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for Bella Donna (1923), The Right to Love (1920) and The Conquest of Canaan (1921). He died on 17 June 1923 in Saranac Lake, New York, USA.
- Manuel Quezon was born on 19 August 1878 in Baler, Tayabas, Philippines. He was married to Aurora A. Quezon. He died on 1 August 1944 in Saranac Lake, New York, USA.
- Alan Brooks was born on 25 January 1888 in New York City, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for Pals in Paradise (1926), The King of Kings (1927) and Young April (1926). He died on 29 September 1936 in Saranac Lake, New York, USA.
- Soundtrack
Herbert Ingraham was born on 7 July 1883 in Aurora, Illinois, USA. Herbert died on 24 August 1910 in Saranac Lake, New York, USA.- George Majeroni was born on 11 January 1877 in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. He was an actor, known for Bella Donna (1915), The Sign of the Cross (1914) and Beating the Odds (1919). He died on 5 August 1924 in Saranac Lake, New York, USA.
- Orme Caldara was born on 9 February 1875 in Empire City, Oregon, USA. He was an actor, known for The Spreading Dawn (1917). He was married to Julia Dean. He died on 21 October 1925 in Saranac Lake, New York, USA.
- Jack Shea was born on 7 September 1910 in Lake Placid, New York, USA. He was married to Elizabeth Stearns. He died on 22 January 2002 in Saranac Lake, New York, USA.
- John Woodford was born in 1862 in Austin, Texas, USA. He was an actor, known for The Winning Stroke (1919), The Rider of the King Log (1921) and Ten Nights in a Bar Room (1921). He died on 17 April 1927 in Saranac Lake, New York, USA.
- George M. Hall was born in 1890 in Sweden. He was an actor, known for West of Broadway (1926), Green-Eyed Love (1928) and Dummy Love (1926). He died on 24 April 1930 in Saranac Lake, New York, USA.
- Actor
- Soundtrack
John Edward (Eddie) Vogt had a long career in vaudeville, on stage and in films, mostly silent. His earliest films were made in at the Wharton Studios in Ithaca, New York. He was the son of John Christian Vogt and Mary Gertrude Trunk. Around 1922, while living at 564 Riverside Drive in New York City, he married a Goldie Hunt.
In the early 1920s he created a long-running act with fellow vaudevillian Frank Hurst, who acted as singer and straight man to Vogt's comedy. They were well received in theatres across the United States, and were starred in a Vitaphone short entitled "Before the Bar (1929)" in 1929. His dark and mature good looks made him suitable for the brief part of radio announcer in the 1933 Vitaphone short "Isham Jones & His Orchestra (1934)." In 1937, he moved to Saranac Lake, New York for tuberculosis treatment at Will Rogers Memorial Hospital (built in 1928-'29 as the National Vaudeville Artists Lodge). After regaining his health he became an X-Ray assistant there and lived in the N.V.A. Home. In the 1940s Vogt became a radio personality (playing old records) on station WNBZ and wrote a very popular newspaper column, "Our Town," for the Adirondack Daily Enterprise. Following an illness he reduced his daily column to weekly. He died of tuberculosis in 1960. The N.V.A. home closed it doors in 1975. His widow died in Tonawanda in1976.