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Warner Oland was born Johan Verner Olund in the small village of Nyby in Bjurholm parish in the county of Vasterbotten, Sweden, on October 3, 1879. Bjurholm is situated about 60 kilometers outside the town of Umea. His family emigrated to the US on October 15, 1892. His father Jonas was a shopkeeper and his mother was Maria Johanna (nee Forsberg).
After finishing grade school and working on Broadway during his 20s, Oland settled in California in the early 1910s, where he worked odd jobs. The movie industry was in its beginning stages in Hollywood, and Johan Olund--changing his name to the more Americanized "Warner Oland"--worked as a stage actor for a while before getting small parts in films in the 1910s and 1920s. As Hollywood made the transition from silent to sound pictures in the late 1920s (Oland co-starred in Warner Brothers' groundbreaking part-talkie The Jazz Singer (1927)), he began landing more prominent roles.
His greatest success came in 1931 when he was cast in the role of Charlie Chan, a Honolulu-based Chinese-American police detective in Charlie Chan Carries On (1931), based on the popular detective mystery series by Earl Derr Biggers [1884-1933] which was produced by Fox Films. His performance as the seemingly mild-mannered but razor-sharp Asian detective won him critical acclaim, which resulted in his playing Chan again in the sequel, The Black Camel (1931).
The success of the Chan character turned into a cash cow for Fox Studios and Oland became a valuable property. It seems incredible today, but in Fox's pre-Shirley Temple period, Oland was considered the only guaranteed profit maker on the lot. He became wealthy and bred miniature schnauzers. Although seemingly happy, Oland became increasingly dependent upon alcohol and exhibited bizarre delusional behavior after periods of drinking.
Oland appeared in a total of 16 Charlie Chan feature films from 1931 to 1937. The Chan films were budgeted approaching 1930s A-picture levels (approximately $275,000) and were usually shot within tight 30-day schedules, three films per year (sadly, a number of these have apparently been lost). The series was pretty much the only guaranteed profit-maker the ailing studio could bank on during the days leading to its takeover by ex-Warner's production chief Darryl F. Zanuck in 1935, that resulted in its transformation from Fox Films into Twentieth Century-Fox.
From 1931 to 1935 Oland did other films besides the Chan series, but he was increasingly relegated to roles that didn't vary much beyond mysterious Asians, and in mid-1935 he became so identified as Charlie Chan that he was assigned to the series exclusively. His last eight films were all Chan entries, usually co-starring Keye Luke, who played Chan's Number One Son. While considered somewhat stereotypical today, these films were met with wide critical acclaim and all were hugely profitable. The best of the series is generally considered to be Charlie Chan at the Opera (1936), featuring lavish set design and a particularly effective menacing villain in Boris Karloff.
Oland's physical and mental problems slowly began to catch up to him, and in 1937 he was said to have suffered a nervous breakdown apparently due to some kind of mental dementia. The Fox executives, knowing that Oland was one of its biggest money earners, kept his alcoholism and mental problems hidden from the public. In November 1937, Edith, his wife of 30 years, filed for divorce. In January 1938 "Charlie Chan at (the) Ringside" began production at Fox's Western Avenue lot under the direction of James Tinling with an increasingly erratic Oland. After a few days shooting inside Studio 6, Oland walked out and never returned. He was heard complaining the studio was possessed by voodoo and feared contracting pneumonia. Over the next month there were numerous negotiations between Oland and SAG (Oland had been an early member) and production was briefly resumed, then suspended after Oland again failed to report to work. He was hospitalized and released, then decided to return to his mother's home in Sweden. Oland's film career, unbeknown to him, was over. In the interim, producer Sol M. Wurtzel, desperate to salvage the property, ordered the Chan picture reworked as Mr. Moto's Gamble (1938), with minor supporting cast changes. Successful negotiations were made with the Biggers' estate and the film was quickly shot with Peter Lorre and released April 7, 1938. The film itself remains an anachronism in the Moto series, as it contains much Chan-like dialog, tacked on Moto-esque action scenes and a guest-starring role by Keye Luke. Regardless, it was also a hit.
During his visit to Sweden, Oland negotiated a reconciliation with Edith but contracted bronchial pneumonia and died there on August 6, 1938, at age 57. Ironically, Fox contract (and Chan series) director John G. Blystone died the same day.
Numerous actors were tested to fill Oland's shoes as Charlie Chan, among them Cy Kendall, Walter Connolly, J. Edward Bromberg, Noah Beery Jr., Michael Visaroff and Leo Carillo (Kendall and Connelly had played Chan on radio). The series continued at Fox for another 11 entries with Sidney Toler, who was signed by Zanuck in mid-October 1938. Toler injected more humor into the character as scripts became somewhat more pedestrian. By 1942 Fox considered the series exhausted and it would ultimately be sold to low-budget studio Monogram Pictures and continue on even after Toler's death in 1947 with Roland Winters in the role through six dismal films into 1949.
In a postscript, Fox director Norman Foster paid a subtle tribute to Oland in the next Moto film, Mr. Moto's Last Warning (1938). During that movie's production in August 1938, cast and crew learned of Oland's passing in his native Sweden. Over the title Charlie Chan in Honolulu (1938), on the bill of the Sultana Theatre of Variety, they placed the banner "Last Day."- Director
- Actor
- Producer
Georges Méliès was a French illusionist and film director famous for leading many technical and narrative developments in the earliest days of cinema.
Méliès was an especially prolific innovator in the use of special effects, popularizing such techniques as substitution splices, multiple exposures, time-lapse photography, dissolves, and hand-painted color.
His films include A Trip to the Moon (1902) and An Impossible Voyage (1904), both involving strange, surreal journeys somewhat in the style of Jules Verne, and are considered among the most important early science fiction films.
Méliès died of cancer on 21 January 1938 at the age of 76.
In 2016, a Méliès film long thought lost, A Wager Between Two Magicians, or, Jealous of Myself (1904), was discovered in a Czechoslovak film archive.- Florence Lawrence was the first film player whose name was used to promote her films and the studio (Independent Moving Pictures Company [IMP]) for which she worked. Before her, actors and actresses worked anonymously, partly out of fear that stage managers would refuse to hire them if they were found to be working in films and partly because movie executives didn't want to put much money into the production of these short, practically disposable films, and didn't want their players to become well known and start demanding higher salaries. Lawrence was on the stage from age three, appearing in musicals and plays, whistling and playing the violin. At 20 she was cast in the Edison production of Daniel Boone (1907), and that led to work at Vitagraph Studios. From there she was hired by Biograph, where she refined and perfected her craft under the direction of D.W. Griffith. In 1909 she left Biograph to seek more recognizable employment at another film company. As a result she was blacklisted by the Motion Picture Trust, headed by Thomas A. Edison, to which most motion-picture producers belonged and which held the patents on most film production equipment and would not allow any companies that did not belong to the Trust to use them. Carl Laemmle started IMP in late 1909, and refused to join the Motion Picture Trust. The Trust took action--both legal and otherwise--to discourage Laemmle from producing films on his own. Lawrence and her husband, director Harry Solter, signed on as IMP's first featured players. In 1910 Laemmle, partly out of anger over the Trust's actions--such as hiring thugs to attack his film crews and wreck his equipment--decided to advertise the fact that he had Miss Lawrence. She made the first personal appearance of a film star in St. Louis, MO, that March, and the resulting publicity made her famous (and also increased the grosses on her--and Laemmle's--films). Other film companies soon followed suit, and the names of film actors and actresses began to appear in all segments of the media. Lawrence worked for IMP for a year, then spent another year at Lubin before she began her own production company, Victor, where she worked on and off until 1914. After a stage accident in which she injured her back, she retired from films, only to be lured back in 1916 for her first feature, Elusive Isabel (1916). It was unsuccessful. She tried a comeback again in 1921; that, too, was unsuccessful. She settled into bit parts and character roles through the 1920s and 1930s. She committed suicide in 1938 after years of unhappiness and illness. She was found in her apartment on Dec. 27, 1938 and died soon afterward in hospital.
- Prolific "heavy" in American films of the silent and early talkie eras. A native of Kansas City, Missouri, Kohler left home as a teenager, working various jobs while trying to establish a career in vaudeville. During this time, according to his son, actor Fred Kohler Jr., Kohler worked in a mine and lost part of his right hand in a dynamite accident. Eventually he fell in with a touring theatrical company and worked onstage around the U.S. for several years. In his mid-twenties, he ended up in California and found roles in silent films. He quickly found a niche as a villain, by virtue of his imposing size and his fearsome features, typically and most memorably in The Iron Horse (1924). He worked primarily in Westerns, but films of all sorts benefited from his skill at screen nastiness. In a series of silent Paramount Westerns based on Zane Grey novels, Kohler not only played the heavy, but also repeated some of those roles when these films were remade as talkies a decade later. His career lasted without let-up until his sudden death due to a heart attack at 51 in 1938.
- Actor
- Writer
This West Point-educated actor was a tall, dark and handsome American co-star who romanced some of the most illustrious femme stars ever to appear on the silent silver screen. Conway Tearle was born in New York City on May 17, 1878 to a family of entertainers. Christened Frederick Conway Levy, his father, Jules, was a jazz musician, and mother Marianne Conway, an American actress. Divorced when Conway was quite young, his mother subsequently married British Shakespearean actor/theatre manager Osmond Tearle and Conway was raised in England from the age of 10.
Tearle gained experience on his stepfather's stage and was alternately billed as "Frederick Levy" and "Frederick Conway" before settling on the marquee name of Conway Tearle. Having returned to the U.S. in 1905, he made his Broadway debut with "Abigail" that same year and would make a name for himself as a reliable romancer for nearly a decade before attempting films in 1914. His two half brothers, Godfrey Tearle and Malcolm Tearle would also become actors on both the stage and screen.
Tearle's more famous films are deemed "women's pictures," where he appeared meticulously as a dashing hero or ardent lover. Among his more notable were Helene of the North (1915) opposite Marguerite Clark, The Foolish Virgin (1916) and The Common Law (1916) both starring Clara Kimball Young, Stella Maris (1918) with Mary Pickford, A Virtuous Vamp (1919) with Constance Talmadge, She Loves and Lies (1920) and The Eternal Flame (1922), both opposite Norma Talmadge, Lilies of the Field (1924) featuring Corinne Griffith, and Dancing Mothers (1926) starring Clara Bow. Conway made a smooth transition into sound pictures and remained a leading star or prime support in "B" level pictures.
Tearle ended his film career spurned by Mae West in Klondike Annie (1936) and with a lesser role in the lavish production Romeo and Juliet (1936) starring Norma Shearer and Leslie Howard. In 1937 he appeared in his final stage lead with the comedy "Hey, Diddle Diddle." Headed for a Broadway run, the show had to close early in Washington, D.C. because of Tearle's poor health. He died in Hollywood of a heart attack at age 60, on October 1, 1938.- Director
- Additional Crew
Konstantin Stanislavski was a wealthy Russian businessman turned director who founded the Moscow Art Theatre, and originated the Stanislavski's System of acting which was spread over the world by his students, such as Michael Chekhov, Aleksei Dikij, Stella Adler, Viktor Tourjansky, and Richard Boleslawski among many others.
He was born Konstantin Sergeevich Alekseev on January 5, 1863, in Moscow, Russia. His father, Sergei Alekseev, was a wealthy Russian merchant. His mother, Elisaveta Vasilevna (nee Yakovleva) was French-Russian and his grandmother was a notable actress in Paris. Young Stanislavski grew up in a bilingual environment. He was fond of theatre and arts, studied piano and singing, and performed amateur plays at home with his elder brother and two sisters. He studied business and languages at Lasarevsky Institute, the most prestigious private school in Moscow. He did not graduate, instead he continued self-education while traveling in several European countries and studying at libraries and museums. Eventually Stanislavski joined his father's company, became a successful businessman, and the head of his father's business, the Alekseev's factory and other assets. During the 1880s Stanislavski made a fortune in international business and trade, he was awarded the Gold Medal at the World's Fair in Paris. At the same time, he was an active patron of arts and theatre in Russia. In 1885 he studied acting and directing at the Maly Theatre in Moscow, and took a stage name Stanislavski. In 1888 he founded the "Society for Arts and Literature" in Moscow.
In 1898 Stanislavski together with his partner, Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko, founded the Moscow Art Theatre, which made a profound influence on theatrical art all over the world. They opened with staging of "Tsar Feodor" a play by Aleksei Tolstoy, then staged "The Seagull" written by Anton Chekhov specially for the Moscow Art Theatre. In 1900 Stanislavski brought the Moscow Art Theatre on tour in Sebastopol and Yalta in Crimea, where he invited then ailing Anton Chekhov to see several plays. Chekhov admired the company's stage production of his plays, and respected the theatrical achievements of Stanislavski and Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko. Chekhov's legendary collaboration with the Moscow Art Theatre was fruitful for both sides: it resulted in creation of such classics as 'The Seagull', 'Uncle Vanya', 'The Three Sisters', and 'The Cherry Orchard', the four big plays which remained in the repertoire ever since.
Stanislavski's system was developed through his own cross-cultural experience as actor, director, and businessman. He constantly updated his method through inter-disciplinary studies, absorbing from a range of sources and influences, such as the modernist developments, yoga and Pavlovian behaviorist psychology. He introduced group rehearsals and relaxation techniques to achieve better spiritual connections between actors. Pavlovian approach worked well by conditioning actors through discipline in longer, organized rehearsals, and using a thorough analysis of characters. Stanislavski himself was involved in a long and arduous practice making every actor better prepared for stage performance and eventually producing a less rigid acting style. In his own words, Stanislavski described his early approach as "Spiritual Realism." His actors worked hard to deliver perfectly believable performances, as none of his actors wanted to hear his famous verdict, "I don't believe."
As an actor, Stanislavski starred in several classical plays. His most notable stage performances, such as Othello in the Shakespeare's 'Othello', and as Gayev in Chekhov's 'The Cherry Orchard', were acclaimed by critics and loved by public. His own students said that Stanislavski was a very comfortable partner on stage, due to his highly professional and truthful acting. At the same time, he could be very demanding off stage, because of his high standards, especially during his lengthy and rigorous rehearsals, requiring nothing less but the full devotion from each actor of his company, the Moscow Art Theatre.
After the Russian Revolution of 1917, his factory and all other business property was nationalized by the Soviet Communists, but he was allowed to own his mansion in Moscow. Stanislavski wisely let go of all his wealth and possessions and expressed himself in writing and directing. He remained the principal director of Moscow Art Theatre for the rest of his life. During the turbulent years before and after the Russian Revolution, and later in the 1920s and 30s, he witnessed bitter rivalry among his former students. Some actors emigrated from Russia, others fought for their share of success, and the Moscow Art Theatre was eventually divided into several companies.
In 1928 Stanislavski suffered from a heart attack. He then distanced himself from disputes and competition between his former students Michael Chekhov and Aleksei Dikij, whose individual ambitions resulted in further fragmentation of the original Moscow Art Theatre company. At the same time, his younger apprentice, Nikolay Khmelyov, remained loyal to the teacher, and eventually later filled the position held by Stanislavski at Moscow Art Theatre. However, his other students, such as Vsevolod Meyerhold and Yevgeni Vakhtangov founded their own theatre companies and continued using their versions of the Stanislavski's system. In the 1930s, Stanislavski together with Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko formed one more theatrical company in Moscow, the Musical Theatre of Stanislavski and Nemirovich-Danchenko.
Stanislavski was a proponent of democratic ideas, such as equal opportunity and equal value of every human being on the planet. At that time Stanislavski's nephew was arrested for political reasons, and died in the Gulag prison-camp. Stanislavsky was also under permanent surveillance, because his Moscow Art Theatre was frequently attended by Joseph Stalin and other Soviet strongmen. However, at that time Moscow Art Theatre became especially popular, because Russian intellectuals needed a cultural oasis to escape from the grim Soviet reality. Under Stanislavski the Moscow Art Theatre produced several brilliant plays by Mikhail A. Bulgakov, and also continued running such classics as 'The Seagull', 'The Cherry Orchard', 'The Lower Bottom' and other original productions of plays by Anton Chekhov and Maxim Gorky.
In his later years, Stanislavsky wrote a book titled "An Actor Prepares" which, in Charley Chaplin's words, ".. helps all people to reach out for big dramatic art. It tells what an actor needs to rouse the inspiration he requires for expressing profound emotions." Stanislavsky explained how actors may use his System, "Create your own method. Don't depend slavishly on mine. Make up something that will work for you! But keep braking traditions, I beg you!" And that was exactly what the best of his followers did. Stanislavski's ideas were used by many acting teachers, such as Michael Chekhov, Stella Adler, and Lee Strasberg, among others across the world.
During the 1930s Konstantin Stanislavski directed the original productions of several classic Russian plays, such as "Na Dne" (aka.. The Lower Depths) by Maxim Gorky, "Tsar Fedor Ioannovich" by A.K. Tolstoy, and other plays at the Moscow Art Theatre. After Stanislavski's death his original theatrical productions were adapted to black and white films, where Stanislavsky is credited as the original theatrical director. He died of a heart failure on August 7, 1938, in Moscow and was laid to rest in Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow, Russia.
Stanislavski's mansion in central Moscow is now a public museum and research center displaying a collection of original stage sets and theatrical costumes. Stanislavski's personal library is also part of his museum. It has rare books that he collected in his numerous travels, as well as original manuscripts and letters by Stanislavski.- Writer
- Director
- Producer
Robert Wiene was born on 24 April 1873 in Breslau, Silesia, Germany [now Wroclaw, Dolnoslaskie, Poland]. He was a writer and director, known for The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), Das wandernde Licht (1916) and The Knight of the Rose (1925). He died on 17 July 1938 in Paris, France.- Mathilde Comont was born on 9 September 1886 in Bordeaux, France. She was an actress, known for La Bohème (1926), Poor Little Rich Girl (1936) and Paris at Midnight (1926). She died on 21 June 1938 in Hollywood, California, USA.
- Born on her father's farm in Green Ridge, Missouri, the youngest of five children. Moved with her family to Springfield, Missouri, where she grew up. Joined the Diemer Theatre Company during her second year of high school, and went on the road with a touring stock company at age 18, in 1907. Signed by the Powers Film Co. in New York in 1910, and proceeded to work thereafter for many companies in starring roles. In 1914, she starred in Pathe's The Perils of Pauline, the fifth serial chapter play ever made. She became an international star therein and was the leading heroine of serial films for the next several years. Following an unsuccessful attempt to achieve the same success in feature films, and with her health deteriorating, she retired in 1923, living in France until her death in 1938.
- Actor
- Writer
- Director
Generally spoken of as Swedish theater's most legendary stage actor, Gösta Ekman enjoyed a prolific stage career during his short life, becoming the first real star of Swedish theater. His boyish good looks attracted both sexes, helping to create a massive cult following and elevating him to the status of a living legend. Combined with a beautiful voice and a powerful stage presence, Ekman was able to captivate his audiences.- Writer
- Additional Crew
E.C. Segar was born on 8 December 1894 in Chester, Illinois, USA. He was a writer, known for Popeye (1980), Untitled Popeye Live-action movie and Popeye and Friends: Vol. 1 (1937). He was married to Myrtle Annie Johnson. He died on 13 October 1938 in Santa Monica, California, USA.- Actor
- Director
- Writer
Harry Myers was born on 5 September 1882 in New Haven, Connecticut, USA. He was an actor and director, known for City Lights (1931), The Catch of the Season (1914) and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1921). He was married to Rosemary Theby and Nellie Campbell. He died on 25 December 1938 in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA.- Pauline Frederick was born Pauline Beatrice Libby in Boston, Massachusetts on August 12, 1883. She was fascinated with show business from an early age and throughout her childhood, she was bred for a career in music. It has been said she had a terrific soprano voice, but Pauline also dabbled a bit in acting. It was her acting ability that would make her famous. She starred in several stage productions with her manager, Benjamin Teal, guiding her every step of the way. Before long, Pauline was making a name for herself up and down the East Coast, especially in the hallowed halls of Broadway. The hard line critics raved of her appearances in productions such as "Samson" and "Joseph and His Brothers". Before long, it was recognized that a stage play with Pauline starring in it signified a top quality production. Pauline was at the pinnacle of her career, but with the fledgling film colony, then located in New York, it was only a matter of time before the movie moguls wooed her from the stage and into a film studio. They did. Pauline's first film on the silver screen was THE EMERALD CITY in 1915. She was 32, an age where most newcomers were much younger, but Pauline's reputation preceded her. Her name was a virtual drawing card for the flick and it turned out to be a success. Pauline was out of the gate and running. She had two other very successful films that year, BELLA DONNA and LYDIA GILMORE. The next two years saw Pauline in a number of high quality motion pictures. 1918 turned out to be a banner year for Pauline as her star power would shine bright with the critics and public alike in films such as FEDORA, RESURRECTION, and LA TOSCA. The latter film solidified Pauline's star power. In 1920, Pauline played Jacqueline Floriot in MADAME X in probably her greatest performance in her personal history. By now she had arrived in the new film colony of Hollywood, California to make films for Samuel Goldwyn. She quickly adapted to her new home. She began to pare back her film appearances, balancing her film work with continued acting on the stage in New York. But homesickness for her adopted home brought Pauline back to California and more starring roles. Because of her stage work and great screen presence, Pauline never had any trouble when movies switched from the silent era to sound. In 1932, Pauline she successfully played in WAYWARD with Nancy Carroll and Richard Arlen. Seven more sound films followed, each greeted with great success. Her final film was made in 1937 in THANK YOU, MR. MOTO. She may have continued to play on the big screen, after all she was only 54 years old. She had asthma which limited her activities somewhat. On September 19, 1938, Pauline died from that condition in Beverly Hills, California. She was just 55 years old.
- Actress
- Soundtrack
Lyda's father was German clown Roberti, her mother a Polish trick rider. As a child performer, she toured Europe and Asia with the Circus in which she was born, leaving it (and her reportedly abusive father) in Shanghai, China. In this truly international city, Lyda became a child cafe entertainer and learned the fractured English that became her trademark. Around 1927, she emigrated to California, finding work in vaudeville, where she was "discovered" in 1930 by Broadway producer Lou Holtz and became an overnight star in his 1931 show 'You Said It'. Lyda's unforgettable stage and screen character was a sexy blonde whose charming accent and uninhibited man-chasing were played for hilarious laughs. From 1932-35 she made 8 comedy and musical films mainly at Paramount, with Fields, Cantor, and other great comedians; her unique singing style was also popular on the radio and records. Her health declining from premature heart disease, she briefly replaced the late Thelma Todd in Hal Roach comedy shorts with Patsy Kelly and appeared in 3 features for MGM and Columbia, then retired from film work a few months before her fatal heart attack at age 31.- Mustafa was born in 1881 in Salonica, then an Ottoman Turkish city, in modern day Greece. His father, Ali Riza, a customs official-turned-lumber merchant, died when Mustafa was still a boy. His mother, Zubeyde, a devout and strong-willed woman, raised him and his younger sister by herself. First enrolled in a traditional Islamic religious school, he soon switched to a modern school. In 1893, he entered a military high school where his mathematics teacher gave him the second name Kemal (meaning perfection in Turkish) in recognition of young Mustafa's superior achievement. He was thereafter known as Mustafa Kemal.
In 1905, Mustafa Kemal graduated from the War Academy in Istanbul with the rank of Staff Captain. Posted in Damascus, Syria, then a part of the Ottoman Empire, he started with several colleagues a clandestine society called "Homeland and Freedom" to fight against the Sultan's despotism. In 1908, he helped the group of officers who toppled the Sultan. Mustafa Kemal's career flourished as he won his heroism in the far corners of the Ottoman Empire during the Italo-Turkish War of 1911-12 as well as the Balakan Wars of 1913 in which he saw action in Albania and Tripoli, Libya. He also briefly served as a staff officer in Salonica and Istanbul and as a military attache in Sofia, Bulgaria.
In October, 1914, the Ottoman Empire offically entered World War I alongside Germany and Austria as part of the Central Powers fighting the Allies of Great Britian, France, Italy and Russia. In 1915, when the Dardanelles/Galipoli campaign was launched, Mustafa Kemal, recently premoted to Colonel, became a national hero by winning successive victories against the landing British French and ANZAC armies, pinning them down at their beacheads, which finally forced the invaders to evacuate Galipoli in January 1916. Promoted to General later that year, at age 35, he liberated two major provinces in eastern Turkey against the Russian armies. In the next two years, from 1917 to 1918, he served as commander of several Ottoman armies in Palestine, Aleppo, and elsewhere, achieving another major victory by stopping the British advance at Aleppo just before the war-weary Turkish armies agreed to an armistice with the British on October 31, 1918 which ended World War I in the Middle East. As a result of the Ottoman Empire's defeat, the Turks lost all of their Middle East territories with the exception of the traditional Turkish area around the region of Asia Minor.
On May 19, 1919, Mustafa Kemal Pasha landed in the Black Sea port of Samsun to start the Greco-Turkish War, (known to the Turks as the War of Independence.) In defiance of the Sultan's government, he rallied a liberation army in Anatolia and convened the Congress of Erzurum and Sivas which established the basis for the new national effort under his leadership. On April 23, 1920, the Grand National Assembly was inaugurated. Mustafa Kemal Pasha was elected as its President. Fighting on many fronts, he led his forces to victory against rebels and the invading Greek armies. Following the Turkish triumph at the two major battles at Izunu in Western Turkey, the Grand National Assembly conferred on Mustafa Kemal Pasha the title of Commander-in-Chief with the rank of Marshal. At the end of August 1922, the Turkish armies won their ultimate victory. Within a few weeks, the Turkish mainland was completely liberated, an armistice with Greece was signed, and the rule of the Ottoman dynasty was abolished.
In July 1923, the national government signed the Lausanne Treaty with Great Britain, France, Greece, Italy, and others countries which regonized the new country of Turkey. In mid-October, Ankara became the capital of the new Turkish State. On October 29, the Republic was proclaimed and Mustafa Kemal Pasha was unanimously elected President of the Republic. Kemal married Latife Usakligil in early 1923. The marriage ended in divorce in 1925.
The account of Kemal Atatürk's fifteen year Presidency (1923-1938) is a saga of dramatic modernization. With indefatigable determination, he created a new political and legal system based on a Swiss Civil Code, abolished the Islamic Caliphate and made both government and education secular, gave equal rights to women, changed the Turkish language by transfering the written language from the Arabic script to the Roman alphabet, and the attire from Islamic to Western, and advanced the arts and the sciences, agriculture and industry.
In 1934, when the surname law was adopted, the national parliament gave him the name "Atatürk" (Turkish for Father of the Turks). A heavy drinker most of his life, Atatürk developed liver and kidney problems durng the last year of his life. He died on November 10, 1938, at age 57. The "national liberator" and the "Father of modern Turkey" was dead. But his legacy to his people and to the world endures to this very day. - Harvey Clark was born on 4 October 1885 in Chelsea, Boston, Massachusetts, USA. He was an actor, known for Seven Keys to Baldpate (1929), Picture Brides (1934) and The Silver Treasure (1926). He died on 19 July 1938 in Hollywood, California, USA.
- Carrie Daumery was born Carrie Mess in Amersterdam, Noord-Holland, Netherlands. She was an actress who married Belgian composer and pianist, Théophile Ysaÿe (1865-1918). After her husband's death in Nice, France, she moved to the United States. She had acted in two short films in France in 1908, and began her career in Hollywood films in 1921 as a bit player at poverty row studios, eventually moving to the major studios. She died on July 1, 1938 in Los Angeles, California, USA. Her son, John Daumery, was born in 1898 in Brussels, Belgium, and became a director for Warner Brothers and other studios.
- Actor
- Additional Crew
- Casting Director
Al Ernest Garcia was born on 11 March 1887 in San Francisco, California, USA. He was an actor and casting director, known for Modern Times (1936), The Circus (1928) and City Lights (1931). He was married to Ruth Garcia. He died on 4 September 1938 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Music Department
- Writer
- Soundtrack
Robert Johnson was born on 8 May 1911 in Hazlehurst, Mississippi, USA. He was a writer, known for The Skeleton Key (2005), Chocolat (2000) and Holes (2003). He was married to Calleta "Callie" Craft and Virginia Travis. He died on 13 August 1938 in Greenwood, Mississippi, USA.- Actor
- Director
- Writer
Entering the film industry almost at its beginning, Oscar Apfel began his career in 1911 as a director. He hit the big leagues in 1914 when he was given many prestigious assignments for Paramount Pictures, often in collaboration with Cecil B. DeMille. In 1916, he switched to Fox, and then freelanced for many smaller studios. His directing career began to fizzle out in the 1920s, and he wound up churning out low-budget features for minor studios. He retired from directing in 1927 and began a new career as a character actor, often cast as a senior government official, banker, businessman or other type of authority figure.- Anita Campillo was born in 1910 in Mexico. She was an actress, known for La vida bohemia (1938), The Man from Utah (1934) and Alma norteña (1939). She died on 25 November 1938 in Horcasitas, Sonora, Mexico.
- Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay was born on 15 September 1876 in Debanandapur, Hooghly, Bengal Presidency, British India. Sarat Chandra was a writer, known for Devdas (2002), Dev.D (2009) and Swami (1977). Sarat Chandra died on 16 January 1938 in Calcutta, Bengal Presidency, British India.
- Director
- Animation Department
- Writer
Pioneering animator Emile Cohl was born Emile Eugène Jean Louis Courtet in Paris, France, in 1857. He began his career as a caricaturist, cartoonist and writer in his 20s, and in 1908 he was hired by the Gaumont film company as a writer. He soon also became a director, turning out comedies and fantasies, but animated films--which were just starting to come into their own--fascinated him and he began experimenting with them. He worked with line drawings, silhouettes and puppets, and in 1908 he turned out A Fantasy (1908), generally considered to be the first fully animated film (it consisted of 700 drawings of a character he created, "Fantoche", each separately photographed). He made more than 250 animated films between 1908 and 1923 for a variety of studios, including Eclair and Pathe.
Unfortunately, Cohl was financially ruined by the Great Depression of the early 1930s, and he died in poverty in France in 1938 after having caught pneumonia.- Actor
- Special Effects
- Soundtrack
James Donlan was born on 23 July 1888 in San Francisco, California, USA. He was an actor, known for College Humor (1933), The Bishop Murder Case (1929) and The Whole Town's Talking (1935). He was married to Marie Therese Mollot. He died on 7 June 1938 in Hollywood, California, USA.- Writer
- Director
- Additional Crew
The director and screenwriter Sadao Yamanaka (1909-1938) is a key figure in the development of early Japanese cinema. Although he made 27 films over a six-year period, only three of them survived in nearly complete form: Sazen Tange and the Pot Worth a Million Ryo (1935), Humanity and Paper Balloons (1937), and Priest of Darkness (1936). These films represent the diversity of genres and elegant visual style Yamanaka chose. Moreover, he contributed to the establishment of the jidaigeki genre, or historical drama. After being drafted into the Imperial Japanese Army, Yamanaka tragically died of dysentery on the front in Manchuria aged 28.- Actress
- Writer
Jean Hathaway was born on 15 June 1876 in Hungary. She was an actress and writer, known for The Master Key (1914), The Adventures of Peg o' the Ring (1916) and The Enchanted Barn (1919). She was married to Rhody Hathaway. She died on 23 August 1938 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Feodor Chaliapin Sr. was born on February 13, 1873, in Omet Tawi, near Kazan, Russia. His childhood was full of suffering, hunger, and humiliation. From the age of 10-16, he was working jobs at river ports, restaurants, and tried acting on stage with various Russian provincial troupes. In 1890, Chaliapin was hired to sing in a choir at the Semenov-Samarsky private theatre in Ufa. There he began singing solo parts. In 1891, he toured Russia with the Dergach Opera. In 1892, he settled in Tiflis (Tbilisi), because he found a good teacher, Usatov, who gave Chaliapin free professional opera training for one year. He also sang at the St. Aleksandr Nevsky Cathedral in Tbilisi during the years 1892-1893.
In 1893, Chaliapin began his career at the Tbilisi Opera. On February 4, 1894, he had his final 'Benefith' night. It was a triumphal performance attended by the elite of the city of Tbilisi, where Chaliapin gave a total of 72 Opera performances. In 1894, he moved to Moscow upon recommendation of his teacher Usatov. While working at the Mamontov Opera and the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, Chaliapin also had regular repertoire performances at the Imperial Mariinsky Opera in St. Petersburg. In 1901 he made his debut at La Scala in the role of Mefistofele in Faust by Jules Massenet under the baton of Arturo Toscanini. His most famous roles were Boris Godunov in the eponymous opera by Modest Mussorgsky, and Ivan the Terrible in the Maid of Pskov by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov.
In 1896, Mamontov introduced Chaliapin to a young Italian ballerina Iola Tornagi, who came to Moscow for a stage career. She quit dancing and devoted herself to family life with Chaliapin. He was very happy in this marriage. They settled in Moscow and had six children. Their first boy died at the age of 4, causing Chaliapin a nervous breakdown. His son Boris Chaliapin became a famous painter. His son Feodor Chaliapin Jr. became a famous film actor. Their mother Iola Tornagi was living in Soviet Russia until 1959, when Nikita Khrushchev brought the "Thaw". Iola Tornagi was allowed to leave and reunited with her son 'Feodor Chaliapin Jr,' in Rome, Italy.
In 1906, Chaliapin started a civil union with Maria Valentinovna Petzhold in St. Petersburg, Russia. She had three daughters with Chaliapin in addition to 2 other children from her previous family. He could not legalize his second family, because his first wife would not give him a divorce. Chaliapin even applied to the Emperor Tsar Nicholas II with a request of registering his 3 daughters under his last name. His request was not satisfied. Chaliapin was torn between his two families for many years, living with one in Moscow, and with another in St. Petersburg. Finally with Maria Petzhold and their 3 daughters he left Russia for good.
Emigration from Russia in 1922, was painful. Soviet government stripped Chaliapin of all his titles and honors. He settled in Paris, France. There he performed at the Paris Opera, as well as at numerous private concerts for Sergei Diaghilev. His acting and singing was sensational. He made many sound recordings between the 1900 and 1938, of which the 1913 recordings of the Russian folk songs 'Vdol po Piterskoi' and 'The Song of the Volga Boatmen' are best known. The only sound film which shows his acting style is 'Don Quixote' (1933). Chaliapin worked for impresario Sol Hurok and sang for 8 seasons at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, where he had an immense success.
Chaliapin collaborated with Maxim Gorky, who wrote and edited his memoirs, which he published in 1933. Chaliapin revolutionized opera by bringing serious acting in combination with great singing. Chaliapin Sr. was the undisputed best basso in the first half of the 20th century. In the late 1930's he suffered from leukemia and kidney ailment. Feodor Chaliapin Sr. died on April 12, 1938, in Paris, France. He was laid to rest is the Novodevichy Monastery Cemetery in Moscow.- Maurice Black was born on 14 January 1891 in Queens, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for The Front Page (1931), Little Caesar (1931) and The Californian (1937). He was married to Edythe Raynore. He died on 18 January 1938 in Hollywood, California, USA.
- Like Charles Chaplin's sidekick, Eric Campbell, Harold Lloyd needed his own giant when casting Why Worry? (1923) in 1922. Lloyd first had his eyes on George Auger (Cardiff Giant) who worked at Ringling Brothers sideshow as a giant. But Auger died before the film started, and a search went out for a replacement. The producer Hal Roach heard of a shoemaker who was constructing a pair of shoes for a "Norwegian living in Minnesota", and his name was John Aasen. His mother was Kristi Danielsen (b. 1868) from Numedal, Norway. She emigrated to the US via Liverpool during spring of 1887. It is not 100% certain who Aasen's father was, but while working in Eggedal, Norway, Kristi Danielsen met the Swedish Nils Jansson Bokke who reached a prominent 244 cm (8 ft) in height. It had to have been "The clash of the Titans" when the couple met, as Aasen's mother had her own merit with the height of 220 cm (7 ft 2½ in). But the passenger list on board D/S "Rollo" listed Kristi Danielsen as single. Later that year Aasen was born and it can only be speculated if his father was the Swede. Some sources lists him as 273 cm (nearly 9 ft) tall and with a weight of 251 kilos (553 lbs). Nearly 8 meters (8¾ yds) of material was needed to make him a suit. In other words; impressive! The annual Nummedalslagets yearbook of 1925 wrote: "Apparently the world's tallest human (in the civilized world) with a loving and sympathetic personality who always appears courteous and modest. In Harold Lloyd's film classic, Why Worry? (1923), Aasen plays "Colosso". He is suffering from a toothache and stuck in jail with other prisoners of a revolution in Chile. Lloyd is Harold von Pelham as the rich hypochondriac who ends up in the same prison as Colosso and cures his toothache. Forever grateful, Colosso aids van Palham in his adventures as escapees from the prison. With a cannon on his back and bullets hanging from his neck, the pair become an unusual couple who create comic mayhem. The film became one of the largest box-office attractions of 1923. Aasen was a great success in his first film and appeared in several others, but not with the same impact. It is said he mastered Norwegian fluently and for many years performed as a "Sideshow" attraction for C.A. Wortham Shows. He died on the 1st August 1938 in Mendocino, California.
- Actor
- Soundtrack
At the age of 7, his father died, leaving his mother and her six children in poverty, of the children, 4 died in early years. To earn some money to support the family, Robert took odd jobs, before becoming a jockey. This career ended when the horse, Pink Star, the future Kentucky Derby winner of 1907, fell and broke Robert's leg. Robert then went to work as bellboy at the Hotel Sinton in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he came in contact with actors who saw possibilities for him on the stage as comic. He joined several vaudeville companies, touring not only North America, but also the British Empire. Around 1917, he married an eccentric dancer. In 1922, he appeared with W.C. Fields in "The Blue Kitten", and also wrote plays. He hit it big, when he was signed for Florenz Ziegfeld Jr.'s "Rio Rita" in 1927, where he teamed up with Bert Wheeler. Both repeated their stage roles in RKO's filmed version of that musical. Due to their success, both were teamed up again for more pictures, a career that kept on until failing health made further work impossible. Although Variety suggested that both should try as singles, the movies they made apart weren't successful. He died on October 31, 1938 of kidney disease.- Jiggs was an actor, known for The New Adventures of Tarzan (1935), Her Jungle Love (1938) and Three Wise Monks (1936). He died on 2 March 1938 in Hollywood, California, USA.
- Director
- Additional Crew
- Producer
John G. Blystone was born on 2 December 1892 in Rice Lake, Wisconsin, USA. He was a director and producer, known for Men on Call (1930), Our Hospitality (1923) and Ankles Preferred (1927). He was married to Gwendolyn Davis. He died on 6 August 1938 in Beverly Hills, California, USA.- William Gillespie was born on 24 January 1894 in Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, UK. He was an actor, known for Stop, Look and Listen (1926), Her Dangerous Path (1923) and The Valley of Bravery (1926). He was married to Ann Monahan. He died on 23 June 1938 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Actor
- Writer
- Additional Crew
Rollo Lloyd was born on 22 March 1883 in Akron, Ohio, USA. He was an actor and writer, known for The Mystery Man (1935), Anthony Adverse (1936) and Flaming Gold (1932). He was married to Ethel. He died on 24 July 1938 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Thomas Wolfe was born on 3 October 1900 in Asheville, North Carolina, USA. He was a writer, known for Camera Three (1955), Of Time and the River (1953) and Herrenhaus (1966). He died on 15 September 1938 in Baltimore, Maryland, USA.
- Jack Dougherty was born on 16 November 1895 in Bowling Green, Missouri, USA. He was an actor, known for The Runaway Express (1926), The Radio Detective (1926) and The Fire Fighters (1927). He was married to Virginia Brown Faire and Barbara La Marr. He died on 16 May 1938 in Hollywood Hills, California, USA.
- Alfred Cross was born in 1891 in New York, USA. He was an actor, known for Sin's Pay Day (1932), Smart Woman (1931) and Jungle Bride (1933). He died on 29 January 1938 in San Diego, California, USA.
- Director
- Writer
- Actor
Arthur Hotaling was born on 3 February 1873 in New York City, New York, USA. He was a director and writer, known for It Happened on Wash Day (1915), Wifey's Ma Comes Back (1912) and The Fake Soldiers (1913). He was married to Mae Hotely. He died on 13 July 1938 in California, USA.- Writer
Karel Capek, born January 9, 1890, in Male Svatonovice, Austria-Hungary (today Czech Republic) was a writer, playwright, novelist, journalist, children's author, biographer, essayist, illustrator, photographer and translator. For most people he is best known for the science fiction play "R.U.R. (Rossumovi Univerzální Roboti (Rossum's Universal Robots)", published in 1920. The word "robot," was coined by his brother Josef. "R.U.R." quickly became famous and was influential early in the history of its publication. By 1923, it had been translated into thirty languages. In this drama about man abusing technology, the Rossum factory R.U.R. makes robots on an island. The robots revolt and murder all humans except for one man whom they order to find the secret formula of their existence, without which they can longer live. "R.U.R." premiered in Prague on 25 January, 1921. It was translated into English by Paul Selver and staged in London, New York, Chicago and Los Angeles during 1922-1923. Spencer Tracy played robot in the New York version (1922) at the Garrick Theater on Broadway. Karel Capek was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature seven times, but he was never awarded one. He died of pneumonia, on December 25, 1938. The Gestapo, not aware of his death, arrived at the Capek family house in Prague in order to arrest him.- Robert McWade was born on 25 January 1872 in Buffalo, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for The Kennel Murder Case (1933), The Dragon Murder Case (1934) and Anything Goes (1936). He was married to Almina Lee. He died on 19 January 1938 in Culver City, California, USA.
- Writer
- Soundtrack
Gabriele D'Annunzio was born on 12 March 1863 in Pescara, Abruzzi e Molise, Italy [now Pescara, Abruzzo, Italy]. He was a writer, known for Samson and the Slave Queen (1963), La luz, tríptico de la vida moderna (1917) and La crociata degli innocenti (1917). He was married to Maria Hardouin di Gallese. He died on 1 March 1938 in Gardone Riviera, Lombardy, Italy.- Actor
- Writer
Generally considered to be the most brilliant legal mind in the history of American jurisprudence, Clarence Seward Darrow was born in Kinsma, OH, in 1857, the son of a failed minister who became a furniture-store owner and an intellectual but religiously puritanical mother. In 1873 he attended Allegheny College in Meadville, PA, but the financial crisis known as the Panic of 1873 swept the US that year, and Darrow was forced to leave school and find work--first in a factory, then in a store, and finally he spent three cold winters teaching in a country school.
At age 19 he entered the University of Michigan to study law, and was admitted to the bar at age 21. He began his first law practice in Andover, OH, then went to Ashtabula. After several successful years there he moved to Chicago in 1888. It was there he read and was greatly influenced by John P. Altgeld's "Our Penal Code and Its Victims", which reinforced many ideas he already had about the law and crime--that poverty is a cause of crime, not a result of it, and, most importantly to him, that the death penalty was what he blasted as "organized, legal murder". He put his energies into his causes and took on some of the most controversial cases of the day--defending and winning an acquittal for socialist and labor organizer Eugene V. Debs following the American Railway Union strike; getting acquittals on trumped-up murder charges for three Western Federation of Miners officials, including "Big Bill" Haywood, a firebrand labor organizer. His most famous case, though, involved the "Scopes Monkey Trial", in which he defended a teacher in Tennessee who--in violation of state law--dared to teach that the theory of evolution was valid. The trial attracted worldwide attention, and Darrow found himself up against the famous lawyer and politician William Jennings Bryan, a conservative ideologue with a reputation to equal his. Darrow lost that case, but it resulted in the overturning of that particular law, and the ensuing ridicule heaped upon it resulted in similar legislation in other states being overturned.
In addition to his activities as a lawyer, Darrow was also a writer, and in 1899 he edited a collection of his essays, called "The Persian Pearl". In 1906 he wrote "Farmington", an account of his childhood. He also wrote several sociological treatises, including "Resist Not Evil" in 1903 and "An Eye for an Eye" in 1904, and in 1922 wrote what is considered his best-known work: "Crime: Its Cause and Treatment". He didn't wrote solely on legal topics, however; he came out with "Infidels and Heretics: An Agnostic's Anthology" in 1929. His full autobiography, "The Story of My Life", which he called "a plain unvarnished account of how things really have happened, as nearly as I can possibly hold to the truth", was published in 1932.
Clarence Darrow was married twice--to Jesse Ohl, with whom he had a son, Paul, and whom he divorced in 1897, and later to Ruby Hammerstrom, who survived him. He died in 1938 in Chicago, IL.- Billy Dooley was born on 8 February 1893 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. He was an actor, known for Call of the Yukon (1938), The Marines Are Here (1938) and Manhattan Tower (1932). He died on 4 August 1938 in Hollywood, California, USA.
- Flora Disney was born on 22 April 1868 in Steuben, Ohio, USA. She was married to Elias Disney. She died on 26 November 1938 in North Hollywood, California, USA.
- Actor
- Director
Matthew Betz was born on 13 September 1881 in St. Louis, Missouri, USA. He was an actor and director, known for The Big Chance (1933), The Crimson City (1928) and The Terror (1928). He was married to Lulu Slipp. He died on 26 January 1938 in Sawtelle, Los Angeles, California, USA.- Actress
- Writer
Born in Chicago in 1885, silent screen actress Myrtle Stedman's (née Lincoln) musical talents developed quite early, finding herself on stage at age 12 singing light opera in the chorus. She had progressed to singing leads in shows by the time she decided to abandon her music career altogether for the movies.
She and actor-husband Marshall Stedman were signed by the Selig Polyscope Co. in 1911 and Myrtle's first credit was The Two Orphans (1911), a three-reeler. She was often directed or paired up with Marshall during those early years, but Myrtle was the one who stood out with moviegoers. Known as "the girl with the pearly eyes," she was not only an adorably enchanting and enigmatic presence in film drama, her athletic abilities also complemented westerns and action adventures.
She moved to the Bosworth Company in 1914 and appeared in such noteworthy silents as The Country Mouse (1914), Jane (1915), Peer Gynt (1915), and, most notably, the classic Hypocrites (1915), the last helmed by pioneer lady director Lois Weber. She increased her reputation as a fine actress with The American Beauty (1916), As Men Love (1917), In the Hollow of Her Hand (1918) and The Teeth of the Tiger (1919). Her son, Lincoln Stedman, made his debut as a juvenile player about this time. She and her husband divorced in 1919.
Following her rich roles in Reckless Youth (1922) and The Famous Mrs. Fair (1923), which was considered one of her finest, her star began to fade and she began to support other stars such as Colleen Moore in Flaming Youth (1923); May McAvoy in Tessie (1925); and Mary Astor in No Place to Go (1927).
Come the advent of sound, Myrtle seemed to move with ease into matronly secondary roles in such films as The Jazz Age (1929), Little Accident (1930), Beau Ideal (1931), Klondike (1932) and The Widow in Scarlet (1932), but by 1933, she had regressed to unbilled roles and pretty much stayed in that capacity up until the time of her death. Myrtle suffered a heart attack in late 1937 and declined quickly, dying on January 8, 1938 at age 52. Her ex-husband died in 1943 and her son, Lincoln, died in 1948.- James Carew was born in Goshen, Indiana in 1876. He began as a clerk in a publishing firm. Made his stage debut at the age of 21 in 'Damon and Pythias' in Chicago, became a highly successful in the theatre and moved to England in 1905, where he continued his classical stage career starting with the Lyric Theatre in London, starred on stage with the legendary classical stage performer Ellen Terry in two productions, despite the great difference of their ages they got married, he was 29 years her junior, they divorced in 1910. Handsome hero or villain in nearly 80 movies, making his film debut under the direction of George Pearson in 'The Fool' starring Godfrey Tearle for the Big Ben Film Company in 1913, perhaps his most memorable role as Dicky Bransome in 'Profit and the Lost' for the Ideal Film Co in 1917, he appeared in many popular movies through the 1920's such as 'Helen of Four Gates' (1920) 'Dollars in Surrey' (1921) 'Mist in the Valley' (1923) 'The Drum'(1924) 'High Seas' (1929). As a well-known stage actor with a appropriate training the transition to the talkies wasn't a problem for him, he was still very successful on the screen until his last movie role in 'Glamour Girl' starring Gene Gerrard and Lesley Brook in 1938. died in London age 62 in 1938.
- Eric Barclay was born on 17 November 1894 in Lilla Malma, Södermanlands län, Sweden. He was an actor, known for Charlotte Löwensköld (1930), Le berceau de dieu (1926) and Faust (1926). He died on 14 January 1938 in Bälinge, Uppland, Sweden.
- Writer
- Soundtrack
Owen Wister was an American writer and historian. He is best remembered for writing The Virginian and a biography of Ulysses S. Grant. In 1898, Wister married Mary Channing, his cousin. The couple had six children. Channing died during childbirth in 1913. Their daughter, Marina Wister, married artist Andrew Dasburg in 1933. Novels: The New Swiss Family Robinson (1882), The Dragon of Wantley: His Tale (1892), Lin McLean (1897), The Virginian: A Horseman of the Plains (1902), Philosophy 4: A Story of Harvard University (1903), A Journey in Search of Christmas (1904), Lady Baltimore (1906), Padre Ignacio: or, the Song of Temptation (1911), Romney: And Other New Works about Philadelphia (written 1912-1915). Non-fiction: Ulysses S. Grant (1901), Oliver Wendell Holmes, in the "American Men of Letters Series" (1902), The Bison, Musk-Ox, Sheep, and Goat Family, with G. B. Grinnell and Caspar Whitney in the "American Sportsman's Library" (1903), Benjamin Franklin, in the "English Men of Letters Series" (1904), The Seven Ages of Washington: A Biography (1907), The Pentecost of Calamity (1915), The Aftermath of Battle: With the Red Cross in France (1916), A Straight Deal: or the Ancient Grudge (1920), Neighbors Henceforth (1922), A Monograph of the Work of Mellor Meigs & Howe (1923), Roosevelt: The Story of a Friendship, 1880-1919 (1930) The Philadelphia Club, 1834-1934 (1934).- Director
- Writer
- Cinematographer
A.W. Sandberg was born on 22 May 1887 in Viborg, Denmark. He was a director and writer, known for 7-9-13 (1934), Manden med de ni Fingre III (1916) and Manden med de ni Fingre IV (1916). He was married to Else Frölich, Karen Caspersen and Ruth Jacobsen. He died on 27 March 1938 in Bad Nauheim, Hesse, Germany.- Writer
- Director
- Production Manager
Howard Higgin was born on 15 February 1891 in Denver, Colorado, USA. He was a writer and director, known for Marriage on Approval (1933), The Painted Desert (1931) and Hell's House (1932). He died on 16 December 1938 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Armando Novello was born on 27 October 1889 in Hamburg, Germany. He was an actor, known for A One Night Stand (1918), Nipped in the Bud (1918) and Fire the Cook (1918). He died on 15 December 1938 in Bronx, New York City, New York, USA.
- Heinrich Gotho was born on 3 May 1872 in Dolyna, Ukraine. He was an actor, known for The Ship of Lost Men (1929), Woman in the Moon (1929) and The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (1933). He died on 28 August 1938 in Berlin, Germany.
- Kathrin Clare Ward was born on 31 March 1871 in Bradford, Massachusetts, USA. She was an actress, known for The Isle of Lost Ships (1929), Air Eagles (1931) and Man Against Woman (1932). She was married to Charlie Ward. She died on 14 October 1938 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Rosamond Pinchot was born in New York City. Her father Amos Pinchot was a wealthy lawyer and political activist. Rosemond was educated at Miss Chaplin's school in Manhattan. Her parents divorced in 1918 and soon after her mother remarried. When she was nineteen Rosemond was discovered by theater producer Max Reinhardt. She made her Broadway debut in the 1924 play The Miracle. Her performance got rave reviews and she was called "the loveliest woman in America". Over the next four years Rosamond starred in several more successful plays. In 1928 she married playwright William Gaston, who had previously been married to actress Kay Francis. The couple had two sons - William and James. Rosemond stopped acting and focused on being a wife and mother. She and William separated in 1933 but remained legally married.
Rosamond rented a large fifteen room home in Old Brookeville where she lived with her children. She had many famous friends including Eleanor Roosevelt. In 1935 Rosamond played Queen Anne in the film The Three Musketeers. Unfortunately she wasn't able to get any other movie roles. She returned to Broadway in the 1936 play St. Helene. Rosemond fell in love with theatrical director Jed Harris but she was heartbroken when he left her. On January 24, 1938 she committed suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning. She was only years thirty-three old. Her body was discovered in the front seat of her car clad in a white evening gown. Rosamond had left two suicide notes for her family but they were never made public. She was buried at Milford Cemetery in Milford, Pennsylvania. - May Wallace was born on 23 August 1877 in Russiaville, Indiana, USA. She was an actress, known for Beginner's Luck (1935), The Cup of Life (1921) and What's Your Racket? (1934). She was married to Thomas W. Maddox. She died on 11 December 1938 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Actor
- Soundtrack
Fries started his career as a stage comic, entering films in the early 1910s. By the mid-1910s, Fries was with Keystone and played in films with Bronco Billy Anderson and Stan Laurel. He later went to work for Roach Films in supporting roles for Laurel & Hardy and Charley Chase and also played with James Finlayson. With the advent of sound, Fries played in a number of German-language films as well as playing numerous bit parts in A-list films until the time of his death.- Huey White was born on 28 August 1897 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. He was an actor, known for Female (1933), Gambling Lady (1934) and When G-Men Step In (1938). He died on 23 June 1938 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Amadee J. Van Beuren was born in 1879. Amadee J. was a producer, known for Circus Time (1929), Stung (1931) and Too Good to Be True (1919). Amadee J. died on 12 November 1938 in Carmel, New York, USA.- Dorothy Hale was born Dorothy Anderson Donovan on January 11, 1905 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Her father, James P. Donovan, was a successful real estate agent. Dorothy was educated at a convent and attended drama school. When she was a teenager she ran away from home to become an actress. Her first professional job was in the 1924 Broadway musical Lady Be Good. She appeared in the Ziegfeld Follies but left the show when she was injured falling down a flight of stairs. Then she decided to move to France to study art. Dorothy married Gaillard Thomas, a millionaire stockbroker, in 1925. They divorced a few years later. In 1929 she married Gardner Hale, a successful painter. The couple had homes in Paris and New York. She became a popular socialite and was called one of the best dressed women in the country. Sadly on December 28, 1931 Gardner was killed in a car accident. The following year she met producer Samuel Goldwyn at a dinner party. He said she was a "great movie find" and announced she would play the lead in Cynara.
Unfortunately she was replaced by Kay Francis and only had a bit part in the film. Then she appeared in the 1934 drama. Her friend Claire Booth Luce cast her in the play Abide By Me. The show was a flop and her performance was panned. By 1937 her acting career was over and she was nearly bankrupt. Dorothy was devastated when her close friend Rosamond Pinchot committed suicide. During the Spring of 1938 she started dating Harry Hopkins, an advisor to President Roosevelt. When he refused to marry her she fell into a deep depression. On October 20, 1938 she had a small party in her Manhattan apartment and attended the theater with some friends. After returning home she spent several hours writing farewell notes. Tragically at 5:15 A.M. on October 21 she committed suicide by jumping out of her sixteenth floor window. The thirty-three year old was still wearing her black evening gown and a flower corsage.. Dorothy was cremated and her ashes were buried at Fresh Pond Crematory and Columbarium in Middle Village, New York. Artist Frieda Kahlo later immortalized her in the painting "The Suicide Of Dorothy Hale". - Writer
- Additional Crew
Austin Parker was born on 10 September 1892 in Great Falls, Montana, USA. He was a writer, known for The Girl on the Front Page (1936), Love in a Bungalow (1937) and Something to Sing About (1937). He was married to Miriam Hopkins and Phyllis Duganne. He died on 20 March 1938 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Bob Callahan was born on 10 November 1895 in Lima, Ohio, USA. He was an actor, known for She's Dangerous (1937), The Happy Hottentots (1930) and Wild Company (1930). He died on 15 May 1938 in Hollywood, California, USA.- Music Department
- Composer
- Writer
Academy Award-winning songwriter ("The Continental", 1934), composer, pianist and publisher, educated at military academy, then a pianist in film theatres, and later a vaudeville entertainer in the USA and Europe. He wrote the Broadway stage scores for "Moonlight", "Mercenary Mary", "Kitty's Kisses", and "Americana". Then he became a music publisher, and went to Hollywood in 1929. Joining ASCAP in 1920, and his chief musical collaborators included Joe Young, Sidney Clare, Billy Rose, B. G. DeSylva, Benny Davis, Leo Robin, Herb Magidson, J. Russel Robinson, Vincent Rose, Archie Gottler, Sidney Mitchell, and William Friedlander. His popular-song compositions also include "Ma, He's Making Eyes at Me", "Margie", "Barney Google", "Prisoner of Love", "You've Got To See Mama Every Night", "Oh, Frenchy", "Palesteena", "Come On, Spark Plug", "Memory Lane", "Big City Blues", "Walking With Susie", "Lonesome and Sorry", "Sing a Little Love Song", "Mercenary Mary", "You Call It Madness But I Call It Love", Bend Down, Sister", "My Baby Said Yes Yes", "Looking for a Needle in a Haystack", "Midnight in Paris", "Here's to Romance", "Champagne Waltz", and "Singin' the Blues".- John Troyano was born in Foiano, Val Fortore, Italy. He immigrated to New York as a child and later started working for the Vitagraph Motion Picture Studio. John is credited as being one of the first juvenile film actors. He starred in many silent films including "From Cabin Boy to King", which is said to be the first mystery thriller ever produced.
- Alma Gluck was born on 11 May 1884 in Romania. She was married to Efrem Zimbalist Sr.. She died on 27 October 1938 in New York City, New York, USA.
- Thelma Hill was born Thelma Floy Hillerman in Emporia, Kansas. Her family moved to Los Angeles, California during her early teen years. Living just blocks from the Mack Sennett studio, Thelma became one of the star struck, wide eyed girls who hung out near the studio peering through the gates. It took her five years, but eventually, using her womanly wiles, she weaseled her way through the gates and quickly caught the eye of Sennett himself and F. Richard "Dick" Jones, a producer and director who would work with Thelma in over a dozen films.
Thelma did bit parts and extra work throughout her school years, working weekends and during vacations. Because of her youth, beauty, and spunk, she quickly became "everybody's protégé."
When Mack Sennett revived his famous "Bathing Girls," Thelma the first to don the suit, as most of her parts up till then had been in bathing suits. In her first movie, "Picking Peaches," she had dived off a pier.
Because of her "mah jongg" bathing suit, she became quickly known as the "Mah Jongg Bathing Girl," although she'd already carried around a nickname since her first days on the set: "Pee-Wee," the little black-eyed youngster who grew up on the old lot.
As she matured she was hired to double for Mabel Normand, who, because of a roaring cocaine habit often showed up late for work or not at all. It was about this time that Thelma became a flapper; a style of women who were known for their androgynous bodies, flimsy and revealing clothing, and the traditional male behaviors smoking, heavy drinking, and casual sex. It was the drinking that eventually led to Thelma's downfall. Near the end of her first year in film, 1924, her big break came when she got the lead opposite Ralph Graves in the two reel comedy "Love's Sweet Piffle" directed by Edgar Kennedy.
Thelma was the first Sennett bathing beauty, and one of the few, to make it into feature films. She starred opposite Ben Turpin in "The Prodigal Bridegroom," and got one of the two female leads in the hilarious Laurel & Hardy "Two Tars" in 1928.
When Hollywood brought Jimmy Murphy's comic strip "Toots and Casper" to life on the big screen, Thelma got top billing opposite Bud Duncan as Casper, with Cullen Johnson as Buttercup and George Gray as Casper's boss. The series ran from 1927 through 1929.
One biographer wrote that she starred opposite a solo Stan Laurel (in "Pie-Eyed") but calling 24 seconds on the screen as a starring role seems a stretch.
Everyone in Hollywood knew Thelma was a real trooper with a knack for comedy. She willingly dropped her good looks to don thick black-rimmed glasses and a wild hairdo and work on two reel comedies rather than full length dramatic films. No part was too small for her. Later, during talkies, she played a bit part of a patient in the waiting room in W. C. Fields' "The Dentist." Today, all copies have been so cut up and repaired that her short scene has been lost.
She left Mack Sennett for a short stint with the Film Booking Offices of America (FBO) (also known as FBO Pictures Corporation) in 1927, and afterwards was signed by MGM to play a role in "The Fair Coed." It was about this time that she got engaged to St. Elmo Boyce, her director on the "Toots and Casper" shorts and a former Sennett cinematographer. Boyce and Hill both had drinking problems, Boyce having DUI arrests on his record. The relationship and Boyce's career began to fizzle and Boyce committed suicide in 1930 by poisoning. He'd just finished work on Columbia Pictures' most expensive film to date, "Dirigible."
Thelma Hill did not make the transition to talkies well. Her drinking and depression were starting to take their toll. She began working free lance for a variety of studios. She had made over 20 films in 1929, but with the advent of talkies and the end of frenetic slapstick comedy, she would work on just seven films over the next five years.
Her first sound film was "The Golfers" with the Sennett studios. Her next role was in a musical called "Two Plus Fours" featuring Bing Crosby as one of the Rhythm Boys. She took a small role in Frank Capra's drama, "The Miracle Woman," starring Barbara Stanwyck, a few more small, uncredited parts, one short educational film starring a very, very young Shirley Temple, and ended her career in 1934 at "The Lot of Fun," Hal Roach Studios, in the movie "Mixed Nuts." Her role was small, but unforgettable as she becomes the target of a professor of entomology's Arabian Sand Fleas.
She married John Sinclair (I), W. C. Fields' stunt double and gag writer, and settled into the role of housewife less than ten minutes away from the original Mack Sennett studios.
Whether fueled by her depression or her husband's hanging around with W. C. Fields, famous for his drinking, Thelma drank away her health and youth and died before her thirty-second birthday in 1938.
Biographers mistakenly attribute her cause of death to acute alcohol poisoning (erroneously reported as a "stomach ailment" in her obituary), but records show she had spent the last month of her life at the Edward Merrill Sanitarium (mistakenly listed in Culver City; actually in Venice, CA). She had been diagnosed with chronic alcoholism in 1932 and with pellagra (a B-vitamin deficiency, specifically niacin, often found in alcoholics) in 1937. The effects of malnutrition caused by alcoholism affect all organs in the body, and her official cause of death following an autopsy was cerebral hemorrhage.
Her body was cremated and the ashes were interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park. - Dmitri Konsovsky was born on 16 December 1907 in Moscow, Russian Empire [now Russia]. He was an actor, known for Vosstaniye rybakov (1934), Karyera Ruddi (1934) and Zemlya zhazhdet (1930). He died on 15 February 1938 in the USSR.
- Richard Cummings was born on 20 August 1858 in New Haven, Connecticut, USA. He was an actor, known for The Little Orphans (1915), The Bride's Play (1922) and A Ten-Cent Adventure (1915). He was married to Catherine ?. He died on 25 December 1938 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Claudia Coleman was born on 7 July 1886 in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. She was an actress, known for Frisco Kid (1935), King of Burlesque (1936) and Little Miss Nobody (1936). She died on 17 August 1938 in Hollywood, California, USA.
- Getting her show business start in vaudeville, Phyllis Allen's large physique and excellent timing made her a natural for film comedies, and she appeared in many of Mack Sennett's slapstick films. She also appeared in several of Charles Chaplin's movies, and was often paired with equally hefty comedian Mack Swain.
- Marija Leiko was born on 14 August 1887 in Riga, Russian Empire. She was an actress, known for Die Diamantenstiftung (1917), Freie Liebe (1919) and Satanas (1919). She died on 3 February 1938 in Moscow, USSR.
- Ödön von Horvath was born on 9 December 1901 in Fiume, Hungary, Austria-Hungary [now Rijeka, Croatia]. He was a writer, known for Godless Youth (2017), ...und führe uns nicht in Versuchung (1957) and Hin und her (1948). He was married to Maria Elsner. He died on 1 June 1938 in Paris, France.
- Music Department
- Composer
- Actor
Richard A. Whiting was born in Peoria Illinois to a very musical family. After attending Harvard Military Academy Whiting went on to have a long song writing career. In the teens and early 20's Whiting wrote such hits as "Ain't We Got Fun?," "Till We Meet Again," "The Japanese Sandman," "Sleepy Time Gal," and "She's Funny That Way." Whiting's daughter Margaret Whiting the singer was born in 1924 and was the inspiration for his classic song "On the Good Ship Lollipop." Starting in 1929 Whiting went to Hollywood to write songs and scores for films he and his then songwriting partner Leo Robin began with such films as "The Dance of Life" and "Innocence of Paris" from these there were two hits the first being "True Blue Lou" the second being the long time standard and classic "Louise." Throughout the early 1930's Whiting wrote for films and made numerous hits such as "Guilty," "On the Good Ship Lollipop," "My Ideal," "My Future Just Passed," "Eadie Was A Lady," and "You're An Old Smoothie." In 1931 Whiting's second daughter Barbara Whiting the actress was born she was not able to really know her father all that well due to the fact that he died when she only 6. In the late 1930's beginning in 1936 Whiting and Johnny Mercer began a song writing partnership and friendship. They wrote for the films "Ready, Willing, and Able" from which the hit "Too Marvelous for Words" was written, "Varsity Show" from which the classics "Have You Got Any Castles, Baby?" and "You've Got Something There" originated. Whiting and Mercer's most successful film was "Hollywood Hotel" which brought us the uncredited theme song of Hollywood, "Hooray for Hollywood." Other hit songs from that film include: "I'm Like A Fish Out of Water," "I've Hitched My Wagon To a Star," and "Silhouetted in the Moonlight" The songwriters last film together was "The Cowboy From Brooklyn" which brought us only one his song, "Ride, Tenderfoot Ride." Whiting died on February 10th 1938 due to heart disease.- Edward Kimball was born on 26 June 1859 in Keokuk, Iowa, USA. He was an actor, known for The Christian (1914), Boys Will Be Boys (1921) and The Yellow Passport (1916). He was married to Mrs. E.M. Kimball. He died on 4 January 1938 in Hollywood, California, USA.
- Writer
- Script and Continuity Department
American screenwriter, of Mormon parentage. Young's first job was on the editorial staff of the Salt Lake Herald. He subsequently studied at Stanford University, but did not manage to attain a degree. Before entering the motion picture industry, he was engaged as a story writer and drama editor, respectively by the San Francisco Chronicle and the San Francisco Examiner. After a stint as a publicist for various theatrical personalities, he began his film career under contract to Universal, from 1917 to 1919. He subsequently moved on to Famous Players/Lasky, commuting between Hollywood and Paramount's Astoria studios in Long Island. Young wrote some of his most highly regarded screenplays for MGM (1924-29) and Paramount (1930 and 1932-36). The latter included notable collaborations on Cecil B. DeMille epics (The Sign of the Cross (1932), Cleopatra (1934)), as well as several of Gary Cooper's biggest box-office hits of the period (The Lives of a Bengal Lancer (1935), The Plainsman (1936)).- Mary Malone was born on 14 October 1880 in Douglas, Isle of Man, UK. She was an actress, known for Romeo and Juliet (1908) and The Fool (1913). She was married to Godfrey Tearle. She died on 11 March 1938 in Nice, Alpes-Maritimes, France.
- Writer
- Music Department
- Composer
American poet, novelist and essayist James Weldon Johnson was born in Jacksonville, FL, in 1871. He came from a musically inclined family--his brother was noted composer and songwriter J. Rosamond Johnson--and received his B.A. from Atlanta University and his M.A. from that institution two years later, a significant accomplishment in an era when many blacks were prevented from getting any higher education at all.
He was hired as a teacher and the principal at an all-black school in Jacksonville. At the same time he was studying law and in 1897 he received his law degree and was admitted to the Florida bar, the first black attorney to do so since the end of the Civil War. In 1901 he relocated to New York City, where he joined his brother Rosamond and his partner in writing songs for both the stage and light opera, and the team was quite successful. One song was so popular that they cleared $13,000 from it--an astonishing sum at the time--and used that money to travel to France, where they spent several months partying and traveling before returning to the US.
He was soon appointed as the American Consul in Venezuela, and his tenure there was so productive he was appointed to the same position in Nicaragua, again with great success. In 1910 he married Grace Nail, and two years later produced his first novel, the (fictional) "Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man" (the subject was so sensitive at the time that the book was published with no writer's credit; it wasn't until 1927 that he was acknowledged as the author). He continued writing essays, books and songs and wrote the English libretto for the opera "Goyescas", which was presented at the Metropolitan Opera in New York in 1915. In addition, he served for many years as secretary for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. He returned to teaching in 1930--while still continuing his writing--and became Professor of Creative Literature at Fisk University. In 1934 he was named Visiting Professor of Literature at New York University.
On June 26, 1938, Johnson was driving through a railroad crossing near his summer home in Bar Harbor, ME, when his car was struck by a train. His wife was seriously injured but survived. Johnson was killed instantly.- Director
- Actor
- Writer
Edward Gordon was born in 1886. He was a director and actor, known for Repentance (1922), Love's Influence (1922) and Lieutenant Daring RN and the Water Rats (1924). He died on 10 November 1938 in Hollywood, California, USA.- Perceval Clarke was born on 25 November 1881 in Brentford, Middlesex, England, UK. He was an actor, known for Nance (1920). He was married to Jean Cadell. He died on 6 June 1938 in Rochdale, Lancashire, England, UK.
- Harvey Firestone was born on 20 December 1868 in Columbiana, Ohio, USA. He was married to Idabelle Firestone. He died on 7 February 1938 in Miami Beach, Florida, USA.
- Lakshminath Bezbaruah was born on 14 October 1864 in Aahatguri, Nagaon, Assam, British Raj. He was a writer, known for Joymati (1935), Kukuri Kona (2005) and Kothanodi (2015). He was married to Pragyasundari Devi. He died on 26 March 1938 in Dibrugarh, Assam, India.
- As an adult, Ince performed motorcycle stunts for the movie industry. A millionaire in his own right, he also raced in Speedway and Class C Motorcycle competitions in Southern California, San Francisco and Sacramento, just for the thrills. He died in a motorcycle crash at the 1938 Oakland 200-Mile National, on the 61st lap of the race. Racing on a JAP motorcycle. Ince was coming out of a banked turn at the notorious Oakland Speedway, alongside racer Armando Magri, when he suddenly flew off the bike and hit a guard rail post.
One report said that Ince's bike tangled with another racer's. But Ernie Magri, Armando's brother attended the race and saw the accident. He said that Ince hit a bad groove on the track. "On warm afternoons, the top of the banked curves would sweat oil, which then oozed down onto the track's lower sections, making some parts slippery while others buckled-up. You had to find the right groove, and stay in it," said Magri. "That track was flat out dangerous."
Ince died in Fairmant Hospital hours after the accident. He left behind a 19-year old wife, Barbara Ann. - T.D. Crittenden was born on 27 September 1878 in Oakland, California, USA. He was an actor, known for The Old Nest (1921), Bob Hampton of Placer (1921) and The Whispered Name (1917). He was married to Elizabeth Kendall Bailey. He died on 17 February 1938 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Queen Maud of Norway was born Princess Maud on November 26, 1869. Her parents were the Prince and Princess of Wales, the heirs to Maud's grandmother Queen Victoria. Maud's mother was also Danish Princess. Maud grew up enjoying fine things. Spending time in Palaces in England and abroad while visiting relatives in Denmark, Germany, Greece, and Russia.
Maud was considered very pretty when she was younger, and during her teen years had crushes on her cousin Crown Prince George of Russia (their mothers were sisters) and a distant cousin Prince Francis of Teck. This was why she was distressed that her younger cousins including Sophie of Prussia, Alix of Hess, and Marie married the heirs to the thrones of Greece, Russia, and Romania.
When Maud was about 25 she went on a family biking tour which included her Danish relatives. Her first cousin Carl or Charles as she called him had a crush on her for some time and during this tour he proposed to her and she accepted. They married on July 22, 1896 in England. Her father gave her a house in England as a wedding present and the newlyweds lived there for several months until Charles and finally Maud moved to Denmark.
Maud was never happy in Denmark. The winter weather was too extreme and she longed for England. She could not complain to her mother, because as a Danish Princess Alexandra would not have had it.
Maud and Charles lived in an apartment in Coppenhaugen for many years before the birth of their only child born Prince Alexander, but later known as King Olav V of Norway.
In 1905 Norway broke apart from Sweden and Maud found herself and her husband becoming King and Queen of Norway. Charles ruled as King Haakon V, but Maud, as always throughly English, kept the name Maud.
They did not have a easy reign. World War One started less than 10 years into their reign and the inter-war period was not easy either. Right before the onslaught of World War Two Queen Maud died. To the end the English Princess. - Actress
Born in Whitby, Ontario, May Irwin started her performing career at a young age, when she began a singing act with her younger sister Flora in 1874. The act was popular, and Irwin began working as an actress when she was 21 years old. She found success and was appearing in a Broadway show called "The Widow Jones" when Thomas A. Edison saw her and co-star John C. Rice exchanging a kiss on-stage. He hired them to do the same in one of his films, The Kiss (1896). This marked the first kiss in cinematic history. After participating in this milestone moment in film history, Irwin continued to be a popular performer and appeared in one more film, the silent feature Mrs. Black Is Back (1914).- Director
- Writer
- Actor
Lau Lauritzen was born on 13 March 1878 in Silkeborg, Denmark. He was a director and writer, known for Harestegen (1921), Hallo! Afrika forude! (1929) and Manden der gøer (1919). He was married to Ulla Poulsen and Hulda Christensen. He died on 2 July 1938 in Copenhagen, Denmark.- Director
- Additional Crew
- Producer
Harry Garson was born on 28 October 1882 in Rochester, New York, USA. He was a director and producer, known for Thundering Dawn (1923), Straight from Paris (1921) and The Forbidden Woman (1920). He was married to Vivian Montrose and Martha Lichtenstein. He died on 21 September 1938 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Actress
- Director
Laura Bayley was born on 4 February 1862 in Ramsgate, Kent, England, UK. She was an actress and director, known for Mary Jane's Mishap (1903), Let Me Dream Again (1900) and Cinderella (1898). She was married to George Albert Smith. She died on 25 October 1938 in Hove, East Sussex, England, UK.- Art Director
- Production Designer
- Set Decorator
Lazare Meerson was born on 8 July 1900 in Warsaw, Poland, Russian Empire [now Warsaw, Mazowieckie, Poland]. He was an art director and production designer, known for À Nous la Liberté (1931), Under the Roofs of Paris (1930) and Knight Without Armor (1937). He died on 28 June 1938 in London, England, UK.- Art Department
- Director
- Production Designer
Son of architect Lansing C. Holden, Sr. (1858-1930), Lansing C. Holden Jr. joined the US air service in 1917 and served in France, flying alongside another pilot, Merian C. Cooper, who was later to prove instrumental to his Hollywood career. In 1919 Holden graduated from Princeton University with a Bachelor of Arts degree, later returning to the university to take graduate courses in Architecture. When his father died, Holden opened his own architecture office in New York. Merian C. Cooper invited him to Hollywood, and after a stint in MGM's art department, Holden was given the chance to co-direct She (1935). On the strength of that picture's impressive visuals, David O. Selznick hired him to oversee all the color elements of The Garden of Allah (1936). Holden's last credit was as director of a short documentary about the Navajo tribe, Pow Wow (1938) before his career was cut short by his death in a plane crash.- Aurelio Coccia was born in 1868 in Rome, Lazio, Italy. He was an actor, known for Argentine Love (1924), Aloma of the South Seas (1926) and The Humming Bird (1924). He was married to Minnie Amata (dancer). He died on 30 September 1938 in Englewood, New Jersey, USA.
- Dead at the age of twenty six does not allow for much of a career or legacy, but that was the promise of Michiko Oikawa who so early in life had already begun to impress and earn the title of 'the eternal virgin,' a description which years later would also be assigned to Setsuko Hara. Born in Tokyo, Japan to Christian parents she would go on to profess the same faith as she began acting in theatre and graduating from the Tokyo Music School. She would commence work under contract at Shochiku Studio in 1929, but as early as 1930 would have to take a break of one year due to a worsening heart problem. Similarly, she would have to take time off in 1934 only to return in 1935. Following her return she did appear in new films, but was soon ill again culminating in her death due to tuberculosis in 1938. Her earlier boyfriend, the novelist On Watanabe, had also died following an accident at age thirty in 1930.
- Barney Furey was born on 7 September 1882 in Boise, Idaho, USA. He was an actor and writer, known for The Big Diamond Robbery (1929), The Fighting Heiress (1916) and The Law Rides (1936). He was married to Florence. He died on 18 January 1938 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Actor
- Writer
Fred Duprez was born on 6 September 1884 in Detroit, Michigan, USA. He was an actor and writer, known for My Wife''s Family (1931), Lend Me Your Wife (1935) and Svärmor kommer (1932). He was married to Florence Isabel Mathews (actress) and Grace Hazard (actress). He died on 27 October 1938 in shipboard en route to England.- Herbert Rice was born in 1888 in Providence, Rhode Island, USA. He was an actor, known for Poor Finney (1912), Alice in Wonderland (1915) and The Rainbow Princess (1916). He died on 17 July 1938 in Chicago, Illinois, USA.
- Suzanne Lenglen was born on 24 May 1889 in Compiègne, France. She was an actress, known for Le p'tit Parigot (1926), Things Are Looking Up (1935) and Top-Notchers (1926). She died on 4 July 1938 in Paris, France.
- Grit Haid was born on 14 March 1900 in Vienna, Austria-Hungary [now Austria]. She was an actress, known for Es war einmal ein treuer Husar (1929), Der gefesselte Polo (1929) and Die Tochter des Brigadiers (1922). She died on 13 August 1938 in Schwarzwald, Germany.
- Edward O'Neill was born on 12 October 1862 in Solapur, Maharashtra, India. He was an actor, known for Mary Girl (1917), Hindle Wakes (1918) and Justice (1917). He died on 20 August 1938 in Twickenham, Middlesex, England, UK.
- Jack Squires was born in 1894 in New York City, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for Dynamite Delaney (1938), The Candid Kid (1938) and Getting an Eyeful (1938). He died on 21 June 1938 in New York City, New York, USA.
- Andrew Arbuckle was born on 5 September 1887 in Galveston, Texas, USA. He was an actor, known for John Petticoats (1919), Big Tremaine (1916) and The Spider and the Rose (1923). He was married to Blanche Duquesne. He died on 21 September 1938 in Los Angeles, California, USA.