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- Music Department
Herman Finck was born on 21 March 1527 in Pirna, Saxony, Germany. Herman is known for BBC Proms (1972). Herman died on 28 December 1558 in Wittenberg, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany.- Music Department
- Composer
- Soundtrack
Johann Sebastian Bach was born on March 21, 1685, in Eisenach, Thuringia, Germany, into a large and distinguished family of professional musicians. His father, named Johann Ambrosius Bach, was a violinist and trumpeter, employed by the city of Eisenach. His uncles were church organists, court musicians and composers. His mother and father died before Bach was 10. As an orphan, he moved in with his eldest brother, J. C. Bach, an organist and composer, under whose tutelage Bach studied organ music as well as the construction and maintenance of the organ.
Education: At the age of 14, Bach received a scholarship and walked on foot 300 kilometers to the famous St. Michael's school in Luneburg, near Hamburg. There he lived and studied for 2 years from 1699-1701. It was there that he sang a Capella at the boys chorale. Bach's studies included organ, harpsichord, and singing. In addition he took the academic studies in theology, history and geography, and lessons of Latin, Italian, and French. Besides his studies of music by the local Nothern German composers, Bach had important exposure to the music of composers from other European nations; such as the French composers Jean-Baptiste Lully, Marais, and Marchand, the South German composers Johann Pachelbel and Froberger, and the Italians Arcangelo Corelli and Antonio Vivaldi.
Personality and character: Bach was 17 when he made a 4-month pilgrimage, walking on foot about 400 kilometers from Arnstadt to the Northern city of Lubeck. There he studied with 'Dietrich Buxtehude' and became so involved that he overstayed his leave by three months. Buxtehude being probably the best organist of his time became the living link between the founder of Baroque music Heinrich Schütz and the biggest Baroque genius, Bach. Back in Arnstadt, Bach wrote 'Toccata and Fugue in D Minor' (1702), his first masterpiece; which stemmed from his bold organ improvisations. At that time he was in love with his second cousin Maria Barbara; whom he was taking upstairs to the church organ, where her presence was inspirational for his creativity. Bach was punished for the violation of the restrictions on women's presence in the church and he was fired. However, he eventually married Maria Barbara.
Cross-cultural studies: Bach studied the orchestral music of Antonio Vivaldi and gained insight into his compositional language by arranging Vivaldi's concertos for organ. Six French suites were written for keyboard; each suite opens with 'Allemande' and consists of several pieces, including 'Courante', 'Sarabande', 'Menuet', 'Gavotte', 'Air', 'Anglaise', 'Polonaise', 'Bourree', and 'Gigue'. As suggested by their titles, the pieces were representing songs and dances from various cultures. From the music of the Italians Antonio Vivaldi, Arcangelo Corelli, and 'Giuseppe Torelli'; Bach adopted dramatic introductions and endings as well as vivacious rhythmical dynamism and elaborate harmonization. Bach also performed the music of English, French, and Italian composers; motets of the Venetian school, and incorporated their rhythmical patterns and textural structures in the development of his own style.
Teaching: Bach selected and instructed musicians for orchestras and choirs in Weimar and Leipzig. His work as a Cantor included teaching instrumental and vocal lessons to the church musicians and later to the musicians of the court orchestra. Bach was also a teacher of his own children and of his second wife. In 1730, Bach presented his second wife with a musical notebook for studies, known as the 'Notebook of Anna Magdalena Bach'. Compositions in the notebook were written in a form of minuete, polonaise, gavotte, march, rondeau, chorale, sonata, prelude, song, and aria; written mainly by Bach, as well as by his sons 'Carl Philip Emanuel Bach', Johann Christoph Bach, and composers 'Francois Couperin', Georg Bohm, and others.
Family: Bach married his second cousin, named Maria Barbara, who was the inspirational force for his early compositions. They had seven children, 4 of whom survived to adulthood. W. F. Bach, J. C. Bach, and C. P. E. Bach became composers. Maria Barbara died in 1720. On December 3, 1721, Bach married Anna Magdalena (bee Wilcke), a talented soprano, who was 17 years his junior. They had thirteen children. Bach fathered a total of 20 children with his two wives. His sons 'Friedemann Bach', Johann Christoph Bach, and 'Carl Philip Emanuel Bach' became important composers in the Rococo style. The descendants of Bach are living in many countries across the world.
Social activity: Bach replaced his friend Georg Philipp Telemann as the director of the popular orchestra known as Collegium Musicum, which he led from 1729-1750. It was a private secular music society that gave concert performances twice a week at the Zimmerman's Coffeehouse near the Leipzig market square. Bach's exposure to such a secular public environment inspired him to compose numerous purely entertainment pieces for solo keyboard and several violin and harpsichord concertos.
Politics: Being the undisputed musical genius, Bach still suffered from ugly political machinations. Although the Leipzig Council had enough money, they never honored the promised salary of 1000 talers a year; promised to Bach by the Mayor of Leipzig, Gottlieb Lange, at the hiring interview. Bach worked diligently, in spite of being underpaid for 27 years until his death. On top of that local political factions in the Leipzig Council manipulated Bach's educational work as well as his compositions and public performances. They were pressuring him as the Cantor and Composer and interfering his creative efforts by imposing restrictions on his performances because of their ugly political games. Bach prevailed as he composed and played his "Mass in B Minor" to the monarch of Saxony and was appointed the Royal Court Composer of Saxony.
King Frederick the Great invited Bach to Potsdam in 1747. There the king played his own theme for Bach and challenged the composer to improvise on it. Bach used the 'royal theme' and improvised a three-part fugue on the king's piano. Later Bach upgraded the king's theme to a more sophisticated melody, and composed an array of pieces based on the improved 'royal theme', which he titled "Musical Offering" and later presented this composition to the king.
Legacy: Bach wrote over eleven hundred music compositions in all genres. In Leipzig alone he wrote a cantata for every Sunday and feast day of the year, of which 224 cantatas survive. Some of his compositions were written on the same theme at different times in his life, like choral cantatas and organ works on similar themes with significantly reworked arrangements. The complete list of Bach's works, BWV, has 1127 compositions for voice, organ, harpsichord, violin, cello, flute, chamber music for small ensembles, orchestral music, concertos for violin and orchestra, and for keyboard and orchestra. His music became the essential part of the education for every musician. Bach influenced such great composers as Ludwig van Beethoven, Franz Liszt, Frédéric Chopin, Felix Mendelssohn, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Sergei Prokofiev and many other prominent musicians.
Bach is by far the most performed and recorded composer in history. His 'Das Wohltemperierte Clavier' (The well-tempered keyboard, or The well-tuned piano, in modern terminology) is the definitive work for all students as well as concert musicians. Bach's 'Orgebuchlein' (The little organ book) is a staple in the repertoire of organists and pianists, and some pieces from it were arranged for ensembles. Bach's many chorales, especially the "Mass in B Minor" are considered the best works in the genre. His last work 'The Art of Fugue' is best known for it's acclaimed performance by Glenn Gould. Bach's music was used in hundreds of films, thousands of stage productions, and continues being played all over the world.
The definitive biography of J. S. Bach was written by the Nobel Prize Laureate Albert Schweitzer.- Music Department
- Writer
- Composer
In 1856 Moussorgsky joined the Russian army where he met the piano player and composer 'Balakirev' who taught him composition. As he could not finish his studies in music, Moussorgsky did not know all stylistic means of composition perfectly and thus had to follow his instinct in his works becoming the pathmaker of the musical impressionism as well as expressionism: He was the first to compose realistic pictures, e.g. "Pictures at an Exhibition". Having no success during his lifetime Moussorgsky spent all of his fortune ending up a poor man addicted to alcohol.- Gustaf von Numers was born on 21 March 1848 in Maksamaa, Finland. He was a writer, known for Elinan surma (1938), Pastori Jussilainen (1955) and Den tyranniske fästmannen (1912). He was married to Helena Lovisa Eleonora Roos. He died on 6 February 1913 in Kannus, Finland.
- Shunrô Oshikawa was born on 21 March 1876. Shunrô was a writer, known for Atragon (1963), Tôyô bukyôdan (1927) and Super Atragon (1995). Shunrô died on 16 November 1914.
- Writer
- Director
- Producer
W.B. Pearson was born on 21 March 1892 in Kentucky, USA. He was a writer and director, known for Hell's Crater (1918), The Temple of Terror (1917) and The Lure of the Circus (1917). He died on 6 November 1918 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Salvador Rosich was born on 21 March 1884 in Igualada, Barcelona, Spain. He was an actor, known for El fusilamiento de Dorrego (1908). He died on 20 August 1920 in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
- Alfred Wagstaff was born on 21 March 1844 in New York City, New York, USA. He died on 2 October 1921 in Babylon, Suffolk, New York, USA.
- Writer
- Actor
- Soundtrack
Albert Chevalier was born on 21 March 1861 in Notting Hill, London, England, UK. He was a writer and actor, known for My Old Dutch (1915), The Middleman (1915) and My Old Dutch (1926). He died on 10 July 1923 in London, England, UK.- Director
- Actor
- Additional Crew
Ralph Dean was born on 21 March 1868. He was a director and actor, known for The Rainbow (1917), The Accomplice (1917) and A Song of Sixpence (1917). He died on 15 September 1923 in New York City, New York, USA.- Director
- Actor
- Writer
Alois Wiesner was born on 21 March 1857 in Prague, Cechy, Austrian Empire [now Czech Republic]. He was a director and actor, known for Zkazená krev (1914). He died on 6 November 1923 in Prague, Czechoslovakia [now Czech Republic].- Pauline Armitage was born on 21 March 1896 in Kenton, Tennessee, USA. She was an actress, known for False Pride (1926). She died on 16 February 1926 in New York City, New York, USA.
- Sarah Duhamel was born on 21 March 1873 in Rouen, Seine-Inférieure [now Seine-Maritime], France. She was an actress, known for Les mystères de Paris (1922), Rosalie n'a pas le choléra (1911) and Le jour de l'an de Rosalie (1911). She died on 15 April 1926 in Paris, Ile-de-France, France.
- Producer
- Additional Crew
- Director
Henry W. Savage was born on 21 March 1859 in Durham, New Hampshire, USA. Henry W. was a producer and director, known for Excuse Me (1915), The Merry Widow (1925) and Robinson Crusoe (1916). Henry W. was married to Alice Louise Batcheler. Henry W. died on 29 November 1927 in Boston, Massachusetts, USA.- Alberta Lee was born on 21 March 1860 in Cleveland, Ohio, USA. She was an actress, known for The Little Minister (1922), The Little Orphans (1915) and Reggie Mixes In (1916). She was married to John T. Huntignton and William Davis. She died on 12 November 1928 in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Director
- Actor
- Writer
Charles Swickard was born on 21 March 1861 in Germany. He was a director and actor, known for An Arabian Knight (1920), Mixed Blood (1916) and The Last Straw (1920). He was married to Dale. He died on 12 May 1929 in Fresno, California, USA.- Fay Glen Adams was born in Diaz, Chihuahua, Mexico to William Adams and Domer Jones Adams. He was the sixth of 11 children. His mother died giving birth to a stillborn on July 1, 1912. After being notified of the mother's death, her daughter, Edith, and a family friend drove from Columbus, New Mexico, to be with the family and attend the funeral. Being in a hurry, they neglected to take care of all the paperwork at that time required to enter Mexico and were approached by seven federal soldiers after arriving at the family home in Diaz, where mother Domer Adams body was awaiting burial.
The federales demanded the immediate departure of Edith and her friend. Her father asked for an extra day so the full family could be present at the burial. The soldiers got angry and drew their weapons and, as Edith jumped in front of her father, one of them fired a shot. The bullet went just over Edith's head and entered the neck of Will Adams, killing him instantly. Both of them were buried the next day.
Fourteen-year-old Fay, as well as the other children who were of working age, were left to take care of themselves and their younger siblings (one of whom was only two years old). Fay worked on numerous ranches throughout the American southwest and into California. He began his rodeo career in the early 1920s and was very successful at many rodeos across the United States (including Madison Square Garden) and Canada, and won many titles including World Champion Calf Roper.
Cowboy star Hoot Gibson helped Fay get into the film business and he appeared in many westerns, usually uncredited, before his untimely death. While working for rancher Bud Parker's outfit, at the railroad corral nine miles north of Nogales, Arizona, and practicing steer-roping for an upcoming rodeo in El Paso, Texas, his horse got tangled in the rope, stumbled and threw him off, and then the horse fell on his head. The champion cowboy never regained consciousness from the September 11th accident, and a day or so before his death he developed double pneumonia and died at just about midnight in the St. Joseph Hospital in Nogales. The death certificate, filled out after midnight, was dated September 16. Funeral services were held at the Carroon Morturay in Nogales and he was laid to rest in the Nogales cemetery. (Author not related) - W.H. Bainbridge was born on 21 March 1853 in England, UK. He was an actor, known for Passion Fruit (1921), Traffic in Souls (1913) and God's Country and the Woman (1916). He died on 24 October 1931 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Additional Crew
- Actor
- Producer
American theatrical producer who brought the revue to spectacular heights under the slogan "Glorifying the American Girl." During the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893, Ziegfeld managed bodybuilder Eugen Sandow (billed as the Great Sandow). In 1896 he turned to theatrical management. His promotion of French beauty Anna Held, with press releases about her milk baths, brought her fame and set a pattern of star-making through publicity. In 1907 he produced in New York City his first revue, The Follies of 1907, modeled on the Folies-Bergère of Paris but less risqué. The revue's combination of semi-nudity, pageantry and comedy was repeated successfully for 23 more years, until the Great Depression ended these annual spectaculars. Four other editions appeared after his death, the last in 1957. In addition to the Follies, Ziegfeld also produced the stage successes "Sally" (1920), "Show Boat" (1927), "Rio Rita" (1927), and "Bitter Sweet (1929). Among the stars who rose to fame as a result of appearing in a Ziegfeld show were Marilyn Miller, Will Rogers, Leon Errol, Bert Williams, Fanny Brice and Eddie Cantor.
Ziegfeld had a long-lasting relationship with Anna Held but they never married due to her already being married to Maximo Carrera. In 1913, he married actress Billie Burke with whom he had daughter Patricia Ziegfeld Stephenson.- Writer
- Actor
József Pakots was born on 21 March 1877 in Alvinc, Hungary [now Vintul de Jos, Romania]. He was a writer and actor, known for Casanova (1919), Leoni Leo (1917) and A Kormánybiztos (1919). He died on 12 June 1933 in Budapest, Hungary.- Marie Shotwell was born on 21 March 1880 in New York City, New York, USA. She was an actress, known for Enlighten Thy Daughter (1917), Running Wild (1927) and The Thirteenth Chair (1919). She died on 18 September 1934 in Long Island City, New York, USA.
- Director
- Cinematographer
- Writer
Herbert G. Ponting was born on 21 March 1870 in Salisbury, Wiltshire, England, UK. He was a director and cinematographer, known for The Great White Silence (1922), 90° South and The Undying Story of Captain Scott and Animal Life in the Antarctic (1914). He died on 7 February 1935 in Marylebone, London, England, UK.- Actor
- Writer
- Producer
Sam Hardy was born on 21 March 1883 in New Haven, Connecticut, USA. He was an actor and writer, known for King Kong (1933), The Miracle Woman (1931) and Transatlantic Merry-Go-Round (1934). He was married to Betty Scott. He died on 16 October 1935 in Hollywood, California, USA.- Aarne Leppänen was born on 21 March 1894 in Maaria, Finland. He was an actor, known for Kajastus (1930), Erämaan turvissa (1931) and Polyteekkarifilmi (1924). He was married to Glory Leppänen. He died on 11 July 1937.
- Composer, songwriter, author and pianist, educated at the Moscow Conservatory and Columbia University (architecture degree). He wrote his Broadway special material for the 'Passing Show' revues, was a vaudeville pianist, and had his own night club, Club Anatole. His Broadway stage scores include "The Wife Hunters" and "Broadway to Paris". Joining ASCAP in 1923, his chief musical collaborators included L. Wolfe Gilbert and Harold Atteridge. His popular-song compositions include "Are You From Heaven?", "My Little Dream Girl", "Lily of the Valley", "My Own Iona", "Singapore", "I Love You, That's One Thing I Know", "My Sweet Adair", "Riga Rose", "My Little Persian Rose" and "Shades of Night".
- Arnold Petersen was born on 21 March 1890 in Copenhagen, Denmark. He was an actor, known for Den Dødes Forbandelse (1914), Den kvindelige Spion fra Balkan (1912) and Frelst fra Forbrydelsens Vej (1913). He died on 15 July 1939.
- Writer
- Director
- Editor
Caroline Gentry was born on 21 March 1870 in Peytona, Boone County, West Virginia, USA. She was a writer and director, known for The Key to Power (1920), The River of Doubt (1928) and Roosevelt, friend of the birds. (1928). She died on 20 December 1939 in Charleston, West Virginia, USA.- Ernst Burggaller was born on 21 March 1896 in Berlin, Germany. He died on 2 February 1940 in Immenstaad, Germany.
- The progressive proletarian writer, singer and actress Margarete Steffin was born into a working class family on March 21, 1908 in Rummelsburg, Pomerania in Imperial Germany. Rummelsburg, a part of the Berlin metropolitan area, was the home of the chemical and photographic film maker Agfa AG. (The Versailles Treaty ending World War One officially established the border of Germany with the newly created Poland 15 kilometers to the east of Rummelsbug.) Margarete Emilie Charlotte Steffin's father was a construction worker and her mother took in sewing to produce income. Her parents had two more children, her sister Herta Frieda, who was born in 1909, and a boy, born Hermann Wilhelm Albert born, who died shortly after birth in 1913. Her father was among the first round of draftees conscripted into the German Imperial Army in August 1914.
The young Margarete was a gifted student. When she was 13, an hour-long play in verse she wrote for Christmas was produced by three schools. However, her father did not want her to go on to university (and likely lose contact with her social class), so she got a job with the telephone company Deutschen Telefonwerken after graduating. Politically conscious since a young age, Grete as she was called initially was attracted to the Social-Democratic faction on Germany's left, a humane socialism; later, she drifted further to the left and became a communist and supporter of Joseph Stalin, who had an iron grip on the German Communist Party from the 1930s onward. Stalin would not allow the German Communist Party to form a Popular Front with the more liberal Social-Democrats to resist Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party, as Stalin believed Hitler would bring on the conditions that would trigger a revolution that would swept the Commnuists to power. It was a fateful miscalculation for tens of millions of Germans, Russians, and countless others.
Steffin's involvement in progressive politics enabled her to join left-wing arts organizations who were at the vanguard of creating art challenging the bourgeois status quo. Art was intricately intertwined with politics in this era. It was there she could indulge her passion for singing and acting. She also worked on putting out a guerrilla newspaper and took Russian language lessons. For the rest of her life, she would be a gifted translator, adept at many tongues.
In the fall of 1927, the 19-year-old Steffin began an ultimately unfulfilling long-term relationship with a young man Herbert Dymkethat led to her first pregnancy and abortion the following year. Fired from the phone company for being a left-winger, she got employment as a bookkeeper at a print shop; on Sundays, she performed solo-recitations. By the time she was the secretary of the Social-Democratic Lehreverband in 1930, she had become pregnant again, which was terminated via abortion.
While working for the "Red Revue" ("Rote Revue") in 1931, she took a speech technique course taught by Helene Weigel, Brecht's common-law wife, at Masch, near Hannover, Germany. Introduced into the Brecht circle at this time, she broke up with Dymke that spring and soon became the lover and then mistress of Brecht after appearing in the role of the maid in a production Brecht's "Mother", under the tolerant eye of Weigel, who was the star of the play.
It is generally known now, though still contested and denied by believers in the solitary nature of genius, that Steffin played the central role in Ruth Berlau Brecht's "work shop" of collaborators between his first major collaborator, Elisabeth Hauptmann (who translated John Gay's 18th century masterpiece The Beggar's Opera (1953) that serves as the basis of The Threepenny Opera (1931) ("The Threepenny Opera", Brecht's most popular work) for Brecht and may have, in fact, written as much as three-quarters of the book without getting proper credit or remuneration, and Ruth Berlau, who took over the role after Steffin's death in 1941. Liek a great 17th century painter, such as Rembrandt, Brecht used a circle of collaborators (students and assistance in Rembrandt's case) to produce the works that he presented to the world under his own name. For while the collaborators did research, translation and drafting of texts, it was Brecht, with his poetic genius, who provided the final strokes or brushwork to create a final draft (as well as provided any songs or poetry on his own, though the great poet was not above purloining other's lyrics and presenting them as his own; Hauptmann most surely wrote the lyrics of the famous "Alabama Song" as Brecht did not speak English at the time, the language the song is written in).
For more than 10 years, Steffin served Brecht and his family, including his wife Wiegel, as secretary (the role usually ascribed to her by Brecht's acolytes), factotum, political sounding-board, mistress, and translator, often to the detriment of her own health. Steffin suffered from tuberculosis, and she often traveled and lived in countries such as Denmark with insalubrious climates to remain at Brecht's side, as the leftist author had to flee Nazi Germany in the mid-1930s. She also maintained relationships with other great thinkers and leftists, such as Walter Benjamin.
Grete Steffin died of tuberculosis in a sanitarium in Moscow in June 6 1941, in the last days of the German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact (Operation Barbarossa, the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, was launched on June 22). Steffin had already raised the money (mostly through her own translations of other writers' works) and made the arrangements by which the Brecht family was able to cross the USSR and go into exile in the United States. Alas, she was never able to join them, and Brecht's productivity -- that is, the quality of the output of his workshop -- declined.
She is now regularly credited as a co-author of Brecht's great classics Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder (1955), Galileo (1974), and Caucasian Chalk Circle (1973), having provided a great deal of preliminary text for Brecht, who polished the final output and presented it as a solo work of his own genius. Steffin collaborated out of love and out of fealty to the collective principle. However, as John Fuegi -- the founder of the International Brecht Society -- pointed out in his iconoclastic 1994 biography "Brecht and Company: Sex, Politics, and the Making of the Modern Drama ", for the great poet, it was a one-way street. No only did he not share credit, he didn't share royalties, which could have made a major difference to Steffin's impoverished family, who lived in poverty in the Democratic Republic of Germany (East Germany) after the war. - Harry Butcher was born on 21 March 1895 in Wilmington, Illinois, USA. He died on 18 June 1942 in Wilmington, Illinois, USA.
- Pasquale Amato was born on 21 March 1878 in Naples, Italy. He was an actor, known for Glorious Betsy (1928). He died on 12 August 1942 in Jackson Heights, Queens, New York City, New York, USA.
- Director
- Writer
- Producer
For the better part of his career, Woodbridge Strong Van Dyke lived up to his sobriquet "One-Take Woody" by steadfastly adhering to his credo of shooting each scene as quickly and efficiently as possible. Over his 25-year career, he economically directed over 90 diverse entertainments, which not only saved the studios vast amounts of money but turned out to be some of the most interesting motion pictures created during this period.
Van Dyke's father, a lawyer, died within days of his birth. By the time he was three Woody and his mother were forced to tread the boards of repertory theatre to make a living. When he hit his teens he had a succession of outdoor jobs, including lumberjack, gold prospector, railroad man and even mercenary. In 1916 he was hired by the legendary D.W. Griffith as one of a group of "assistants" (others included Erich von Stroheim and Tod Browning) to work on the picture Intolerance (1916). After that, his rise was truly meteoric. Within a year Woody was directing his own films, beginning with The Land of Long Shadows (1917). A later western, The Lady of the Dugout (1918), featured a 'genuine' former Wild West outlaw, the self-promoting teller of tall tales, Al J. Jennings. After enlistment in World War I, Woody returned to Hollywood in the 1920s to direct further westerns, beginning with some Gilbert M. 'Broncho Billy' Anderson features at Essanay and later Tim McCoy programmers (once, in 1926, he directed two features simultaneously). Woody was perhaps the first filmmaker to make westerns that strayed from the stereotypical jaundiced pro-white man view in favor of a more sympathetic portrayal of the American Indian on screen.
Woody's "One-Take" nickname came about as a result of filming world heavyweight boxing champion Jack Dempsey in Daredevil Jack (1920). Dempsey invariably flattened his opponents with the first punch, so it became imperative to have the scene "in the can" on the first take. As a result, Woody was much in demand throughout the decade for "quota quickie" westerns and serials. Under contract to MGM in 1928, he accompanied documentary filmmaker Robert J. Flaherty to Polynesia to collaborate on the feature White Shadows in the South Seas (1928), taking over direction entirely when Flaherty fell ill. The success of the picture led to the thematically similar The Pagan (1929), shot in Tahiti with Ramon Novarro. This was in turn followed by the epic Trader Horn (1931), filmed on location in remote parts of Kenya and Tanganyika. Driven to the point of physical exhaustion by the swashbuckling director, the 200-strong crew virtually transformed the wilderness, creating, as it were, a live set, replete with exotic animals and plant life to capture unprecedented footage. In fact, there was so much excess footage after release of "Trader Horn" that much of it was incorporated into Woody's next project, the seminal Tarzan the Ape Man (1932), which set the bar for later entries into the Edgar Rice Burroughs cycle. After another flirt with danger, filming Eskimo (1933) in the remote Bering Strait, Woody settled down to less life-threatening assignments.
During the next few years, Woody Van Dyke showed his remarkable flair and versatility. After being Oscar-nominated for The Prizefighter and the Lady (1933), he directed William Powell and Myrna Loy in their first outing together in Manhattan Melodrama (1934) (most famous as the film seen by infamous bank robber and killer John Dillinger just before he was shot to death by the FBIl). He followed this with the stylish and witty thriller The Thin Man (1934) (filmed in true Woody-style in 16 days) and its three sequels, teaming Powell and Loy in one of Hollywood's most successful partnerships. After these hugely popular movies, Woody proved to be equally adept at musicals, directing yet another dynamic duo, Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy, in the operettas Rose-Marie (1936), Sweethearts (1938) and Naughty Marietta (1935). Never turning down an assignment, he also handled family fare (Andy Hardy, Dr.Kildare), social (The Devil Is a Sissy (1936)) and historical dramas (the lavish Marie Antoinette (1938) with Norma Shearer).
Unquestionably, one of the highlights of Van Dyke's career as a director was the first true "disaster movie", San Francisco (1936), for which he elicited rich, natural characterizations from his cast for 97 minutes. He then re-created the 1906 earthquake in the remaining 20-minute finale, achieving a realism that has rarely been matched and never surpassed. He was nominated for Academy Awards for both "The Thin Man" and "San Francisco", but lost out on both occasions.
A colorful, larger-than-life character, his "shoot-from-the-hip" camera style was at times criticized by his peers. Conversely, he was much respected by actors, frequently giving breaks to unemployed performers by using them in his films, and appreciated by the studios by consistently coming in on or under budget. In addition, he was known as a "film doctor", who would be called upon to re-shoot individual scenes with which the studio was dissatisfied (a noted example being for The Prisoner of Zenda (1937)), or, alternatively, to shoot additional scenes that were deemed necessary for continuity.
Like some of his peers, Woody could be an autocrat who rarely brooked arguments and was known to greet the mighty Louis B. Mayer himself with "Hi, kid". He became ill during the filming of Dragon Seed (1944). Diagnosed with heart disease and cancer, he committed suicide in February 1943.- Actor
- Soundtrack
After an initial foray into journalism, and determined to obtain some overseas experience, Haggard moved to Munich, where he studied for stage at the Munich State Theatres under Frau Magda Lena.He made his stage debut at the Schauspielhaus in October 1930 in the play Das kluge Kind directed by Max Reinhardt. He later appeared as Hamlet at the same theatre.
Upon Haggard's return to the United Kingdom in 1931, his career path was initially discouraging: he received only small parts in various London plays and worked in repertory in Worthing. He undertook further study at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and subsequently received good notices when he played Silvius in Shakespeare's As You Like It in London in 1933. He was noticed by the playwright Clemence Dane and made his first appearance in New York in 1934 as the poet Thomas Chatterton in her play Come of Age. Returning to Britain, he had successful roles in a number of plays, including Flowers of the Forest, a production of Mazo de la Roche's Whiteoaks, and he appeared as Konstantin in Chekhov's The Seagull, and was hailed as one of the most promising and handsome classical actors of the era.
Haggard married Morna Gillespie in September 1935, and they had three children. In 1938, Haggard returned to New York to reprise his role as Finch in Whiteoaks, which he also directed. His novel Nya was published in the same year. He appeared as Mozart in the film Whom the Gods Love (1936). The film was not a success, in part because Haggard was considered to be inexperienced, and was unknown. He also appeared in Alfred Hitchcock's film Jamaica Inn (1939) and subsequently appeared as Lord Nelson in the Carol Reed film The Young Mr. Pitt (1942).
At the outbreak of the Second World War Haggard joined the British Army, serving as a captain in the Intelligence Corps.[1] His wife and two sons went to the United States in 1940, where his father was consul-general in New York. Shortly after their departure, he wrote his sons a letter, which was published in the Atlantic Monthly later that year as "I'll Go to Bed at Noon: A Soldier's Letter to His Sons." Haggard was posted to the Middle East and worked for the Department of Political Warfare. There he met the author Olivia Manning and her husband, the broadcaster R. D. Smith. The latter recruited Haggard to play starring roles in his productions of Henry V and Hamlet on local radio in Jerusalem.[5] Manning based the character Aidan Sheridan in her Fortunes of War novel sequence on Haggard.
Stephen Haggard Sadly passed away on a train between Cairo and Palestine, Haggard was overworked and felt that the Second World War had destroyed his acting career. He was on the edge of a nervous breakdown when after some months a married Egyptian woman with whom he had a romantic relationship decided to end it.- S. Hillkowitz was born on 21 March 1870 in Lithuania. S. was a producer, known for ¡Que viva Mexico! (1932), Thunder Over Mexico (1933) and Eisenstein in Mexico (1933). S. was married to Hermine "Minnie" ?. S. died on 20 May 1943 in San Diego, California, USA.
- Producer
- Additional Crew
M. H. (Maurice Henry) Hoffman Sr.
M.H. Hoffman is associated with numerous companies. There is a bio on Hoffman in the 1929 and 1937-38 "Motion Picture Almanac." He studied painting, singing, and taught languages yet he is best remembered as a producer, director, and studio owner. Studios he founded - Tiffany Pictures, Liberty Productions, and Allied Pictures - produced dozens of mainly low-budget B-pictures in the 1920s and 30s.
Hoffman was born in Chicago, Illinois. His parents were Howard and Bertha Hoffman.
An attorney by training, he earned a Bachelor of Law degree from New York University in 1900 and was admitted to the bar in New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts. Hoffman practiced law in New York and Massachusetts until 1910, when he entered the motion picture business operating theaters and managing exchanges - organizations that pooled pictures and distributed them to theaters.
From 1910 to 1917, he was general manager then owner of the Universal Film Company, a motion picture exchange in New England. Between 1917 and 1921 he was in the "independent state right market, producing and distributing pictures."
He co-founded Tiffany Pictures (later Tiffany-Stahl Pictures) with star Mae Murray and her then-husband, Robert Z. Leonard in 1921. The Poverty Row studio made eight Mae Murray films; all released through Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Between 1921 and 1932, Tiffany released at least 70 features, both silent and sound, 20 of which were Westerns. At one point, Tiffany was booking its films into nearly 2,500 theaters. The studio filed for bankruptcy in 1932.
In 1922 he was listed as co-founder and general advisory director of Truart Film Corp., a producer/distributor of films based in New York.
In 1930 Hoffman founded and was acting president and general manager of Liberty Productions. Liberty produced its first film in 1930, "Ex-Flame," loosely based on the Victorian novel "East Lynne." In 1935 the studio was taken over by Republic Pictures. The Republic motif was "borrowed" from the symbolic motif of Liberty Pictures - the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia.
In 1931 Hoffman founded Allied Pictures. He was president, and his son, M. H. (Paul E.) Hoffman, Jr., was vice president. The studio's best-known film was "A Shriek in the Night (1933)," a thriller starring Ginger Rogers. At Allied, Hoffman signed Lila Lee and Hoot Gibson, the Western Star, and used the profits from their films to back literary adoptions that he wanted to make, including "Innocents (1932)," "Vanity Fair (1932)" and "Unholy Love (1932)."
In 1932, Hoffman was a founder and first president of the Independent Motion Pictures Producers Association (IMPPA). Comparable to the Motion Pictures Producers Association, the organization dealt primarily with production and union problems.
Allied folded in 1934, and Hoffman concentrated on running Liberty Pictures; Liberty merged into the new Republic Pictures in 1935. Republic took its original Liberty Bell logo from Hoffman's Liberty Pictures.
Hoffman and his wife, Mary, had a daughter, Hermine Hoffman Ruskin, and two sons, M. H. Jr. (Paul. E. Hoffman) and George F. (adopted). He died in Los Angeles on March 6, 1944, at age 61.- Jean Lester was born on 21 March 1883 in London, England, UK. She was an actress, known for The Road to Fortune (1930), Queen of Hearts (1936) and The Malory Secret (1951). She died on 4 June 1944 in Hammersmith, London, England, UK.
- Dragoljub Sotirovic was born on 21 March 1878 in Belgrade, Serbia. He was an actor, known for Karadjordje (1911) and Ulrih Celjski i Vladislav Hunjadi (1911). He died on 9 October 1944 in Belgrade, Serbia, Yugoslavia.
- Nicolai Neiiendam was born on 21 March 1865 in Copenhagen, Denmark. He was an actor, known for A Trip to Mars (1918), Elverhøj (1939) and Dødskysset (1915). He died on 16 March 1945 in Copenhagen, Denmark.
- Has performed regularly in different theatrical groups in Yerevan and Tiflis (now Tbilisi, Georgia). In 1916 was invited to play in Armenian Drama Union in Tbilisi. Has performed in other troupes as well. Has been worked in Armenia since 1920. At first she led a National theatrical troupe in Dilijan, since 1921 was a leading actress in the Sundukyan Drama Theatre of Yerevan. Has performed many classical roles in theatre and cinema.
- Producer
- Writer
- Actor
Mark Hellinger made his name as a New York theater critic and as one of the first of the nationally known "Broadway columnists", a craft which his friend Walter Winchell was the most famous practitioner. Born on March 21, 1903, Hellinger was the embodiment of the hard-boiled, hard-living, hard-drinking journalist that became a stereotype of the early talkies. Fittingly, he married Gladys Glad, a beautiful cast member of the Ziegfeld Follies, a series of lavish Broadway revues by Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. that glorified the American girl.
Hellinger, like the other great Broadway columnist and raconteur 'Damon Runyon', was a purveyor of stories of New York's demimonde, filled with wise-guy jargon. His stories were different from Runyon's, which relied on mythic archetypes, as they featured realistic depictions of actual people. Many of Hellinger's characters were composites of people he met on the Broadway beat.
The realistic cant of Hellinger's stories, as well as their Broadway background made him a natural for the movies. He contributed to the screenplay of Night Court (1932), and Frank Capra's Broadway Bill (1934) was based on one of his stories. His story "The World Moves On" was adapted for the screen as The Roaring Twenties (1939) directed by Raoul Walsh and starring James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart. It was a crime tale whose characters were all based on actual criminals and their fellow travelers during the wide-open era of Prohibition. The success of the film led Warner Brothers to make Hellinger an associate producer.
Although successful, Hellinger grew increasingly unhappy at Warner Brothers over screen credit (specifically on Bogie's It All Came True (1940)) and assorted personal and professional conflicts with Jack L. Warner. 20th Century Fox's Darryl F. Zanuck hired Hellinger away from Warner Brothers in 1941, making him a real producer. Hellinger returned to Warner Brothers before striking out as an independent at Universal, where he produced three seminal and classics of film noir: The Killers (1946) (based on a short-story by fellow newspaperman Ernest Hemingway most recently glossed in David Cronenberg's A History of Violence (2005)), the prison drama Brute Force (1947), and the paradigmatic Big City police drama, The Naked City (1948) , for which Hellinger also voiced the narration.
On December 21, 1947, just as Hellinger was entering into a new independent production company (one of the partners was Humphrey Bogart) he died suddenly at the age of 44. He was buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Sleepy Hollow, New York. A Broadway Theatre in New York was named for him from 1949 - 1989. The theater has been renamed the Times Square Church.- Jock Sutherland was born on 21 March 1889 in Coupar Angus, Scotland, UK. He died on 11 April 1948 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA.
- Harmon MacGregor was born on 21 March 1886 in New York City, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for The Dancing Cheat (1924), Bondwomen (1915) and Slave of Desire (1923). He was married to Eleanor ?. He died on 4 December 1948 in Marblehead, Massachusetts, USA.
- E.H. Young was born on 21 March 1880 in Whitley Bay, Tyne & Wear, England, UK. He was a writer, known for Hannah (1980). He was married to Arthur Daniell. He died on 8 August 1949 in Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire, England, UK.
- Grethe Brandes was born on 21 March 1900 in Frederiksberg, Denmark. She was an actress, known for Blind Justice (1916). She died on 16 October 1949.
- Janett Christman was born on 21 March 1936 in Columbia, Missouri, USA. She died on 18 March 1950 in Columbia, Missouri, USA.
- Frantisek Matejovský was born on 21 March 1874 in Naceradec, Cechy, Austria-Hungary [now Czech Republic]. He was an actor, known for Legionár (1920) and Jan Rohác z Dubé (1947). He died on 6 July 1950 in Prague, Czechoslovakia [now Czech Republic].
- Berta Kornai was born on 21 March 1885 in Budapest, Austria-Hungary [now Hungary]. She was an actress, known for Tüzet kérek (1912). She died on 18 October 1950 in Budapest, Hungary.
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
Ivar Widéen was born on 21 March 1871 in Sweden. Ivar is known for Man glömmer ingenting (1942), Kronans rallare (1932) and Anderssonskans Kalle i busform (1973). Ivar died on 16 March 1951 in Sweden.- Nora Barnacle was born on 21 March 1884 in Galway, Ireland. She was married to James Joyce. She died on 10 April 1951 in Zurich, Switzerland.
- Pierre Renoir was born on 21 March 1885 in Paris, France. He was an actor, known for Children of Paradise (1945), Marion de Lorme (1918) and Night at the Crossroads (1932). He was married to Sergine, Vera. He died on 11 March 1952 in Paris, France.