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- Actress
- Soundtrack
Lupe Velez was born on July 18, 1908, in San Luis Potosi, Mexico, as Maria Guadalupe Villalobos Velez. She was sent to Texas at the age of 13 to live in a convent. She later admitted that she wasn't much of a student because she was so rambunctious. She had planned to become a champion roller skater, but that would change. Life was hard for her family, and Lupe returned to Mexico to help them out financially. She worked as a salesgirl for a department store for the princely sum of $4 a week. Every week she would turn most of her salary over to her mother, but she kept a little for herself so she could take dancing lessons. With her mature shape and grand personality, she thought she could make a try at show business, which she figured was a lot more glamorous than dancing or working as a salesclerk. In 1924 Lupe started her show business career on the Mexican stage and wowed audiences with her natural beauty and talent. By 1927 she had emigrated to Hollywood, where she was discovered by Hal Roach, who cast her in a comedy with Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy. Douglas Fairbanks then cast her in his feature film The Gaucho (1927) with himself and wife Mary Pickford. Lupe played dramatic roles for five years before she switched to comedy. In 1933 she played the lead role of Pepper in Hot Pepper (1933). This film showcased her comedic talents and helped her to show the world her vital personality. She was delightful. In 1934 Lupe appeared in three fine comedies: Strictly Dynamite (1934), Palooka (1934) and Laughing Boy (1934). By now her popularity was such that a series of "Mexican Spitfire" films were written around her. She portrayed Carmelita Lindsay in Mexican Spitfire (1939), Mexican Spitfire Out West (1940), The Mexican Spitfire's Baby (1941) and Mexican Spitfire's Blessed Event (1943), among others. Audiences loved her in these madcap adventures, but it seemed at times that she was better known for her stormy love affairs. She married one of her lovers, Johnny Weissmuller, but the marriage only lasted five years and was filled with battles. Lupe certainly did live up to her nickname. She had a failed romance with Gary Cooper, who never wanted to wed her. By 1943 her career was waning. She went to Mexico in the hopes of jump-starting her career. She gained her best reviews yet in the Mexican version of Naná (1944). Bolstered by the success of that movie, Lupe returned to the US, where she starred in her final film as Pepita Zorita, Ladies' Day (1943). There were to be no others. On December 13, 1944, tired of yet another failed romance, with a part-time actor named Harald Maresch, and pregnant with his child, Lupe committed suicide with an overdose of Seconal. She was only 36 years old.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Seemingly suave, cultivated actor by nature, definitely huge in both talent and girth, and capable of playing much older than he was, Hollywood of the early '40s tragically lost Laird Cregar before it could fully comprehend on how to best utilize his obvious gifts. He was born Samuel Laird Cregar in a well-to-do section of Philadelphia, eventually dropping his first name after forging an acting career. At age eight his parents sent him to England and enrolled him at the Winchester Academy. During his school's off time, his pique in acting escalated after being employed as a page boy with the Stratford-on-Avon Players. Thereafter, his mind was set to become a professional actor. Returning to the U.S., he attended Episcopal Academy in Philadelphia and the Douglas Adams School in Longport, New Jersey. Again, he found meager jobs, such as an usher, in order to stay close to the theater. Awarded a scholarship to the Pasadena Community Playhouse, he trained there for two years before going out on his own and finding minor work on the bi-coastal stage and finding minuscule parts in films.
Laird's break came of his own making. After witnessing Robert Morley's triumph in the title role of "Oscar Wilde" on Broadway, Laird set upon finding backing for his own version of the play. Debuting in Los Angeles and finding resounding success there as well as in San Francisco, film studios began competing for his services with Twentieth Century-Fox winning out. He made his feature debut opposite Paul Muni in Hudson's Bay (1940) in the boisterous role of a fur trapper and solidified his movie standing by appearing flamboyantly as a bullfighting critic at odds with Tyrone Power's matador in the popular Technicolor classic Blood and Sand (1941). He then went on to show a scene-stealing prowess for stylish farce as one of Jack Benny "suitors" in the drag comedy Charley's Aunt (1941).
By the time Laird cut a mean, sinister path in I Wake Up Screaming (1941), playing a detective so insanely hung up on a murdered girl (Carole Landis) that he deliberately frames an innocent man (Victor Mature) for her crime, it was obvious films could rely on him for any of their comedic or dramatic ventures. There seemed nothing he couldn't do, but it was obvious audiences loved him as the 300 lb. man you love to hate - goaded on by his nefarious doings in the film noir classic This Gun for Hire (1942) starring Alan Ladd and Rings on Her Fingers (1942) with Gene Tierney.
On the Los Angeles theater front he gave Monty Woolley a run for the money in Woolley's signature stage role of Sheridan Whiteside in "The Man Who Came to Dinner". Along with the good came some contrived roles in a few mediocre films ranging from training officers to hammy-styled pirates. Even so, he usually stood out among the other actors in some fashion. He even played the Devil himself in the exquisitely humor-laced Ernst Lubitsch comedy Heaven Can Wait (1943).
His film career was capped by his definitive Jack the Ripper in The Lodger (1944). Investing the psychotic role with an intense, gripping realism and off-putting, oily charm, he led a brilliantly seasoned cast and relished a death scene in the film (in truth, the real-life serial killer was never caught) that dared to forever stereotype him as a Sydney Greenstreet-like villain. Unfortunately, his early death robbed film audiences of seeing what course Laird's career would have taken. Sure enough, his last celluloid offering in Hangover Square (1945) was as another despicable character with murder on its maniacal mind. Top-lining a cast that included Linda Darnell (as an object of his affection), and George Sanders, he this time portrayed a temperamental composer who suffers from a split personality disorder and, prone to periodic blackouts, commits brutal murders. Another compelling death scene had his mad character wildly pounding out a concerto while the room around him goes up in flames and the ceiling crashes down on him.
Laird's obsession with avoiding the inevitable stereotype as a "heavy heavy" and wistful pursuit of a romantic leading man career compelled him to go on a reckless, unsupervised crash diet (from 300 lbs to 200 lbs), which is evident by his drastically trimmed-down look in his last film. This proved too strenuous on his system and he was forced to undergo surgery for a severe stomach disorder. His 30-year-old heart gave out on the morning of December 9, 1944, only days after his operation. He was survived by his mother.- Actor
- Director
- Writer
Bud Jamison was born on 15 February 1895 in Vallejo, California, USA. He was an actor and director, known for Three Little Beers (1935), Their First Tintype (1920) and Captain Caution (1940). He was married to Georgia Kathleen Holland. He died on 30 September 1944 in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA.- Mildred Harris was born on 29 November 1901 in Cheyenne, Wyoming, USA. She was an actress, known for The Doctor and the Woman (1918), For Husbands Only (1918) and The Price of a Good Time (1917). She was married to William Peter Fleckenstein, Everett Terrence McGovern and Charles Chaplin. She died on 20 July 1944 in Hollywood, California, USA.
- Richard Fiske was born on 20 November 1915 in Shelton, Washington, USA. He was an actor, known for Across the Sierras (1941), North from the Lone Star (1941) and The Officer and the Lady (1941). He was married to Marjorie Jean McGregor. He died on 10 August 1944 in La Croix-Avranchin, Manche, France.
- Music Department
- Actor
- Composer
Alton Glenn Miller was born on March 1, 1904, in Clarinda, Iowa; the son of Lewis Elmer and Mattie Lou Cavender Miller. He started his music studies when his father gave him a mandolin. He soon traded the mandolin for an old horn. In 1916 he switched to trombone. In 1923, he enrolled in the University of Colorado, but after a year, he dropped out of school and moved to Los Angeles, where he joined Ben Pollack's band. He spent most of his time playing gigs and attending auditions.
In 1928, Miller moved to New York, where he played session gigs and made orchestrations. At that time he studied with the Russian musician and mathematician Joseph Schillinger, whose star apprentice was George Gershwin. Miller took Schillinger's instruction on orchestration of a practice exercise, which he developed into the song "Moonlight Serenade", making a small fortune with it. In 1934, Miller joined the Dorsey Brothers' Orchestra for a year, then organized an American band for Ray Noble, and made his debut at the Rainbow Room in New York's Rockefeller Center. The special sound of his band was developed in Miller's orchestration by using the "crystal chorus" and other inventive ways of arrangement.
Miller recorded his own band first time for Columbia Records on April 25, 1935. His instrumental "Solo Hop" reached the Top Ten in 1935, but he did not organize an orchestra under his own name until March of 1937. That band ultimately failed, and in 1938 he reorganized with many different musicians. In 1939, Miller and his new band got an engagement at the Glen Island Casino in New Rochelle, NY, which was a major spot with a radio wire. In 1939, he scored seventeen Top Ten hits, including such songs, as "Sunrise Serenade", "Moonlight Serenade", "Stairway to the Stars", "Moon Love", "Over the Rainbow", "Blue Orchids", "The Man With the Mandolin", and other popular songs, which he composed or orchestrated. Miller scored 31 Top Ten hits in the year 1940, and another 11 Top Ten hits in 1941.
His number one hits included "Song of the Volga Boatmen", "You and I", "Chattanooga Choo Choo", from his first film, 'Sun Valley Serenade'. Miller worked with the vocalists Tex Beneke, Ray Eberle, and the Modernaires with Paula Kelly. On February 10, 1942, Miller was presented with the first ever "Gold record" for "Chattanooga Choo Choo" and scored another 11 Top Ten hits in 1942. That was the first full year of his country's participation in the Second World War.
Although he was well beyond draft age Miller still strongly wanted to use his talents to help the war effort. After being turned down for a Navy commission he applied to the Army and was accepted with the rank of Captain. On September 27, 1942 he gave his last performance as a civilian. The Army assigned him to the Army Air Forces at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. He first organized a marching band, then built a large dance band with over two dozen jazz players and 21 string musicians. From January 1943 to June 1944 the Glenn Miller AAF Band made hundreds of live performances, "I Sustain the Wings" radio broadcasts, while previously-unreleased recordings by the former civilian band scored another 10 Top Ten hits in the year 1943. Miller took his band to Britain in June 1944. There he performed for the allied troops and did radio shows. His last recording of 20 new songs was made weeks before his death; it was released only in 1995.
After the liberation of France, now-Major Glenn Miller wanted to bring his music closer to the troops serving on the Continent and arranged to have the band transferred to Paris. He planned to travel ahead of time to prepare for the full orchestra's arrival but bad weather delayed his flight. On December 15, 1944 he accepted an invitation from another officer who was going to Paris on what turned out to be an unauthorized flight. He apparently was unaware that the plane's pilot was inexperienced in winter flying, and more tragically, that the small UC-64 "Norseman" transport had been suffering from fuel-system problems.
The plane never arrived in Paris, and on December 24, 1944 the AAF officially reported it and its crew as MIA (Missing in Action), under the presumption that it had gone down in the English Channel. In 1985, the British Ministry of Defence came up with explanation of Miller's disappearance, claiming that his plane was struck by a British bomb dropped in the waters by returning RAF pilots. Subsequent research has given credence to the alternate hypothesis that the plane crashed due to icing of its fuel system in the cold air over the Channel. However no wreckage, remains, or IDs have ever been found, precluding any definitive explanation. Glenn Miller was eventually officially declared dead; at his daughter's request a memorial tombstone was placed in Memorial Section H, Number 464-A on Wilson Drive in Arlington National Cemetery in April of 1992,- Merna Kennedy was born on 7 September 1908 in Kankakee, Illinois, USA. She was an actress, known for The Circus (1928), Ghost Valley (1932) and The Big Chance (1933). She was married to Forrest Brayton and Busby Berkeley. She died on 20 December 1944 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Actor
- Writer
- Director
Langdon first performed when he ran away from home at the age of 12-13 to join a travelling medicine show. In 1903 he scored a lasting success in vaudeville with an act called "Johnny's New Car" which he performed for twenty years. In 1923, he signed with Principal Pictures as a series star, but transferred to the Mack Sennett Studio when Mack Sennett bought the contract. Early in his film career, he had the good fortune to work regularly with the young Frank Capra. The two developed a unique character of an innocent man-child who found himself in dramatic and hazardous circumstances with only providence and good luck making him come out on top. This character clicked with the public and Langdon enjoyed a streak of artistic and commercial successes using it with Capra's direction. Unfortunately, he began to take the praise of his talent too seriously and broke with Capra so he could hog all the glory himself with his films. This proved to be a disastrous mistake as his first film "Three's a Crowd", a sickeningly sentimental film that plainly showed that he did not even approach the talent and skill of Capra which was needed to keep his character style viable. It has been also speculated the public was getting tired of Langdon's character, which contributed to Langdon's first solo film being an artistic and commercial failure. That film was the first in a series of bombs that ruined Langdon's career and relegated him to minor films from third string companies for the rest of his life.- Writer
- Additional Crew
- Soundtrack
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was born into a family of old provincial nobility. Failing his final exams at a preparatory school, he entered the École des Beaux-Arts to study architecture. In 1921, he began military service in the 2nd Regiment of Chasseurs, and sent to Strasbourg for pilot training. The next year, he obtained his license, and was offered a transfer to the air force. But his fiancée's family objected, so he settled in Paris and took an office job. His engagement ultimately broke off, and he worked at several jobs over the next few years without success.
By 1926, he was flying again. He became one of the pioneers of international postal flight in the days when aircrafts had few instruments and pilots flew by the seat of their pants. He worked on the Aéropostale between Toulouse and Dakar. His first tale, L'Aviateur (The Aviator), was published in the magazine Le Navire d'Argent. In 1928, he published his first book, Courrier-Sud (Southern Mail), and flew the Casablanca/Dakar route. He became the director of Cap Juby airfield in Rio de Oro, Sahara. In 1929, he moved to South America where he was appointed director of the Aeroposta Argentina Company. In 1931, Vol de Nuit (Night Flight), which won the Prix Femina, was published. He married Salvadoran artist and writer Consuelo Suncin Sandoval de Gómez, who became the model for the temperamental Rose in Le Petit Prince. Theirs was a stormy union as Saint-Exupéry traveled frequently and indulged in numerous affairs.
During World War II, he was in New York City, but returned to France to join a squadron based in the Mediterranean. Now 44, he agreed to collect data on German troop movements in the Rhone River Valley. He took off the night of July 31, 1944, and was never seen again. A lady reported having seen a plane crash around noon on August 1st near the Bay of Carqueiranne. A body wearing a French uniform was found several days later, and buried. In 1998, a fisherman found a silver chain bracelet south of Marseille which was identified as being Saint-Exupéry's. On April 7, 2004, officials confirmed that the wreckage of a Lockheed Lightning P-38 found on the seabed off the coast of Marseille in 2000 was Saint-Exupéry's.
Further research in 2006 by the dive team which recovered the wreckage located a German pilot who was flying a mission at the Bay of Carqueiranne at the time Saint-Exupéry's plane went down. Horst Rippert acknowledged that he shot at the plane, but did not report it, possibly because he was not sure he actually downed it. When the Germans heard American radio broadcasts that Saint-Exupéry was missing, Rippert said he knew that the plane he downed was his. Rippert idolized Saint-Exupéry, read all his books, and had been bothered by the incident his whole life. He told the dive team he would not have shot at the plane had he known it was Saint-Exupéry's.- Lionel Pape was born on 17 April 1877 in Sussex, England, UK. He was an actor, known for The Philadelphia Story (1940), Raffles (1939) and How Green Was My Valley (1941). He died on 21 October 1944 in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Actor
- Director
- Writer
Felix Basch was born on 16 September 1885 in Vienna, Austria-Hungary [now Austria]. He was an actor and director, known for Desperate Journey (1942), Schicksal (1925) and Der Sohn des Hannibal (1926). He was married to Gretl Basch. He died on 17 May 1944 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Dick Purcell was born on 6 August 1905 in Greenwich, Connecticut, USA. He was an actor, known for Captain America (1944), Mystery House (1938) and Heroes in Blue (1939). He was married to Ethelind Terry. He died on 10 April 1944 in Hollywood, California, USA.
- Actress
- Soundtrack
Jessie Ralph was a sailor's daughter, who first came to the stage at the age of 16, performing with a stock company in either Boston, Massachusetts, or Providence, Rhode Island (accounts differ). The year was 1880, and it took Jessie another 26 years to make her debut on the Great White Way in "The Kreutzer Sonata". Already a seasoned actress, she enjoying third billing. Her screen career started with one and two reelers as early as 1915, but her proper entry into Hollywood did not come about until 1933.
For more than 20 years, plump, down-to-earth Jessie made her reputation as a character actress on Broadway playing an assortment of nurses, maids and aunts. She was used in musicals by George M. Cohan and acted in Shakespearean roles, from "Twelfth Night" to "Romeo and Juliet". She was nurse to Jane Cowl's Juliet in the 1923 play which ran for an unprecedented 174 performances and co-starred Eva Le Gallienne and Katharine Cornell (amazing, when considering that the star was already 39 years old!). Like other successful actresses of the stage, Jessie was brought to Hollywood to reprise a Broadway hit role, in this case her Aunt Minnie in Child of Manhattan (1933).
After half a lifetime in the theatre, Jessie's sojourn in Hollywood was relatively brief but marked by a series of memorable performances. She was the definitive incarnation of the endearing nurse Peggotty in David Copperfield (1935) and played Greta Garbo's loyal maid Nanine in Camille (1936). She was the matriarch of the Whiteoaks of Jalna (1935), an adaptable society matron in San Francisco (1936) and harridan of a mother-in-law to W.C. Fields, Hermisillo Brunch, in The Bank Dick (1940). Whether in comedy or drama, as a Chinese aunt in both stage and screen versions of The Good Earth (1937), or a kindly sorceress in The Blue Bird (1940), Jessie gave consistently good value for money. The New York Times review of October 12, 1935, wrote of her performance in I Live My Life (1935): "Jessie Ralph as the tyrannical head of the family, proves again that she is the best of the screen grandmothers".
Jessie retired from acting in 1941 after having a leg amputated and died three years later.- Actor
- Writer
- Additional Crew
Richard Bennett was born on 21 May 1870 in Deer Creek, Indiana, USA. He was an actor and writer, known for The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), Damaged Goods (1914) and The Eternal City (1923). He was married to Aimee Raisch Hastings, Adrienne Morrison and Grena Heller. He died on 22 October 1944 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Actor
- Additional Crew
Tall, heavy-set character actor Alan Dinehart dropped out of school to join a repertory company. He had extensive stage experience (including some 27 appearances on Broadway) and, by the time he was signed by Fox in 1931, he had worked not only as an actor but as a stage manager and writer. On screen he appeared for the most part in "B" pictures, notable exceptions being the MGM musical blockbuster Born to Dance (1936) and the 20th Century-Fox classic family drama Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1938). Dinehart specialized in portraying blustering or shifty businessmen, crooked politicians or racketeers. While he is usually described as a supporting player, he actually started out in the early 1930s playing leading roles opposite some of the major female stars of the period.
However, Dinehart's characters were rarely sympathetic. In Street of Women (1932) he essayed an architect who, bored with his society wife, indiscreetly keeps a mistress (Kay Francis) on the side. In Supernatural (1933) he was true to form as the phony spiritualist fleecing a wealthy socialite, played by Carole Lombard; and in Jimmy the Gent (1934) he was an urbane con artist in competition with James Cagney. On rarer occasions Alan found gainful employment as more benevolent characters, point in case his theatrical impressario Theodore von Eltz in Dance, Girl, Dance (1933). All of these performances attracted good reviews from Mordaunt Hall of the New York Times, ranging from "excellent" to "bearing up valiantly".
In unlikely contrast to his self-styled image of "Hollywood's most versatile villain", Dinehart had strong comedic inclinations, co-authoring several comedy plays towards the later stages of his career. The last and most successful of these, "Separate Rooms" (1940-1941), with Dinehart top-billed alongside Glenda Farrell and Lyle Talbot, became one of the longest-running non-musical plays on Broadway at the time, finally closing after 613 performances. Alan's son, Mason Alan Dinehart, followed in his father's footsteps and also became an actor, featured in several westerns and on television from the late 1940's.- Actor
- Director
- Writer
Gerron fled to France (because he was Jewish), then settled in Amsterdam in 1933. He was arrested by the SS in 1943 and was sent to Theresienstadt in 1944 to direct a staged documentary intended to persuade world public opinion that Jews were well treated in concentration camps. He made a film called "The Fuhrer Donates a City to the Jews" or in German "Der Fuhrer schenkt den Juden eine Stadt". After he completed the film he was sent to Auschwitz where he was murdered.- Additional Crew
Erwin Rommel, aka "The Desert Fox", was one of Adolf Hitler's most able generals during WWII. He joined the German army in 1910 and won awards for bravery in WW I. He was in the 7th Tank Division at the outbreak of WW II and headed the push to the English Channel. Promoted to the rank of lieutenant general, Rommel led the German army in Africa (known as The Afrika Korps) in its mostly successful North African campaign. He drove the British in Libya back to to El Alamein. This led to his promotion to the rank of Field Marshal. Eventually outmaneuvered by British Gen. Bernard L. Montgomery, he returned to Germany, where he was given charge of the defense of northern France. Implicated in the July 1944 plot to assassinate Hitler, he chose suicide rather than execution.- Betty Morrissey was born on 14 September 1907 in Brooklyn, New York, USA. She was an actress, known for A Woman of Paris: A Drama of Fate (1923), Lady of the Night (1925) and Skinner's Dress Suit (1926). She died on 20 April 1944 in New York City, New York, USA.
- Robert Frazer was born on 29 June 1891 in Worcester, Massachusetts, USA. He was an actor, known for White Zombie (1932), The Vampire Bat (1933) and The Tiger Woman (1944). He was married to Mildred Bright. He died on 17 August 1944 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Henrietta Crosman was born on 2 September 1861 in Wheeling, West Virginia, USA. She was an actress, known for Charlie Chan's Secret (1935), The Right to Live (1935) and The Royal Family of Broadway (1930). She was married to Maurice Campbell and Sedley Brown. She died on 31 October 1944 in Pelham Manor, New York, USA.
- A man of seemingly inexhaustible talents, Stephen Butler Leacock (born December 30, 1869) easily juggled being a humorist, essayist, teacher, political economist, lecturer, and historian. He received many awards and honorary degrees, among them the Lorne Pierce Medal; the Leacock Medal for Humour was established in his honor and has been awarded annually since 1947 to the best humorous book by a Canadian author. At the height of his career from 1915 through 1925, Leacock was undeniably the English-speaking world's best-known humorist. His parents, Peter Leacock and Agnes Emma Butler, had been secretly married; Agnes was three years older than her new husband. When Leacock was about 7, his large family (ultimately ten brothers and sisters) moved to Canada and settled on a 100-acre farm. Despite living a hard life on the farm, and having a charming but shiftless alcoholic father, Leacock was fortunate in that his mother believed strongly in a good education. With her devoted support and guidance, he did well in school, and graduated in 1887 as Head Boy from Upper Canada College. He received a B.A. from the University of Toronto in 1891. During this time, he wrote humorous articles for magazines for extra income. In 1900, he married Beatrix Hamilton, daughter of a well-to-do Toronto businessman. Her death from breast cancer in 1925 grieved him greatly, but he kept his anguish private, and spearheaded fundraisers to aid cancer research. Among his professional accomplishments, Leacock was appointed to full professor at McGill University in 1908. He was also appointed William Dow Professor of Political Economy and chair of the Department of Economics and Political Science, a position he held for 30 years until his forced retirement at age 65. Leacock's prolific written observations--sharp, funny, and timely--were critically applauded and loved by the public. He published what many consider his literary masterpiece, "Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town," in 1912. Leacock wrote two excellent biographies: "Mark Twain," published in 1932, and "Charles Dickens, His Life and Work," in 1933. In 1935, he published "Humour: Its Theory and Technique." He died of throat cancer in 1944, leaving his autobiography, "The Boy I Left Behind Me," unfinished. It was published in 1946. But death did not sweep him from Canada's cherished memory. To mark the 100th anniversary of Leacock's birth, the government of Canada issued a six-cent stamp in his honor in 1969. Leacock's former homes were declared historic sites, more awards were heaped upon him posthumously, and in 1970, a mountain in the Yukon's Saint Elias range was named after him.
- Lee Powell was born on 15 May 1908 in Long Beach, California, USA. He was an actor, known for The Fighting Devil Dogs (1938), Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe (1940) and Texas Man Hunt (1942). He was married to Norma Rogers. He died on 30 July 1944 in Tinian, Northern Mariana Islands.
- Guy Usher was born on 9 May 1883 in Mason City, Iowa, USA. He was an actor, known for The Case of the Black Cat (1936), Buck Rogers (1939) and The Spanish Cape Mystery (1935). He was married to Evelyn. He died on 16 June 1944 in San Diego, California, USA.
- Actor
- Soundtrack
Kent Rogers was born on 31 July 1923 in Houston, Texas, USA. He was an actor, known for Horton Hatches the Egg (1942), All-American Co-Ed (1941) and The Heckling Hare (1941). He died on 9 July 1944 in Pensacola, Florida, USA.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Troy Brown Sr. was born on 17 March 1901 in Memphis, Tennessee, USA. He was an actor, known for Nothing Sacred (1937), Can This Be Dixie? (1936) and Rhythm Rodeo (1938). He was married to Bertha McElroy. He died on 18 November 1944 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Lew Kelly was born on 24 August 1879 in St. Louis, Missouri, USA. He was an actor, known for The Lady in Scarlet (1935), Winds of the Wasteland (1936) and Paradise Express (1937). He died on 10 June 1944 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- When one thinks of the great English actors who have been knighted, one thinks of Henry Irving, the greatest actor of the middle-to-late Victorian period who became the first thespian to have a sovereign's sword patted on both shoulders in 1895, or the likes of
Laurence Olivier(acclaimed as the greatest actor of his generation), John Gielgud (considered by many critics to be the greatest Shakespearean actor of his generation and possessor of what Olivier called "The voice that wooed the world"), or Alec Guinness (a unique and versatile talent), or even movie stars like Sean Connery (the only Brit to be #1 at the box office in the United States) or Michael Caine (a delightful old warhorse who, like the Energizer bunny, keeps going and going well past a prudent time for retirement). Seldom does one think of the name of John Martin Harvey (1863-1944) when one thinks of the great actors of the English stage, but in 1921, he became the seventh actor to be knighted.
John Martin Harvey, or as he styled himself after obtaining his knighthood, Sir John Martin-Harvey, is known to history now, if at all, for playing Sydney Carton in an adaption of Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities (1935), a part more associated with Ronald Colman. But Martin Harvey, who had done his apprenticeship in Irving's company, claimed to have played the part of Carton 3,000 times on stage in his own production called The Only Way (1925), which was filmed in 1927. Directed by Herbert Wilcox, it reportedly was the first film of its length (10,000 feet) made in Britain.
Martin Harvey had been born in Wivenhoe, Essex, England in 1863, the son of a yacht-maker and was apprenticed at his father's boatwright business to learn the family trade. He wanted to become an actor, and one of his father's clients was the playwright and lyricist W.S. Gilbert, who helped him get acting lessons. In 1881, he manged go win the part of a boy at London's Court Theatre. The following year, a friend of his father gave him the 19-year-old tyro a letter of introduction to Bram Stoker, the general manager of Henry Irving's company at the Lyceum Theatre. Martin Harvey would spend 14 years toiling in minor roles in Irving's company, though eventually, when he was 25 years old, Irving allowed him and others to form the Lyceum Vacation Company.
The Lyceum Vacation Company toured during the summer "By permission of Mr. Henry Irving" (an endorsement as good as royal letters patent) equipped with the parent Lyceum company's sets, props, costumes and prompt books for free. For six years, he acted with the Lyceum Vaction Company for six weeks each summer, including tours of the United States and Canada, which enabled him to play leading man roles. Martin Harvey proved to be far more popular in Canada than in the U.S., as he would be far more popular in the provinces than in London when he set out on his own as an actor-manager in the 20th Century.
He married Nina de Silva, a fellow member of the company. While participating in Irving's North American tour of 1897-98, Nina decided to make Dickens's "A Tale of Two Cities" the property on which they would strike out on their own. They began writing their own adaptation in Chicago, and when they got back to London, they hired the playwright Freeman Wills's to continue the adaptation of the classic novel into a dramatic property.
In 1898, he was acclaimed playing Pelleas in Maurice Maeterlinck's "Pelleas and Melisande" opposite Mrs. Patrick Campbell. Meanwhile, the Martin Harveys managed to obtain financing for their production of Dickens's novel, called "The Only Way", and were able to rent the Lyceum itself, which was vacant.
"The Only Way" opened to good reviews and good business in February of 1899 and made the couple's reputations, but business soon fell off. The Martin Harvey company's 1900-01 London season was poor, likely as they were using plays and and acting techniques that were seen as old-fashioned at the dawn of the 20th Century by sophisticated Londoners. Martin Harvey aped Henry Irving and styled himself as a Romantic actor, relying on plays of suspect literary merit that afforded him leading roles in which he could shine. This type of theater relied heavily on costumes and spectacle. The play was not the thing, but the actor; everything, including the lighting, was focused on the star performer.
Reeling from poor houses in London, a friend advised Harvey Martin to go on a provincial tour with "The Only Way". He did and made a great success of it, so much so that he became known as "The King of the Provinces." By 1921, he had notched the 2,000 performance of "The Only Way" in Liverpool and would continue touring with the vehicle for nearly another decade, playing to audiences of up to 3,000 people a night.
He proved to the "The King of the Provinces" in North America, too, literally. His 1903 tour of The States was a disaster and it was re-routed to Canada where he again was a great success in the Provinces of the Dominion. He returned to Canada in the fall of 1919 and often toured there for the following 15 years.
After Irving died in 1905, Martin Harvey revived plays that Irving had thrived in, often using Irving's own props, further burnishing his reputation as the last of the great Romantic actors. Aside from Irving's repertoire, he won acclaim as Oedipus in a 1912 production staged by Max Reinhardt at Covent Garden. The year before, Reinhardt had designed his stage production of Hamlet using a cyclorama in order to reduce the need for time-consuming set changes. At the time, it was a radical idea, but Martin Harvey's portrayal of the Gloomy Dane had no one forgetting Johnston Forbes-Robertson's masterful performance, which was considered definitive at the time.
He also had great success in Maeterlinck's The Burgomaster of Stilemonde (1929) and in A Cigarette-Maker's Romance (1913), both of which were filmed. (He only appeared in six movies during his career.) Though his production of George Bernard Shaw's The Devil's Disciple (1959) was a success, neither he nor Shaw was satisfied with it. Martin Harvey would never be successful in Shavian drama (unlike Forbes-Robertson, for whom Shaw wrote the part of Julius Caesar in Caesar and Cleopatra (1945)) or other modern parts. He would continue to rely on "The Only Way" and other old Victorian chestnuts, which was alright in the provinces, but was frowned upon by more sophisticated London and American audiences and critics.
During the Great War, Martin Harvey toured the country giving military recruitment lectures and raising money for the Red Cross and other charities, most notably the Nation's Fund for Nurses. Established in 1917 by the British Women's Hospital Committee, the Fund financially support the newly created College of Nursing with the aim of providing relief for sick or disabled nurses. Martin Harvey and his wife raised enough money to buy a building for the College of Nursing in 1920 which became a rest home for nurses.
He was knighted on the New Year's Honour's List in 1921, most likely due to his charitable work as his London reviews at that time of his career were lacking. Some of it may have been snobbish London critics deriding the "King of the Provinces".
After being knighted, he hyphenated his name. He continued to tour the provinces, including Canada, with diminishing success. By the time of his last Canadian tour in 1934, he was appearing to small houses and little acclaim.
Sir John Martin-Harvey died in 1944 at five weeks shy of his 81st birthday. - Director
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Dadasaaheb Phalke was born in 1870 in Trymbakeshwar in Nasik. He was born to a Sanskrit scholar, he studied at J.J. college of Art in Bombay and at Kala Bhavan, Baroda. He then studied architecture and became landscape painter of academic nature studies. He worked in a photographic studio and at Ratlam learned three-colour block making and ceramics. He then worked as a portrait photographer, stage make-up man, assistant to a German illusionist and as a magician! He was offered backing to start an Art Printing Press and his backers to acquaint him with the latest printing process arranged for him to go to Germany provided that he remain with the company. But by the time Phalke returned he knew that a printing career would not satisfy him. He raised loan from his friend and pledging his life insurance, Phalke went to England in 1912 to purchase the necessary equipment and acquaint himself with the technical aspects of filmmaking. When he returned from London he launched Raja Harishchandra about an honest king who for the sake of his principles sacrifices his kingdom and family before the gods impressed with his honesty restore him to his former glory and this movie was released in 1913. Later he produced Mohini Bhasmasur (1913),Satyavan Savitri (1914), Lanka Dahan (1917), Shri Krishna Janam (1918) and Kaliya Madan (1919). Due to changing tastes of movies and extreme commercialised atmosphere in film world, Phalke retired. Later in 1937 he produced Gangavataram (1937), but he had lost his magic. He died in Nasik, a forgotten man. But today he is considered as a pioneer of Indian cinema and a prestigious Indian film industry award is named after him.- Director
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Former playwright George B. Seitz left the theater for Hollywood in 1913, and before long he was turning out screenplays for action serials such as The Perils of Pauline (1914), The Exploits of Elaine (1914), and The Iron Claw (1916). In addition to writing and sometimes starring in these productions, he began to direct them as well, with great success. A prolific director, Seitz, unlike many of his B-picture colleagues, survived the transition from silents to talkies quite well, and directed everything from comedies to dramas to westerns at most of the studios around town. Although he spent a good amount of time at Columbia, he came to be most closely associated with MGM, where he directed - among others - almost all of the entries in the fondly remembered "Andy Hardy" series.- Actor
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Although his career was short-lived, McPhail was fortunate enough to have appeared in some of the finest musicals and operettas of the late 30s. Jeanette MacDonald took an early interest in this handsome baritone, when he performed in the chorus of San Francisco and other of her pictures. The studio signed him on at nineteen as the back-up for Nelson Eddy in The Girl of the Golden West (1938), although McPhail did not get screen time. His career flared briefly in 1939 and 1940, when he appeared with MacDonald, Judy Garland, Eleanor Powell and future wife Betty Jaynes in a series of musical pictures. Although the studio groomed him as the next Nelson Eddy, it failed to recognize the changing interests of the moviegoing public, who tired of his style of singing. His marriage failed, and he took to drink. Roles dried up, and after an earlier suicide attempt, McPhail succeeded in poisoning himself on December 6, 1944.- Grete Berger was born on 11 February 1883 in Jägerndorf, Moravia, Austria-Hungary [now Krnov, Czech Republic]. She was an actress, known for Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler (1922), The Student of Prague (1913) and Ein Sommernachtstraum in unserer Zeit (1914). She was married to Hanns Heinz Ewers. She died on 23 May 1944 in KZ Auschwitz, Germany.
- Actor
- Soundtrack
Ferdinand Gottschalk was born on 28 February 1858 in London, England, UK. He was an actor, known for Berkeley Square (1933), She Had to Say Yes (1933) and I Am a Thief (1934). He died on 10 November 1944 in London, England, UK.- Betty Lorraine was born Betty Cornelia Mumford on June 10, 1912 in Hartford, Connecticut. When she was a child she took dancing lessons and danced with the Arnold Lamon ballet. After her parents divorced her mother took her to California. Betty attended the Berkeley Hall School in Beverly Hills. At the age of sixteen she made her film debut as an extra in None But The Brave. The beautiful brunette was offered a contract with Sam Goldwyn and became one of the Goldwyn Girls. She sometimes used the screen name "Lorraine Marshall". In January of 1930 she married James Huston, a wealthy broker. The couple divorced two years later. Her second marriage, to Melville Peterson, also ended in divorce. Betty had small roles in A Bedtime Story, Dancing Lady, and Cain And Mabel.
Unfortunately by 1936 her acting career had stalled. She started working as a big band singer and appeared on numerous radio shows. Then she appeared on Broadway in the musical The Streets Of Paris. Betty impulsively married bandleader Charlie Barnet on November 21, 1938 after a two day courtship. Their marriage was annulled just forty- three days later. In 1940 she married her fourth husband singer Larry Stewart. She landed a bit part in the 1944 film Ali Baba And The Forty Thieves. Sadly she was suffering from severe depression. On September 29, 1944 she committed suicide by taking an overdose of barbiturates. Betty was only thirty-two years old. She was cremated and buried at Hollywood Forever cemetery in Los Angeles, California. Tragically her mother Bessie would also commit suicide in 1948. - John Dilson was born on 18 February 1891 in Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for The Man with Nine Lives (1940), Drums of Fu Manchu (1940) and Gang Bullets (1938). He died on 1 June 1944 in Ventura, California, USA.
- Actor
- Writer
Donald Stuart was born on 2 December 1897 in Earlsfield, Surrey, England, UK. He was an actor and writer, known for The Invisible Man (1933), Beau Geste (1926) and The Silver King (1929). He died on 22 February 1944 in Hollywood, California, USA.- A charismatic German resistance member and would-be assassin of Adolf Hitler, Claus Phillip Maria Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg was born 15 November 1907, 1:00 a.m. CET, in the family's castle in the small Bavarian town of Jettingen (today known as Jettingen-Scheppach). He was born one of a set of twins (his other twin, Konrad Maria, only lived for one day after birth). His parents, Alfred Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg and Caroline Gräfin von Üxküll-Gyllenband, already had given birth to another set of twins, Alexander and Berthold (b. 15 March 1905). The father came from a well-known aristocratic Swabian family, while their mother, although born and raised in Austria, had eastern Prussian and Swedish roots. Claus is described as having been a rather withdrawn child, although far from being shy. His closest intimate, from childhood on, was his brother Berthold. Claus developed passions for literature, music, arts and horseback riding at a very early age and kept them all his life. Unfortunately, in his youth he suffered from poor health, and it was likely that this contributed to his lack of ambition, which in turn contributed to his "average" grades in school while his healthier older brothers managed to be straight-A students. Skilled in singing and playing both violoncello and piano, Claus considered becoming a musician at one point, but had more serious plans about studying architecture. In 1926 he finished school, by which time he had changed his career plans from music to the military and soon enlisted in the army, and after training was posted to the 17th Cavalry Regiment in Bamberg. One year later he was transferred for additional training to Dresden's cavalry school. Although one of the best trainees of his age group, Claus was not popular with his superiors because of minor rule-breaking. His infractions weren't serious--things like smoking in his superiors' presence or always wanting to have the last word--but he nonetheless provoked the authorities at the school, who transferred him to Hanover in 1928.
On the other hand, though not a favorite with his superiors, his colleagues described him as very likable and social, if somewhat stand-offish. Unlike his fellow trainees, however, Claus was interested neither in philandering nor carousing--he preferred to study Russian parallel to his training. During a dancing lesson he met the mother of his future wife Nina, who raved about him to her daughter when she came home from boarding school. They were introduced to each other by the mother and soon became a couple, engaged on 15 November 1930 and married on 26 September 1933. Four children resulted from the marriage: Berthold Maria (born 3 July 1934), Heimeran (born 9 July 1936), Franz Ludwig (born 4 May 1938) and Valerie (born 15 November 1940). The young officer also became more and more successful in his career, and at his various promotions was often the youngest of his rank, due mainly to his variety of skills and outstanding organizational abilities. He was quite the workaholic, although a contributing factor may have been his suffering from sleeping disorders. Surprisingly, he never had health problems because of his stressful and somewhat unhealthy lifestyle--he smoked several packs of cigarettes a day and also was "quite fond" of coffee and wine.
In April 1943, now a colonel and serving in Tunisia, he was seriously wounded in combat--he lost his right hand, his left eye and two fingers of his left hand, in addition to receiving a leg injury, although it was not that serious. He spent five months in a military hospital in Munich and later was sent home to his estate in Jettingen for further recovery. In the fall of 1943, however, he was back at work (now in Berlin) despite both his doctors' and his family's objections. The war, and his injuries, had changed him from a strong supporter of Hitler's regime into a fervent opponent of it, and he became one of the most important conspirators in a plan by senior army officers to overthrow Hitler. Although some of his fellow conspirators preferred just to arrest Hitler and take over the government, von Stauffenberg was adamant that the entire Nazi system had to be destroyed, including Hitler, which is why he volunteered to carry out the assassination personally, a task made easier by his recent appointment as Chief of Staff. On 20 July 1944 the plot was put into motion. Von Stauffenberg was one of the few officers who had direct access to Hitler's headquarters in Rastenburg, Eastern Prussia. He originally planned to place two bombs under Hitler's desk, but was interrupted and was only able to arm one of them. Unfortunately, the bomb--placed in a briefcase--was accidentally moved behind a strong wooden support of the table it was beneath, which was between it and its intended target, Hitler. After the explosion von Stauffenberg saw a dead body being carried out of the building, believed it to be Hitler and notified his fellow conspirators in Berlin so they could put the second part of their plan into motion, which was to seize control of the government. Unfortunately, he was wrong--the body was obviously not that of Hitler, who had survived with only minor injuries because the wooden support of the desk absorbed most of the blast from the bomb. When it became known that Hitler had survived, some of the conspirators lost their nerve and the plot failed. Hours after his flight back to Berlin von Stauffenberg was arrested, as were many of the other conspirators. He was executed on the same night, and more than 200 other conspirators met that same fate within the next few weeks (before being killed many of them were gruesomely tortured, which was filmed by their executioners "for posterity"). Pregnant Nina von Stauffenberg, who barely had known anything about the plot, was taken into clan liability and gave birth to daughter Konstanze on 27 January 1945, in a Nazi maternity clinic. - Writer
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Irvin S. Cobb was born on 23 June 1876 in Paducah, Kentucky, USA. He was a writer and actor, known for Steamboat Round the Bend (1935), Everybody's Old Man (1936) and The Face in the Dark (1918). He was married to Laura Spencer Baker. He died on 11 March 1944 in New York City, New York, USA.- Actress
- Soundtrack
A very talented singer with a beautiful voice. She starred in two films, the first, Intisar al-chabab (1941), was with her older brother 'Farid Al Atrach' and the second Gharam wa intiqam (1944). Asmahane died in a car accident while filming 'Gharam wa intiqam', it is rumoured, through the war between the secret services in Cairo during World War II.- Actress
Born Aimee Elizabeth Kennedy on her family's farm near Ingersoll, Ontario, Canada, she was raised a Methodist, her father James's faith. Her mother Mildred worked for the Salvation Army.
In December 1907, she attended a local "tent revival" on a whim, and fell in love with its Irish-born preacher, Robert Semple. They married on August 12, 1908 in a Salvation Army ceremony. They moved to Chicago to join Pentecostal preacher's William Howard Durham's Full Gospel Assembly, where Aimee discovered her gift as a faith-healer and "speaking in tongues".
While in China on missionary work, Aimee and Robert contracted malaria, probably due to eating food grown in soil fertilized with human feces (a wide-spread practice). He died of dysentery on August 17, 1910 in Hong Kong; 29 days later, she gave birth to their daughter, Roberta. On Robert's headstone, Aimee had inscribed: "He led me to Christ".
She made her way to New York City, where Mildred secured her a job with the Salvation Army. There, she met accountant Harold McPherson. They married on February 5, 1912, and moved to Providence, Rhode Island, where their son Rolf was born the following year. She tried to be the dutiful housewife he expected, but the pull of missionary work was too-great. With the children in tow, she returned to Canada to begin her ministry. She and the children, joined by Mildred, spent the next 7 years traveling North America, spreading the Good News, living from hand-to-mouth. Harold tracked Aimee down to Florida to take her back to Rhode Island, only to join her, even doing some preaching himself. But he soon longed for his former life of stability and predictably, and returned to Providence. He filed for divorce, citing desertion; it was granted in 1921.
In 1918, Aimee sent Mildred to Los Angeles to rent the largest hall she could find for her sermons, reasoning that the city's rampant growth made it the perfect home base for the ministry. She was an overnight sensation; people waited for hours to get into the 3,500-seat Philharmonic Auditorium, which was standing room only. On January 1, 1923, the world's first "megachurch", Angelus Temple, was dedicated, built by Aimee with funds raised by her followers, donations of building materials, and volunteer labor - "by faith", as she put it - intending it as a place where people of every Christian denomination could gather. Angelus Temple was added to the National Register of Historic Places on April 27, 1992.
On May 18, 1926, she and her secretary went to Lompoc's Ocean Beach Park for a swim. Soon after arriving, Aimee went missing. A search, complete with deep-sea divers, was organized as the media went into a frenzy, reporting "sightings" from Canada to Mexico. It fell to 15-year old Roberta to take to the pulpit at Angelus Temple, and deliver the "altar call" made famous by her mother as parishioners wept, convinced that the woman they affectionately called "Sister" had drowned.
In the pre-dawn hours of June 23, Aimee showed up at the Agua Prieta, Mexico home of Ramón González. She told González and his wife a wild tale: she had been approached by a couple who begged her to come to their car to pray for their sick child, but was shoved into the car and taken to a shack in the desert, where "Steve", "Mexicali Rose", and another man drugged and tortured her. She escaped and walked, by her estimation, 20 miles in the broiling heat. Agua Prieta mayor Ernesto Boubion arranged for his police to transfer her to the Douglas, AZ police, who took her to a hospital.
While most of the 50,000 people who greeted her at Union Station were more-than-willing to believe her, civic leaders - who had initially welcomed Aimee, but were now convinced that her over-the-top brand of Old Time Religion was turning their fair city into a laughingstock - were not. Over the objections of her mother and the Temple's lawyers, she went to court to clear her name. In three grand jury inquiries, she could not prove she had been kidnapped. However, District Attorney Asa Keyes could not prove she had NOT been kidnapped. Conflicting testimonies, missing evidence, and a lawsuit against Boubion for attempted extortion muddied the waters further. But the damage to her reputation in the "court" of public opinion - spurred by media speculation that she concocted the story to hide a secret tryst with a former employee, a married man - had been done. Hundreds of followers, disillusioned and heartbroken, left Angelus Temple.
Those who stayed to help with the herculean task of rebuilding the ministry were shaken to their core when Aimee married on September 13, 1931, as convention at the time held that divorcées did not remarry. It also didn't help that David Hutton, an actor and musician, took full advantage of being "Mr. Aimee", and had a string of highly-publicized scandals. They divorced in 1934.
Lost amid the roller-coaster that was Aimee's life was her charity work. She personally spearheaded relief efforts when an earthquake struck Santa Barbara in 1925, when the St. Francis Dam broke in 1928, and when an earthquake struck Long Beach in 1933. In 1928, she opened a commissary which operated 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, providing food, clothes, medical, and dental care to the needy, regardless or religion, race, ethnicity or national origin. Companies and individuals who would otherwise have had nothing to do with her found themselves donating food, supplies, money, or labor. A 1936 survey indicated that Angelus Temple was assisting more families than any other public or private institution in Los Angeles.
On September 26, 1944, Aimee traveled to Oakland for a series of revivals. Rolf found her unconscious in her hotel room the next morning; an hour later, she was dead. While the autopsy did not determine the cause of death, the coroner stated it most-likely an accidental overdose, compounded by kidney failure. Forty-five thousand people filed past her casket as she lay in state at Angelus Temple. She was buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale in a marble sarcophagus flanked by two angels. Rolf took over the ministry, which he ran for 44 years, and has grown to over 7 million members worldwide. Roberta - who had a falling-out with Aimee over church management - and her second husband, Harry Salter, created the game show "Name That Tune".- Cinematographer
- Director
- Camera and Electrical Department
G.W. Bitzer was born on 21 April 1872 in Roxbury, Massachusetts, USA. He was a cinematographer and director, known for The Birth of a Nation (1915), Broken Blossoms (1919) and Logging in Maine (1906). He was married to Ethel Boddy. He died on 29 April 1944 in Hollywood, California, USA.- Director
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T. Hayes Hunter was born on 1 December 1884 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. T. Hayes was a director and writer, known for The Ghoul (1933), The Light in the Clearing (1921) and Damaged Hearts (1924). T. Hayes was married to Millicent Evans. T. Hayes died on 14 April 1944 in London, England, UK.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Roy Emerton was a big, brawny character actor whose scarred face and resounding deep voice made him a natural for menacing roles. One of his best and most typical was as the evil Boss McGinty in The Triumph of Sherlock Holmes (1935).- Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. was born on 28 July 1915 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. He died on 12 August 1944 in Blythburgh, Suffolk, England, UK.
- Michael Wittmann was born on 22 April 1914 in Germany. He was married to Hildegard Burmester. He died on 8 August 1944 in Normandy, France.
- Actor
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Jess Lee Brooks a.k.a Jesse Brooks was an exceptional actor. He appeared in many of the top Black Cinema movies of the time, always playing the role of the caring policemen trying to warn the gangsters before it's too late, a father who would die for his kids. Whatever he played he was always a guardian angel over ones he cared for, the only time he would do wrong was if you wronged him or a loved one. Movie audiences felt as though they knew him when seeing him off-screen because on-screen his natural, love, kind word for all and protective persona reminded them of their father. Even in Hollywood films, he often outshone many of the white leading stars with his strong presence like in Sullivan's Travels where he gave an emotional performance that no one will ever forget after seeing it. Brooks died in 1944 and got respectful obituaries written about him. He was a man who wasn't afraid of being emotional or loving but was the definition of a man.- Writer
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- Director
What a life! Edgar Selwyn was born Edgar Simon on October 20, 1875, in Cincinnati, OH. As a child he and his family lived in Toronto, Canada, before moving to Selma, AL, where his parents died. He moved to Chicago at the age of 17 to seek his fortune, but Fortune would not let the young man take her as his mistress. Penniless, one night he decided to commit suicide and jumped off a bridge spanning the Chicago River. Instead of drowning, he landed on ice. Picking himself up, he made his way back to shore, where he was promptly accosted by a stickup artist, who jammed a gun into his back. "Your money or your life!" the thug thundered in time-honored fashion. The calm Selwyn replied, "My life." The perplexed thief began conversing with his intended victim, with the result that they both went to a pawnshop, where the gun was pawned and the proceeds divided between the two. This real-life comedy-drama served as the basis for Selwyn's 1915 play "Rolling Stones."
Busted flat in Chicago, Selwyn moved to New York in the 1890s, where he eventually achieved success as an actor, playwright and theatrical producer. First, though, he had to struggle. He became a haberdasher, selling neckties for $9 a week. Subsequently, he found employment as an usher at the Herald Square Theatre at the princely wage of 50 cents a night, but was soon was fired for imitating actor Richard Mansfield, who was starring in a play at the theater.
Actor-impresario William Gillette hired Selwyn for "Secret Service" in 1896, in which he played the role of a Confederate soldier, for $8 a week. Later he became the assistant stage manager for Gillette's company at the same salary. Gillette believed in the "realism of action," and minimized unnecessary dialog in favor of physical action that would elucidate the characters' behavior, a production philosophy that influenced the nascent movie industry, which, of course, was silent. Eventually Selwyn left Gillette and toured with a stock company, which put on his first play, the one-act "A Night in Havana."
After his apprenticeship in stock companies in Rochester, NY, and at New York City's Third Avenue Theatre, Selwyn made it back to Broadway in 1899, appearing in "The King's Musketeers" at the Herald Square Theatre, where he had first ushered. The next year he appeared in Augustus Thomas' "Arizona", moving with the production to London in 1902. Other plays he performed in on Broadway before becoming a star were Charles Frohman's 1902 production of "Sherlock Holmes", with his former employer Gillette in the title role, and two plays starring Ethel Barrymore: "Sunday" in 1904 and a 1905 revival of Henrik Ibsen's masterpiece "A Doll's House", with Barrymore as Nora Helmer.
Selwyn appeared in George M. Cohan's stinker "Popularity" in 1906. That same year he turned to playwriting, with his "It's All Your Fault" running for 32 performances at the Majestic in September 1908. His adaptation of Anglo-Canadian writer Gilbert Parker's novel about French-Canadians, "Pierre and His People", hit the Broadway boards that October, running for 32 performances as "Pierre of the Plains" (it was made into a movie in 1914, Pierre of the Plains (1914), starring Selwyn and produced by his own company, the All Star Feature Film Corp.; it was remade by MGM in 1942 as Pierre of the Plains (1942), with John Carroll). "The Country Boy" opened at the Liberty on August 30, 1910, and ran for 143 performances. According to his "New York Times" obituary, Selwyn had the biggest success of his career as a dramatist as playwright-star of his own original play "The Arab" in 1911. This drama was made into a film in 1915 (The Arab (1915)) by Cecil B. DeMille, with Selwyn recreating his stage role.
His first musical, "The Wall Street Girl", opened at George M. Cohan's Theatre on June 1, 1912, and ran for 56 performances. The book was written by Broadway playwright Margaret Mayo, Selwyn's first wife. He produced "Within the Law" that same year, and it was a huge success, generating a net profit of $1 million (approximately $19 million in 2003 dollars) in the days just before the advent of federal income tax. He also produced his wife's play "Her First Divorce", which ran for eight performances at the Comedy Theatre in 1913.
Edgar's younger brother Archibald Selwyn had followed him to New York and gone into business with a loan from the theatrical literary agent Elisabeth Marbury. Archibald had acquired the rights to operate a Coney Island concession that required the purchase of a penny-slot weighing machine, which he did with Marbury's money. After much frustration with the rusting machine, Arch and his partner one day garnered 1,300 pennies from a Coney Island crowd mindful of their waists. The two partners promptly lost their loot, which was wrapped in a blanket, although they did recover it from a restaurant trash can. It was time for a new career for Arch.
Edgar, Arch and future Broadway producer-director Crosby Gaige launched Selwyn & Company, Inc., in 1914, a theatrical production company and play brokerage that Edgar headed as president until 1924. The Selwyn Theater was built in 1918 at 229 W. 42nd St. behind their six-floor office building. It was inaugurated on Oct 2, 1918, with "Information Please", co-written by Jane Cowl, who had appeared in "Within the Law" and acted in other Edgar Selwyn plays. Its second offering was Edgar's own "The Crowded Hour", which opened 11 days after the end of World War I.
Construction of the theater--which was rechristened in 2000 as the American Airlines Theater--was bankrolled by infamous gambler Arnold Rothstein, the man who fixed the 1919 World Series (one of the inspirations for the character of Meyer Wolfsheim in F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby," Rothstein pioneered New York's narcotics trade, in addition to being a gangster, swindler and political fixer).
The most popular play to appear at the Selwyn was Edna Ferber's and George S. Kaufman's "The Royal Family," which burlesqued the Barrymore family. Opening on December 28, 1927, the play, which was produced by Broadway legend Jed Harris, ran for 345 performances.
The Selwyns also built the Times Square Theater on 42nd Street in 1920. It opened with Edgar's own play, "The Mirage," which turned out to be a hit that ran for six months. The second play at the theater, Avery Hopwood's "The Demi-Virgin," ran for eight months. Eight of the 23 plays that followed these two inaugural hits were successful, and its boards were trod by the likes of Beatrice Lillie, Tallulah Bankhead and Robert Cummings. Gertrude Lawrence co-starred with the young Laurence Olivier and Noël Coward in Coward's 1931 hit comedy "Private Lives" at the theater. Other famous productions there were "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" in the 1926-1927 season, "The Front Page" in 1928 and "Strike Up the Band" in 1930.
The Times Square Theater's exterior featured an open-colonnaded limestone facade that had an entrance for the Selwyns' Apollo Theater. Built in 1919 as a movie-cum-vaudeville house named The Bryant, it was taken over by the Selywns in 1920 and rebuilt. It was converted to a legitimate theater showcasing plays and musicals, sharing a single marquee with the Times Square Theater.
The Apollo didn't have its first hit until 1923's "Poppy," starring W.C. Fields. The theater then was taken over exclusively for George White's "Scandals," a Ziegfeld Follies-like show that ran annually from 1924-31. The productions were famous for their chorus lines of gorgeous--and undressed--showgirls. The Apollo closed as a legitimate theater after the musical "Blackbirds of 1933" flopped, lasting only 25 performances. It then began showing movies until it was acquired by the Minskys, who ran it as a burlesque theater from 1934-37. In 1938 the Apollo transformed itself into a movie theater specializing in foreign films, then devolved into a Times Square grindhouse, an incarnation that lasted many years.
In 1933 the Times Square Theater ceased to be a legitimate theater after the closing of the play "Forsaking All Others," starring Tallulah Bankhead. Produced by Arch Selwyn, it opened on March 1, 1933, and closed after 110 performances. The theater was refitted as a movie house in 1934, as was the Selwyn, before being converted into a retail store in 1940. The Selwyn degenerated into one of Times Square's many double-feature grindhouses before being reclaimed as a theater in the 1990s, when the Wooster Group staged "The Hairy Ape" there in 1997.
Edgar Selwyn personally produced the Anita Loos comedy "Gentleman Prefer Blondes" in 1926, which ran for 199 performances at the family's Times Square Theater. He was also the producer of the musical "Strike up the Band", with music and lyrics by George Gershwin and Ira Gershwin and a book by Morrie Ryskind, based on George S. Kaufman's libretto, and the play racked up 191 performances at the Times Square in 1930. Edgar's last Broadway productions were "Fast Service" in 1931, a flop that lasted only seven performances at the Selwyn, and "The Wookey" ten years later, which ran for 134 performances at the Plymouth. His brother Arch continued to produce on Broadway throughout the 1930s.
Although Selwyn wrote many plays solo and in collaboration, the new medium of motion pictures was to become his future. Edgar and Arch Selwyn started producing films in 1912 through their All Star Feature Films Corp. In December 1916 they merged their company with that of producer Samuel Goldfish, creating the Goldwyn Pictures Corp. The symbol of the new company was a reclining lion, surrounded by a banner made from a strip of celluloid film, reading, in Latin, "Ars Gratia Artis" ("Art for Art's Sake"). Designed by advertising-publicity guru Howard Dietz, who later became a Broadway lyricist and movie executive, it adorned the front gate of the studio's Culver City, CA, production facilities, which ranked with the finest in the film industry (the inspiration for the original "Leo the Lion" likely were the stone lions fronting the New York Public Library on 44th St., which was across from the All Star Feature Corp.'s offices.)
Edgar's wife Margaret Mayo, a success in her own right as a playwright, and Broadway impresario Arthur Hopkins also were partners in the deal, but the dominant figure at Goldwyn Pictures and Goldwyn Distributing was Sam Goldfish. Goldfish, a founding partner of the Jesse L. Lasky Feature Film Co. in 1914, was forced out of that company in early 1916 when studio chief Jesse L. Lasky more closely integrated his production company with Adolph Zukor's Famous Players Film Co. The two firms served as the basis of Paramount Pictures. Goldfish, who had immigrated to Canada as Schmuel Gelbfisz, liked the name of his new company so well he adopted it as his surname--thus the world was introduced to Samuel Goldwyn.
Disliked by his partners, he dominated Goldwyn Pictures for three years until he lost an ownership struggle in September 1920. He resigned and, tired of partners, became an independent producer, a status he maintained for the rest of his career. Subsequently, the Goldwyn-less Goldwyn Pictures bought the old Triangle Studios in Los Angeles and leased two more New York studios while ceasing operations in New Jersey. The company eventually was merged with Loew's Inc.'s Metro Pictures in 1924 through a stock swap, creating Metro-Goldwyn, which subsequently merged with Louis B. Mayer Productions, with Louis B. Mayer as studio chief. The "Leo the Lion" trademark was adopted by MGM, and after being modified, would become one of the most famous and enduring trademarks in history.
Selwyn was hired by MGM as a writer-director in 1929. There he directed the Broadway star Helen Hayes to an Academy Award in the melodrama The Sin of Madelon Claudet (1931). Divorced from Margaret Mayo, Selwyn married Ruth Selwyn (born Ruth Wilcox), who was 30 years his junior. The marriage made him the brother-in-law of Loew's Inc. President Nicholas M. Schenck, who was married to Ruth's sister Pansy (aka Pansy Schenck).
Marcus Loew, the capo di tutti capo of MGM, was a firm believer in nepotism. Going along with the family tradition, Selwyn put his wife Ruth in several of the films he directed and produced. He mentored Ruth's brother, Fred M. Wilcox, who eventually became a director at MGM himself (Lassie Come Home (1943) and the sci-fi classic Forbidden Planet (1956)). Selwyn adopted Ruth's son Russell from an earlier marriage (Edgar and Ruth eventually divorced),
When Louis B. Mayer replaced the position of central producer with a "college of cardinals" concept of production units after Irving Thalberg's 1932 heart attack, Selwyn became a producer. He eventually served as Mayer's editorial assistant while simultaneously running his own production unit.
Edgar Selwyn died at the age of 68 at Los Angeles' Cedars of Lebanon Hospital on February 14, 1944, from a cerebral hemorrhage he had suffered the previous night. He was survived by his brother, Arch, two sisters, Mrs. Michael Isaacs and Mrs. S. M. Goldsmith, and his stepson, Russell "Rusty" Selwyn.- Actor
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Joe Ryan was born on 23 May 1887 in Crook County, Wyoming, USA. He was an actor and director, known for The Passing of Black Eagle (1920), Smashing Barriers (1923) and Man of Might (1919). He was married to Helene Marjorie Ingersoll. He died on 23 December 1944 in Riverside, California, USA.- Walter C. Hackett was born on 10 November 1876 in Oakland, California, USA. He was a writer, known for Their Big Moment (1934), The White Sister (1933) and The White Sister (1923). He was married to Marion Lorne. He died on 20 January 1944 in New York City, New York, USA.
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Weyler Hildebrand was born on 4 January 1890 in Västervik, Kalmar län, Sweden. He was an actor and writer, known for Goransson's Boy (1941), Muntra musikanter (1932) and Kadettkamrater (1939). He died on 17 November 1944.- Cuyler Supplee graduated from high school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and entered and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, While there, he became interested in theatricals and, after leaving school, became a member of the Orpheum Stock Company, followed by some straight and repertoire stock in Elmira, New York. He entered the movie business in 1925.