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- Actress
- Soundtrack
Harlean Carpenter, who later became Jean Harlow, was born in Kansas City, Missouri, on March 3, 1911. She was the daughter of a successful dentist and his wife. In 1927, at the age of 16, she ran away from home to marry a young businessman named Charles McGrew, who was 23. The couple pulled up stakes and moved to Los Angeles, not long after they were married, and it was there Jean found work as an extra in films, landing a bit part in Moran of the Marines (1928). From that point on she would go to casting calls whenever she could. In 1929 she had bit parts in no less than 11 movies, playing everything from a passing woman on the street to a winged ballerina. Her marriage to McGrew turned out to be a disaster--it lasted barely two years--and they divorced. The divorce enabled her to put more of her efforts into finding roles in the movie business. Although she was having trouble finding roles in feature movies, she had more luck in film shorts. She had a fairly prominent role in Hal Roach's Double Whoopee (1929). Her big break came in 1930, when she landed a role in Howard Hughes' World War I epic Hell's Angels (1930), which turned out to be a smash hit. Not long after the film's debut, Hughes sold her contract to MGM for $60,000, and it was there where her career shot to unprecedented heights. Her appearance in Platinum Blonde (1931) cemented her role as America's new sex symbol. The next year saw her paired with Clark Gable in John Ford's Red Dust (1932), the second of six films she would make with Gable. It was while filming this picture (which took 44 days to complete at a cost of $408,000) that she received word that her new husband, MGM producer Paul Bern, had committed suicide. His death threatened to halt production of the film, and MGM chief Louis B. Mayer had even contacted Tallulah Bankhead to replace Harlow if she were unable to continue, a step that proved to be unnecessary. The film was released late in 1932 and was an instant hit. She was becoming a superstar. In MGM's glittering all-star Dinner at Eight (1933) Jean was at her comedic best as the wife of a ruthless tycoon (Wallace Beery) trying to take over another man's (Lionel Barrymore) failing business. Later that year she played the part of Lola Burns in director Victor Fleming's hit Bombshell (1933). It was a Hollywood parody loosely based on Clara Bow's and Harlow's real-life experiences, right down to the latter's greedy stepfather, nine-room Georgian-style home with mostly-white interiors, her numerous pet dogs - right down to having her re-shoot scenes from the Gable and Harlow hit, Red Dust (1932) here! In 1933 Jean married cinematographer Harold Rosson, a union that would only last eight months. In 1935 she was again teamed with Gable in another rugged adventure, China Seas (1935) (her remaining two pictures with Gable would be Wife vs. Secretary (1936) and Saratoga (1937)). It was her films with Gable that created her lasting legacy in the film world. Unfortunately, during the filming of Saratoga (1937), she was hospitalized with uremic poisoning. On June 7, 1937, she died from the ailment. She was only 26. The film had to be finished by long angle shots using a double. Gable said he felt like he was in the arms of a ghost during the final touches of the film. Because of her death, the film was a hit. Record numbers of fans poured into America's movie theaters to see the film. Other sex symbols/blonde bombshells have followed, but it is Jean Harlow who all others are measured against.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Who could forget Colin Clive's "It's Alive! It's Alive!" as he melted to the floor mumbling the same over and over in ecstasy after his success at animating the Monster in the first sound version of Frankenstein (1931). Film history - horror film history - but part of a short history for actor Colin Clive - he died at 37 years of age. The son of a British army colonel on assignment in France at the time of Colin's birth, Clive the younger might have been expected to follow an army career-his ancestor was Baron Robert Clive, founder of the British Indian Empire. But he became interested in theater instead. His acting talents progressed through the 1920s to sufficient degree to replace Laurence Olivier who was starring in the R. C Sherriff play "Journey's End" in London. The director was up-and-coming James Whale, who had also been working his way up in London stage and film work as a budding scene designer and director. Among his stage and entertainment acquaintances in London was Elsa Lanchester - the future bride of Frankenstein. When Olivier moved on to other stage work, the play moved to the Savoy Theater in London with Clive in the lead in 1928.
Whale was waiting for the opportunity to move onto Broadway and Hollywood films. The success of "Journey's End" gave Whale his break. Broadway called for the play with him as both director and scene designer. It opened in March of 1929 but with Colin Keith-Johnston in the lead. Nevertheless, Clive came to New York as well to await developments. Halfway through 1930, the play had ended, and Whale was contracted by Paramount as a dialog director. Things continued to unfold quickly. Whale was very soon called on to direct what would be the first British/American co-produced sound film, a movie version of the popular Journey's End (1930). Whale got Clive back as the lead-the laconic, alcoholic Capt. Stanhope. And Clive showed on screen what came out in his stage performances - a measured intensity to his character, bolstered by his unique cracked baritone voice - seemingly always on the edge of irritation. Clive's first picture then led to opportunities in both British and American films. But he got his first play on Broadway "Overture" in late 1930 which ended in January of 1931. Then it was back to London where he was prophetically cast with Lanchester in The Stronger Sex (1931).
As they say, what came next was film history. Whale was contracted by Universal where Dracula (1931) had just been a huge hit and the studio was looking for a quick follow up. Shelley's Frankenstein was optioned as the next 'horror' movie with Whale directing. Whale wanted Clive as Dr. Henry Frankenstein, and it all came together. Clive played the tortured legitimate doctor driven to macabre surgery and near insanity with over-the-top theatrics that would type him for the remainder of his short career.
The next few years he played both B leading and A supporting roles. Two apt examples were playing brooding but romantic Edward Rochester in an early Jane Eyre (1934) and playing a British officer in Clive of India (1935) in which Ronald Colman - not he - played his illustrious ancestor. Clive returned to Broadway for two plays in 1933 and 1934 and one more in the 1935-36 season. Then it was back to Universal for the "Bride" sequel of Frankenstein (1935) in which his Dr. Henry was somewhat more subdued. This was mostly to do with a broken leg suffered from a horseback riding accident. He is seen doing a lot of sitting or lying down because of it. Dour and sour seemed to be his trademark, bolstered that much more with the remainder of his films in which he was usually disturbed supporting characters.
His final two films were in early 1937 with the better known History Is Made at Night (1937) - awkward type-casting him as the world's most sour grapes ex-husband, Bruce Vail, who engineers a sure collision of his new steamship with any available iceberg in foggy weather to hopefully drown his ex-wife Jean Arthur and her romantic true love Charles Boyer. But the sinking ship is stabilized and the lovers are saved to live happily ever after. Ironically, but befitting such a deed in Hollywood ethics, Vail shoots himself.
Ironically, Clive, suffering from tuberculosis, furthered along by chronic alcoholism, died not long after in late June of 1937.- Born in Providence, Lovecraft was a sickly child whose parents died insane. When he was 16, he wrote the astronomy column in the Providence Tribune. Between 1908 and 1923, he wrote short stories for Weird Tales magazine and others. He died in Providence, in poverty, on March 15, 1937. His most famous novel is considered to be "At the Mountains of Madness", about an expedition to the South Pole, which discovers strange creatures beneath a mountain.
- Actor
- Director
- Additional Crew
This elegant actor of the golden age of German cinema appeared in several masterpieces, before the cameras of such inspired geniuses as Lang, Lubitsch and Murnau. Vocation had come rather late in his life, though. Abel was indeed already 33 when he made his first film. Beforehand, he had been a forester, a gardener and a shopkeeper. But one day, while watching a film with Asta Nielsen, he was struck by revelation. He decided at once to become an actor and with the help of Nielsen in person he started a fruitful screen career. He also wrote and directed a few films. He died too soon aged only 57, but having honored the German screen with his noble, dignified figure in more than a hundred pictures.- Actress
- Soundtrack
A popular star in Hollywood for two decades through 1936, Marie Prevost began as a Mack Sennett "Bathing Beauty" in 1917, later starring in dozens of light comedies. But not long into the sound era, she encountered problems with her burgeoning weight, to the jeopardy of her career. Her self-remedy resulted ultimately in her starving to death.
Marie Prevost was born Mary Bickford Dunn in Sarnia, Ontario, Canada. She broke into films when she was 18 years old in Unto Those Who Sin (1916). Finding work in films was difficult in the early days, just as it is today. Marie found herself doing odd jobs until 1917, when she made another film, Secrets of a Beauty Parlor (1917). After filming was completed, Marie found herself unemployed again and went back to scraping around for a living. She kept going to casting calls, but it wasn't until 1919 when she landed a role in Uncle Tom Without a Cabin (1919). Finally, in 1921, movie moguls discovered her talent and began casting her in a number of roles. She appeared in four films that year and an additional six in 1922. Marie seemed to be on a roll. She stayed busy through the balance of the 1920s in a number of films, mostly comedies. As a matter of fact, she would continue making films until 1933, when her appeal began to fade. She made no films in 1934 and precious few after that. With the advent of sound, her thick New England accent didn't lend itself well to the "demon microphone", despite her beauty. Her depression about her career--or lack of it--drove her to alcohol, and she died on January 23, 1937, in Hollywood, of a combination of alcoholism and malnutrition, virtually broke and living in a dilapidated apartment. She never saw the release, in 1938, of her final film appearance: Ten Laps to Go (1936). She was 40 years old.- Actor
- Writer
- Soundtrack
Ted Healy was was born Ernest Lea Nash and grew up as a very good friend of Moses "Moe" and Samuel "Shemp" Horwitz (later Moe and Shemp Howard). In the '20s he changed his name to Ted Healy and got Moe, Shemp, and a violinist named Larry Feinberg (later Larry Fine) to do vaudeville acts with him as his stooges. As the 1930s started, Ted was becoming addicted to alcohol. Shemp left the act and Moe replaced him with Jerome "Curly" Howard. Those three also left the act because Ted Healy underpaid them and kept getting drunk. He spent the rest of his life doing feature films, most notably "Operator 13." Ted Healy died on December 21, 1937 while out celebrating the birth of his son. The cause of death was listed as nephritis on the autopsy.- Mostly remembered today as the father of Anthony Perkins, Osgood Perkins enjoyed a successful career on Broadway, appearing in 22 major productions from 1924-36, often produced by Brock Pemberton. The highlight of his stage career was starring in the hit "The Front Page" as Walter Burns at the Times Square Theatre in 1928. Despite his status on Broadway, he was considered merely a character actor in Hollywood and died far too young of a heart attack at age 45.
- Music Department
- Composer
- Writer
He was born Jacob Gershowitz, 26 September 1898, in Brooklyn, New York, of Russian-Jewish immigrants. As a boy he could play popular and classical works on his brother Ira's piano by ear. In 1913 he quit school to study music and began composing for Tin Pan Alley; by 1919 he had his first hit "Swanee" and his first Broadway show "La, La, Lucille." In less than three weeks in 1924 he composed "Rhapsody in Blue," originally for Paul Whiteman's relatively small swing band and later orchestrated by Ferde Grofé. "Concerto in F" followed the next year, and his musical success "Oh, Kay!" (which included "Someone to Watch Over Me") the year after that. Success continued: "Funny Face" (1927), the tone poem "American in Paris" (1928), "Girl Crazy" (1929), "Of Thee I Sing" (1931 the first musical to win the Pulitzer Prize), and the first true American opera: "Porgy and Bess" (1935). He moved to Hollywood were his songs were performed by Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. In 1937 he fell in love with Paulette Goddard, then married to Charlie Chaplin. He was heartbroken that she would not leave her husband for him. When he fell ill, that June, it was written off as stress. A month later he died of a brain tumor, five hours after a failed surgical attempt to remove it. Funerals were hold in both Hollywood and New York.- Writer
- Additional Crew
- Soundtrack
James Matthew "J. M." Barrie was a Scottish novelist and playwright. He had a distinguished career, but is primarily remembered for creating Peter Pan and his supporting characters. He used the character of Pan in the novel "The Little White Bird" (1902), the stage play "Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up" (1904). the novel "Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens" (1906), the play "When Wendy Grew Up - An Afterthought" (1908), and the novel "Peter and Wendy" (1911).
In 1860,. Barrie was born in the burgh of Kirriemuir, in the county of Forfarshire. The county has since been renamed to "Angus". In the 19th century, Kirriemuir was center for the weaving industry, Barrie's father was David Barrie, a moderately prosperous weaver. Barrie's primary caregiver was his mother Margaret Ogilvy, who introduced him to English-language literature at an early age. Barrie was the 9th child born to the couple, out of ten children.
In 1866, Barrie's older brother David Barrie was killed in an ice-skating accident. David was Margaret's favorite son, and she was devastated by his death. Barrie started imitating his dead brother, in an effort to serve as a replacement for him. Barrie's mother reportedly found comfort in the fact that her dead son would remain a boy forever, never to grow up and leave her.
In 1868, Barrie started attending the Glasgow Academy, an independent day school located in Glasgow. At the time, two of his older siblings were among the school's teachers. In 1870, Barrie was transferred to the Forfar Academy. It was a comprehensive school located in Forfar, and it was closer to his parents' house. In 1874, Barrie was enrolled at the Dumfries Academy, a grammar school located in Dumfries.
As a teenager, Barrie was a bibliophile. He enjoyed reading penny dreadfuls, serial literature sold at a cheap price. He also enjoyed reading the juvenile fiction of Robert Michael Ballantyne ( 1825 - 1894), and the historical novels of James Fenimore Cooper (1789 - 1851). Barrie was part of a group which liked to re-enact the adventures of pirates. He was also part of a drama club at Dumfries. While a teenager, he wrote and produced his first play: "Bandelero the Bandit". The play was denounced by a local clergyman for its supposed immorality.
Barrie aspired to become a professional writer, but his family insisted that he must attend university first. Barrie enrolled at the University of Edinburgh. While a college student, he started working at the newspaper "Edinburgh Evening Courant" as their drama reviewer. He graduated from university in 1882.
Following graduation, Barrie worked as a staff journalist for the newspaper "Nottingham Journal". Meanwhile he started working on short stories based on the life story of his grandfather. He eventually reworked this story into a trilogy of novels: "Auld Licht Idylls" (1888), "A Window in Thrums" (1890), and "The Little Minister "(1891). The stories depicted life within the "Auld Lichts", a religious sect which his grandfather had joined. These novels were popular at the time, though largely based on the industrialized Scotland's nostalgia for a bygone era.
In the 1890s, Barrie started working on theatrical works. An early success for him was "Ibsen's Ghost, or Toole Up-to-Date" (1891), a parody of the plays of Henrik Ibsen (1828 -1906). The play was largely based on two of Ibsen's plays, "Ghosts" (1881) and "Hedda Gabler" (1891) .
While working as a playwright, Barrie met and courted the actress Mary Ansell (1861 -1950). The two of them were married in 1894, though they reputedly never consummated their marriage. The marriage lasted until 1909, ending in a divorce. Barrie resented Ansell's extramarital affair with a younger man, the novelist Gilbert Cannan (1884 -1955). Following a second failed marriage of Ansell, Barrie voluntarily started financially supporting her. Until his death in 1937, Barrie gave her an annual allowance.
In 1901, Barrie published one of his most successful plays, "Quality Street". The protagonist Phoebe Throssel was a respectable school mistress, who started pretending to be a younger woman in older to reclaim the heart of her former suitor. The initial run of the play in London lasted for 459 performances. The play was frequently revived until the 1940s.
In 1902, Barrie had another hit with the survival-themed play "The Admirable Crichton". The play depicts an aristocratic family and their servants as shipwreck survivors. While living in a desert island, the butler Crichton turns out to be a far more effective leader than his employer. This satire on class relationships had an initial run of 828 performances.
In 1902, Barrie introduced the character of Peter Pan, which became his most popular creation. He liked contrasting the typical middle class life of the Edwardian era, with the adventurous life and ambivalent morality of the fictional Neverland. While most of the Pan stories were written for a child audience, their social commentary also attracted adults. Barrie was praised by fellow writer George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) for these stories.
In 1909, Barrie was part of a campaign by several playwrights to challenge the United Kingdom's strict censorship laws. In 1911, Barrie was part of the anti-censorship's campaign second wave. In 1910, he commented on marital relations with the play "The Twelve Pound Look". In the play, a married woman seeks a divorce. She has gained financial independence and no longer needs her husband. The play was considered controversial at the time.
In 1917, Barrie explored the concept of the alternate reality in the play "Dear Brutus". In the play, a group of adult characters feel that they have taken wrong turns in their lives. A magic users offers them glimpses into the lives of their alternate reality counterparts, which took different life decisions. Some of them are enlightened by the experience, others learn nothing of value. The play was a hit, running for 363 performances in its initial run. It was revived in 1922.
In 1920, Barrie wrote the mystery play "Mary Rose". It was the last notable hit in his career. The play's protagonist mysteriously vanishes twice. She first disappears as a child. She re-appears 21 days later, but she has no recollection of where she was. As an adult, Mary Rose vanishes again. She leaves a husband and a son behind. She re-appears decades later, with no recollection of where she was again. But she has not aged a single day, and she is now physically younger than her own son. The play offers no definite answers to its mystery. It has experienced several revivals.
In 1929, Barrie gave the copyright right to Peter Pan (and any royalties gained from it) to the children's hospital Great Ormond Street Hospital. The royalties have continued to financially support the hospital ever since. The copyright was extended indefinitely by a special provision in the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Barrie continued producing new works into the 1930s, though none were particularly groundbreaking. His last play was the Bible-themed story "The Boy David" (1936). It concerned the relationship between the aging Saul, King of Israel and his youthful son-in-law and prospective heir David. The play was based on the "Books of Samuel". A play which Barrie wrote but never produced was "The Reconstruction of the Crime", published posthumously in 2017.
By 1937, had moved into a nursing home in London. In June 1937, he died there due to pneumonia. He was 77-years-old at the time of his death. He was buried in his native Kirriemuir, in the family grave previously used by his parents and some of his siblings. His will left provision for his ex-wife Mary Ansell and a number of Barrie's surrogate children from the Llewelyn Davies family. Barrie left the majority of his estate to his longtime secretary Lady Cynthia Asquith ( 1887 -1960). Barrie had no known descendants.
Several of Barrie's works have remained popular into the 21st century. Peter Pan has frequently been adapted into various media, and has inspired a number of unofficial sequels. Tourists continue visiting locations in Kirriemuir which are associated with him. Barrie's long-lasting fame has not faded.- Actor
- Soundtrack
The tragically brief life of fresh-faced, boyishly handsome Ross Alexander, who seemed to have everything going for him, plays these days like a bad Hollywood movie. Alexander was a charming, highly engaging young actor whose pleasant voice and breezy personality aided greatly in his transition from Broadway teen player to young adult Warner Bros. film actor. His peers would include such Warner stalwarts as Ruby Keeler, Dick Powell and Errol Flynn. Off-camera, however, Ross, a closeted homosexual, became an acutely self-destructive young man whose career instability and domestic tragedy would take its toll. The tormented Ross ended his own life at age 29.
Ross Alexander was born Alexander Ross Smith in Brooklyn, New York, to Maud Adelle (Cohen) and Alexander Ross Smith, a leather merchant. Raised in Rochester, New York, he pursued both drama and athletics in high school (soccer, swimming) and sidelined in little theater productions in town. In between he took his first Broadway bow as a young teen in Blanche Yurka's long-running comedy success "Enter Madame." He eventually moved back to New York City following schooling and began to build up his stage resume in stock companies. On Broadway he showed a modicum of promise in such plays as "The Ladder" (1926) and "Let Us Be Gay" (1929). The latter play introduced Ross to producer John Golden and marked an immoderate two-year association which would include the plays "After Tomorrow" (1930) and "That's Gratitude" (1930). Paramount apparently saw Ross' potential and started him off in pictures with The Wiser Sex (1932), but nothing happened. Continuing on Broadway with "The Stork Is Dead" (1932), "Honeymoon" (1932), "The Party's Over" (1933) and "No Questions Asked" (1934), he was re-noticed for films, this time by Warner Bros.
Warners signed him to appear in its popular backstage Depression-era musicals and collegiate capers. Alexander's fresh look and carefree, slightly cynical demeanor made him an instant favorite and he soon began humming with popular second leads in such musicals as Flirtation Walk (1934). On the dramatic side he was chosen to play Demetrius in the all-star A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935), and in Errol Flynn's Captain Blood (1935) he played Jeremy Pitt, Blood's friend and navigator. Trouble started brewing, however, behind the scenes. Ross was being perceived by Warners as a second-ranked Dick Powell. As the studio began featuring him in Powell's castoffs and other uninspiring B-grade movies, they decided it was too taxing to both groom him for matinée idol status and conceal his homosexuality at the same time.
A probable marriage of convenience to budding starlet Aleta Friele, who appeared on Broadway using the name Aleta Freel, ended disastrously with the 28-year-old actress taking her own life with a rifle in their Hollywood Hills home. The actor was deeply shaken by this tragic event. He tried to cover his tracks yet again, however, by marrying beautiful actress Anne Nagel, whom he met while on the set of Hot Money, (1936),China Clipper (1936) and Here Comes Carter (1936). It didn't help quash his spiraling depression.
Finally Warners lost all patience and interest after having to cover up a potentially career-threatening gay-sex scandal, and Ross' promising career went down the tubes. To add insult to injury, he incurred major debt. On January 2, 1937, less than five months after his marriage to Nagel and shortly after the first anniversary of his first wife's death, Aleta Friele who also committed suicide, Alexander shot himself with a pistol in a barn behind his Encino ranch home. His last movie, the moderately received Ready, Willing and Able (1937) with Ruby Keeler, was released posthumously. Despite the fact he was the co-lead in the film, he was billed fifth, thus emphasizing the point that he had already lost most of his clout.- Edith Wharton (née Jones) was an American novelist and short story writer from New York City. She had insider knowledge of New York's upper class, which she realistically portrayed in her works. In 1921, Wharton became the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. She won the award for her historical novel "The Age of Innocence" (1920), where she portrayed the rigid worldview of the 1870s aristocrats of New York. She spend the last few decades of her life as an expatriate in France.
In 1862, Wharton was born in New York City. Her parents were George Frederic Jones and Lucretia Stevens Rhinelander. The Joneses were a wealthy and well-connected family in New York, having earned their wealth through real estate business. Through her mother, Wharton was a great-granddaughter of Lieutenant Colonel Ebenezer Stevens (1751 -1823), an officer of the Continental Army during the American Revolution. Through her father, Wharton was a first cousin, once removed, of the famed socialite Caroline Schermerhorn Astor (1830 - 1908). Astor was the de facto leader of the "Four Hundred", an informal grouping of New York's wealthy socialites who were seen as "champions of old money and tradition".
From 1866 to 1872, Wharton and her family made extensive travels across Europe. During her stay in Europe, Wharton became a fluent speaker in French, German, and Italian. She was educated by tutors and governesses. She also loved to read the books in her father's library, though her mother forbade her to read novels.
In 1871, Wharton faced the first crisis of her life. During an extended visit in the Black Forest of Germany, Wharton suffered from typhoid fever. The disease almost killed her. In 1872, the Joneses returned to the United States. They divided their time between New York City (in the winter) and Newport, Rhode Island (in the summer).
From an early age, Wharton started writing her own fictional works. By 1873, she had written an incomplete novel. In 1877, Wharton publisher her first work. It was an English translation of the German poem "Was die Steine Erzählen" ("What the Stones Tell") by Heinrich Karl Brugsch (1827 -1894). She was paid 50 dollars for her work, the first money she earned as a writer.
She had to use a pseudonym for her first published work, at the insistence of her parents. A writing career was out-of-the-question for proper "society women" of this era. Also in 1877, Wharton completed the novella "Fast and Loose". In 1878, she had a collection of her poems and translations privately published by her father. In 1879, one of her pseudonymous poems was published in the "New York World". In 1880, five of her poems were published in the literary magazine "Atlantic Monthly". Her family and her social circle discouraged her from continuing her promising literary career. Wharton did not write anything of note between 1880 and 1889, when one of her poems was published in "Scribner's Magazine".
In 1879, Wharton came out as a debutante at the age of 17. She soon was courted by Henry Leyden Stevens, son of the prosperous hotel owner Paran Stevens. Her family disapproved her new relationship. In 1881, Wharton and her family returned to Europe. George Jones' health had started failing, and he hoped that a stay in Europe would help him recover. In 1882, he died in Cannes, France due to a stroke.
In 1882, Wharton and her widowed mother returned to the United States. Wharton was briefly engaged to her persistent suitor Henry Leyden Stevens, but the engagement was canceled without any known explanation. In 1883, Wharton started living separately from her mother Lucretia. Lucretia had decided to settle permanently in France, where she lived until her death in 1901.
In 1885, Wharton married the sportsman Edward Robbins "Teddy" Wharton, who was 12 years older than her. The two of them shared a love of travel. Between 1886 and 1897, the couple spent several months each year in Europe. Their favorite destination was Italy; Wharton retained a love of this country for decades.
In the late 1880s, Teddy suffered from acute depression. As the years passed and his mental state declined, the couple ceased their extensive travels. They spent most of their time at "The Mount", their country house in Lenox, Massachusetts. Wharton herself reportedly struggled with asthma and bouts of depression in the late 19th century.
From 1908 to 1909, Wharton had a mid-life extramarital affair with the journalist William Morton Fullerton (1865 -1952). In 1913, Wharton divorced Teddy. Their marriage had lasted for 28 years, but caring for a chronically depressed man had taken its toll on her.
In 1911, as her marriage deteriorated, Wharton decided to move permanently to Paris, France. During World War I (1914-1918), Wharton supported the French war effort. In 1914, Wharton opened a workroom for unemployed women. In 1914, she helped set up the American Hostels for Refugees, to care for Belgian war refugees in France. In 1915. she helped found the Children of Flanders Rescue Committee, which sheltered about 900 Belgian refugees.
In 1915, Wharton wrote articles about France's front-lines. She regularly visited the trenches of the Western Front to get a first-hand view of the war, and was within earshot of artillery fire. Her articles were collected in the non-fiction book "Fighting France: From Dunkerque to Belfort" (1915).
In 1916, President Raymond Poincaré appointed Wharton a chevalier (knight) of the Legion of Honour, the country's highest award, in recognition of her dedication to the war effort. During the war, she helped in the founding of tuberculosis hospitals. In 1919, following the war's end, Wharton decided to leave Paris and to settle in the French countryside. She purchased Pavillon Colombe, an 18th-century house located in Saint-Brice-sous-Foret. It remained her main residence until her death.
In 1921, Wharton became the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction though her win was controversial. The three fiction judges employed for the contest voted that the award should be given to Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951). Columbia University's advisory board overturned their decision and decided that the winner was Wharton. Wharton was also nominated three times for the Nobel Prize in Literature (in 1927, 1928, and 1930), without ever winning.
In 1934, Wharton published her autobiography under the title "A Backward Glance". The work is noted for omitting some of the more difficult aspects of her life, which became known after Wharton's death. Among these omitted aspects were Wharton's rather poor relationship with her mother Lucretia, the personal problems which she faced while married with Teddy, and her extramarital affair with Fullerton.
In June 1937, Wharton was working on a revised edition of an older work, when she suffered a heart attack. She recovered, but suffered a stroke in August of the same year. She died due to the stroke, at the age of 75. She was buried in the American Protestant section of the Cimetière des Gonards in Versailles. She was given war hero honors at her funeral.
Wharton remains one of the most celebrated American writers of the 20th century, in large part due to her astute criticism of the 19th-century upper class, and her vivid depictions of a world that was long gone even when she wrote her novels. Her prose works remain in print, while her poetry is largely forgotten. - Actress
- Soundtrack
Highly popular German star Renate Muller was the toast of late 20s Berlin along with the legendary Marlene Dietrich. Unlike Dietrich, however, she suffered at the hands of the Nazis and died under mysterious circumstances.
Renate was born in Munich on April 26, 1906, the daughter of a newspaper editor-in-chief and a painter. As a child she lived a privileged, well-to-do life in pre-Nazi Germany. An early interest in acting and poetry led her to the Harzer Bergtheater under the tutelage of Georg Wilhelm Pabst, one of her professors at school. By the late 20s she had established herself as one of Berlin's most active and versatile stage players.
Actor/director Reinhold Schünzel hired Renate for her first movie and used her again many times in some of her (and his) best films. As her American counterparts at the time were Claudette Colbert and Nancy Carroll, Renate too became a shining star of light, sexy comedies. Pert, stylish and wholesomely pretty, she had just enough of an edge to make her impish sexuality all the more interesting.
The highlights of her rather brief career were The Office Girl (1931) (1931), which made her a star, and Victor and Victoria (1933) (1933), the widely popular romantic story of a woman who disguises herself as a man. In the mid-30s, however, the entertainment industry was becoming acutely affected by the rise of Hitler. While the outraged Dietrich turned her back on her country and became a U.S. citizen, Renate stayed true and remained in her homeland despite her intense dislike of the bleak political situation. She became less cooperative, however, over the years, especially when they began putting her in propaganda films, such as Togger (1937).
Renate died tragically at age 31 on October 1, 1937, having checked into a Berlin hospital for knee surgery (some sources say drug addiction). She apparently fell or was pushed out of a third-story window and died instantly. Some sources say it was suicide due to her desperate unhappiness over the rise of Nazi Germany and her artistic entrapment. Others insist it was a murder covered up by the fascist regime. Those who favor this story claim that her death was the result of her lack of cooperation, her clandestine involvement with a Jewish man, and the regime's fear that she was going to turn traitor and leave Germany. In any event, her death was deeply felt and she was mourned by her many fans who weren't even allowed to attend her funeral.- Writer
- Actor
- Additional Crew
Emmett Dalton was the youngest of the three Dalton brothers, part of a bandit gang notorious for robbing trains and banks in the Midwest during the late 1890s (interestingly, the brothers started their life of crime with a failed attempt at breaking into the safe on a Southern Pacific Railroad train in 1891 near San Luis Obispo, California). Emmett was shot several times and nearly died in the gang's infamous--and, as it turned out, futile--attempt to rob two banks simultaneously on October 5, 1892, in his hometown of Coffeyville, Kansas. Sentenced to life in prison, he served almost 15 years before being pardoned in 1907, in part because while in prison he found religion and rehabilitated himself to the satisfaction of prison authorities. Upon his release he married his childhood sweetheart and set out to rehabilitate the world--at least what he perceived as the world's proclivity to elevate outlaws to the status of heroes. Eventually his message came to Hollywood, where he acted in and consulted on several films about the "Wild West", at least two of them about his own folly as an outlaw. He also wrote the book "When the Daltons Rode," which was the basis of the western film When the Daltons Rode (1940). His exploits in life also include adventures in selling real estate and in advocating and campaigning for prison reform. He died in 1937 in Los Angeles, not too far from where Wyatt Earp (who had also found a place for himself in Hollywood) had also lived and died.- Largely forgotten today, glossy, beak-nosed, oval-faced actor Monroe Owsley, whose unappetizing film career lasted less than a decade, was born in Atlanta, Georgia near the turn of the century on August 11, 1900, and raised by his mother, stage actress Gertrude Owsley (1872-1936). A younger sister, Abbie, died at five months of age.
Monroe trained as an actor as a teen and started his career in such stock and repertory theatre productions as "The Meanest Girl in the World," and "Merton of the Movies." He eventually made it to Broadway in 1925 with "Young Blood."
After making a 1928 Broadway splash in the role of Ned Seton, the tipsy, ne'er-do-well scion of a well-to-do family, in Philip Barry's hit comedy "Holiday," Monroe was invited to move into films around the advent of sound. His first movie role was as a young suitor in The First Kiss (1928) starring Fay Wray, but made more of a celluloid impact when he repeated his stage role in the first filming of Holiday (1930), which starred chic socialite Ann Harding. Katharine Hepburn's more famous remake came out eight years later with Lew Ayres playing Monroe's role.
Known for his high forehead, narrow eyes and persistent sneer, Monroe usually found himself cast as the slick third wheel in a number of opulent, pre-Code romantic dramas/musicals opposite a number of the top female stars including Barbara Stanwyck in Ten Cents a Dance (1931); Claudette Colbert in Honor Among Lovers (1931); Gloria Swanson in Indiscreet (1931); Joan Crawford in This Modern Age (1931); Helen Twelvetrees in Unashamed (1932); Clara Bow in Call Her Savage (1932); Kay Francis in The Keyhole (1933); Bette Davis in Ex-Lady (1933); and Carole Lombard in Brief Moment (1933). He had the leading man role in The Woman Who Dared (1933).
Unfortunately, the role of the inebriated, elegantly despairing Ned severely typecast him in an unappealing vein as the weakling son, charming cad, jellyfish husband, or debauched "Richie Rich" type, and his career skidded downhill and further down the credit list starting in 1934. Sadly, his personal life appeared to be just as unappealing as that of his film characters, succumbing to drink, drug and gambling addictions.
After a minor role in the "B" musical The Hit Parade (1937), Monroe was involved in a Southern California car accident. This alleged triggered a fatal heart on June 7, 1937, the very same day that superstar Jean Harlow died. He was only 36. - Writer
Yevgeni Ivanovich Zamyatin was born on February 1, 1884, in Lebedyan, Tambov Province, Russia. His father, named Ivan Dmitrievich Zamyatin, was a Russian Orthodox priest and a schoolmaster. His mother, named Maria Aleksandrovna (nee Platonova), was a pianist. Young Zamyatin grew up at the family estate, where he read voraciously, and his mother played his favorite music of Frédéric Chopin.
Young Zamyatin excelled in literature and mathematics. From 1896-1902 he studied at the Voronezh Gymnasium and graduated with the Gold Medal. He studied naval engineering at the St. Petersburg Polytechnical Institute from 1902-1908. While a student he joined the Bolshevik (communist) party. In 1905 Zamyatin participated in the student demonstration against the Tsar Nicholas II and was arrested and exiled. In 1906 he returned from exile and continued his studies in Finland. In 1908 Zamyatin graduated as a naval engineer, and worked at the Department of Naval Architecture of Russian Imperial Navy in St. Petersburg. He was exiled to Nikolaev shipyard in 1911 but was amnestied in 1913. He continued his work and wrote several articles on ship construction. During WWI he was sent to Engand and worked at shipyards of London, Glazgo, Sunderland, and Newcastle upon Tyne in 1916-1917, supervising the construction of icebreakers. There Zamyatin was in charge of design and building of the largest Russian icebreaker "St. Aleksandr Nevsky" (renamed icebreaker "Lenin" after the Russian Revolution of 1917).
Zamyatin's early stories 'Odin' (Alone 1908), 'Devushka' (Maid 1909) were published in magazines, while he lived in St. Petersburg illegally. His first book 'Uezdnoe' (A Provincial Tale 1912) satirized life in a small Russian town. It was praised by Maxim Gorky and other important literary figures. Zamyatin's anti-military story 'Na Kulichkah' (At The World's End 1913) was a satire on Russian military. The book was banned by the Russian military censorship and all copies were destroyed. Zamyatin was brought to trial and exiled to the Northern shipyard of Kem. Later he was acquitted but the book remained under ban. After the Russian Revolution of 1917, he returned from England to Russia, and again published his previously banned book 'Na Kulichkah'. Zamyatin called for salvation of culture, freedoms, and human values, because he was shocked by the deterioration of life after the Russian Revolution. From 1919-1925 Zamyatin worked with Maxim Gorky, Alexander Block, and Nikolai Gumilev on the World Literature project, for which he edited Russian translations of such writers, as O. Henry, H. G. Wells, Jack London, and others. In 1921 Zamyatin became associated with the literary group "Serapionovy Bratya" (Serapion Brothers), with such writers, as Mikhail Zoschenko, Konstantin Fedin, Vsevolod Ivanov, Veniamin Kaverin, Yuriy Olesha, Nikolai Tikhonov, and others. At that time Zamyatin fearlessly criticized Soviet policy of "Red Terror" and intimidation of intellectuals.
In 1920 Zamyatin wrote his anti-Utopian novel 'My' (We), which was smuggled to Berlin, then to the United States and was first published in English in 1924. 'We' was the very first anti-Utopian novel ever written. In 'We' Zamyatin satirized a totalitarian police-controlled One State (or United State in some translations), where people have numbers rather than names, and every moment of their day is regulated by the Book of Hours. Tamed people live in glass homes and even sex is rationed with pink coupons. The One State is surrounded by a wall of glass and outside is an untamed wilderness of green jungle, where free people live. The main hero, named D-503, is a mathematician who is building a gigantic spaceship for One State, which will serve the plan of enforcing the "Happiness" of One State all-over the Universe. D-503 is oblivious to real human feelings until he falls in love with I-330; she helps him develop a soul and imagination. She also connects him to a pro-freedom group living in the green jungle. Brainwashed D-503 is incapable of building a reliable relationship with I-330, he betrays her love and coldly watches her execution. With other obedient citizens of One State, D-503 is forced to undergo the "rewarding" Great Operation, which destroys the part of the brain which controls creativity, imagination and passion. That turns them back into "happy" members of the perfect society, that is to say, zombies. Zamyatin's manuscript secretly circulated among Russian writers in 1920's and was banned by the Soviet censorship for over 60 years until 1988.
After publication of his novel 'We' abroad Zamyatin was ostracized by pro-Soviet writers. All his writings and theatrical plays were banned. He was deprived of livelihood and suffered from depression. Only in 1931, after the intercession of Maxim Gorky, Zamyatin was given the permission to leave Soviet Union by Joseph Stalin himself. Zamyatin settled in Paris with his wife, Lyudmila Usova. In 1934 Zamyatin was invited to the Union of Writers by its Chairman Maxim Gorky, but he did not go back to Russia. He maintained a modest and secluded life; the rare exceptions were his communication with Ivan Bunin and participation in Anti-Fascist congress in 1935-1936. In Paris Zamyatin wrote a screenplay Anna Karenina and developed his earlier banned play 'Atilla' into the novel 'Bich Bozhy' (Scourge of God 1938) which was published posthumously. He died of a heart attack on March 10, 1937, and was laid to rest in Thiais cemetery, near Paris.
Zamyatin's novel 'We' (1924) preceded and influenced the Brave New World' (1932) by Aldous Huxley, as well, as '1984' (1948) by George Orwell, and 'Farenheit 451' (1953) by Ray Bradbury. Only in 1988, under Mikhail Gorbachev, 'We' was allowed for the first publication in Russia.
"True literature can be created only by madmen, hermits, heretics, dreamers, rebels, and skeptics", wrote Zamyatin.- Actor
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Arthur Edmund Carewe was born on 30 December 1884 in Trapzon (Trebizond), Turkey. He was an actor, known for The Phantom of the Opera (1925), The Cat and the Canary (1927) and Doctor X (1932). He was married to Irene Pavlowska. He died on 22 April 1937 in Santa Monica, California, USA.- Katherine Grant was born on May 1, 1904 in Los Angeles, California. Her parents divorced and her father passed away in 1921. At the age of eighteen she won the Miss Los Angeles beauty contest and competed in the Miss America pageant. Katherine worked as a professional dancer and to make extra money she posed nude for an art study project. She made her film debut in the comedy short Saturday Morning and was offered a contract with Hal Roach. In 1923 she appeared in more than a dozen films including A Man About Town and Frozen Hearts. As her career took off the photographer who had taken her nude photos started to extort her. Katherine reported the man to the police and the scandalous photos did not hurt career. By 1925 she had become one of Hal Roach's favorite comedy vamps and he signed her to a new five year contract. Katherine worked with Oliver Hardy in Wild Papa and with Charley Chase in The Uneasy Three.She and Charley also performed in a vaudeville act together.
Unfortunately Katherine struggled with her weight and went on starvation diets to stay thin. On December 8, 1925, she was the victim of a hit-and-run accident. Doctors told her to take a break from acting but she returned to work a few days later. In the Spring of 1926 Katherine suffered a nervous breakdown on the set and was put in a sanitarium. Newspaper reports blamed the breakdown on her extreme dieting. Sadly Katherine would never make another film. Her health continued to get worse and she started suffering from dementia. Eventually she was sent to to Patton State Hospital in San Bernardino where she would live the rest of her life. Katherine died on April 2, 1937 from pulmonary tuberculosis. She was only thirty-two years old. Katherine was buried in an unmarked grave at Evergreen cemetery in Los Angeles, California. Fans of the late actress honored her with a marked headstone, in a special ceremony, on August 27, 2016. - Guy Standing was born on 1 September 1873 in London, England, UK. He was an actor, known for Death Takes a Holiday (1934), The Eagle and the Hawk (1933) and I'd Give My Life (1936). He was married to Dorothy Hammond, Blanche Burton and Isabelle Urquhart. He died on 24 February 1937 in Hollywood Hills, California, USA.
- The Rockefellers were a Jewish-German immigrant family who bore the name Steinhauer before obtaining American citizenship. At school, John D Rockefeller was considered a loner. He felt the class differences between rich and poor from an early age. While he was still at school he worked as a dishwasher and bell boy for his pocket money. He kept his wages carefully. He kept track of every penny, not because it was necessary, he simply enjoyed it. Money, he later said, was "frozen life." He finished high school at the age of 16 and began training as an accountant in Cleveland. He was popular and valued by management as an extremely correct and reliable employee. A circumstance that earned him numerous promotions. Rockefeller lived strictly according to the Jewish faith and was more than modest. When he completed his training with flying colors in 1859, all his employer's efforts to dissuade him from becoming self-employed were in vain. In 1859, at the age of 19, Rockefeller founded the small brokerage firm Clark & Rockefeller Co. with his friend Maurice Clark.
In addition to their marketing activities, they also received contracts for oil drilling in Pennsylvania. This new business area quickly proved to be extremely lucrative and helped the young company gain considerable capital. In 1862, Clark and Rockefeller made Samuel Andrews the new partner in the company. The reason was not the capital he brought with him, but rather important patents for refining crude oil into gasoline. The three of them founded Andrews, Clark & Co. This strategic acquaintance was one of the most important steps in Rockefeller's success story. In 1865 there were disputes among the shareholders over corporate management issues. The now five shareholders agreed to sell the company to the highest bidder. Rockefeller became the sole owner of the company with the then huge sum of US$750,000. He made Andrews his partner again and founded the Andrews & Rockefeller Co. Rockefeller married Laura Celestia Spelman (1839-1915), known as "Cettie", on September 8, 1864. Together they became parents to five children; including the youngest, John D. Rockefeller Jr. (1874-1960), also known as John D. Rockefeller II. In 1866, the company bought two oil refineries in Cleveland.
Thanks to the patents it had available, it was the only refinery capable of producing the purest gasoline as well as heating oil and petroleum. Competitors who did not meet this standard had little chance of survival other than refining Rockefeller's oil. From 1870 the company operated under the name Standard Oil Co. After just two years, the competition was on the rocks. Rockefeller was well on his way to achieving a monopoly on global oil refining. Fearing that his power would be recognized, he bought the three largest refineries in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia through third-party companies without the knowledge of the public and the authorities. These in turn bought all of the Standard Oil Co.'s competitors. At the end of the 1870s, Rockefeller refined 90% of American oil production. A little later he had a monopoly position in this sector of the economy. To control the gigantic empire, Rockefeller distributed power among nine trustees and 40 shareholders within the Standard Oil Trust Co.
In many other economic sectors, large "trusts" emerged, each of which always intended to monopolize an industry. In the mid-1880s, it became clear to the public what company John D. Rockefeller had created. Increasing industrialization suggested that Standard Oil Trust could become more powerful than the U.S. government if Rockefeller were the only one refining American oil. This also increased the pressure from politicians to take action against Rockefeller. The state of Ohio therefore passed the "Sherman Antitrust Act" against the Standard Oil Trust in 1890 (the antitrust laws of the USA from 1890), which was intended to result in the breakup of the company. Rockefeller then moved his administration to New Jersey. There was a different case law here, which allowed him to continue working in a company form that had hardly changed. Only the name was changed to "Standard Oil Company of New Jersey." It was not until 1899 that the legal ruling of 1890 was implemented. Standard Oil was split into 38 independent companies.
In 1901 he founded the "Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research" which was later renamed "Rockefeller University". From 1911 onwards, Rockefeller withdrew from the company's top management, but retained full decision-making power over Standard Oil, which was represented by its numerous whose investments had become a corporate construct that was almost impossible to understand. In 1914, the "Ludlow Massacre" of Colorado occurred. To restore his public image, Rockefeller distributed generous donations in various areas. Rockefeller founded foundations, social institutions and founded the "Rockefeller Foundation" which still exists today. Rockefeller withdrew from public life until his death. His son John D. Rockefeller II completed the construction of the "Rockefeller Center" in New York in 1930.
John Davidson Rockefeller died at his disposal in Ormond, Florida on May 23, 1937 at the age of 97.
The actual value of his company could never be accurately assessed due to the numerous investments and connections. Today it is estimated that his fortune at the time of his death was approximately US$1 billion. This made Rockefeller, taking into account the US$ exchange rate and inflation, the richest person who ever lived. Today the Standard Oil company operates under the name "Exxon" and operates its gas stations around the world under the trademark "Esso". - Writer
- Actor
Handsome American actor, playwright and stage director/producer William Gillette was born in Hartford, CT, in 1853. His father Francis was a former United States Senator and crusader for women's suffrage and the abolition of slavery; his mother Elisabeth Daggett Hooker is a descendant of Rev. Thomas Hooker, who either wrote or inspired the first written constitution in history to form a government.
In 1873 William left Hartford to begin his apprenticeship as an actor, briefly working for a stock theatre company in New Orleans and then returning to New England. He made his debut at the Globe Theatre in Boston with Mark Twain's play "The Guilded Age" in 1875. His first major Civil War drama, "Hold by the Enemy", was a major step forward to modern theatre in that it abandoned many crude devices of Victorian melodrama and introduced realism into the sets, props, costumes, sound effects and performances; it was a critical and commercial success in America and Britain.
Gillette is probably best remembered, however, as the first actor to be universally acclaimed for portraying Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's famed detective Sherlock Holmes, playing the role first on stage in 1899 and continuing for more than 35 years. He also wrote many stage versions from Doyle's Sherlock Holmes novels and even starred in the film version, Sherlock Holmes (1916), directed by Arthur Berthelet for the Essanay Film Co. He had previously appeared in two other films, his debut being in J.P. McGowan's The Battle at Fort Laramie (1913) and the following year he played support as Jack Lane in The Delayed Special (1914), both of which starred Helen Holmes and were made for the Kalem Film Co. Gillette also became popular on radio, performing the first radio serial version of Sherlock Holmes in 1930 and in 1935. His last stage appearance was in Austin Strong's "Three Wise Fools" in 1936. He wrote 13 original plays, seven adaptations and some collaborations, encompassing farce, melodrama and novel adaptation. He also wrote two pieces based on the US Civil War, "Held by the Ememy" and "Secret Service", which were highly acclaimed. In 1882 he married Helen Nichols, who died in 1888 from peritonitis; he never remarried.
Gillette died from pulmonary hemorrhage in Connecticut in 1937 at age 83.- Snitz Edwards was born Edward Neumann in Hungary. Married first wife in 1889 and was divorced some time later. Although he was almost 20 years older than his wife, Edwards married Eleanor Taylor, an actress from Boston, in 1906. They had three children, Cricket (b. 1906), Evelyn (b. 1914) and Marian (b. 1917). The three girls were all put into films; in the late 1920s, Universal made a series of two reelers with the entire family based upon a theatrical family with three daughters. Edwards was earning $5,000 a week by then. Cricket became a secretary for the Jaffe Agency and married famous L.A. attorney Newt Kendall. She later became a movie producer and worked on films like The Guns of Navarone (1961) and The Victors (1963). Marian became an actress and later married writer Irwin Shaw (Rich Man, Poor Man (1976)). Evelyn was a writer who worked for RKO for years. Edwards' final film was the 1931 classic The Public Enemy (1931) but, by then, he was very sick with cirrhosis of the liver and rheumatoid arthritis. He is in a number of early scenes as "Putty Nose", but was unable to finish filming. He spent his final years bedridden, passing away in 1937 at home.
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Inventing a stage name "Boleslawski" (later spelled also "Boleslavsky"), young Pole Boleslaw Ryszard Srzednicki left his second home (Odessa, Russian Empire) to study theatre and train as an actor at the world-famous Moscow Art Theatre before and during WW I. He also acted in a few early Russian films. In the chaotic wake of the Russian Revolution, Civil War and then Soviet Russia's war with Poland (1918-21)--in which Boleslawski fought as a Polish soldier--he left Russia forever, traveling through Poland and Germany, and wound up in the US. In the 1920s he became, along with Maria Ouspenskaya, one of the first teachers in the US of the serious, emotionally grounded, ensemble style of the Moscow Art Theatre (later known as "The Method"). To put his thespian theories into action, Boleslawski created the American Laboratory [Stage] Theatre in New York in 1923 (the forerunner of the Group Theatre of the 1930s and the Actors Studio" after WW II).
Boleslawski also wrote serious theoretical articles about acting for "Theatre Arts Magazine", and in 1933 collected them in a book, "Acting--The First Six Lessons". The coming of sound to motion pictures, and the financial collapse of the American Laboratory Theatre, forced Boleslawski to abandon the New York stage and accept an offer to direct films in Hollywood, beginning in 1929. He made several important films at major studios like MGM and Fox before his premature death in January 1937. Among his most important directing assignments were Rasputin and the Empress (1932) (the only film in which John Barrymore, Lionel Barrymore and Ethel Barrymore appeared together), Men in White (1934) (Clark Gable and Myrna Loy), The Painted Veil (1934) (Greta Garbo), Les Misérables (1935) (Fredric March and Charles Laughton) and Theodora Goes Wild (1936) (Irene Dunne)--a wide range of genres. He even directed a musical, Metropolitan (1935) (Lawrence Tibbett) and a western, Three Godfathers (1936) (Chester Morris).
Boleslawski was married at least three times. From his last marriage--to pianist-actress Norma Drury--he had one child, a son named Jan (1935-1962) who tragically was to lose his father before he was two years old, and later to lose his own life at the tender age of 27. Boleslawski's death of cardiac arrest, at age 47--before he had completed his final film (The Last of Mrs. Cheyney (1937) with Joan Crawford)--was shockingly sudden and from unclear causes. One explanation, probably incorrect, traces his illness to his penultimate film, The Garden of Allah (1936) (with Marlene Dietrich), the exteriors of which were shot in the burning heat of the southwestern American desert. At some point, it is claimed, he unwisely "drank [unboiled] water" rather than soft drinks and bottled water (as the company had been advised to do).- Martha Morris was born on 20 October 1902 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. She was an actress, known for Freaks (1932). She died on 5 April 1937 in Chicago, Illinois, USA.
- Young and full of promise, Paramount contract player Helen Burgess possessed a lovely, sweet-faced quality, but made only four films during her lifetime. Born April 26, 1916, the rather demure Portland, Oregon beauty was given an auspicious debut in Cecil B. DeMille's epic bio-western The Plainsman (1936). Discovered by DeMille himself with only brief stage experience behind her, the film starred Gary Cooper as Wild Bill Hickok and Jean Arthur as Calamity Jane. Helen was fifth billed as Louisa Frederici Cody, the young bride of Wild West showman Buffalo Bill Cody, played by James Ellison.
Helen went on to co-star in lesser "B" pictures, one opposite George Bancroft in the drama A Doctor's Diary (1937), and a second femme lead in King of Gamblers (1937) supporting Claire Trevor. She was busy filming her fourth movie Night of Mystery (1937) when she caught a chill that resulted in a serious cold. This, in turn, developed into lobar pneumonia. Helen died in Beverly Hills on April 7, 1937, weeks before reaching her 21st birthday, and only months after the release of her first and best known film "The Plainsman." One can only wonder what was in store for this future star. She was buried in Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California. - Actor
- Writer
Frank Vosper was born on 15 December 1899 in Hampstead, London, England, UK. He was an actor and writer, known for Shadows on the Stairs (1941), A Night of Terror (1937) and Rome Express (1932). He died on 6 March 1937 in at sea.