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- Actor
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Once told by an interviewer, "Everybody would like to be Cary Grant", Grant is said to have replied, "So would I."
Cary Grant was born Archibald Alec Leach on January 18, 1904 in Horfield, Bristol, England, to Elsie Maria (Kingdon) and Elias James Leach, who worked in a factory. His early years in Bristol would have been an ordinary lower-middle-class childhood, except for one extraordinary event. At age nine, he came home from school one day and was told his mother had gone off to a seaside resort. However, the real truth was that she had been placed in a mental institution, where she would remain for years, and he was never told about it (he would not see his mother again until he was in his late 20s).
He left school at age 14, lying about his age and forging his father's signature on a letter to join Bob Pender's troupe of knockabout comedians. He learned pantomime as well as acrobatics as he toured with the Pender troupe in the English provinces, picked up a Cockney accent in the music halls in London, and then in July 1920, was one of the eight Pender boys selected to go to the United States. Their show on Broadway, "Good Times", ran for 456 performances, giving Grant time to acclimatize. He would stay in America. Mae West wanted Grant for She Done Him Wrong (1933) because she saw his combination of virility, sexuality and the aura and bearing of a gentleman. Grant was young enough to begin the new career of fatherhood when he stopped making movies at age 62.
One biographer said Grant was alienated by the new realism in the film industry. In the 1950s and early 1960s, he had invented a man-of-the-world persona and a style - "high comedy with polished words". In To Catch a Thief (1955), he and Grace Kelly were allowed to improvise some of the dialogue. They knew what the director, Alfred Hitchcock, wanted to do with a scene, they rehearsed it, put in some clever double entendres that got past the censors, and then the scene was filmed. His biggest box-office success was another Hitchcock 1950s film, North by Northwest (1959) made with Eva Marie Saint since Kelly was by that time Princess of Monaco.
Although Grant retired from the screen, he remained active. He accepted a position on the board of directors at Faberge. By all accounts this position was not honorary, as some had assumed. Grant regularly attended meetings and traveled internationally to support them. The position also permitted use of a private plane, which Grant could use to fly to see his daughter wherever her mother Dyan Cannon, was working. He later joined the boards of Hollywood Park, the Academy of Magical Arts (The Magic Castle - Hollywood, California), Western Airlines (acquired by Delta Airlines in 1987) and MGM.
Grant expressed no interest in making a career comeback. He was in good health until almost the end of his life, when he suffered a mild stroke in October 1984. In his last years, he undertook tours of the United States in a one-man-show, "A Conversation with Cary Grant", in which he would show clips from his films and answer audience questions. On November 29, 1986, Cary Grant died at age 82 of a cerebral hemorrhage in Davenport, Iowa.
In 1999, the American Film Institute named Grant the second male star of Golden Age of Hollywood cinema (after Humphrey Bogart). Grant was known for comedic and dramatic roles; his best-known films include Bringing Up Baby (1938), The Philadelphia Story (1940), His Girl Friday (1940), Arsenic and Old Lace (1944), Notorious (1946), An Affair to Remember (1957), North by Northwest (1959) and Charade (1963).- Actor
- Writer
- Director
Peter Lorre was born László Löwenstein in Rózsahegy in the Slovak area of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the son of Hungarian Jewish parents. He learned both Hungarian and German languages from birth, and was educated in elementary and secondary schools in the Austria-Hungary capitol Vienna, but did not complete. As a youth he ran away from home, first working as a bank clerk, and after stage training in Vienna, Austria, made his acting debut at age 17 in 1922 in Zurich, Switzerland. He traveled for several years acting on stage throughout his home region, Vienna, Berlin, and Zurich, including working with Bertolt Brecht, until Fritz Lang cast him in a starring role as the psychopathic child killer in the German film M (1931).
After several more films in Germany, including a couple roles for which he learned to speak French, Lorre left as the Nazis came to power, going first to Paris where he made one film, then London where Alfred Hitchcock cast him as a creepy villain in The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934), where he learned his lines phonetically, and finally arrived in Hollywood in 1935. In his first two roles there he starred as a mad scientist in Mad Love (1935) directed by recent fellow-expatriate Karl Freund, and the leading part of Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment (1935), by another expatriate German director Josef von Sternberg, a successful movie made at Lorre's own suggestion. He returned to England for a role in another Hitchcock film, Secret Agent (1936), then back to the US for a few more films before checking into a rehab facility to cure himself of a morphine addiction.
After shaking his addiction, in order to get any kind of acting work, Lorre reluctantly accepted the starring part as the Japanese secret agent in Thank You, Mr. Moto (1937), wearing makeup to alter his already very round eyes for the part. He ended up committed to repeating the role for eight more "Mr. Moto" movies over the next two years.
Lorre played numerous memorable villain roles, spy characters, comedic roles, and even a romantic type, throughout the 1940s, beginning with his graduation from 30s B-pictures The Maltese Falcon (1941). Among his most famous films, Casablanca (1942), and a comedic role in the Broadway hit film Arsenic and Old Lace (1944).
After the war, between 1946 and '49 Lorre concentrated largely on radio and the stage, while continuing to appear in movies. In Autumn 1950 he traveled to West Gemany where he wrote, directed and starred in the critically acclaimed but generally unknown German-language film The Lost Man (1951), adapted from Lorre's own novel.
Lorre returned to the US in 1952, somewhat heavier in stature, where he used his abilities as a stage actor appearing in many live television productions throughout the 50s, including the first James Bond adaptation Casino Royale (1954), broadcast just a few months after Ian Fleming had published that first Bond novel. In that decade, Lorre had various roles, often to type but also as comedic caricatures of himself, in many episodes of TV series, and variety shows, though he continued to work in motion pictures, including the Academy Award winning Around the World in 80 Days (1956), and a stellar role as a clown in The Big Circus (1959).
In the late 50s and early 1960s he worked in several low-budget films, with producer-director Roger Corman, and producer-writer-director Irwin Allen, including the aforementioned The Big Circus and two adventurous Disney movies with Allen. He died from a stroke the year he made his last movie, playing a stooge in Jerry Lewis' The Patsy (1964).- Actor
- Soundtrack
Ralph Bellamy was a veteran actor who was so well-liked and respected by his peers that he was the recipient of an honorary Oscar in 1987 for his contributions to the acting profession.
Ralph Rexford Bellamy was born June 17, 1904 in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Lilla Louise (Smith), originally from Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, and Charles Rexford Bellamy, who had deep roots in New England. Bellamy began his career as a player right out of high school in 1922, joining a traveling company that put on Shakespearean plays. For the next five years he appeared with stock companies and repertory theaters associated with the Chautauqua Road Co., which brought culture to the hinterlands. He not only learned his craft but by 1927 wound up owning his own theatrical troupe. Two years later he made his Broadway theatrical debut in "Town Boy" (29 years later he would win a Tony Award).
Bellamy made the first of his over 100 films in 1933, appearing as a gangster in The Secret 6 (1931). While he never became a major star or played many leads in "A" pictures, he made a career out of playing second-leads in major productions before developing into a character actor. In his heyday he typically played a rich but dull character who is jilted by the leading lady (he won his only Oscar nomination, for Best Supporting Actor, for just such a role in the 1937 comedy The Awful Truth (1937), in which he lost Irene Dunne to Cary Grant). He also specialized in redoubtable detectives who always find their man (he starred as Ellery Queen in a series of four "B" movies) and as slightly sinister yet stylish villains (such typecasting reaching its apogee with his turn as the not-so-kindly doctor in the horror classic Rosemary's Baby (1968)).
Bellamy's greatest role was as Franklin D. Roosevelt in Dore Schary's play "Sunrise at Campobello," for which he won a 1958 Best Actor-Dramatic Tony Award. He also reprised his portrayal of Roosevelt in Schary's 1960 movie adaptation of his play Sunrise at Campobello (1960), which brought his co-star Greer Garson a Golden Globe award and a Best Actress Academy Award nomination for playing Eleanor Roosevelt.
To play F.D.R. and show his struggle with the onset of polio, Bellamy studied up on Roosevelt as both man and politician, gaining an insight into the future president's psyche. Like Method actors Marlon Brando and Jon Voight, who prepared for their portrayals of paraplegic war veterans in the movies The Men (1950) and Coming Home (1978) by living in veterans hospitals with paraplegics, Bellamy tried to understand the trauma that F.D.R. underwent and the challenges he faced. Bellamy spent a considerable amount of time at a rehabilitation center learning how to master leg braces, crutches and a wheelchair to increase the verisimilitude of his portrayal of Rosevelt. So successful was his portrait of Roosevelt that he was called upon a generation later to recreate F.D.R. for the blockbuster TV miniseries War and Remembrance (1988) (ironically, Voight himself would later play F.D.R. in the movie Pearl Harbor (2001)).
Bellamy also had a prolific career on television, beginning with his 1948 debut in The Philco Television Playhouse (1948). He starred in one of the first TV police shows, Man Against Crime (1949), which was on the air from 1949-54, and later had roles in several other TV series, including The Eleventh Hour (1962), The Survivors (1969) and The Most Deadly Game (1970). He also appeared in countless TV-movies and tele-plays, and was three times nominated for an Emmy Award.
Known as a champion of actors' rights, Bellamy was one of the founders of the Screen Actors Guild, and also served four terms as President of Actors' Equity from 1952 to 1964. He took office during some of the darkest days of McCarthyism, but positioned Actors' Equity and thus, the Broadway theater to the left of Hollywood by resisting blacklisting. Many of those blacklisted in Hollywood found homes in the theater. Under Bellamy, Actors Equity established standards to protect members against charges of Communist Party membership or "exhibiting left-wing sympathies". (One of the charges levied against legendary stage and film director Elia Kazan, including Rod Steiger at the time Kazan received an honorary Oscar, was that he should have defied the House Un-American Activities Committee and not have named names because he could have remained employed in the theater even if he had been blacklisted in Hollywood.)
Under Bellamy's leadership, Actor's Equity managed to double its assets within the first six years of his presidency and was successful in establishing the first pension fund for actors. It was for his services to the acting community that he was the recipient of an honorary Academy Award in 1987.
Ralph Bellamy died on November 29, 1991 in Santa Monica, California. He was 87 years old.- Actress
- Additional Crew
- Soundtrack
Eileen Evelyn Greer Garson was born on September 29, 1904 in London, England, to Nancy Sophia (Greer) and George Garson, a commercial clerk. Of Scottish and Ulster-Scots descent, Garson displayed no early interest in becoming an actress. Educated at the University of London intending to become a teacher, she opted instead to take a job at an advertising agency. During her off hours she appeared in local theatrical productions, gaining a reputation as an extremely talented and charismatic performer. During a stage production of "Old Music," Garson was offered a studio contract by MGM Vice President of Production Louis B. Mayer while he was on a visit to London looking for new talent. Garson's very first film under that arrangement was the immensely popular Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939), earning her an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress - the first of six she would receive. The following year would see Greer in the highly acclaimed Pride and Prejudice (1940) as "Elizabeth Bennet". 1941 saw her earn a second nomination for her role as Edna Gladney in Blossoms in the Dust (1941), but it was the moving, if propagandist, Mrs. Miniver (1942), in a role that she would forever be known by, that actually brought her the Oscar statuette as Best Actress.
As Marie Curie in Madame Curie (1943), she would draw yet another nomination, and the same the next year in Mrs. Parkington (1944). It began to seem that any movie she was part of would be an automatic success. Sure enough, in 1945, she won yet another nomination, for her role as "Mary Rafferty" in The Valley of Decision (1945). Still, Garson began to chafe at the unbroken stream of "noble woman" roles in which the studio was casting her. MGM felt that they had an winning formula and saw no compelling reason to alter it. Two standard seven-year contract extensions kept her at MGM until 1954 when, by mutual consent, she left the only studio she had ever known. In 1946, Greer appeared in Adventure (1945), which was a flop at the box-office. 1947's Desire Me (1947) was no less a disaster, downward spiral finally arrested with the hit That Forsyte Woman (1949). The next year, she reprised her role as "Kay Miniver" in The Miniver Story (1950), though audiences were unsurprisingly put off by her character's untimely demise from cancer, leaving screen husband Walter Pidgeon to soldier on alone.
For the remainder of the 1950s, she endured several predictably unappreciated films. Then, 1960 found her cast in the role of Eleanor Roosevelt in Sunrise at Campobello (1960). This film was, perhaps, her finest work and landed her seventh and final Academy Award nomination. Her final screen appearances were in The Singing Nun (1966) as "Mother Prioress" and The Happiest Millionaire (1967). After a few TV movies, Garson retired to the New Mexico ranch she shared with her husband, millionaire Buddy E.E. Fogelson. She concentrated on the environment and other various charities. By the 1980s, she was suffering from chronic heart problems, prompting her to slow down. That was the cause of her death on April 6, 1996 in Dallas, Texas, at age 91.- Actor
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
A bandleader of the 1940s and a radio, film, and TV actor who celebrated his Southern roots. He was a principal of long standing among the comedian Jack Benny's radio retinue, parlaying his popularity into his own radio series, in which his wife, Alice Faye, co-starred.
Linton, Indiana birthplace, but he spent much of his early years in Nashville, Tennessee, which helped explain his little Southern accent and, later on, the self-deprecating remarks of his radio persona. Harris started his musical career in San Francisco as a drummer. In the later 1920s, he formed an orchestra with Carol Lofner and began a lengthy residency at the St. Francis Hotel. When the collaboration came to an end in 1932, Harris formed and headed his own band, which was centered in Los Angeles. He wed actress Marcia Ralston in Sydney, Australia, on September 2, 1927. Phil Harris, Jr., the couple's adopted son, was born in 1935. Their divorce was finalized in September 1940.
Harris joined The Jell-O Show Starring Jack Benny (later renamed The Jack Benny Program) in 1936 as musical director. He sang, led his band, and, when his penchant for witty one-liners became apparent, joined the Benny ensemble as Phil Harris, a brash, hard-drinking, hipster-talking Southerner whose good nature overcame his ego. His jive-talk nicknames for the other people in Benny's orbit were his signature. Benny identified as "Jackson," but Harris's typical response was a jovial "Hiya, Jackson!" Strangely enough, given his true Hoosier origins, his signature song was "That's What I Like About the South."
In 1941, Harris wed Alice Faye, a second marriage for both (Faye had previously been briefly wed to singer-actor Tony Martin). Before Harris passed away, Faye and Harris were married for 54 years. During World War II, Harris and his band joined the United States Navy in 1942 and remained there until the end of the conflict. Faye had virtually given up on her cinematic career by 1946. After studio head Darryl F. Zanuck allegedly cut her scenes from Fallen Angel (1945) to boost his protégé Linda Darnell, she reportedly drove off the 20th Century Fox lot.
A radio show called The Fitch Bandwagon extended an invitation to Harris and Faye to join. Big bands, including Harris's own, used the event as a platform at first, but once Harris and Faye gained notoriety, it evolved into something very different. The couple's wish to raise their kids in Southern California without traveling about at the same time as Bandwagon gave rise to the well-known situation comedy, The Phil Harris-Alice Faye Show. Elliott Lewis played layabout guitarist Frank Remley in the series, and Great Gildersleeve co-star Walter Tetley played annoying grocery boy Julius. Harris played the conceited, illiterate bandleader husband, and Faye played his acidic but devoted wife, helped by actresses playing their two young daughters. For eight years, the Phil Harris-Alice Faye Show was broadcast on NBC until radio succumbed to television.
Following the concert, Harris brought his music career back to life. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, he had multiple guest appearances on television shows, such as Hollywood Palace, The Dean Martin Show, Kraft Music Hall, and other musical variety shows. He performed as a voice actor and vocalist for animated movies. He played Baloo the Bear in The Jungle Book, Robin Hood as Little John, and The Aristocats as Thomas O'Malley.
In the years after his radio peak, The Jungle Book was his biggest hit. In addition to providing the character's voice, Harris performed "The Bare Necessities," one of the movie's biggest hits, which brought Harris's former status as a well-known radio star to the attention of a new generation of young admirers. Harris also performs a stunning scat-singing rendition of "I Wanna Be Like You" with Louis Prima. Harris made a brief comeback to Disney in 1989, this time to voice Baloo for the animated series TaleSpin, which was in development at the time. Regretfully, by that point he had become too old to pull off the voice. Actor Ed Gilbert later took his position. in the 1991 film Rock-A-Doodle directed by Don Bluth, in which he played the friendly, laid back farm dog Patou.
Some of Harris's best-known songs were from the early 1950s novelty album "The Thing." In the song, a foolish man discovers a box that holds a strange secret, and he tries to get rid of it. Harris also led a band that frequently performed in Las Vegas in the 1970s and early 1980s, frequently sharing bills with swing era icon Harry James.
Bing Crosby was another close friend and acquaintance of Harris's; in fact, upon Crosby's passing, Harris filled in for his friend, providing color commentary for the annual Bing Crosby Pro-Am Golf Tournament telecast. The Phil Harris-Alice Faye Show's previous program opened with Harris recounting his victory in a previous competition.
Harris was a longtime resident and benefactor of Palm Springs, California, where Crosby also made his home. Harris was also a benefactor of his birthplace of Linton, Indiana, establishing scholarships in his honor for promising high school students, performing at the high school, and hosting a celebrity golf tournament in his honor every year. In due course, Harris and Faye donated most of their show business memorabilia and papers to Linton's public library.
Phil Harris died of a heart attack in 1995 at the age of 91, in Palm Springs after a heart attack. Three years later, Alice Faye passed away from stomach cancer. Harris was inducted into the Indiana Hall of Fame two years prior to his passing. In Riverside County, California, at Forest Lawn-Cathedral City, Harris and Faye are buried. While Alice Harris Regan was last known to be residing in New Orleans, Phyllis Harris was last known to be residing in St. Louis, where she had been with her mother by her father's bedside when he passed away.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Ray Bolger was born Raymond Wallace Bolger on January 10, 1904 in Dorchester, Massachusetts, to Anne C. (Wallace) and James Edward Bolger, both Irish-Americans. Ray began his career in vaudeville. He was half of a team called "Sanford and Bolger" and also did numerous Broadway shows on his own. Like Gene Kelly, he was a song-and-dance man as well as an actor. He was signed to a contract with MGM and his first role was as himself in The Great Ziegfeld (1936). This was soon followed by a role opposite Eleanor Powell in the romantic comedy Rosalie (1937). His first dancing and singing role was in Sweethearts (1938), where he did the "wooden shoes" number with redheaded soprano/actress Jeanette MacDonald. This got him noticed by MGM producers and resulted in his being cast in his most famous role, the Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz (1939).
Surprisingly, even though the film was a success, Bolger's contract with MGM ended. He went to RKO Radio Pictures to make the romantic comedy Four Jacks and a Jill (1942). After this, Bolger went to Broadway, where he received his greatest satisfaction. In 1953, he turned to television and received his own sitcom, Where's Raymond? (1953), later changed to "The Ray Bolger Show". After his series ended, Bolger guest starred on many television series such as Battlestar Galactica (1978) and Fantasy Island (1977), and had some small roles in movies. In 1985, he co-hosted the documentary film That's Dancing! (1985) with Liza Minnelli. Ray Bolger died of bladder cancer in Los Angeles, California on January 15, 1987, five days after his 83rd birthday.- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Few actors ever managed a complete image transition as thoroughly. In the case of Dick Powell, from boyish, wavy-haired crooners in musicals to rugged crime fighters in films noir. Powell grew up in the town of Little Rock, Arkansas, one of three brothers (one of them, Howard, ended up as vice president of the Illinois Central Railroad). He worked his way through schooling, sidelining as a soda jerk and a grocery clerk before entering the world of show biz as a singer (tenor) and banjo player with the Royal Peacock Orchestra in Louisville, Kentucky. He then got a gig with the Charlie Davis band and toured with them throughout the mid-west, appearing at dance halls and picture theaters. He next worked as a master of ceremonies and this rounded him off as an entertainer even before he was signed by a Warner Brothers talent scout in 1932. Looking rather younger than his actual years, Powell soon found himself typecast as clean-cut singing juveniles in a series of exuberant musicals with lavish production numbers like 42nd Street (1933), one of two dozen similar pictures he made for the studio.
In 1935, Powell's salary amounted to $70,000. Two years later, he had become one of Hollywood's top ten box office stars, yet was paid just half of what he had earned as an MC. A keen businessman with an eye for profit, Powell had already invested wisely in land and property. When he left Warners in 1939 with no discernible acting opportunities in sight, he was in no way short of money. He was, however, desperate to escape his image, declaring "I knew I wasn't the greatest singer in the world and I saw no reason why an actor should restrict himself to any one particular phase of the business". He fairly jumped at the chance to act in non-singing roles, joining Paramount in 1940 to appear opposite Ellen Drew in the sparkling Preston Sturges comedy Christmas in July (1940). This was followed by two marital farces featuring his then-wife, Joan Blondell, both efforts receiving only a lukewarm response at the box-office. Still dissatisfied with lightweight roles, Powell lobbied hard to get the lead (eventually scored by Fred MacMurray) in Double Indemnity (1944) but was knocked back. Instead, he was slotted into more of the same fare, refused to comply and was suspended.
His box office credo now at a low ebb, Powell tried his luck at RKO and at last managed to secure a lucrative role: that of hard-boiled private eye Philip Marlowe in Raymond Chandler's Murder, My Sweet (1944). The author himself approved of the casting, though the director (Edward Dmytryk) fought off initial misgivings. The result proved nothing if not a tangible hit for RKO. Bosley Crowther of the New York Times remarked " ...and while he may lack the steely coldness and cynicism of a Humphrey Bogart, Mr. Powell need not offer any apologies. He has definitely stepped out of the song-and-dance, pretty-boy league with this performance". In short order, offers suddenly kept coming. Having successfully reinvented himself, Powell now found steady work on radio, respectively as "Richard Rogue" and then "Richard Diamond, Private Eye". In films, he remained on cue for wise-cracking tough guy roles in Cornered (1945) and Johnny O'Clock (1947). His most challenging role yet was as best-selling novelist James Lee Bartlow in MGM's epic drama The Bad and the Beautiful (1952)]. Powell also dabbled in directing, though he only helmed six pictures in total: among them a minor film noir, Split Second (1953)], and an above-average submarine drama, The Enemy Below (1957)]. Having quit film acting in the mid-50s, he began to concentrate primarily on producing TV drama as host and executive producer of his own award-winning anthology show, The Dick Powell Theatre (1961). He was also co-founder and managing director of Four Star Television (which had its studios where Republic had formerly existed and which would subsequently become CBS Cinema Center).
Dick Powell died prematurely of lung cancer in January 1963 at the age of 58. He was survived by his third wife, the actress June Allyson.- Actor
- Soundtrack
J. Pat had a warm smile, twinkling eyes, and an Irish name. He was born in Burnley, England, and began his acting career in British musical halls. J. Pat came to the USA at the outbreak of World War II. He also worked on the Broadway stage during the 1940s and 1950s. J. Pat was a very familiar face on TV sitcoms and dramas for 3 decades, where he played mostly uncle and grandfather types. He made over 100 TV guest appearances, and was in groundbreaking series such as the The Twilight Zone (1959) and The Untouchables (1959). J. Pat performed a lot in radio with his versatile voice work, and he later used his talent in animated cartoons, providing many vocal characterizations. And the children always loved J. Pat the most. Many baby boomers have fond childhood memories of his portrayals in the TV series The Adventures of Spin and Marty (1955) and The New Adventures of Spin and Marty (1957) and of course he played Mr. Harry Burns in My Favorite Martian (1963). J. Pat was a kind and gentle man, who made this world a better place for having been here, and he left his legacy on film.- Actor
- Director
- Writer
Born in London, England, John Gielgud trained at Lady Benson's Acting School and RADA, London. Best known for his Shakespearean roles in the theater, he first played Hamlet at the age of 26. He worked under the tutelage of Lilian Bayliss with friend and fellow performer Laurence Olivier and other contemporaries of the National Theatre at the "Old Vic", London. He made his screen debut in 1924. Academy Award Best Supporting Actor, 1981, for Arthur (1981), Academy Award Nomination, 1964, for Becket (1964).- Actor
- Art Department
- Script and Continuity Department
Keye Luke was born in Canton, China. He grew up in Seattle, Washington, and entered the film business as a commercial artist and a designer of movie posters. He was hired as a technical advisor on several Asian-themed films, and made his film debut in The Painted Veil (1934). It seemed that he appeared in almost every film that called for Chinese characters, usually in small parts but occasionally, as in The Good Earth (1937), in a meatier, more substantial role. In addition, he played Dr. Kildare's rival at the hospital in the Dr. Kildare series at MGM, but it was as Charlie Chan's #1 son in that series that Luke achieved his greatest recognition. In the 1970s a new generation was made aware of his talents by virtue of his recurring role in the TV series Kung Fu (1972).- Actor
- Soundtrack
Character actor Milburn Stone, the beloved "Doc Adams" on TV's long-running western classic Gunsmoke (1955), was born in Kansas on July 5, 1904. Acting must have been in his blood as the nephew of Broadway comedian Fred Stone for Milburn left home as a teenager to find work with touring repertory troupes. Emulating his famous uncle Fred, he appeared in vaudeville as part of a song-and-dance team called "Stone and Strain."
Following a minor appearance on Broadway in "The Jayhawkers," Milburn moved to Los Angeles in 1935 to try his luck in films. He toiled for years in mostly unbilled parts for 'poverty row' Monogram Pictures and a few major studios, apprenticing in a number of background roles as both benign fellows (clerks, reporters, sailors, detectives) and bad guys (convicts, robbers, henchmen) in such films as Ladies Crave Excitement (1935), The Fighting Marines (1935), The Princess Comes Across (1936), Banjo on My Knee (1936) and They Gave Him a Gun (1937)
Out of the blue he would occasionally nab a heroic film lead in films as the crime drama Federal Bullets (1937) and The Judge (1949) or serial thrillers as The Great Alaskan Mystery (1944) and The Master Key (1945), then would invariably go right back to unbilled status in his very next role. One memorable featured part (which was also unbilled) was as debater Stephen A. Douglass in John Ford's Young Mr. Lincoln (1939). In addition he played a regular support role as pal/co-pilot "Skeeter Milligan" in the "Tommy Tailspin" airborne film quickies Mystery Plane (1939), Sky Patrol (1939) and Danger Flight (1939).
Other higher visible support roles occurred in such films as the Roy Rogers western Colorado (1940), as well as Captive Wild Woman (1943), The Frozen Ghost (1945), Roadblock (1951), Black Tuesday (1954), Smoke Signal (1955). He also went on to appear in a couple of John Ford's later features such as Simone Bär and The Long Gray Line (1955).
When the crusty but lovable role of "Doc Adams" finally landed at his feet in 1955, Milburn was only too appreciative to experience a steady paycheck. He became an "overnight" star and, along with Matt Dillon's James Arness, earned an Emmy Award for "supporting actor" and stayed a citizen of Dodge City throughout its entire 20-year run (500 episodes). In 1971, Stone was temporarily sidelined by a heart attack and briefly replaced by another "doc" played by Pat Hingle. The ever-durable Stone missed only seven episodes, however, and did return on a more limited basis.
Fully retired to his ranch in 1975 after the show's cancellation, he was eventually awarded an honorary doctorate from St. Mary of the Plains College in (of course) Dodge City, Kansas. Married to Jane Garrison, the 75-year-old veteran died of a heart attack on June 12, 1980 in La Jolla, California. His wife passed away much later in 2002.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Raymond Bailey was a great example of "If at first you don't succeed..." After high school, Bailey headed for Hollywood with the intent on becoming a movie star, but soon found it tougher than he thought. Instead Bailey went into a high finance career working as stockbroker and banker. He made a second stab at Hollywood, and again had no success. He then became a seaman, working on various freighters and travelling all over the world. Bailey also worked on a pineapple plantation in Hawaii, and tried his luck in the local theatre. Deciding to give Hollywood one more try in 1938, he got lucky getting several small parts in the movies which eventually evolved into bigger character roles. When television became big, Bailey was in demand for parts and it was there he got his most famous part on the hit sitcom The Beverly Hillbillies (1962), as (ironically) banker Milburn Drysdale. After the show ended, he did a few movie roles.- Actor
- Soundtrack
The favorite leading man of star Bette Davis was born George Brendan Nolan in Ballinasloe, County Galway, Ireland (although his place of birth has also been variosuly given as Raharabeg, County Roscommon and Shannonbridge, County Offaly). He was the youngest of five children born to shopkeeper John J. Nolan and Mary (McGuinness) Nolan, who lived on Main Street in Ballinasloe. His parents separated, making him an orphan from the tender age of eleven. From 1915, he lived with maternal relatives in New York until he was old enough to earn money. To make ends meet, he briefly became a sheep herder and even crossed the Atlantic to find work in the gold fields of South Africa.
George eventually returned to Ireland to study at the University of Dublin. By 1921, he had become -- despite his paternal ancestors' service in the British Army -- a despatch courier for Irish Republican Army guerrilla leader Michael Collins during the "The Troubles". At his time he was hunted by the Black and Tans with a bounty on his head. Goerge had, by then, developed an interest in acting and (partly to cover up his nightly activities for Sinn Fein) joined the Abbey Theatre Players. Tipped off by a double agent to his imminent arrest by British soldiers, he went into hiding and later skipped town. His return to acting was necessitated by the need for a sustainable source of income. By August 1921, he had returned to the U.S. via Canada.
Back in New York four years later, he toured with the hit play 'Abie's Irish Rose' and then with stock companies in Colorado, Florida, and Massachusetts, appearing in the ensemble cast of 'The Nightingale' on Broadway' (1927). Another three years on, George co-starred (with Alice Brady and Clark Gable) in the short-lived play 'Love, Honor and Betray'.
He worked in Hollywood from 1930, initially playing farmers, doctors and partner of Rin Tin Tin, before Warner Brothers finally recognised his potential as a handsome leading man for some of their more temperamental female stars. One of those was Ruth Chatterton who picked him to play opposite her in The Rich Are Always with Us (1932). This was the first of four films he made with the actress, whom he eventually married. They divorced after just two years. A specialist in dapper, sophisticated gentlemen, George gave reliable support to such stars as Greta Garbo, Hedy Lamarr, Barbara Stanwyck, and Bette Davis (with whom he appeared in 11 films). However, he could rarely be described as dynamic. In his own words, all a good leading man needed 'was a good haircut since an audience was only ever likely to see the back of his head'. On the other hand, he was able to accumulate six marriages, among his wives another Warner Brothers star (Ann Sheridan).
At his best opposite Davis (with whom he had an affair), the two appeared in 11 films together, including Front Page Woman (1935), Dark Victory (1939), The Old Maid (1939), and The Rains Came (1939). When lead roles became scarce, he appeared against type as the maniacal murderer in the Robert Siodmak-directed thriller The Spiral Staircase (1946). Following that, there were several B-movies on both sides of the Atlantic, after which Brent retired from acting to concentrate on breeding race horses. He died of emphysema in 1979, aged 75.- Zita Johann was born on 14 July 1904 in Temesvar, Austria-Hungary [now Timisoara, Timis, Romania]. She was an actress, known for The Mummy (1932), The Sin of Nora Moran (1933) and Luxury Liner (1933). She was married to Bernard Edward Shedd (Schetnitz), John McCormick and John Houseman. She died on 20 September 1993 in Nyack, New York, USA.
- Actor
- Soundtrack
Tom Conway played "The Falcon" in ten of that series' entries. He starred in three Val Lewton horror classics. He appeared in comedies, musicals, two Tarzan films and even science fiction films.
He was early television's Detective Mark Saber, but Conway will probably be best remembered as George Sanders' brother.
Born into a wealthy family in pre-Bolshevik Revolution Russia, Thomas Charles Sanders might have followed his father as a rope manufacturer and inherited several estates. Had the family not been forced to flee to England, the brothers Sanders may never have added their names to the Hollywood saga.
But the Russian Revolution came, and Tom (age 13), George (age 11), sister Margaret (age 5), together with their parents, fled to England, leaving most of their wealth in the hands of the Bolsheviks.
The brothers attended Dunhurst and Bedales, private schools, and eventually Brighton College.
After college, Tom went to Northern Rhodesia where he worked in gold, copper and asbestos mines and even attempted ranching. Frustrated and "pretty well fed up to the teeth" with his failures, he borrowed passage home. In England, Conway worked as an engineer in a carburetor company and later sold safety glass.
He was discovered by a representative from a little theater group who persuaded him to join them. Conway eventually worked for the Manchester Repertory Company and toured with them in over twenty-five plays. He also appeared in BBC radio broadcasts.
Brother George persuaded him to come to Hollywood. To prevent confusion on the part of the public, they tossed a coin to see who would have to change his name. Tom lost, thereby becoming Tom Conway.
Conway began work at MGM, eventually appearing as a contract player in twelve films there, including a bit part in Mrs. Miniver (1942).
Brother George, tiring of B-film appearances in RKO's Falcon series and with better roles at two studios looming on the horizon, offered Tom his first big break. In The Falcon's Brother (1942), George was conveniently eliminated by a Nazi sniper so that Tom, as Tom Lawrence, could inherit the role. Conway played the role with even greater success than that of his brother in the next ten installments, concluding with The Falcon's Adventure (1946).
During those years, he also appeared in Val Lewton's Cat People (1942), I Walked with a Zombie (1943) and The Seventh Victim (1943). These led to two major film appearances, Universal's One Touch of Venus (1948), with Ava Gardner and Eve Arden and Warner Brothers' Painting the Clouds with Sunshine (1951).
Amidst the collapse of the studio system, Tom found his opportunities shrinking. There were to be no further major roles for him. His next film was Bride of the Gorilla (1951).
Alert to new possibilities for work, he accepted the part of homicide detective Mark Saber in the television series, Mark Saber (1951). Conway also made several mystery films in England during the same period. He played a cameo role as a bearded and be-wigged Sir Kay in Prince Valiant (1954) with two brief lines.
Back in the states, there were guest appearances on TV's Rawhide (1959), Adventures in Paradise (1959), and Perry Mason (1957).
In October, 1957, Tom turned in a brilliant performance as ventriloquist Max Collodi in Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955) chilling tale "The Glass Eye". He appeared regularly as the boyfriend on the The Betty Hutton Show (1959).
Conway also lent his voice to One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961). His final appearance was an uncredited part, in What a Way to Go! (1964).
Failing eyesight and prolonged bouts with alcohol took their toll on Conway in his last years. His second wife, Queenie Leonard divorced him in 1963. George Sanders broke off all contact with him over his drinking.
Conway underwent cataract surgery during the winter of 1964/65. In September of 1965 Tom briefly returned to the headlines when he was discovered living in a $2-a-day room in a Venice, California flophouse. Gifts, contributions and offers of aid poured in - for a time. Conway, still standing tall and trim, his hair now white, peered owl-like through thick-lensed glasses at the newspaper cameras.
His last years were marked with further visits to the hospital. It was there that former sister-in-law Zsa Zsa Gabor visited him one day and gave him $200. "Tip the nurses a little bit so they'll be good to you," she told him. The following day, the hospital called her to say that Conway had left with the $200, gone to his girlfriend's and died in her bed.- Actor
- Music Department
Johnny Weissmuller was born as Peter Johann Weißmüller in Freidorf, today a district of the city of Timisoara in Romania, then a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Weissmuller would later claim to have been born in Windber, Pennsylvania, probably to ensure his eligibility to compete as part of the US Olympic team. Weissmüller was one of two boys born to Petrus Weissmuller, a miner, and his wife Elisabeth Kersch, who were both Banat Swabians, an ethnic German population in Southeast Europe. A sickly child, he took up swimming on the advice of a doctor. He grew to be a 6' 3", 190-pound champion athlete - undefeated winner of five Olympic gold medals, 67 world and 52 national titles, holder of every freestyle record from 100 yards to the half-mile. In his first picture, Glorifying the American Girl (1929), he appeared as an Adonis clad only in a fig leaf. After great success with a jungle movie, MGM head Louis B. Mayer, via Irving Thalberg, optioned two of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan stories. Cyril Hume, working on the adaptation of Tarzan the Ape Man (1932), noticed Weissmuller swimming in the pool at his hotel and suggested him for the part of Tarzan. Weissmuller was under contract to BVD to model underwear and swimsuits; MGM got him released by agreeing to pose many of its female stars in BVD swimsuits. The studio billed him as "the only man in Hollywood who's natural in the flesh and can act without clothes". The film was an immediate box-office and critical hit. Seeing that he was wildly popular with girls, the studio told him to divorce his wife and paid her $10,000 to agree to it. After 1942, however, MGM had used up its options; it dropped the Tarzan series and Weissmuller, too. He then moved to RKO and made six more Tarzans. After that he made 13 Jungle Jim (1948) programmers for Columbia. He retired from movies to run a private business in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.- Rosalind Byrne was born on 19 February 1904 in Ohio, USA. She was an actress, known for Casey at the Bat (1927), The Case of Lena Smith (1929) and The Fast Set (1924). She died on 9 August 1989 in Wilmette, Illinois, USA.
- Actress
- Soundtrack
Dolores Del Rio was the one of the first Mexican movie stars with international appeal and who had meteoric career in 1920s/1930s Hollywood. Del Rio came from an aristocratic family in Durango. In the Mexican revolution of 1916, however, the family lost everything and emigrated to Mexico City, where Dolores became a socialite. In 1921 she married Jaime Del Río (also known as Jaime Martínez Del Río), a wealthy Mexican, and the two became friends with Hollywood producer/director Edwin Carewe, who discovered Del Rio and invited the couple to move to Hollywood where they launched careers in the movie business (she as an actress, Jaime as a screenwriter). Eventually, they divorced after Carewe cast her in her first film Joanna (1925), followed by High Steppers (1926), and Pals First (1926). She had her first leading role in Carewe's silent version of Pals First (1926) and soared to stardom in 1928 with Carewe's Ramona (1928). The film was a success and Del Rio was hailed as a female Rudolph Valentino. Her career continued to rise with the arrival of sound in the drama/romance Bird of Paradise (1932) and hit musical Flying Down to Rio (1933). She later married Cedric Gibbons, the well-known art director and production designer at MGM studios.
Dolores returned to Mexico in 1942. Her Hollywood career was over, and a romance with Orson Welles--who later called her "the most exciting woman I've ever met"--caused her second divorce. Mexican director Emilio Fernández offered her the lead in his film Wild Flower (1943), with a wholly unexpected result - at age 37, Dolores Del Río became the most famous movie star in her country, filming in Spanish for the first time. Her association with Fernández' team (cinematographer Gabriel Figueroa, writer Mauricio Magdaleno and actor Pedro Armendáriz) was mainly responsible for creating what has been called the Golden Era of Mexican Cinema. With such pictures as Maria Candelaria (1944), Las abandonadas (1945) and Bugambilia (1945), Del Río became the prototypical Mexican beauty. Her career included film, theater and television. In her last years she received accolades because of her work for orphaned children. Her last film was The Children of Sanchez (1978).- Actor
- Soundtrack
Wally Brown was born on 8 October 1904 in Malden, Massachusetts, USA. He was an actor, known for Notorious (1946), Zombies on Broadway (1945) and Seven Days Ashore (1944). He was married to Mildred (Lane) Lehman. He died on 13 November 1961 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Hollywood stalwart Bruce Cabot's main claim to fame, other than rescuing Fay Wray from King Kong (1933), is that he tested for the lead role of The Ringo Kid in John Ford's Western masterpiece Stagecoach (1939). John Wayne got the role and became the most durable star in Hollywood history, while Cabot (eventually) found himself a new drinking partner when the two co-starred in Angel and the Badman (1947). In the latter stages of his career, Cabot could rely on Wayne for a supporting part in one of the Duke's movies.
It wasn't always so. In the 1930s Cabot's star shone bright. He was born with the unlikely name Etienne Pelissier Jacques de Bujac in Carlsbad, New Mexico, the son of French Col. Etienne de Bujac and Julia Armandine Graves, who died shortly after giving birth to the future Bruce Cabot. After leaving the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee, the future thespian hit the road, working a wide variety of jobs including sailor and insurance salesman, and doing a stint in a knacker's yard. In 1931 he wound up in Hollywood and appeared in several films in bit parts.
The young Monsieur de Bujac met David O. Selznick, then RKO's central producer (a job akin to Irving Thalberg's at MGM), at a Hollywood party, which led to an uncredited bit part as a dancer in Lady with a Past (1932) and a supporting role in The Roadhouse Murder (1932). On a parallel career track at the time, Marion Morrison (John Wayne) had failed to follow up on his audacious debut in Raoul Walsh's The Big Trail (1930) (the Duke had appeared in 18 movies previously but had only been billed in one, as "Duke Morrison" in the unlikely John Wayne vehicle Words and Music (1929)). Cabot and Wayne eventually appeared in 11 films together.
Although Cabot was prominently featured in the blockbuster "King Kong" in 1933, he never did make the step to stardom, though he enjoyed a thriving career as a supporting player. He was a heavy in the 1930s, playing a gangster boss in Let 'em Have It (1935) and the revenge-minded Native American brave Magua after Randolph Scott's scalp in The Last of the Mohicans (1936); over at MGM, he ably supported Spencer Tracy as the instigator of a lynch mob in Fritz Lang's indictment of domestic fascism, Fury (1936). A freelancer, he appeared in movies at many studios before leaving Hollywood for military service. Cabot worked for Army intelligence overseas during World War II; after the war, he continued to work steadily, with and without his friend and frequent co-star, the Duke.
Bruce Cabot died in 1972 of lung and throat cancer. He was 68 years old.- Short, dapper Jay Novello specialized in playing ethnic types, sometimes Spanish, Greek or Mexican but usually Italian--not surprising, since his parents were Italian immigrants and he grew up speaking the language before he learned English. Born in Chicago in 1904, he came from a very diverse neighborhood and, in addition to speaking Italian and English, also picked up a working knowledge of German and Greek. He got a job acting with various theater companies in the Chicago area, and his facility with languages got him work in radio as a dialect specialist. He soon moved to Hollywood and got work in the radio industry there, and made his film debut in an uncredited bit part in 1930. He played in everything from westerns to action pictures to serials (in one of which, The Adventures of Smilin' Jack (1943), he played a Japanese spy!). He did much television work, and one of his best known roles was as the scheming Mayor Lugato in the Ernest Borgnine comedy series McHale's Navy (1962). He died of lung cancer in North Hollywood in 1982.
- Actor
- Producer
- Writer
Jean-Alexis Moncorgé started his career with 15 years at the theatre and debuted at the "Moulin Rouge" in Paris in 1929. Despite of his rude aspect he knew to be the gentleman of the French cinema in the time between the two World Wars. One of his most popular personalities was inspector Maigret. But he was also able to play all other kind of people: aristocrats, farmers, thieves and managers. He never stopped working and when death surprised him in 1976 he was still an institution for the French audience.- Cinematographer
- Director
- Writer
George Stevens, a filmmaker known as a meticulous craftsman with a brilliant eye for composition and a sensitive touch with actors, is one of the great American filmmakers, ranking with John Ford, William Wyler and Howard Hawks as a creator of classic Hollywood cinema, bringing to the screen mytho-poetic worlds that were also mass entertainment. One of the most honored and respected directors in Hollywood history, Stevens enjoyed a great degree of independence from studios, producing most of his own films after coming into his own as a director in the late 1930s. Though his work ranged across all genres, including comedies, musicals and dramas, whatever he did carried the hallmark of his personal vision, which is predicated upon humanism.
Although the cinema is an industrial process that makes attributions of "authorship" difficult if not downright ridiculous (despite the contractual guarantees in Directors Guild of America-negotiated contracts), there is no doubt that George Stevens is in control of a George Stevens picture. Though he was unjustly derided by critics of the 1960s for not being an "auteur," an auteur he truly is, for a Stevens picture features meticulous attention to detail, the thorough exploitation of a scene's visual possibilities and ingenious and innovative editing that creates many layers of meanings. A Stevens picture contains compelling performances from actors whose interactions have a depth and intimacy rare in motion pictures. A Stevens picture typically is fully engaged with American society and is a chronicled photoplay of the pursuit of The American Dream.
George Stevens was nominated five times for an Academy Award as Best Director, winning twice, and six of the movies he produced and directed were nominated for Best Picture Oscars. In 1953 he was the recipient of the Irving Thalberg Memorial Award for maintaining a consistent level of high-quality production. He served as president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences from 1958 to 1959. Stevens won the Directors Guild of America Best Director Award three times as well as the D.W. Griffith Lifetime Achievement Award. He made five indisputable classics: Swing Time (1936), a Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers musical; Gunga Din (1939), a rousing adventure film; Woman of the Year (1942), a battle-of-the-sexes comedy; A Place in the Sun (1951), a drama that broke new ground in the use of close-ups and editing; and Shane (1953), a distillation of every Western cliché that managed to both sum up and transcend the genre. His Penny Serenade (1941), The Talk of the Town (1942), The More the Merrier (1943), I Remember Mama (1948) and Giant (1956) all live on in the front rank of motion pictures.
George Cooper Stevens was born on December 18, 1904, in Oakland, California, to actor Landers Stevens and his wife, actress Georgie Cooper, who ran their own theatrical company in Oakland, Ye Liberty Playhouse. Cooper herself was the daughter of an actress, Georgia Woodthorpe (both ladies' Christian names offstage were Georgia, though their stage names were Georgie). Georgie Cooper appeared as Little Lord Fauntleroy as a child along with her mother at Los Angeles' Burbank Theater. George's parents' company performed in the San Francisco Bay area, and as individual performers they also toured the West Coast as vaudevillians on the Opheum circuit. Their theatrical repertoire included the classics, giving the young George the chance to forge an understanding of dramatic structure and what works with an audience. In 1922 Stevens' parents abandoned live theater and moved their family, which consisted of George and his older brother John Landers Stevens (later to be known as Jack Stevens), south to Glendale, California, to find work in the movie industry.
Both of Stevens' parents gained steady employment as movie actors. Landers appeared in Little Caesar (1931), The Public Enemy (1931) and Citizen Kane (1941) in small parts. His brother was Chicago Herald-American drama critic Ashton Stevens (1872-1951), who was hired by William Randolph Hearst for his San Francisco Examiner after Ashton had taught him how to play the banjo. An interviewer of movie stars and a notable man-about-town, Ashton mentored the young Orson Welles, who based the Jedediah Leland character in Citizen Kane (1941) on him. Georgie Cooper's sister Olive Cooper became a screenwriter after a short stint as an actress. Jack became a movie cameraman, as did their second son.
Stevens' movie adaptation of "I Remember Mama," the chronicle of a Norwegian immigrant family trying to assimilate in San Francisco circa 1910, could be a mirror on the Stevens family's own move to Los Angeles circa 1922. In "Mama", the members of the Hanson family feel like outsiders, a theme that resonates throughout Stevens' work. Acting was considered an insalubrious profession before the rise of Ronald Reagan's generation of actors into the halls of power, and being a member of an acting family necessarily marked one as an outsider in the first half of the 20th century. Young George had to drop out of high school to drive his father to his acting auditions, which would have further enhanced his sense of being an outsider. To compensate for his lack of formal education, Stevens closely studied theater, literature and the emerging medium of the motion picture.
Soon after arriving in Hollywood, the 17-year-old Stevens got a job at the Hal Roach Studios as an assistant cameraman; it was a matter of being in the right place at the right time. Of that period, when the cinema was young, Stevens reminisced, "There were no unions, so it was possible to become an assistant cameraman if you happened to find out just when they were starting a picture. There was no organization; if a cameraman didn't have an assistant, he didn't know where to find one."
As part of Hal Roach's company, Stevens learned the art of visual storytelling while the form was still being developed. Part of his visual education entailed the shooting of low-budget westerns, some of which featured Rex. Within two years Stevens became a director of photography and a writer of gags for Roach on the comedies of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy.
His first credited work as a cameraman at the Roach Studios was for the Stan Laurel short Roughest Africa (1923). Stevens was a terrific cameraman, most notably in Laurel & Hardy's comedies (both silent and talkies), and it was as a cameraman that his aesthetic began to develop. The cinema of George Stevens was rooted in humanism, and he focused on telling details and behavior that elucidated character and relationships. This aesthetic started developing on the Laurel & Hardy comedies, where he learned about the interplay of relationships between "the one who is looked at" and "the one doing the looking." Verisimilitude, always a hallmark of a Stevens picture, also was part of the Laurel and Hardy curricula; Oliver Hardy once said, "We did a lot of crazy things in our pictures, but we were always real."
From a lighting cameraman, Stevens advanced to a director of short subjects for Roach at Universal. Within a year of moving to RKO in 1933, he began directing comedy features. His break came in 1935 at RKO, when house diva Katharine Hepburn chose Stevens as the director of Alice Adams (1935). Based on a Booth Tarkington novel about a young woman from the lower-middle class who dares to dream big, the movie injected the theme of class aspiration and the frustrations of the pursuit of happiness while dreaming the American dream into Stevens' oeuvre. Before there was cinema of "outsiders" recognized in the late 1970s, there were Stevens' outsiders, fighting against their atomization and alienation through their not-always-successful interactions with other people.
Stevens created his first classic in 1936, when RKO assigned him to helm the sixth Astaire-Rogers musical, Swing Time (1936). Stevens' past as a lighting cameraman prepared him for the innovative visuals of this musical comedy. Through his control of the camera's field of vision, Stevens as a director creates an atmosphere that engenders emotional effects in his audience. In one scene Astaire opens a mirrored door that the scene's reflection in actuality is being shot on, and being keyed into the illusion emotionally introduces the audience into the picture, in sly counterpoint to Buster Keaton's walk into the screen in his _Sherlock, Jr. (1924)_ . Stevens' use of light in "Swing Time" is audacious. He freely introduces light into scenes, with the effect that it enlivens them and gives them a "light" touch, such as the final scene where "sunlight" breaks out over the painted backdrop. The film never drags and is a brilliant showcase for the dancing team. Rogers claimed it was her favorite of all her pictures with Astaire.
Stevens' next classic was the rip-roaring adventure yarn Gunga Din (1939), based on the Rudyard Kipling poem. Though no longer politically correct in the 21st century, the picture still works in terms of action and star power, as three British sergeants--Cary Grant, Victor McLaglen and Douglas Fairbanks Jr.--try to put down a rampage by a notorious death cult in 19th-century colonial India.
Having learned his craft in the improvisational milieu of silent pictures, Stevens would often wing it, shooting from an underdeveloped screenplay that was ever in flux, finding the film as he shot it and later edited it. With filmmaking becoming more and more expensive in the 1930s due to the studios' penchant for making movies on a vaster scale than they had previously, Stevens' methods led to anxiety for the bean-counters in RKO's headquarters. His improvisatory crafting of "Gunga Din" resulted in the film's shooting schedule almost doubling from 64 to 124 days, with its cost reaching a then-incredible $2 million (few sound films had grossed more than $5 million up to that point, and a picture needed to gross from two to 2-1/2 times its negative cost to break even).
Studio executives were driven to distraction by Stevens' methods, such as his taking nearly a year to edit the footage he shot for "Shane." His films typically were successful, though, and in the late 1930s he became his own producer, earning him greater latitude than that enjoyed by virtually any other filmmaker with the obvious exceptions of Cecil B. DeMille and Frank Capra. He made three significant comedies in the early 1940s: Woman of the Year (1942), the darker-in-tone The Talk of the Town (1942) (a film that touches on the subject of civil rights and the miscarriage of justice) and The More the Merrier (1943) before going off to war.
Joining the Army Signal Corps, Stevens headed up a combat motion picture unit from 1944 to 1946. In addition to filming the Normandy landings, his unit shot both the liberation of Paris and the liberation of the Nazi extermination camp Dachau, and his unit's footage was used both as evidence in the Nuremberg trials and in the de-Nazification program after the war. Stevens was awarded the Legion of Merit for his services. Many critics claim that the somber, deeply personal tone of the movies he made when he returned from World War II were the result of the horrors he saw during the war. Stevens' first wife, Yvonne, recalled that he "was a very sensitive man. He just never dreamed, I'm sure, what he was getting into when he enlisted." Stevens wrote a letter to Yvonne in 1945, telling her that "if it hadn't been for your letters . . . there would have been nothing to think cheerfully about, because you know that I find much [of] this difficult to believe in fundamentally."
The images of war and Dachau continued to haunt Stevens, but it also engendered in him the belief that motion pictures had to be socially meaningful to be of value. Along with fellow Signal Corps veterans Frank Capra and William Wyler, Stevens founded Liberty Films to produce his vision of the human condition. The major carryover from his prewar oeuvre to his postwar films is the affection the director has for his central characters, emblematic of his humanism.
Stevens' second postwar film, A Place in the Sun (1951), was his adaptation of Theodore Dreiser's "An American Tragedy," updated to contemporary America. Released three years after his family film I Remember Mama (1948), it features an outsider, George Eastman, trapped in the net of the American Dream, the pursuit of which dooms him. Sergei Eisenstein had written an adaptation for Paramount of "An American Tragedy" (the title a sly reversal of "The American Dream"), but Eisenstein's participation in the project was jettisoned when the studio came under attack by right-wing politicians and organizations for hiring a "Communist", and the U.S. government deported Eisenstein shortly afterward. His script was unceremoniously dumped, and Josef von Sternberg eventually made the picture, but his vision was so far from Dreiser's that the old literary lion sued the studio. The film was recut and proved to be both a critical and box-office failure.
Alfred Hitchcock maintained that it was far easier to make a good picture from a mediocre or bad drama or book than it was from a good work or a masterpiece. It remained for George Stevens to turn a literary masterpiece into a cinematic one--a unique trick in Hollywood. What was revolutionary about "A Place in the Sun," in terms of technique, is Stevens' use of close-ups. Charlton Heston has pointed out that no one had ever used close-ups the way Stevens had in the picture. He used them more frequently than was the norm circa 1950, and he used extreme close-ups that, when combined with his innovative, slow-dissolve editing, created its own atmosphere, its own world that brought the audience into George Eastman's world, even into his embrace with the girl of his dreams, and also into the rowboat on that fateful day that would forever change his life. The editing technique of slow-lapping dissolves slowed down time and elongated the tempo of a scene in a way never before seen on screen.
Stevens' mastery over the art of the motion picture was recognized with his first Academy Award for direction, beating out Elia Kazan for that director's own masterpiece, A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) and Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly for THEIR masterpiece, An American in Paris (1951), for the Best Picture Oscar winner that year (most observers had expected "Sun" or "Streetcar" to win, but they had split the vote and allowed "American" to nose them out at the finish line. MGM's publicity department acknowledged as much when it ran a post-Oscar ad featuring Leo the Lion with copy that began, "I was standing in the Sun waiting for a Streetcar when . . . ").
Stevens' theme of the outsider continued with his next classic, Shane (1953). The eponymous gunman is an outsider, but so is the Starrett family he has decided to defend, as are the "sodbusters", and even the range baron who is now outside his time, outside his community and outside human decency. Giant (1956), Stevens' sprawling three-hour epic based on Edna Ferber's novel about Texas, also features outsiders: sister Luz Benedict, hired-hand transformed into millionaire oilman Jett Rink, transplanted Tidewater belle Leslie Benedict, her two rebellious children and eventually her husband Bick Benedict, a near-stereotypical Texan who finally steps outside of his parochialism and is transformed into an outsider when he decides to fight, physically, against discrimination against Latinos as a point of honor. The Otto Frank family and their compatriots in hiding in The Diary of Anne Frank (1959), American cinema's first movie to deal with the Holocaust, are outsiders, while Christ in his The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965)--subtle, complex and unknowable--is the ultimate outsider. The Only Game in Town (1970)--Stevens' last film with Elizabeth Taylor, his female lead in "A Place in the Sun" and "Giant"--was about two outsiders, an aging chorus girl and a petty gambler.
Stevens' reputation suffered after the 1950s, and he didn't make another film until halfway into the 1960s. The film he did produce after that long hiatus was misunderstood and underappreciated when it was released. The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965), a picture about the ministry and passion of Christ, was one of the last epic films. It was maligned by critics and failed at the box office. It was on this picture that Stevens' improvisatory method began to take a toll on him. It took six years from the release of "Anne Frank," which had garnered Oscar nominations for Best Picture and Best Director, until the release of "Greatest Story." There had been a long gestation period for the film, and it was renowned as a difficult shoot, so much so that David Lean helped out a man he considered a master by shooting some ancillary scenes for the picture. The film has a look of vastness that many critics misunderstood as emptiness rather than as a visual correlative of the soul. Stevens' script is inspired by the three Synoptic Gospels, particular the Gospel According to St. John. John stresses the interior relation between the self and things beyond its knowledge. Though misunderstood by critics at the time of its release, the film has become more appreciated some 40 years later. Stevens is a master of the cinema, and is fully in command of the dissolves and emotive use of sound he used so effectively in "A Place in the Sun."
His last film, The Only Game in Town (1970), also was not a critical or box-office success, as Elizabeth Taylor's star had gone into steep decline as the 1970s dawned. Frank Sinatra had originally been slated to be her co-star, but Ol' Blue Eyes, notorious for preferring one-take directors, likely had second thoughts about being in a film directed by Stevens, who had a (well-deserved) reputation for multiple takes. His filmmaking method entailed shooting take after take of a scene during principal photography from every conceivable angle and from multiple focal points, so he'd have a plethora of choices in the editing room, which is where he made his films (unlike John Ford, famous for his lack of coverage, who had a reputation of "editing" in the camera, shooting only what he thought necessary for a film). Warren Beatty, typically underwhelming in films in which he wasn't in control, proved a poor substitute for Sinatra, and the film tanked big-time when it was released, further tarnishing Stevens' reputation.
In a money-dominated culture in which the ethos "What Have You Done For Me Lately?" is prominent, George Stevens was relegated to has-been status, and the fact that he had established himself as one of the greats of American cinema was ignored, then forgotten altogether in popular culture. Donald Richie's 1984 biography "George Stevens: An American Romantic" tags Stevens with the "R" word, but it is too simplistic a generalization for such a complicated artist. Stevens' films demand that the audience remain in the moment and absorb all the details on offer in order to fully understand the morality play he is telling. James Agee had been a great admirer of Stevens the director, but Agee died in the 1950s and the 1960s was a new age, an iconoclastic age, and George Stevens and the classical Hollywood cinema he was a master of were considered icons to be smashed. Film critic Andrew Sarris, who introduced the "auteur" theory to America, disrespected Stevens in his 1968 book "The American Cinema." Stevens was not an auteur, Sarris wrote, and his latter films were big and empty. He became the symbol of what the new, auteurist cinema was against.
The Cahiers du Cinema critics attacked Stevens by elevating Douglas Sirk. Sirk's Magnificent Obsession (1954), so the argument went, was a much better and more cogent exegesis of America than "Giant," which was "big and empty" as was the country they attacked (though they loved its films). The point of iconoclasm is to smash idols, no matter what the reason--and Stevens, the master craftsman, was an idol. However, to say "Giant" was empty is absurd. To imply that George Stevens did not understand America is equally absurd. "Giant" contains what is arguably the premier moment in America cinema of the immediate postwar years, and it is an "American" moment--the confrontation between patrician rancher Bick Benedict and diner owner Sarge (Robert J. Wilke). Many critics and cinema historians have commented on the scene, favorably, but many miss the full import of it.
The film has been built up to this climax. Benedict has shared the prejudices of his class and his race. All his life he has exploited the Mexicans whom he has lived with in a symbiotic relationship on HIS ranch, giving little thought to the injustice his class of overlords has wrought on Latinos, on poor whites, or on his own family. His wife, an Easterner, is appalled by the poverty and state of peonage of the Mexicans who work on the ranch and tries to do something about it. Her idealism is echoed in her son, who becomes a doctor, rejects his father's rancher heritage, and marries a Mexican-American woman, giving his father an Anglo/Mexican-American grandson.
While out on a ride with his wife, daughter, daughter-in-law and her child, they stop at a roadside diner. Sarge, the proprietor, initially balks at serving them because of the Latinos in their party. He backs down, but when more Latinos come into his diner, he moves to throw them out. Benedict decides to intervene in a display of noblesse oblige, and also out of family duty. Sarge is unimpressed by Benedict's pedigree, and a fight breaks out between the hardened veteran--recently returned from the war, we are meant to understand--and the now aged Benedict. Bick first holds his own and Sarge crashes into the jukebox, setting off the song "The Yellow Rose of Texas" while he recovers and then sets out to systematically demolish Mr. Bick Benedict, the overlord. As the song plays on in ironic counterpoint, shots of his distraught daughter and other family members are undercut with the cinematic crucifixion of Bick Benedict, the overlord, by the former Centurion. After Sarge has finished thrashing Benedict, he takes a sign off of the wall and throws it on Benedict's prostrate body: "The management reserves the right to refuse service to anyone". This is not only America of the 1950s, but America of the 21st century. For just as Sarge is defending racism, he is also defending his once-constitutional right to free association, as well as exerting his belief in Jeffersonian-Jacksonian democracy in thrashing a plutocrat. This is a type of yahooism that Bruce Catton, in his Pulitzer Prize-winning history of the Civil War, attributed to the rebellion. There had always been a very well developed strain of reckless, individualistic violence in America, frequently encouraged, ritualized and sanctified by the state. The diner scene in "Giant" could only have been created by a man with a thorough knowledge of what America and Americans were (and continue to be). Sarge will try to accommodate Benedict, who has stepped out of his role as racist plutocrat into that of paternalistic pater familias, just as the sons of the robber barons of the 19th century--who justified their economic depravities with the doctrine of social Darwinism--did in the 20th century, endowing foundations that tried to right many wrongs, including racism, but Sarge will only go so far. When he is stretched beyond his limit, when his giving in is then "pushed too far," he reacts, and reacts violently.
This scene sums up American democracy and the human condition in America perhaps better than any other. America is a violent society, a gladiator society, in which progress is measured in, if not gained by, violence. Yes, Sarge is standing up for racism and segregation (a huge topic after the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court ruling outlawing segregation), but he is also standing up for himself, and his beliefs, something he has recently fought for in World War II. The ironies are rich, just as the irony of American democracy, which excluded African-Americans and women and the native American tribes from the very first days of the U.S. Constitution, is rich. This is America, the scene in Sarge's diner says, and it is a critique only an American with a thorough knowledge of and sympathy for America could create. It is much more effective and philosophically true than the petty neo-Nazi caricatures of Lars von Trier's Dogville (2003), who are cowards. Characters in a George Stevens film may be reluctant, they may be hesitant, they may be conflicted, but they aren't cowardly.
Another ironic scene in "Giant" features Mexican children singing the National Anthem during the funeral of Angel, who in counterpoint to Bick's son, his contemporary in age, is of the land, to the manor born, so to speak, but lacking those rights because of the color of his skin. Angel had gone off to war, and he returns to the Texas in which he was born on a caisson, in a coffin, starkly silhouetted against the Texas sky as the Benedict mansion had been earlier in the film when Leslie had first come to this benighted land. Angel, who had experienced racial bigotry due to his birth into poverty on the Benedict ranch, had fought Adolf Hitler. He is the only hero in "Giant," and his death would be empty and meaningless without Bick Benedict's reluctant conversion to integration through fisticuffs.
The great turning points in American cinema typically have involved race. The biggest, most significant movies of the first 50 years of the American cinema death with race: Uncle Tom's Cabin (1903), Edwin S. Porter's major movie before his The Great Train Robbery (1903) and the first film to feature inter-titles; The Birth of a Nation (1915), D.W. Griffith's racist masterpiece--which was a filming of a notorious pro-Ku Klux Klan book called "The Clansman"--in which a non-sectarian America is formed in the linking of Southern and Northern whites to fight the African-American freedman; The Jazz Singer (1927), in which a Jewish cantor's son achieves assimilation by donning blackface and disenfranchising black folk by purloining their music, which he deracinates, while turning his back on his Jewish identity by marrying a Gentile; and Gone with the Wind (1939), the greatest Hollywood movie of all time--in which the Klan is never shown and the "N" word is never used, although the entire movie takes place in the immediate post-Civil War South--a sweeping, romantic masterpiece in which a reactionary, ultra-racist plutocracy is made out to be the flower of American chivalry and romance.
Stevens' "Giant" was a major film of its time, and remains a motion picture of the first rank, but it was not the cultural blockbuster these movies were. Yet it more than any other Hollywood film of its time, aside from Elia Kazan's rather whitebread Gentleman's Agreement (1947) and Pinky (1949), directly addresses the great American dilemma, race, and its implications, and not from the familiar racist, white supremacist point of view that had been part of American movies since the very beginning. Those attitudes had been rooted in the American psyche even before the days of The Perils of Pauline (1914) serials (simultaneously serialized in the white supremacist Hearst newspapers), in which many a sweet young thing was threatened with death or--even worse, the loss of her maidenhead--by a sinister person of color (always played by a Caucasian in yellow or brown face).
A 1934 "Fortune Magazine" story about the rosy financial prospects of the Technicolor Corp.'s new three-strip process contained a startling metaphor for a 21st-century reader: "Then - like the cowboy bursting into the cabin just as the heroine has thrown the last flowerpot at the Mexican - came the three-color process to the rescue." It was this endemic, accepted racism that Stevens challenged in "Giant," which is at the root of America's expansionist philosophy of manifest destiny, and which was at the root of much of the southern and western economies. Those who died in World War II had to have died for something, not just the continuation of the status quo. It was a direct and knowing challenge to the system by someone who thoroughly knew and thoroughly cared about America and Americans.
George Stevens died of a heart attack on March 8, 1975, in Lancaster, California. He would have been 100 years old in 2004, and in that year he was celebrated with screenings by The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, London's British Film Institute, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. His legacy lives on in the directorial work of fellow two-time Oscar-winning Best Director Clint Eastwood, particularly in Pale Rider (1985), which suffers from being too-close a "Shane" clone, and most memorably in his masterpiece, Unforgiven (1992).- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Independent, outspoken Constance Bennett, the first of the Bennett sisters to enter films, appeared in New York-produced silents before a chance meeting with Samuel Goldwyn led to her Hollywood debut in Cytherea (1924). She abandoned a burgeoning career in silents for marriage to Philip Plant in 1925; after they divorced, she achieved stardom in talkies from 1929. The hit Common Clay (1930) launched her in a series of loose lady and unwed mother roles, but she really excelled in such sophisticated comedies as The Affairs of Cellini (1934), Ladies in Love (1936), Topper (1937) and Merrily We Live (1938). Her classy blonde looks, husky voice and unerring fashion sense gave her a distinctive style. In the 1940s she made fewer films, working in radio and theatre; shrewd in business, she invested wisely and started businesses marketing women's wear and cosmetics. Loving conflict, she feuded with the press and enjoyed lawsuits. Her last marriage, to a U.S. Air Force colonel, was happy and gave her a key role coordinating shows flown to Europe for occupying troops (1946-48) and the Berlin Airlift (1948-49), winning her military honors. Still young-looking, she died suddenly at age 60 shortly after completing the last of her 57 films.- Director
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
- Editor
Born in Paris in 1904, Tourneur went to Hollywood with his father, director Maurice Tourneur around 1913. He started out as a script clerk and editor for his father, then graduated to such jobs as directing shorts (often with the pseudonym Jack Turner), both in France and America. He was hired to run the second unit for David O. Selznick's A Tale of Two Cities (1935), where he first met Val Lewton. In 1942, when Lewton was named to head the new horror unit at RKO, he asked Tourneur to be his first director. The result was the highly artistic (and commercially successful) Cat People (1942). Tourneur went on to direct masterpieces in many different genres, all showing a great command of mood and atmosphere.