Born Today September 7: Émile Chautard

1864-1934

Director and actor Émile Chautard was born on this day in Paris, France.  He started acting on the stage of Paris and quickly transitioned to film--one source gives that he entered films in 1905, but there is little recorded information to back this up.  He is known for sure to have appeared in Fouquet, l'homme au masque de fer (1910) an historical short in which he played King Louis XIV of France.  The film was a Pathé Fréres production.  He is credited with his first directorial outing that same year as well; Barberine--a comedic short--was produced under the original Eclair company (which started in the 1900's as a French production company)--this would wind up being an important connection for Chautard.  Chautard continued on as an in-house director for Eclair, directing numerous shorts for them between 1910 and 1913!  In a few of these, he directed himself; and at least one title, An Accused Inheritance (1911), he both wrote and acted in the film that he also directed (though he had been writing since 1910--his first filmed scenario was After the Fall of the 'Eagle' (1910)). In 1913, Chautard became the head of film production for the entire French Eclair studio, but the call of film from across "the pond" was too strong and he left for the United States in 1914, landing at World Film at the end of that year.  The last film that he made in France was L'indépendance de la Belgique en 1830 in late 1914.  His first English language US production was The Arrival of Perpetua in 1915.  By this time World Film had amassed a whole staff of French auteur directors and Chautard's managerial experience helped  propel him into a role of mentor at the company (his most well known apprentice was Josef von Sternberg).  By 1918 he was free and clear of contractual obligations at World, he worked for various other production companies, eventually starting his own, short lived, production venture.  The one film that he managed to get produced on his own was The Mystery of the Yellow Room (1919).  Chautard remained in the director's chair through 1924, with Untamed Youth being his last turn as a director.  Chautard remembered his early acting roles with fondness and turned back exclusively to acting in 1926 in Paris At Midnight, a film featuring Lionel Barrymore.  He continued to act well into the talking era, with Marianne being his last silent film appearance in 1929 (ironically a remake of a film that he had appeared in that had sound [see below] in 1929 (1929/II on IMDb)) .  He had already worked on films featuring sound, however.  He worked on several partial silents, with Lilac Time in 1928 apparently being the first.  His first full sound film also came early, with Marianne--the original to the remake mentioned above (he also acted in the early sound horror House Of Horror in 1929 that had two versions--one with sound, the other silent). He continued to act well into the 1930's; in fact, right up until the time of his death.  Chautard died on the 24th of April in 1934 in Los Angeles of organ failure at the age of 69 (at least one source erroneously gives his birth year as 1881--which would have put him at just 53 when he died--this is ridiculous considering that he was, for a time, the step-father of George Archainbaud).  The last film that he appeared in was Villa, Villa! in 1934.  He is interred at The Hollywood Forever Cemetery.  

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Born Today May 29: Josef von Sternberg

1894-1969

Born Jonas Sternberg in Vienna, then Austria-Hungary (now just Austria) to a Jewish family whose father was a former soldier in the army.  When he was just two years of age, his father left for the United States in search of work; when Jonas was 7, the entire family joined him in the U.S., only to have to migrate back to Vienna 3 years later.  Still little Jonas had gotten his first taste of the place that would shape the rest of his life.  Four years later, when Jonas was 14, the whole family again set out for the U.S., settling in New York City.  He later dropped out of high school to work as an errand boy for the lace factory where his father had found work as a lacer.  He moved on to a cleaning job in a film factory that lead to work in film repair.  By 1915 he was working for the World Film Company under William A. Bradley in Fort Lee, NJ (the first "Hollywood").  The company had a cache of French directors and cinematographers; Sternberg was mentored by one of them:  Émile Chautard.  In 1919, Chautard hired Sternberg as an assistant director on The Mystery Of The Yellow Room, after founding his own production company: Emile Chautard Pictures Corp. (though, this film is considered by some film historians as being the first independent film).  Thus comes his first actual credit.  He would continue as assistant director until 1925.  In 1924, his first writing credit came in By Divine Right, a film for which he was also assistant director to director Roy William Neill.  It was in the credits for this film that Co-producer (and actor) Elliott Dexter added noble "von" to Sternberg's name, supposedly to even up the titles; Sternberg did not object (this also appears to around the time that he changed his first name).  In 1925 he took to the director's chair for the first time; directing his own project The Salvation Hunters, which he also wrote and produced.  The film was shot in Los Angeles Harbor.  Charlie Chaplin saw the film and was impressed enough to urge both Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks to acquire the rights to the film.  Pickford, suitably impressed with Sternberg, then hired him to direct a film starring her (he wrote a scenario for it, which she rejected). In the meantime, he shadow directed The Masked Bride (1925), a Chester Conklin film, that sports an early appearance by Basil Rathbone.  Chaplin then commissioned Sternberg to direct a film starring his current lover Edna Purviance, after Sternberg had been fired from a previous directing job.  A Woman of the Sea (1927) (AKA The Sea Gull) has since become one the most infamous lost films in history.  In fact, it was never really properly released; Chaplin simply destroyed the film--no known copies where made (note:  in 2008, still photographs from the film did surface and were published, giving temporary hope that a copy had been made).  Starting in 1927, however, he began to get some commercial success, starting Underworld, a gangster film starring George Bancroft. He went to work for Paramount in the late 1920's and directed several late silent films during that time that are considered classics of the era.  They include:  The Docks Of New York (1928), considered a very early film noir, and Thunderbolt (1929), a film with an alternative mono sound version provided by Western Electric.  Both films starred Bancroft.  Thus ended Sternberg's career in silent films, and almost ended his tenure in the directors chair.  His career hit a serious slump after the making of Thunderbolt, so he accepted a invitation to work in Berlin. This is where his film making legend began to take shape.  He cast a little known German actress by the name of Marlene Dietrich and things turned around for him.  He would go on to contribute to the careers of other legendary actresses, including:  Rita Hayworth and Carole Lombard.  His film making slowed considerably during the 1940's and he only made 3 film in the 1950's; with his very last being Ana-ta-han in 1953; made in Japan about Japanese soldiers who refused to believe that the war with the U.S. was over; he had written, directed and produced it--the film had a limited release and was a financial failure.  The last film by year that he is credited with comes in 1957 with Jet Pilot, a film he was hired for by it's producer Howard Hughes, starring John Wayne; but the film was shot a full seven years before it release.  Between the years 1959 and 1963 he taught film aesthetics at UCLA. Two of his students, Ray Manzarek and Jim Morrison, would go on to their own fame the band The Doors.  Before his death, Sternberg was able to pen an autobiography.  He died in Hollywood of a heart attack at the age of 75 on 22 December 1969.  He is interred at Westwood Memorial Park in Los Angeles.

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This is his new memorial marker added in 2017, when his widow passed away at the age of 97 in June.