Born Today December 5: Ben Carré

Life magazine photo of Carré at work sketching the begginings of a back drop paiting--I believe on the MGM backlot

1883-1978

Painter and film art director Benjamin S. Carré was born on this day in Paris, France.  Classically trained, Carré studied at the French Atelier Amable and became a professional scene painter for the Paris Opera and moved on to the Comédie-Francais.  In addition to scene painting, he was a prolific watercolor artist and painted all through the earliest days of his career, and exhibited the paintings throughout his lifetime.  Wanting to get into the film business he managed to find work at Pathé-Gaumont--he worked on several films while still in France, but his name has not survived in the credits to date (perhaps a catalog will turn up with these credits).  He came to the United States in 1912 looking for work in the studio system in the New York area.  He eventually landed at World Film (& Eclair) working on set painting at the Peerless Studio location.  The first film to bear his name for art work was the Clara Kimball Young drama Hearts In Exile in 1915, followed closely by the Albert Capellani film of Dumas' Camille.  Once he started working in the business, he had steady work and moved with the studios when they moved west.  Most of his career was film was spent during the silent era, though he did work on set into the sound era.  He also worked in various aspects of artistic production--costumes to camera work, but mostly he stuck to scene painting, for which he had a tremendous talent.  The last silent film that he worked on was the 1929 A. F. Erikson melodrama The Women From Hell staring Mary Astor and Dean Jagger (he had also worked on the Alan Dwan film The Iron Mask --a partial silent--in 1929).  He would be away from film for two years, showing back up as art director on the 1931 Charlie Chan film The Black Camel.  He would further take off time from film, staying away from film for a full 5 years.  He returned in 1936 to serve as art director for three more films, the last being the early film noir Great Guy starring James Cagney.  He then retired from the film business and concentrated on his individual paintings. Though he is not credited any later film work, he, according to The New York Times designed the Mount Rushmore backdrops in Hitchcock's North by Northwest, as well art work on Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo.  As a member to the Hollywood community, he was also a founding member of the Motion Picture Academy of Art & Sciences.  Probably his most famous work was as the designer and painter of the catacombs for the set of the Lon Chaney horror of 1925: The Phantom of the Opera (though, officially, he went uncredited on the project). Carré and his wife Anne, herself a retired performer, stayed in the California for their official retirement. He passed away there on the 28th of May in Santa Monica. For such a high profile member of the earliest Hollywood film crowd, I can find no information as to his burial or cremation. Highly collectable and in demand, many of his paintings are still sold at auctions. He also penned a memoir of his time in the film business.  

 

 

 

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Born Today October 13: Harry Hershfield

1885-1974

Cartoonist, writer, and radio personality Harry Hershfield was born on this day in Cedar Rapids, Iowa to Jewish immigrant parents.  When he was just 14 years of age, he created his first cartoon character Homeless Hector.  This wound up running as a strip in the Chicago Daily News  in 1899.  Hershfield later studied in Chicago at both the Frank Holmes School of Illustration and the Chicago Art Institute.  By 1907, he was drawing for the San Francisco Chronicle, where he had relocated.  In 1909, he was hired to work at William Randolph Heart's New York Herald Tribune. He then bounced around at a couple of New York papers drawing some of his most famous strips.  In 1911, his Desperate Desmond made it's way into a film for the first time.  Desperate Desmond Almost Succeeds was made as a live action comedy short. Desperate Desmond made an appearance in 6 more films during the years 1911 and 1912.  His Abie the Agent was then featured in two films in 1917: Iska Worreh and Abie Kabibble Outwitted His Rivals; both of these films were animated.  None of his characters have been used in films since then.  By the 1920's he was stumbling into a role that he would come to be in great demand for in the 1930's; that of a toastmaster of banquets and, later, master of ceremonies.  He also appeared in 1924 romantic comedy The Great White Way as a cameo, along with a host of others (the film is now presumed lost).  He was hired in the spring of 1938 to head up MGM's cartoon  studio's story department; he joked at the time that they were so welcoming of him that they threw him a farewell dinner.  Though he had a myriad of legal troubles with Hearst during the 1930's, his popularity, particularly with charities, as master of ceremonies laid open another path in his life: radio work.  He was immensely popular on the radio in the 1940's--so much so, that he was dubbed the "Jewish Will Rogers."  During the 1950's, he was seen on early versions of television variety shows.  His last television appearance was in 1961 on The Jack Par Show.  Hershfield lived out the rest of his life in New York and passed away in a Manhattan hospital on the 15th of December in 1974 at the age of 89.  I can find no information on his burial.  

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Born Today May 11: Jean-Léon Gérôme

1824-1904

French academic artist Jean-Léon Gérôme was born on this day in Vesoul, France.  In 1840 he went to Paris to study under painter Paul Delaroche; the two made a teaching trip to Italy--visiting major cities and The Vatican, the pair even made a trip to Pompeii.  Gérôme, however, developed a dangerous fever and was forced to return to France in 1844.  He then became a fixture in the studio of resident Swiss artist Charles Gleyre; his stay there, though, was brief.  He then moved on to study at the Prix de Rome, but failed to graduate.  This was a blow to him personally at the time, but would prove short lived due to that fact that he found renown and fame soon after.  His subjects within the movement of Academic Art were quite varied; ranging from portraits, flirting with Oriental subjects, Greek Mythology, historical works and works depicting nature.  Though primarily remembered as a painter, Gérôme was also a sculptor.  His medium was primarily bronze, though he did experiment with the developing art of working with tinted marble.  As far as why he is being written up here, stems from his influence over one motion picture.  Usually, artists have credits in films that actually show case their works.  In Gérôme's case, we have a rare case where one of his works inspired a scenario for a film, where he receives a "writer" credit.  The film is The Slave Market and the scenario for the film is based on his painting The Slave Market In Rome.  It is a later American Mutoscope and Biograph production that dates from 1920.  It is a short film that interestingly is in the 1:36:1 aspect ratio.  Gérôme died in his studio in Paris on the 10th of February in 1904 at the age of 79.  He is buried in Paris' Montmartre Cemetery in front of a bronze statue he called Sorrow that he had cast for his son upon his death in 1891.  Please follow the Wikipedia link below for lots more!

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Born Today April 15: Heinrich Kley (Not So Silent Edition)

1863-1945?

German illustrator and artist Heinrich Kley was born on this day in Karlsruhe, Germany.  He studied what was known as Practical Arts in his home town, finishing his art education in Munich.  His first works of art spanned a wide breadth of subjects.  He settled into the use of watercolors and oils and began producing what people called "industrial art."  He was also a biting cartoon editorialist.  It was these works that gained a big fan in Walt Disney.  He was such a big fan, that it is thought his collection of Kley's work was by far the largest in the world.  As a result of that, Dover issued a book of Kley's art that became popular amongst admirers of Disney, and this is the reason that the U.S. is really the only place that he is remembered today.  In his native Germany, he has all but been forgotten.  This reason for his inclusion here, comes from just 1 film from the late 1920's.  He is credited with "Art Director" on one of Rex Ingram's films The Three Passions, which was a very early talkie from 1928.  There is some confusion as to when Kley died.  Most sources cite the 2nd of August or 8th of February in 1945 at the age of 81; but there is enough doubt to seriously question that year, others claim the 8th February in 1952, in which case he would be been a very old man for the time.  What is known, is that he died in Munich.  Obviously, with this amount of confusion as to death year, it goes without saying that no one knows how his remains were handled after his death.

One of Kley's editorial cartoons on the subject of Napoleon.

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The Art Of Heinrich Kley

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Born Today April 4: Pierre-Paul Prud'hon

A Self Portrait 

1758-1823

French painter Pierre-Paul Prud'hon was born on this date in Cluny, France.  He is most famous for his portraits, though he did paint landscapes and allegorical mythological subjects as well.  As a young man he received formal artistic training in several French provinces; and at the age of 26, he left for Italy to further his education.  Upon his return to Paris, he took numerous jobs painting the mansions of the elite there.  In his framed paintings, his style has been difficult to pin down, being influenced by at least two major styles of the time.  He counted a great number of his fellow artists amongst his admirers.  He is perhaps best known for painting for two of Napoleon's wives; with his portrait of Josephine being famous the world over.  There are not many entries her for artists that lived before the invention of motion pictures, because just not that many silent films used actual art in them; however one short film dating from 1900 does feature his work.  Phrosine and Meledore was an American Mutoscope & Biograph production; it was part of their Living Pictures series that did feature famous works of art. Prud'hon died either on Valentine's Day or two days later on the 16th in 1823 at the age of 64.  He is buried in the huge Pére Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.

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