Born Today February 24: George Cowl

1878-1942

British born actor (and occasional director) George Cowl was born on this date in Blackpool, England.  Cowl's film debut came in the 1914 war short Dan, which was made in the U.S. by the American All-Star Feature Corp. and released in August--so Cowl's immigration stateside must have come sometime earlier in the decade. We do not know much about Cowl, despite that he was an actor in films into the talking era. We do know that he had named appearances in a few films with quite famous directors, before turning to directing himself. These include: The Rack (1915) directed by Emile Chautard, The Closed Road (1916) directed by Maurice Tourneur, The Crimson Dove (1917) directed by Romaine Fielding and The Iron Ring (1917) directed by George Archainbaud.  Cowl only had three known named directing credits--all in 1917; but he is also listed, along with Edmund Lawrence, as an uncredited director on William A. Brady's Beloved Adventuress in 1917. It is more like that the two men were serving as assistant directors to Brady, a credit designation that was rare during this time.  Cowl's actual directing debut came later in the year when he co-directed the film that he is most closely associated with today (when he is known at all):  Betsy Ross (September 1917). Produced and distributed by World Film, the other director credited here is the more recognizable Travers Vale; while Ross is played by Alice Brady (daughter of the above mentioned William A. Brady). The film survives and is available on disc.  Cowl had just two solo outings as director, both with distribution by World. The first of these was The Corner Grocer a melodrama starring Madge Evans and Lew Fields; it represents the only film in which he also directed himself as a member of the cast. He next directed Kitty Gordon and Frank Beamish in Her Hour (November 1917). He is not listed as having any movie activity at all for 1918, before returning to acting in 1919, appearing in the Emile Chautard mystery The Mystery of the Yellow Room (October 1919) [Cowl made an uncredited appearance in the Harry Houdini film The Grim Game just before this.]  And, he appeared in yet another Archainbaud film in 1920: The Shadow of Rosalie Byrnes with Elaine Hammerstein in the lead in a dual role playing twins. He would go on to appear in supporting roles in at two more Chautard films in the next two years. In 1923, he appeared in The Prisoner in the top male supporting role as "Lord Bob" opposite June Elvidge as "Lady Francis." He also took the supporting role in Fashionable Fakers, a 1923 comedy starring Johnnie Walker; next showing up in the sizable cast of the Frank Borzage directed Secrets (March 1924), a Norma Talmadge melodrama. While he has no film credits for 1925, he returned to act in two films in 1926 in more minor supporting roles (one of which was in another Borzage film: Marriage License? ). Having just one role in 1927, he finished the decade out with three film appearances in 1928, the last of which was the Civil War set Court-Martial, starring Betty Compson as Belle Starr (the film also featured sequences in the early technicolor process popularly known as "two-strip").  He did not appear in a film again until gaining a supporting role in the Myrna Loy pre-code 1930 romantic drama The Jazz Cinderella.  While his last credited role came in Secrets of Hollywood in 1933.  He is known for sure to have appeared in at least seven additional films in small, non-credited role between 1934 and 1937.  His last film appearance came 5 years later as a butler in the film-noir The Glass Key starring Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake, in 1942. The film was released several months after his death on the 4th of April at the age of 64. We know that he passed away in Los Angeles, but nothing else about his life or his burial/cremation is known at this time.  

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Born Today June 19: William A. Brady

1863-1950

Early studio exec, silent film presenter and all-round successful promoter William Aloysius Brady was born on this date in San Francisco, California. His early life was marked with his having been kidnapped by his reporter father and taken to New York where is father had been hired as a newspaper writer.  When his father died, a 15 year Brady hitched his way back to the city of his birth.  He got a start on the live stage soon after his return there (1882).  He worked his way up the rung and eventually was given an opportunity to produce a show, but it was a failure.  Not letting this stop him, he single handily secured the rights to another play and produced it, the show became a hit and was given a debut date back in New York City.  This got him off into the world of promoting and he continued in the world of the theater. He became somewhat of a legend on Broadway.  It at this time that he sort of accidentally became a boxing promoter--having introduced one of his well built actors into the the world of boxing.  He had such a role in this during his lifetime, that he was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1998.  This is what lead him into the world of motion pictures--a medium that he had little respect for in terms of narrative story telling--a stage man through and through.  But as a production tool for boxing, the medium, he thought, held great promise.  His first production credit dates from 1897 with The Corbett-Fitzsimmons Fight, produced by the Veriscope Company and remarkable for it's 20 minutes in time length!  He would not produce another film until 1913, which was another boxing film.  He did make an appearance in a film as a boxing promoter in 1899 in Jefferies-Sharkey Contest. He then formed his own production company in William A . Brady Picture Plays.  The first film made by the company, which he produced, was The Dollar Mark (1914).  In 1914, he became one of the founders, along with Louis J. Selznick and others, of World Film Company.  He served principally as the company's promoter, true to his talents.  In fact he made the company world famous. He stayed with the company until 1918 or 1919 when he left the film business.  He was there long after Selznick had been forced out and took on the role at the company that Selznick carved out for himself later on in Hollywood, as "Presenter"--a promotional technique that Brady basically invented and Selznick copied.  His production company continued to operate on it's own, but he did bring some of the talent he had hired to World Film.  He first cottoned on the idea of the "presenter" when working on a Maurice Tourneur film for the Shubert Film Corp.: A Butterfly On The Wheel (1915).  In 1917, he added director to his list of credits in Beloved Adventuress, a joint production of Peerless and World Film. And, in 1918, he added writer to that list as well with Stolen Orders, one of his "Brady-World" films--a picture co-directed by Harley Knoles.  The last film that he "presented" was Phil-for-Short in 1919.  The last film that he had anything to do with came in 1920 with Life, a Brady-World production that he produced and shadow directed (he also adapted the screenplay for the original play).  By the time of his death on the 6th of January 1950 at the age of 86, he had relocated back to New York City.  He is buried in the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery (same place as famed writer Washington Irving of Sleepy Hollow fame).  Brady was the father of actress Alice Brady.  

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