Born Today February 1: John Ford

1894-1973

Born John Martin Feeney, and affectionately known as Jack, directing giant John Ford was born on this day in Cape Elizabeth, Maine.  Both of his parents were immigrants from Ireland (this led to some confusion in regards to his name, as later on in his career/life, he gave Irish variations of names as his birth name).  After graduating from high school, he left his home state for the far reaches of California; there he started in the film business in 1914.  He, in fact, got into the business by following his older brother Francis into the field. Francis had started to use the surname of "Ford" on his own film credits as a director, and so his younger brother followed suit. John was originally credited as "Jack," and we know for certain that his first confirmable film credit came as an actor in the action serial Lucille Love: The Girl of Mystery in 1914, directed by and featuring his older brother in the male lead, and starring Grace Cunard as Lucille (there is a possibility that he had a small role in the 1913 short western The Honor of the Regiment, in which his brother took the lead role).  During his acting career, he almost exclusively had roles in his brother's shorts; though, like so many others in the business at the time, he wound up in the D.W. Griffith's excrescence of a film The Birth of a Nation in 1915. He stayed in the acting business until the year 1917. He also started directing his own pictures that same years, and for a  short time, his acting and directing careers over-lapped with his initially directing himself in short westerns as "Jack Ford." Ford of course, become synonymous with the western genre, a legend in fact, so it is interesting that his start in the field came straight away at the start of his directing career. Of course, it also helped that, once again, his brother Francis had paved the way. It was in fact Francis who became a "western specialist" before Jack and had a production company--Bison--under the Universal umbrella. John's debut  as director came on the Bison short The Tornado in 1917; the film also featured him in the lead role. He directed himself as an actor just two more times, giving up appearing before the camera for the chair behind it after making The Scrapper (1917). Ford wrote scripts/scenarios during this time, something that he had started in 1915 on his brother's film The Doorway of Destruction. By 1918, he was already directing features; and working with Harry Carey. Almost every film that Ford made in 1918 and 1919 had a writing and/or acting association with Carey, culminating with their version of The Three Godfathers in Marked Men in 1919.  In 1920, starting with The Prince of Avenue A, Universal had Ford directing straight-forward dramas, which likely accounts for his leaving that year for Fox after his contract with Universal was up. And it was at Fox that he would become a famous director and did some of his best work.  His first film at Fox was the comedy western Just Pals (November 1920) starring Buck Jones. But...Universal had a number of his films left unreleased and began putting out westerns made with Carey at the same time Ford was making films in other genres for Fox (several of these films featured his brother Frances, who wound up working for him as an actor). Another star is his Universal westerns from this time was Hoot Gibson, who had first worked with Ford and Carey in the late 1910's. By the end of 1921, he started directing a string of romantic dramas at Fox starting with Jackie.   His first really well known film is Cameo Kirby, starring John Gilbert; a melodrama based on a Booth Tarkington play, the film also featured Alan Hale Sr., Jean Arthur in her feature film debut, and Gertrude Olmstead opposite Gilbert. This point in his career marks a substantial upward move in his skill as a director. Ensconched at Fox, he directed North of Hudson Bay (November 1923) with Tom Mix, Hearts of Oak (October 1924) with Hobart Bosworth, Lightnin' (August 1925) with Jay Hunt,  Kentucky Pride (September 1925) with the race horse Man o' War told from the horse's point of view and The Fighting Heart (October 1925); not to mention the epic The Iron Horse (October 1925).  Representing just about every film genre and set in different parts of the country, with both close in-door studio work and field shoots, Ford had firmly established himself as one of Hollywood's major directors. In 1926, he returned to the western genre with 3 Bad Men sporting a triple bill of Lou Tellegen, J. Farrell MacDonald and Tom Santschi with Olive Borden and George O'Brien starring opposite each other. Sticking with O'Brien as a top-biller, he next made Navy drama The Blue Eagle (September 1926).  

 

Still from The Face on The Bar-Room Floor a melodrama directed by Ford in 1923.

 

His first film with sound was the partial silent Four Sons (with MovieTone sound effects and some music); set in World War I Germany, it sports a story that is pretty unusual for Ford, even given his proven bona-fides in multiple genres. The four sons in question are played by George Meeker, Frances X. Bushman Jr., James Hall and Charles Morton--the film is today considered one of Ford's 20's masterpieces.  Ford's first full sound film (unless you count the short Napoleon's Barber--1928) is The Black Watch, another World War I script with British intrigue in India; starring Victor McLaglen and Myrna Loy, it was released in May of 1929 (this another film that had a Marion "Duke" Morrison aka John Wayne as a prop boy; Wayne, of course would go on to be a huge star of Ford's later films).  Ford would not return to the western genre until 1939, in the meantime he made the likes of:  Men Without Women (1930), Arrowsmith (1931), Doctor Bull (1933), The Lost Patrol (1934, with Boris Karloff 😉), The Informer (1935), Mary of Scotland (1936), The Plough and the Stars (1936)...even a Shirley Temple film Wee Willie Winkie (1937). Ford had to get back to westerns to really make his masterpiece of the decade, which he did with the 1939 blockbuster Stagecoach, which famously stars The Duke, along with Clair Trevor, Andy Devine, John Carradine, George Bancroft and Tim Holt.  His films in the early 1940's include some of the most well known of the period: Drums Along the Mohawk (released just before 1940 in November of 1939), The Grapes of Wrath (1940), Tobacco Road (1941) and How Green Was My Valley (1941).  During World War II, Ford served and made actual combat films in really dangerous conditions in both theaters of the conflict.  As a Navy Reservist, he was present on Omaha Beach on D-Day and his The Battle of Midway, a nearly twenty minute films of actual Japanese combat attack, won an Oscar for Best Documentary--Henry Fonda and Jane Darwell narrated. His first post-war film was My Darling Clementine starring Fonda. In 1948, he made 3 Godfathers (a remake of his 1919 Marked Men) with Pedro Armendáriz, Harry Carey Jr. and, of course, John Wayne. Other John Ford classics include She Wore A Yellow Ribbon (1949), Rio Grande (1950), The Quiet Man (1952), Mogambo (1953), The Searchers (1956), The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) and Donovan's Reef (1963). His last western was Cheyenne Autumn, released in 1964, it was his longest film, and an epic farewell to to his most notable genre.   His last film was 7 Women, by far his most female laden cast by a long-shot (!), it was set in 1930's China and was released in January of 1966.  He started two more film projects, but only one saw any sort of completion, posthumously.  In the early 1970's Ford, approaching 80, had a steady deterioration of his health (a life time of pipe smoking was catching up). He passed away of complications from stomach cancer in Palm Desert on the 31st of August in 1973 at the age of 79. A lifelong Catholic, he was interred at Holy Cross in Culver City. He personally won four Oscars (and was nominated for a further two--this is not counting the Best Documentary Oscar for Midway), the first of which was for Best Director in 1936 for The Informer. For someone who also told his beginnings as a director as a happenstance story, Ford was one of the great innovators of his time. He was also one of the most admired directors by other filmmakers. He is--by his own admission--the most influential director on the work of Orson Welles, who was almost completely obsessed with Stagecoach. At present only about a dozen of his films from the silent era are known to have survived....that is out of more than sixty that he is known for sure to have directed. In the last years of his life, he was promoted to Admiral by President Nixon, the rank appears on his grave marker (which also lists the wrong year of his birth).

 

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Born Today October 17: Jean Arthur

1900-1991

Movie star actress known for her zany comedy Jean Arthur was born on this date as Gladys Georgianna Greene in Plattsburgh, New York.  Her father was known to have worked in the photography industry; he was employed in at least one studio in Maine.  The family moved around a lot, as a result she lived in a wide ranging number of places along the eastern seaboard. The family finally settled in a neighborhood in upper Manhattan where she attended high school, but she dropped out due to family issues before graduation.  The need for her to find work found her gaining employment as a stenographer, where she worked through the first World War and into the 1920's.  While also working in stenography, her good looks also lead her into modeling.  It was in this capacity that she was "discovered" by Fox Studio.  This landed her a standard one year contract with them and she debuted in Cameo Kirby in 1923. The film was directed by John Ford and starred John Gilbert.  Her film career was off and she worked on a large number of films in the 1920's, though her introduction to Hollywood in the late silent era was not a good experience as she later recalled.  She reportedly took her stage name from Jeanne d'Arc (Joan of Arc) and King Arthur; whether this is true or not has never been proven given that Arthur was one of the most private actresses in Hollywood.  When talking about her career in 1928, she considered it largely a failure, this despite that she had acted in more than 2 dozen films by that time, most them in named roles in feature length pictures.  It is true, that she was one of the "faces" taken in by the studio to "tool" into what they wanted her to be, rather than her being a stage actress getting into film acting by way of real performance experience.  Fox intended her to be a "flapper type" (see Wine Of Youth (1924)). This lack of experience soon came not only to the attention of directors, but to Arthur herself.    She wanted to leave Hollywood, but was still under contract, therefore she decided to stay and not attempt to break the deal.  She also decided to take the step trying to promote herself around this time, but she claimed it failed.  What did not fail was her going to the lot of Action Pictures, where owner Lester F. Scott decided to hire her for action western shorts for $25 a picture.  Working conditions could be brutal, since the vast majority of these were shot on location in desert conditions outside of Los Angeles.  She toiled in these films for two years, only occasionally making an independent film or two along the way (she also had an uncredited role in a 1925 Buster Keaton film Seven Chances) By 1927 she was starting to get noticed for her acting chops and not for "just another pretty face" status that she started out with.  The first time that she was cast specifically as a real actress was in The Poor Nut in 1927, against studio wishes.  The film was a critical failure, and one that singled her and fellow actress and singer Jane Winton.  This was a deep wound to heal, she had worked hard on her film career and improving her acting skills.  As it turned out, she had real acting talents--and she had it in spades--for comedic work.  She continued to appear in films, but was growing disillusioned with the line of work.  Arthur was rather fed up and incredulous by the time she was given a role in Paramount Famous Players Warming Up (1928).  It was billed as the studios first sound film and starred Richard Dix; in truth it is what we now recognize as a partial sound film; and her role was a small one.  But it earned her some very hard won recognition (she had already appeared in one other Dix film in 1928, the all silent Easy Come, Easy Go).  This earned a contract with the studio for 3 years, bringing her $150 a week.  The first film that she appeared in with talking sequences was Brotherly Love also in 1928.  Arthur, though was very reluctant to appear in speaking roles and was not at all sure that sound film that required on-camera speaking was going to last (not an uncommon belief at the time).  When it became obvious that talking films were going to go away with silent film acting altogether, Arthur met with an sound coach. The first all sound film that appeared in was The Canary Murder Case in 1929. She appeared in just one more silent film--Stairs Of Sand--also in 1929, but the full talky was here to stay.  It is ironic is that it is her voice that most people think of when thinking about Jean Arthur the actress.  She might be one of the rare, rare cases were the coming a full sound in film actually made her career.  She also made her Broadway debut in the early 1930, an experience that helped her diction and sound projection immensely.  Not that success came easy to her the late 1920's--she continued to struggle and so show a lot of personal perseverance.  She is now known for being one the most important comic geniuses of 20th century cinema.  She would credit her time on the stage as being the moment when she found herself and her own voice, learned the ropes and understood really for the first time, that there is an audience.  She, rightly, stated that the stage was a polar opposite of Hollywood in all these regards.  After spending several stints on Broadway, she returned to film acting with a new sense of how to approach it.  She wound up under the direction of John Ford again, 12 years after making her film debut in one of his films.  The film was The Whole Town's Talking with Edward G. Robinson.  If you look at her film roster they include very, very well known classics, among them Mr. Deed's Goes To Town, Mr. Smith Goes To Washington, The Devil And Miss Jones and Two Many Husbands (just to name a few).  Her last big budget film was a decidedly non-comedic role in the classic Shane in 1953.  She then began to suffer from some type of anxiety disorder, which included stage fright, so she retired from acting.  She came out of retirement in 1965 to make her television debut on Gunsmoke.  She was then given her own show The Jean Arthur Show in 1966, which lasted for just one season.  This would be her last time acting in front of a camera.  She was persuaded in 1967 to return to Broadway, but this proved disastrous for the production because her nemesis stage fright reared it's head again.  She then took teaching drama at two different colleges.  She was again coaxed back into stage acting, but again, her anxiety issues won out--she then retired for good.  She was very reclusive in her private life and refused to give any interviews. She lived quietly until her death in Carmel CA from heart failure at the age of 90 on the 19th of June.  She was cremated and her ashes were scattered off the coast of Point Lobos.  

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