1812-1870
The famed British writer was born Charles John Huffam Dickens in Portsmouth, England into a naval family; he was the second of 8 children. By 11 years of age he had become a voracious reader. His father was in and out of naval service, and when out the family lived in London, they had a tendency to live beyond their means. When Dickens was 12, his father was forced into debtors prison; with his mother and youngest siblings joining him there. Charles stayed with an old family friend. In order help his family, he had to leave school and work at Charing Cross railway station. When his work moved to Chadon street, there was a window facing onto a sidewalk, where people would stop and gawk at the children workers--a new embarrassing low for Dickens. This was an event that would leave a deep mark on him and was an inspiration for several characters and subjects in his writing. When a family member died and left a legacy of £450, the fortunes of family turned; his father, John, could pay his debtors and leave prison. However, his mother wanted young Charles to continue in factory work--leaving a deep and lasting emotional wound on the young man. He was eventually sent off to school in Camden, and spent about 2 and half years there; after which he went to work as a law clerk. During this time, he became a frequent attendee at the local theater--it became an obsession of his. In his spare time he taught himself short hand, after which he went to work as a freelance reporter. This would be his first real writing. At the age of 20, in 1832, he actually considered becoming an actor at one point and set up an audition, which he ultimately missed due to a short illness. Before he could arrange another audition, he started writing short stories instead. It was 1833 when he submitted his first story for publication. He was then asked to work for a news publication that covered Parliament; so he went to work as political journalist. In this capacity, he both covered parliamentary debates and travelled to cover campaigns in various locations in England. Eventually this situation lead to his first collected published work in 1836, Sketches by Boz. During this same period of time, he became friendly with music critic and musicologist George Hogarth, owed to Hogarth's work as a news paper editor. Hogarth, impressed with Dickens' work, invited him to contribute to the new evening edition of the Morning Chronicle, which Hogarth was hired to over-see. Dickens soon became a family friend, and enamored of Hogarth's nineteen year old daughter Catherine, who would become his wife (and with whom he would have ten children). This acquaintance lead to introductions, through a friendship with novelist Ainsworth, to a great number of luminaries of the time, including writers and politicians. It was amongst these group of men that he met his first publisher. This quickly lead to the publishing in a series of installments of The Pickwick Papers. The age of his novel writing career had dawned in his life; and he was quickly popular--with even the young Queen reading his works. This also lead to a great deal of traveling into the early 1840's--what we would call today "book tours." Obviously Dickens is one the most important literary AND social figures of the nineteenth century, it would be pointless to attempt a full biographical encapsulation here (there are links a plenty below!), but it is worth mentioning that due the immense figure that he cut in the world, it is wholly unsurprising that his work was amongst the earliest used for the purposes of narrative film making. In 1897 the American Mutoscope Co. produced Death of Nancy Sykes based on Dickens' novel Oliver Twist. This film featured a very popular vaudevillian pair Charles Ross and Mabel Fenton. The following year another film--Mr. Bumble the Beadle--was also made from the novel, this time in his native UK; produced by Robert W. Paul--the first of several films the producer and is company would make from Dickens' work--and the first in the author's birth country. These were the only two films made before the turn of the new century, but with the release of The Death of Poor Joe in 1901 (directed by the British film pioneer George Albert Smith), there was/is no lack of Dickens films and, later, television episodes produced from his work until well...whenever. It worth noting that the first time that a film based on A Christmas Carol--arguably Dickens most popular, certainly most well known, work around the glob--was also produced in 1901; and was, in fact, the fourth film ever made from his work. It is just a remarkable that the film has survived! Scrooge; or Marley's Ghost was also a curiosity because the Victorian/Edwardian writer J. C. Buckstone had adapted the work for the stage and the film is as much based on his adaptation as it is Dickens' original. It would be the first of dozens of filmed renditions. And speaking of "dozens," there were also dozens of films during the silent era based various works by Dickens, including, somewhat surprisingly, works based on some of his longest novels. It is curious, though, that in the middle of the 1920's, the use of his work for films slowed conspicusouly, with only three films released between 1925 and 1930. Of these, two of them: Bleak House (1926) and Scrooge (1928) are curiosities of early sound. Both are productions of the British De Forest company, whose "Phonofilm" mechanism was one of the earliest contenders for selling sound to major studios (the last silent film made from his work was The Only Way released in 1926--which made history in it's own right for being the most expensive UK film to date and the first 10 reeler produced in the country). The first film made in the age of sound of Dickens' work came in 1931 with Paramount's Rich Man's Folly starring George Bancroft and Frances Dee; it was based on one of his lesser read novels Dombey and Son. The first adaptation for television came early on in 1938, with the made-for-tv short film Bardell Against Pickwick. Also not surprising, the first episode of an actual television series was based on A Christmas Carol as a 1948 episode of Repertory Theater. Since the rising popularity of the television mini-series starting in the 1960's--the full use of his novels for filmed productions has only increased over the decades (the first actual mini-series in the form we have come to know it today was filmed in early in 1959 in the UK, in an eleven episodes based on Bleak House). The most recently released production--again, unsurprisingly--is the 2018 An Evening of Dickens 'Round the Fire...A Christmas Carol--a video release. The Personal History of David Copperfield--a UK production with Tilda Swinton & Ben Whishaw--is slated for release later in the year. A further six projects have been announced, four of them based on A Christmas Carol. On the 18th of April 1869, Dickens suffered a stroke; and though slowed, he continued on with writing and speaking/reading engagements. On the 8th of June 1870, he suffered another stroke from which he would never wake--he apparently succumbed the next day, though the exact details as to when and where he passed are shrouded in mystery owed to the circumstances of his living with mistress half his age at the time. One thing that is crystal clear; his wishes that he be buried in a simple fashion at Rochester Cathedral were not honored, and he was instead buried with full pomp and circumstance at Westminster Abbey where he was laid to rest in the Poet's Corner.
1888-1946
Born Lionel Henry Mander in Wolverhampton, Staffordshire UK (in the English Midlands); he was the second son of Theodore Mander of the prominent industrial family of the same name (Theodore was the builder of Wrightwick Manor). His older brother Geoffrey Mander was a prominent member of Parliament for years. The younger Mander, however, seems to have a case of wonder lust. After a childhood education at Harrow in Middlesex and Loretto School east of Edinburgh in Scotland, he set out of University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The plan was for him to follow in the family business, but he soon developed an interest in aviation, and followed that passion into service for his country in World War I, where he served as a captain the Royal Army Service Corps. After the war, he set out for New Zealand, where he spent most of his twenties on his uncle Martin Mander's sheep farm. He returned to Great Britain in 1918 and began to write both novels and plays. He also became a film exhibitor, this was his first foray into the world of motion pictures. By 1920 he had managed to get his first part in film in a minor role; the film was Testimony, a marriage melodrama based on a novel. His name change came about when he was credited early on sometime as "Luther Miles," presumably because of the prominence of his family, the name stuck, with his changing the last name for his real first name. Throughout the 1920's he had steady work as an actor; but he also has credits as and producer, writer and a director. His first producer credit came in 1923 with The Man Without Desire , a strange early sci/fi-fantasy film about life suspension, with the subject being reanimated 200 years later. His first writing credit came in Lovers in Araby, a film that he also acted in. He made his directorial debut two years later with The Whistler (1926), a DeForest Phonofilm production. The next film that he made with them was truly revolutionary; they allowed him to direct a very early musical based on a sequel to Lover in Araby, entitled The Sheik of Araby, utilizing thier patented sound-on-film-process. It was simply a musical number performed by then popular singer Paul England. The next film that he appeared in that featured sound was Balaclava (1928), but the sound version was released two years after the silent original. His big breakthrough also came in 1928 with a film that he wrote, directed and starred in: The First Born. The film was a huge critical success and gained the attention of Hollywood--to this day it remains one of the great classics of the silent era. The first film that he starred in that featured sound effects that had been perfected into early mono was The Crooked Billet (1929) (it seems that Britain had a slightly different path to sound film--as they just didn't have the ability to promote films in early full sound due to theaters not being owned by studios, so they often overdubbed sound to partial sound effect films and re-released them when theaters finally released around 1930 or 1931 that they had to upgrade or die). Miles Mander went on to be a well know character actor in Hollywood in sound film; a rarity for an actor without stage training who became a star in the silent era. In 1930, he appeared in Alfred Hitchcock's Murder!, Hitchcock's third full length sound film. He is probably best known by film buffs for his portrayal of Cardinal Richelieu in the comedic Allan Dwan directed The Three Musketeers, starring Don Ameche and featuring the The Ritz Brothers, with appearances by Lionel Atwill and John Carradine. Mander died of a sudden heart attack event in the famous original Brown Derby restaurant in Los Angeles at the age of 57 on February 8 1946. Well, if you had to go that dramatically, then the Brown Derby was the place to do back in those days! He was buried in Ocean View Burial Park in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada under his birth name.
1882-1945
So this may be a bit confusing. FDR was a politician, right? Not an actor. True enough; but he did become one of the first politicians and "man of government" to take advantage of the new technology of film to promote government efforts. He was, of course, born Franklin Delano Roosevelt (which he personally pronounced in the proper Dutch fashion as "Roos-ah-veldt," not as "Rose-ah-velt" as most do today). He was born in a Hyde Park home in New York state. The family were as close to aristocracy as this country got. He was also the distant cousin of the first Roosevelt in high office Theodore (Teddy). In fact, they became more closely related after Franklin's marriage to Eleanor in 1904, when he was 23 and she was 21, as President Teddy Roosevelt--who gave her away at her weddin--was her uncle (her maiden name was the same as her married name). After entering politics in 1910 on the state level (New York), he was by 1913 appointed Assistant Secretary to the Navy under President Woodrow Wilson. In 1914 World War I broke out. By 1916 he was actively campaigning for naval issues in regards to war, including arming the navy with more modern equipment and much more extensively than had been previously done. The Germans then launched their submarine campaign in 1917; Roosevelt went to Wilson and asked permission to fit the naval fleet out for full war duty--the request was denied. Roosevelt had by this time, developed a deep fascination with submarines. [As an aside note: submarines were not new to the U.S., as they were used in a very limited way in the Civil War.] By the 1910's, newsreels had become a part of the movie going experience. This exploded after the 1914 here in the U.S., because the country was not actively involved in a war the likes of which the country, or the world--for that matter--had ever seen before. Citizens became anxious, and this catapulted the newsreel into extreme importance to the movie going public; they actually drove ticket sales for main features. People would attend showings just catch the latest in the news. The first newsreel that Roosevelt appeared in was part of a series called the "Animated Weekly." Roosevelt appeared as Assistant Secretary of the Navy in Animated Weekly, No. 31 in 1916; this included the christening of the U.S.'s "first undersea fighter" in Quincey, MA, which Roosevelt was present for (oddly enough, it also includes information about a great white shark--over 400 lbs.--caught off the shore in New England, blamed for the death of "five bathers." This was the inspiration for the novel Jaws! [BTW, it had to be a bull shark--not a great white.]). The next newsreel that he appeared as Assistant Secretary of the Navy came in a series called "Mutual Weekly." He appeared, this time by name, in Mutual Weekly, No. 111 in 1917. The description given, is that of him inspecting the the marine forces in Philadelphia. This is the last of the silent Newsreels of him that exited, as far as anyone knows. In 1924, the Lee De Forest Films company filmed him giving a speech nominating New York governor Al Smith as the Democratic candidate for President at the Democratic National Convention: the little film was simply entitled Franklin D. Roosevelt Speech. De Forest was one of the leading pioneers in early sound film; they had that same year, produced the first sound film that was shot at the White House. They managed to get "Silent Cal," President Calvin Coolidge to make campaign speech in a garden (Rose Garden?) at the famous residence. It was a first on many levels. It has been called the first sound newsreel, but in reality it is the first sound campaign pitch or appeal to voters on the part of a campaigning politician (even if he is already the President). Most importantly, it was the first time any president of the U.S. had spoken on film! It still survives to this day and is preserved at the Library Of Congress. The fate of the Roosevelt speech, on the other hand, is currently unknown. Of course, FDR would go on to be the longest serving president in U.S. history; elected to office an unprecedented 4 times, serving between 1933 until his death in 1945, when he was succeeded by then vice-President Harry Truman. Roosevelt succumbed to a massive cerebral hemorrhagic event (bleeding stroke) in Warm Springs, GA (a favorite resting place of his) on the 12th of April 1945. On the 13 of April his flagged draped coffin was returned to the White House, in Washington D.C.. On the 14th his funeral was held there and his body was returned to Hyde Park in New York for burial. He remains one of the earliest high ranking members of the federal government to show up on film.
For More:
In Honor of the political season finally drawing to a close! Sometimes things around here are not so silent. This is an early "Talkie" from Deforest Phonofilms, taken, ironically of then President Calvin Coolidge, who was known as "Silent Cal."
