Born Today January 30: Greta Nissen

 

1906-1988

 

Norwegian born actress Greta Nissen was born Grethe Rüzt-Nissen on this day Oslo.  As a young child she studied ballet seriously, becoming a professional ballerina in 1922 at just the age of 16.  She made her film debut the very next year in the Lau Lauritzen directed Danish comedy  Daarskab, dyd og driverter (September 1923) in the leading role basically playing herself in the role of "Grethe."  She also appeared in another Lauritzen film that same year: Lille Lise let-paa-taa (March 1923) as "Lise."  Nissen made her Broadway debut in 1924, which is how she wound up in American made films in 1925. Jesse Lasky personally had a hand in signing her to Paramount after seeing her perform in New York.  She was promptly cast as the star of Lost:  A Wife in (July 1925), a William de Mille and Clara Beranger film. Most of her films at Paramount were romantic comedies or dramas in which she was near or at the top of the ticket.  In early 1926 she was "loaned out" to Universal to appear in the John McDermott directed romantic drama The Love Thief with Norman Kerry and Marc McDermott (no relation); she was replacing another Greta in the part of Princess Flavia Eugenia Marie--Greta Garbo.  In her time at Paramount she acted along side the likes of Adolphe Menjou, Bessie Love, Wallace Beery, Lionel Barrymore, Florence Vidor and Ricardo Cortez. In 1928, she moved over to Fox Film and was cast in Fazil, a partial silent directed by Howard Hawks; this is important to note, not only because it was her first film at Fox, but also because it lead directly to her being cast in the Howard Hughes film Hell's Angels. It was her involvement with the insanely large production in 1928 that meant that she didn't make many other film appearances between then and the early 1930's.  She did appear in the comedy The Butter and Egg Man with Jack Muhall in 1928, but that was it.  Hughes actually finished Hell's Angels as a fully silent film, but with the coming of sound systems at the majors, Hughes decided to re-shoot the film for sound, pushing the release date to 1930. Nissen had a thick Norwegian accent and Hughes famously replaced her with Jean Harlow. For many, her near appearance in the film is all they have heard of Nissen. As a result of her time spent on the Hughes project, her actual film credits jump in years from 1928 to 1931, when she appeared in the Fox comedy Women of All Nations (May 1931) with Victor McLaglen and Edmund Lowe. The following year on the set of the mystery The Silent Witness she met and fell for a fellow cast member; she appeared with Lionel Atwill and Weldon Heyburn, who would become her first husband. In 1933, she left the U.S. and relocated in England; while there she continued her film career. Red Wagon, released in December of 1933, was her first British film performance. In 1937, she retired from acting altogether. Her last film was the British thriller Danger in Paris (January 1937) directed by Paul L. Stein (who had directed Red Wagon). She remarried in 1941 and had a child, a son Tor Bruce Nissen Eckert. She and her husband eventually relocated back to California, purchasing a home in Montecito. She died in that home from complications due to Parkinson's on the 15th of May in 1988 at the age of 83. She was cremated.  Nissen was extremely photogenic and was a favorite for staged promotionals and lobby cards. Though she was never a model (as far as I know), she certainly could have been!

 

 

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Born Today December 24: Howard Hughes

 1905-1976

 

Howard Hughes is remembered for a lot of things; including, but certainly not limited to, being one of the very first billionaires, his eccentric behavior later in life caused by OCD; he is even remembered as a pioneering aviationist before he is remembered for being what he was first in life: a movie mogul. Howard Robard Hughes, Jr. was born on Christmas Eve in Humble, Texas. Or so he stated. Conflicting records show while in one case he is listed as born on the 24th of December, his birth place is listed as Harris County...that is Houston.  A baptismal record further muddies the waters by stating that he was actually born on the 24th of September...and that record dates to a year later, 1906, and was located in Keokuk, Iowa. But Hughes himself preferred the information to be 24 December, 1905: Humble, Texas. So, we'll honor his wishes and go with that.  Wading into Hughes is complicated (heck, look at the questions about his birth above!), but suffice to say that his father was a successful inventor (Howard Hughes Sr.) and that young Howard had shown an interest in science and mechanical equipment as a very young child. He was also the the nephew actor and later producer Rupert Hughes, who was undoubtedly an early influence on him.  After the untimely deaths of both his parents (his mother in 1922 from an ectopic pregnancy, his father in 1925 from a massive heart attack) when he was just 19, the notion of getting into the film business (possibly inspired by his uncle's work) entered his head. At the time, the legal age of emancipation was 21; so he was able to have himself declared a legally emancipated minor and he and his new wife (of the famed Texas Rice family) headed west. He was completely flush with funds, after inheriting 75% of the family fortune upon his father's death.  Not wanting to be a director, he decided on producer and he had the funds for it. His first film effort Swell Hogan--directed, written & starring by Ralph Graves--was released in 1926 and landed with a huge thud!  He was after this, involved directly and indirectly through funding just a small handful of films for the rest of 1920's. He at least partially funded--though he gets no formal credit--the silent Famous Players-Lasky production Everybody's Acting in 1926.  He then got into the "presenter" side of the business officially and stayed on the Q.T. on the producer side of the affair (this despite that he was not affiated with any distribution company or the owner of any chains of theaters--as he would be later in life).  He founded the Caddo Company, and put the project that would become Two Arabian Nights into funded production; the film was released in September of 1926.  Directed by Lewis Milestone, the film was most definitely NOT a flop; in fact it won Milestone a Best Director Oscar (one of the very first) for Comedy that year. It starred William Boyd, the man who would become Hopalong Cassidy, in his leading man days. Hughes and Caddo were next involved in the production The Racket, an important "proto-noir" that was also directed by Milestone, released November of 1928 (and nominated for a Best Picture Academy Award). Caddo's last production of the decade was the fully silent the post World War I set melodrama that pits a veteran against the KKK (a sort of late retort to Griffith?) in The Mating Call. The film was directed by silent actor turned director James Cruze and released on the 21st of July in 1928.  Hughes then got wrapped up in his own directing project, a production that he self financed and took over three years of his time--this made The Mating Call the last completely silent film associated with the Hughes name and money.  Hughes was also already knee-deep in the main passion of his life--aviation. The result of this new project was an epic of a film: Hell's Angels, released on the 15th of November in 1930.  The film bears some detailed examination, not least of which is that is was originally set to be a silent film.  The project changed cast, crew and format from it's beginnings in 1927 to it's completion and release in 1930.  Not only originally intended to be a silent film, another actor turned director, Marshall Neilan (who directed Everybody's Acting) was set to direct, and Norwegian movie star Greta Nissen was hired as leading lady. The film featured a story revolving around the Royal Flying Corps and featured other aviation machines such as Zeppelins in the story. Actual bi-planes were flown during filming--not new to film, but the stunts and in-flight filming technology were. Neilan quit over clashes with Hughes' extreme interference in the production; so Hughes turned to other possibilities of working directors to replace him. Coming up short for various legal and differences of vision Hughes wound up getting the credit as director, though he did go through at least two more directors during the project (and in my opinion, they all deserve credit for their work on the film--James Whale-as a secondary director-and Edmund Goulding got some later "uncredited" credit--Neilan did not). There were a LOT of other shenanigans that took place as a result of the film taking so long to complete, edit and release (not enough time here in this post to enumerate here); but two important things do bear mentioning. One, this film marked the beginnings of James Whale's Hollywood career, though he wound up having earlier credits due to the length of time it took to release Angels. Two, the film contains the only surviving color film footage of ill-fated star Jean Harlow, who Hughes had hired personally to replace Nissen (whose thick Norwegian accent earned her a dismissal from the film when it was converted to sound). More than 70 pilots--including Hughes himself--were used during the production of this more than two hour long war epic. One scene designed by Hughes himself resulted in no other pilot willing to perform the stunt--so Hughes did it himself.  It was his first major plane crash and resulted in a serious head injury requiring surgery. It was a foreshadowing of what was to come.  The film though, was a success and was nominated for a Best Cinematography Oscar for the work of Tony Gaudio and Harry Perry.  His next film presentation, The Front Page (1931), a screwball crime comedy also directed by Milestone, was again nominated for the Oscars (Best Leading Man, Best Director and Best Picture). Caddo produced three more film in the early 1930's (two of the aviation related) before the production company came out with the other film for which Hughes is well-remembered: Scarface.  The early noir was completely Hughes' idea, and it was he that purchased the rights to the novel. Somehow, despite earlier legal isssues, Hughes and writer Ben Hecht convinced Howard Hawks to get involved in the project. The film was yet another Hughes production late to theatrical release--this time due to censorship issues--when it was finally widely released on the 9th of April in 1932 (the film would be famously remade with Al Pacino in the lead role in 1983).  It was his last film association for the decade. When he returned for just one film in the 1940's, Caddo was gone and Howard Hughes Productions was behind The Outlaw. Made in 1943, but again, with a significantly delayed release--coming out nationally in 1946--it was his only other film direction and he had begun to show signs of OCD openly on the set. He also got into the theater and radio owning business in the 1940's, with his company taking a huge stake in RKO Pictures. After he gained a controlling share of the company, his erratic behavior began to become more and more public. Hughes had been in yet another near fatal--and VERY spectacular--airplane crash in 1946 (this is depicted quite accurately in Martin Scorsese's 2004 The Aviator) and had suffered further head injuries. There is now enough credible information on traumatic brain injuries to suggest that a good deal of the mental problems that Hughes developed later in life--such as extreme obsessive compulsive disorder--were likely caused by the two brushes with death that he had crashing planes, and the injuries he suffered as a result (his first crash on the set of Hell's Angels required skull reconstruction surgeries). He had also been involved in at least one very serious auto-accident in 1936 in addition to his two plane crashes.  His last film association came at RKO with the 1957 action thriller titled fittingly Jet Pilot starring John Wayne.  But, significant injuries from his brushes with death also left him addicted to and reliant on narcotic pain relief--which further interfered with his public work life. Hughes inadvertently got into the hotel and casino business when he moved into the then famed Desert Inn Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas on Thanksgiving in 1966; he had to purchase the hotel after the owners could not get him to leave; the purchase prompted a number of purchases by his company of local hotels, restaurants and casinos. Contrary to popular belief Hughes did not spent the rest of his life in Sin City. He left the area for Nicaragua because he had become so paranoid over nuclear test fallout. He wound up living his last years in The Bahamas.  It is thought that Hughes expired on a flight transporting him on an medical flight from Acapulco, Mexico to Houston, Texas on the 5th of April in 1976. He was so emaciated, that at his autopsy, fingerprints were required to make sure that he was indeed THE Howard Hughes. He was described as looking "spectral"--weighing only 90 lbs (and he stood 6'4"), with long white wild hair and extremely long fingernails. It was determined that he had died of acute kidney failure. He was 70 years of age. He was buried in an elaborate family plot located at Houston's Glenwood Cemetery.  He most important lasting legacy without a doubt is the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. 

 

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Born Today July 22: James Whale

1889-1957

If you are not, as I am, a horror hound, or even a super fan of older Universal studio releases, you may be unfamiliar with James Whale. Even if you are a fan of the Frankenstein director, you may not know that he was the director of dialogue on one lone film in 1929.  The Love Doctor was a 1929 talkie produced by Paramount (there was a silent version for release outside major urban areas); the film was directed by Melville W. Brown and starred Richard Dix and June Collyer in the leading roles.  Whale had very recently signed with the studio and his very first assignment was serving as dialogue director of the film; Whale, along with several others, went uncredited for his trouble. James Whale, despite that he invented a fictional narrative of his origins, was born in Dudley, England--right in the middle of working class Black Country--to a nurse mother and blast furnaceman father; he had six siblings, of which he was next to the youngest. Amongst the schools that he attended was a charity school, but as the semi-fictional film Gods and Monsters, in which Whale is played by Ian McKellen, recounts truthfully, Whale was pulled out of school and put to work as a teenager.  He was, though, artistically inclined and generated extra income by painting lettering and numbering signs of various sorts--the income he put to good use by paying his way through evening classes in a local arts and crafts school. Though the film Gods and Monsters gets his service in France during World War I correct, what it does not depict is his being taken as a prisoner of war. He remained so until the end of the war, and it was during this time that he took up acting (he also picked up the art of playing poker, which he would go on to use as a skill to generate income).  Knocking around Birmingham after the war, he drifted into theater work (after an attempt to become a cartoonist). He eventually, in 1928, had the opportunity to direct a play--which was so successful that it was produced on Broadway the following year--this is the catalyst by which Whale came to the United States and stayed. The play was was such a success that it was not long before movie producers were almost literally knocking down his door.  After just the one film with Paramount, his contract expired and he returned to theatrical work--this time in Chicago.  Impressed with his work, he was next hired by Howard Hughes for another round at dialogue direction on his Hell's Angels; and this brings me to Whale's only other connection to silent cinema (aside from his personal love of the partial silent Show Boat from 1929 that he would remake).  The entire production of Angels was a late fully silent film--almost at the last minute, Hughes decided to bring sound to it--which is the time during the production that he hired Whale. Whale worked as the "dialogue stager"--but also got some hands-on experience with film direction at the same time--it was not long before he had the needed to call on that knowledge.  His most important moment in 1929, by far, came when the men who had purchased the film rights to Journey's End, the play that Whale had directed and made such a sensation and set during the Great War, asked Whale to direct the film version. Filming started in early December 1929; by the end of January of the following year, filming wrapped.  Heavily billed as "All Talking," the film debuted on the 9th of April, 1930.  Whale was now a full fledged film director.  Film studios took serious notice and Whale was signed to a fateful five year contract with Universal in 1931.  He is most famous for the direction of Frankenstein in 1931 (a project that he chose from a list of projects presented to him), he was first handed another war picture by the studio: Waterloo Bridge (1931).  He was already at work directing the screwball comedy The Impatient Maiden--released in March of 1932--when it was clear that he was being hailed as the best new thing to happen to the horror genre (still in it's infancy in film at the time).  It is no surprise then that he is best remembered for his horror films. So, in 1932, he directed The Old Dark House, a first rate horror comedy that also featured "the Monster" himself Boris Karloff (the film was thought lost forever until 1968, when--thankfully!--a print was discovered).  He next tried his hand at the mystery genre in A Kiss Before Dying (1933), probably his least remembered effort; the film was a failure at the box office....so he returned to horror. He next directed The Invisible Man starring Claude Rains and introduced the world to the wild, zany antics of one Una O'Connor; the film was a huge box office hit for Universal. Whale, by this time, had a half formed rule that he would not direct two horror films in a row, so there were actually two films between Invisible Man and the film that many consider his masterpiece:   The Bride of Frankenstein. The film was released in May of 1935 and out-did The Invisible Man to such an extreme degree, that Universal boss of bosses Carl Laemmle tried to force Whale to helm Dracula's Daughter; this, of course, broke Whale's "horror film rule," and so concerned him that he was being "typecast" as a horror director, that he never directed another horror film (the project eventually went to Lambert Hillyer).  Whale's burning desire was to remake Show Boat as a full sound film, which he was able to convince the studio execs to allow him to do so; the film was released on the 17th of May of 1936 (this, and One More River 1934, were reportedly among Whale's personal favorites of his own films).  After this, Whale's career began to wilt. He made a number of genre flicks, from crime to comedy, but settled on the adventure film for his last few films. The one that stands out (at least for me) is Green Hell, released in 1940, starring Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and features quite the cast that included Joan Bennett, Alan Hale Jr. (aka The Skipper) and a young up and coming actor named Vincent Price (Price hated the film and by all accounts, he ranked it by far the worst acting experience that he had on a set).  His last feature length film was The Dare Not Love in 1941, made for Columbia.  Terribly bored with his dimininshing film career, he retired; eventually taking up painting at the urging of his long time partner producer David Lewis.  Whale returned to directing only twice in his life, and both of those films were non-studio efforts. The first was for the the United States military: Personnel Placement in the Army in 1942; and his final film--Hello Out There--in 1949, which was never commercially released. Whale did return to directing the theater; on Broadway in the 1940's and in Europe in the early 1950's (his last directed play was closed early due to it's star, Hermione Baddeley's heavy drinking).  In 1956, Whale suffered two strokes, the second of which was much more serious than the first. It left him impaired and depressed with failing mental faculties. He wrote a suicide note and drown himself in his swimming pool (a pool that he had never himself used) on the 29th of May in 1957. A concerned David Lewis, who was by this time estranged from Whale as a partner and living next door, found Whale and his note.  Lewis kept the note until his death in 1987, when it was published--finally clearing up what many had long suspected, that Whale had ended his own life some 30 years earlier (Whale's death had officially been ruled accidental). He was 67 years old. Whale was cremated and interred at the Columbarium of Memory in the mausoleum of Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale (his plaque lists the wrong year of his birth as 1893).  

[Source: AJ (Find A Grave)]

[Source: Denis Svoboda and Anneabe (Find A Grave)]

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