Born Today November 19: Clifton Webb

1889-1966

Born Webb Parmalee Hollenbeck in Indianapolis, IN he was well trained in dance and theater by the age of 13 when he quite school to study art (painting) and music.  By the time he was 19 he was a professional ballroom dancer; and was in this capicity that he made his first appearance in film in the year 1917 at the age of 28.  He went on to have roles in 4 films in the 1920's, with his first named character coming in the year 1925.  He was in only one film in 1930, which was a short actually a short.  He didn't show back up in film until 1944 appearing in the now well known film noir Laura, starring Gene Tierney and Dana Andrews; in fact, he was billed just above Vincent Price.  He also had a successful career on Broadway and is well remembered for his off-Broadway performances in run of Noel Coward's play Blithe Spirit.  Plagued by health troubles for the last five years of his life, he passed away on 13 October and is interred next to his mother in a crypt in the very famous Hollywood Forever Cemetery.

Born Today September 16: Isabel Jeans

1891-1985

A giant of the London stage, Jeans was an early Hitchcock muse.  She was born in London and passed away there almost 94 years later on the 4 of September 1985 at 93.  She had planned to become a singer, but instead wound up on the stage at the age of 15 in 1908, by 1915 she had made it to Broadway States side; but soon returned to London.  Her first film appearance came in 1917, and she went on to make several films in the 1920's; at least one The Rat (1925) based on the play that she had a part in the preceding year at The Prince of Wales Theater in London.  In all she appeared in three Alfred Hitchcock films, two of the them silent, the other being the 1941 Suspicion starring Cary Grant and Joan Fontaine.  Her first marriage was to Claude Rains in 1913 which only lasted two years.  She remarried to a well known British Barrister, whom she remained married to until his death in the 1960's.  As couple they were famous for several couples activities, including being extremely good at poker.

In Hitchcock's Easy Virtue

Her Early Film Work:

The Profligate (1917)

Tilly Of Bloomsbury (1921) (based on a play)

Romance and Reality (1921) (short)

The Rat (1925) (screenplay based on the stage production she starred the year before)

Windsor Castle (1926) (short, part of a haunted castles of England series, this was the third one)

The Triumph Of The Rat (1926) (sequel to The Rat)

Downhill (1927) AKA When Boys Leave Home (Hitchcock directed, available for free streaming over at Internet Archive)

Further Adventures Of A Flag Officer (1927)

Easy Virtue (1928) (Hitchcock directed, based on a Noel Coward play, her highest profile film appearance to date.)

The Return Of The Rat (1929) (second sequel of The Rat, had a synchronized music score, sound by British Acoustic.)

Power Over Men (1929)