Born Today April 15: Heinrich Kley (Not So Silent Edition)

1863-1945?

German illustrator and artist Heinrich Kley was born on this day in Karlsruhe, Germany.  He studied what was known as Practical Arts in his home town, finishing his art education in Munich.  His first works of art spanned a wide breadth of subjects.  He settled into the use of watercolors and oils and began producing what people called "industrial art."  He was also a biting cartoon editorialist.  It was these works that gained a big fan in Walt Disney.  He was such a big fan, that it is thought his collection of Kley's work was by far the largest in the world.  As a result of that, Dover issued a book of Kley's art that became popular amongst admirers of Disney, and this is the reason that the U.S. is really the only place that he is remembered today.  In his native Germany, he has all but been forgotten.  This reason for his inclusion here, comes from just 1 film from the late 1920's.  He is credited with "Art Director" on one of Rex Ingram's films The Three Passions, which was a very early talkie from 1928.  There is some confusion as to when Kley died.  Most sources cite the 2nd of August or 8th of February in 1945 at the age of 81; but there is enough doubt to seriously question that year, others claim the 8th February in 1952, in which case he would be been a very old man for the time.  What is known, is that he died in Munich.  Obviously, with this amount of confusion as to death year, it goes without saying that no one knows how his remains were handled after his death.

One of Kley's editorial cartoons on the subject of Napoleon.

For More:

Wikipedia

The Art Of Heinrich Kley

IMDB (note the database spells his name wrong)

Born Today February 19 (Not So Silent Edition): Merle Oberon

1911-1979

Merle Oberon was a woman with secrets. She went to great lengths to obscure her origins, the history of which was so convoluted that she herself may not have known all of the details until later in her life.  She is listed in most sources as an "Anglo-Indian actress," but her background was more complicated than that description belays.  Her birth name was Estelle Merle O'Brien Thompson. She was born Mumbai, India (then Bombay).  She spent most of her life and career trying to flee even these basic facts, claiming that she was, in fact, born in Tasmania and spent her formative years there.  When reporters, sensing a story, dug they found the basic facts of her true origins; but when it came to who her parents were, things got considerably more complicated.  The woman that for years was thought to be her mother, Charlotte Shelby (who was mixed race: Sri Lankan/Maori/Anglo), was, in fact, her grandmother.  Her eldest "sister" Constance, was actually her birth mother, who gave birth to her at the shockingly young age of 12.  For this reason, her grandmother decided to raise her as her daughter.  Who her birth father was does not seem to be known. Oberon went to great lengths throughout her life to keep all of this secret; so much so that she tried and failed to keep away from being honored in Tasmania--she, in fact, seems to have only visited Australia twice in her life.  She also frequently told people that her "mother" who lived with her was actually her housekeeper, to keep people from realizing that she was not 100% Anglo.  She claimed that at the age of 17 she left India for Great Britain; the year was 1928.  She got work as a hostess at a club under the name Queenie O'Brien ("Queenie" being her childhood nickname); it here that she got into acting by accepting bit-parts in dinner theater there.  This was later proven to be part of a concocted story--at least in part.  She was reportedly given a bit part in an early talkie directed by Rex Ingram:  The Three Passions (1928).  Her career took off in the 1930's when she was noticed by director Alexander Korda, who gave her the name "Merle Oberon."  By the mid-1930's she was in Hollywood under partial contract to Samuel Goldwyn.  This made  her a huge star; by 1935 she was nominated for an Academy Award.  In 1937, she was in a very bad car accident, that could have ended her career as she was left with some facial scarring; but fortunately it only resulted in one film project being shelved. Oberon acted steadily right through the 1950's, even getting into television work.  But by the 1960's she was, for all intense and purposes, in retirement.  She accepted only two roles in the 1960's and only 1 in 1970's.  Oberon died on the 23rd of November 1979, following a massive stroke.  She is interred in Forest Lawn Memorial Park.  

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IMDb

Wikipedia

Leave Virtual Flowers @ Find A Grave

Born Today February 6: Ramon Novarro

1899-1968

Born Jose' Ramón Gil Samaniego in Durango, Mexico to a well off family (his father was a prominent dentist there); the family fled the Mexican Revolution in 1913 and relocated in the Los Angeles area here in the U.S.  His mother, Leonor, was said to be of prominent mixed ancestry and a descendant from the Aztec royal house.  His father's side of the family were pure Castilian.  As a young man in the L.A. area, he decided to study ballet.  By 1917 he had gotten the attention of the movie industry.  He made his motion debut in 1916 in Cecil B. DeMille's epic Joan the Woman as a starving peasant.  By the next year he had steady work in various extra roles; supplementing his income by working as a singing waiter.  By the 1920's, he as being promoted by MGM as a "Latin Lover" type--even as a rival of Rudolph Valentino.  This was done at the urging director Rex Ingram and his wife Alice Terry; early Hollywood friends of Ramon.  It was Terry who suggested that he change his name to "Novarro," though the name had no familial connection and he had plenty of prominent names that he could use that did.  His break through role came in Scaramouche in 1923; a film directed by Rex Ingram.  The film also starred Alice Terry.  By 1925, he had full blown, and well known, leading man status; playing the lead role in Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ--his revealing costume causing quite the stir.  After Valentino's untimely demise in 1926, only Novarro was left as Hollywood's Latin Lover.  Oddly he did not make any films in 1926, opting instead for the stage (his work on the stage, is undoubtedly what allowed him to make the transition to talking films).  The Flying Fleet (1929), was his first partial sound film, with the soundtrack and sound effects being provided by Movie Tone.  His next film, the rather infamous The Pagan, in which he plays a "half-caste Pacific islander" who refuses the Christianity of his white father, had a specialized synchronized full musical soundtrack, also by Movie Tone--one of the first of it's kind.  His next role Devil-May Care, based on a French drama, was his first full sound talking film; sound provided by Western Electric.  It also featured on full scene in early 2 strip technicolor.  This would be the last film that he made in the 1920's.  During this time, and through the early 1930's he had prominent roles opposite the greatest leading ladies of their time, including:  Myrna Loy, Greta Garbo, & Lupe Velez; becoming one of the highest paid actors in town.  After his contract with MGM expired in 1935, he made fewer and fewer films; largely retreating from public life.  He developed a drinking problem that was the result of his homosexuality being at odds with his strict Catholic upbringing.  Supposedly, Louis B. Mayer tried on more than one occasion to arrange for a "lavender marriage," the term used for men and women (largely actors) who were gay that marry each other out of convenience; Novarro was having none of it.  Things only got worse for him, when he, and Lupe Velez, Dolores del Rio and James Cagney were all accused of promoting communism in California after they attended a special screening of Russian filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein's ¡Que viva México!.  Fortunately for Novarro, he had used some the hundreds of thousands of dollars he was paid as a leading man to invest smartly in real estate around Hollywood.  His own personal residence as designed by Lloyd Wright, son of Frank Lloyd Wright.  From this he was able to maintain quite an easy lifestyle, working in acting when he felt like it.  It also allowed him to keep a comfortable low profile.  Throughout the rest of his life, he acted sporadically in films and later television, until his horrific death on 30 October in 1968.  Two young men, one a minor and one not (ages 17 and 22)--brothers Tom and Paul Ferguson--were hired by Novarro from an agency for the purposes of sex.  Apparently they thought the actor kept $5000 hidden behind a portrait.  They tied him up and beat him incessantly, demanding to know where the money was (one of them would later deny this part of the story).  Novarro died from asphyxiation on his own blood.  The brothers left the house with the $20 dollars that the actor had in his bath robe.  They were caught, tried and convicted and spent several years in jail, before being released in the 1970's (they were both rearrested several times, and one of them, committed suicide).  Novarro was buried by his sibling under his stage name at the Catholic Calvary Cemetery in Los Angeles as "Beloved Brother."

[Source: AJM (Find a Grave)]

IMDb

Wikipedia