Born Today February 7: Edward J. Nugent

1904-1995 

Actor Edward James Nugent got his start in films at the very end of the silent era.  The talented stage performer/dancer was born on the day in New York City.  He was a child performer with the Metropolitan Opera; and he made is film debut in 1928 as Eddie Nugent in the George Archainbaud directed comedy The Man in Hobbles.  His second film appearance, also in 1928, was also his first appearance in a talkie.  MGM's Our Dancing Daughters, which starred Joan Crawford and Johnny Mack Brown, also had a fully silent version for wider release; in it he gets to "debut" his wisecracking young man type, a character trait that would stay with him for much of his film career.  Under contract to MGM; Nugent appeared in nine films in 1929, starting with A Single Man a late fully silent release.  He was next in the partial silent The Flying Fleet, a film starring Ramon Novarro.  His first full talking picture (released as such) came in the comedy The Girl in the Show (if you don't count his appearance in MGM's exhibition The Hollywood Revue of 1929).  After this, however, it was back to silent/partial silent films, with his appearance as "Reg" in Joan Crawford's last silent film Our Modern Maidens; appearing right after this with Crawford again in the talkie Untamed, his last MGM contract film.  He finished the decade out in the comedic musical The Vagabond Lover (an RKO production) as the musician "Sport.  His first film of the new decade was the comedic romance Loose Ankles  starring Loretta Young and Douglas Fairbanks Jr.; with this, his wise cracking youngster role was cemented as a character type to which he was closely associated, despite him entering his late 20's.  It was a role type that he would employ throughout the 1930's, even in non-comedic films such as crime dramas. And, the 1930's comprized the lion's share of his film career--almost  all of his nearly 85 credits came during that decade.  His last full feature length film appearance (and last named film credit) came in the adventure film Island Captives in 1937, shot on location in Hawai'i.  He did make an appearance in a small little animated fluff in 1940 produced by the Jim Handy Organization called A Case of Spring Fever (if you are a MST3k or, more recently, RiffTrax fan, you have been "treated" to this little short).  Nugent largely had a stage career after retiring from film acting. I am guessing (just me, mind you...) that he tired of the stereotyping in Hollywood. All descriptions of his Broadway appearances point to his being a very talented actor/singer/dancer with a wide range. Nugent's place of death seems to be a bit in dispute. Several sources cite his death place of New York City; others San Antonio, Texas (and at least one that I ran across citing the Los Angeles area)--whatever the case, the date of his death is not in dispute, he passed away at the age of 90 on the 3rd of January in 1995, just shy of his 91st. I can find no information as to interment. Nugent was also a published author on approaches to stage acting.

In the 1929 MGM filmed revue.

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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)]

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