Born Today June 13: Basil Rathbone

1892-1967

British cinema sensation Philip St. John Basil Rathbone was born on this date in Johannesburg, South Africa.  He was born to British parents: his mother a violinist and his father a mining engineer--a member of the Liverpool Rathbone family.  When he was just three years old, the family was forced to flee the country for Great Britain because his father had been accused his father Edgar was accused by the Boers of being a spy. In England, Rathbone attended Repton school, which was located in Derbyshire from the year 1906 to 1910.  Though, despite his father's wishes that he take up a traditional career--and he did work for a time in the insurance industry--he was too enamored of the stage to keep to that plan long.  He made his stage debut in July of 1911 in Shakespeare's The Taming Of The Shrew.  The production was undertaken by the company of his cousin Frank Benson.  The company of contracted to tour the U.S. performing various works by Shakespeare in 1912 and Basil Rathbone went with them.  Upon his return to Britain, he acted in both the Savoy and the Shaftesbury Theater, again Shakespeare plays.  After this he again toured with Benson's company, this time in the U.K.  At the outbreak of World War I, he was called up as a private to serve in London Scottish Regiment of the Army in 1915.  In 1916, after completing basic training, he received a commission with ranking of lieutenant.  He served as an intelligence officer, not at first seeing much action, but after his younger brother was killed in action, he undertook very dangerous and delicate recon excursions to map enemy positions.  He eventually attained the ranking of Captain.  He returned to the stage in 1919 in Straford-upon-Avon and then at the Queen's Theater in London.  By 1920, he was back at the Savoy.  Rathbone made his first film appearance in 1921 with Innocent, produced by the UK company Stoll.  He quickly followed that with another Stoll film The Fruitful Vine (1921).  He made two more silent films in England (The School For Scandal, The Loves of Mary, Queen of Scots--both in 1923), before leaving for the United States.  By October of 1923, he was appearing on the stage in New York; almost immediately he became a Broadway sensation.  By 1925, he was once again touring in the U.S.  He appeared in his first film states-side in 1924 with Trouping With Ellen.  He made two more silent films in U.S. (The Masked Bride (1925) & The Great Deception (1926)) before making his first sound film in 1929--The Last Of Mrs. Cheyney, a Norma Shearer dramady.  Though, he started to become more recognizable in films during the 1930's, playing in a variety of genres from swashbucklers to horror, he also continued his stage career as well.  He returned to the UK in the early 1930's for this express purpose.  What he is by far and away remembered most for is his role in a series of Sherlock Holmes films the first of which was The Hound of the Baskervilles in 1939, with Nigel Bruce as Dr. Watson.  He also did some voice over work during his lifetime, famously voicing the Policeman and providing the narration in the "Mr. Toad" section of The Adventures Of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949).  Rathbone made his television debut that same year on the series The Ford Theatre Hour in the episode "On Borrowed Time".  From then, he was seen frequently in guest appearances on television throughout the 1950's.  The last film that he appeared in during his lifetime was the horror/comedy spoof Hillbillys In A Haunted House, released in May 1967.  The last film that he appeared in was released after his death; Autopsia de un fantasma, a Mexican horror/comedy monster film was released in November 1968.  Rathbone died of a sudden heart attack at the age of 75 on the 21st of July 1967 in New York.  He is interred in a crypt in the Shrine of Memories mausoleum at Ferncliff Cemetery with is located in Hartsdale, New York (Judy Garland was, up until early 2017, interred near by, before being moved to the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in CA).  As a point of trivia: Rathbone was a cousin of Major Henry Rathbone, who was present at the shooting of President Abraham Lincoln; Major Rathbone was seriously wounded in the attack in a vain attempt to stop John Wilkes Booth.  Basil Rathbone was twice nominated for an Oscar.  

For More:

IMDb

Fan Website

Wikipedia

Leave Virtual Flowers @ Find A Grave

Born Today May 29: Josef von Sternberg

1894-1969

Born Jonas Sternberg in Vienna, then Austria-Hungary (now just Austria) to a Jewish family whose father was a former soldier in the army.  When he was just two years of age, his father left for the United States in search of work; when Jonas was 7, the entire family joined him in the U.S., only to have to migrate back to Vienna 3 years later.  Still little Jonas had gotten his first taste of the place that would shape the rest of his life.  Four years later, when Jonas was 14, the whole family again set out for the U.S., settling in New York City.  He later dropped out of high school to work as an errand boy for the lace factory where his father had found work as a lacer.  He moved on to a cleaning job in a film factory that lead to work in film repair.  By 1915 he was working for the World Film Company under William A. Bradley in Fort Lee, NJ (the first "Hollywood").  The company had a cache of French directors and cinematographers; Sternberg was mentored by one of them:  Émile Chautard.  In 1919, Chautard hired Sternberg as an assistant director on The Mystery Of The Yellow Room, after founding his own production company: Emile Chautard Pictures Corp. (though, this film is considered by some film historians as being the first independent film).  Thus comes his first actual credit.  He would continue as assistant director until 1925.  In 1924, his first writing credit came in By Divine Right, a film for which he was also assistant director to director Roy William Neill.  It was in the credits for this film that Co-producer (and actor) Elliott Dexter added noble "von" to Sternberg's name, supposedly to even up the titles; Sternberg did not object (this also appears to around the time that he changed his first name).  In 1925 he took to the director's chair for the first time; directing his own project The Salvation Hunters, which he also wrote and produced.  The film was shot in Los Angeles Harbor.  Charlie Chaplin saw the film and was impressed enough to urge both Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks to acquire the rights to the film.  Pickford, suitably impressed with Sternberg, then hired him to direct a film starring her (he wrote a scenario for it, which she rejected). In the meantime, he shadow directed The Masked Bride (1925), a Chester Conklin film, that sports an early appearance by Basil Rathbone.  Chaplin then commissioned Sternberg to direct a film starring his current lover Edna Purviance, after Sternberg had been fired from a previous directing job.  A Woman of the Sea (1927) (AKA The Sea Gull) has since become one the most infamous lost films in history.  In fact, it was never really properly released; Chaplin simply destroyed the film--no known copies where made (note:  in 2008, still photographs from the film did surface and were published, giving temporary hope that a copy had been made).  Starting in 1927, however, he began to get some commercial success, starting Underworld, a gangster film starring George Bancroft. He went to work for Paramount in the late 1920's and directed several late silent films during that time that are considered classics of the era.  They include:  The Docks Of New York (1928), considered a very early film noir, and Thunderbolt (1929), a film with an alternative mono sound version provided by Western Electric.  Both films starred Bancroft.  Thus ended Sternberg's career in silent films, and almost ended his tenure in the directors chair.  His career hit a serious slump after the making of Thunderbolt, so he accepted a invitation to work in Berlin. This is where his film making legend began to take shape.  He cast a little known German actress by the name of Marlene Dietrich and things turned around for him.  He would go on to contribute to the careers of other legendary actresses, including:  Rita Hayworth and Carole Lombard.  His film making slowed considerably during the 1940's and he only made 3 film in the 1950's; with his very last being Ana-ta-han in 1953; made in Japan about Japanese soldiers who refused to believe that the war with the U.S. was over; he had written, directed and produced it--the film had a limited release and was a financial failure.  The last film by year that he is credited with comes in 1957 with Jet Pilot, a film he was hired for by it's producer Howard Hughes, starring John Wayne; but the film was shot a full seven years before it release.  Between the years 1959 and 1963 he taught film aesthetics at UCLA. Two of his students, Ray Manzarek and Jim Morrison, would go on to their own fame the band The Doors.  Before his death, Sternberg was able to pen an autobiography.  He died in Hollywood of a heart attack at the age of 75 on 22 December 1969.  He is interred at Westwood Memorial Park in Los Angeles.

IMDb

Wikipedia

Leave Virtual Flowers at Find A Grave

This is his new memorial marker added in 2017, when his widow passed away at the age of 97 in June.