Born Today November 12: Harry F. Millarde

 

 1885-1931

 

Prolific silent film actor and director Harry F. Millarde was born on this day in Cincinnati, Ohio.  He started in the film business as an actor at Kalem, making his debut in the Robert Vignola directed The Message of the Palms, a 1913 melodramatic short. He would appear in a remarkable number of shorts during that year, even taking top billing in male leads, such as his role as "the mark" in Kalem's own "vamp" tale The Vampire, opposite Marguerite Courtot as the sweetheart and Alice Hollister as the vamp [October, 1913] (he would appear in another "vampire" film the following year, only in a supporting role; The Vampire's Trail also featured Hollister as the "loose woman," with Tom Moore in the male lead). Although he worked with other director's in his prolific two years of acting at Kalem, the vast majority of the films in which he acted were either directed by Vignola or Kenean Buel. In 1915 he also began to direct.  His first film, The Curious Case of Meredith Stanhope, was a short melodrama, in which he also took the male lead opposite the same Alice Hollister mentioned above. For the rest of the year he continued to direct himself, but he had his eye on directing exclusively and only directed one film in which he personally appeared in 1916: The Lotus Woman.  He acted in just two additional films during his career, neither of which he directed: Elusive Isabel (1916, directed by Stuart Paton) and Man and Woman (1920, directed by Charles Logue & B.A. Rolfe).  Once he dedicated his career to directing he made 40 films between 1916 and 1927.  By the beginning of 1917, he had parted ways with Kalem and directed at  IMP, Universal and Victor, before settling in at Fox.  There he began directing June Caprice, whom he would marry in 1920, their first film together was Every Girl's Dream (August 1917).  While at Fox, he briefly became a producer, when he produced two films that he also directed: The Town That Forgot God and My Friend The Devil, both released in 1922. After this he directed just five more films.  His last film for Fox was The Fool based on a Channing Pollock play and released in November of 1925.  His final two films in 1927 were for MGM, the second of which was his last film: On Ze Boulevard, a crime comedy starring Lew Cody. Millarde died of a heart attack four years later, after a battle with some type of heart disease that likely caused the end of his directing career. He died in his in Bayside home (Queens borough) in New York City on the 2nd of November in 1931, just ten days shy of his 46th birthday. He left behind his wife and young daughter who was just nine at the time. She would go on to be the New York area cover girl Toni Seven. He was buried at Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx.

[Source: Bronx Aquarium (Find A Grave)]

IMDb

 

Wikipedia 

Find A Grave entry

Born Today August 20: Marguerite Gabrielle Courtot

 

1897-1986

Ingenue actress of silent cinema Marguerite Gabrielle Courtot was born on this day in Summit, New Jersey to French speaking immigrant parents.  She is yet another actress from the silent era that we have many high quality photographs of because she started out as a model when she was nearly 15 years of age.  It was not long before her image also made it's way into film.  She was hired by Kalem in the spring of 1913 and made her film debut in a Robert Vignola short shot in Jacksonville, Florida:  The War Correspondent .  She made 12 film appearances in that year alone. Some three-fourths of her relatively short film career were spent at the Kalem company, with whom she stayed through part of 1916. At the company, she acted in nearly 40 films, the last of which was The Dead Alive in which she took top billing.   A few stand outs from her time with the studio include The Vampire (1913) in which she plays the sweetheart to Alice Hollister's  vamp Sybil, the niece in the Tom Moore directed early science fiction film  The Secret Room (1915) [as well as appearances in a few of Moore's films for the studio each based on one of the ten commandments], and a series of short adventure films that were packaged by Kalem as The Ventures of Marguerite. Before her next studio contract, she made one film for the American wing of Gaumont, starring in (and with a prominent poster to match!) the feature length melodrama Feathertop loosely based on a Nathaniel Hawthorne story.  She next landed at Famous Players right around the time of it's merger with the Lasky company in 1916; her first film with them was  Rolling Stones, directed by Dell Henderson. Her appearances in films by the ever changing name of the company that would become Paramount were interspersed with independent company productions by the likes of Charles H. France, Arrow Films and Guy Empey Productions--even one very late Edison.  In 1920 she joined George B Seitz's company to make serials, the first of which was Pirate Gold.  Without a doubt the most famous film (to us today, that is) she appeared in was Down to the Sea in Ships, though she and her husband to be Raymond McKee  were in the lead roles, one Clara Bow virtually dominates the film as the daughter. The film is so well known to us today because it has come down to us intact and has been fully restored (and is readily for viewing)--at the time that it was made, however the film was bit of a curiosity (produced by the Whaling Film Corp).  Courtot married McKee in spring of 1923 and she appeared in just four more films after Ships.  She was the female lead in all four and the headliner in one--so she was definitely in demand, but she wanted to retire to a home life, which she did in 1924.  Her last film was Men, Women and Money released in August of 1924 and produced by the independent Lester Park Productions.  She then retired from acting altogether.  The couple lived in Long Beach, California at the time of their deaths. MeKee passed away in 1984 and Marguerite followed him two years later on the 28th of May at the age of 88. They are both buried at Riverside National Cemetery in Riverside, California.  

[Source Graving Queen of the OC (Find A Grave)]

 IMDb

Wikipedia    

Find a A Grave

Born Today December 1: T. Hayes Hunter

1884-1944

Silent director T. (Thomas) Hayes Hunter was born on this day in Philadelphia.  His career spanned from the time of the first golden age of film into the era of early talkies.  Hunter got his start in the live stage performance arena, first as a stage manager--then, later, as a director.  He entered the film industry in 1910 and directed his first film in 1912:  Papa's Double.  He added scenario writing to his resume the following year in one of the genre game changing films The Vampire, co-written with director Robert Vignola, starring Alice Hollister in an early Vamp role (the two collaborated on a remake in 1914 entitled The Vampire's Trail, again featuring Hollister).  During his career, he directed films at Biograph and was a supervising producer for two smaller production houses under their umbrella; though he had only two direct production credits to his name, both in the 1920's--the first of which was The Light In The Clearing in 1921 for Dial Film. He also directed at least one early horror film here in the U.S. with The Crimson Stain Mystery (1916), a film centering on the experiments of a "mad scientist" gone awry, with his potions create monsters that band together--a theme that would be revisited many, many times in decades to follow.  By the late 1920's, he was working for studios in the UK, in fact the last silent film that he directed was for the UK company Welsh-Pearson: The Silver King in 1929.  The first sound film that Hunter directed came in 1931 with The Man They Couldn't Arrest for the UK studio Gainsborough.  He is responsible for an early sound adaptation of an Edgar Wallace play in 1932 with White Face The Fiend.  He is also the director of the much sought after Boris Karloff/Cedric Hardwicke horror film The Ghoul (1933) made for the British arm of Gaumont and filmed at Lime Grove Studios--the film was considered lost until a copy was found in Prague and restored (it is currently on Amazon Prime).  The last film that he directed was the comedy Josser On The Farm for Fox, filmed at the Stoll Studios located in the Cricklewood area of Greater London.  He then retired from the business, but stayed in the United Kingdom.  He did not have much time to enjoy his retirement however, passing away in London on the 14th of April in 1944 at the age of 59. There is no information as to his burial or cremation.

IMDb

Wikipedia

Born Today September 28: Alice Hollister

1886-1973

Alice Hollister, exclusively a silent film actress, was born in Worcester, MA on this day.  Hollister is her married name; as of now her maiden is unknown, but it is thought that she was the daughter of French-Canadian parents.  She got her last name from marrying, at the age of seventeen, George K. Hollister, who would become an important early cinematographer at Kalem.  Studios back then, like wealthy individuals, would send crews south for the winter.  The Hollister's relocated there seasonally with their two young children.  It was during the "over winter" in Florida of 1911 that Alice would appear in her first film: By A Woman's Wit, directed by Sidney Olcott.  Also appearing in many of the "warmer climes" films were the Hollister's two children: George Jr. and Doris.  Most of the films that she appeared in before 1916 were studio shorts.  An exception would be From The Manger to the Cross, or, Jesus of Nazareth (1912), which would be her first full length film (also directed by Olcott),  and was shot entirely on location in the Middle East--not least of which was in Bethlehem. In 1913, she got the chance to play the Vamp role--unusual for a married actress (but then again here husband was the cinematographer....)--in The Vampire; the film featured choreography and trained dancers to perform "The Vampire Dance" (somewhere, buried in the film is supposedly an uncredited appearance by Robert Vignola, the director of the film). [She would appear in the type one more time in The Vampire's Trail in 1914.]  By 1916, her career began to slow.  From this time forward, she would only appear in a couple of films a year, with 1924 and 1925 accounting for only one film in each year.  Her last film appearance came in The Dancers (1925), a Fox production.  She then retired to family life.  Her husband died in 1952, but she lived until the age of 83.  She passed away on the 24th of February in 1973 in Costa Mesa, California.  She is interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale.  

IMDb

Leave Virtual Flowers @ Find A Grave

Born Today August 5: Robert G. Vignola

1882-1953

Silent director and actor Robert G. Vignola was born Rocco Giuseppe Vignola in Trivignano, Italy on this day.  His family left for the U.S. when he was 3 years old.  They settled in upstate New York, where he grew up.  He made his stage acting debut at the age of 19 and entered the film business in 1906 at the age of 24.  Though, he would go on to be one of the most prolific directors in the silent age, he entered the business as an actor.  His first film was The Black Hand (1906) made for the Amercian Mutoscope and Biograph company--it would be one of the first fictionalized films actually based on true events.  For it's time, at 10 minutes long, it was also one the longest films put out to date.  As a film actor, he has some 62 credits to his name, up through the year 1915.  Some of these, he directed himself in.  Indeed, he made his directorial debut early on in 1911, shadow directing Rory O'More.  He added writing credits to his in 1913, co-penning the scenario for The Vampire (widely believed to be the very first "Vamp" film).  He directed or co-directed 87 films, almost all of which were in the silent era, and included bit uncredited parts by the likes of Clark Gable and Rudolph Valentino in at least two titles. Some of his films have been lost, but a surprising number of them survive and are available widely for viewing.  A very large number of his earliest directed films were made under contract with the Kalem company.  Later on, he worked for a variety of different studios including Famous Players, MGM, and Paramount.  He directed 4 films in the 1930's, with Broken Dreams, starring Randolph Scott, being his very first sound film.  The last film that he directed was in 1937, A Girl From Scotland Yard.  He then retired from the industry, but continued to live in Hollywood.  He died there on the 25th of October 1953 at the age of 71.  He his buried near where in grew up, in Menands, New York in the Catholic cemetery of St. Agnes.  

For More:

IMDb

Wikipedia

Leave Virtual Flowers @ Find A Grave