Born Today March 16: Elsie Janis

1889-1956

American performer (musician/actress/screenwriter/composer) Elsie Janis was born Elsie Bierbower on this day in Marion, Ohio. She started in performance, most likely due to her mother, at a very early age--becoming a well known fixture in mid-western vaudeville by the time she was in her double digits. By the time she reached her adult years, she had moved on to more serious roles on the stage, eventually making her Broadway debut in New York and her West End debut in London. She was a bonafide star by the early years of the 20th century. She starred in several stage hits on both sides of the Atlantic; which, of course, eventually led to her debut in a motion picture. In 1915 she made her first first film appearance in the feature length The Caprices of Kitty, a comedy directed by Phillips Smalley and produced by Hobart Bosworth.  She also wrote the picture, actually a much bigger deal than the starring in it part. She did not have a very long or prolific film acting career, but what she did have, mostly during the teens, she also wrote nearly ALL of the scenarios for.  Of her seven film acting credits, four of them came in 1915 alone.  Aside from The Caprices of Kitty, she also wrote and starred in:  Betty in Search of a Thrill (co-directed by Lois Weber), Nearly A Lady, and 'Twas Ever Thus.  All of them productions of Hobart Bosworth's company and distributed by Paramount.  She did not appear in a film again until 1919, when she co-wrote and starred in the crime feature The Imp; a Selznick Pictures production, it was directed by Robert Ellis. Janis co-wrote the project with Edmund Goulding, himself a man of the vaudeville stage.  She did appear in one other film in 1919, her last in the silent era, in A Regular Girl, a comedy penned by Goulding with Francis Marion. Her involvement with films of the silent era, however, was not at end when she quit acting in films in 1919.  She was responsible for the principle adaptation for the romantic comedy Oh Kay! starring Colleen Moore in 1928; it was a fully silent film produced at First National.  She was also the co-author of the story upon which the scenario for the fully sound musical Close Harmony in 1929 was based on. In addition, she appeared on film in full sound as herself in 1926 performing in the early Warner's musical short Behind the Lines using the Vitaphone system; it was a recreation of a performance that she gave while entertaining troops during World War I. One of her songs was also used in the Gloria Swanson talkie The Trespasser in 1929 (though the film was also shot in a fully silent version as well); that film was also written and directed by Goulding. She contributed to three more scripts in the 1930's, the most significant of which was the comedy musical Madam Satan; written entirely by women, and directed by Cecil B. DeMille.  She made one more film, appearing at the top of the bill in Women in War in 1940, after which she was thoroughly done with film acting. Her songs, however, continued to be used in film scores and soundtracks--both during her life and after her death. Principle among the music is from the film Paramount on Parade, which she co-produced in 1930; it was Paramount studio's revue for the year and was written by Joseph Mankiewicz. The most recent use of that music came in the 2004 Scorsese film The Aviator. After living in Ohio until her mother's passing, she moved for a time to Sleepy Hollow, New York--just "up the street" from Broadway.  Janis eventually moved full time to Los Angeles, where she died in her home on the 26th of February, just shy of her 67th birthday.  She is interred there at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale.  Janis was the very first female announcer on NBC radio in 1934.

[Source: AJM (Find a Grave)]

[Source: AJM (Find a Grave)]

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Born Today March 15: Montagu Love

1877-1943

British performer Montagu Love, born Harry Montague Love, was born on this day in Portsmouth, England. If you look up Love's name in an internet search, a number of works of art come up. At first, like 95% of such searches, it seems one should just assume the artist and the actor are not the same and the attempt to separate them out ensues. It is then that one realize they are, in fact, the same person. His art career, which what he started out doing, is just as important as his acting career in many ways.  Love was for a time an illustrator and cartoonist with London's Illustrated Daily News, where is was quite prolific. His paintings, a couple of which became popular illustrations for postcards, were always signed "H. Montagu Love," and often focused on the Boer Wars. For whatever reason, he was also interested in acting and managed make a stage debut after the turn of the century on the Isle of Wight (the company that he acted with, though, was American in origin, not British). He thereafter worked on the London stage until 1913, when he left the country for Canada. He quickly made his way into the United States and joined a touring company; this lead to a Broadway debut by the end of the year. This, in turn, quickly lead to film work in the New York area in 1915; though his return trips to the Broadway stage were numerous through the mid-1930's.  He is listed as having a lead role in a 1914 British & Colonial Kinematograph Company production The Suicide Club in 1914; but we know that he went to work for Wold Film with steady film work in 1915 starting with the feature Hearts in Exile. He appeared in five features that year alone.  Love cut quite the figure, standing well over six feet and sporting a brooding face, he was perfect for heavies and villains; though he started off in authority roles: everything from judges to nobility/royalty (Love even played an artist in the Harley Knoles directed The Devil's Toy in 1916...though he does sell his soul to Satan!).  In 1917, he took the lead in the Archainbaud directed horror The Brand of Satan, loosely based on the Jekyll and Hyde story in which the lead character has two personalities, one of which is a murderous underworld gang serial killer. It marked the beginnings of his type casting as a villain. While his stature made him a shoe in for the role of "The Black Monk" in Rasputin, the Black Monk (1917) directed by Arthur Ashley. In the late teens he had a run as a leading man for a time, appearing in several films with lesser known "vamp" actress June Elvidge.  In late 1919, he even branched out into comedies; but by the early 1920's, he was appearing in the villainous roles that he would be remembered for. One of his first in this vein was the role of Professor Balzamo, a magician and hypnotist, in The Case of Becky (October 1921).  Most films in which he acted during this time were of a melodramatic nature and featured some easily recognized names, such as:  Lionel Barrymore, Marion Davies, Harrison Ford, Norma Talmadge, Wallace Reid and Bebe Daniels. In 1926 he appeared as Ghabah in The Son of the Sheik, famously Valentino's last film; the shock the public felt at Valentino's sudden death meant that all the principle players in the film became well known as a result. This took Love's public recognition to a new level.  He followed the role directly with the role of Count Giano Donati in the John Barrymore Don Juan, a very early Warner Bros. partial sound film that had it's big premiere in New York City in August of 1926 (and general release the following February). And, his role as the evil Duke in the Ronald Colman/Vilma Bánky romantic adventure The Night of Love (1927) continues to win him special praise as a top-notch villain.  In 1928 he was directed by three famous ex-pat directors: two Scandinavians and a German. He appeared in two Benjamin Christensen films (The Hawk's Nest and The Haunted House, a partial silent in which he plays the "Mad Doctor"), and one film by Victor Sjöström (The Wind) starring Lillian Gish.  He then appeared in Paul Leni's mystery horror The Last Warning; also a partial silent, it reused sets from The Phantom of the Opera (1925).  He acted in no less than nine films in 1929, with Bulldog Drummond marking his first full sound film. His role as Baron Falon in the partial silent The Mysterious Island is one the most often cited villain roles that Love played in the 1920's; with his last film of the decade was the full sound crime drama A Most Immoral Lady (1929) starring Leatrice Joy.  He was still only half way through his film career when 1930 rolled around. He appeared in a number of films based on works of literature in the later portion of his career; and a few quite famous adventure films, including: The Prisoner of Zenda in 1937 The Adventures of Robin Hood in 1938, The Man in the Iron Mask in 1939 and The Son of Monte Cristo in 1940. He worked right up until his sudden death in 1943 and several films in which he appeared were released after his death; the last regularly scheduled release was the Phil Rosen directed war drama Wings Over the Pacific released in late July of 1943. The biographical drama Devotion was delayed and was not released until April of 1946. Love passed away in Los Angeles on the 17th of May in 1943. He was 66 years of age. He is interred in the vault at the famous Los Angeles crematoria Chapel of the Pines.

Love's most famous illustration of Redvers Buller during the First Boer War, made into a postcard by the greeting card company Raphael Tuck & Sons. 

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Born Today March 14: Doris Eaton

 

 1904-2010

 

When Doris Eaton Travis passed away in 2010, she was the last living Ziegfeld Girl, and by far the longest lived! Born Doris Eaton on this day in Norfolk, Virginia, she began dance lessons at the age of four in Washington D.C. The entire family was involved with stage performance, and along with her siblings, they formed a group referred to as "The Seven Little Eatons."  At just the age of seven, she--along with two of her older sisters--were cast in a major play in Washington, thus making her professional acting debut before the age of ten (considering that she performed up to just one month before her death, that means professional performance career lasted for a whopping 99 years...that HAS got to be some kind of record!).  Throughout 1910's, Eaton continued to appear in stage performances with her siblings, mostly older sisters Pearl and Mary, until she was hired by the Ziegfeld Follies in 1918.  She was so young, that she appeared under a series of stage names to skirt child labor laws (yes, they had them even then...).  Though she had a long career in stage performance, mostly in dance, she did not have a terribly long career in films; and what she did have was mostly confined to the 1920's. But, still, when she debuted in film, she was not yet twenty.   At the age of just seventeen, she was cast as Betty in the Christy Cabanne written and directed showgirl drama At the Stage Door in 1921. She next appeared in three features in 1922, each by a different studio. The first of them was most definitely the high profile. The Broadway Peacock was a Fox melodrama directed by Charles Brabin and starring Pearl White; as young as she was, she had a named supporting role in the film. Next, the Donald Crisp directed Tell Your Children may not have been an A-list production, but Eaton did have the starring role; made for British Paramount in the UK, it featured an almost entirely British cast aside from Eaton and Gertrude McCoy (it was also another early twenties film to have Alfred Hitchcock as an art director). That same year, she also appeared in the UK production The Call of the East, appearing again with British actor Warwick Ward, who was also in Tell Your Children. She only appeared in two shorts the following year, both of which were associated with the Gorham Follies, the revue owned by her husband of only six months Joe Gorham: High Kickers and Fashion Follies; both were produced by Century Film for Universal (her marriage to Gorham was ended by his sudden death). It is understandable that a young woman as talented as she was in song and dance, that film acting would not appeal in the silent era; and she did not appear again in a feature until the coming of sound (she did have a role in the Mike and Ike two-reeler Taking the Count in 1928). In 1929 she had small part in the early RKO full sound film Street Girl. Later in the year, she was given a named role in another RKO talkie The Very Idea (September 1929), a comedy farce based on a play.  It was her last film of the decade and her last named role in a film until 1999!  She did have tiny role in the 1930 Eddie Cantor film Whoopee!, but film work was not at all to her liking. She was not persuaded again to appear in front of the camera until agreed to the role of Eleanor Gould in the Jim Carrey film Man on the Moon about legendary comedian Andy Kaufman.  She was 95 years young at the time! She would eventually become a MAJOR figure at the Arthur Murray Dance Studios, a line of work that she was in until 1968.  She and her second husband moved to Oklahoma and established a very successful horse ranch, that was largely in the boarding business.  Additionally, she had a number of degrees, one of which she earned when she was 88. At the time of her death at the age of 106 (just a month after a performance no less!), she had been living in Michigan. She is interred there in the Guardian Angel Cemetery located in Rochester. Her brother Charles is also interred there. On the evening of the 12th of May, one day after her death on the 11th, the lights of Broadway in New York were dimmed in her honor.

[source: Jess (Find a Grave)]

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Born Today March 13: Dorothy Davenport

 

 1895-1977

 

Film worker Dorothy Davenport was born on this day in Boston, Massachusetts. She was the daughter, and only child of, actors Harry Davenport and Alice Davenport (his first wife). Not only were her parents actors of the stage and screen, both of her paternal grandparents were also theatrical actors. This, of course, meant that young Dorothy would have literally never known life without acting and made it highly probable that she herself would at least try the profession, if not make a career of it.  It is also of little surprise that Davenport got her start on the stage at an early age, making her professional debut at the age of just six. She continued to appear on the stage, mostly in vaudeville acts, throughout her teens while attending a boarding school in Virginia; and at just 16, she moved to California to pursue film acting, having already made her film debut the year before in the D.W. Griffith Biograph short A Mohawk's Way (1910). In point of fact, she acted in eleven Biograph films that year, most of them directed by Griffith. In 1911, she went to work for Reliance Film Company, with Vengeance Hath Been Had marking her first film for them.  In late 1911, she moved over to Nestor Film, making The Best Man Wins written and directed by Tom Ricketts. The bulk of her films at Nestor were either directed by Ricketts or Al Christie; one that was not was His Only Son (October 1912) which was co-directed by Jack Conway and Milton Fahrney; a short western that counted one Wallace Reid among it's cast. He and Davenport would wed in October of the following year, after which she was often credited as "Mrs. Wallace Reid." In 1913, the pair left for Selig Polyscope, but continued to make the same sort of short films they had made at Nestor. By the end of the year, Reid was back at Nestor directing and he added his new wife to his cast of actors for shorts that he often wrote himself. The years between 1914 and 1918 were her most prolific when she appeared the lion's share of her nearly 150 acting credits. She also occasionally worked in features here and there, including:  The Explorer (1915), Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo (1915), The Unknown (1915), Doctor Neighbor (1916), and The Way of the World (1916).  By the middle of 1916, her roles in features increased; a couple of which (The Unattainable, Barriers of Society, The Devil's Bondwoman, etc.) she took top bill in.  In 1917, she gave birth to her son and the event caused a slowing in the number of roles she accepted, eventually bringing on her full retirement after a second child--an adopted daughter--came into the family.  Her last major film before the cessation of her career was the societal drama The Fighting Chance (August 1920) starring Anna Q. Nilsson and Conrad Nagel.  Added to this was another serious issue that was not made public until much later. Her husband had been seriously injured in an a train accident in Oregon, the accident happened when he was filming and he was subsequently treated by studio physicians who pumped him full of morphine to which he became addicted. Many speculate that this was the real reason for her retirement in 1920.  She did appear in a small role in a western in 1922, The Masked Avenger, which her son, Wallace Reid Jr., also had a small role in; but it would only be after the tragic death of her husband in 1923 that would see her return to the industry.  It was at this time that she began insisting on credits be under her married name.  After his death, she teamed upped with Thomas Ince to produce and star in Human Wreckage, a film about a wife battling the evils of drug addiction in a husband, with James Kirkwood starring as the husband. It was a deeply personal film for her, that she also shadow directed along with John Griffith Wray (it is also unfortunately not known to survive). She also was an uncredited writer on the project. This started a very short directors career for her, and an even longer writing career. She did have a couple of straight-forward acting jobs in the late 1920's, but the bulk of her remaining career was not to be in front of the camera. She did act in the 1924 nearly all female written melodrama Broken Laws in which she took the headline. In 1925, she shadow directed The Red Kimona with Walter Lang; and despite that her role in the film was small, the promotional materials had her name and likeness all over them. She again contributed some writing to the script, which was penned by Adela Rogers St. Johns and Dorothy Azner. In 1926 she solo produced her first film, The Earth Woman, under her new company Mrs. Wallace Reid Productions; the film was again directed by Lang. Her last acting role of the 1920's came in Hellship Bronson in 1928, a ship-board melodrama, in which she starred opposite Noah Beery. Her last film of the 1920's is in many ways her most significant of the decade. Linda, released in April of 1929, starred Helen Foster and Warner Baxter along with the above mentioned Noah Beery. The film was a full talkie that she directly produced through her own company; it was also her first solo directing job and the very first for which she recieved credit. She had just two more film roles in her career, in the 1933 and 1934, but she continued to write scripts well into the 1950's, even writing for television. In fact, it was a teleplay for "The Loretta Young Show" in 1958 (the 6th season episode Operation Snowball) that was her last career credit. She also worked prolifically as a dialog director. She retired and eventually wound up living at the Woodland Hills retirement home and hospital for motion picture and television workers in the 1970s. She passed away there on the 12th of October in 1977 at the age of 82.  She was interred with her husband at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale. 

[Source: Scott Michaels (Find a Grave)]

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Born Today March 12: House Peters Sr.

1880-1967

Lon Chaney Sr. was not the only actor to be known by a nickname that included "a thousand;" British born Robert House Peters (Sr.) was known to movie audiences in the 1920's as "The Star of a Thousand Emotions." Peters was born on this day in Bristol, England and made his way to the States via the live stage (after a stint in the military and mining in South Africa).  He made his film debut in the Famous Players 1913 production In the Bishop's Carriage, co-directed by former Edison men J. Searle Dawly and Edwin S. Porter; it was also an early Mary Pickford feature. His next major role came in The Port of Doom later in 1913; directed by Dawley, Peters appeared opposite Laura Sawyer whom he had previously acted in two small Dawley shorts. He remained under Dawley's direction until mid-1914, finally making a feature not directed by him in late 1914. Salomy Jane (November 1914) was Peters' first western and was co-directed by Lucius Henderson and William Nigh. It also marked his move to the California Motion Picture Company (which was distributed by World Film).  In the next year and a half, he appeared in Jesse L. Lasky Feature Plays productions. While there, he had lead roles in several films starring Blanche Sweet; several directed by Cecil B. DeMille. And, it was a DeMille directed film that made a star of Peters in 1915, and it too was a western. The Girl of the Golden West starred Mabel van Buren and Theodore Roberts, with Peters in the top supporting role; based on a popular David Belasco play, Peters garnered the most glowing reviews.   By 1916, he was a headliner; his face was famous enough to feature on film posters nationwide. Such was the case with The Hand of Peril (March 1916), a Maurice Tourneur directed crime drama. It also was in Tourneur films in which he headlined for his three film roles for Paragon studios in Fort Lee. He alternated between dramas/melodramas and the ever popular western for the rest of the 1910's. He started the new decade out with a turn in a criminal rehabilitation drama that was made under Maurice Tourneur's new production company; The Great Redeemer (October 1920) had a sparse cast and featured religious fantasy elements, but Peters was still the headliner. In the 1920's his roles were almost exclusively in dramas of various sorts, and he was nearly always that the very top of the bill. In 1926, he briefly returned to the western genre in The Combat, but retirement was right around the corner for him and it turned out to be his final silent western. Peter's made just two more silent films; one in 1926, and the final film of his regular career in 1928. Peters finished his career in the supporting role of Rose-Marie a drama of romantic competition starring the young up-and-coming, and ultimately tragic, James Murray and a an even younger ingenue by the name of Joan Crawford. His career had a sharp peak in the early 1920's and a sharp decline to supporting roles, this prompted his retiring after after Rose-Marie. Peters may have retired in 1928, but was persuaded, in part by his actor son House Peters Jr. (who was, by the way, the original "Mr. Clean") to make an appearance in the Gene Autry western The Old West in 1952; the film was ironically directed by George Archainbaud, who was a director who himself started his career in the teens. His last acting gig came in his only television appearance in the religious based series This is the Life in a 1961 episode 'Song in the Night' aired on the 23rd of April on ABC.  He lived in Los Angeles for the remainder of his life, passing away there on the 7th of December 1967 at the age of 87. His cremated remains are reportedly interred at Forest Lawn in Glendale.

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Born Today March 11: Dorothy Gish

 

1898-1968

 

Dorothy Gish--"the other Gish sister"--always "Lillian's little sister," was born on this day in Dayton, Ohio. She was her sister's junior by five years. Their mother is pretty well known in film history at this point for having made a success out of a candy business that she started after their father abandoned the family completely. Mary Gish, who had been a stage actress herself, made the bold decision to move her family all the way to East St. Louis to do this. Lillian is known to have helped sell concessions at the local theater that her mother produced. Dorothy is said to have made her stage debut there at the age of just four. Lillian's childhood life was much more unsettled due to her elder age than was Dorothy's, but it was also due to Lillian and her friendship with Gladys Marie Smith, better known as Mary Pickford, that she had an acting career in films at all.  She was pulled into her sister's acting world after Smith/Pickford recommended Lillian try out for Biograph and D.W. Griffith took notice. The pair made their film debut in the same film: An Unseen Enemy (now one of Griffith's most well known shorts). The pair play older and younger sisters, as they were in life.  That same year they appeared in one of their friend's films also directed by Griffith; So Near, Yet So Far starred Mary Pickford and the Gishes played her character's friends; again, precisely what they were in actual life.  Her first appearance in a film sans her sister Lillian was also in a Mary Pickford picture: The Informer (November 1912). Though she was directed at Biograph by Griffith protege's--especially Dell Henderson--it was principally Griffith who directed her at the beginning of her career. And it was Griffith who directed her in her first feature Judith of Bethulia in 1914, where she had a minor role compared to her sister. Griffith susequently had a very public "break up" with Biograph and moved to Mutual forming his own company Majestic (later changed to Fine Arts/Triangle Distribution) under it's umbrella. He took his "stable" of actors and directors with him and that included the Gish sisters. Not long after the move, they both had roles in the feature Home, Sweet Home co-written and directed by Griffith. Other than that, her career continued to be dominated by roles in short films until the middle of 1915. One of those shorts bears mentioning for a nearly tragic reason. In late November of 1914, she was out with her sister in Los Angeles, when she was struck and drug a good ways by a speeding car. The accident nearly killed her. She was in the middle of filming How Hazel Got Even, and her need for serious recuperation delayed the release of the short by months.  By mid-1915, she was well enough to resume acting and even began to have roles in 5 and 6 reelers. Her first foray into acting outside the confines of Griffith's direction came in the romantic 5-reeler Old Heidelberg (November 1915), where she took the female lead opposite Wallace Reid; the film was directed by John Emerson who was working at Triangle at the time.  She was next cast in the lead in Jordan Is A Hard Road, directed by Alan Dwan, who took a liking to her acting. He next cast her in Betty of Greystone, released in February of 1916; she was top of the bill and on all the promotional materials. She had arrived in her own right; no longer in the shadow of her older sister, she was also done with acting in two-reelers (she did appear in the rather famous "home movie" Camille in 1926, her only other short). The directors that she worked with during this time included Paul Powell, George Siegmann, Joseph Henabery, Edward Morrissey, and the Franklin brothers.  One of her more well known films from the period was Gretchen the Greenhorn (September 1916) directed by Chester and Sidney Franklin. In 1918 she again found herself under Griffith's direction, and starring with her sister, in his war epic Hearts of the World; though the Gish sisters were together again, it is generally agreed that between the two, Dorothy stole the show.  She was immediately cast in another World War I film The Hun Within, this time outside of Griffith's studio world, this film was distributed by Famous Players-Lasky and directed by Chester Withey.  Dorothy then became a hugely big star of comedies, having found her niche--she was a large box office draw; and though her 'comic career' began in earnest in 1918, she had previously acted in Little Meena's Romance (1916) and Her Official Fathers (1917).  She also became a favorite actor of director Elmer Clifton. An interesting stand out comedy film of hers during this time is Remodeling Her Husband, in which she was directed by her own sister in 1920.  This also marked her return to Griffith's New Art studio, where she continued to star in comedy features. In 1921 she also returned to acting beside her sister under Griffith's direction for his two and half hour long epic of the French Revolution Orphans of the Storm.  Further, in 1922, she started Dorothy Gish productions and actively started directly producing her own films. Her very first release was The Country Flapper (July 1922); it was, of course, a comedy.  It was also her company's only release.  She then took a break from comedy roles to appear in adventure and drama features for Inspiration Pictures, one of which--Romola--was with her sister Lillian.  She returned to comedy in 1925 and to director Alan Dwan, who was by then working for Paramount, the result was the romantic comedy Night Life of New York, shot entirely on location in the Big Apple. She never did appear in a film in the 1920's that had sound, she instead returned to the stage to hone speaking roles. Her last few films of the 1920's were British productions with the drama Madame Pompadour being the last; it was a released in July 1927.  Staying in the British film industry, her first entry into the world of talking pictures came in 1930 with Wolves, a crime drama starring Charles Laughton. Not finding this work to her liking, she would not appear in another film until 1944, and in that decade she only made two films; preferring the stage to the screen.  She did make her television debut at the end of the decade in The Story of Mary Surratt, an episode of The Philco Television Playhouse which aired on the 9th of February on NBC.   In 1951 she appeared with Walter Hampden Spring Again, a third season episode of The Ford Theater a New York based live drama series on CBS.  It was the first of four appearances on television that year. After the 1920's, Gish only appeared in five films and it was a film that was her final acting role before the camera. In 1963 she appeared in the top supporting role in Otto Preminger's The Cardinal. Gish had increasingly been in poorer and poorer health and in 1966 she went to a clinic in Genoa, Italy to treat a condition of hardening arteries (she probably had inherited the gene that has been discovered in even ancient populations that causes this in patients younger than 80 to develop the life threatening condition). In 1968 she developed bronchial pneumonia and when it looked dire, her sister (who was shooting a film in Rome) rushed to her bedside. Lillian was there when her sister passed, holding her hand, on the 4th of June. She was cremated and her remains were interred at Saint Bartholomew's Episcopal Church, along with the remains of her mother. Lillian joined them in 1993. There were many who actually considered Dorothy a superior actress to her sister. Among them was Linda Arvidson, silent movie star and first wife of D.W. Griffith.

 

[Source: Neil Funkhouser (Find a Grave)]

[Source: Sean McKim (Find a Grave)]

 

 

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Born Today March 10: Betty Amann

 

1905-1990

 

Actress Betty Amann, who was born American by citizenship, has been referred to as German-American actress was born Philippine Amann to American parents in Pirmasens, Germany on this day (some, several actually, sources cite her birth year variously as 1906 or 1907--her grave marker says 07).  She may have been born in Germany, but she was raised in the United States.  She would eventually return to Germany and have a film career there, but she started acting on the stage here in the U.S. in the 1920's using the stage name "Bee Amann;" additionally studying at New York's National Academy of Fine Arts. She made her screen debut in the Wesley Ruggles directed sports melodrama The Kick-Off in 1926 where she was credited as Bee Amann.  She then had tiny uncredited roles in a couple of Mack Sennett productions, before getting the lead in the Larry Semon comedy short A Simple Sap in 1928. She subsequently went back to those bit parts in the Sennett shorts; the most famous of which appears to be The Campus Vamp (1928) directed by Harry Edwards; famous mostly due to presence of a then little known Carole Lombard in the cast.   In 1929, she appeared in the FBO completely silent western Trail of the Horse Thieves, taking the female lead opposite Tom Tyler.  By this time she had decided that she had enough of the American film industry and left to appear in German films. She had two roles in German pictures in 1929, the most well known of which is Asphalt; written (as Fred Majo) and directed by Joe May, a Viennese born director.  Her capturing the female lead in the film was a good indication of what was to come for her on the European continent. Her last film of the decade was Convict of Stamboul; also directed by an Austrian--Gustav Ucicky--she and Heinrich George (of Metropolis fame) took the leads. Her first film with any sort of sound, also her first film of the 1930's, The White Devil was a partial silent (with limited dialogue) featuring a Caucasian/Caucus mountains drama story filmed in France, Switzerland and Russia.  She appears her with Lil Dagover and Russian ex-pat Ivan Mozzhukhin; the film was released at the end of January.  She was finally in a full sound film later in 1930 when she appeared in the comedy Oh Those Glorious Old Students; a film that used her likeness on some of it's promotional materials. She stayed in German cinema through 1933, and all indications are that she would have stayed there if it were not for coming of the National Socialists (Nazis). She left the country for the UK that year. She later returned to the United States and appeared in just three more films. Her first film upon return was a Hopalong Cassidy film In Old Mexico in 1938; the next year she appeared in Nancy Drew...Reporter.  Her last film appearance came in Isle of Forgotten Sins starring John Carradine in 1943. She thereafter retired and apparently lived most of the rest of her life on the east coast. She died, either on the 2nd or 3rd (again marker says 2nd) of August in 1990, from complications from Alzheimer's. She was cremated and her remains were buried at the Willowbrook Cemetery in Westport, Connecticut.

Source: Chuck Kearns (Find A Grave)]

 

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Born Today March 9: Astrid Holm

1893-1961

Danish dancer and actress--known mainly for her appearance in the cult silent horror "documentary" Häxan in 1922--was born on this date in Søro, Denmark. Her birth name was Astrid Vilhelmine Rasmussen and her father was a prominent hotelier.  Originally a ballet dancer who had studied at the Royal Danish Ballet, she turned to straight stage acting in 1910. Though she had some recognition in roles played in Copenhagen, her stage career was not a huge success. She was persuaded to try film acting in 1917 when she appeared in the lead role of the Kay Van der Aa Kühle drama Søstrene Morelli.  Her next important role came in a supporting part in the Holger-Madsen post war drama of struggle and survival: A Friend of the People (Folkets ven) in 1918. She also made an appearance Holger-Madsen's 1919 metaphoric melodrama Towards the Light. Holger-Madsen would not be the only silent Danish film master that she worked with during her silent career.  She also worked with Lau Lauritzen in Frøken Larsens Karriere in 1920, and Victor Sjösrtröm in 1921 in his masterpiece The Phantom Carriage  as Edit, her most prominent role to date. Of course, as mentioned above, she had role in Christensen's Häxan in 1922.  Her final silent film appearance came in the Carl Theodore Dreyer film Master of the House (also known in English as Thou Shalt Honour Thy Wife) in 1925, where she took the female lead of Ida opposite Johannes Meyer. She then left off film acting for nearly two decades, preferring instead to act on the stage; this time having much more success in the endeavor. She returned to film in 1942 with a supporting role in the Arne Weel family comedy Ta' briller på.  All of her subsequent films would be in family oriented story lines, save her last. In 1947, she had the supporting role in the noirish and vaguely menacing drama Mani. Holm was increasingly suffering from a number of ailment, which kept her pent up inside for long periods of time for the last decade of her life. She passed away at the age of 68 on the 29th of October in 1961 in Denmark. There is no information on her burial. Her surname Holm was her married name; she was married to ballet dancer Holger Holm, whom died in 1916. She never remarried. 

 

Still from The Phantom Carriage

 

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Born Today March 8: Ola (Olga) Alsen [International Women's Day]

 

 1880-1956

 

Olga Alsen, better known by Ola Alsen, was a German writer of novels and fashion journalism, who was also screenwriter as well. Alsen was born Henriette Alsberg on this day in Bonn, Germany.  Her father was a prominent Jewish businessman, who would later come under scrutiny of the National Socialists and persecuted by them in the early 1930's. By this time, his daughter was already famous in her own right. She was, in fact, one of Germany's most well known fashion journalists in the 1920's. Her novels largely were based on and dealt with social issues and women's issues. She also authored non-fiction books on fashion and it's history.  In addition to all of this, she also wrote a handful of screenplays in the 1920's. In the early to mid part of that decade, four films were made from her work, one of which was an adaptation that she made from her own novel.  The first of these was her adaptation of a Sardou story for the 1921 film Treibende Kraft.  That film starred Fern Andra (who was a pioneering American female performer, producer and writer, plus student of Max Reinhardt) in the lead role, who would be the co-writer of the next film that Alsen penned. Together they were responsible for Des Lebens und der Liebe Wellen, the film was produced Andra's own production company and released in December of 1921.  Her co-authored script for Monna Vanna (poster pictured below) was based on a strange combination of writings by Belgian writer Maurice Maeterlinck and Machiavelli; co-written with Helmuth Orthmann. Her last screenplay was the adaptation from her own novel; Luxusweibchen was another Orthmann co-authored screenplay and directed by Erich Schönfelder. It premiered in Berlin on the 20th of April in 1925. As mentioned above, her family was Jewish. They are known to have endured increasing harassment and persecution. Ola (Olga) was hastily baptized a Christian in 1933 to avoid further escalation of the persecution; one of her brothers committed suicide around the same time. Eventually, she fled the country. She first went to Great Britain, but when things began to escalate toward war, she fled again for the United States. Some sources have her dying in the U.S., this is not the case. She did return to Germany at the end of the second world war and restarted her career as a journalist, working both there in Munich, and Switzerland in Zurich for a time.  She died in Munich on the 4th of March in 1956. There is not information on a burial at this time.

 

 

 

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Born Today March 7: Madame Sul-Te-Wan (Nellie Crawford)

 

1873-1959

 

The ground breaking, but also some-what controversial black actress known professionally as Madame Sul-Te-Wan was born Nellie Crawford on this day in Louisville, Kentucky. She was the daughter of freed slaves, and was raised by a single mother who established her own business and herself as a laundress with skill.  The wealthier people (aka white) of the city sought out her mother Cleon for her services. When she was old enough, she employed her daughter for delivery. Eventually theatrical circles also used her mother's laundry business and Nellie got bitten hard by the acting bug delivering laundry to theaters. There she would stick around and watch rehearsals. When old enough, she sought out theatrical work herself and this lead her to Cincinnati. Joining a black theatrical company where she began using the stage name "Creole Nell." She would eventually found her own company, before setting her sights on film work. Somewhere along in this time frame she began going by the name under which she is credited in films: Madame Sul-Te-Wan.  Lillian Gish later commented that no one ever knew where the name originated from and that "no one was bold enough to ask." Also during this time, she married and had three sons, and got divorced--herself becoming a single mother. Two of her children would eventually follow her into acting, and, in fact, appeared in a few films with her.  While her film appearance in D.W. Griffith's A Birth of a Nation, is often listed as her film debut, she did in fact show up in at least one other film in 1915. She played a cook in the Kalem short The Cause of It All, directed by Chance Ward. (There are plenty of sources that state that she insisted she entered films in 1913, but as of this writing what those films are/were remains a mystery.)  But, it was her role in Griffith's "epic" The Birth Of A Nation that both stirred controversy (mostly much later on) and made history. The cast was for the films was HUGE for a start; and the uncredited cast, which included Sul-Te-Wan and the director himself, was at least twice as large as the credited cast. Of course, there were black actors in films before this, so what was the history making part?  Nellie Crawford, under her acting name, became the VERY FIRST black actor to have a contract for acting in a motion picture--an actual contract. It was for $25 dollars a day, that is nearly $650 dollars a day adjusting for monetary inflation!! It's breath taking and should be shouted from the rooftops; and, in fact, she was inducted into the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame in 1986 for that very thing. But, it took until 1986 for that induction to go forward in part due of her very controversial friendship with Griffith after ward. She had apparently written a letter to Griffith introducing herself when she learned that Griffith was shooting Kentucky--as he, himself, was a Kentuckian.  The letter has never been verified, but she did make it into Nation and he subsequently cast her in his apology Intolerance: Love's Struggle Through The Ages the following year (albeit in the uncredited portion of the cast, which, if anything, was even larger than Nation). Griffith later stated that he was struck by her elaborate dress (her outfits even off the set often included elaborate turbans and long ornate dresses). She thereafter kept in touch with him through the death, attending a memorial service for him in Hollywood when he died in 1948. It was her seeming "reverence" for the man that has caused wrangling back and forth since the 1960's; most people today (and for some time now) give her a pass on this, with--I think--good reason. As mentioned above, she was a single mother and a black woman acting in Hollywood. Beyond her roles in the two Griffith epics, she thereafter was able to get tiny roles in films with the Gish sisters (she is also listed as uncredited in the Mae Marsh film Hoodoo Ann from 1916, penned by Griffith as "Granville Warwick").  After 1917, she played a lot of maids (a lot!), the first of which was as "Esmerelda--Jane's Maid" in the 1918 Tarzan of the Apes starring Enid Markey as Jane and Elmo Lincoln (of course) as Tarzan.  Maid roles came in some films that were A-listed however, including: Old Wives for New (1918) and Why Change Your Wife? (1920)--both directed by Cecil B. De Mille.  She also had a role in the short comedy The Son of a Sheik in 1922, credited as "Madame Suterman;" I mention this only because it was co-directed by Al Christie who was a white producer who would have a production facility in the latter part of the decade that made black films for black audiences. She followed this up with another tiny role in a De Mille film Manslaughter in 1922. In 1924, she had her "Mammy moment" in the Harry Carey western The Lightning Rider; in 1925 she was cast as "Easter" in the Matt Moore comedy The Narrow Street, a Warner Brothers picture. That would be the end of her officially credited roles for the decade (actually, for most of the rest of her career).  Later in 1925, she found herself back in a tiny role in another De Mille film The Golden Bed; while in 1927 she had a similar role in a the Buster Keaton film College. In 1927, Universal produced it's especially long (nearly 2 and 1/2 hours) version of Uncle Tom's Cabin, a partial silent with actor James B. Lowe as Uncle Tom; Sul-Te-Wan though was relegated to a tiny role with no credit (the uncredited cast, again was a large one, and it inlcuded the likes of Rondo Hatton and Francis Ford--older brother of director John Ford).  She was just just two more films in 1929 and that was it for the decade. Her first film appearance in a full talkie was the 1929 King Vidor musical Hallelujah.  She had a handful of credited roles in throughout the rest of her career, but most of the rest of her forty odd roles were tiny stereotyped roles: maid, cook, servant, slave...and one additional "mammy" role in King of the Zombies in 1941. She did have one appearance on a television series. In 1955 she was in a named role in the series "Medic" a dramatic medical reenactment show, playing "Grandma Jonson" in "All My Mothers, All My Fathers" (1x22).  She literally worked right up until the time of her death, with her last film appearance coming out after her death. She was the "witch woman" in the made-for-television film Tarzan and the Trappers, a cut down pilot for a no-go series of the same name; it was aired in March of 1960. Nellie Crawford had passed away in 1959, having suffered a fatal stroke at the age of 85 on the 1st of February. She is interred at the Valhalla Memorial Park in North Hollywood. Her two sons that followed her in the profession were Onest Conley and Odel Conley (who died tragically young). 

 

[Source: AJM (Find a Grave)]

 

 

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