1874-1948
Actor/Performer turned Director Fred Niblo, was born Frederick Liedtke on this day in York, Nebraska (sources that cite his birth name as Frederico Nobile are not correct). His early career in live theater and vaudeville gave little clue to the importance he would later have on silent cinema. He took on the name Fred Niblo very early on as a stage name; and he spent 20 years performing around the globe as a monologist using this name (this is a person that gives dramatic readings in a live solo setting--if anyone has ever watched the fourth season of American Horror Story: Freaks, then you are familiar with the concept). During this period of time he married the sister of "Broadway man" before he became a fixture on Broadway George M. Cohan. This occasioned Niblo becoming the manager of the family stage act the Four Cohans. It would be another 15 years until he would actively get into motion pictures (his first credit actually comes as a writer in 1913 for the short The Gangsters , a film starring Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle). His active entry into films proper actually occurred in Australia, rather than in his native U.S.; and it was in Australia that he made his first two films. He started out as a "do it all man." He wrote, directed and starred in both films. The first of these was the comedic drama Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford, which was released in January of 1916. The second of these films, also released in 1916, was the comedy Officer 666. His first film appearance in a film which he didn't direct came in 1918 Coals Of Fire, a Famous Players-Lasky production directed by Victor Schertzinger. It was also in Australia, that Niblo was hired by domestic film producers Thomas H. Ince Corp.; and the first film that he made for them was also shot in Australia: The Marriage Ring was released in August 1918; it was also the first film that he directed in which he did not himself act. Niblo would eventually make his way back to the states, landing back in his old haunt of New York City. He would continue to make films for Ince there, sometimes using the city as a prop for a few on-location shoots. He is also responsible for the rare "horror" film made for Ince; in 1919 he directed Enid Bennett (whom he had met and married in Australia after the tragic early death of his first wife Josephine Cohan) in The Haunted Bedroom. Many of Niblo's later 1910's and early 1920's films starred his second wife Enid. The first film that enthusiasts usually remember when his name as a director comes up is the 1920 Douglas Fairbanks outing The Mark of Zorro. This film marks a turn to refinement in his directing style. He made fewer films during a year's time--spending instead more time in the crafting of his films. He would eventually get into the production side of the business as well. His first project in that regard came on perhaps his most famous film of them all: Blood and Sand in 1922. While Blood and Sand is a fine film--very, very well crafted--the fact that it stars Rudolph Valentino probably accounts for it's extreme fame beyond your average silent film buff (Niblo would direct that other Latin Lover Ramon Novarro in 1924 as "the lover" in a Bess Meredyth adaptation of Thy Name Is Woman & also in The Red Lily in 1924). After Blood and Sand, Niblo moved over to Louis B. Mayer company; with the melodrama The Famous Mrs. Fair (1923) representing the first title he directed for them. The truly giant job of his career was as the director whose name appeared in the credits of one of the most expensive films shot to the date--it remains, adjusted for inflation, one of the most expensive in film history: the epic Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ in 1925. Famously shot on location in Italy, the film actually had a bank of directors, who all had assistant directors under them; a couple of them, such as Rex Ingram were actually famous in their own right. It must have seemed in MGM's best interest to have just one director listed on posters (and I personally wonder about Irving Thalberg's possible influence here...but that is just my own speculation), but such a large project with multiple shoots going on in different locations simultaneously, could not have be pulled off at that time by just one person (or really anyone now either for that matter). Luckily history has provided us with the names of the other uncredited directors; not to say that this in any way diminishes Niblo's directorial accomplishment on the project. The film is an amazing work of art, and all concerned provided their best work. What is interesting to me, is that Niblo was a really good director, but of more "intimate" pictures; Ben-Hur was certainly a rather large departure for him and his directing style to date. And, this was a style that he returned to the following year in the romantic drama The Temptress which stars the great Greta Garbo (he direct her again in 1928 in The Mysterious Lady). The same can be said for his direction Norma Talmadge in Camille, which also dates from 1926. The last film that he directed in the 1920's, and his last fully silent film, was Dream Of Love released in December of 1928; the film starred Joan Crawford. Niblo didn't make another film until 1930, when he helmed (apparently with some "help" from Lionel Barrymore) the John Gilbert film Redemption, which was a partial silent and by this new decade of "all talkies," a rather strange artifact for a new release. His first all talking film also dates from 1930; ironically it was both a "b film" and a western--two types of films that he was not accustomed to working on. The film was Way Out West and starred William Haines. He only directed four more films after this, the last of which was Blame The Woman, which was a co-direction with Maurice Elvey. He then retired from the industry. In all his time as a director, virtually no actor had a bad word to say about him. He was apparently very respectful of and patient with them. He lived another 16 years, dying in New Orleans on the 11 of November in 1948 at the age of 74 after contracting pneumonia. He is interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale along with the ashes of his second wife. Niblo only child with his first wife was Fred Niblo Jr.; he became an important writer of screenplays, mostly in the 1930's and 1940's.
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| [photo: A.J. Find A Grave] |
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| [photo: Scott G. Find A Grave] |
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