Born Today January 6: Fred Niblo

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. 

[photo: A.J. Find A Grave]

[photo: Scott G. Find A Grave]

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Born Today January 10: Francis X. Bushman

1883-1966

The man who could easily be named as America's first movie heartthrob, Francis Xavier Bushman was born today in Baltimore (though the Los Angeles Times cites Norfolk, VA).  Obviously athletic from an early age, he was the first actor to be "crowned" "The King of Movies." (Clark Gable famously "inherited" the title--problem was that Bushman was still very much alive and working at the time!).   Like so many actors of the early studios, he was a stage actor before entering the movie business; only in Bushman's case, he was performing with a stock company associated Gilbert Anderson (better known as "Broncho Billy"), one of the founders of Essanay studio (which is remembered mostly today for the Chaplin films they produced--the studio was later incorporated into Warner Bros.).  Bushman had long been into body building (he was a fan of Sandow the famous body builder of the late 19th century and an Edison film subject in the 1890's) and had worked as an artist's model in New York before making his way onto the stage.  He was the perfect physique for putting into romantic films (though reportedly his height was occasionally a problem--but I can't imagine that was an issue often).  [There are several stories as to how he came to the attention of Essanay in the first place, which ones to believe is a hard guess.] He made his film debut in 1911 in the Essanay marriage drama His Friend's Wife opposite Lottie Briscoe.  He was an instant success and the studio put him dozens of domestic shorts between 1911 and 1916, many of these opposite actress Beverly Bayne.  Bushman became a bonafide movie idol coast to coast, earning him the above nickname, and also "King of the Photoplay" (it should be noted that the film industry had only just begun to name their film players, thus Bushman very much deserved the monikers!).  One aspect of their star's life that was kept as a closely guarded secret after his rise to such popularity with female moviegoers, was that he was married...and with kids to boot!  Bushman quietly began to "carry on" with his leading lady Bayne and the two even moved studios together--landing at a company that had a distribution deal with Metro (one of the M's of the later MGM).  In 1916 they showed up in Quality Pictures Man And His Soul, in which he played two characters.   While at the company, he also directed two films: In The Diplomatic Service (for which he is credited as scenarist as well) and Romeo and Juliet (which he co-directed).  Both films starred him and Bayne and both were released in 1916.  The pair worked for Metro through 1918 (with one picture filmed in 1917, released after they left in 1919: God's Outlaw).  When Bushman and Bayne wanted to marry, it came out that he was already a married man, and that he had 5 children.  This, and a contract dispute, led to trouble in Hollywood (which he would recover from); but the national print scandal caused by the divorce and remarriage led to trouble with female fans (for which he would not, nor would he regain the "Handsomest Man in the World"....um er...bachelor status).  Not that this stopped his film acting; quite the contrary, he would go onto some of his best known work in the 1920's.  Though he would not return to "bankable" work until 1925 when he appeared in Christy Cabanne's The Masked Bride (reportedly Joseph von Sternberg had a hand in secondary direction on the film), he and Bayne would appear in a couple of marriage dramas in the early 20's.  He had amassed a large fortune which allowed him to live in style and had a number of odd habits that stood out.  He drove around Hollywood in large odd colored and makes of cars and always had great danes with him (he also kept a VERY large number of them on his ranch).  What he is best remembered for in terms of his print on Hollywood's physical presence, is the gifting (well, leasing) of land to Sid Grauman for his Chinese theater, which survives to this day (now known as Mann's).  The role that he is most famous for in terms of silent film came in the form of a villain in the massive epic project that was Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ in 1925 (ironically, the man that would take his title of "King of the Movie," Clark Gable had a role simply as "Roman Guard").  Bushman performed his own chariot stunts in the film, which became a big part of Hollywood lore--even by the time the film was remade with Charlton Heston, his work was still the stuff of legend (and somehow the helmet that he wore wound up in the collection of Debbie Reynolds...).  It seemed that his career had been revitalized by the film, and he did appear several more films in the 1920's--all of them silent (in one short he played George Washington), but his career was on clearly on the wane.  The last silent film he appeared in was the 1928 crime drama Midnight Life (made for Gotham productions) .  He wouldn't appear in another film until 1930 when talkies had come and would never go.  The picture was Call of the Circus and was his first speaking role in a film.  In the meantime he had lost most of his fortune in the infamous stock market crash in 1929.  For some odd reason, the film studios also regarded his voice as suspect for talkies, which is so strange in retrospect, given that he went into radio and was very successful there for years.  He did have small roles in a handful of films in the next two decades.  He would also go on to have a fairly lengthy television career in guest spots on a variety of different types of shows.  He made his small screen debut in 1954 in a episode of The Pepsi-Cola Playhouse on ABC.  Thourhgout the rest of his career, he appeared in episodes of The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, 77 Sunset Strip, Perry Mason, 12 To The Moon, and Dr. Kildare.  He was also in a couple of funky films in the 1960's (The Phantom Planet (1961) & The Ghost n The Invisible Bikini (1966)).  He famously played Mr. Van Jones in a Riddler two part episode of Batman in 1966 (playing with Neil Hamilton, whom he had appeared in a film with almost forty years earlier).  This is often cited as his last acting job, but the Batman appearances were broadcast in April 1966, but his appearance in The Terrible Toys episode of Irwin Allen's series Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, which aired in October of that year, came almost two months after Bushman's death.  He died of a heart attack on 23rd of August.  He is interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale with "King Of The Movies" embossed on his tomb. 

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Born Today April 10: Lew Wallace

1826-1905

American military man, civil servant, politician and writer Lewis "Lew" Wallace was born on this date in Brookville, Indiana.  His father was an former military man and influential lawyer, who would become Governor of Indiana.  When his father was elected, the family moved to Indianapolis, where the younger Wallace and his many siblings grew up.  Wallace was pretty much a "do everything" sort of man.  He followed in the footsteps of his father in regard to the law and the military, rising to the rank of General. He served in both the Mexican-American war and in the Civil War as a Union officer.  He even did a brief stint in the Mexican army after resigning his military commission in the U.S.  After military service, he was appointed governor of the then New Mexican territories, and he later served the country in the capacity of an ambassador.  So why is general and a civil servant on a silent film blog?  Because, in addition to all of the above, Wallace was also a writer.  In his autobiography, he stated that he started writing as diversion from studying the law, which he found tedious.  While a couple of films in the silent era were made from so-called "lesser novels," all of the rest of the films made from his work come from just one novel, and it's famous one.  Ben-Hur was first published in 1880.  Fans of silent film will at once think of the epic film Ben-Hur: A Tale Of The Christ of 1925, however the book was first filmed in 1907.  Ben Hur (1907) was a 15 minute short produced by Kalem in New York  (the film astoundingly has survived).  A Prince of India, which was shot in Ithaca, New York, came out in 1914; and the Italians took on his work in 1917 with Cuori e sensi.  Everyone who knows anything about major Hollywood blockbusters is very well familiar with the first sound production of his famous work:  Ben-Hur starring Charlton Heston came out in 1959.  The book as since been filmed 4 more times, with two theme being animated.  The most recent of these came with the 2016 remake Ben-Hur.  Ben-Hur has been called the most important and influential Christian book of the nineteenth century.  Wallace continued to write up to the time of his death, which came on the 15th of February in 1905 at the age of 77 in Crawfordsville, Indiana, where he had retired.  He is buried there with pomp and circumstance in Oak Hill Cemetery.

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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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Born Today February 1: Clark Gable

1901-1960

Born William Clark Gable in Cadiz, Ohio into an oil family; his father William Henry Gable was an oil driller.  Though he was named after his father, who went by the nickname "Will;" little William was always known by his middle name from early on in life.  At just 10 months, he lost his mother to what people now speculate was a brain tumor.  His father remarried in 1903; it would be his step-mother who introduced to the first performances, teaching him to play the piano.  He then took up brass instruments.  By 13 his was the only boy (meaning minor), in the local men's town band.  He also, reportedly, had a love of language and memorized Shakespeare sonnets, which he could recite in an impassioned tone.  By 1917, his father had hit financial hard times and decided to go into farming, moving the family to Ravenna, Ohio (which is near Akron), after settling his debts.  His father insisted that Clark work on the farm; but he soon, reportedly, left to work at tire factory in Akron itself.  Apparently, while there, he attended a performance of the play The Bird of Paradise, which inspired him to become an actor. Though he had to wait until the age of 21, when he inherited some family money, to embark on that venture.  He began touring with a theater company, which eventually landed him in Seaside, Oregon--eventually leading to various jobs in and around Portland to make ends meet.  While there, he met stage actress Laura Hope Crews, who had already made her film debut (she would later play Aunt Pittypat in Gone With The Wind).  She is responsible for his return to the stage, landing him in another theater company.  During this time, he met the manager of the Little Theater, Josephine Dillion.  She became his acting coach & patron, and later his first wife.  He was 17 when he met her, and she was 17 years his senior.  Not only did she successfully coach him all aspects of acting, she also paid to have his teeth  fixed and put onto a path of beefing up his undernourished, lanky body. After quite a long period of time, she decided that he was ready to present to the motion picture industry.  She moved to Los Angeles in 1924; he followed her a short time later.  He had been acting under the name "W. C. Gable," but she convinced him to agree to be presented by his childhood name, figuring that it had a much more appealing ring to it.  Clark's film debut actually came the year before this, in the sports serial Fighting Blood; which also saw the film debut of June Marlowe.  Both were in only very minor roles.  The film was produced by the Robertson-Cole Pictures Corporation.  His first credited role came in White Man in 1924; this is widely cited as his film debut--it wasn't.  From here on, he found steady work in films, but only in bit and/or uncredited parts; some which came in very famous films, up through 1926.  During this period of time, he was in Eric von Strohiem's  The Merry Widow (1925), Ben-Hur: A Tale Of Christ (1925), and Johnston's Flood (1926), which saw not only himself in an uncredited role, but also Gary Cooper, and, more importantly, Carole Lombard.  Frustrated with not getting bigger roles and more name recognition, he quit film acting in 1926 to return to the stage; he wouldn't return again until 1930.  This last silent film that he was in was One Minute to Play, where is was merely an extra.  It was during the late 1920's that he first met Lionel Barrymore, who despite being very unimpressed with Gable's stage acting ability, went on to encourage him to hone his stage craft--Barrymore went on to be a life-long friend.  During this time, Gable acted live in Houston at the Laskin Brothers Stock Company, where he became a local matinee idol.  From here, he moved on to New York, seeking work, with Dillion, on Broadway.  He did find some work, and at least one of his performances was written up favorably (if a little "Woody Allensy") in the press.  But the emergence of talking cinema, and the beginning of the Great Depression, caused the cancellation of many plays on Broadway.  Back to Los Angeles Gable went, finding work on the stage there for the first time.  After staring in successful production of The Last Mile, he was offered at contract at MGM.  The rest is basically well known cinema history.  Of course, the role that stands, like a giant, is his Rhett Butler in Gone With The Wind (1939)!  Before this, he had stood out in the goofy Frank Capra re-marriage comedy in 1934 It Happened One Night, in which he starred opposite Claudette Colbert; this earned him the Oscar for Best Actor in a Lead Role.  He would also go on to marry Carole Lombard in 1939, his third marriage--having married a socialite between Dillion and Lombard.  Lombard famously died in a plane crash at the beginning of World War II on her way home from selling war bonds--killing all 22 on board, including her, her mother, and 15 active service members.  Gable received personal condolences from President Roosevelt himself--who declared Lombard a casualty of war.  Everyone who knew him, said he was never the same after this.  He actually joined the U.S. Army Air Force (now just the Air Force), and managed--though MGM tried at every step to turn this into a stunt--( even going so far as to have one of their own enlist with Gable); he did persevere, and wound up in England in 1943 with the 351st Bomb Group, at the rank of Lieutenant.  He flew 5 combat missions, including one into Germany.  That sortie, left one crew member dead, two other seriously wounded--and Gable himself, narrowly missed being killed as well. This earned him the Air Medal and Distinguished Flying Cross.  MGM, finding out about this, began to pester the U.S. armed forces to reassign him to a less dangerous post.  Gable was allowed leave to return to the U.S. that same year, to finish a film.  In 1944 he was promoted to Major, and was eager to return combat.  However, after the invasion of Normandy, he was relieved of active duty.  His discharge papers were signed by one Captain Ronald Reagan.  He resigned his commission in 1947, one week after the Air Force became an independent branch of the U.S. military.  [As aside note:  apparently Gable was Adolf Hitler's favorite American actor.  After hearing that Gable was on active combat duty in Europe, he reportedly offered a sizable reward for anyone who could capture him and bring him to Berlin unscathed.]  By the end of the war, he had won a great many medals and commendations.  After the WWII, he lived another 15 years, having numerous affairs, two more marriages; and basic dissatisfaction with the roles he was playing, despite that he was the highest paid actor at MGM, probably all of Hollywood, at the time.  On November 6, 1960, Gable suffered a major heart attack.  He died 10 days later on the 16th, from an arterial blood clot at Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center in Los Angeles; leaving behind a pregnant young wife.  His son, one of two that he had, John Clark Gable, was born in the same hospital where his father died some four months after Gable's death.  Clark is interred next to his third wife, Carole Lombard Gable in the Great Mausoleum at Forest Lawn in Glendale, CA.  Many people blamed the over taxing situation on this last movie set for The Misfits, released in 1961, for his untimely death at the age of 59.

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