The Early Macbre With Nudity

Born Today October 12: Josephine Hutchinson

1903-1994

Born in Seattle Washington, her mother Leona Roberts must have had ambitions for her daughter in the form of acting.  Apparently, Leona had some sort of connections in the theater/movie world and it is said that it was she that got Josephine her very first film role, and the only one in the silent era.  That came in a 1917 Mary Pickford film The Little Princess.  Josephine went on to study The Cornish School of Music and Drama in her home town, and later moved to New York City to begin acting on the stage.  She never had another silent era film appearance.  Her next film came in the 1934 Happiness Ahead in which she had a starring role.  There is one thing of that I can not pass up mentioning, and that is that her mother followed her into acting, not the other way around.  Apparently she had talent, but not to the extent of her daughter.  Leona Roberts' (credited by her maiden name) is best remembered for her role as the gossip in Gone With The Wind  (1939).  Josephine, herself,  went on to have an extensive career in both film and television, including a part in Hitchcock's North By Northwest (1959) and guest staring on tons of television programs starting in the mid-1950's.  For Countdown to Halloweeners out there, she was in a rather iconic episode of the original The Twilight Zone,--"I Sing The Body Electric," assaying the role of "Grandma Robot."  More importantly, she took the role of Elsa von Frankenstein in Son Of Frankenstein (1939)--same year as Gone With The Wind....

As Elsa von Frankenstein (1939)

Hutchinson passed away in a New York City nursing home 4 June 1998 at the age of 94.  Her last acting appearance having come in 1974 on an episode of Little House On The Prairie.  She was cremated and her ashes were scattered, at her request, in Oregon.

 

IMDb 

 

Find A Grave entry 

As "Grandma Robot" (1962)

Born Today October 11: Lowell Sherman

1885 or 1888-1934

Born Lowell J. Sherman in San Francisco to theater parents, most probably in the year 1885 (but many sources list 1888 as the year of his birth); his father was a theatrical agent, while his mother acted on the stage.  Like so many children born into theatrical families, he began his stage career young on touring companies.  As an adult, around 1904, he starting acting on Broadway in several productions; one of which, A Girl of the Golden West, was a huge hit in 1905.  His first appearance in film came in 1914 in the full feature length Behind The Scenes.  In the 1910's he was frequently cast as light cads and playboys; this all changed when, in 1920, D. W. Griffith cast him as an out and out bad guy, a predatory (possible statutory rapist) in Way Down East.  He went on to have a very prolific acting career throughout the 1920's, both on and off screen. Though he was a very good actor and much sought out, was always very reliable, he found acting not so fulfilling.  He is quoted as saying later on in his life: "Nothing becomes so monotonous as acting on the stage, especially if you are successful...working in the movies seemed even duller."  He then went on to become one of the very first silent era actors to make a very successful transition into directing films.  His directorial debut came in a very early talky in 1928 entitled Phipps.  He did continue to act in films until 1932, but from 1928 until 1935 he had 15 directorial credits, some of which he directed himself in.  If his last credit seems odd, a full year after his death, that is because he was in the early stages of directing Becky Sharp, when he unexpectedly died of double pneumonia in 1934 and the project was taken over by Rouben Mamoulian.  He was either 49 or 46 (probably 49) when he passed.  He is interred, like so many others Forest Lawn Memorial Park, including Mamoulian himself.  Sherman in entombed the memorial mausoleum section of the cemetery, like Carole Lombard and Clark Gable, but not near them.  He is, however, very near American film music composer Ralph Rainger.  IMDb.

Born Today October 10: Giuseppe Verdi

1813-1901

Please See:  Wikipedia

Sometimes, life just gets in the way.  Things come up.  I will say that as a famous composer--very famous--he is also credited The Last Days Of Pompeii (1913), just like our famous music man of yesterday.  It should be noted however though, I did not have the time to research if this credit was original or not.  Sometimes, silent films go through periods of time when famous classical works are used as soundtracks when they are in a state of "let's just put this out cheaply" by companies because of public domain allowances.  I can think of a one print of Metropolis (1927) where this was painfully the case (more on that at another time).  He is entombed at the Cimitero Monumentale de Milano in Italy.

For Halloween Countdowners, here's a film viewed on "Vincent Price Day" in our household celebration to the countdown to the Great Pumpkin--posted over on my live blog Scare Me where his music is featured:

Featuring an all star cast of boogeymen!

See Also:

IMDb

Silent Wierdness: The Ghost Train (1903)

Silent Wierdness: The Ghost Train (1903): This is a "real life trick photo film" that was produced by the  American Mutoscope & Biograph Co. , the filmmakers working ...

I am reblogging this because it's just one of my favorite early "trick films."  Many members of my family worked for railroad companies in the early part of the 20th century on into the the 1960's.  Besides, it's an extremely early form of reverse negatives in motion pictures.  

Not So Silence Wierdness: Silent Cinema In The Modern Age

From The Abominable Dr. Phibes. 

Related To Vamps

This is actually a cigarettes case with the image of the most famous vamp of all time.  I don't smoke, but I would love to have one these.  My grandfather, who smoked himself into the grave would have loved it!  He was the biggest influence on me when it came to to silent film.  He was born in 1897 (he was a lot older to my grandmother!), it was he who introduced me to silent film as a very little girl.   He was also a professional photographer and artist.  This is just the sort of thing that I would have loved to give him on his birthday as a kid.  Since this is participation in the Countdown To Halloween post, I will share that his favorite Halloween costume was dressing up as Groucho Marx.

[Source:  I've tried to trace the the source of the photo and case and cannot locate a thing.]

Born Today October 5: John Alton

1901-1996

Born Johann Jacob Altmann in Sopron in what was then Austria-Hungary, the town in actually located in Hungary.  His father Sam had actually immigrated to the United States in the 1880's and had changed his last name to Alton, but returned to Hungary and changed his name back to Altmann.  Johann himself came to the US in 1919 to live with a wealthy uncle in New York, so he could attend college.  He got into the motion picture industry by being grabbed off the street as he was passing by Heart's Cosmopolitan Studio's on 2nd Avenue. A gateman approached him and proclaimed "you are just the man we are looking for."  He was then made a dress extra and appeared next to Marion Davies and paid $12.50 for the part (no one seems to know which film this was).  This gave him an instant film bug and he promptly ended his involvement with academics.

He most likely moved to Hollywood in 1923.  What is known is that by 1924 he landed a job at MGM as lab technician.  He was a work your way up through the ranks kind of man.  When Paramount offered him a job as cameraman, he jumped at it.  This is when his only silent era credit comes, with going to France with Ernst Lubitsch to film backgrounds for Lubitsch's The Student Prince In Old Heidelberg (1927).  It is around this time he claimed to discover Maurice Chevalier.  In 1932 in left for Argentina, where amongst shooting Spanish language films there, he also designed the that countries first sound studio.  He  returned to the US in the late 1930's and worked as a cinematographer in B-Noir movies.   He then went one to be most sought out cinematographers  in the business.  In 1951 he won an Academy Award for his shooting of the ballet sequence in An American In Paris, the first Hungarian born person to do so.  He also penned a book about the shooting of films in 1949, one of the first cinematographer's to do so.  He also served for the US in World War II.

He passed away on the 2nd of June 1996 at the age of 96.  Details of his burial are unknown

My, My Theda!

Born Today October 4: Buster Keaton

1895-1966

Born Joseph Frank Keaton in Piqua, Kansas into a vaudevillian family, so like Mickey Rooney, he was basically an actor from birth, though his parents, unlike Rooney's, waited until he was three years of age to put him on the stage.  He is said to have been given the nickname "Buster" accidentally by Harry Houdini (though his age changes from source to source to anywhere between 6 months to 18 months of age, with 3 years being cited at the oldest age in other sources); when he took a tumble large down a flight of stairs, when he sat up unharmed, Houdini reportedly said "he's a real buster."  Another version cites (this with Joseph at the age of 3) that Houdini him picked up and remarked to his father Joe Keaton, "that was a real buster."  The story may not be true, or some elements of may not.  However, Joseph/Buster's father Joe did have a traveling show with Harry Houdini called "The Mohawk Indian Medicine Show," so it's probable that that at least some or all of it is true. It was his father who liked it as a name, and why not?  His son--that is Buster-- was actually Joseph Keaton the 6th!  Keaton himself said that this story was true, but he was, after all a serious trickster!  Links below can detail some of the elements of his vaudevillian upbringing, including issues with schooling, etc.

A six year old Buster in stage act with his parents.

For someone so well remembered as a silent film star and innovator of techniques and gags in films that were not based on film trickery (editing, etc.) his father Joe was well known to have disapproved of the film medium altogether, and Buster obviously had reservations about it as well.  This was proven when he met Roscoe Arbuckle (you know Fatty) in 1917 at the Talmadge Studios in New York City, suspicious of the medium he actually asked borrow a camera (no small request at the time) to take a camera to his hotel room.  Once there, he actually dismantled it and reassembled it and returned it to Talmadge intact and agreed to embark on film work.  His first film appearance came later that year with the release of The Butcher Boy appearing along side Arbuckle.  From there on out his notoriety rose amongst filmmakers, and thus this lead to career in the silent era that truly legendary.  Can't say much more about such a giant of the silent era is just one post.  I will note that he was a defender of Arbuckle in regards to the death of Virginia Rappe (a case for an entirely other post or posts!)

From The Cameraman (1928) 

A joke film about his having actually destroyed the camera he borrowed in 1917

Just as a note:  the man famous with a nickname in the first place had at least two other nicknames (nicknames for a nickname?): Malec, and the most famous, and my personal favorite, The Great Stone Face (is that ever true, just google image him!).  He claimed that he used the stone face, because in vaudeville as a child he was basically what we would refer to as a "stunt man" today.  He was having so much fun he couldn't stop smiling and giggling, so developed deadpan type look (who knows if this was direction from his parents) When his film career was taking off, he said further developed it. He was known for not wanting to be photographed smiling.  People who worked with him said he often laughed and smiled. 

From The General, a genuine stunt he directed himself.  

One thing is absolutely sure, he really isn't given the credit that he deserves as a truly original stunt man. That's a another post for sure!   I should also not that he served in WWI, losing part of his hearing as a result.He passed away from lung cancer on 1 February 1966.  He is buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Hollywood Hills.

For More:

Wikipedia

For silent info IMDb (he has only five credits here for stunts)

Silent Wierdness: The Haunted House (1908)

Silent Wierdness: The Haunted House (1908): If this looks like a Meliésé film...it's not.  It is a film by early Spanish "trick" film maker  Segundo de Chomon , who, th...


Several Countdowns from years back I embedded some early horror films, I figured it would be easier to just reblog them here rather than create a whole new embed post.

Born Today October 3: Warner Oland

1879-1938

Born Johan Verner Öhlund in Nyby, Sweden (a tiny little place at the time), his family immigrated to the U.S. in 1892.  After finishing school, he went straight to Broadway, where he worked through most of his 20's. He relocated to California in the early 1910's. It was at this time that he took the stage name Warner Oland, although he was affectionately known by his nickname "Jack," which no doubt derived from his birth name of Johan. He first worked on the stage there, while making attempts to break into the film industry, which he finally did in 1912 a two part, two reel film entitled Pilgrim's Progress.  From there on out he went on to have an extremely successful career in Hollywood films.  In the case of actors who are not specialist on the stage, such as he was, he was able to make the transition to silent film and back again to speaking parts when talkies came along.  He had a major role in the legendary early talkie The Jazz Singer in 1927.  He became somewhat of a specialist in "yellow face" (similar term to the more well known "black face," but in this case it means playing Asian--this took much longer to be frowned on in Hollywood and still a sore topic of debate and conversation today) due to turn as Fu Manchu.  As a result of this he landed the role of Charlie Chan in 1931, a character that had formerly been played by actual Asian actors.  This lead to a slew Chan movies that proved financially lucrative for Fox; unfortunately for them this came to an abrupt end. He lived in Southborough, Ma. as his primary residence for many years with his wife Edith in a very old well preserved farmhouse there, despite his Hollywood career.  He and his wife became involved in a bitter divorce after 30 years of marriage based on finances (filed by her) in 1937-1938, with a settlement finally coming favoring his wife on the day he set sail for Europe (she had, apparently, endured years of serious alcohol and some undisclosed "mental problems" on his behalf--the nature of which Fox kept under serious wraps due the the Chan character).  What is known is that he intended to return to his mother's home in Sweden; some sort of reconciliation deal was made with Edith (she must have genuinely cared for him) and then he contracted a very serious case bronchial pneumonia, and was transported to a hospital Stockholm, it was discovered by Swedish doctors that he was also suffering from emphysema, but who knows for how long.  He passed away on 6 August 1938 at the age of 57.  His wife had his remains cremated and transported back the Massachusetts for burial in the Southborough Rural Cemetery.  He seems to have been a extremely talented and rather tragic figure.  For his Chan roles, he is said to have took time to time to learn "Chinese." (that may or may not be true). If even half the stories of what he is reported to have said or done are true, it seems he suffered from some sort of schizophrenia.  On one occasion close to his departure from the US, he walked off a set and didn't return, he was apparently over-heard telling a studio executive that the set was possessed by voodoo, and he feared that he would get pneumonia.  Ironic in a way, since that is what he ultimately died of; but it was probably the on-set of the emphysema that was really troubling him (I'm not even going to get into the miniature schnauzers!).  He is buried in the Southborough Rural Cemetery in Southborough, MA.  Since this is the Countdown To Halloween it is worth noting that in the silent era he starred opposite the great Vamp herself Theda Bara in the 1915 Sin, and also appeared in "yellow-face" in the 1935 Werewolf Of London.  Let's hope he has found peace. 

With Theda

Name The Actor

Guess Who This Is?

Welcome To The Countdown To Halloween--Silent Style