Born Today April 11: Claude Tillier

1801-1844

French writer Claude Tillier was born on this date in Clamecy, Névre, France.  He was a prominent pamphleteer who also penned novels.  He was born to a locksmith, but was able to attend formal studies at the Lycee de Bourges thanks to a grant given to him by his hometown.  He graduated in 1820 and continued on to study at the college of Soissons, and later in Paris.  He was a keen student of rhetoric, and after his education, became a translator of Greek and Latin.  He spent a brief period in the French army and returned to his hometown upon his release.  There he became a teacher.  Not satisfied with the curriculum given to him to teach, he quit and founded his own private school.  At the same time he also started his own newspaper.  The last job that he held in life was that of a editor of a democratic newspaper in Nevers.  Five films have been made from his most famous novel Mon oncle Benjamin. One of them in 1924.  My Uncle Benjamin was a French production of the Pathe' Consortium Cinéma.  It is the only film made from his book during the silent era. The first sound era production of the book came in the French television series Le théâtre de la jeunesse in 1963.  The most recent film produced from this work was released in 1973, Mein Onkel Benjamin is a German made for television film.  While he was in military service he contracted tuberculosis, and it would be that disease that would cut his life short at the age of 43, when he died in his hometown on the 12th of October.  He is buried in the Jean-Gautherin Cemetery.

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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 April 9 (Not So Silent Edition): Ward Bond

1903-1960

American character actor Ward Bond, birth name Wardell Edwin Bond--was born on this day in Benkelman, Nebraska.  His family later moved to Denver, Co. (this move has lead to some confusion as to when and where he was actually born, but the information above has been corroborated as correct).   Bond grew up in Benkelman; the move to Colorado came in the year 1919, where Ward attended and graduated high school.  He then attended the University of Southern California, where he played football; one Marion Michael Morrison (AKA John Wayne) was also on the team.  Bond would never appear in a fully silent film, and he is often credited with making his movie acting debut in 1929.  However, somewhere along the way, he had gotten into acting as an extra in a couple of Hollywood's biggest films of the late 1920's.  This was probably as a result of his friendship with Wayne, who had been acting in films since 1926.  The first of these was Noah's Ark, a Darryl F. Zanuck written, Michael Curtiz directed multiple time line epic that was an early talkie (sound by Western Electric Apparatus).  He next had a bit part in the 1929 Words And Music, which had both a mono and a silent edition.  His first credited role also came in 1929 with Salute, a film at least partially directed by John Ford.  In fact, the entire  U. of So. Cal. football team was hired for this film--as the film culminates with an Army/Navy football game.  It would be, though the Wayne/Bond/Ford trio who would go on to have serious careers in Hollywood and the three would remain life-long friends.  Having caught the acting bug with these early experiences, he would go on to be one the best character actors of Hollywood's golden age--making a career out of playing hard boiled types, despite the genre.  Though he had roles in earlier blockbusters, such as Gone With The Wind and Sergeant York, he is probably best remembered for his role in the Christmas classic It's A Wonderful Life.  During the 1950's he also got into television work as well, with his last role being Major Seth Adams in Wagon Train--a major character in the show.  Bond died prematurely at the age of 57 from a massive heart attack on the 5th of November in 1960 in Dallas, Texas.  His old friend John Wayne gave the eulogy at his funeral, he was then cremated and his ashes were scattered at sea.

Seen here on the left in It's A Wonderful Life

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Born Today April 8: Alfred Bunn

1796-1860

English songwriter Alfred Bunn was born on this day in London in 1796 or possibly 1797.  He best remembered for being a highly successful theater manager. After making his was up through the theatrical ranks, and finally becoming a stage manager in Drury Lane, he became a keen and frequent promoter of opera.  In 1826 he graduated to management of the Royal Theater in Birmingham, and by 1833, he took on the dual duties of both managing Drury Lane and Covent Garden at the same time.  By the 1840's he was writing a few libretti for opera himself.  He is best remembered in the music world for his lyrical songs.  He even makes a brief appearance in James Joyce's Ulysses, when Leopold Bloom misremembers one of Bunn's lyrics.  In terms of film, his lyrics first made an appearance on screen in title cards in the year 1906 with the song "The Heart Bowed Down" in the short of of the same name.  His lyrics were not used again until the dawn of the talking era in the 1930 in Song o' My Heart.  The most recent use of his music in a movie came in the 2011 horror/mystery The Shadows.  Bunn died on the 2nd of December in Boulogne, France at the age of 63 or 64.  There are currently no details on his burial, but it would have been strange if he were not brought back to England for burial at Covent Garden's St. Paul's.

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Born Today April 7: William Allan Pinkerton

1846-1923

William Allan (sometimes spelled "Allen") Pinkerton was born into the (in)famous Pinkerton family on this day in Dundee, Illinois.  His father was Allan Pinkerton founder of the Pinkerton Detective Agency.  The younger Pinkerton was educated in both public and private schools and later Notre Dame.  He entered the U. S. Army in 1861 serving throughout the Civil War.  He then went to work at his father's agency and stayed there as a career.  The reason for his inclusion here is a bit of a first.  At some point in his life he wound up in Los Angeles and served as one of the very first film consultants in the history of Hollywood.  He was hired as a technical advisor on the film Voices Of The City (1921), which starred amongst others Lon Chaney.  Pinkerton died there at the age of 77 on the 11th of December.  His remains were shipped back to Illinois, where he is buried in Chicago's Graceland Cemetery.

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Born Today April 6: Aleksandr Herzen

1812-1870

Russian writer Aleksandr Ivanovich Herzen (first name sometimes spelled Alexander) was born on this day according to the New Style Dates in Moscow.  (His Old Style Dates are 25 March 1812--9 January 1870).  He was born out of wedlock, the son of a very wealthy Russian landowner and a young Protestant woman from Stuttgart, Germany.  He is related by blood on his father's side of the family  to the important early Russian photographic pioneer Sergey Lvovich Levitsky, who would take several iconic "portrait" photographs of Herzen.  Neither one of his parents had the surname, but instead, it was supposedly his father who gave him the name Herzen (obviously Germanic in origin) because he was a "child of the heart."  Herzen was born during contentious times for Russia, having been born just after Napoleon invaded.  Owed,  though, to his father's prominence, the family was barely affected, quickly gaining the dictator's approval to relocate in France.  The family returned to Moscow one year later.  As a young man, Herzen attended Moscow University.  But, in 1834, he and a friend were arrested and convicted to attending a festival that anti-Tsarist songs were supposedly sung.  His punishment was that he was exiled.   He remained in exile until the Grand Duke at the time visited him along with prominent poet Zhukovsky; he was then allowed to leave for Vladimir, where he became a newspaper editor.  While there, he married a cousin in secret.  By 1840 his full exile was lifted and he returned with his growing family to Moscow.  Upon his return he was given an important government secretarial job.  He also made the acquaintance literary critic Belinsky.  Despite that upon his father's death, he inherited a large amount of very valuable land, he and his family (his mother included) left Russia for Italy, never to return.  They then went to Paris and finally to Geneva, Switzerland.  By this time Herzen was a pretty well known political writer; but he found European socialist movements woefully lacking--complete failure.  However, by this time his views on Russia, and his call for serious political change there, caused the Tsar to freeze all of his assets.  It took the intervention of Baron Rothschild to negotiate to unfreeze them.  By 1852 his mother, his wife and one of his children had died, so he decided to leave Geneva for London.  While there he founded the Russian Free Press.  He left London in 1864 and headed back to Geneva, and very shortly found himself back in Paris.  He died there from complications due to tuberculosis on the 21st of January (NS), at 57 years of age.  He was originally buried in Paris, but his remains were subsequently re-buried in Nice.  As to his writing, he is by far and away best known for his political writing advancing his complete adherence to socialist ideas; he did, however, also write stories--and it is these that come into play in regards to film.  Only three productions have been made using his stories as source material, and the first of these came in 1920 with Thieving Magpie  which was made in his native Russia.  The first sound film was made by the Soviet owned Mosfilm in 1960 with Soroka-vorovka.  The most recent, and only other, use of his work came as an episode of Spain's Novela, with Almas gemelas.  

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Born Today April 5: Paolo Ferrari

1822-1889

Nineteenth century Italian writer Paolo Ferrari (not to be confused with the actor of same name) was born on this day in Modena, Italy (then an independent Duchy).  Though he did write the occasional novel, mostly wrote plays in the comedic vein).  His work showed influence by another Italian dramatist, Carlo Goldoni.  During his lifetime he served as a professor of history first in his home town and later in Milan.  Only a handful of films have been produced using his work, with all but one coming out in the silent era; and all of them produced in his native Italy.  The first of these was a short from the year 1914 and is based on one of his rare novels:  A Wife's Devotion was released in February of that year.  Between 1914 and 1916, three more films were made based on his plays.  The only film made in the modern sound era came in 1942 with Le vie del cuore, a 1 hour and 23 minute long mono production, and was also based one of his plays.  Ferrari died on the 9th of March in Milan at the age of 66.  There is currently no information about his burial place. 

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Born Today April 4: Pierre-Paul Prud'hon

A Self Portrait 

1758-1823

French painter Pierre-Paul Prud'hon was born on this date in Cluny, France.  He is most famous for his portraits, though he did paint landscapes and allegorical mythological subjects as well.  As a young man he received formal artistic training in several French provinces; and at the age of 26, he left for Italy to further his education.  Upon his return to Paris, he took numerous jobs painting the mansions of the elite there.  In his framed paintings, his style has been difficult to pin down, being influenced by at least two major styles of the time.  He counted a great number of his fellow artists amongst his admirers.  He is perhaps best known for painting for two of Napoleon's wives; with his portrait of Josephine being famous the world over.  There are not many entries her for artists that lived before the invention of motion pictures, because just not that many silent films used actual art in them; however one short film dating from 1900 does feature his work.  Phrosine and Meledore was an American Mutoscope & Biograph production; it was part of their Living Pictures series that did feature famous works of art. Prud'hon died either on Valentine's Day or two days later on the 16th in 1823 at the age of 64.  He is buried in the huge Pére Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.

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Born Today April 2: Hans Christian Andersen

1805-1875

Danish author Hans Christian Andersen was born on this day in Odense, Denmark.  There have been persistent stories about his family coming from royalty and, even more far-fetched, that he was the illegitimate son of the then current king of Denmark.  All have proven unfounded; most of the stories have their origin with Andersen's actual father, who apparently just couldn't except his own humble background.  Ironically it was also his father, a self-taught shoemaker, who introduced young Hans to literature. Though his father only had an elementary education, he would read to his son--with Arabian Nights being a favorite.  His father, though would die when Hans was quite young; his uneducated mother, who worked as a washerwoman, remarried and Hans was sent to a basic school for poor children.  He was later forced to support himself, becoming an apprentice to a weaver.  He later went to work for a tailor.  At just 14, he left his home town and set out for Copenhagen to become an actor.  For his age, he amazingly still possessed an fine soprano voice, however, that would not last long, but for a time he was hired as a choir boy at the Royal Danish Theater.  After his change of voice, this opportunity was gone, but he was told by a theater employee that he had potential as a poet and he soon turned to writing.  Additionally the director of theater sent Andersen off a proper grammar school in Slagelse, persuading the Crown to pay for part of the cost (this may the source of the rumor that he was an illegitimate member of the royal family).  He later attended school at Elsinore, leaving in the year 1827.  By half way through his formal schooling, he had already published his first short story.  His school years though were not helpful in advancing his writing career.  He said of them later in life that they were the darkest of his life, with teachers discouraging his writing and a school master abusing him.  This caused depressive episodes.  Once he left school, his writing picked up considerably.  Though Andersen is primarily known for his fairy tales; he was a writer with remarkable range.  In addition to his fanciful stories, he wrote everything from poetry to novels and plays, even travelogues.  After gaining fame as a writer of fairy tales, he traveled extensively, which further gave rise for new story ideas from exotic lands.  Given the popularity of his work in the 20th century, it no surprise that many, many children's and fantasy films have used his work for source material--with well over a dozen coming in the silent era.  The first of these dates from 1902; The Little Match Seller, a 3 minute short directed by early Scottish self made filmmaker James Williamson under the auspices of his own Williamson Kinematograph Compnay.  The first U.S. production using his writing was made in 1908 with Poor Little Match Girl, essentially a remake of the UK film from 1902.  The first film made from his work in his native Denmark was Lykkens galoscher (1921), a Nordisk film.   The first full mono sound film made using his work came from Disney in a animated short in 1931, with their earliest version of The Ugly Duckling.  In fact, the vast majority of mono sound films made from his tales in the early 1930's were animated shorts.  An interesting curiosity is that one of his tales was used in an extremely early television series for children in 1937.  "For The Children" included a reading of some of his stories broadcast in March of that year.  It appears that the first full length sound film made from his work was a German production in 1941 with Die schwedische Nachtigall, and was one of the few films made based on one of his plays.  Over the decades since: many, many films and television episodes  have been filmed based on his work.  The mega Disney blockbuster from 2013 Frozen was based on his The Snow Queen.   The most recent release of a film utilizing his work is the French production L'histoire d'une mére.  There are currently 5 films in various stages of completion that are based on his tales, with the most recently listed being the short The Match Girl's Confession, based on the same tale as the very first film of his work was.  Later in life, Andersen had become so famous the world over, that he was paid an annual stipend by the Danish government.  In 1872, he had a nasty fall from his bed and was badly injured; he never really had a chance to recover from the incident. He was soon thereafter diagnosed with liver cancer.  He died from the disease in Copenhagen on the 4th of August in 1875 at the age of 70.  He was interred in  Assistens Cemetery there.

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Born Today April 1: Lon Chaney Sr.

1883-1930

Leonides Frank Chaney aka Lon Chaney Sr. was born on this day in Colorado Springs, Colorado to two deaf parents.  The result of being a hearing child dealing with two non-hearing parents was his development of a very engaging pantomime.  He started acting on the stage in 1902 with touring vaudeville acts.  There he met Cleva Creighton who would become his wife and mother to their son Creighton Tull Chaney, who would become known to the world as Lon Chaney, Jr.  Both vaudeville performers--they toured together, along with their young son.  One of silent films most iconic actors, "the man with a thousand faces." appears not to have been very interested in entering the film industry, despite his unconfirmed (possibly non-existent) appearance in one film in 1912 (The Honor of the Family).  Rather, he was forced into the industry in 1913 when his wife showed up at theater that he was managing in downtown Los Angeles, and attempted a dramatic suicide by drinking mercuric chloride.  She did not die, but the attempt ruined her singing voice, forcing her retirement from the stage and forced Chaney to seek work elsewhere due the scandal that it caused.  This is when films gained one of it's most talented early actors, with a very wide range.  The first confirmed film that appeared in was The Ways of Fate (1913), a short melodrama.  Most of the films that he was in between 1913-1916 were shorts.  Beginning in 1916, he started getting larger roles in full-length films; most of them dramas, with breakout roles coming in 1917 and 1918.  The reason for his nickname, as most fans of silent film know well, was his willingness to take on roles that required extremely heavy makeup, and this was during a era when actors were expected to apply their own makeup.  He is probably also the very first true horror icon, despite that Max Schreck and Conrad Viedt were in very famous horror films before him, he has become the face of horror in the 1920's.  The first well known film that is sometimes counted in the horror category that he starred in was The Hunchback Of Notre Dame in 1923.  The first real horror film that he was in came in 1925 with The Monster.  Also in 1925 came The Phantom Of The Opera, not only one the most famous and lavish silent films, but one of the horror genre's biggest early classics.  He also famously starred in Tod Browning's tragically lost film (now only fragmentally reconstructed) London After Midnight (1927).  The first partial sound film that he appeared in was West of Zanzibar in 1928.  All the films he made after this were partial silents, save for one:  The Unholy Three (1930); a remake of a crime film he appeared in 1925 (another Tod Browning film).  Sadly, his only sound film would be his last film.  Chaney had been diagnosed with bronchial cancer in 1929.  He developed a serious infection when he suffered a throat hemorrhage after filming on set with artificial snow that was made from corn flakes; though suffering from a cancerous condition that likely would have claimed his life within the year; the infection was his direct cause of death.  Despite heavy treatment, Chaney died at the age of 47 on August 26th.  The pallbearers at his funeral were:  Irving Thalberg, Lionel Barrymore, Ramon Novarro, Paul Bern, Wallace Beery, Louis B. Mayer, Lew Cody, Tod Browning, and Hunt Stromberg.  He is interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park next to his father.  For unknown reasons, his tomb remains unmarked.  After Chaney's death, director Tod Browning revealed that he was his first choice for the role of Dracula in his 1931 horror royalty classic Dracula; famously, the role went to Bela Lugosi. 

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