Born Today May 5: Tyrone Power

1914-1958

Tyrone Edmund Power III was born on this date in Cincinnati, Ohio.  His father Tyrone Power Sr. was himself a silent movie actor who got his start on the stage.  The family acting tradition went all the way back to Power the Third's great-great grandfather.  His parents moved with him to California when he was an infant, so his father could begin acting in films.  His younger sister was born there.  However, his parents quickly divorced and their mother moved them back to Cincinnati, where he would attend various Catholic schools and graduated in 1931.  Still this did not stop him from following in the family acting tradition.  While still a teenager, he was given a bit part in the silent film School For Wives, a 1925 film made in what was left of the old film making digs in the New York area.  It was the only silent film that he appeared in.  His film acting career didn't actually get started for real until 1931, when after high school graduation, he travelled straight to Hollywood to join his father (who died in December of that year) there.  He landed a role, as Tyrone Power Jr., in Tom Brown Of Culver in 1932--he never looked back.  What he is most remembered for are his swashbuckling roles.  He served in the US Marine Corp. during World War II.  He was considered to old to serve in active combat; but he was a pilot, and managed to get around this by flying missions to and from active combat zones.  He was decorated for his service in the Pacific Theater.  He made his television debut in the series Armchair Theatre in the episode Miss Julie; it appears to be his only television appearance. His last completed film was Witness For The Prosecution; a Billy Wilder film.  His last film appearance proved deadly for him, while filming Solomon and Sheba, a film that he had already appeared in  half of (and he was producing), he collapsed during dueling scene and died of a sudden and massive heart attack some time later in a hospital.  He was found to have been suffering from an undiagnosed aortic angina. He was just 44 years old; the date was November 15, 1958.  He was replaced by Yul Brynner; though Power is visible in long shots in the film--which was released in 1959.  The film was being shot in Madrid, Spain; his body was sent back to Los Angeles for burial.  He is interred at Hollywood Forever Cemetery.  

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Born Today May 4: Alberto Blest Gana

1830-1920

Chilean novelist and diplomat Alberto Blest Gana was born on this day in Santiago, Chile to an Irish immigrant father and a Chilean mother whose family was wealthy and well connected and primarily of Basque ancestry.  As a young man, he studied at the Military Academy in his birth country, and then studied for one year in France.  In 1866, he began to serve his country as a foreign diplomat, holding posts in Washington D.C., London and Paris.  Probably his biggest achievement in the public sector was getting Chile admittance into the Universal Postal Union.  He was a voracious reader of novels, he was particularly a fan of Honoré de Balzac.  He began writing his own novels, and is now known as the father of the Chilean novel.  Though his diplomatic duties took up much of time, he still found time to write and after his retirement from diplomacy, his writing increased exponentially.  Filmed adaptations of his work, mostly his novel Martin Rivas (dating from 1862), number under 10, but the very first film using his work came in 1920 with Manuel Rodríguez, which is based on his novel Durante la  reconquista--which was published in 1897.  The film was a Chilean production.  Martín Rivas followed in 1925.  The first sound filmed adaptation came on Chilean television series in 1968 with El loco estero.  The most recent use of his work in film dates from 2010 also on Chilean television with Martín Rivas.  Alberto Blest Gana died on the 9th of November in Paris, France at the age of 90.  He is buried there in Pére Lachaise.

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Born Today May 3: Mary Astor

1906-1987

Darling of the silver screen Mary Astor was born on this day as Lucile Vasconcellos Langhanke in Quincy, Illinois.  Her mother was Portuguese/Irish-American and her father was an immigrant from Germany.  Her father was a teacher at the local high school.  She was home schooled and taught to play the piano by her father.  Her own mother had wanted to be an actress, and, indeed, she was also a teacher who taught elocution and drama.  In 1919, she entered a photograph of herself in a beauty contest being run by Motion Picture Magazine, she ended up a semi-finalist.  At the age of 15, she moved with her family to Chicago, where she took drama lessons and acted in amateur plays.  She again entered that same in-print beauty contest and this time became a finalist and runner up.  She then moved to New York with her father so that she could appear in motion pictures, with her dad becoming her manager.  A Manhattan photographer, taken with her looks, asked if her could photograph her; that photo made it's way to Harry Durant of Famous Players-Lasky, which in turn landed her with a 6 month contract with Paramount.  Her birth name was seen as wholly unwieldy, so a meeting was held by industry insiders, including Jesse Lasky, and they came up with the name "Mary Astor."  Her first screen test was directed by Lillian Gish herself.  Though Sentimental Tommy (1921) might have been the first film that she actually acted in--and her scenes were cut out--it appears that she actually made her screen debut in Brother Of The Bear also dating from the year 1921.  The first full length film that she appeared in was John Smith in 1922.  Her contract with Paramount was renewed, this time for one year for $500 a week.  From this time forward, her relationship with parents began to deteriorate.  She was under age and they controlled her money, at first giving her none of what she earned.  She was eventually contracted for $2500 a week, but she was only given $5 a week in allowance.  Her parents instead used her fortune to buy a mansion on a 1 acre lot known as "Mooncrest."  Her parents led a life of luxury off of her earnings and kept basically a prisoner in the home.  When she was 19, sick of her father's abuse, both physical and psychological, she managed to escape the house from a second floor window and made her way to a hotel.  A family friend managed to get her to return home after securing a savings account for her containing $500 and the freedom to come and go at will.  Nonetheless, she would not be able to wrest her earnings from her parents until she was 26 years old!  In 1926, she joined a myriad of other Hollywood up and comers, including Joan Crawford  and Fay Wray on the list of WAMPAS Baby Stars Of 1926.  Her first film with sound was a partial silent:  Dry Martini had a musical score by MovieTone (it is yet another example of a lost film) and was released in 1928.  Her first full sound film came in 1929 with New Year's Eve and was produced by Fox.  By 1928 she was making $3,750 dollars of week, and though married and living in a home with her husband, it would not be until 1932 that she was able to gain absolute control over her monies.  Having their lifestyle taken from them, her parents sued her for support--she settled the case by awarding them $100 a month for the both of them.  Also by this time, she had spent 8 months without work, due to a failed sound test that Fox had ordered to take as the world of silents was fading.  They thought her voice was too deep and didn't suit her appearance--it is thought, however, that it was both the inadequacy of the early sound recorders and the inexperience of the technicians that caused this failure.  She then started voice training and singing lessons, but it took some time to get her career reignited in the 1930's.  But once her career was back up and going, the roles flowed in.  Also contributing to her woes during this time, her writer/director  husband Kenneth Hawks (brother of Howard) was killed in an in-air plane collision.  Today she is best know for her role The Maltese Falcon (1941).  She made her television debut in 1954 on the Kraft Theater.  Her last film appearance came in the cult horror film Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte in 1964, the film stars Bette Davis a friend of hers (by this time she was already in semi-retirement).  She then retired from acting altogether and took up writing.  In 1971, she was experiencing trouble from a chronic heart condition, so she moved to a cottage on grounds of the industry's retirement facility Motion Picture & Television Country House.  In 1980 she appeared in the documentary television mini-series Hollywood; her last filmed appearance.  Astor died at the age of 81 on 25 September 1987.  In addition to her heart condition, she had been suffering from emphysema--her cause of death was respiratory failure with a heart event involved.  She is buried at Holy Cross Cemetery, in Culver City, CA.  

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Born Today May 2: Lewis J. Selznick

1870-1933

Studio and movie pioneer Lewis J. Selznick was born Laiser Zeleznick in Grinkiskis, then part of the Russian Empire, now part of Lithuania. He grew up in Kiev, now the capital of Ukraine, but then, also part of of the Russian Empire.  At the age of 12, he left Kiev for London.  Then in 1888, at the age of 18, he immigrated to the U.S.  He settled in Pittsburgh, set up a jewelry shop and married.  Though he is best remembered today for being the father of David O. Selznick and Myron Selznick, Lewis was a much more important early film pioneer than either of his two sons.   In 1903, Selznick moved his family to Brooklyn, retaining a series of successful jewelry stores back in Pittsburgh.  He initially established a large jewelry store in Manhattan, but had sold out of it by 1907.  In 1910 or 1911, he moved his family into Manhattan, where he worked in patent promotion and started selling electrical supplies.  In 1913 an old contact of his from Pittsburgh convinced him become involved in the Universal Film Manufacturing Company (now Universal Pictures). He became a successful cinema manager of the East Coast Universal Film Exchange.  In 1914 he and a shipping magnate from Chicago Arthur Spiegel organized their own World Film Company in Fort Lee, NJ--with the backing of a Wall Street investment firm.  The company quickly moved to get into the film distribution business for the studios that were already established there.  The first film that the company distributed came in 1915 with Old Dutch (not to be confused with My Old Dutch, which also dates from 1915) starring Lew Fields and produced by the Shubert Film Corporation.  Indeed, one of the Shubert brothers sat on World Film Company's board.  Next came The Boss (1915), then Trilby (1915) directed by Maurice Tourneur, and Wildfire (1915) starring Lionel Barrymore.  The company then merged with the Shubert brothers' company and with Peerless Pictures Studio.  After this, World Film became wildly successful.  Selznick was personally responsible for luring Tourneur away from Pathe'--then a much bigger company and director Sidney Olcott away from Kalem.  Josef von Sternberg at one time also worked for the company.  The first film that he was a direct producer on was War Brides in 1916. However his personality clashed with others and he was forced out of the company in 1916 by the company's board of directors.  This did not stop Selznick from continuing on in the motion picture business however.  He was able to wrest away one the studio's majors stars in Clara Kimball Young; with her, he formed the Clara Kimbell Young Film Corp.--which is how she became one of the first female film producers.  The company would go on to lease a studio in Fort Lee to Solax, a company founded by Alice Guy Blanche, who is credited with being the very first female film director.  He would go on to partner with the New York area's largest owner of film houses--this made Selznick extremely rich.  Selznick made the move to Hollywood in 1920, eventually teaming up with Adolph Zukor and Jesse L. Lasky.  But, Selznick was not well liked by other studio magnates: he possessed a brash personality, refused to take the motion picture business seriously and would not hob-knob with other wealthy elites in any way.  One of his most famous sayings was "There's no business in the world in which a man needs so little brains as in the movies."  In 1923 a production glut hit Hollywood quite hard and many companies went through extremely lean times.  Selznick's company quickly found itself in serious financial trouble--with no one to turn to for help, because of his unpopularity--the company went bankrupt.  He officially retired from the film production business.  The last film for which he has a production credit was Reported Missing in 1922.   However, he had long been giving himself credit as "presenter" of films, in the silent era, that is the same thing as a producer.  He started this practice back on the east coast (see The Common Law (1916)), but accelerated it when arriving in Hollywood.  So in reality, the actual last film that he "presented" aka produced, was Rupert of Hentzau in 1923.  There does not appear to have any real catalog of produced films at any of his production companies, so it is thought that he made many more films that have been lost AND forgotten.  Selznick died on the 25th of January in Los Angeles, he is interred in a family niche of the Great Mausoleum at Forest Lawn Memorial Park.  He was 62 years of age. 

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Born Today May 1: Tom Moore

1883-1955

Thomas J. Moore, silent movie star and director, was born on this day in Fordstown Crossroads, County Meath in Ireland.  He, along with his siblings, immigrated to the United States in 1896.  Two of his brothers, Owen and Matt, also had successful careers in films starting in the silent era.  The family at first settled in the Toledo, Ohio area.  Eventually the two eldest brothers (of which Tom was the oldest) landed debut roles in film.  In Tom's case this came in the D.W. Griffith short The Test Of Friendship that starred Griffith's wife at the time in 1908.  This is when Griffith was still working for American Mutoscope and still making films in New Jersey.  He continued to work for Griffith through 1909, but by 1912 he was with Kalem, with the shot on location The Belle Of New Orleans being his first film for them.  He made his directorial debut in 1914, where he directed himself in The Mad Mountaineer.  Though directing would prove not be his thing, he did direct 17 short films in 1914 and 1915, the last of which was The Legacy Of Folly, in which he also appeared.  All of these films were for Kalem.  His first confirmed full length film appearance came in 1917 in the western The Jaguar's Claw.  By this time he was working for the Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Company.  In 1921, he was voted by a trade magazine as one of the top 15 male lead actors in Hollywood.  The first sound film that he appeared was Side Street in 1929, his two actor brothers appeared along side him.  It was a full mono sound production, with sound by RCA Photophone System.  He did manage to make the sound transition, but his star was beginning to fade by the early 1930's, so he quit acting in 1936, and would not be back for ten years.  Because he was forced to seek work with various small film production companies in the 1930's, he was one of the silent era's only super stars to be adversely affected by the depression, when many of these companies went out of business.  He returned to acting in late 1946 and would continue to make film appearances until his death in 1955.  He made his television debut in 1953 on the series Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok, in an episode entitled The Avenging Gunman.  His last film appearance came in The Human Jungle in 1954.  His final filmed appearance came in the television series The Human Jungle in the episode Your Favorite Story.  During his lifetime, he was married three times; two of those marriage were to silent film actresses.  He was first married to Alice Joyce, with whom he had a daughter Alice, who had a brief acting career in the 1930's.  His second marriage was to French sensation Renée Adorée.  He was even the subject of a This Is Your Life episode in 1954.  Moore died on the 12th of February in Santa Monica, after battling cancer.  Although there are currently no photos, Tom was buried in Catholic Calvary Cemetery in East Los Angeles along with at least two of his brothers, Owen and Matt.  

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Born Today April 30: Jerold T. Hevener

1873-?

Silent film actor and director Jerold T. Hevener was born on this date in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  He got his start as an actor in 1912 appearing in A Poor Excuse That Worked, a short film released in January of that year.  It appears that he also made his directorial debut in 1912.  It thought that he directed himself in Once Was Enough (1912) for Lubin Manufacturing--but as of now, that is unconfirmed.  In 1913, he definitely directed A Guilty Conscience, a film that he starred in and was again produced by Lubin.  The last film that he directed was It Happened In Pikesville, a film starring Oliver Hardy.  His last known appearance as an actor in a film came in 1917 in The Hash House Mystery.  In all, he appeared in 36 films, and directed 18 movies during his years active; almost all of these films were made for Lubin.  Curiously there is absolutely no information about his death.  None.  Not even a date.  It is unknown at this time, if he simply retired from acting or if he, in fact, died in 1917.  The later seems likely, since he was so active in films from 1912.

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Born Today April 29: Charles Nodier

1780-1844

French Romantic writer Charles Nodier, birth name Jean Charles Emmanuel Nodier, was born on this day in Besançon, France--which is right on the border of Switzerland.  His father was mayor and later police chief, during the French Revolution.  His father's reputation was not a kind one--he seems to have abused his power with some abandon.  During the Reign of Terror, his father placed him under the care of a tutor, with whom he studied German and English.  Also under tutelage, he studied nature and natural history.  He had been a voracious reader since early childhood, and he would go on to be librarian in his home town.  At one point he came under suspicion by the government and the police demanded to read his personal papers.  All they managed to find were dissertations on nature, including one on the examination of antennae of insects.  The experience must have incensed him, because in addition to producing future works on etymology and philology and even works of pure fiction, he also wrote a satirical skit on Napoleon; for this he was sent to prison for months in 1803.  After his release he left for Paris; and from there he lived life for some years wandering about various French towns.  It is during this time that he produced his first novel.  After this, he settled and went to work as a private secretary, then turning to translating works by his employer: Sir Herbert Croft.  In 1813, he returned to Paris, and in 1824, he appointed librarian at the Bibiliothéque de l'Arsenal (French National Library), a position that he would keep for the rest of his life.  Nodier died in Paris on the 27th of January 1844 at the age of 63.  He is buried there in Pére Lachaise cemetery.  He is being commemorated here, because one of his stories (which had been adapted into a play by Belgian writer Maurice Maeterlinck) was made into a film in 1923.  La légende de soeur Béatrix  was a joint French and Belgium production.

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Born Today April 28: George Leyton

GEORGE LEYTON

1864-1948

Expat American songwriter and actor George Leyton was born today in New Orleans, LA.  Not a lot is known about his life, except that he left the U.S. for Great Britain when he was quite a young man.  He served for a time in the British army; and reportedly started a fund for veterans of the Crimea and the India Mutiny.  He financed this to the tune of £3,600 (quite a sum in the day!) with the sale of one of his songs.  He was a well known stage performer of various music halls in London, frequenting the vaudeville scene there.  Beginning in 1916, he appeared a small number of films, the first of which was Boys Of The Old Brigade.  In 1917 he appeared as "The Man" in The Man Who Made Good, for which he wrote the story that the film was based on.  Also in 1917, he appeared in It's Never Too Late To Mend.  Finally, in 1921 he produced and starred in Land Of My Fathers.  Leyton died in his adopted home town of London, England on 5 June at the age of 84.  There is no information on the disposal of his remains.

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Born Today April 27: President Ulysses S. Grant

1822-1885

Our 18th President of these United States of American Ulysses S. Grant, born Hiram Ulysses Grant, was born on this date in Point Pleasant, Ohio.  Despite that his father was a merchant and a tanner, the family had a long history of military service in the New World. The story as to how he wound up with the name "Ulysses" is an interesting one.  The family held a naming ceremony where in names were placed in a hat and drawn out.  Amongst them was the name Ulysses, chosen because of the Greek hero of the same name.  This happened to be the name drawn out, but Grant's father Jesse, who wanted to honor his father-in-law Hiram, gave the infant his grandfather's name, but always referred to him as Ulysses.  A year after his birth, the family moved to Georgetown, Ohio, where all of his younger siblings were born.  His formal education started at the age of five years at a subscription school, and later attended two private schools.  During this period, he demonstrated a great talent with horses.  Almost all aspects of the equestrian arts came easy to him.  He was an expert rider and trainer, what we might call today a "horse whisperer."  He did not want to follow his father into the tannery business, so he was put to work by his father transporting both goods and people by horse-drawn carriages.  Jesse Grant wrote to his congressman in Washington asking him to put his eldest Ulysses forward for attendance at West Point.  Upon hearing this, Ulysses reportedly refused, but his father was able to convince him to attend if he were accepted.  When a cadet position opened up Ulysses was put forward under the mistaken name "Ulysses S. Grant." It would be his adopted name for the rest of his life. He entered the academy in 1839 and trained there for four years; during which he became the record holder for the equestrian high jump (a record that stood for 25 years).  He wasn't exactly suited to a military training situation and came up with creative outlets to relieve the monotony.   Among them was studying Romantic art under Robert Walter Weir, and reading a lot of Washington Irving and James Fenimore Cooper.  He left behind 9 surviving works of art from this time period.  He graduated in 1841, with a four year compulsory commission in front of him, after which he planned to resign and go into a possible teaching career.  It was around this time that he met his future wife Julia Dent (read more about her here).  He would marry her four years later, though his father refused to attend the wedding because the Dent family owned slaves.  In the meantime, he served in the Mexican American War, but resigned afterward.  The next years were hard on Grant and his young family, winding up on a farm that was little more than sharecropping.  Much to the chagrin of his family and going against his own principles, he acquired a slave during this time.  But when the Grant's left the property, he freed the man, even though Grant was desperate for money and could have sold him for $1500.  Grant bounced around, until he eventually was able to go back to work for his father.  Then the Civil War broke out and he was drawn, at the request of President Abraham Lincoln, slowly back into military service.  He eventually attained the rank of a four star General. Immediately following Union victory in the bloody conflict,  Ulysses and Julia were invited by the Lincoln's to attend a performance at Ford's Theater.  They were forced to decline due to previous travel plans; otherwise, they would have been present when Lincoln was mortally wounded that night by one John Wilkes Booth.  Grant intensely disapproved of incoming president Andrew Johnson; he could plainly see that Johnson bungling the Southern Reconstruction.  It would be Johnson's near impeachment and removal from office that would spur Grant to move into politics at the highest level.  He entered the 1868 presidential race and won, being sworn in on the 4th of March 1869.  As with all historical figures here of major import, to learn more about his history, especially as President, follow the links below.  The reason for Grant's inclusion here is because of one lone film dating from 1911 entitled The Last G.A.R. Parade at Rochester, NY, which was produced by the Independent Moving Pictures Co. of America.  Grant would serve two terms as President, would leave office, only to later seek a third term later on and fail; he spent the rest of his life in various business ventures, and ended up writing memoirs.  Over the summer of 1884 he developed a sore throat that wouldn't go away; a visit to his doctor confirmed that he was suffering from throat cancer--a condition he tried unsuccessfully to keep from his doting wife Julia.  After the announcement to the country of his illness, Congress reinstated his military pension, which he was forced to give up by becoming President.  He succumbed to the disease in New York on the 23rd of July, after suffering through the ordeal for a year. He was 63 years old.  President Grover Cleveland ordered 31 day of mourning, and flags were flown at half-staff at military installations.  His casketed body was then borne on a funeral train for two days traveling to and from West Point, after which he was given a private funeral in New York City.  During this time, it is thought that a quarter of a million people showed up to get a glimpse of the train.  His casket was then marched up to Riverside Park, with tens of thousands of men--many veterans--marching along with it.  He was interred there in what would become a temporary tomb.  Twelve years later, the mausoleum that he is currently entombed in, with his wife, was built.  It is commonly known as Grant's Tomb and remains the largest mausoleum in North America.  In all around 1.5 million people were thought to be on the streets of New York the day of his funeral.  

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Born Today April 26: Guinn "Big Boy" Williams

1899-1962

Western star Guinn "Big Boy" Williams was born Guinn Terrell Williams Jr. on this date in Decatur, Texas.  He was given the nickname "Big Boy" by none other than Will Rogers himself, because of his height, 6'2".  Before going into the movie industry he served in World War I.  His father, a congressman, wanted him to attend West Point after the war, but Williams wanted to become a baseball player instead. And he would go on to play semi-professionally.  He was instead introduced to the motion picture industry by Rogers (who also made a competent polo player out of him).  His film debut came in 1919 with Almost A Husband, a Will Rogers comedy.  Precisely because he was introduced to films by Rogers, he became a specialist in westerns almost immediately.  But he did have some notable roles in other genres as well, and was often one of two sidekicks in Errol Flynn films, the other being Alan Hale, Sr..  By 1921, he was getting bigger and bigger roles, with his first credit as Guinn "Big Boy" Williams in The Jack Rider, a comedic western that he also wrote.  After this point, he frequently wrote stories specifically to be turned into film scripts which would star himself.  All of these were westerns.  The first film that he acted in that had sound was Beggars Of Life (1928) a partial silent with sound sequences by MovieTone.  The first sound film he had a part in also came in 1928, with the huge Zanuck/Curtiz epic Noah's Ark.  It turned out that Will Rogers had a good eye for talent, Williams had acting prowess and made the transition to sound with relative ease.  He made his television debut in 1955 in the series The Adventures Of Wild Bill Hickok.  It is often written that his last role also came in a Michael Curtiz film, The Comancheros in 1961, but in fact it was in a widely over-looked little TV film called Buttons And Her Beaus, a failed television pilot in 1962.  Williams died suddenly from a rapid on-set of Uremic Poisoning on the 6th of June in 1962, he was 63 years old.  He is buried at Forest Lawn Memorial, Hollywood Hills location.

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