Born Today August 14: Horace G. Plympton

1891-????

Edison studio executive and filmmaker Horace G. Plympton was born on this day in the Bay Ridge area of Brooklyn.  He was a major studio executive at Edison's Bronx division.  He was also a pioneering cinematographer.  Though not a great deal of biographical material can be found on him, a great deal can be gleaned from his film contracts.  He actually got directly into movie making at the end of Edison's run as a movie studio (only part of it's massive business), which closed down in 1918.  He did have one lone writing credit dating from 1912 for What Happened To Mary (incidentally a film featuring the great Charles Ogle).  He didn't have another writing credit until 1917 (busy as he was the day to day studio workings) and that came with Her Scrambled Ambition.  He was directly involved in cinematography for the first time in 1918 with Why I Would Not Marry , which was actually made for Fox.  It seems that he was signed to a contract at Fox, so this would have been after the movie division of Edison had been phased out.  He directed his first film in 1919 with The Stream Of Life, under the auspices of his own production company, located in his own studio in Yonkers (note: I have no way of verifying this at this time, but it would appear that he may have bought or leased the property from Edison).  As a cinematographer he stayed at Fox through 1922, but as a director he seemed to have been more of a free agent.  The last three films that he is known to have worked on (as a cinematographer) was with companies other than Fox.  His last known or credited film came in 1925 with Play Ball, a serial that was made for Pathé Exchange and filmed at the famed Algonquin Hotel in NYC.  After this, history does not record (for now) what became of Plympton; there is not even so much as a death record for him.  Still he made a mark on the early film industry, especially behind the scenes at Edison, that deserves to some light shown on it.  

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Born Today August 13: Alfred Hitchcock

1899-1980

One of the world's best known directors of suspense and even horror, Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, was born on this day in Leytonstone, Essex, England (now part of London).  He was the son of shop merchant (greengrocer and poultry seller).  He was raised Roman Catholic and schooled in catholic institutions in the London area.  He had trouble with his weight from the start and often described this as an alienating factor in his childhood, despite that he was the sheltered youngest child of three.  It occasioned that despite this favor, his father could be quite cruel.  Hitchcock claimed that his father once sent him to the local police station with a note he had written asking that young Alfred by locked up for five minutes; this Hitchcock claimed instilled in him a life long fear and general negative view of police officers.  He was only five years old.  After graduating from engineering school he became a draftsman and an advertising designer--a skill that would serve him well later in life in his famous story-boarding of films.  When World War I broke out, he was called up to service with the army.  His weight, however, ultimately kept him from serving actively; he did, however, serve at garrisons at home.  In this capacity, he joined the regiment of Royal Engineers as a cadet.  It was when he was working at an electrical cable company as an advertising designer that he began to tinker with creative writing.  The company, Henley's, began an in-house publication called The Henley Telegraph in 1919.  Hitchcock began submitting short articles, his first piece "Gas" was featured in the first edition.  He had already developed a fascination with the motion picture industry.  That same year he was determined to enter the business, and he found work as a title card designer for the Famous Players-Lasky, which by then was a part of Paramount--Hitchcock worked for them at Islington Studios.  When Famous Players left the UK in 1922, Hitchcock remained on the studio's pay-roll as part of the staff.  It appears that the first film that Hitchcock actually worked on was The Great Day (1920) as a title designer while still a Paramount employee.  This is a fascinating part of Hitchcock's time in the film industry that gets little attention; at first blush, "title card designer" does not sound terribly exciting, but when one looks at the films he worked on during this time, one can find influences on his later work.  By 1922, he working on more than just title cards and had begun giving active input on art direction.  The first title that he is absolutely known to have worked on in this capacity is Three Live Ghosts, though there may well have been titles before this.  Also in 1922 came his first directing job on the unfinished project Number 13 made under what would become Gainsborough Pictures (the title is thought to be Hitchcock's personal working title for the film).  The budget for the production--two reels of which were shot--ran out and was thus shut down (Hitchcock was said to have raised some funds for the film from his own family); apparently the nitrate was then melted to extract the silver for re-use.  However, some production stills, in the form of photographs, do still exist--as does a photograph of Hitchcock directing it.  The film has become a legend of it's own in the last few decades, what with wholly unsubstantiated rumors of copies in mysterious private collections, right down to it's inspiring it's own film by the same name starring Dan Folger as Hitchcock--ironically, like it's original namesake, the film was never finished for many of the same reasons (hey...what if there is a "Number 13 curse"....doubt it).

Still from Number 13

First known photograph of Hitchcock directing.

Unknown to a lot of Hitchcock fans, he also has a fair number of original writing credits to his name dating from the early twenties quite apart from pictures that he would direct.  One of the earliest is the now lost Woman To Woman (1923), directed by Graham Cutts for Balcon, Freedman & Saville (who would rename themselves Gainsborough).  Hitchcock was famous for making cameo appearances in his own films; this practice actually started in his most famous silent film The Lodger (original title The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog).  In all Hitchcock would make/direct 12 films in the silent era (techinally 13 if you add in a filmed sound check), including one of the most important early sound films in Britain Blackmail (incidentally this is the film for which the 1 minute sound test was filmed; also there is a fully silent version that has been restored). [List of his silent films from the 1920's can be found below.]

Hitchcock's first film cameo

Hitchcock would, of course, go on to be one the most formative and well know film makers of twentieth century.  It is beyond the scope of this silent blog to tackle that, however, a few milestones in his life as a film maker and director can be easily pointed out without becoming too tedious. 

Scene from Blackmail (1929)

The first film that Hitchcock made in the 1930's was Murder! (1930) starring Herbert Marshall.  He experimented with extensive special effects in Number 17 (1932) (one of my favorites).  His The Man Who Wasn't There (1934) featuring Peter Lorre, would be a film he would remake in 1956 with Jimmy Stewart and Doris Day.  His first U.S. production was Rebecca in 1940 for Selznick International Pictures.  His first actual horror film (a genre that he is well associated with today) was actually Psycho in 1960; despite that his Alfred Hitchcock Presents, of which he was the host, premiered on broadcast television in 1955--the show certainly touched on horror elements.  The Birds was a main influence on the late George A. Romero's 1968 The Night of the Living Dead, along with The Last Man on Earth (1964) starring Vincent Price. His next to last film, Frenzy (1972), saw him return to his native Britain for production.  His last film, Family Plot (1976), was a comedy thriller romp starring Karen Black and Bruce Dern.  It was made for Universal and saw his return to Hollywood.  During this period of time, he was intending on making another spy thriller entitled The Short Night, but due to his declining health, and that of his wife Alma, the project was never filmed.  Hitchcock eventually succumbed to full renal failure in his Bel Air home on the 30th of April, 1980.  After his funeral mass, his remains were cremated and scattered over the Pacific ocean.

Directing his lost film The Mountain Eagle.

Number 13 1922 (unfinished, lost)

Always Tell Your Wife 1923 (short)

The Pleasure Garden 1925

The Mountain Eagle 1926 (famously lost)

The Lodger (1927)

The Ring (1927)

When Boys Leave Home (1927)

The Farmer's Wife (1928)

Easy Virtue (1928)

Champagne (1928)

The Manxman (1929)

Still from his last silent film The Manxman

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Born Today August 12: Martha Hedman

1883-1974

Famed Broadway stage actress Martha [Abagail] Hedman was born on this day in Ostersund, Sweden.  She studied acting under an apprenticeship in her native Sweden with the wife of well respected playwright and novelist August Strindberg.  She made her stage debut in 1905 in Helsinki, Finland.  For the next six years she appeared in a variety of different types of plays from Sweden to Germany. She was noticed by American theatrical producer Charles Frohman in 1915; he brought her to the United States and she began a successful stage career that would lead to stardom on Broadway.  By 1915 she was acting in a production by Aurthur Hammerstein.  It was at this time that she appeared in the only film of her career.  Just as in the case of Elsie Ferguson, it would be famed director Maurice Tourneur who convinced her to appear in front of the camera.  The film was The Cub (1915).  The experience was clearly not one that she wanted to repeat again; so she returned to the stage.  She had a very successful career there up until her retirement in 1921.  She briefly returned to the stage in 1942 for one last performance.  After this, she penned one book.  Hedman did not return to her birth country, but chose instead to spend her retired years here states-side.  She died in DeLand, Florida on the 20th of June at the ripe old age of 90!  There is not information about her burial or her cremation.

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Born Today August 11: Octave Feuillet

1821-1890

French writer Octave Feuillet was born on this day in St. Lô, France (located in Normandy).  His father was a very prominent lawyer and was the Secretary-General of La Manche, but was quite hypersensitive to any sort of stress.  Since Feuillet's mother died when he was an infant, his father's fits of invalid sensitivity no doubt influenced him as a youngster (in truth, we would recognize many of his father's symptoms today as probably bi-polar).  It didn't help that Feuillet inhereited some of these difficulties from his father, though reportedly, no where to the degree of the elder Feuillet.  With grand thoughts of shaping his young son's career path, Octave was sent off to study in Paris, with the notion that he would go into diplomatic service.  Though he greatly excelled in his studies and earned high marks, he wanted to become, instead, a writer.  When he informed his father of his chosen path, he was promptly disowned.  Octave returned to Paris and lived hand to mouth as a struggling young journalist.  When his father's health began to decline he was summed back to his birthplace in Saint-Lô--against his will.  Being an obedient son, he went--but he always referred to his this time in his life as exile.  While there he married a cousin in 1851, who was also a writer.  Ironically, the situation elicited from him some of his best work.  In 1852 along, he produced two of his most important works for publication: a novel Bellah and, ironically, a comedic play La Crise.  The situation, though, basically caused him to have nervous breakdown, and his wife and mother-in-law were the only to people keeping him from total collapse.  After this, though weak from his "exile," he returned to Paris to oversee to stage production of play that he adapted from one of his own novels.  After the death of his father while he was in Paris, his whole family moved to the city, and happier times ensued.  By 1968 he was made librarian of Fontainebleau palace; however by 1862, upon the death of his eldest son, his own health and mental state had been in decline.  By the time he was made librarian, he decided that he could no longer tolerate Paris and left for the Normandy countryside, where he purchased a house and started as rose garden that would become locally famous.  He spent  most of the rest of his life tending it.  His mental health though deteriorated to the point where he sold the house, and spent the last lonely years of his life wandering about in Paris, though he was able to finish one last work, a novel Honneur d'artiste, published the year of his death.  He died in Paris on the 29th  of December 1890 at the age of 69.  There is no information as to his burial.  His writing has been described as "Romantic Realism."  The first film made using his work as source material came in 1913 with the French production Le roman d'un jeune homme pauvre--produced by Pathé Frères.  The English langauge film made from his work came the next year with The Romance Of A Poor Young Man, made by Biograph (based on that same work).  In all, 11 films utilizing his work were made during the silent era, with the last of these  dating from 1927 and was a remake of the original film from 1913.  The first film produced in the sound era came in 1932 with A Parisian Romance made here in the United States.  The most recent use of his work came in the form of a French broadcast television series Les amours de la belle époque in 1980 in an episode again devoted to his novel Le roman d'un jeune homme pauvre.

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Born Today August 10: Elsie Ferguson

1883-1961

Giant of the stage and silent screen Elsie Louise Ferguson was born on this day in Manhattan.  Ferguson was the daughter of a very prominent lawyer and grew up in a very privileged household.  This did not stop her from developing an interest in the stage early on in her life.  She finally made her stage debut as a chorus girl at the age of seventeen.  Her beauty made her an instant favorite, and she quickly stepped into larger and larger roles.  By 1909, she had become an accomplished player after much tutelage and was a full blown star.  She was popular enough to take part of in a War Bonds effort during World War I with wild success.  So, it was hardly surprising that film studios began to take an active interest.  After repeatedly declining contracts from several companies, it was finally accomplished French born director Maurice Tourneur who convinced her to take the starring role in his Barbary Sheep in 1917.  The experience was not a good one for her; she is later quoted as saying "I shall never forget my state of mind during the making of Barbary Sheep.  My experience before the camera was the most painful thing I have ever known in my life.  It seemed to me that the little black box became a monster that was leering and scoffing at my feeble efforts to register emotion before it.  I went home in tears.  But the next morning I returned."  Nonetheless, she stuck with screen acting, especially during the late 1910's.  During this time, her beauty, along with her specialty of playing aristocratic roles earned her the nickname "The Aristocrat Of The Screen."  Though in the 1920 she signed a multi-film contract deal with Paramount, it was only for four films in two year period.  As any successful stage actor of the time, silent film acting was more of grind than an art for them.  In 1925, she chose to retire from the film business and return to Broadway.  The last film that she made before the retirement was The Unknown Lover.  With the coming of the talking film, she decided to try to revive her film career in the 1930's, but at the age of 47, the studio system deemed her too old to bill in the roles that she wanted.  Her last film appearance came in Scarlet Pages in 1930, where she convincingly portrays a hard nose female lawyer who chooses work over a home life (the film does descend into hopeless melodrama).  She then returned to the stage, but even her performances there began to slow.  Her last appearance on Broadway came in 1943 at the age of 60, a performance met with very warm critical praise.  She then retired from acting altogether and lived on an estate purchased in the area of New London, Conn.  She died there on the 15 of November at the age of 78.  She is buried there in the town of Old Lyme in Duck River Cemetery.

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Born Today August 9: Benjamin Chapin

Chapin was known for his resemblance to Abraham Lincoln.

1872-1918

Silent film actor Benjamin Chapin, best known for his portrayal of President Abraham Lincoln, was born on this day in Bristolville, Ohio.  Chapin never played any other role in films other than that of Lincoln--all of which he made himself.  He rented out studio space especially for the projects.  The first of these was The Lincoln Cycle in 1917 (a film that he also wrote).  His first actual foray into the world of motion pictures had come earlier than this though; in 1913 he was a producer on the Tom Ince/Allan Dwan film In Love and War.  Starting in 1918, he began to direct his Lincoln film projects himself; the first of these was A Call To Arms.   Paramount would go on to release part of his Lincoln series under the title The Son Of Democracy, which is also the last film title in his project as well, but I do not believe that all of his films were ever released in the first place.  This would all be cut short when Chapin died from tuberculosis at the age of 45 on the 2nd of June 1918 in Liberty, New York.  There is no information as to his interment.  Chapin also played Lincoln on the Broadway stage as well.

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Born Today August 8: E. K. Lincoln

1884-1958

Silent film actor and sometime director E.K. (Edward Kline) Lincoln was born on this day in Johnstown, Pennsylvania.   Lincoln started out as a stage actor.  The first film that he appeared in was The Loyalty of Sylvia in 1912.  All of his acting career occurred in the silent era. He made his directorial debut in 1922 with Man Of Courage, in which he also starred.  By this time, he was a big enough star to be featured in Screen Snapshots, Series 3, No. 13 (1922).  After 1922, his acting career began to wind down considerably; with his final retirement from acting in 1925.  The last film that he appeared in was My Neighbors Wife (1925).  During his tenure as an actor, he was also responsible for building a film studio in Grantwood, New Jersey.  I cannot find any information has to what he did after he quit film acting, but two real possibilities are 1) a studio executive (he certainly would not be the first to make that transition successfully), or 2) a return to stage acting.  What ever the case, he remained in California up until the time of his death on 9 January 1958 in Los Angeles at the age of 73.  He was buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale.

The Grantwood Studio

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Born Today August 7: Billie Burke

1884-1970

Stage and Film actor Billie Burke was born as Mary William Ethelbert Appleton Burke in Washington D. C. on this day.  Burke's father Billy, from whom so obtained her nickname, was a professional clown and singer who worked for Barnum & Bailey Circus; young Mary travelled with him on tours.  Somehow, her family wound up settling in London, England.  There she was exposed to the theater and evertually made her own stage debut in 1903.  This lead to her debut on Broadway back in New York and to her stardom there.  Her specialty was musical comedy.  While playing on Broadway, she met and married the extremely influential stage producer Florenz Ziegfeld Jr.  She made her silver screen debut in 1915 acting in Peggy (the film was released in 1916).  From that time on, until the very early 1920's, she made regular appearances in film.  Finding silent film work unfufilling, she returned to the stage in 1921; but when the family fortune was wiped out by the stock market crash in 1929 (and with the coming of talking pictures), she returned to the silver screen.   Her next film appearance came in the full sound early talkie Glorifying The American Girl in 1929 in a bit part.  Her next film, A Bill Of Divorcement (1932)--a George Cukor film, fully realized her Hollywood revival, and she once again became a film star.  One role that she is well remembered for today is that of Mrs. Clara Topper in the "Topper" film franchise (which started in 1937).  The one role that she is by far and away most famous for is that of Glinda--The Good Witch Of The North in The Wizard Of Oz.  She went into radio work as well, at one point having her own show.   Burke made her television debut in 1950 in the early horror series Lights Out (itself developed from a radio show) in the episode Dr. Heidegger's Experiment.  She continued to work until about 10 years before her death at the age of 85.  Her two last appearances in film came in Sergeant Rutledge and Pepe.  Burke died from natural causes on the 14th of May in Los Angeles.  She is buried in Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, New York.  

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Born Today August 7: Harry O. Hoyt

1885-1961

Silent writer and director Harry O. Hoyt was born on this day in Minneapolis, Minnesota.  He graduated in 1910 with a degree from Yale University.  Two years later he went into the film industry.  The first of his scenarios to be made into a film was in 1913 An Unjust Suspicion produced by The Biograph Company.  He made his directorial debut in 1915 with For High Stakes, a film that he also penned, for the Kalem Company.  Though he had steady writing work throughout the silent era, mostly concentrated in the 1910's; and he directed some 28 titles, he is mostly remembered for only one of these:  The Lost World (1925).  It is one of the most famous surviving science fiction silents, featuring some very impressive stop-motion animation for it's time.  The film stars Wallace Beery and Bessie Love and is based on the writing of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.  The first film that had sound to feature one of his screenplays was a Phil Rosen directed drama The Rampant Age (1930).  The first sound film that he directed came in 1933 with Jungle Bride, a film penned by Leah Baird, starring Anita Page.  He continued to write through out the rest of his career, but there would be a long hiatus between his directorial jobs after the above mentioned film.  He did not go back to directing until 1947 with the technicolor short Harness Racing.  From this point on, he directed only 4 more titles, all of them shorts.  One of them was Cinderella Horse (1948), which would turn out to be the last of his writing jobs.  The last film that he directed was The Will To Win in 1951.  He then retired from industry; living out the rest of days in his adopted state of California.  He died on 29 July in Woodland Hills, just shy of his 76th birthday.  There is no information as to his interment or cremation.  Below is the full tint restored print of The Lost World by the George Eastman House.

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Born Today August 5: Robert G. Vignola

1882-1953

Silent director and actor Robert G. Vignola was born Rocco Giuseppe Vignola in Trivignano, Italy on this day.  His family left for the U.S. when he was 3 years old.  They settled in upstate New York, where he grew up.  He made his stage acting debut at the age of 19 and entered the film business in 1906 at the age of 24.  Though, he would go on to be one of the most prolific directors in the silent age, he entered the business as an actor.  His first film was The Black Hand (1906) made for the Amercian Mutoscope and Biograph company--it would be one of the first fictionalized films actually based on true events.  For it's time, at 10 minutes long, it was also one the longest films put out to date.  As a film actor, he has some 62 credits to his name, up through the year 1915.  Some of these, he directed himself in.  Indeed, he made his directorial debut early on in 1911, shadow directing Rory O'More.  He added writing credits to his in 1913, co-penning the scenario for The Vampire (widely believed to be the very first "Vamp" film).  He directed or co-directed 87 films, almost all of which were in the silent era, and included bit uncredited parts by the likes of Clark Gable and Rudolph Valentino in at least two titles. Some of his films have been lost, but a surprising number of them survive and are available widely for viewing.  A very large number of his earliest directed films were made under contract with the Kalem company.  Later on, he worked for a variety of different studios including Famous Players, MGM, and Paramount.  He directed 4 films in the 1930's, with Broken Dreams, starring Randolph Scott, being his very first sound film.  The last film that he directed was in 1937, A Girl From Scotland Yard.  He then retired from the industry, but continued to live in Hollywood.  He died there on the 25th of October 1953 at the age of 71.  He his buried near where in grew up, in Menands, New York in the Catholic cemetery of St. Agnes.  

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