Silent Wierdness

Monday, May 11, 2020

Born Today May 11: Salvador Dali

1904-1989

Surrealist artist Salvador Dali was born in Figueres, Spain on this day (full name: Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí Domènech--probably the longest name on this blog to date! In 1982 King Juan Carlos bestowed the official title of Marquis of Dalí of Púbol). The town is located in the semi-independent "country within a country" of Catalonia. Dalí was himself ethnically Catalan. Dalí was born into a family extremely proud of their Catalan background. His father was was a well known Catalan Federalist and local lawyer. It was Dalí's mother that actually encouraged his interest in art at a young age. For someone of such a stature in history, and a person who lived a long life, there is little use in doing more than providing a list of online sources for reading and, well, "gazing." So getting right to the reason why this superstar from the art world is on a blog about silent film, it because of his involvement in one of the most famous silent short films out there; namely: Buñuel's Un Chien Andalou (1929). Dalí not only appears in the film, he also wrote it with Buñuel (see the film below).

Dali died in the town he was born in on the 23rd of January in 1989 at the age of 84. He is buried inside a special crypt that he designed himself, which located in the floor of the museum and theater that he also designed himself.

Wikipedia

The Dalí Foundation located at his hometown museum (read more about the history of the the museum Here)

Official Website By Dali Museum

The Dali located in St. Petersburg, Florida, USA (read about the history of the museum Here)

Saturday, May 9, 2020

Born Today May 9: Katharine Kaelred

1882-1942

The absolute original "vamp" Katharine Kaelred was born on this day some where in England. She was primarily a stage actor and first played the role of "The Vampire" in a stage production of A Fool There Was six years before Theda Bara famously played the character in the Fox film version. She lived for a time in Australia before immigrating to the United States. She was active on Broadway at least thorugh the year of 1920. She, like so many stage actors during the 1910's, was persuaded to go into film acting, only to find the technology too limiting for lack of actual speaking roles. She was active in the industry for only around three years. Her motion picture debut came in Your Girl and Mine: A Woman Suffrage Play in 1914. Probably the best known of her film performances came next in The Winged Idol in 1915--it was her second film appearance and her first starring role. She subsequently appeared in two films in 1916 and a further two in 1917. One of these, The Girl with the Green Eyes (1916), was directed by the husband of director Alice Guy: Herbert Blaché. Yet another, House of Cards (1917), was written and directed by Guy herself. Kaelred then left off film acting until 1921, when she appeared in Mama's Affair, a romantic comedy produced by Constance Talmadge's production company and directed by Victor Fleming. When she retired from acting, she chose to stay in the New York City area for the rest of her life, dying there on the 26 of March in 1942 at the age of just 59. She is perhaps most famous for her portraits taken in the photographic medium by famed British early photographer Alexander Bassano, many of which hang in Britain's National Portrait Gallery. Public records from New York indicate that she was buried on the 28th of March, but I cannot locate information listing where. She was married to noted stage actor and director J. H. Benrimo. Below are a few examples of Bassano photographic portraits of her.

IMDb

Friday, May 8, 2020

Born Today May 8: Elsie Esmond

1880-1958

Actress Elsie Esmond (birth name Elsie Augusta Elizabeth Strurkow) was born on this day in Chicago. She was primarily a stage actor. The lion's share of her career in film came during the silent era, namely in the teens. She made her motion picture debut at the age of 34 in 1914 in The Boundary Rider, an adventure flick directed by one of the very first brother teams in film: The Wharton Brothers. She and her character shared a first name and the film also features Thurlow Bergen, who she was either married to at the time or would be soon after. All of her films made between the years 1914 and 1917 were with Wharton, the production company founded by the brothers. Probably the most well known of these is The Lottery Man (1916), which features Oliver Hardy in the drag role of "Maggie Murphy"--the film also stars Bergen as the male lead. The last film that she made for Wharton was The Black Stork, released in early 1917. She has two additional film credits, both dating from the 1930's. One of them was the Oscar nominated The Royal Family of Broadway. She was also apparently a member of the large uncredited cast of George Cukor's 1936 film Camille starring Greta Garbo. Records of her stage appearances from the 1920's show that she spent all of that decade in theatrical performance. She certainly would not be the first or last stage actor to have tried film in the era before "sound" and found it unappealing, only to return when the "talkies" arrived. She eventually returned to the mid-west and died on the 24th of August in 1958 at the age of 78. She is buried at Forest Home Cemetery located in Cook county Illinois.

IMDb

Find A Grave entry

Thursday, May 7, 2020

Born Today May 7: George "Gabby" Hayes (Not So Silent edition)

1885-1969

Two legendary character actors in as many days! The man the world knew as "Gabby Hayes" was born George Francis Hayes on this date in Stannards, New York--a small town located close to the state line with Pennsylvania. He was to become one the most well known, if not the most famous, western sidekick ever. He was actually the most unlikely of actors to eventually to become known thusly. He came from a very patrician background; from a well off family that included members who were executives and business owners (one of his uncles was a vice-president at the company General Electric; his own father was a long time hotel owner in his home town, and a pillar of the community). Hayes actually got his start in vaudeville in the eastern part of the country. When he married in 1914, he had already been in the business for at least a dozen years; upon his marriage, his wife joined him on the stage and together they became a very successful vaudeville act. They were so successful in fact, that Hayes was able to afford early retirement to a nice home on Long Island at the age of 43 in 1928. This was not to last however; the family lost nearly everything the following year in the infamous Wall St. crash. This meant that Hayes needed to go back to work. And back to work he went, immediately. Instead of returning full time to the stage, he went into film work. He appeared in three early talkies in 1929: The Rainbow Man--an all sound musical distributed by Paramount, Smiling Irish Eyes--a Vitaphone mono dramedy made by Warner's and loaded with songs, and finally, Big News--a comedy mystery directed by Gregory La Cava for Pathé Exchange with sound by RCA. With these appearances, his film career was off to a fast start. He next appeared in another Warner film--Playing Around, a film shot in 1929 and released in January 1930. He then took minor roles that had no actual credits assigned to them (such as "poker player" in the short comedy She Who Gets Slapped [1930]--no doubt a comedic send of up of Victor Sjöström's 1924 He Who Gets Slapped; or "projectionist" in the Laurel & Hardy short The Stolen Jools [1931]). Hayes would not appear in his first western until 1931, when he was cast as "Stingaree Kelly" in the independently produced God's country and the Man. The rest, as they say, is history! Not that he didn't have roles between westerns playing minor characters from time to time, but it was the westerns that allowed his vaudeville background to shine. For this work, he had to learn how to master riding a horse convincingly...in his mid 40's. To be sure, western or otherwise, almost all of the films in which he appeared early 1930's were Poverty Row films--a "class" of lower budget movies also brought about as a result of the Wall St. crash and the Great Depression that it caused. Again, being the horror film lover that I am, I have to at least mention House of Mystery, a poverty row horror mystery that includes one of the era's favorite vehicles for mayhem, namely a killer ape, in which he actually has a named credit. By 1935, Hayes was becoming popular enough as the quirky bearded character in westerns that he started getting second billing. See, for example: Rainbow Valley with John Wayne and Smokey Smith with Bob Steele. But it was as a sidekick to Hop-A-Along Cassidy and Roy Rogers that Hayes is well remembered for. He appeared in his first Cassidy film in 1935 when the role was created and taken by the man most young people simply thought was "Hopalong Cassidy" for real: William Boyd. So, he was in the Hopalong franchise from its inception, but it would not be until the third film--Bar 20 Rides Again that his character of Windy Halliday was introduced (in the first two films he played two completely different roles). He stayed in this role until 1939, when he left Paramount, the studio responsible for the distribution of the Hopalong films, over a pay dispute. It was his move to Republic Films, where he would be paired up with Rogers--among others--that the name "Gabby" became attached to his name in life. Since Paramount owned the rights to the name of Windy; Republic came up with the character of Gabby Whitaker to replace it. The first time that the character appears in a film came in In Old Caliente, released in June of 1939. It would lead to other characters that he played also being named "Gabby" (see: Robin Hood of the Pecos (1941)--Gabriel "Gabby" Hornaday, Nevada City (1941)--Gabby Chapman and Bad Man of Deadwood (1941)--Professor Gabby Blackstone). Hayes stayed with Republic through the bulk of the 1940's, but starting in 1946, he also began appearing in the occasional RKO film (a notable first is the Randolph Scott picture Badman's Territory). He also went back to playing various roles whose first name was "Windy" (see: Wyoming (1947)--Windy Gibson and The Untamed Breed (1948)--Windy Lucas; both of which are Republic productions). His last feature film came in 1950 on the Randolph Scott vehicle The Cariboo Trail, distributed by 20th Century Fox. After this, he retired to television acting. He was given his own show: The Gabby Hayes Show on NBC, of which he was the host; the show aired for several seasons. A new version of the show then premiered on ABC in 1956 for a short run. He was also featured in Howdy Doody Shows 8 Birthday episode of the The Howdy Doody Show, which aired on New Year's Eve of 1954. He sporadically showed up as himself on television after this through the 1950's, but retired completely by 1960. Like his hotel owning father, he had investments in real estate and spent the reminder of his life managing an apartment building that he had purchased in North Hollywood, along with other land holdings that he held in an investment portfolio. During his lifetime, he also spent a considerable amount of time on the radio; and, one of his stars on Hollywood's Walk of Fame is for his contribution to the medium. He also contributed ideas to children's books and western comics toward the end of his acting career. Hayes passed away from an heart ailment on the 9th of February at the age of 83. He and his wife, who passed away in 1957, never had any children. In life, Hayes was a sophisticated gentlemen--always well quaffed and spoken...in other words, the EXACT opposite of the Windy/Gabby characters that made him famous. He is interred at Forest Lawn Memorial at the Hollywood Hills location, next to his beloved wife Olive.

[Photo credit: A.J. {Find A Grave}]

IMDb

Wikipedia

Find A Grave entry

Apologies for typos, having issues with spellcheck/proofreading.

Wednesday, May 6, 2020

Born Today May 6: Bill Quinn

1912-1994

Well known character actor Bill Quinn was born William Tyrrell Quinn on this day in New York City. He is a very well known actor both on and off the screen--as at home on the big screen as on the small one. His career was famously very long, with well over 220 filmed acting credits to his name; and when one adds in his vaudeville & serious stage credits, the list becomes jaw dropingly long! A child actor who started out vaudeville, he appeared in two silent films in the 1920's as a teen. The first of these was No Mother to Guide Her (1923), a melodrama based on a Lillian Mortimer play (the only time, incidentally, that her work has ever been used for a screenplay). The second was The New School Teacher, a comedy directed by Gregory La Cava, and dates from 1924. Returning to the stage for a VERY long career, he doesn't appear again on film until 1956 and that was to go directly into television. That role comes in the western series "Cheyenne", episode: Death Deals the Hand, which aired on the 9th October 1956. He didn't appear in a film again until he had a a bit part in the B-Movie science fiction horror I Was A Teenage Frankenstein in 1957. And since I am a horror nut, it's worth mentioning that he also appeared in Dark Intruder 1965 with Leslie Nielsen, "The Munsters", Rod Serling's "Night Gallery", Satan's School for Girls a 1973 made-for-tv film, Psychic Killer (1975), Terror Out of the Sky (1978), Dead & Buried (1981), The Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983), and both of Alfred Hitchcock's early series--as well his The Birds. He career in television is so long and vast that it would be impossible to even scratch the surface of it with a list; but a short highlight would include: "Death Valley Days", "One Step Beyond", "Perry Mason", "The Beverly Hillbillies", "The Lucy Show", "Mister Ed", "Batman", "Bonanza", "Bewtiched", "I Dream Of Jeannie", "Ironside", "The Six Million Dollar Man", "Charlie's Angels", "The Rockford Files", "Little House On The Prairie, "Hunter", and "The Golden Girls". As well as recurring roles on McHale's Navy, My Three Sons, The Odd Couple, McMillan & Wife & All In The Family and it's spin-off series Archie Bunker's Place. But there were two separate television series' on which his appearances were extra special: The Bob Newhart Show and Newhart, owed to the fact that Quinn was Bob Newhart's actual father-in-law. His last television role came on an episode of Highway To Heaven (Whose Trash Is It Anyway?) in 1988. His last role before retirement, which came in 1989, was a doozy! He appeared as McCoy's Father in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. He died five years later on the 29 of April, just a week shy of his 82nd birthday--having worked almost the entirety of his life in acting of one sort or another. He is buried, along with his wife of 55 years, at the San Fernando Mission cemetery in Los Angeles.

IMDb

Wikipedia

Find A Grave entry

Tuesday, May 5, 2020

Born Today May 5: Ursula Jeans

1906-1973

Born in what was then "British India" to English parents, actress Ursula Jeans was born on this day in Simla (Shimla)--now the capital of Himachal Pradesh. She was educated in London and was the youngest of three children, all of which went into acting. She was, in fact, the younger sister of actress Isabel Jeans. Like her older sister, she made her stage debut in her middle teens--in her case, the year 1922 as the age of just 16. She also apparently made her film debut the same year in a minor uncredited role in A Gipsy Cavalier, directed by J. Stuart Blackton during a brief time that he was working in the U.K. It would not be until 1926 that she got her first credited film role (having appeared in another uncredited role in yet another Blackton film in 1923: The Virgin Queen). She was the star of the short drama Silence made at Oxford University by two film students there (she also appeared in a credited role in another short in 1927 False Colours directed by Miles Mander); while her first credited role in a feature was in The Fake (1927)--a melodrama based on a Frederick Lonsdale play. She appeared in three more films in the 1920's: Quinney's (1927) directed by Maurice Elvey, The Passing of Mr. Quin (1928) based on an Agatha Christie story, and S.O.S. (1928) based on a Walter Ellis play. She did not appear in another film until 1931, a comedy called The Love Habit starring Seymour Hicks (who was also one of two screenwriters on the project). She made her American stage debut in New York in the year 1933, and also made he first appearance in an American film production released that same year in Cavalcade. She immediately went back to the UK film industry after this, taking three years off from film appearances following the untimely death of her first husband, actor Robin Irvine. After returning to film acting, she had roles for the rest of her career; though, due to her primary job as a stage actress, her film roles not numerous. In all, she acted in less than 40 films during her long career, with The Battle of the Villa Fiorita (1965) being her last feature. Having made her television series debut in 1956, her last acting role came on the series The Root of All Evil? in the 1968 episode Money For Change. She then retired, dying at the age of 66 on the 21st of April after battling cancer for about a year and half. Her second husband was Welsh born actor (with whom she sometimes shared the stage) Roger Livesey. For their shared contribution to acting, they also share a memorial plaque at "The Actor's Church" St. Paul's Church, Covent Garden (at least one source say that their remains, possibly ashes?, were interred in the churchyard there).

[Source: Find A Grave]

IMDb

Monday, May 4, 2020

Born Today May 4: Frederick Henriksen

1847-1927

Danish actor Frederick Henriksen was born on this day in Aarhus, Denmark. Not much is known about his life other than his birth and death dates and locations. More than likely he was a stage actor for most of his career, given his birth year of 1847. He is known for only one film dating from 1912. Fodsporet is a crime film in which he assays the role of "Malcolm." Made by Filmfabrikken Skandinavien, it most certainly a film lost to us today. Henriksen died on the 18th of October (at least one source states that he died in Norway, but I don't know that to be absolutely true). It is no surprise that there is no information as to his burial.

IMDb

His Page on the Danish Film Institute site

The Fodsporet page on the Danish Film Institute site

Danish Film Institute more on the current state of silent films from Denmark

Sunday, May 3, 2020

Born Today May 3: Niccolò Machiavelli

1469-1527

Famous (or infamous, depending on how you look at him) political philosopher Niccolò Machiavelli was born on this day in the independent Republic of Florence in what is now Italy (birth name: Niccolò di Bernardo del Machiavelli). Machiavelli's father was a very prominent local attorney and town/republic citizen servant of Florence. Despite this, and the prominence of the ancestry of the family, Niccolò was never a full citizen of the republic. He was, however, eventually appointed to an official position of production of official Florentine government documents sometime after the year of 1498; he was then elevated to secretary of the Deci di Libertà e Pace. In the first year of the new century, Machiavelli actually raised and led an army of patriotic Florentine citizens, with their attack and defeat of neighboring Pisa. Of course, the writer is most famous for his work The Prince, a very famous/infamous political work first published in 1532--five years after his death. What needs to be pointed out, is that Machiavelli, though living during the Italian Renaissance, the years spanning his lifetime were also extraordinarily uncertain, violent, and extremely corrupt. Italy was groaning under the strain of an extant and politically corrosive rule from the Vatican--an extension of attempts at continued rule from Rome, the rise of secular city/states and the violent crumbling of the Holy Roman Empire. It should also be pointed out that The Prince can be read as a vicious satire; though if any reader of Machiavelli's works has read his follow up work to The Prince, Discourses on Livy--which masquerades as a history on Ancient Rome--and turns out to be anything but....it is, in fact, more a pure contemporary theory of political thought and conduct--it is clear that he did actually mean a good deal of the "advice" contained in The Prince. Basically, he regarded naked political ambition--open evil behavior to remain in power--more an exercise in a form of honesty, since he firmly believed that politicians were by nature: sneaky, dishonest and secretly criminally minded. To be a politician or ruler, free of "sneaking deception"--a person willing to openly engage in any behavior to stay in power--was a point of recommendation by the philosopher. He is also regarded as one of the most influential advancers in thought to the modern rule of Republicanism. In the world of film, there have been less the twenty productions of his work on the large and small screen; and only one of those came in the silent era. That film, Monna Vanna, was a German production and dates from 1922. The principle writer on that project was one of Germany's first female writers for the screen Olga Alsen. The film stars Paul Wegener--who is famous for his appearances in The Golem films, and Lee Parry--a German leading lady who made her film debut in 1919. The work is based on one of Machiavelli's many fictional/non-political works (a play) and was directed by Richard Eichberg. It would be almost 20 years before another film based on his work was produced. The first ever Italian production of one of his fictional tales, The Mask of Cesare Borgia was released in late September of 1941. His work first came to television another 20 years after this, with the made-for-tv comedy Mandragola which was produced for East German television and broadcast in late May of 1961. One of the only times that any of his political writings was used in a filmed production was also the first time that his work was used in an actual television series--in this case a mini-series. The Age of the Medici (1972-1973) was an Italian production with three episodes (and was, interestingly, the debut of American actor Fred Ward). While the debut of his work in a full television series came in 1976 in the episode La Mandragore of the long running French series Au théâtre ce soir. To date, the most recent use of his material came in 2010 in the short Canadian produced film Machiavelli's The Prince, which sports a runtime of 30 minutes. Machiavelli's downfall came in 1512, when after a local political upheaval, he was eventually arrested and tortured. After his release, he was effectively banished from Florence for a time (though, he himself, more than once referred to it as "retirement"). He eventually returned to die in the Republic of Florence (of what is not certain) at the age of 58 on the 21st of June. He is interred in a unique burial located at the Basilica di Santa Croce in Florence.

Wikipedia

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Britannica

IMDb

Find A Grave entry

Saturday, May 2, 2020

Born Today May 2: Tyrone Power Sr.

1869-1931

The actor that the world has come to know as Tyrone Power Sr. was born on this day in London, England as Frederick Tyrone Edmond Power. His father was himself an actor turned merchant dealing in wine. His grandfather was the noted Irish stage actor William Grattan Tyrone Power who was the first actor professionally using the name Tyrone Power (his father, a landed noble, was also named Tyrone Power). Most of this Tyrone Power's acting career was spent on the stage, though his early years were not spent learning the craft. Curiously, he was sent by his parents to the American state of Florida in order to learn citrus farming as an apprentice when he was only 14 years of age. Hating that lot in life, he ran away two years later and joined up with a theater company in St. Augustine. He made his formal stage debut there a year later at the age of 17. He proved to be a very talented actor and quickly moved on to specializing Shakespearean roles. Power would come to film acting much later in life, having spent three very successful decades on the stage before doing so (remember that motion pictures were first emerging as a technology right around the time that he made his stage debut). The first film in which he appeared in was in Famous Players 1914 melodrama Aristocracy. Though he had a fairly long film acting career after this, he did not make a large number of film appearances--having appeared in just over 40 productions through the year 1930. His last film, the early John Wayne western The Big Trail, was his only talking motion picture appearance and the only film that he made in the 1930's. He was to appear in Paramount's The Miracle Man, starring Sylvia Sidney, but he collapsed on the set on the 23rd of December in 1931--having suffered a massive heart attack. He died on the set in the arms of his 17 year old son, Tyrone Power III. Today he mostly remembered for being the father of his much more famous and well known son. He is listed as having a "non cemetery burial"--though because his son is buried at the famous Hollywood Forever Cemetery, many sources cite that he is buried there as well. Though I can find no information as to where he was actually buried, it does not appear that he was ever moved to the public cemetery at any point after the untimely death of Tyrone Power III (however, I suppose anything is possible; "Tyrone Power Jr." as most people knew him, has a very elaborate tomb there that could have also served as a family crypt of sorts).