Born Today December 12: Laura Hope Crews

 

1879-1942

 

Long an actress of the stage who later in her career became a character actor of films, Laura Hope Crews was born on this day in San Francisco. Her parents were theater people--her father a sets builder and her mother an actress--so it is hardly surprising that she started acting at an early age.  She was, in fact, just four years old when she made her professional acting debut.  She grew up in San Francisco and San Jose and stopped acting to attend school, but returned to the stage as a young adult.  In 1900, she moved with her mother, to New York City and began to act there on the stage. It was there that she made her film debut in 1915 in the lead role of the Jesse L. Lasky produced melodrama The Fighting Hope.  She was in one other 1915 Lasky production, Blackbirds; but like so many serious actors of the stage, she found silent film acting not at all to her taste.  She did not appear in another film until 1929 with the coming of sound. She had supporting role in the Paramount domestic melodrama Charming Sinners, a full sound film released August. She then went back to the stage for a couple of years before turning up the Charles Brabin directed film New Morals for Old in 1932 with Robert Young, Myrna Loy and Lewis Stone. After this point she worked steadily in films. When she appeared in the film version of The Silver Cord, in 1933, she was reprising her role from the a Broadway production of the Sidney Howard play; the only other member of the production that was a part of the stage production was director John Cromwell.  Without a doubt, her most famous role came as Aunt "Pittypat" in Gone With the Wind. George Cukor apparently recommended her for the role, but she already knew Clark Gable from the 1920's and had been instrumnetal in helping him get a start on the stage. It was her last film of the decade.  She appeared in seven films in the early 1940's, the last of which was New York Town, where her appearance went uncredited. She passed away at 62 in New York City on the 13th of November following a sort illness. She was returned to the west coast and laid to rest at Cypress Lawn Memorial Park in Colma, California.  Her lasting legacy was her contribution to stage performance; she had worked in some of the biggest venues on both coasts and had over 200 hundred appearances on Broadway.  She also worked as a vocal coach from time to time and was hired by Gloria Swanson to help her make the transition from silent to talking cinema. This came about on the set of Swanson's 1929 self produced talkie The Trespasser, for which Crews has an editorial associate credit.  

 

[Source: Scott G (Find A Grave)]

 

IMDb

 

Internet Broadway Database 

 

Wikipedia 

 

Find A Grave entry 

Born Today December 10: Philippe Gille

 

 

1831-1901 

 

French dramatist and operatic librettist Philippe Gille was born Philippe Emile François Gille on this day in Paris.  Although Gille wrote plays, he was first and foremost a librettist; and a prolific one at that, having penned over twenty of them in a 35 year period. Although his most well known works are with other composers, his largest body of operatic work was with Offenbach.  Gille is yet another example of a writer/musician of his time who started out studying law, and even working as a law clerk for a time, before finding his way into the arts. Gille got into writing by way of theatrical criticism and as a hired theatrical secretary (this is one case where in his law career, such as it was, actually advanced a career in the arts).  In regards to film, a little more than half of his credits unsurprisingly fall under the "soundtrack" category; but his one credit from the silent era comes as a writer. Les trente millions de Gladiator was a short film production of Pathé Frères directed by French comedian Charles Prince; it was based on writings from both Eugène Labiche and Gille. As far as his soundtrack credits go, it bears mentioning that his work has shown up in everything as diverse as a Tarantino/Tony Scott film (True Romance), the 1998 film of The Phantom of the Opera, an episode of "Castle Rock" Hulu's original horror series based on the works of Stephen King, and,  it's most recent use, an episode of the reboot of Magnum P.I.  Gille died in Paris on the 1st of March in 1901 at the age of 69. There is no information on his burial, despite that he is was a citizen of prominence in France. 

 

 

IMDb 

Born Today December 9: Alfred Abadie

 

 

1878-1950

 

American still photographer, turned cinematographer and early filmmaker Alfred Camille Abadie (most frequently credited as A. C. Abadie) was born on this day in New York City. Though Abadie was himself an important early filmmaker--who is currently  under-appreciated for his work (as of last year, that is starting to change)--the most famous film he is associated with is one in which he acted. He was part of the large, but completely uncredited, cast of the really famous Edison film The Great Train Robbery, released in 1903 for actual cinema screenings (a late turn for the Edison company away from parlor film).  He is listed as playing the role of sheriff; in the film the longest time duration of his role occurs during the dance hall section. Despite that the film is often cited as the very first narrative film (it's not, but to his credit, director Edwin S. Porter was one of the very first to conceive of films in a narrative style that would have need of what later became the screenplay), it is not exactly a great example of character development--so making Abadie out as the sheriff is not easy. The film was a "first" in one way though--due to it's wild popularity, it could credibly be called the very first "blockbuster."  But it was not Adabie first film association.  Abadie was hired in the film department of Edison manufacturing in 1898 as an assistant. He was a young photographer by trade and his work at the lab was mostly as a camera assistant to Edison filmmaker James H. White.  It is probable that Abadie worked on, and deserves credit for, films produced before the turn of the century. White was responsible for hundreds of Edison productions, most documentary in nature and many dating from around the time that Abadie went to work with him. Actually, it is improbable to think that he wasn't the production assistant responsible for shooting at least a few of these.  But...the first film that we know for certain that he had involvement with came in 1901 when he appeared in the "staged documentary" What Happened on Twenty-Third Street, New York City, another Edwin S. Porter film.  In another first, this was a staged performance that presented itself as a street actuality, but was instead a little comedy featuring Abadie and actress Florence Georgie having her skirt blown up (eat your heart out Marilyn Monroe). Not only have both of the films in which he acted survived, they have both been restored and transferred to disc. What Abadie as a filmmaker specialized in were real actualities--documentary subjects--filmed for Edison both abroad and domestically. As a crafter of films himself, he had a couple of film firsts to his name as well.  One of these was his shooting of the 1903 film Emigrants Landing at Ellis Island; it was chosen in 2019 by the Library of Congress to go on their annual list of 25 films recommended for preservation due to being found "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant."  The film was the very first to capture a ferryboat loaded with immigrant passengers docking at Ellis Island with passenger disembarkation. Many years later, in 1917,  he was deeply involved in the production of the film Birth, which is thought to be the first film of an actual birth of a baby in history (though, I am not sure about the reasons for the making of this film, as it's production company is listed as the "Eugenic Film Company," and that is, I'm sorry, disturbing!). The vast majority of his recorded film career however was during the years 1903 and 1904 under employment with the Edison behemoth. Edison sent him abroad in 1903 to record exotic actualities for the company to show at the screenings of larger, more expensive productions made by the studio. Principally he made these little films in north Africa and parts of the Middle East, especially The Holy Land--though he also traveled and filmed through parts of Europe. The first of these appears to be Market Scene in Cairo, Egypt (1903). Another typical example of one of these films is A Jewish Dance at Jerusalem (1903).  He even made a film of his passage between continents with Crossing the Atlantic (1903).  Back in New York, he shot little documentaries on his own and worked with other well known Edison studio names, such as Edwin S. Porter on Razzle Dazzle (1903), or his own in the staged comic dainty Policeman's Prank on Their Comrade (1903).  He also made a number of films of the aftermath of the fire the leveled downtown Baltimore in February of 1904. One of his last films for Edison was shot in Bliss, Oklahoma: Herding Horses Across a River in the later part of 1904.  Some time after this he left Edison's employ and continued to work as a photographer; he also continued to make independent films, becoming one of the first (if not the very first) filmmaker to produce both educational and industrial instruction films (a catalog of which does not appear to be easily found).  The above mentioned film Birth is the only example of films that we currently have from this part of his career. The film was shot a New York City hospital, so he was evidently still living in the city at that point. At some point later in his life, he went to California. He died in San Francisco at the age of 71 on New Year's Day in 1951. He was buried at the Catholic resting place Holy Cross Catholic Cemetery in Colma, California (located in San Mateo county).

 IMDb

 Find A Grave entry

 

 

 

 

Born Today December 8: Wallace Worsley

 

1878-1944

 

Classically trained stage actor, turned film actor, turned director Wallace A. Worsley was born on this day in Wappinger's Falls, New York.  Worsley's work is best known as a director of several very famous films of the 1920's, including The Hunchback of Notre Dame from 1923, but he got his start in the business in 1917 as an actor. His first film appearance came in Paws of the Bear; it was directed by Reginald Barker, with William Desmond and Clara Williams taking the leads. He only appeared in eight films in two years, the last of which was an Oscar Apfel romantic feature: A Man's Man (1918). He also made his directorial debut in 1918, directing himself (for the only time) in the now lost war intrigue An Alien Enemy. Over the next ten years, he would direct nearly 30 films, the vast majority of which came between 1918 and 1923.  Along the way he worked with a number of well known actors and movie stars, including: John Gilbert, Clara Bow, Noah Beery, Irene Rich, Blanche Sweet, Jack Pickford, Lionel Atwill, Clara Kimball Young and Lewis Stone.  He was director who liked to work with actors multiple times, and one of his earliest repeat collaborators was actress Louise Glaum. Of course, his most famous repeat collaboration came with The Man of a Thousand Faces: Lon Chaney. And it largely due to Chaney that Worsley is remembered as a horror director; conversely and ironically, it is largely down to Worsley that Chaney is thought of as a horror actor (obviously, with a little help from Tod Browning😉). Their first film working together came in 1920 with the The Penalty, a crime horror film in which Chaney plays a deformed criminal mastermind with no legs named Blizzard. They next worked together on The Ace of Hearts the following year; while not a horror film, it does include a secret society intrigue (Chaney also appeared that same year in the Worsley directed crime drama Voices of the City). In 1922, Worsley directed Leah Baird in When Husbands Deceive, a film that she adapted for the screen from her own short story.  Also in 1922 Worsley made for Goldwyn Pictures A Blind Bargain, another horror film--this time featuring an actual monster in the form of an Ape Man--starring, you guessed it, Lon Chaney in a dual role of both mad scientist and his monstrous assistant. This film is famously lost, and after Tod Browning's London After Midnight (also starring Chaney), the second most sought after lost silent horror.  After this point, Worsley's work slowed considerably, but also represents the time in his career that contains his most famous work, the above mentioned Hunchback Of Notre Dame, released in September of 1923--and with it's original length of well over 2 hours, it was an epic of a film!  He also directed another Leah Baird penned film in 1923: Is Divorce a Failure?  He directed just three more films after this; one in 1924 (The Man Who Fights Alone), one in 1926 (the Clara Bow film Shadow of the Law) and his last film The Power of Silence, released in October of 1928.  He then retired but remained in Hollywood. He passed away there at the age of 65 on the 26th of March and is interred at the famous Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale (his whole family is now interred there together). Worsley was married to silent actress Julia Taylor and together they had two sons, one of whom followed his parents into the film business (their other son sadly died at 13 in 1933).  Namesake Wallace Worsley Jr. worked as second unit director and/or production manager on such films as: The Wizard of Oz, Meet Me in St. Louis, Deliverance, The Coal Miner's Daughter, and E.T., not to mention a myriad of television series.  

 

[source: Kathy Salazar (Find A Grave)]

 

IMDb

Wikipedia

 

Find A Grave entry 

 

Born Today December 7: Johann Nestroy

 

[photo: Ludwig Angerer]

1801-1862

Musician, operatic actor, and Viennese playwright of popular humor and satire Johann Nepomuk Nestroy was born Johann Nepomuk Eduard Ambrosius Nestroy on this day in Vienna during empirical times.  Like so many talented writers of his time he was set to study and practice law, but his love of the stage and performance apparently got the best of him and he chose that path instead; he abandoned his studies altogether.  He started singing opera at the professional level locally, but left for Amsterdam for a time to perform German productions there. After performing in different continental cities, he eventually returned to Vienna where he took up writing. His deeply satirical themes, complete with parodies, were an instant success.  This brought him in for censorship in the 1830's, especially after his taking over "the people's theater"--the Volkstheater--from romantic writer Raimund.  Nestroy was obviously dead and gone before the introduction of motion pictures in the late 1880's, but during Nestroy's lifetime a plethora of new inventions for animation were invented and introduced and, of course, so was photography itself. Nestroy was photographed dozens and dozens of times during the later half of his life, principally by prolific photographer Ludwig Angerer.  It would be well into the the new century, and with the introduction of the feature film, before any of Nestroy's work was adapted for the motion picture screen.  Brought to the German screen by Max Mack, who had been making films since 1911, Robert and Beltran was adapted and directed by Mack, and sporting one Ernst Lubitsch as an actor, was based on a Nestroy farce about escaped convicts. The film was released in August of 1915. The following year saw the release of the first short film based on one of his plays; Einen Jux will er sich machen was adapted and directed by Emil Leyde and released in Austria in October.  There were just three more films made from his work in the silent era, the last being the comedy Frühere Verhältnisse: adapted by Viktor Klein and directed by Arthur Bergen (who was killed in Auschwitz in 1943); the film was released in June of 1927.  All the films made from his works up to this point were in the German language. Likewise, the first film made from his work in the sound era was also in German; Das Einmaleins der Liebe was released in Germany in 1937.  Almost two decades later, 1953 saw the use of his work on television for the first time; with Lumpazivagabundus airing in West Germany on the 8th of August. While most of remainder the, to date, of filmed productions of his work have been in German, there have been the odd-out exceptions, such as the 1991 television film Talisman in Czech. Or, much more famously: Hello, Dolly! the Gene Kelly directed 1969 musical which used comedic portions of Nestroy's work. That was taken from an famous English language stage production by Thornton Wilder.  Playwright Tom Stoppard adapted On The Razzle, translated by Stephen Plaice, for the English stage in the early 1980's. There have been (so far) eight film adaptations of his work since the turn of the century the most recent of which is Der Zerrissene, fittingly from Austria. Nestroy died in Graz, located in Styria, Austria on the 25th of May in 1862 at the age of just 60. In addition to his works for the stage, he also wrote number for musical productions, including an operatic work that matched to music by Offenbach (which, I suppose would--in a funny sort of way--make it his only brush with the Romantic movement).  He is buried at Vienna's Central Cemetery. 

[Source: Wolfgang Ilgner (Find a Grave)]

 

 

Wikipedia 

 

Absolutely excellent piece by Michael Lorenz

 

IMDb 

 

Find A Grave entry 

 

Born Today December 6: William S. Hart

 

 

 1864-1946

 

Although William S. Hart is remembered today as a silent western star, he started out about as far away from that genre as one could get.  Born William Surrey Hart on this day in Newburgh, New York, to immigrant parents from the British Isles, he took up stage acting while in his early 20's.  He made his formal stage debut in 1888 as a member of an acting company in New York City. Not long after this, possibly the very next year, he joined a traveling stage company and worked on stages across the country into the 1890's.  He settled for a time in Ashville, North Carolina, where he gained his first experience with directing. In 1899, back in New York, he was a member of the debut cast for the initial Broadway stage production of Ben-Hur, as such he was also in the first ever film of the story (which also served as the first ever lawsuit over production rights in film--successfully so): Ben Hur (1907). The film was his motion picture debut; he was 43 years of age and the part was not credited.  It would be another seven years before he made his credited debut in film, appearing in the lead role of His Hour of Manhood (July, 1914); in a sign of things to come, it was a western and he was nearly 50.  All of his film roles in 1914, save one were in westerns, with his starring role in The Bargain (December 1914) marking his feature film debut.  He also made his directing debut in 1914 as well. He directed himself in two short westerns--Two Gun Hicks and In the Sage Brush Country (he is also thought to have directed The Gringo).  By the following year, he was directing features that he also starred in; ironically his first feature was a more of a melodrama than an actual western, though it was set in the Yukon. The Darkening Trail was produced by Thomas Ince and was based on a C. Gardner Sullivan story; the film was released in May of 1915.  Ince was the producer of the little two-reelers that Hart largely directed himself which had quickly gained in popularity, which lead to a series of very successful features, starting with Trail.  By 1916, his films were bringing in huge returns, and by 1917 he was a bonafide mega-star.  Also starting in 1917, he began adding most of his 20 producer credits to his name (his production work on Ben Hur had long been forgotten by this time!).  So enamored was he of the western genre that he even began to write stories that were eventually produced into films. By the early 1920's Hart had become so popular among movie fans, young and old alike, that his face on a magazine cover became a sure fire way to sell issues. Gone completely was the actor who was in several stage productions of Shakespeare, replaced totally by the actor nicknamed "Two-Gun Bill."  Hart threw himself into the western role in life as well; collecting 19th century memorabilia and "19th century friends" in Bat Masterson and Wyatt Earp. He also had a large rancheria home built in 1920's that took four years to build and is today a museum.  He also married for the first time at the age of 57 to a 22 year old little knewn actress half his height and far more than half his age.  Within a year they had a son, but another year on, the marriage was on the rocks.  Normally I wouldn't bring up such personal detail, except that Hart, who already had a tendency to take himself too seriously, became irreversibly sanctimonious to the point that it began to impact his career in films.  Not only was his wife's allegations of infidelity, and worse, out in the press (it would take until 1927 for Winifred Westover to actually obtain the divorce she filed for in 1923), he also found himself ultimately the butt of a satirically hilarious Buster Keaton film in 1922 The Frozen North (though Hart was not the only target of the film--he was the main one). He had landed himself in this situation after making strong public statements about Roscoe Arbuckle, despite never having met them man in his life. Keaton, who Hart did know personally, was not going to have any of it (and it is rumored that Arbuckle himself wrote what we would call the "spec" for the film--though he is not credited even under his assumed name of William Goodrich).  Despite his kerfuffle with Keaton, Hart was aging and his moralistic scripts began to grate against his growing loss of popularity to much younger, more dynamic, western stars (for example, even though Tom Mix had been in pictures consistently since the teens like Hart, he was nearly 20 year's Hart's junior). After 1921, he was only in a handful of films and the waning of his popularity must have really stung. He left the movie business on a sour note and that also made the presses. His last full film Tumbleweeds is an extremely well made film and Hart produced the entire project from his own monies. He shadow directed some of the most impressive location shoots (in Santa Clarita) and his production company hired King Baggot, a director known for his adventure melodramas over at Universal (credited as 'King Baggott") to direct.  Still the film had a sanctimonious ring to it; consider one 1925 tagline (if one can call it that, given it's length): "Not a Cowboy Picture but a tremendous romantic drama of the great West by the only screen star who knows the vast region and the ways of it's vaster people." Hart had also personally secured a deal with United Artists to distribute the film; but United Artists failed to properly promote the film and as a result had only a mediocre response at the box office (could have been worse....it was far from a flop!).  Hart sued U.A. and the fight spilled over into the press, after which he retired to his home in Newhall, California. In 1939 he made his only sound appearance on film, though not in a new production, but in a filmed prologue for a new release of Tumbleweeds. He personally oversaw it's new release, picking the music and approving the sound effects added--all quite well done (this is the version you are likely to run into on disc and on streaming services). Though the film is far from a masterpiece, it still a fine piece of cinema and his re-release does benefit from sound selections that he added. Though his prologue is a bit hard to watch, regardless of your opinion of either the actor, silent films in general or of silent westerns in particular. He sounds more like a some odd combination of an over-acting Shakespearean and a tent preacher--his accent obviously influenced by the English and Irish accents of his parents--making his "western star" persona seem out of place (though if he were to have laid off the melodramatic inflection, he would have made a fine narrator later in life!).  The following year, Hart at long last won his suit again United Artist over the release of the film.  Hart died in Newhall on the 23 of June at the age of 81, but instead of burial in the land that he loved and purported to know so well, he is instead buried back in New York in a family plot at Brooklyn's Green-Wood Cemetery. Though he was never a true rough-rider in life (and very many early western stars were), Hart did provide some firsts in the genre, including having a famous horse. So many western stars after him had horses with name almost as famous as they, but Fritz the horse was the first.

 

Burial memorial to Fritz in California, buried on Hart's ranch after his death in 1938 [source: Life Magazine]

 

[Green-Wood: source: Ginny M (Find A Grave)]

 

IMDb

Wikipedia

 

Find A Grave entry 

Find A Grave entry for Fritz the Horse

Born Today December 5: Ben Carré

Life magazine photo of Carré at work sketching the begginings of a back drop paiting--I believe on the MGM backlot

1883-1978

Painter and film art director Benjamin S. Carré was born on this day in Paris, France.  Classically trained, Carré studied at the French Atelier Amable and became a professional scene painter for the Paris Opera and moved on to the Comédie-Francais.  In addition to scene painting, he was a prolific watercolor artist and painted all through the earliest days of his career, and exhibited the paintings throughout his lifetime.  Wanting to get into the film business he managed to find work at Pathé-Gaumont--he worked on several films while still in France, but his name has not survived in the credits to date (perhaps a catalog will turn up with these credits).  He came to the United States in 1912 looking for work in the studio system in the New York area.  He eventually landed at World Film (& Eclair) working on set painting at the Peerless Studio location.  The first film to bear his name for art work was the Clara Kimball Young drama Hearts In Exile in 1915, followed closely by the Albert Capellani film of Dumas' Camille.  Once he started working in the business, he had steady work and moved with the studios when they moved west.  Most of his career was film was spent during the silent era, though he did work on set into the sound era.  He also worked in various aspects of artistic production--costumes to camera work, but mostly he stuck to scene painting, for which he had a tremendous talent.  The last silent film that he worked on was the 1929 A. F. Erikson melodrama The Women From Hell staring Mary Astor and Dean Jagger (he had also worked on the Alan Dwan film The Iron Mask --a partial silent--in 1929).  He would be away from film for two years, showing back up as art director on the 1931 Charlie Chan film The Black Camel.  He would further take off time from film, staying away from film for a full 5 years.  He returned in 1936 to serve as art director for three more films, the last being the early film noir Great Guy starring James Cagney.  He then retired from the film business and concentrated on his individual paintings. Though he is not credited any later film work, he, according to The New York Times designed the Mount Rushmore backdrops in Hitchcock's North by Northwest, as well art work on Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo.  As a member to the Hollywood community, he was also a founding member of the Motion Picture Academy of Art & Sciences.  Probably his most famous work was as the designer and painter of the catacombs for the set of the Lon Chaney horror of 1925: The Phantom of the Opera (though, officially, he went uncredited on the project). Carré and his wife Anne, herself a retired performer, stayed in the California for their official retirement. He passed away there on the 28th of May in Santa Monica. For such a high profile member of the earliest Hollywood film crowd, I can find no information as to his burial or cremation. Highly collectable and in demand, many of his paintings are still sold at auctions. He also penned a memoir of his time in the film business.  

 

 

 

IMDb

Wikipedia

Born Today December 4: A. Carlos

 

 1876-1930

 

 Not very much is known about this silent film "presenter" that went simply by A. Carlos, except that he was indeed male, born in Poland and ultimately died in Paris, France. We also know that he founded a production company in the United States somewhere along the way.  The first film listed from both the production company--Carlos Productions--and Carlos himself as a presenter was The Unknown Purple which was released in October of 1923.  The company was only involved in 22 recorded productions between the years 1923 and 1928 and Carlos himself is credited on 20 of those as a presenter. [Note:  the second company credit comes closely on it's first with the film Let's Go, a co-production with the Richard Talmadge Productions Co. the company of acrobat/stunt man turned actor Richard Talmadge--no relation to the famous Talmadge sisters; Carlos himself is not listed among the film's credits.]  It is quite possible that the company has other credits and so to does Carlos himself, that are hard to track down, but for the purposes here I will stick to what is readily available.  Also, the title "presenter" would be recognized today as a kind of executive producer, and clearly as the founder of a production house, the films that bear Carlos' name should be considered in some respects made by him. In the mid-1920's his company produced several more films made for the above mentioned Richard Talmadge (one of the strangest being Laughing at Danger, a 1924 comedic yarn about a death ray). Another company that Carlos Productions teamed up with during this time was the Truart Film Co., a tiny company that nonetheless had a presence in the distribution business. By 1928 Carlos and his production company were out the Richard Talmadge promotion business and produced four films with actors and/or directors that were relatively well known. They included Jobyna Ralston in Black Butterflies, King Baggot directing Romance of a Rogue and Dallas M. Fitzgerald directing The Look Out Girl.  The latter two of these were adapted for the screen by Adrian Johnson who had been a major writer at Fox during the teens. His last film production came with Jazzland (poster pictured above) in 1928.  It starred Bryant Washburn and Vera Reynolds, was again directed by Fitzgerald and, despite it's title, was a completely silent release. The film was completely produced by Carlos Productions and distributed by Quality Distribution Company.  Carlos' credits in the film industry end there, and it is probable that he did not make any more films after this point, because he was known to be in Paris, France at the time of his death just two years later. He died in France on the 30th of January at just the age of 53. It is recorded that his remains were shipped back to New York for a funeral and burial. Records show that he was buried at one of the cemeteries in Glendale, Queens--likely Cypress Hills--but nothing else is recorded about his life (at this time). 

Born Today December 2: Doris Hollister

 

 1906-1990

 

Child actress Doris Ethel Hollister was born on this day in New York to actress Alice Hollister and cinematographer George K. Hollister Sr.; she was the older sister of fellow child actor George Hollister Jr.  She made her film debut in the Sidney Olcott early feature From the Manger to the Cross; or, Jesus of Nazareth in which her mother played Mary Magdalene. The film had a much larger uncredited cast than it did a credited one, she was just one of many who appeared without credit--which also saw her younger brother appear as Jesus as a child sans a credit; she was just 6 years of age when the film was filmed all over the middle east and north Africa in 1912. Her first film acting credit came the very next spring.  Again acting with her mother and younger brother, she played the daughter in the Robert Vignola short immigration drama The Alien, which was released in May of 1913 when she was still just 6. In all, she appeared in just seven films, none of them past the age of 7. All of her films were Kalem productions, and all, save for the first one, were shorts. Historically, the most well known of these films was an adaptation of Uncle Tom's Cabin; released in 1913--it featured an all white cast in blackface parts, of which her brother George was a member.  Her last film appearance came in the Kenean Buel directed western The Brand, which was released in August of 1914. As an adult, Doris was married for a time to extremely prolific animation director/producer Walter Lantz; they divorced in 1940.  She died in Tustin, California on the 26th of July in 1990 at the age of 83. She is reportedly interred not far from the ashes of her parents at the Iris Terrace of Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale.

 

Still from The Atheist (1913) with Tom Moore and Alfrede Handsworth

 

IMDb

 

Find A Grave entry 

 

Born Today December 1: Cyril Ritchard

 

1898-1977

 

Australian born character actor (and occasional director) Cyril Ritchard (Cyril Joseph Trimnell-Ritchard) was born on this day in Surry Hills, Australia (a suburb of Sydney). Educated in Sydney by Jesuits and studied medicine at the Sydney University. He completed his studies and briefly went into medicine, but had a long love of non-professional acting and decided in 1917 to take that passion pro.  After a couple of years of fits and starts, he went on a professional tour in New Zealand as a dancer, where he and his dancing partner--one Madge Elliott--appeared in musicals. Sometime after 1918 he immigrated to the New York City area and took up stage acting there. In the mid-1920's he left the U.S. for the stage in London, reuniting with Elliot there; they would eventually marry some ten years later.  Though both of them were actors of the stage and Ritchard was also a talented director of stage production--especially comedy musicals--both did have film careers--his longer than hers. They both made their film debut in On With The Dance in 1927 while living in the UK. It is listed as a silent film, but it is also a lost film, so it is possible that it was some sort of early sound musical dance short (or possibly a "phonofilm" in which an accompanying disc was played along with the film at screening); it is equally possible that it was actually silent with proscribed soundtrack listing.  He appeared in just two more films in the 1920's; both of which were films with some type of sound and both were released in 1929.  The first of these was the large budget BIP production Piccadilly, which survives and has been released on disc.  While Piccadilly is a pretty famous late 1920's film, Ritchard's next film is one of the most famous releases of 1929.  He both acted in and contributed his first musical number in a film to Alfred Hitchcock's all sound crime thriller Blackmail, released in October of that year. His next film appearance did not come until well over a year after, when he appeared in the U.K. musical Just For A Song, released in December of 1930. In 1937, two years after his marriage to Elliott, he appeared in two very early television shorts, one of which--Pasquinade--was an early BBC production starring Herminone Baddeley. His first appearance in an actual television series came is in the U.S. variety series The Billy Rose Show in the 1951 episode Duet for Two Actors, in which he appeared along side Frank Albertson, who would go on less than ten years later to play the "dirty old man" Tom Cassidy in Hitchcock's Psycho. All of his appearances after this up until 1966 were on the small screen, including a made-for-television film of his stage role as Capt. Hook in a musical production of Peter Pan in 1955 (he won a Tony for his role in the live stage production). In 1966 he provided voice work on the animated anthology The Daydreamer, based on the writings of Hans Christian Andersen, which also featured silent era star Tallulah Bankhead.  He there after made appearances mostly on television, including multiple appearances on The Red Skelton Hour. His last role came in the 1977 animated film The Hobbit, made for television by ABC and aired on the 27th of November.  He passed away less than a month later on the 18th of December of that year at the age of 79.  He passed away in his adopted home city of Chicago and was buried at Saint Mary's Cemetery in Ridgefield, Connecticut, along with his beloved wife, who had passed in 1955, preceding him in death by over twenty years. 

[Source: Jack Sanders (Find A Grave)]

His wedding to Madge Elliott

 

Wikipedia 

IMDb  

Find A Grave entry