The Auteurs Film & Cast Member Database
Bio:
Lilian Harvey (19 January 1906[citation needed] – 27 July 1968) was a British-born actress and singer, long-based in Germany, where she is best known for her role as Christel Weinzinger in Erik Charell’s 1931 film Der Kongress tanzt.
Helene Lilian Muriel Pape was born in 1906 in Hornsey, North London. Her mother, Ethel Marion Laughton, was English and her father, Walter Bruno Pape, was a German businessman. At the beginning of World War I the family found itself in Magdeburg, and as they were unwilling and unable to return to England, Harvey was sent to live with an aunt at Solothurn in Switzerland. After the war, the Papes lived in Berlin, where Lilian took her high-school diploma (Abitur) in 1923. She began her career by attending the dance and voice school of the Berlin State Opera and assumed her grandmother’s maiden name (Harvey) as her professional surname.
After an engagement as a revue dancer in Vienna in 1924, Harvey received her first movie role as the young Jewish girl “Ruth” in the film Der Fluch directed by Robert Land. Subsequently, she starred in many silent films. In 1925, she was cast in her first leading role in the film Leidenschaft by Richard Eichberg, side by side with Otto Gebühr.
Because of her training as a singer, Harvey was able to pursue a successful acting career during the initial talkie era of the early 1930s. Her first movie with Willy Fritsch was the operetta film Die keusche Susanne in 1926. Harvey and Fritsch became the “dream couple” of German movies in the early 1930s with the romantic love story Liebeswalzer; she was called the “sweetest girl in the world” by the press, after a song featured in the film. She and Fritsch starred in a total of 11 movies together, among them the criminal comedy Hokuspokus (1930) after a play by Curt Goetz, directed by Gustav Ucicky, which became a box office success. An English version (The Temporary Widow) was filmed simultaneously, starring Lilian Harvey and Laurence Olivier, who thereby made his film debut. She also appeared in the musical film Die Drei von der Tankstelle of the same year, which also became a major success and gave the young actor Heinz Rühmann his break.
In 1931, Harvey played the leading part in the film Der Kongreß tanzt (The Congress Dances); her song Das gibt’s nur einmal written by Werner R. Heymann became a most popular melody. Her subsequent movies were filmed in English and French versions, so Harvey became known outside of Germany. She was invited to Hollywood and made four movies for the Fox Film Corporation, but these were not as successful as her German films. She eventually abandoned George White’s 1935 Scandals, leading executives to cast Alice Faye in the part, and Faye became an overnight sensation. In 1935, Lilian Harvey returned to Germany.
As she was still in touch with her Jewish colleagues, Harvey was placed under close observation by the Gestapo. Nevertheless she pushed the career of her protégé, director Paul Martin, performing in his screwball comedy Glückskinder (1936) and further successful movies for the UFA until 1939, such as Sieben Ohrfeigen, the biographical film Fanny Elßler (1937) together with Willy Birgel and Capriccio; as well as Frau am Steuer in 1939.
In June 1937 Harvey had helped the choreographer Jens Keith, prosecuted under Paragraph 175, by posting a bail for him. Released from custody, Keith escaped to Paris; this led to a stern interrogation by the Nazi authorities. In 1939, Harvey was forced to leave Germany herself, leaving her real-estate fortune, which was confiscated. She eventually landed in the United States and spent most of World War II in Los Angeles, working as a volunteer nurse. Because she had performed for French troops, the Nazi regime deprived Harvey of her German citizenship in 1943.
After retiring from acting, she retired to her residence in Juan-les-Pins in Vichy France. There, she made two movies in 1940 – Sérénade and Miquette (her last), both directed by Jean Boyer. After the occupation of southern France by Germany, she emigrated to Hollywood again and toured the United States performing in Noël Coward’s Blithe Spirit.
After the war, Harvey returned to Paris. In the following years, she travelled as a singer through Scandinavia and Egypt. In 1949, she returned to West Germany giving several concerts. From 1953 to 1957, she was married to Danish theatre agent Hartvig Valeur-Larsen.
Harvey retired to the resort town of Antibes on the French Riviera, where she operated a souvenir shop and raised edible snails. She died of liver failure on 27 July 1968 in Juan-les-Pins, aged 62. She was buried at the Robiac Cemetery in Antibes.—Wikipedia
Missing still for A Toda Maquina
Sabrina Ferilli
Paola Cortellesi
Isabella Ragonese
Valeria Solarino
Anna Bonaiuto
Tiziana Lodato
Valentina Carnelutti
Micaela Ramazzotti
Valentina Lodovini
Donatella Finocchiaro
Francesca Inaudi
Francesca Dellera
Quote:
Before the picture business went talkie, its players seldom gave a great deal of study to their roles. They arrived at the studio in the morning, made up and went on the set."
Bio:
A mining engineer’s daughter, blond, blue-eyed Betty Compson began in show business playing violin in a Salt Lake City vaudeville establishment for $15 a week. Following that, she went on tour, accompanied by her mother, with an act called ‘the Vagabond Violinist’. Aged eighteen, she appeared on Alexander Pantages Theatre Circuit, again doing her violin solo vaudeville routine, and was spotted there by comedy producer Al Christie. Christie quickly changed her stage name from Eleanor to Betty. For the next few years, she turned out a steady stream of one-reel and two-reel slapstick comedies, frequently paired with Roscoe ‘Fatty’ Arbuckle.
In 1919, Betty was signed by writer/director George Loane Tucker to co-star opposite Lon Chaney as Rose in The Miracle Man (1919). The film was a huge critical and Financial success and established Betty Compson as a major star at Paramount (under contract from 1921 to 1925). One of the more highly paid performers of the silent screen, her weekly earnings exceeded $5000 a week at the peak of her career. She came to own a fleet of luxury limousines and was able to move from a bungalow in the hills overlooking Hollywood to an expensive mansion on Hollywood Boulevard. From 1921, Betty also owned her own production company. She went on to make several films in England between 1923 and 1924 for the director Graham Cutts.
During the late 1920’s, Betty appeared in a variety of dramatic and comedic roles. She received good reviews acting opposite George Bancroft as a waterfront prostitute in The Docks of New York (1928), and was even nominated for an Academy Award for her portrayal of a carnival girl in The Barker (1928). She gave a touching performance in The Great Gabbo (1929), directed by her then-husband James Cruze, as the assistant of a demented ventriloquist (Erich von Stroheim), with whom she is unhappily in love. That same year, she appeared in RKO’s first sound film, Street Girl (1929) and was briefly under contract to that studio, cast in so-called ’women’s pictures’, such as The Lady Refuses (1931) and Three Who Loved (1931).
The stature of her roles began to diminish from the mid-1930’s, though she continued to act in character parts until 1948. Betty’s personal fortunes also declined. This came about primarily as a result of her marital contract to the alcoholic Cruze, whom she had divorced in 1929 . For several years, Cruze had failed to pay his income tax and Betty (linked financially to Cruze) ended up being sued by the Federal Government to the tune of $150,000. This forced her to sell her Hollywood villa, her cars and her antiques. In later years, Betty Compson developed her own a cosmetics label and ran a business in California, producing personalised ashtrays for the hospitality industry.—IMDb
Quote:
“I remember I thought it [Christie Film Company] was a den of iniquity. Men threw their arms around you and called you ‘honey’ and ‘baby,’ and there were women who smoked cigarettes!”
Bio:
Laura La Plante (November 1, 1904 – October 14, 1996) was an American actress, best known for her roles in silent films.
Born as Laura LaPlant, La Plante made her acting debut at the age of 15, and in 1923 was named as one of the years WAMPAS Baby Stars. During the 1920s she appeared in more than sixty films. Among her early film appearances were Big Town Round-Up (1921), with cowboy star Tom Mix, and the serials Perils of the Yukon (1922) and Around the World in Eighteen Days (1923).
The majority of her films (i.e. from 1921 to 1930) were made for Universal Pictures. During this period she was the studio’s most popular star, “an accomplishment duplicated only by Deanna Durbin years later.” One of her earliest surviving films is Smouldering Fires (1925) directed by Clarence Brown and costarring Pauline Frederick. Her best remembered film is arguably the silent classic The Cat and the Canary (1927), although she also achieved acclaim for Skinner’s Dress Suit (1926), with Reginald Denny, the part-talkie The Love Trap (1929), directed by William Wyler, and the 1929 part-talkie film version of Show Boat (1929), adapted from the novel of the same name by Edna Ferber.
Although this last film was an adaptation of the novel, and not of the famous musical play that the novel was based on, some songs from the play were tossed into the film as box-office insurance. La Plante, however, did not actually sing in the movie; her singing was dubbed by Eva Olivetti, one of the first instances in which this was done in a motion picture. Quite unusual for its day, a scene of La Plante in Show Boat was broadcast on early British television.
The advent of ‘talkies’ effectively shortened her career. Only in her mid-twenties, La Plante proved to be a quite natural and appealing presence in early talkies but the huge wave of new stars in those years overshadowed her. She made her last appearances for Universal in the Technicolor musical extravaganza King of Jazz (1930).
For a while she free-lanced, appearing in God’s Gift to Women (Warner Bros., 1931), directed by Michael Curtiz and co-starring Frank Fay, and Arizona (Columbia, 1931), co-starring a young John Wayne.
La Plante subsequently went to England where she appeared in several “quota quickies”, including Man of the Moment (1935), with Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. La Plante was briefly considered to replace Myrna Loy in the Thin Man series when Loy thought about leaving, but Loy stayed as “Nora Charles”[citation needed], and La Plante’s career never rebounded.
She retired from the screen in 1935, making only two later films, 1957’s Spring Reunion being her last. Her younger sister, actress Violet La Plante, never achieved her sister Laura’s level of fame, but, like Laura, was herself named as a “WAMPAS Baby Star”, with her “WAMPAS” title coming in 1925. In 1954 Laura La Plante made a guest appearance (as herself, Mrs. Laura Asher) on Groucho Marx’s quiz show You Bet Your Life. [Her partner was 18 year old Henry Aaron (B. 1936), a senior at Fairfax High School.] She talked about her husband, Irving Asher, who had just lost 25 lbs. and completed “Elephant Walk” with Elizabeth Taylor in “Ceylon”. Mrs. Asher asked that her winnings, if any, go to the Motion Picture Relief Fund. They got three out of four questions correct to win $215.
She died in Woodland Hills, California from Alzheimer’s disease, at the age of 91. There is a Laura La Plante Road in Agoura Hills, California.—Wikipedia
Quote:
“Mama said I wasn’t trained to do anything, so there was nothing left for me but acting”
Bio:
Bessie Love (September 10, 1898 – April 26, 1986) was an American motion picture actress who achieved prominence mainly in the silent films and early talkies. With a small frame and delicate features, she played innocent young girls, flappers, and wholesome leading ladies. Her role in The Broadway Melody (1929) earned her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress. In addition to her acting career, she wrote the screenplay for the 1919 film A Yankee Princess.
Love was born Juanita Horton in Midland, Texas. She attended school in Midland until she was in the eighth grade, when her chiropractor father moved his family to Hollywood. Bessie graduated from Los Angeles High School and then received from her parents the graduation present of a trip around the United States. After six months of traveling, she finally returned home to Los Angeles.
To help with the family’s financial situation, Love’s mother sent her to Biograph Studios, where she met pioneering film director D.W. Griffith. Griffith, who introduced Bessie Love to films, also gave the actress her screen moniker. He gave her a small role in his film Intolerance (1916). She also appeared opposite William S. Hart in The Aryan and with Douglas Fairbanks in The Good Bad Man, Reggie Mixes In, and The Mystery of the Leaping Fish (all 1916).
In 1922 Love was selected one of the WAMPAS Baby Stars. In 1923, she starred in Human Wreckage with Dorothy Davenport and produced by Thomas Ince.
As her roles got larger, so did her popularity. She performed the Charleston in the film The King on Main Street in 1925. Also that same year she starred in The Lost World, a science fiction adventure based on the novel of the same name by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Three years later she starred in The Matinee Idol, a romantic comedy directed by a young Frank Capra.
Love was able to successfully transition to talkies, and in 1929 she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for The Broadway Melody. She also appeared in several other early musicals including The Hollywood Revue of 1929 (1929), Chasing Rainbows (1930), Good News (1930), and They Learned About Women (1930).
However, by 1932 her American film career was in decline. She moved to England in 1935 and did stage work and occasional films there. As war came in Europe she returned to the US for a while, worked for the Red Cross, and entertained the troops. After the war she moved back to Britain where she kept her main residence, and continued to play small film roles for film companies in both the US and Britain. She appeared in films such as The Barefoot Contessa (1954) with Humphrey Bogart, and as an American tourist in The Greengage Summer (1961) starring Kenneth More. She also played a small role as an American tourist in the James Bond thriller On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969). She played a small but pivotal role as a switchboard operator in 1971’s Sunday Bloody Sunday.
Her career came to a quick halt soon after that however, and she moved permanently to the United Kingdom, becoming a British citizen. She made a comeback in the 1980s with roles in Ragtime (1981), Warren Beatty’s Reds (1981), Lady Chatterley’s Lover (1981) and (her final film) The Hunger (1983) starring Catherine Deneuve, David Bowie, and Susan Sarandon. During her lifetime, Love featured in 131 films and TV episodes.
In 1977 she published an autobiography, From Hollywood with Love. She was at this time living comfortably in a flat overlooking London’s Clapham Common and had recently appeared in a television account of the abdication of King Edward VIII.
She recorded that during World War II in Britain when she found acting work hard to come by she had been the “continuity girl” on the film drama San Demetrio London, an account of a ship badly damaged in the Atlantic but whose crew managed to bring her to port. She also says she had regular diet in the post-war era of stage roles as an American Tourist and similar roles, and was “Aunt Pittypat” in a large-scale musical version of Gone With the Wind.
Love was married once, from 1929 to 1935, to film producer William Hawks (the brother of film director Howard Hawks), and she had a daughter from that marriage. Love died in London, England from natural causes on April 26, 1986.
She has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6777 Hollywood Boulevard, Los Angeles, California.—Wikipedia
Image Submission for Yellowbrickroad (2010) dir. Jesse Holland, Andy Mitton
Image Submission for The Dead Outside (2008) dir. Kerry Anne Mullaney
Image Submission for Dead Daughters (Myortvye Docheri) 2007 dir. Pavel Ruminov
A more cohesive cast listing for Subida al Cielo
Estaban Márquez, Lilia Prado, Luis Aceves Castañeda, Manuel Dondé, Roberto Cobo, Beatriz Ramos, Manuel Noriega, Roberto Meyer, Leono Gómez, Carmelita González
Still for Razzle Dazzle
Everyone accepts that Cache is Cache and to call it Hidden in English is kind of an insult to everyone.
If one is trying to find this in a store or online they would find it under Cache, not Hidden, could you just leave Cache has the title?
Bio:
Viviane Romance (July 4, 1912 – September 25, 1991) was a French actress.
Born Pauline Ronacher Ortmanns in Roubaix, France, Romance began her career as a dancer at the Moulin Rouge in Paris and was elected Miss Paris of 1930 before she made her film debut in 1931 with a cameo role in La Chienne. Romance caused a small scandal winning Miss Paris because she had a child. She appeared in several films over the next few years before making a strong impression in La belle équipe (1936). From this time to the late 1950s she was regarded as one of France’s leading cinematic actresses and played dozens of Femme fatales, fallen women (with hearts of gold) and vamps. Her acting roles after 1956 were few, and she retired in 1974.
Romance was offered, and rejected, a Hollywood film contract in the 1930s. She preferred to make films in her native France. However, she also resided for many years in Italy where she made several Italian language films.
She died in Nice, Alpes-Maritimes, France.—Wikipedia
Bio:
Mila Parély (7 October 1917 – 14 January 2012) was a French actress best known for the roles of Belle’s sister in Jean Cocteau’s La Belle et la Bête and as Geneviève in La Règle du jeu. She gave up acting in the late 1950s in order to take care of her race-car driving husband Thomas Mathieson, who had been injured in an accident.
She also worked with such notable directors as Max Ophüls, Robert Bresson, Fritz Lang and G.W. Pabst. She returned to acting briefly in the late 1980s.
Parély died on January 14, 2012 in Vichy where she had spent the last fifty years of her life.—Wikipedia
Quote:
“Lon Chaney was very kind to me except for one scene where I had to show utter horror. Right before the shot he whispered something suggestive to me to get the reaction. Afterward I forgave him and always admired him as a great actor and friend.”
Bio:
Mary Philbin was one of the top actresses of the silent film era, a favorite of directors and her fellow actors, and considered the screen equal of Mary Pickford, Florence Lawrence and Lillian Gish. But her life story would make a perfect silent melodrama, full of early success and stardom, over-protective and controlling parents, bitter family strife, forbidden love and, ultimately, loss.
Philbin was born in Chicago on July 16, 1902, the daughter of John and Mary Philbin. (Many sources cite 1903 as the year of her birth, but her crypt marker lists 1902.) Her father took her to plays and sometimes even opera performances in Chicago, and she decided at a young age that she wanted a career in the theater. She took dance and music lessons, and one of her young friends was Rebecca “Carla” Laemmle, the niece of Universal Studios founder Carl Laemmle.
When she was 16, Philbin heard that director Erich von Stroheim was coming to Chicago to search for new talent for his film, “Blind Husbands.” Von Stroheim was impressed with Philbin’s delicate beauty, and he selected her to come to Los Angeles and star in the film. Philbin’s parents initially refused to give her permission to move to Los Angeles. But when they discovered that their family friends, the Laemmles, were moving to Los Angeles, they allowed Philbin to go, and they moved to L.A. with her.
When she arrived in Los Angeles, Philbin discovered that she had been replaced in “Blind Husbands.” With help from her friend Carla Laemmle, Philbin found work at Universal, and made her film debut in “The Blazing Trail” (1921). She appeared in five more films in 1921 — “Danger Ahead,” “Twelve Hours to Live,” “Red Courage,” “Sure Fire” and “False Kisses.”
As an actress, the 5-foot-2-inch Philbin was in the Mary Pickford mold — sweet and innocent, her young face surrounded by thick, flowing curls of hair. In 1922, Philbin was named as one of the first group of “WAMPAS Baby Stars,” an annual promotional campaign sponsored by the Western Association of Motion Picture Advertisers from 1922 to 1934 to identify 13 actresses the group believed was on the threshold of movie stardom. In future years, the WAMPAS Baby Stars would include Clara Bow (1924), June Marlowe (1925), Mary Astor (1926), Joan Crawford (1926), Dolores del Rio (1926), Janet Gaynor (1926), Fay Wray (1926), Lupe Velez (1928), Jean Arthur (1929), Loretta Young (1929), Joan Blondell (1931), Constance Cummings (1931), Ginger Rogers (1932) and Gloria Stuart (1932).
Philbin also finally got her chance to work with von Stroheim, appearing in a small role in “Foolish Wives” (1922), which, at the time, was the most expensive production ever made at Universal.
After appearing in five films in 1922, Philbin began to get larger roles, starring in “Merry-Go-Round” (1923), which was originally written and directed by von Stroheim, but he was fired before filming was completed. “Merry-Go-Round” turned Philbin into a genuine Hollywood star, with her picture beginning to appear on the covers of movie magazines. She also had starring roles in “Where is This West?” and “The Temple of Venus,” both also released in 1923.
In 1924, Carl Laemmle selected Philbin for the role of opera singer Christine Daae, to co-star with Lon Chaney in “The Phantom of the Opera” (1925) — which also featured Philbin’s friend Carla Laemmle in a small role. At the time, Chaney was coming off his success as Quasimodo in “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” (1923) and was a major film star, and the naturally shy and reserved Philbin was somewhat nervous around him.
Chaney and director Rupert Julian often clashed on the set of the film, often getting into heated arguments which would result in Chaney directing some of his own scenes. Philbin’s big scene in the film is her climactic unmasking of the phantom in which she sees his horribly disfigured face for the first time. The scene called for Philbin to be on the floor, screaming and crying after she pulls off the mask of the phantom, who remains off screen. After several takes, Julian wasn’t satisfied with the scene, and he ordered an end to filming for the day.
But Chaney asked Philbin and the crew to remain to film another take. Just as the camera started rolling, Chaney surprised Philbin — and the crew — when he launched a steady stream of vicious insults at the shy, young actress. Chaney raised his hand menacingly, and Philbin screamed, raised her hand to her face and began sobbing. As soon as the scene was caught on film, Chaney rushed over to Philbin and told her that he didn’t mean any of the terrible things he said, and he was just trying to get an honest reaction from her.
Instead of being angry over the trick, Philbin forgave Chaney and had great respect for him as a performer. For the rest of the film, Chaney was always on the set when Julian was directing Philbin in a scene, even if Chaney was not in it.
“The Phantom of the Opera” was a huge critical and commercial success, and Universal’s biggest money-maker of the decade, and Philbin’s star continued to rise.
At about this time, Philbin met the man who would become the love of her live — Universal producer Paul Kohner. At first, Philbin and Kohner kept their relationship a secret, primarily due to their religious differences — Philbin was an Irish Catholic, and Kohner was a Jewish immigrant from Austria-Hungary (now the Czech Republic). When they became engaged in May 1926, Philbin finally told her parents. Philbin’s parents told her that if she married Kohner, she would be disowned. So Philbin broke off the engagement, and Kohner married actress Lupita Tovar in 1932. Philbin, however, never married and both Philbin and Kohner kept until their deaths the love letters they had written to each other.
Philbin followed her performance in “Phantom” with starring roles in “Stella Maris” (1925); “Surrender” (1927); “The Last Performance” (1927), co-starring with Conrad Veidt; “Love Me and the World is Mine” (1927); “The Man Who Laughs” (1928), again co-starring with Veidt; “Drums of Love” (1928), co-starring with Lionel Barrymore; “Port of Dreams” (1929); and “After the Fog” (1929) — her first and only talking picture, which is thought to be lost.
Though Philbin was said to have a sweet, girlish voice, the early sound equipment recorded it as high-pitched and squeaky. “After the Fog” was her final film, although she did record her lines for the 1930 sound version of “The Phantom of the Opera.”
By the early 1930s, Philbin virtually disappeared. She moved into the home she bought for her father and step-mother, on Fairfax Avenue between Fountain Avenue and Sunset Boulevard. After her father’s death in 1948, Philbin lived in the house alone. She left only to visit friends and attend church. She refused all requests for interviews — although she was always friendly and accommodating to her fans. Her only public appearances were at a memorial service for Rudolph Valentino in 1988, and at the opening of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s stage presentation of “The Phantom of the Opera,” starring Michael Crawford, at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles, in May 1989.
Philbin died of pneumonia on May 7, 1993, and is buried at Calvary Cemetery in Los Angeles, next to her father. —cemeteryguide.com
First the face…
more italian actress
Claudia Pandolfi
Carla Gravina
Maria Grazia Cucinotta
Paola Pitagora
Daniela Rocca
Alba Rohwacher
Double entry:
Joseph McGinty Nichol is of course McG.
Kim Dae-seung and Kim Dae-sung are the same person!! Filmography needs to be combined…
Quote:
[Victoria Legrand] That’s the ultimate connection, when people respond positively to your music. Even when someone doesn’t like it: I’ve had people come up and say that they’re not to into it, but they find it interesting. Even weird things like that, I find funny.
Bio:
Beach House is a dream pop duo formed in 2004 in Baltimore, Maryland, consisting of French-born Victoria Legrand and Baltimore native Alex Scally. Their self-titled debut, Beach House, released in 2006, was critically acclaimed. This was followed by their second release, Devotion, in 2008. The band released their third studio album, Teen Dream in January 2010, also to positive critical reviews and commercial success. —Wikipedia
Quote:
“I might repeat to myself slowly and soothingly, a list of quotations beautiful from minds profound — if I can remember any of the damn things.”
Bio:
In the 1920s, Dorothy Parker (born August 22, 1893) came to fame writing book reviews, poetry, and short fiction for fledgling magazine The New Yorker. She was also a fixture of the Algonquin Hotel’s “Round Table,” famous for hosting the wittiest debates and banter.
Journalist, writer, and poet. Born Dorothy Rothschild on August 22, 1893, in West End, New Jersey. Dorothy Parker was a legendary literary figure, known for her biting wit. She worked on such magazines as Vogue and Vanity Fair during the late 1910s. Parker went on to work as a book reviewer for The New Yorker in the 1920s. A selection of her reviews for this magazine was published in 1970 as Constant Reader, the title of her column. She remained a contributor to The New Yorker for many years; the magazine also published a number of her short stories. One of her most popular stories, “Big Blonde,” won the O. Henry Award in 1929.
In addition to her writing, Dorothy Parker was a noted member of the New York literary scene in 1920s. She formed a group called the Algonquin Round Table with writer Robert Benchley and playwright Robert Sherwood. This artistic crowd also included such members as The New Yorker founder Harold Ross, comedian Harpo Marx, and playwright Edna Ferber among others. The group took its name from its hangout—the Algonquin Hotel, but also also known as the Vicious Circle for the number of cutting remarks made by its members and their habit of engaging in sharp-tongued banter.
During the 1930s and 1940s, Dorothy Parker spent much of her time in Hollywood, California. She wrote screenplays with her second husband Alan Campbell, including the 1937 adaptation of A Star Is Born and the 1942 Alfred Hitchcock film Saboteur. In her personal life, she had become politically active, supporting such causes as the fight for civil rights. She also was involved with the Communist Party in the 1930s. It was this association that led to her being blacklisted in Hollywood.
While her opportunities in Hollywood may have dried up, Dorothy Parker was still a well-regarded writer and poet. She even went on to write a play entitled Ladies of the Corridor in 1953. Parker returned to New York City in 1963, spending her last few years in fragile condition. She died on June 7, 1967.—biography.com
Quote:
“I know I’m drinking myself to a slow death, but then I’m in no hurry.”
Bio:
Although by his own account Benchley was not quite a writer and not quite an actor, he managed to become one of the best-known humorists and comedians of his time. As a Harvard undergraduate, Benchley gave his first comic performance, impersonating a befuddled after-dinner speaker. The act made him a campus celebrity — and remained in Benchley’s repertoire for the rest of his life. (Landing the position of editor of the Harvard Lampoon was the other highlight of his college career.) As a post-graduate journalist, between frequent firings and other disruptions, Benchley made his mark as a theater critic and as writer of whimsical musings on the vagaries of modern life. He served briefly as managing editor of the magazine Vanity Fair, where his lieutenants were Dorothy Parker and Robert E. Sherwood, but he quit to protest Parker’s firing. (Benchley, Parker and Sherwood were among the regulars at the so-called Algonquin Round Table, a social circle of New York wits that also included Harpo Marx and George S. Kaufman). Benchley was among the first contributors to The New Yorker, where his work influenced other writers — such as E.B. White and James Thurber. —IMDb
Quote:
“There are many women who are happy to be married, but only a few who are married happily.”
Bio:
Curt Goetz (17 November 1888 – 12 September 1960), born Kurt Walter Götz, was a Swiss-German writer, actor and film director. Curt Goetz was regarded as one of the most brilliant comedy writers of his time in the German-speaking world. Together with his wife Valérie von Martens he acted in his own plays and also filmed them. He was a distant relative of the Irish writer George Bernard Shaw, with whom he was often compared.
Kurt Walter Götz was born in Mainz, Germany as the son of the Swiss wine examiner Bernhard Götz, and his German wife of Italian and French descent, Selma (born Rocco). His father died in 1890. His mother then went with the two-year-old Curt to Halle, Saxony-Anhalt, where she managed a private clinic.
In 1906 he completed the City High School in Halle, where he had played Franz Moor in The Robbers by Schiller.
His mother remarried, and his stepfather encouraged and financed his first steps in the theatre. He studied acting under the Berlin actor Emanuel Reicher, and in 1907 he made his stage debut at the Stadttheater in Rostock. In Rostock, he also wrote his first sketches for the stage. He then played at theatres in Nuremberg and then went to Berlin. In 1912 he played the lead in the silent movie Black Blood, directed by Harry Piel.
In 1914 he married Erna Nitter, whom he divorced in 1917. Curt continued acting in silent movies, mainly thrillers, for example, Ich möchte kein Mann sein (I Don’t Want To Be A Mann), directed by Ernst Lubitsch in 1918. One of his colleagues from that time was the actor Max Landa.
In 1923 he married Valérie von Martens, whom he had got to know while acting in Vienna, in Berlin. He started going on tour with Valérie, acting with her in his own productions.
In 1939 he went to Hollywood to study film-making, and decided to remain there, along with Valérie, when war broke out. He worked with the director Reinhold Schunzel, among others, and several of his comedies were turned into films. Curt obtained a contract with MGM and worked on a number of film scripts. After the success of the Greta Garbo movie Two-Faced Woman he was offered a 5-year contract. However, he refused this, saying he had had enough experience with the American film-industry. He and Valérie bought a chicken-farm in Van Nuys, California and proceeded (successfully) to breed chickens.
In California Curt drafted his tale Tatjana and a new version of his Hokuspokus. He also re-worked an older play into The House in Montevideo, which he successfully produced in the Playhouse Theatre on Broadway in 1945.
They returned to Europe in 1945, living in Switzerland by Lake Thun (Curt had Swiss nationality from birth), where Curt wrote some successful novels. The couple later moved to Liechtenstein. He died in Grabs, St. Gallen, in 1960.—Wikipedia
Jean Paul Ladouceur is written Jean-Paul Ladouceur, with hyphen.
Here’s a picture, a quote and a bio for Jean-Paul Ladouceur’s profile :
“I am an artist by heredity or imitation.”
Born in Montréal in 1921, he also lived in Hull and Laval. He studied at l’École des beaux-arts de Montréal, Sir George Williams College and at l’Université de Montréal.
He was a pioneer and member of management of the following companies: Office national du film, Société Radio-Canada, France-Film, Télé-Métropole, JPL Productions, Paul L’Anglais inc. and Bélaquar Inc. He held the following positions: graphic designer, animator, designer, illustrator, director, producer, director of animated films, actor, presenter, instructor, program director, creative consultant, vice-president and president.
During his career, he was decorator at the Compagnons de St-Laurent, author and illustrator at the François newspaper, creator and producer of the television series “Pépinot et Capucine”, president of the Masse de Beaux-Arts, chairman of the Canadian Broadcast Institute, a visiting professor at the universities of Concordia, Laval and Sainte-Anne, art class teacher at the Centre culturel de Verdun and founding president of the Société canadienne de l’aquarelle.
He is recognized as a major influence in watercolor, as encyclopedist of graphic arts and finally as Painter-instructor-author-lecturer emeritus. In addition to his watercolor, collectors seek his technical drawings, his caricatures, his illustrations, his inks or acrylics. His graphic works are signed “L.” “LAD.” “AILLES” or “Ladouceur”. —Ladouceur (Official Website)
New still for Deprisa, Deprisa
Quote:
“Norma Talmadge was the greatest pantomimist that ever drew breath. She was a natural-born comic; you could turn on a scene with her and she`d go on for five minutes without stopping or repeating herself.” [Clarence Brown]
Bio:
Norma Talmadge was born on May 26, 1895, in Jersey City, New Jersey. The daughter of an unemployed alcoholic and his wife, Norma did not have the idyllic childhood that most of us yearn for. Her father left the family on Christmas Day and his wife and three daughters had to fend for themselves. Her mother, Peggy, took in laundry to help make ends meet. By the time Norma was 14 she took up modeling. She was successful enough that she attracted the attention of studio chiefs in New York City (where the Vitagraph studio was located at the time). Norma landed a small role in The Household Pest (1910). With her mother’s prodding, she landed other small roles with the studio in 1910, such as Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1910/I), Love of Chrysanthemum (1910), A Dixie Mother (1910) and A Broken Spell (1910). By 1911 she was improving as an actress, so much so that she landed a good part in A Tale of Two Cities (1911). By 1913 she was Vitagraph’s most promising young actress. In August of 1915 Norma and her mother left for California and the promise of success in the fledgling film industry there. Her first film in Hollywood was Captivating Mary Carstairs (1915). The film was not only a flop but the studio that made it, National Pictures, went out of business.
During this time her sister, Constance Talmadge, was working for legendary director D.W. Griffith. Constance managed to get Norma a contract with Griffith’s company. Over the following eight months Norma made seven feature films and a few shorts. After the contract ran out, the family returned to the East Coast. In 1916 she met and married producer and businessman Joseph M. Schenck. With his backing they formed their own production company and turned out a number of films, the first of which was Panthea (1917). It was a tremendous hit, as was Norma. In 1920 the production company moved to Hollywood, where the big hits of the day were being produced. Her company produced hits such as The Wonderful Thing (1921), The Eternal Flame (1922) and The Song of Love (1923).
By 1928 Norma’s popularity had begun to fade. Her film The Woman Disputed (1928) was a flop at the box-office. Her final film was Du Barry, Woman of Passion (1930). By that time “talkies” were all the rage, but Norma’s voice did not lend itself to sound and she was out of work. She divorced Schenck and married George Jessel. Jessel had his own radio show and Norma was added to the cast to help its sagging ratings. She thought this might be the vehicle by which she would revive her stalled film career, but the show continued its decline and was ultimately canceled, and with it the hopes of rebuilding her shattered career. She was finished for good.
She divorced Jessel in 1939 and married Dr. Carvel James in 1946. She remained with him until she died of a stroke on Christmas Eve of 1957 in Las Vegas, Nevada. She was 62 and had been in a phenomenal 250+ motion pictures.—IMDb
Quote:
[In a letter to sister Norma Talmadge, who was trying to keep her career going in talkies after Constance had retired] Quit pressing your luck, baby. The critics can’t knock those trust funds Mama set up for us.
Bio:
She was blonde; star sister Norma Talmadge was brunette. She was buoyant and a comedienne; Norma was introspective and a tragedienne. Nicknamed “Dutch” by her stage mother Peg as she looked like a cherubic Little Dutch Boy, silver screen star Constance Talmadge was one of silent pictures’ most popular and enduring stars of romantic comedy. Born in Brooklyn in 1897 (various sources give different years ranging from 1897 to 1903), her New York City childhood was humbling and tragic. Their father Fred Talmadge was a chronic alcoholic who ultimately deserted his family, which included sister Natalie Talmadge, while all three girls were quite young. By the time Norma had become a commodity for Vitagraph Studios, Constance, in her early teens, begged to follow. Her first comedy short for Vitagraph was In Bridal Attire (1914). As the two sisters were as different as night and day, professional jealousy never entered into the picture. In fact, all three sisters remained consistently loyal throughout their lives. Appearing in a number of two-reel comedies predominantly with comedian Billy Quirk, Constance drew major acclaim in the role of The Mountain Girl in D.W. Griffith’s epic masterpiece Intolerance: Love’s Struggle Throughout the Ages (1916). Her role was so inspiring that when Griffith re-issued her segment as a solo feature entitled The Fall of Babylon (1919), he re-shot her death scene ending so that her character would wind up living happily ever after. Throughout the late ‘10s and early ’20s the elegant Constance charmed audiences with a number of flapper-era comedy vehicles, many of them co-starring silent film great Harrison Ford (not related to the present-day star). These include A Pair of Silk Stockings (1918), Happiness a la Mode (1919), Romance and Arabella (1919), Wedding Bells (1921) and The Primitive Lover (1922). She grew so much in stature that she eventually formed her own production company. Constance, as did sister Norma, abruptly left films with the advent of sound. The notion that they willingly abandoned their careers while very much on top does not quite ring true. Both she and Norma’s pronounced and rather squeaky Brooklyn accent did not prove all that suitable for talkies (particularly for the dramatic Norma) and it’s more likely that they left Hollywood on their own terms before they were shunned. Both sisters invested wisely in business ventures in later life. Married four times, Constance became reclusive and fell victim (as did sisters Norma and Natalie) to alcohol abuse in later years. She died of pneumonia in Los Angeles on November 23, 1973.—IMDb
Bio:
Henri Decoin (18 March 1890 – 4 July 1969) was a French film director and screenwriter. He directed 50 films between 1933 and 1964. He was also a swimmer who competed for France in the men’s 400 metre freestyle event at the 1908 Summer Olympics and the water polo tournament at the 1912 Summer Olympics.—Wikipedia
Thrift Store Junkie
Merna Kennedy
Bio:
Merna Kennedy (September 7, 1908 – December 20, 1944) was an American actress of the late silent era.
Kennedy (born as Maude Kahler) was best-known during her brief career for her role opposite Charlie Chaplin in the silent film The Circus (1928).
Kennedy was brought to the attention of Chaplin by her friend Lita Grey, who became Chaplin’s second wife in 1924. A dancer, she had muscular legs which helped her gain the role of the circus bareback rider. Kennedy continued acting after The Circus, starring in early sound films, but retired in 1934, when she married choreographer/director Busby Berkeley. Their marriage broke up a year later, and Kennedy died of a heart attack in 1944, aged 36.—wikipedia