From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Lupe Vélez (July 18, 1908 – December 13, 1944), was a Mexican and American stage and film actress, comedian, dancer and vedette.
Vélez began her career as a performer in Mexican vaudeville in the early 1920s. After moving to the United States, she made her first film appearance in a short film in 1927. By the end of the decade, in the last years of American silent films, she had progressed to leading roles in numerous movies like El Gaucho (1927), Lady of the Pavements (1928) and Wolf Song (1929), among others. She was one of the first successful Latin American actresses in the United States. During the 1930s, her well-known explosive screen persona was exploited in a series of successful films like Hot Pepper (1933), Strictly Dynamite (1934) and Hollywood Party (1934). In the 1940s, Vélez's popularity peaked after appearing in the Mexican Spitfire films, a series created to capitalize on Vélez's well-documented fiery personality.
Nicknamed The Mexican Spitfire by the media, Vélez's personal life was as colorful as her screen persona. She had several highly publicized romances and a stormy marriage. In December 1944, Vélez died of an intentional overdose of Seconal. Her death, and the circumstances surrounding it, have been the subject of speculation and controversy.
Description
above from the Wikipedia article Lupe Vélez licensed
under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Monte Blue (January 11, 1887 – February 18, 1963) was a movie actor who began his career as a romantic leading man in the silent film era, and later progressed to character roles.
Blue was born as Gerard Montgomery Bluefeather in Indianapolis, Indiana. His father was half French, half Cherokee Indian. One of five children, his father died and his mother could not raise five children alone. Along with another brother, they both admitted to the Indiana Soldiers' and Sailors' Children's Home. This did not stop him working his way through to Purdue University.
When growing up, Blue built up his physique to become a football player (he grew to six feet three inches tall). He not only played football, but he was also a fireman, railroad worker, coal miner, cowpuncher, ranch hand, circus rider, lumberjack, and finally, a day laborer at the studios of D. W. Griffith.
He had no theatrical experience when he came to the screen. In his first movie, The Birth of a Nation (1915), he was a stuntman and an extra in the movie. In his next movie, he starred in another small part in the movie, Intolerance (1916). Gradually moving to supporting roles for both D. W. Griffith and Cecil B. DeMille, Blue earned his breakthrough role as Danton in Orphans of the Storm, starring sisters, Lillian Gish and Dorothy Gish. Then he rose to stardom as a rugged romantic lead along with top leading actresses such as Clara Bow, Gloria Swanson, and Norma Shearer. His most prolific female screen partner was Marie Prevost with whom he made several films in the mid 20s at Warner Brothers. Blue's finest silent screen performance was as the alcoholic doctor who finds paradise in MGM's White Shadows in the South Seas (1928). Blue became one of the few silent stars to survive the talkie revolution. However, he lost his investments in the stock market crash of 1929.
He rebuilt his career as a character actor, working until his retirement in 1954. One of his more memorable roles was the sheriff in Key Largo. He divorced his first wife in 1923 and married Tova Jansen in 1924. He had two children, Barbara Ann and Richard Monte. During the later part of his life, Monte Blue was an active Mason and the advance man for the Hamid-Morton Shrine Circus; while on business in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, he had a heart attack because of complications from influenza, dying at age 76.
Monte Blue has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6286 Hollywood Blvd.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Monte Blue, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Henry Byron Warner was the definitive cinematic Jesus Christ in Cecil B. DeMille's The King of Kings (1927). He was born into a prominent theatrical family on October 26, 1875 in London. His father was Charles Warner, and his grandfather was James Warner, both prominent English actors. He replaced J.B. Warner as Jesus in The King of Kings (1927) when J.B. died of tuberculosis at age 29. (J.B. was not Henry's brother. J.B. had taken the professional last name "Warner" because Henry's family took him in.)
Henry Warner's family wanted him to become a doctor, and he graduated from London University but eventually gave up his medical studies. The theater was in his blood, and he studied acting in Paris and Italy before joining his father's stock company, making his debut in the English production of "Drink." It was from his father that he honed his craft.
Warner made it to America in the early 1900s, after touring the British Empire. Billed as Harry Warner, he made his Broadway debut in the American colonial drama "Audrey" at Hoyt's Theatre on November 24, 1902, starring James O'Neill, the father of playwright Eugene O'Neill. He was billed as H.B. Warner in his next appearance on Broadway, in the 1906 comedy "Nurse Marjorie." He appeared in 13 more Broadway productions in his career, from the twin-bill of "Susan in Search of a Husband" & "A Tenement Tragedy" (also 1906) to "Silence" in 1925.
He moved into motion pictures, making his debut in the Mutual short Harp of Tara (1914). Also in 1914, he appeared in a film written by Cecil B. DeMille for Famous Players Lasky, The Ghost Breaker (1914), in which he had played on Broadway the year before. Warner became a leading man and a star in silent pictures, reaching the zenith of his career playing Jesus in DeMille's The King of Kings (1927). His excellent performance was actually enhanced by the silent screen, allowing the audience to imagine how Jesus would sound. Warner could be extremely moving in silent pictures, notably in the melodrama Sorrell and Son (1927) as a war veteran father who sacrifices all for his son.
When talkies arrived, he became a busy supporting player. A favorite of Frank Capra , appeared in Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936). Cast again by Capra, he was nominated for Best Supporting Actor in Lost Horizon (1937). He also appeared in You Can't Take It with You (1938), and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939). Other major talkies included The Devil and Daniel Webster (1941) and Topper Returns (1941). Other than Jesus, the role he is best remembered role for today is in It's a Wonderful Life (1946), in which he played Mr. Gower, the druggist who is saved from committing a lethal medication error by the young George Bailey (the James Stewart character as a child). H.B. Warner appeared in Sunset Blvd. (1950) as himself. His last credited role was as Amminadab in DeMille's The Ten Commandments (1956), a remake of the earlier silent The Ten Commandments (1923). He last role was an uncredited bit part in Darby's Rangers (1958).
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Grant Withers (January 17, 1905, Pueblo, Colorado – March 27, 1959, North Hollywood, Los Angeles, California), born Granville G. Withers, was a prolific American film actor with a sizeable body of work.
With early beginnings in the silent era, Withers moved into talkies establishing himself with an impressive list of headlined features as a young and handsome male lead.
As his career progressed, his importance diminished, but he did manage a 10-year contract at Republic Pictures. His friendships with both John Ford and John Wayne secured him a spot in nine of Wayne's films, but later roles dwindled to supporting parts, mainly as villains in B-movies, serials, and finally television. He appeared in the late 1950s in two episodes of the syndicated western series 26 Men, set in Arizona, where he had earlier eloped with Loretta Young.
His life in film, five unsuccessful marriages, and a tragic end had all the makings of its own Hollywood drama.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Grant Withers, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Slim Summerville (born George Joseph Somerville; July 10, 1892 – January 5, 1946) was an American film actor and director best known for his work in comedies.
Heinie Conklin (born Charles John Conklin; July 16, 1880 – July 30, 1959) was an American actor and comedian whose career began in the silent film era.
Émile Chautard (7 September 1864 – 24 April 1934) was a French-American film director, actor, and screenwriter, most active in the silent era. He directed 107 films between 1910 and 1924. He also appeared in 66 films between 1911 and 1934. Chautard was born in Paris. After a significant career beginning as a stage actor at the Odéon-Théâtre de l'Europe and moving up to the head of film production at Éclair Films' Paris studio in 1913, Chautard emigrated to the United States around 1914. From 1914 to about 1918, Chautard worked for the World Film Company based in Fort Lee, New Jersey. At World, along with a group of other French-speaking film technicians including Maurice Tourneur, Léonce Perret, George Archainbaud, Albert Capellani and Lucien Andriot, he developed such films as the 1915 version of Camille, and taught a young apprentice film cutter at the World studio: Josef von Sternberg. In 1919 Chautard hired von Sternberg as his assistant director for The Mystery of the Yellow Room, for his own short-lived production company. Choosing Hollywood over a return to France, Chautard went to work for Famous Players-Lasky and other studios. He received some high-profile assignments, for instance a Colleen Moore vehicle and two features for Derelys Perdue, but he was a generation older than other directors in Hollywood's French colony. After 1924 Chautard did not direct again, but continued to make film appearances, in the von Sternberg film Blonde Venus (1932), where he appears for his former protege as "Night club owner Chautard". Chautard died in Los Angeles, California. He is interred at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery.
Born to Maleta Martin and Frederick MacMurray (concert violinist). Fred sang and played in orchestras to earn tuition. He was educated at Carroll College, Wis. Fred played with a Chicago orchestra for more than a year. Then he joined an orchestra in Hollywood where he played, did some recording and played extra roles. He then joined a comedy stage band, California Collegians, and went to New York. There he joined "Three's A Crowd" revue on Broadway and on the road. After this show closed, he returned to California and worked in vaudeville. He played the vaudeville circuits and night clubs until cast for major role in "Roberta". Signed by Paramount in 1935.
MacMurray was raised in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin from the age of 5, eventually graduating from Beaver Dam High School (currently the site of Beaver Dam Middle School), where he was a 3-sport star in football, baseball, and basketball. Fred retained a special place in his heart for his small-town Wisconsin upbringing, referring at any opportunity in magazine articles or interviews to the lifelong friends and cherished memories of Beaver Dam, even including mementos of his childhood in several of his films. In "Pardon my Past" (1945), Fred and fellow GI William Demarest are moving to Beaver Dam, WI to start a mink farm.