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Ralph Rexford Bellamy (June 17, 1904 – November 29, 1991) was an American actor whose career spanned 62 years on stage, screen and television. During his career, he played leading roles as well as supporting roles, garnering acclaim and awards, including an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor for The Awful Truth (1937).
His film career began with The Secret Six (1931) starring Wallace Beery and featuring Jean Harlow and Clark Gable. By the end of 1933, he had already appeared in 22 movies, most notably Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1932) and the second lead in the action film Picture Snatcher with James Cagney (1933). He played in seven more films in 1934 alone, including Woman in the Dark, based on a Dashiell Hammett story, in which Bellamy played the lead, second-billed under Fay Wray. Bellamy kept up the pace through the decade, receiving a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in The Awful Truth (1937) with Irene Dunne and Cary Grant, and played a similar part, that of a naive boyfriend competing with the sophisticated Grant character, in His Girl Friday (1940). He portrayed detective Ellery Queen in a few films during the 1940s, but as his film career did not progress, he returned to the stage, where he continued to perform throughout the 1950s. Bellamy appeared in other movies during this time, including Dance, Girl, Dance (1940) with Maureen O'Hara and Lucille Ball, and the horror classic The Wolf Man (1941) with Lon Chaney, Jr. and Evelyn Ankers. He also appeared in The Ghost of Frankenstein in 1942 with Chaney and Bela Lugosi.
Bellamy appeared in numerous television series. In 1949, Bellamy starred in the television noir private eye series Man Against Crime (also known as Follow That Man) on the DuMont Television Network; initially telecast live in its earliest seasons, the program lasted until 1956 and was simulcast for a season on Dumont and NBC, and ran on CBS during a different year. The lead role was taken by Frank Lovejoy in 1956, who subsequently starred in NBC's Meet McGraw detective series.
An Emmy Award nomination for the mini-series The Winds of War (1983) – in which Bellamy reprised his Sunrise at Campobello role of Franklin D. Roosevelt – brought him back into the spotlight.
Highly regarded within the industry, Bellamy served as a four-term President of Actors' Equity from 1952–1964. Description above from the Wikipedia article Ralph Bellamy, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Tall, balding character actor in US films from 1921 until the year he died, usually portraying obstinate or irascible types.
A man so disagreeable on celluloid, Claude Gillingwater's characters seemed to subsist on a steady diet of persimmons. Fondly recalled as the cranky old skinflint whose seemingly cold heart could only be warmed by the actions of a cute little tyke, the tall and rangy Gillingwater invariably played much older than he was. He, with the omnipresent bushy brows, crop of silver hair and perpetually sour puss, had a much more versatile career than perhaps realized -- on both stage and in film. Most assuredly, this caustic screen image he perfected belied a softer, gentler off-screen demeanor for he was a kind and sympathetic gent and devoted husband to wife Carlyn Stiletz (or Stellith). Their only child, Claude Gillingwater Jr., briefly became an actor himself. Sadly, Gillingwater Sr.'s thriving character career ended on a grim and tragic note in 1939. A serious accident on the movie set of the picture Florida Special (1936) (he fell from a platform and injured his back) damaged his health and threatened his career, and the death of his long-time wife Carlyn left him irrevocably depressed. Fearing the possibility of becoming an invalid and wishing not to become a serious burden to anyone, the 69-year-old actor committed suicide at his Beverly Hills home with a self-inflicted gunshot to the head. Gillingwater left a fine Hollywood legacy and the fun of some of his old films is watching his vinegar turn to sugar.
Date of Birth 2 August 1870, Louisiana, Missouri
Date of Death 2 November 1939, Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, California (suicide)
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Betty Blythe (born Elizabeth Blythe Slaughter, September 1, 1893 – April 7, 1972) was an American actress best known for her dramatic roles in exotic silent films such as The Queen of Sheba (1921). She appeared in 63 silent films and 56 talking pictures (known as talkies) over the course of her career.
She is famous for being one of the first actresses to appear on film in the nude, or nearly so, during the Roaring Twenties.
She is reported to have said, "A director is the only man besides your husband who can tell you how much of your clothes to take off."
Blythe began her stage work in such theatrical pieces as So Long Letty and The Peacock Princess. She worked in vaudeville as the "California Nightingale" singing songs such as "Love Tales from Hoffman".
After touring Europe and the States, she entered films in 1918 at the Vitagraph Studios in Brooklyn, then she was brought to Hollywood's Fox studio as a replacement for actress Theda Bara.
As famous for her revealing costumes as for her dramatic skills, she became a star in such exotic films as The Queen of Sheba (1921) (in which she wore nothing above the waist except a string of beads), Chu-Chin-Chow (made in 1923; released by MGM in the US 1925) and She (1925).
She was also seen to good advantage in less revealing films like Nomads of the North (1920) with Lon Chaney and In Hollywood with Potash and Perlmutter (1924), produced by Samuel Goldwyn.
Other roles were as an opera star, unbilled in Garbo's The Mysterious Lady. She continued to work as a character actress. One of her last roles was a small uncredited role in a crowd scene in 1964's My Fair Lady.
Betty Blythe's name lives on through the Betty Blythe Vintage TeaRoom in West Kensington.
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Joseph Crehan (July 15, 1883 – April 15, 1966) was an American film actor. He appeared in more than 300 films between 1916 and 1965, and notably played Ulysses S. Grant nine times between 1939 and 1958, most memorably in Union Pacific and They Died With Their Boots On. He was born in Baltimore, Maryland and died in Hollywood, California from a stroke.
Crehan often played alongside Charles C. Wilson with whom he is sometimes confused.
Kit Guard was born on May 5, 1894 in Hals, Denmark as Christen Klitgaard. He was an actor, known for The Fight That Failed (1926), The Midnight Son (1926) and Assorted Nuts (1926). He died on July 18, 1961 in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA.
Robert F. Kortman (December 24, 1887 – March 13, 1967) was an American film actor mostly associated with westerns, though he also appeared in a number of Laurel and Hardy comedies. He appeared in more than 260 films between 1914 and 1952.