Donald O’Connor (August 28, 1925 - September 27, 2003) was an American dancer, singer, and actor who came to fame in a series of movies in which he co-starred alternately with Gloria Jean, Peggy Ryan, and Francis the Talking Mule. He is best known today for his role in Singin' in the Rain.
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Clifford Porter Hall (September 19, 1888 – October 6, 1953) was an American character actor known for appearing in a number of films in the 1930s and 1940s. Hall played movie villains or comedic incompetent characters. Hall was born in Cincinnati, Ohio and began his career touring as a stage actor with roles in productions of The Great Gatsby and Naked in 1926. Hall made his film debut in the 1931 drama Secrets of a Secretary. He made his last onscreen appearance in the 1954 film Return to Treasure Island, which was released after his death.
He was probably best remembered for four roles: a senator in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, an atheist in Going My Way, the nervous, ill-tempered Granville Sawyer, who administers a psychological test to Kris Kringle in Miracle on 34th Street, and a train passenger who encounters a man (Fred MacMurray) who has just committed a murder in Double Indemnity.
On October 6, 1953, Hall died of a heart attack in Los Angeles, California at the age of 65. His interment was at Forest Lawn - Hollywood Hills Cemetery. Hall had two children, David and Sarah Jane.
Janet Marie Waldo Lee (February 4, 1920 – June 12, 2016) was an American radio and voice actress. In animation, she voiced Judy Jetson, Nancy in Shazzan, Penelope Pitstop, Princess from Battle of the Planets, and Josie in Josie and the Pussycats. On radio, she voiced the title character in Meet Corliss Archer.
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Elisabeth Risdon (born Daisy Cartwright Risdon; 26 April 1887 – 20 December 1958) was an English film actress. She appeared in over 140 films between 1913 and 1952. A beauty in her youth, she usually played in society parts. In later years in films she switched to playing character parts.
Born in London, England, Risdon graduated from the Royal Academy of Arts in 1918 with high honours. She attracted the attention of George Bernard Shaw and was cast as the lead in his biggest plays. Besides her performances for Shaw, she was leading lady for actors including George Arliss, Otis Skinner, and William Faversham. She was also under contract to the Theatre Guild for many years.
In later years, she taught drama to patients at a veterans administration hospital near her Brentwood home. She was married to the prolific silent film director George Loane Tucker who left her a widow in 1921. She later married actor Brandon Evans, who died in April 1958. She was the great-aunt of actress Wendy Barrie-Wilson.
Risdon died in December 1958 in St Johns Hospital in Santa Monica, California from a cerebral haemorrhage. Her body was donated to medical science.
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Clem Bevans (October 16, 1879 – August 11, 1963) was an American character actor best remembered for playing eccentric, grumpy old men.
Bevans had a very long career, starting in vaudeville in 1900 in an act with Grace Emmett. He progressed to burlesque, Broadway, and even light opera, before making his film debut at the age of 55 in Way Down East (1935). His portrayal was so good, he became stereotyped and played mostly likable old codgers for the rest of his life. Bevans played the neighbour of Gregory Peck in The Yearling and the gatekeeper in Harvey (1950). However, he did occasionally play against type, for example as a Nazi spy in Alfred Hitchcock's Saboteur (1942). He also made some television appearances, including the role of murderer Captain Hugo in the 1958 Perry Mason episode "The Case of the Demure Defendant" and as Pete in The Twilight Zone episode "Hocus-Pocus and Frisby" (1962). He played Captain Cobb in Disney's TV miniseries Davy Crockett.
His first cousin was actress Merie Earle, best known as Maude Gormley on The Waltons.
The son of a physician, Raymond Hatton entered films in 1909, eventually appearing in almost 500 other pictures. In early silents he formed a comedy team with big, burly Wallace Beery. He was best known as the tobacco-chewing, rip-snorting Rusty Joslin in the Three Mesquiteers series. He was also in the Rough Riders series and appeared as Johnny Mack Brown's sidekick as well. His last Western was, fittingly, Requiem for a Gunfighter (1965). Passed away only five days after the death of his wife, on October 21, 1971. They had been married for 62 years.
Spouse Frances Hatton (17 April 1909 - 16 October 1971) (her death)
Clara Blandick (born Clara Blanchard Dickey) was an American stage and screen actress best known for her role as Auntie Em in the beloved 1939 classic film The Wizard of Oz.
Etta McDaniel was born on December 1, 1890 in Wichita, Kansas, USA. She was an actress, known for Son of Dracula (1943), The Great Man's Lady (1942) and Johnny Doughboy (1942). She died on January 13, 1946 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
Sister of players Hattie McDaniel and Sam McDaniel.
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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.
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