1800-1899, A Lady a Year.
From 1806 to 1899.
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- Madge Lessing was born on 27 November 1862 in London, England, UK. She was an actress, known for A World Without Men (1914), The Blue Mouse (1913) and Die blaue Maus - 2. Teil (1914). She was married to George Brinton McLellan. She died in 1935 in London, England, UK.1862 - 1932, 69, UK
- Writer
- Soundtrack
Elizabeth Barrett Browning was born on 6 March 1806 in Durham, Co. Durham, England, UK. She was a writer, known for Aurora Leigh (1915), The Cry of the Children (1912) and Drug-Taking and the Arts (1993). She was married to Robert Browning. She died on 29 June 1861 in Florence, Tuscany, Italy.1806 - 1861, (55). UK. Italy.- Louisa May Alcott was born on 29 November 1832 in Germantown, Pennsylvania, USA. She was a writer, known for Little Women (2019), Little Women (1994) and An Old-Fashioned Girl (1949). She died on 6 March 1888 in Boston, Massachusetts, USA.1832 - 1888, (55).
- Anna Edwards was born in India in 1834, the daughter of a cabinetmaker who died three months before her birth. Her mother then remarried to officer in the Engineers who sent Anna and her sister, Eliza, to a school in England. The girls returned to India as teenagers and Anna escaped her stepfather's plans to marry her to a man twice her age by accompanying Rev.Percy Badger on a tour of the Middle East. She married a clerk, Thomas Leon Owens, and they had two children, a daughter Avis and a son, Louis. Her husband had trouble keeping a job, and moved his family a great deal; for some unknown reason, he also changed his name to Thomas Leonowens. After her husband died of apoplexy in Penang, Malaya, Anna moved to Singapore, where she received an invitation to teach English to the children of the Siamese King. She later embellished her memoirs of this time (changing her place of birth to Wales, and taking three years off her age; making her husband a major in the British army instead of a lowly clerk; and adding the tale of a concubine's brutal death, which never happened) which became famous. Anna herself retired to Canada, where she became a suffragist before her death. Her sister, Eliza, was the grandmother of the famous actor Boris Karloff.1834
1834 - 1915, (80).
UK. Canada.
99 writing credits. - Mary Elizabeth Braddon was born on 4 October 1835 in London, England, UK. She was a writer, known for Lady Audley's Secret (1915), East Lynne (1916) and Lady Audley's Secret (1920). She was married to John Maxwell. She died on 4 February 1915 in Richmond, England, UK.1835
1835 - 1915, (79).
UK.
1906-2001 writing credits. - Wilhelmine von Hillern was born on 11 March 1836 in Munich, Kingdom of Bavaria [now Bavaria, Germany]. She was a writer, known for La Wally (1932), Die Geierwally (1940) and La leggenda di Wally (1930). She was married to Hermann von Hillern. She died on 25 December 1916 in Hohenaschau, Bavaria, Germany.1836
1836 - 1916, (80).
Germany.
1921-2005 writing credits. - Writer
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
Rosalía de Castro was born on 24 February 1837 in Santiago de Compostela, A Coruña, Galicia, Spain. She was a writer, known for The Sea Inside (2004), The Witching Hour (1985) and Pelerinaxe do 'Patronato Rosalia Castro' aos Lugares rosalianos e aitos orgaizados en homaxe da poeta o 'Dia de Galiza' de 1.951 en Sant-iago (1951). She was married to Manuel Murguía. She died on 15 July 1885 in Iria Flavia, Padrón, A Coruña, Galicia, Spain.1837
1837 - 1885, (48).
Spain.
1851-1902 credits -writing, soundtrack.- Music Department
- Soundtrack
The last reigning monarch of the Hawai'ian Islands, she became Queen of Hawai'i upon the death of her brother, King KalÄkaua I, in 1891. She reigned for just under two years and was then overthrown in 1893 by a group in the white business community led by Sanford Dole, cousin of pineapple magnate James Dole. This effort was backed with the threat of force from combined forces of the United States Navy and Marine Corps. The American minister in Hawai'i, John L. Stevens, had troops take over Iolani Palace, the Honolulu residence of the Queen, as well as other governmental buildings and in 1894, the Queen was deposed, ending centuries of monarchial rule and establishing the Republic of Hawai'i with Sanford Dole as its first president.
In 1895, Liliuokalani was accused of attempting to regain the throne after weapons were found in the gardens of her home in Washington Place in Honolulu. She was arrested but denied knowledge of the existence of these weapons, claiming that any plan of rebellion was due to the efforts of others and in 1896, she was released after the perpetrators were caught. At the request of the Queen, Dole subsequently granted all of them a pardon. The former Queen lived the remainder of her life at Washington Place, now the official residence of the Governor of Hawai'i. Dole led a successful effort to lobby Congress for the annexation of Hawai'i to the United States for economic exploitation, which occurred in 1898 through a joint resolution of Congress. Liliuokalani died due to complications from a stroke in 1917.1838
1838 - 1917, (79).
Hawaii
132 credits, 1926-2015, soundtrack.- Actress
- Writer
Ilka Angyal was born on 5 December 1839 in Felcsút, Hungary. She was an actress and writer, known for Árendás zsidó (1918), Náni (1921) and Bolond Istók (1921). She was married to József Klár. She died on 7 September 1926 in Kömlöd, Hungary.1839
1839 - 1926. (86).
Hungary.
1917-1922 credits.- Writer
- Soundtrack
Akaki Tsereteli was born on 9 June 1840 in Schwitori, Georgia, Russian Empire. He was a writer, known for Akakis akvani (1947), Bashi-Achuki (1956) and Mgeli da kravi (1981). He was married to Natalia Petrovna Bazilevskaya. He died on 26 January 1915 in Satschchere, Georgia, Russian Empire.1840
1840 - 1915, (74).
Russian Empire.
1947-1977, 6 credits -writing, soundtrack.- Giacinta Pezzana was born on 28 January 1841 in Turin, Kingdom of Sardinia [now Piedmont, Italy]. She was an actress, known for Teresa Raquin (1915). She was married to Gualtieri, Luigi. She died on 4 November 1919 in Aci Castello, Sicily, Italy.1841
1841 -1919, (78).
Italy.
15 credits. - Writer
- Soundtrack
Maria Konopnicka was born on 23 May 1842 in Suwalki, Poland, Russian Empire [now Suwalki, Podlaskie, Poland]. She was a writer, known for Television Theater (1953), Teatr Polskiego Radia (2004) and Panna z mokra glowa (1995). She was married to Jaroslaw Konopnicki. She died on 8 October 1910 in Lemberg, Galicia, Austria-Hungary [now Lviv, Ukraine].1842 - 1910, 68. Poland. Ukraine.
Writer.- Gertrude Smith was born on 16 December 1842 in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA. She was an actress, known for Rainbow Island (1917) and Pinched (1917). She died on 8 May 1923 in Los Angeles, California, USA.1842
1842 - 1923, (80).
USA.
17 credits. - Hildur Carlberg was born on 20 December 1843 in Stockholm, Stockholms län, Sweden. She was an actress, known for The Parson's Widow (1920), Ingmarssönerna (1919) and The Outlaw and His Wife (1918). She died on 27 August 1920 in Stockholm, Stockholms län, Sweden.1843
1843 - 1920, (76).
Sweden.
1917-1920 credits. - Augustina López was born in 1843 in Sonora, Mexico. She was an actress, known for El indio Yaqui (1927), Redskin (1929) and The Crow's Nest (1922). She died on 13 June 1932 in California, USA.1843 - 1932, 89. Mexico. California.
- Actress
- Writer
- Additional Crew
This celebrated star of the French stage had a sporadic love-hate affair with early cinema. After her film debut in Le duel d'Hamlet (1900) she declared she detested the medium; yet she consented to appear in another film, La Tosca (1909). Upon seeing the results, she reportedly recoiled in horror, demanding that the negative be destroyed. Her next film appearance, in the Film d'Art production of La dame aux camélias (1912), was a critical and popular success, helping give cinema artistic dignity. The following year she made Les amours de la reine Élisabeth (1912) in Britain. The receipts from this film's distribution in the US provided Adolph Zukor with the funds to found Paramount. Bernhardt, at 69, was offered a fortune to make films with other companies, but stayed with Film d'Art, appearing in Adrienne Lecouvreur (1913). She appeared in two more pictures after losing a leg in 1915, Jeanne Doré (1915) and Mothers of France (1917), both produced as WWI morale boosters. In 1923, when she was 79, her hotel room was turned into a studio so that she could appear in the film La voyante (1924). But her failing health halted production and she died before the film was completed. She was portrayed on the screen by Glenda Jackson in The Incredible Sarah (1976).1844 - 1923, (78).
France.- Actress
Virginia Moon was born on 11 September 1844 in Oxford, Butler County, Ohio, USA. She was an actress. She died in 1925 in Greenwich Village, New York, USA.1844
1844 - 1925, (80).
USA.
1922-1923 credits.- Mrs. Thomas Whiffen was born on 12 March 1845 in London, England, UK. She was an actress, known for Barbara Frietchie (1915) and Hearts and Flowers (1914). She was married to Thomas Whiffen. She died on 26 November 1936 in Montvale, Virginia, USA.1845 - 1936, 91.
- Wilhelmina Kleij was born on 24 November 1845 in Rotterdam, Zuid-Holland, Netherlands. She was an actress, known for Fatum (1915), Helleveeg (1920) and Het wrak van de Noorzee (1915). She died on 15 September 1934 in Amsterdam, Noord-Holland, Netherlands.1845
1845 - 1934, (88).
Netherlands.
1915-1920 credits. - Lotten Almlöf was born on 24 December 1846 in Stockholm, Stockholms län, Sweden. She was an actress, known for A Modern Robinson (1920). She died on 24 June 1945 in Stockholm, Sweden.1846
1846 - 1945, (98).
Sweden.
1921 credit. - Legendary British stage actress who made a few silent film appearances. The daughter of strolling players, she was born in Coventry into an almost exclusively theatrical family. Her grandparents were actors, as were all six of her siblings. But only her son, Edward Gordon Craig, would in any way approach her fame in the theatre, albeit as a designer rather than as an actor. She made her debut in 1856 at the age of 8 before an audience which included Queen Victoria. By age 11, she had played a dozen roles including Puck. At 16, after showing early brilliance, she played "An American Cousin" (a year before the famed American production clouded by Lincoln's assassination) and then retired. After six years, still only 22, she returned to the stage and in 1875 played a landmark Portia in "The Merchant of Venice." For the next three decades, she played every major Shakespearean role opposite the greatest British tragedians, in England and in America. Her long association with theatrical giant Henry Irving ended with his death, but a year later, in 1906, she began a long professional and personal relationship with George Bernard Shaw. After more than half a century onstage, she undertook a tour of England, America, and Australia, lecturing on the theatre and on Shakespeare. She was coaxed into a film appearance in 1916 and played in a handful of additional pictures through 1922. Created a Dame by George V in 1925, she was the recipient of virtually every honor available to a figure of the English-speaking stage. After a long illness, she died at 81 from a combination of stroke and heart attack at her home in Smallhythe Place, Tenterdon, Kent, England. Her long estranged husband, James Carew, survived her.1847 - 1928, (81).
UK. - Fanny Petersen was born on 23 October 1847 in Copenhagen, Denmark. She was an actress, known for The President (1919) and Strandingen i Vesterhavet (1912). She died on 24 September 1925.1847
1847 - 1925, (77).
Denmark
1912-1919 credits. - Actress
- Writer
Clara Morris was born on 17 March 1848 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. She was an actress and writer, known for Mystic Faces (1918), My Lady Friends (1921) and A Pasteboard Crown (1922). She was married to Frederick C. Harriot. She died on 19 November 1925 in New Canaan, Connecticut, USA.1848
1848 - 1925, (77).
Canada. USA.
1916-1925 credits.- Actress
Tatzumbia Dupea was born on 26 July 1849 in Lone Pine, California, USA. She was an actress. She died on 26 February 1970 in Los Angeles, California, USA.1849
1849 - 1970, (120).
USA.
1944-1951 credits.- Writer
- Additional Crew
Born in Manchester, England on November 24 1849, Frances Eliza Hodgson was the eldest daughter in a family of two boys and three girls. After her father's death when she was three years old, the Hodgsdons experienced severe financial difficulties. As a young girl, she would scrawl little stories on sheets of old notebooks, as she was unable to afford proper writing materials. In 1865 the family moved to Tennessee where they lived in a log cabin and the teenage Frances set up a little school. She began submitting stories to women's magazines and in a time when most women did not have careers, Frances Eliza Hodgsdon was a literary success. In 1873 she married Dr. Swan Burnett and they had two sons -- Lionel, born 1874, and Vivian, born 1876 -- but the marriage was not a happy one. Her younger son, Vivian, clamoured for something for little boys to read, so Frances wrote "Little Lord Fauntleroy" and modeled the main character after him. In 1890 tragedy struck when her eldest son, Lionel, died of influenza. Frances and Swan separated and finally divorced in 1898, and she went on to remarry Stephen Townshend. Frances moved to Long Island, New York in 1901 and there began to write her two most famous stories -- "A Little Princess" and "The Secret Garden", inspired by her poor childhood and her love for gardening. She became rather eccentric in her old age, but delighted in her grandchildren. Frances Hodgson Burnett died on 29 October 1924.1849 - 1924, 74. UK. New York.- Mari Jászai was born on 24 February 1850 in Ászár, Hungary [now in Kisbér, Hungary]. She was an actress, known for Bánk bán (1915) and The Undesirable (1915). She was married to Vidor Kassai. She died on 5 October 1926 in Budapest, Hungary.1850
1850 - 1926, (76).
Hungary.
15 credits. - Rose Coghlan was born on 18 March 1851 in Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, England, UK. She was an actress, known for The Faded Flower (1916), As You Like It (1912) and The Sporting Duchess (1915). She was married to John T. Sullivan and Clinton J. Edgerly. She died on 2 April 1932 in Harrison, New York, USA.1851 - 1932, 81. UK. New York.
- Marie Schmidt was born on 23 April 1851 in Bjerringbro, Denmark. She was an actress, known for Ansigtet bag Ruden (1914), Et Gensyn (1914) and Landliggeridyl - Vandgang (1921). She died on 7 September 1933.1851
1851 - 1933, (82).
Denmark.
1912-1921 credits. - Gertrude Claire was born on 16 July 1852 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. She was an actress, known for Oliver Twist (1922), The Little Irish Girl (1926) and The Female of the Species (1916). She died on 28 April 1928 in Los Angeles, California, USA.1852
1852 - 1928, (75).
USA.
135 credits, 1910-1928. - Kate Mayhew was born on 2 September 1853 in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA. She was an actress, known for Hazel Kirke (1916), Tongues of Flame (1924) and Baseball's Peerless Leader (1913). She died on 16 June 1944 in New York City, New York, USA.1853
1853 - 1944, (90).
USA.
1913-1924 credits. - Gabriela Montani was born on 13 May 1854 in Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She was an actress, known for Perdida (1916) and Entre Dois Amores (1917). She died on 3 December 1926 in Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.1854
1854 - 1926, (72)
Brazil
1916-1917 credits. - Helena Cavallier was born on 5 May 1855 in Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain. She was an actress, known for Noivado de Sangue (1909), Pela Vitória dos Clubes Carnavalescos (1909) and Mil Adultérios (1910). She died on 15 April 1920 in Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.1855
1855 - 1920, (64).
Spain. Brazil.
1909-1910 credits. - Lous van Korlaar-van Dam was born on 27 January 1856 in Heidelberg, Grand Duchy of Baden [now Baden-Württemberg, Germany]. She was an actress, known for De duivel (1918). She died on 5 July 1941 in Amsterdam, Noord-Holland, Netherlands.1856
1856 - 1941, (85).
Germany. Netherlands. - Clara Schønfeld was born on 26 August 1856. She was an actress, known for Master of the House (1925), Præsten i Vejlby (1922) and Har jeg Ret til at tage mit eget Liv? (1920). She was married to Emil Kjertmann and Hjalmar Schønfeld. She died on 5 May 1939.1856
1856 - 1939, (82).
Denmark.
1918-1927 credits. - Gabriela Zapolska was born on 30 March 1857 in Podhajce, Galicia, Austrian Empire [now Pidhaytsi, Ternopil Oblast, Ukraine]. She was a writer, known for Sezonowa milosc (1918), O czym sie nie mówi (1924) and O czym sie nie mówi... (1939). She was married to Stanislaw Janowski and Konstanty Sniezko-Blocki. She died on 17 December 1921 in Lwów, Lwowskie, Poland [now Lviv, Ukraine].1857 - 1921, 64. Ukraine.
- Kate Lester was born on 12 June 1857 in Souldham Trope, England, UK. She was an actress, known for The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923), The Gay Lord Quex (1919) and His Royal Highness (1918). She died on 12 October 1924 in Hollywood, California, USA.1857 - 1924, 67. UK. USA.
- Marie Van Westerhoven was born on 27 May 1857 in Amsterdam, Noord-Holland, Netherlands. She was an actress, known for De Jantjes (1934), Oranje Hein (1925) and De man zonder hart (1937). She died on 26 February 1946 in Amsterdam, Noord-Holland, Netherlands.1857
1857 - 1946, (88).
Netherlands.
1921-1936 credits. - Writer
- Additional Crew
Lagerlöf made her debut in 1891 with The Gösta Berling saga, a story about her own region, Värmland and her home, the country manor Mårbacka. With her novel she starts the wave of romantic nationalist literature in Sweden of the 1890s. Her novel Jerusalem (1901-02) is about religious emigrants from Sweden to Palestine. She is the author of Sweden's most read novel, The Adventures of Nils Holgerssons (1906), a story about a boy traveling across Sweden on the back of a goose. Her stories often evolve around folklore and supernatural events. One of the peaks in her career was her novel The Emperor of Portugal (1914). In 1907 she got a honorary degree at the University of Uppsala, in 1909 she got the Nobel Prize and 1914 she became a member of the Swedish Academy. Her home Mårbacka is now a museum visited by thousands of tourists every year.1858 - 1940, 81. Sweden.- Actress
- Writer
Louise Beaudet was born on 5 December 1859 in Lotbinere, Québec, Canada. She was an actress and writer, known for The Goddess (1915), The Gold Diggers (1923) and The Man Behind the Door (1914). She died on 31 December 1947 in New York City, New York, USA.1859 - 1947, 88. Canada. New York.- Frankie Bailey was born on 29 May 1859 in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA. She was an actress, known for Thank You (1925), The Crown of Lies (1926) and The Famous Mrs. Fair (1923). She was married to Frank Robinson (circus owner) and Fred McElwee. She died on 8 July 1953 in Los Angeles, California, USA.1859
1859 - 1953, (94).
USA.
1923-1931 credits. - Lillian Russell was born on 4 December 1860 in Clinton, Iowa, USA. She was an actress, known for Wildfire (1915), La Tosca (1911) and Potted Pantomimes (1914). She was married to Alexander Pollock Moore, Giovanni Perugini, Edward Solomon and Harry Braham. She died on 6 June 1922 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA.1860 - 1922, 61.
- Adelaide Coutinho was born on 25 January 1860 in Lisbon, Portugal. She was an actress, known for Pega na Chaleira (1909), Um Cavalheiro Deveras Obsequioso (1909) and Lucrecia Borgia (1910). She died on 25 September 1952 in São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil.1860
1860 - 1952, (92).
Portugal. Brazil.
1908-1910 credits. - Tonka Savic-Flieder-Macuka was born on 9 October 1861 in Zagreb, Croatia, Austrian Empire [now Croatia]. She was an actress, known for Brisem i sudim (1919), Vragoljanka (1919) and Brcko u Zagrebu (1917). She died on 9 January 1932 in Zagreb, Croatia, Yugoslavia [now Croatia].1861
1861 - 1932, (70).
Croatia.
1917-1919 credits. - Henrietta Crosman was born on 2 September 1861 in Wheeling, West Virginia, USA. She was an actress, known for Charlie Chan's Secret (1935), The Right to Live (1935) and The Royal Family of Broadway (1930). She was married to Maurice Campbell and Sedley Brown. She died on 31 October 1944 in Pelham Manor, New York, USA.1861 - 1944, 83,
- Alberta Gallatin was born on 5 April 1861 in Cabell County, West Virginia, USA. She was an actress, known for The Christian (1914), Mr. Barnes of New York (1914) and The Fifth Commandment (1915). She was married to Edwin Ogden Childe and Percy Sage Richardson (aka Percy Sage). She died on 25 August 1948 in New York City, New York, USA.1861 - 1948, 87.
- Helen Gilmore was born in 1872 in Louisville, Kentucky, USA. She was an actress, known for Tom Sawyer (1917), Huck and Tom (1918) and Big Red Riding Hood (1925). She was married to Joseph B. Zahner. She died in April 1936 in New York City, New York, USA.1862 - 1936, 74.
- She survived the death of her husband in 1905, the San Francisco earthquake in 1906 and raising four children with no money. In 1926, when she was 64 she became one of the most mature freshman ever to enter the University of California. She graduated 6 years later with her B.A. degree. In 1940 she went to Hollywood, where she began her acting career. Best known for her role in Shirley Temple's Storybook production of "Sleeping Beauty", although she is probably seen most often in "Going My Way" as Father Fitzgibbon's elderly mother.1862
1862 - 1961, (98).
USA
37 credits, 1941-1960. - Actress
Helen Dunbar was born on 10 October 1863 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. She was an actress, known for Siege (1925), Romeo and Juliet (1916) and The Squaw Man (1918). She died on 28 August 1933 in Los Angeles, California, USA.1863 - 1933, 69.- Edythe Chapman was born in Rochester, New York on October 8, 1863. A stage actress who came upon movies late in life, she nonetheless made 97 motion pictures. She was 51 years old when she played in _Richelieu (1914)_. Edythe was one of the busier actresses in the early silent era appearing in as many as nine films a year. She didn't achieve the fame as some of her counterparts such as Mary Miles Minter, Clara Bow, or Colleen Moore, but she was a commodity that movie moguls wanted because of her fine character performances. In 1920, Edythe appeared as Aunt Polly in Huckleberry Finn (1920), followed by 'The County Fair' (1920). Throughout the twenties she stayed busy. She was even lucky enough to make the successful transition into the "talkie" era when other performers were finished because their voices didn't lend themselves well to sound. Edythe made her final film 'Up the River' (1930) when she was 67. She was 85 years old when she died in Glendale, California on October 15, 1948.1863 - 1948, 85
- Ricca Allen was born on 9 June 1863 in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. She was an actress, known for The Power and the Glory (1918), Life's Whirlpool (1917) and One Million B.C. (1940). She died on 13 September 1949 in Los Angeles, California, USA.1863
1863 - 1949, (86)
Canada. USA.
64 credits, - Actress
- Soundtrack
In her younger days, auburn-haired Alison Skipworth had been a celebrated patrician beauty. She was the favorite model of English artist Frank Markham Skipworth (1854-1929) who would later become her husband. A physician's daughter, Alison did not make her professional acting debut until the age of thirty-one, having been privately tutored by academics from Oxford University. Her eventual move to stage acting was ostensibly to supplement her husband's meagre income. Alison's first performance was in "A Gaiety Girl" at London's Daly Theatre (in 1894), but, before long, she forsook England for Broadway and subsequently joined Daniel Frohman's company at the Lyceum in New York. She toured in Shakespearean roles and eventually became prolific on the 'Great White Way' in comedy plays. Unfortunately for her, many of these turned out to be conspicuous flops. After a string of failures (twenty-one, she claimed, between 1925 and 1930 alone!), Alison jumped at the opportunity to impose herself on the screen. Now stately and plump, 'Skippy' went on to carve herself a niche in Hollywood as imperious or seedy grand dames, dowagers and matrons, characters she often imbued with her own adroit sense of humour. She is most fondly remembered as a formidable foil (and, indeed, the only one to stand up to) W.C. Fields in If I Had a Million (1932), Tillie and Gus (1933), Alice in Wonderland (1933) and Six of a Kind (1934). Other memorable turns included her Mrs. Mabel Jellyman, hired to tutor a shady speakeasy proprietor (played by George Raft) in manners in Night After Night (1932), culminating in a confrontation with Mae West (both on and off the set); and Madame Barabas in Satan Met a Lady (1936), loosely based on Dashiell Hammett's "The Maltese Falcon", in which Alison played the female equivalent of the role later made famous by Sydney Greenstreet in the classic 1941 Warner Brothers version. Alison retired from acting in 1942 after her Broadway swansong in "Lily of the Valley" and passed away ten years later at the venerable age of 88.1863 - 1952, 88.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Jessie Ralph was a sailor's daughter, who first came to the stage at the age of 16, performing with a stock company in either Boston, Massachusetts, or Providence, Rhode Island (accounts differ). The year was 1880, and it took Jessie another 26 years to make her debut on the Great White Way in "The Kreutzer Sonata". Already a seasoned actress, she enjoying third billing. Her screen career started with one and two reelers as early as 1915, but her proper entry into Hollywood did not come about until 1933.
For more than 20 years, plump, down-to-earth Jessie made her reputation as a character actress on Broadway playing an assortment of nurses, maids and aunts. She was used in musicals by George M. Cohan and acted in Shakespearean roles, from "Twelfth Night" to "Romeo and Juliet". She was nurse to Jane Cowl's Juliet in the 1923 play which ran for an unprecedented 174 performances and co-starred Eva Le Gallienne and Katharine Cornell (amazing, when considering that the star was already 39 years old!). Like other successful actresses of the stage, Jessie was brought to Hollywood to reprise a Broadway hit role, in this case her Aunt Minnie in Child of Manhattan (1933).
After half a lifetime in the theatre, Jessie's sojourn in Hollywood was relatively brief but marked by a series of memorable performances. She was the definitive incarnation of the endearing nurse Peggotty in David Copperfield (1935) and played Greta Garbo's loyal maid Nanine in Camille (1936). She was the matriarch of the Whiteoaks of Jalna (1935), an adaptable society matron in San Francisco (1936) and harridan of a mother-in-law to W.C. Fields, Hermisillo Brunch, in The Bank Dick (1940). Whether in comedy or drama, as a Chinese aunt in both stage and screen versions of The Good Earth (1937), or a kindly sorceress in The Blue Bird (1940), Jessie gave consistently good value for money. The New York Times review of October 12, 1935, wrote of her performance in I Live My Life (1935): "Jessie Ralph as the tyrannical head of the family, proves again that she is the best of the screen grandmothers".
Jessie retired from acting in 1941 after having a leg amputated and died three years later.1864 - 1944, (79).- Emma Wiehe was born on 30 June 1864. She was an actress, known for Love in Exile (1923), The Tiger Countess (1914) and Den farlige leg (1911). She was married to Jacques Wiehe. She died on 5 May 1949.1864
1864 - 1949, (84).
Denmark.
23 credits, 1911-1932. - Actress
- Writer
Mrs. Patrick Campbell was born on 9 February 1865 in Kensington, London, England, UK. She was an actress and writer, known for Crime and Punishment (1935), Riptide (1934) and One More River (1934). She was married to George Cornwallis-West and Patrick Campbell. She died on 9 April 1940 in Pau, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, France.1865 - 1940, (75).
UK. France.- Juliette Roos was born on 13 August 1865 in Amsterdam, Noord-Holland, Netherlands. She was an actress, known for The Hypocrites (1923) and Suikerfreule (1935). She was married to Gerard Mulder and Jacobus Van Amerom. She died on 27 October 1957 in The Hague, Zuid-Holland, Netherlands.1865
1865 - 1957, (92).
Netherlands. - Adelaide Prince was born on 14 December 1866 in London, England, UK. She was an actress, known for Who Are My Parents? (1922), Captain Swift (1920) and National Red Cross Pageant (1917). She was married to Creston Clarke and Henry D. Prince. She died on 4 April 1941 in Shawnee-on-Delaware, Pennsylvania, USA.1866 - 1941, 74. London. USA.
- Zenaide Williams was born on 22 August 1866 in Macon Noxube, Mississippi, USA. She was an actress, known for Divorce and the Daughter (1916), The Servant in the House (1921) and The Working of a Miracle (1915). She was married to George H. Thatcher and Odell Williams. She died on 30 May 1960 in Los Angeles, California, USA.1866
1866 - 1960, (93).
USA.
1915-1921 credits. - Actress
- Producer
Flora Finch was born in London, England, on June 17, 1867. After spending time on the legitimate stage, she began to make films, and was one of the early comedy stars of the silent-film era. Her first film was Mrs. Jones Entertains (1909). After making nine more films she began appearing with rotund comic John Bunny, and together they would make more than 250 shorts over the next five years, becoming the cinema's first popular comedy team. Among their more popular titles were The New Stenographer (1911), The Subduing of Mrs. Nag (1911) and A Cure for Pokeritis (1912). She made other films on her own in addition to those she made with Bunny, and after he died in 1915 she began her own series of comedy shorts, although not meeting with the kind of success she had with Bunny. By the time the sound era began she was relegated to minor supporting roles and bit parts, although she did have a fairly decent role in The Scarlet Letter (1934) with Colleen Moore, as one of the self-righteous women in Nathaniel Hawthorne's tale of life in colonial America. Finch retired from acting after appearing in The Women (1939), ending a long and illustrious career. On January 4, 1940, she died of rheumatic fever, brought on by a streptococcus infection, in Los Angeles, California. She was 70 years old.1867 - 1940, (72).- Effie Shannon was born on 13 May 1867 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. She was an actress, known for Her Boy (1918), Pearl of Love (1925) and Jacqueline, or Blazing Barriers (1923). She was married to Henry Guy Carleton and Herbert Kelcey. She died on 24 July 1954 in Bay Shore, Long Island, New York, USA.1867 - 1954, 87.
- Actress and variety artiste. From the age of 13 an accomplished violinist, she also played the leading parts of principle boy in many pantomimes, and went into the music halls, playing regularly at the Tivoli, Oxford and Pavillion. Also the first woman member of the Variety Artists Federation, she travelled to Australia, America and all over England appearing in many Variety Shows. When she was almost 50 years old, she teamed up with Wee Georgie Wood and carried on travelling the world doing pantomimes and comedy sketches as his partner in jest. She nearly always played his stage mother and also became known as the "Mother of the Forces" when she travelled abroad entertaining the troops. A very giving and caring lady who never took anything in return, she worked practically up until the day she died at the age of 89 years in 1956.1867
1867 - 1956, (89).
UK.
1930-1949 credits. - Eugenie Besserer was born in Watertown, New York on Christmas Day of 1868. She was largely a silent film actress who made her debut in 1910's silent version of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1910). She was 42 at the time. For the most part Eugenie was a character actress, much in demand for filling in roles. Because of her willingness to take just about any role, Eugenie was able to be a part of films such as Enemies of Children (1923), The Millionaire Policeman (1926), The Jazz Singer (1927) (the first "talkie"), and A Royal Romance (1930). Her final film was 1933's To the Last Man (1933). Eugenie died of natural causes on May 28, 1934 in Los Angeles, California.1868 - 1934, (65).
- Lillian Hayward was born on 22 October 1868 in Napa County, California, USA. She was an actress, known for The Child of the Sea (1913), Etienne of the Glad Heart (1914) and The Black Orchid (1916). She was married to Francis Boggs. She died on 13 June 1947 in Chico, California, USA.1868 - 1947, 78.
- Julia Neilson was born on 12 June 1868 in London, England, UK. She was an actress, known for King John (1899) and Sweet Nell of Old Drury (1900). She was married to Fred Terry. She died on 27 May 1957 in Hampstead, London, England, UK.1868 - 1957, 88. London.
- Hedwig Bleibtreu was born on 23 December 1868 in Linz, Upper Austria, Austria-Hungary [now Austria]. She was an actress, known for The Third Man (1949), Der Spieler (1938) and Pygmalion (1935). She was married to Alexander Roempler and Peter Petersen. She died on 24 January 1958 in Vienna, Austria.1868 - 1958, 89. Austria.
- Costume and Wardrobe Department
Carolina Otero is known for Rebelde Way (2002).1868 - 1965, (96).
Spain. France.
Credits 1898-1954.- Viola Allen was born 1869 in Alabama and educated in Boston, Toronto and New York. She made her stage debut on July 4th, 1882. Since then she starred in many other stage plays. At the beginning of the 20th century she could also be seen in a lot of Shakespeare revivals. Viola Allen passed away 1948 in New York.1869 - 1934, 65. France.
- Actress
- Soundtrack
Jessie Busley was born on 10 March 1869 in Albany, New York, USA. She was an actress, known for Brother Rat (1938), Brother Rat and a Baby (1940) and It All Came True (1940). She was married to Ernest Joy and John McFedries (aka Jack Ferris). She died on 20 April 1950 in New York City, New York, USA.1869 - 1950, 81.- Sofie Bernhoft was born on 21 July 1870 in Kristiania, Norway. She was an actress, known for Trysil-Knut (1942), Boer Boerson Jr. (1938) and A Quiet flirt (1933). She died on 17 February 1966 in Oslo, Norway.1870
1870 - 1966, (95).
Norway. - Fannie Ward was a star of light comedies on Broadway and in vaudeville. Internationally famous, she was at the height of her career in the first decade of the 20th century. She debuted on Broadway at 19 in "Pippino" (1890). She went on to starring roles in "The Marriage of William Ashe", "Madam President" and "The Shop Girl". Although she was a good deal older than ideal for the role of the young spendthrift wife of a Wall Street tycoon, she made her screen debut in Cecil B. DeMille's production of The Cheat (1915). The film is a spectacular DeMille morality tale and features a shocking scene in which Ward's character is branded and nearly raped by a dapper but sinister Japanese ivory baron played by Sessue Hayakawa. She went on to star in several successful melodramas, the plots of most of which revolved around her near loss of virtue to a selection of nefarious characters. She was married to actor Jack Dean, who also appeared in at least 15 of her 26 films. Known as "The Youth Girl," she was continually cast in roles that were 20 to 30 years younger than her actual age. By the time she retired from the screen in 1920, she was just too old to carry it off anymore, and "The Youth Girl" sobriquet had become more of a joke than an honest tribute. After retiring from the screen, she opened a beauty palace in Paris called "The Fountain of Youth."1871 - 1952, (80).
- Elspeth Dudgeon was born on 4 December 1871 in London, England, UK. She was an actress, known for The Old Dark House (1932), Becky Sharp (1935) and Mystery House (1938). She died on 11 December 1955 in Los Angeles, California, USA.1871
1871 - 1955, (84).
UK. USA.
68 credits, 1932-1955. - A legendary stage actress and character player in early films, Lucille La Verne is one of those forgotten legends who seem to fade as the years go on. However, at her prime she was one of the most acclaimed actresses of her generation.
Lucille La Verne Mitchum was born in Nashville, Tennessee, on November 7, 1872. Little is known about her family. She made her stage debut at the local summer stock theater in 1876. The production was called "Centennial" in honor of America's 100th birthday, and the three-year old Lucille was among a handful of child extras in the play. In 1878 she returned to play another child part. She continued to return every summer, sort of becoming the playhouse's resident child star. She quickly proved herself a talented actress, and as she got older she was given better parts. She won great acclaim when during the summer of 1887 she played both Juliet and Lady Macbeth--at only 14 years of age.
On the night of her 16th birthday in 1888, made her Broadway debut with a supporting role in "La Tosca". The play closed after four weeks. In the fall of 1889 she performed with a stock company in Washington, DC, where she played May in "May Blossom" and Chrissy Rogers in "The Governess". She also toured as Ethel in "Judge Not". Her breakthrough performance was a limited-run Broadway revival of "As You Like It" with an all-female cast in March 1894, and she won much acclaim for her performance as "Corin". In the 1894-95 season, she played Patsy in Frank Mayo's Broadway production of Mark Twain's "Pudd'nhead Wilson". She also scored great success by playing the female lead roles in three different acclaimed touring productions over the next three years: "Notre Dame" (1895-96), "Uncle Tom's Cabin" (1897-98) and "Lady Windermere's Fan" (1897-98). In 1898 La Verne was made manager and director of the newly built Empire Theater in Richmond, VA. She staged five shows every season, and received mostly rave reviews. She played everything from leading roles in "Hedda Gabbler" and "Antigone" to character parts such as "Ma Frochard" in "The Two Orphans." She also wrote an adaptation of Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol", which she first staged in 1900, and her version was used by several other theaters in the early 1900s. She received much acclaim for her work at the Empire, and even received the Woman of the Year Award from the Virginia Women's Society in 1901.
She stepped down from the Empire Theater at the end of the 1903-04 season to make her London debut in a comic supporting role in the play "Clarice". She again received acclaim and repeated her success in the Broadway production three months later. She remained a staple of the Broadway stage for the next several years, specializing in character parts. She also returned on occasion to stock theaters to act and direct. She made her film debut in 1914 in Butterflies and Orange Blossoms (1914). From then on she would divide her time between film and the stage. She was used in film frequently by D.W. Griffith for various character parts. While she was a versatile actress, her most memorable parts in film were always those of vengeful women.
Her greatest stage triumph was the creation of the Widow Caggle role in the original Broadway production of "Sun Up". After the Broadway engagement she directed, as well as continued to perform, in the US and European tours of the play. She also recreated her role for the film version (Sun-Up (1925)). In 1927 Broadway's Princess Theater was renamed the Lucille La Verne Theater in her honor, and she was named manager and director. For her first outing as a Broadway producer and director she chose an original play called "Hot Water", giving herself the role of Jessica Dale. The play received mixed reviews and closed rather quickly. Later that same season she launched a revival of "Sun Up" repeating her Widow Caggle role, but it also closed quickly. Since the theater had lost money, she was let go as manager and the name reverted to being the Princess Theater. Upset, she moved to California for the time being to make more movies.
By 1928 she had already established herself as a good character actress in silent films and made the transition easily to talkies. As with her stage career, however, she tended to get typecast as unlikable women, despite her acclaim on Broadway for being able to play almost any character type. She did not abandon the stage entirely, however, and appeared frequently in regional productions in Los Angeles and San Francisco. In 1936 she returned to Broadway in the lead role of the thriller "Black Widow". Despite the rave reviews she received, the play itself got mixed reviews and closed after just a few performances. It would be her last stage production. La Verne quickly returned to Hollywood to take on her most famous role. She voiced both the Wicked Queen and her alter ego, the Old Hag in Walt Disney's first animated feature film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937). She also worked as a live-action model for the artists.
After working on "Snow White", Lucille La Verne retired from acting and became co-owner of a successful nightclub. She died at age 72 of cancer on March 4, 1945, in Culver City, CA.1872 - 1945, 72. - Actress
- Writer
Kate Price was born on 13 February 1872 in Cork, Ireland. She was an actress and writer, known for Quality Street (1927), Arizona (1918) and Paradise (1926). She was married to Joseph Price Ludwig . She died on 4 January 1943 in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA.1872
1872 - 1943, (70).
Ireland. USA.
306 credits, 1910-1937.- Blanche Bates was born on 25 August 1873 in Portland, Oregon, USA. She was an actress, known for The Border Legion (1918) and Tom's Little Star (1919). She was married to George Creel and Lieutenant Milton F. Davis. She died on 25 December 1941 in San Francisco, California, USA.1873 - 1941, 68.
- Miriam Nesbitt was born on 14 September 1873 in chicago, Illinois, USA. She was an actress, known for The Declaration of Independence (1911), Mary Stuart (1913) and The Corsican Brothers (1912). She was married to Marc McDermott. She died on 11 August 1954 in Hollywood, California, USA.1873
1873 - 1954, (80).
USA. - Actress
Opera soprano Mary Garden was born in Aberdeen, Scotland, on February 20, 1874. Her family emigrated to the US in 1880, eventually settling in Chicago, Illinois. She showed an aptitude for music at an early age, studying the violin and piano and taking voice lessons while still a young girl. In 1895 she went to Paris, France, to further her voice training. She made her public debut five years later in Gustave Charpentier's "Louise" at the Opera-Comique in Paris. In 1902 composer Claude Debussy personally chose her to sing the female lead in his opera "Pelleas et Melisande", and this became her most famous and celebrated role. She was so highly regarded among composers that Jules Massenet specifically rewrote the lead part in his "Le Jongleur de Notre-Dame"--which he had originally written to be a man--for her.
She made her New York debut in 1907, in Massenet's "Thais". She was acclaimed by critics not only for her superb singing but for what many deemed her remarkable dramatic ability as well. She toured extensively in Europe and the US and joined the Chicago Civic Opera in 1910, being their featured singer until 1931. In addition, she served as general director of the Chicago Opera Association from 1921-1922.
Although she retired from the stage in 1934, she remained active in operatic circles, making many lecture and recital tours over the next 20 years and serving as audition judge for the National Arts Foundation.
She died in her birthplace of Aberdeen, Scotland, on January 3, 1967.1874 - 1967, (92).
Scotland. UK.- Actress
- Producer
Marie Cahill was born on 7 February 1874 in Brooklyn, New York, USA. She was an actress and producer, known for Judy Forgot (1915), When Betty Bets (1917) and Gladys' Day Dreams (1917). She was married to Daniel V. Arthur. She died on 23 August 1933 in New York City, New York, USA.1874 - 1933, 59.- Irene Rooke was born on 30 May 1874 in Bridport, Dorset, England, UK. She was an actress, known for Fanny Hawthorne (1927), Pillars of Society (1920) and Lady Windermere's Fan (1916). She was married to Milton Rosmer and Francis Greppo (actor). She died on 14 June 1958 in Chesham, Buckinghamshire, England, UK.1874
1874 - 1958, (84).
UK.
21 credits, 1916-1932. - Actress
- Soundtrack
Although she could on a rare occasion display a bit of kindness, or at least some kind of grouchy benevolence, Helen Westley had few peers on stage or film when it came to outright unpleasantness. A stern, indomitable presence, her characters offered unsolicited advice to anyone and everyone within arm's reach. They could literally freeze a person in his or her own tracks with a mere hawk-like glare or arm-folding stance. They could be overbearing, greedy, spiteful, contentious, meddlesome, controlling, narrow-minded, viper-tongued, or all of the above. In essence, she was often major pain in the posterior to the film's star. It usually took a young, brave, gentle soul along the lines of a Shirley Temple or Anne Shirley to find a way to thaw out the icy cold heart that barely beat within.
The Brooklyn-born Helen was born on March 28, 1875 and studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. She began on the stage at age 18 in a one-act comedy skit entitled "The Captain of the Nonesuch." Reaching stardom just before the dawn of the twentieth century, she co-founded both the Greenwich Square Players and the Washington Square Players, the latter growing into the Theatre Guild of which she became one of six managing directors. A steadfast player under the Broadway lights, she appeared in such classics as Chekhov's "The Seagull" (as Madame Arkadina) (1916), "Heartbreak House" (1920), "Liliom" (1921), "Peer Gynt" (1923), "The Adding Machine" (1923), "The Guardsman" (1924), "Caesar and Cleopatra" (1925), "The Doctor's Dilemma" (1927), "Strange Interlude" (1928), "Faust" (1928), "The Apple Cart" (1930), "Green Grow the Lilacs" (1931) and "They Shall Not Die" (1934), to name just a few.
By age 60, she had discovered and settled into filming, and for the next (almost) decade, spread misery in movie after movie. Her dour dowagers, no-nonsense matrons and acidulous relatives took the form of Granny Mingott in The Age of Innocence (1934); the designer title character in Roberta (1935); the manipulative and malicious mother of Joel McCrea in Splendor (1935); the harridan-like Parthy Hawkes in the Irene Dunne/Allan Jones version of Show Boat (1936); and the cackling, pipe-smoking grandmaw in Banjo on My Knee (1936). Her finger-wagging authority figures showed up to intimidate Anne Shirley in Anne of Green Gables (1934) and courageous little Shirley Temple who somehow managed to reveal her human side in four films: Dimples (1936), Stowaway (1936), Heidi (1937), and Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1938). Helen remained a vital character presence on the large screen up until her death at age 67 in 1942. She married John Westley in 1900 but they parted ways 12 years later. She had one daughter.1875 - 1942, 67.- Jeanne Louise Calment had the longest confirmed human life span in history, living to the age of 122 years, 164 days (44724 days total). She lived in Arles, France, for her entire life, and outlived both her daughter and grandson. She became especially well known from the age of 113, when the centenary of Vincent van Gogh's visit brought reporters to Arles. She entered the Guinness Book of Records in 1988, and on 17 October 1995 she became the oldest person ever, having surpassed the (now dubious) case of Shigechiyo Izumi of Japan. She became the last living documented person born in the 1870s when the Japanese super centenarian Tane Ikai (born 1879) died on 12 July 1995.
In 1985, Calment moved into a nursing home, having lived on her own until age 110. Her international fame escalated in 1988, when the centenary of Vincent van Gogh's visit to Arles provided an occasion to meet reporters. She said at the time that she had met Van Gogh 100 years before, in 1888, as a thirteen-year-old girl in her uncle's fabric shop, where he wanted to buy some canvas, later describing him as "dirty, badly dressed and disagreeable", and "very ugly, ungracious, impolite, sick".
Calment recalled selling colored pencils to Van Gogh, and seeing the Eiffel Tower being built. At the age of 114, she appeared briefly in the 1990 film Vincent and Me as herself, making her the oldest person ever to appear in a motion picture.
A documentary film about her life, entitled Beyond 120 Years with Jeanne Calment, in 1995. In 1996, Time's Mistress, a four-track CD of Calment speaking over a background of rap, was released. On her 122nd birthday on 21 February 1997, it was announced that she would make no more public appearances, as her health had seriously deteriorated. She died on 4 August of that same year.1875 - 1997, (122).
France. - Actress
- Director
Rosa Valetti was born Rosa Alice Vallentin, the daughter of industrialist Felix Vallentin and his wife, Bertha. Her brother was actor Hermann Vallentin, who emigrated to Mandatory Palestine. She first appeared on the Berlin stage and later also in Paris, Brussells and Vienna. During the First World War, she worked with Ludwig Roth, her first husband, at the Residenz-Theater in Berlin. She also worked as a director and acted in many theaters. A meeting with Kurt Tucholsky gave her an opportunity to work in cabaret, firstly in "Schall und Rauch." Valetti produced her own cabaret show "Café Grössenwahn" in 1920, then "Die Rampe" in 1922, and "Comedia Valetti" in 1923.
Valetti played in many cabarets around Europe and appeared in the premiere of "Die Dreigroschenoper" ("The Three Penny Opera"). In all, she appeared in more than 40 films, including in 1930 's "Der Blaue Engel" (The Blue Angel) with Marlene Dietrich. In 1933, she left Nazi Germany for Vienna and worked until 1935 at the Theater at der Josefstadt, also making guest appearances in Prague, Czechoslovakia. In 1934, she moved back to Berlin and then in 1936 to Palestine. She died the following year in Vienna. Her only child, her daughter Elisabeth, an actress known as Lisl Valetti, emigrated to the USA.1876
1876 - 1937, (61).
Germany. Austria.- Helen Ware was born on 15 October 1877 in San Francisco, California, USA. She was an actress, known for The Virginian (1929), Flaming Gold (1932) and The Garden of Allah (1916). She was married to Frederick Burt. She died on 25 January 1939 in Carmel, California, USA.1877 - 1939, 61.
- Tall and elegant, with harmonious features, a proud look and brown curly hair, Nelly Cormon was a French theater actress of classic beauty who was very successful on stage for three decades and had a brief but honorable career in silent films at the time when cinema was beginning to become more artistic, not just a fairground art. Born in the center of France to a teacher and his wife on 15-12-1977, young Nelly studied music and drama at the Conservatoire from a young age and left it a prize in hand. In the wake of it, she started performing and soon landed important roles in major theaters (the Gymnase, the Théâtre Sarah Bernhardt, the Théâtre des Arts, the Théâtre Fémina) as well as on tour in Lisbon, London, Nancy, Brussels and other towns. Among the plays she graced with her presence can be counted "Pour la Couronne" (François Coppée), "Samson" (Henry Bernstein), "Le Maître de forges" (Georges Ohnet), "Le Retour de Jerusalem", "La Barricade, "Le Réveil", "Mademoiselle Josette, ma femme", "L'Homme enchaîné", "Napoléon IV"... Cinema also occupied her for a while (from 1910 to 1918) when she starred in two dozens quality films for the Film d'Art company. On several occasions a historical figure (Madame de La Bédoyer, Marion Delorme, Joséphine de Beauharnais, Madame Récamier), she showed the extent of her talent by being in turns the evil Milady de Winter in Calmettes and Pouctal's "Les Trois mousquetaires" (1912) and the truthful Mercedes, Edmond Dantes' fiancée, in "Le Comte de Monte Cristo", also directed by Henri Pouctal, also adapted from Alexandre Dumas (1915). But after a new interpretation of the courtesan Marion Delorme in 1918, the cinema parenthesis closed, probably at the end of her contract, and Nelly Cormon's reappearance in "Madame Récamier" ten years later remained without follow-up. The actress naturally went on with her successful theater career until she retired by the end of the 1920s. Curiously, from then on, all track of her is lost. Nobody knows yet where she lived and died despite serious research on the subject. A mystery probably due to the destruction of the municipal archives of the place where she lived. Whatever the case may be, Nelly Cormon will be remembered as an actress who featured greatly during the first quarter of the twentieth century.1877
1877 - .
France.
41 credits, 1910-1928. - Norwegian stage actress, debut at The National Stage in Bergen in 1897,where she was engaged until 1907. Later she played at Fahlstrøm's Theater and at Tivoli Theater in Kristiania.(now Oslo)
Mrs.Danning also appeared in a few Norwegian silent movies, before moving to Denmark with her Danish husband, composer Christian Danning around 1914.
She outlived her husband with over fifty years, and died at the formidable age of 101 in February 1980.1878
1878 - 1980, (101).
Norway. Denmark. - Actress
- Writer
- Director
Pioneer silver screen star Kathlyn Williams is primarily known as the spry blonde of the very first Hollywood cliffhanger, The Adventures of Kathlyn (1913), in which her real first name was used in the title. This accomplishment has resulted in many reference works mistakenly referring to her as an adventurous Pearl White-type silent serial queen. While Kathlyn did, in fact, go on to perform in a few other adventure-type pictures, including westerns, she was actually quite gentile and dignified in nature and primarily graced heavier drama on the screen. Having once been dubbed the Sarah Bernhardt of the screen, she never did appear in another serial.
She was born in Butte, Montana, on May 31, 1879 (most sources incorrectly list 1888) of Norwegian and Welsh descent, Kathlyn was born to Joseph E. and Mary C. Williams. With early interest and experience as a vocal recitalist, she eventually attended the Sargent School of Acting and studied at Wesleyan University (1899). Following stage experience in local stock and touring companies (from 1902) she began to develop a solid name for herself in such plays as "When We Were Twenty One". Her early career was generously sponsored by Sen. W.A. Clarke after Kathlyn's family lost their fortunes. She eventually went to Hollywood while performing with the Belasco Stock Company and began making films as early as 1908 with D.W. Griffith at the Biograph Studio.
A popular star at the Selig Polyscope Company in 1910 (she was at first publicized as "The Selig Girl"), she appeared in assorted jungle adventures for the studio as well as a number of westerns opposite cowboy star Tom Mix. She made history, however, with the very first serial adventure, which contained a number of wild animals, and it saved the faltering studio from bankruptcy. She proceeded to remain a popular item after being handed the lead in the Selig epic The Spoilers (1914), playing her signature role of Cherry Marlotte.
Once the Selig Studio folded, Kathlyn signed with Paramount Pictures following her marriage to Paramount executive Charles F. Eyton in 1916 (a former actor, he later became the studio's General Manager), and while there appeared as the star of several early dramas for both Cecil B. DeMille and his brother William C. de Mille, including The Whispering Chorus (1918), We Can't Have Everything (1918), The Tree of Knowledge (1920) and Conrad in Quest of His Youth (1920). Her numerous co-stars included veteran matinée idols (Thomas Meighan, Theodore Roberts, Tyrone Power Sr.), young established stars (Wallace Reid) and western heroes (Roy Stewart.
Kathlyn's fair, spunky, coquettish looks grew suddenly grim and matronly by the early 1920s and she moved swiftly into stately dramatic efforts, backing up such celebrity femmes of the day as May McAvoy, Betty Compson, Anita Page, Greta Garbo and even Joan Crawford before the advent of sound. She retired from films in 1935 after only a handful of talkies and, though comebacks were bantered about from time to time in the gossip mill, nothing came of it. A tragic car accident in 1949 resulted in the loss of a leg, ending any chances whatsoever of revitalizing her career. She was confined to a wheelchair for the remainder of her life.
Married and divorced three times, her only child, Victor Hugo Kainer, from her first marriage to import/export businessman Otto Kainer, was born in 1905 but died a young teenager after developing influenza and succumbing to septic poisoning in 1922. After a brief marriage to actor Frank R. Allen, she married Eyton. That marriage ended in 1931.
Due to the loss of her leg, Kathlyn became a wheelchair-bound invalid in the last decade of her life. She succumbed to massive heart attack in her Hollywood apartment on September 23, 1960, at age 81. She was cremated and her ashes interred in the Deodora Hall, South Columbarium in the Chapel of the Pines Crematory in Los Angeles.1879 - 1960, (81).- Alice Belcher was born on 12 April 1880 in New York, New York, USA. She was an actress, known for Mistaken Orders (1926), Second Hand Rose (1922) and Pals First (1926). She was married to Harold Christie. She died on 9 May 1939 in Hollywood, California, USA.1880 - 1939, (59).
78 credits, 1919-1937. - Actress
- Soundtrack
Lively, buxom character actress Mary Boland made a name for herself playing vacuous or pixilated motherly types during the 1930s. One of her most memorable performances was as the addle-brained Mrs. Rimplegar of Three Cornered Moon (1933), who gives away her family fortune to a swindler because he seemed like 'such a nice young man'. She also made a series of popular homespun comedies under contract to Paramount, in which she co-starred opposite Charles Ruggles. She was notable as a social snob in Ruggles of Red Gap (1935), the oversexed and alcoholic Countess DeLave in The Women (1939) and as Mrs. Bennet in MGM's classic Pride and Prejudice (1940). For all her scatty or matronly character roles in the movies, Mary Boland had once been a star comedienne on Broadway.
Born in Philadelphia, the daughter of traveling actor William A. Boland (who happened to be on tour at her birth), she was educated at Sacred Heart Convent in Detroit. At 25, Mary appeared in her first play, 'Strongheart', and was on Broadway two years later in 'The Ranger', with Dustin Farnum. She started in silent films in 1915, her debut being Thomas H. Ince's 'The Edge of the Abyss'. After a wartime interval, entertaining troops on the Western Front during World War I, she made a return to the stage and had notable successes with the comedies 'Clarence' (1919-20,with Alfred Lunt) as Mrs.Wheeler, 'Meet the Wife' (1923-24,with a young Humphrey Bogart) and 'Cradle Snatchers' (1925-26), starring as Susan Martin. These performances established her as one of theaters foremost comediennes, ideally cast as dithery wives and mothers, or social climbers.
Mary's film career ended in 1950 and she appeared in her last play, 'Lullaby', in 1954. She retired to live out the rest of her days in her suite at the Essex House in New York.1880 - 1965, 85,- Florence Natol was born on 1 March 1880 in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. She is known for Romantic Reggie (1915), The Destroyers (1916) and His Father's Son (1917).1880
1880 - .
Canada.
40 credits, 1915-1917. - Margaret Illington was born on 23 July 1881 in Bloomington, Illinois, USA. She was an actress, known for The Inner Shrine (1917), Sacrifice (1917) and Animated Weekly, No. 38 (1912). She was married to Edward Bowes and Daniel Frohman. She died on 11 March 1934 in Miami Beach, Florida, USA.1881 - 1934, (52).
- Pauline Frederick was born Pauline Beatrice Libby in Boston, Massachusetts on August 12, 1883. She was fascinated with show business from an early age and throughout her childhood, she was bred for a career in music. It has been said she had a terrific soprano voice, but Pauline also dabbled a bit in acting. It was her acting ability that would make her famous. She starred in several stage productions with her manager, Benjamin Teal, guiding her every step of the way. Before long, Pauline was making a name for herself up and down the East Coast, especially in the hallowed halls of Broadway. The hard line critics raved of her appearances in productions such as "Samson" and "Joseph and His Brothers". Before long, it was recognized that a stage play with Pauline starring in it signified a top quality production. Pauline was at the pinnacle of her career, but with the fledgling film colony, then located in New York, it was only a matter of time before the movie moguls wooed her from the stage and into a film studio. They did. Pauline's first film on the silver screen was THE EMERALD CITY in 1915. She was 32, an age where most newcomers were much younger, but Pauline's reputation preceded her. Her name was a virtual drawing card for the flick and it turned out to be a success. Pauline was out of the gate and running. She had two other very successful films that year, BELLA DONNA and LYDIA GILMORE. The next two years saw Pauline in a number of high quality motion pictures. 1918 turned out to be a banner year for Pauline as her star power would shine bright with the critics and public alike in films such as FEDORA, RESURRECTION, and LA TOSCA. The latter film solidified Pauline's star power. In 1920, Pauline played Jacqueline Floriot in MADAME X in probably her greatest performance in her personal history. By now she had arrived in the new film colony of Hollywood, California to make films for Samuel Goldwyn. She quickly adapted to her new home. She began to pare back her film appearances, balancing her film work with continued acting on the stage in New York. But homesickness for her adopted home brought Pauline back to California and more starring roles. Because of her stage work and great screen presence, Pauline never had any trouble when movies switched from the silent era to sound. In 1932, Pauline she successfully played in WAYWARD with Nancy Carroll and Richard Arlen. Seven more sound films followed, each greeted with great success. Her final film was made in 1937 in THANK YOU, MR. MOTO. She may have continued to play on the big screen, after all she was only 54 years old. She had asthma which limited her activities somewhat. On September 19, 1938, Pauline died from that condition in Beverly Hills, California. She was just 55 years old.1881 - 1938, 55
- Writer
- Director
- Producer
Iva Raffay was born on 6 April 1881 in Prague, Bohemia, Austria-Hungary [now Prague, Czech Republic]. She was a writer and director, known for Lejah (1918), Tausend und eine Frau. Aus dem Tagebuch eines Junggesellen (1918) and Der Hirt von Maria Schnee (1920). She died on 26 August 1948.1881
1881 - .
Czech Republic.
26 credits, 1913-1944. Writing, actress, producer, director.- Alice Fleming was born on 9 August 1882 in Brooklyn, New York, USA. She was an actress, known for Silas Marner (1922), Great Stagecoach Robbery (1945) and Sheriff of Las Vegas (1944). She was married to William Day. She died on 6 December 1952 in New York City, New York, USA.1882 - 1952, 70.
- Betty Harte was born on 13 May 1882 in Lebanon, Pennsylvania, USA. She was an actress and writer, known for The 'Epidemic' in Paradise Gulch (1912), The Schoolmaster of Mariposa (1910) and A Tale of the Sea (1910). She died on 3 January 1965 in Sunland, California, USA.1882 - 1965, (82).
121 credits, 1908-1916. - Signe Lundberg-Settergren was born on 15 February 1882 in Viborg, Finland. She was an actress, known for Kärlek och dynamit (1933), Synnöve Solbakken (1934) and Bomans pojke (1933). She died on 24 June 1967 in Stockholm, Stockholms län, Sweden.1882
1882 - 1967, (85).
Finland. Sweden.
39 credits, 1932-1958.8 - Lottie Briscoe was born on 19 October 1883 in St. Louis, Missouri, USA. She was an actress, known for The House of Mirth (1918), The Country School Teacher (1912) and The Power of the Cross (1913). She was married to Harry McRae Webster and Harry Mountford. She died on 21 March 1950 in New York City, New York, USA.1883 - 1950, 66.
- Edna Goodrich was born on 22 December 1883 in Logansport, Indiana, USA. She was an actress, known for Who Loved Him Best? (1918), Armstrong's Wife (1915) and Queen X (1917). She was married to Nat C. Goodwin. She died on 26 May 1971 in New York City, New York, USA.1883
1883 - 1971, (87). - The great Broadway stage actress and silent film star Elsie Louise Ferguson was born on August 19, 1883 in New York City, the only child of prominent lawyer Hiram Benson Ferguson and his wife. Due to her father's wealth, hers was a privileged childhood, though she developed a penchant for socialism in her late thirties.
Educated in Manhattan, Elsie made her theatrical debut as a chorus girl in the musical comedy "The Belle of New York" at the Madison Square Theatre in 1900. Her early flirtation with the stage was linked to a friend importuning her to join the chorus, which she did out of curiosity. She also was a chorus girl in "The Liberty Belles" the following year. Allowed to speak one line in "Belles," she made up her mind to become a stage actress. Elsie was quite beautiful, as well as talented, and she worked her way up from the chorus to become a Broadway star for three decades. She made her Broadway debut, proper, at the end of 1903 in the musical The Girl from Kay's at the Herald Square Theatre. In 1904, she then appeared in the play "The Second Fiddle.
Between the time Elsie appeared on Broadway in the musical "Miss Dolly Dollars" and in Arthur Conan Doyle's play "The Brigadier," one of the major scandals that periodical rock America to its core occurred. On June 25, 1906, Pittsburgh millionaire Harry K. Shaw, the husband of Elsie's friend Evelyn Nesbitt, shot and killed renowned architect Stanford White while he was attending a public performance at the Garden Theatre situated atop Madison Square Garden, the penultimate arena bearing that name actually located on New York City's Madison Square. White's Garden, which he had designed, housed the Madison Square Theatre, where Nesbitt had appeared in the 1903 musical "The Girl from Dixie." Though the show was her last appearance in a legitimate Broadway production, she had earlier been appearing in private shows for White, the man whom she called "Stanny," at his spectacular multi-floor apartment snug inside the Garden building's tower, on top of which the rooftop theater sat.
White had first espied the young red-headed woman would become his mistress and Lorelei in 1901, when she was in the chorus of the musical "Florodora" at Broadway's Casino Theatre, in a time when girls from the leg-line were as famous as supermodels are today. The Pittsburgh native was 16 years old. Before taking to the stage, she had made her living as a model for artists and photographers. After an introduction, White played sugar daddy to her and her family, eventually purloining Nesbitt's maidenhead in an act she variously described as a rape and seduction.
Many men, including the young John Barrymore, who proposed to her, wooed Evelyn. But White intervened, and she became involved with fellow Pittsburgh native Thaw, an emotionally unstable man addicted to cocaine and morphine, who had hated White for years, due to some snub involving showgirls that had transpired before either man had made the fiery young redhead's acquaintance. White, something of a Humbert Humbert, gradually cooled towards the maturing Evelyn, though he still played sugar daddy to her. Gradually, he took up with other, younger chorines, and Evelyn, who had revealed the details of her affair to her other suitor, made a "reluctant" marriage to Thaw. She did so despite her fear of the man, who had a violent and bizarre streak that had expressed itself once in his beating her with a dog whip during a sojourn in Europe.
Evelyn moved to Pittsburgh, but she was ostracized from society due to her reputation as a showgirl. Theatrical people simply were not respectable in those halcyon days of Victorian morals and mores. She grew her bored and lonely, ad was wary of her husband, who was prone to tantrums and fits or rage. During a planned1906 trip to Europe, she and her husband stopped off in New York, where they, by chance, met up with Evelyn's former lover. It was just a matter of time before Thaw stalked White to the sybaritic aerie atop his Garden and put three bullets into his face. Adam had slain his Eve's snake, all in the name of "the unwritten law" that held a man had the moral right to slay his wife's seducer.
The press had a field day. Nesbitt became known as "The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing" when the news of her private whoopee-making with White became public knowledge. The press revealed the double-life of the respected architect, who was unmasked as a libertine and voluptuary who shared the taste for showgirls with the Gilded Age plutocrats with whom he hobnobbed. They mass-circulation rags ran tearful, hand-wringing and utterly salacious articles about the other showgirls whom White had corrupted, all the while inveighing against the immorality of show people while doing their utmost best to profit by it by. Anthony Comstock, for 30 years the Lord General Cromwell in America's campaign against smut in the mails, praised Thaw for avenging his wife's honor, claiming that America would be better off with more Thaws taking the law into their own hands and executing "the unwritten law." President Theodore Roosevelt reportedly closely followed the case in the press.
Unfortunately, the press dragged Elsie into the scandal revolving around the murder, an affair immortalized in the book, motion picture and Broadway musical "Ragtime." A journalist revealed that Elsie had known about her friend Evelyn's affair with White, which brought unwanted attention. The two Thaw murder trials (the first one having ended with a hung jury) constituted the first "Trial of the Century" in that new century, and Elsie was anxious to avoid being subpoenaed as a witness as it might generate more bad publicity. To be tarred as one of the loose showbiz girls the press was reveling in, boosting its circulation while sanctimoniously condemning their immorality while covering their yellow pages with the skinny on their antics, could prove fatal to a career in those more-outwardly Puritanical times. Elsie accepted an offer to appear in "The Earl of Pawtucket" at the London Playhouse in England, which proved to be a hit.
Returning to her home country, she appeared in melodramas on Broadway, such as Edgar Selwyn's "Pierre of the Plains" in 1908. The next year, she was hailed for her performance in the title role of "Such a Little Queen." In the following decade, she became the 'Toast of Broadway' and earned the reputation as 'the most beautiful woman on the spoken stage.' Elsie rejected offers from movie producers as she considered the primitive photoplays of her time to be inferior to the stage. She continued to act on Broadway, appearing in a string of successes, including the revival of "Arizona."
She distinguished herself playing Portia opposite Shylock of the great English tragedian Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree in a 1916 production of "The Merchant of Venice." Elsie next appeared as the eponymous heroine of "Shirley Kaye." At this time, she surrendered to the blandishments of Paramount-Artcraft sachem Adolph Zukor, who had offered her a very lucrative three-year contract that would pay her $5,000 per week to appear in 18 pictures.
Maurice Tourneur helmed her fist picture for Paramount, "Barbary Sheep" (1917), which also featured the movie debut of George M. Cohan, later immortalized on film in James Cagney's Oscar-winning turn as the master showman in "Yankee Doodle Dandy" (1942). Initially, Elsie hated the experience, but she had a good working relationship with Tourneur, who became her favorite director during her relatively brief movie career. She later told an interviewer, "I shall never forget my state of mind during the making of `Barbary Sheep.' My experience before the camera was the most painful thing I have ever known in life. It seemed to me that the little black box became a monster that was leering and scoffing at my feeble efforts to register an emotion before it. I went home in tears. But the next morning I returned.... It is so different and not at all as I expected.... I am fortunate in being under Mr. Maurice Tourneur's direction and presume I shall soon look upon the work as blandly as those to whom it has become a habit, though now it is quite strange."
Maurice Tourneur relayed a story about Elsie's debut in films in an interview in a Paramount media guide. "Downstairs the studio manager declared 'Miss Ferguson is a wonder. When she came over here the first day, she candidly said, 'I don't know film work, but I'm willing to learn.' Other stars and stage folk dash in with that 'I-know-it-all-need-no-director-look-who-I-am' air, and their first screen work shows how little they actually know." Tourneur predicted that Elsie would become a major star due to her beauty and talent.
"Barbary Sheep" was a hit with critics and audiences, and Tourneur directed her next two pictures, "The Rise of Jenny Cushing" (1917) and "Rose of the World" (1918), the latter of which Elsie declared was her favorite among her first batch of movies. In 1918, Tourneur also directed her with less stellar results as Nora Helmer in a cinematic adaptation of Henrik Ibsen's masterpiece "A Doll's House." It was the third movie version of the play, which had also been filmed in 1911 and 1917, the latter with Dorothy Phillips as Nora and Lon Chaney as Nora's nemesis, Nils Krogstad.
Ibsen's masterpiece had been frequently revived on Broadway since its New York debut in 1889, starring the likes of the great Ethel Barrymore and Alla Nazimova, who portrayed the tragic heroine three times on Broadway between and 1907 and 1918. (The flamboyant Nazimova would play the role in her own adaptation of the play in Charles Bryant's 1922 film version, co-starring Alan Hale, the father of The Skipper from "Gilligan's Island," as her Torvald.) Elsie had not yet played in anything with the gravity of Ibsen, on stage or screen. The photoplay, which was changed from the play but retained the basic story, displeased both the director and his star, and it flopped at the box office. As the `Moving Picture World' had written about the failure of the 1917 version to live up to Ibsen's play, "[T]he fine shades of meaning in the dialogue without the aid of speech render the task of the actors in the cast doubly hard...." If the great pantomimist Chaney could not put the meaning across, it is doubtful that Elsie and her less stellar supporting cast could, which likely abetted the failure of her picture..
Marshall Neilan directed her in a remake of her old stage hit "Pierre of the Plains," which had first been filmed in 1914 by the Selwyn brothers, called "Heart of the Wilds" (1918), while George Fitzmaurice directed her in four films. A fashion maven, Elsie earned the sobriquet "The Aristocrat of the Screen" for her many portrayals of aristocrats and high society women in her pictures.
Elsie refused Paramount's offer for a new, more lucrative contract, and returned to the Broadway stage with the play "Sacred and Profane Love" (1920), which was a huge hit. In this period, she admitted to an interest in socialism in an October 1921 `Motion Picture Magazine' interview. "All the while, the middle classes and the lower classes, people are struggling and worrying and fretting their lives away over questions of food and education for their children and the wherewithal for the essentials of life. When a man has accumulated more than, say, a million, the moneys made should revert back to those who have contributed to the amassment." The statement is surprising, not because of her wealthy background and lifestyle, but because the United States had been in the grip of its first "Red Scare' for two years.
Paramount managed to sign Elsie to a two-year, four-picture contract in late 1921, and she filmed a movie version of her stage success, "Sacred and Profane Love" (1921), with director by William Desmond Taylor, a man who himself would fall victim to a bullet at the beginning of 1921, as had Stanford White almost two decades earlier. Supporting player Maxine Elliott Hicks, who described her leading lady in "Love" as `ritzy' in a 1990 interview, said, "She wouldn't allow anyone on the set, including Momma, but she was a darling to me."
George Fitzmaurice directed her in a screen adaptation of George du Maurier's novel "Peter Ibbetson" called "Forever" (1921), co-starring Wallace Reid, the silent movie superstar addicted to morphine who would die in an asylum in January 1923 while withdrawing from narcotics. Containing her best screen performance, this third film of her two-year Paramount contract was a big hit, as was her last, "Outcast" (1922). She then returned to the Broadway stage in the 1923 hit "The Wheel of Life," but she refused Paramount's offer of a new contract, which would have included filming her latest success. She instead appeared in "The Grand Duchess and The Waiter" on Broadway.
Elsie would later take her "Wheel" and "Duchess" co-star, British stage actor Frederick Worlock, as her third husband. Earlier, she had been married to businessman and Adams Express Co. heir Frederick C. Hoey, then married bank executive Thomas Clarke, Jr. in the mid-1910s. Elsie divorced Clarke in the late 1920s, married Warlock, and then shortly divorced him in 1930. But that lay in the future.
After appearing in a supporting role to Adolphe Menjou and Norma Shearer in the Monta Bell-directed movie "Broadway After Dark" for Warner Bros., she made one more silent flicker, Vitagraph's "The Unknown Lover" (1925), a film she detested and would never discuss. Elsie continued her stage career with great success throughout the decade, but retired at the end of the Roaring `20s. Five years later, she appeared in First National Pictures' "Scarlet Pages" (1930). The movie, a talkie, was based on the play of the same name that Elsie had appeared in on Broadway in 1929. The 47-year-old actress played a lawyer defending a young woman accused of murder. Elsie's speaking voice on film was lower-pitched than her fans expected, but she had clear and precise diction, as did man of the stage actors dragooned into the talkies in that period. Her first talkie would prove to be her last appearance on film.
Elsie's friend Lowell Sherman, who was developing a cinematic version of William Makepeace Thackeray's "Vanity Fair" at R.K.O. for David O. Selznik's friend and future business partner, multi-millionaire John Hay "Jock" Whitney, cast her as the Duchess of Richmond. The movie, "Becky Sharp" (1935), made cinematic history as the first feature film shot in three-strip Technicolor. It was not directed by Sherman, however, as he died before filming began and was replaced by Rouben Mamoulian. With her friend gone, Elsie dropped out of the film, and Billie Burke played the Duchess instead.
On March 17, 1934, the 51-year-old Elsie married wealthy Irishman Victor Augustus Seymour Egan. They bought a farm in Connecticut that same year, where she spent her retirement. They also maintained a home in France. Elsie came out of retirement to appear on Broadway in the 1943 production of "Outrageous Fortune," which was a hit with the critics, but a flop at the box office, playing only 77 performances. She retired from acting for good, splitting her time between Connecticut and France.
Elsie's husband, Victor Egan, died in France in 1956. Widowed for five years, Elsie died at the age of 78 on November 15, 1961. With no surviving heirs, she left $1,000,000 to New York City's Animal Medical Center.
None of Elsie Ferguson's silent films are known to exist, although a 35mm print of "Forever" (1922) that had been owned by Dorothy Davenport Reid, Wallace Reid's widow, may have made it into the hands of a private collector. Her sole talkie, "Scarlet Pages," does exist and is part of the Time-Warner library of films. It occasionally is shown by the cable movie network Turner Classic Movies and remains the sole legacy of this great actress' spectacular career in the first part of the last century.1883 - 1962, 78. - Janet Beecher, daughter of the German vice-consul in Chicago, studied acting at the Art Students League in New York. For almost three decades she made a name for herself as a leading actress in plays on the Broadway stage, beginning with a bit part in 'The Two Orphans' in 1903. Her hits included 'The Lottery Man' (1909-10), 'The Concert' (1910-11), 'A Bill of Divorcement' (1921-22) and 'Courage' (1928-29).
She made her Hollywood debut in 1933. Despite consistently good critical reviews, her theatrical stardom never translated to the screen. She was destined to be typecast as forthright wives and was particularly droll as Mrs.Barnum in The Mighty Barnum (1934), opposite Wallace Beery. She also played sympathetic dowagers, genial friends of the heroine and a multitude of steadfast mothers (best of those being Margaret Sullavan's in So Red the Rose (1935) and Tyrone Power's in The Mark of Zorro (1940). In 1943, she returned to the stage and made her theatrical curtain call as the wife of the title character in 'The Late George Apley' the following year.1884 - 1955, (70).
51 credits, 1915-1952. - Rùzena Nasková was born on 28 November 1884 in Prague, Bohemia, Austria-Hungary [now Prague, Czech Republic]. She was an actress, known for Príklady táhnou (1939), Ahasver (1915) and Teticka (1941). She died on 17 June 1960 in Prague, Czechoslovakia [now Prague, Czech Republic].1884 - 1960, (75).
Czech Republic. - Actress
Margaret Bloodgood was born in March 1878 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA. She was an actress. She died on 7 February 1950 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA.1885 -
1935-1936 credits.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Esther Dale was born on November 10, 1885 in Beaufort, South Carolina. She attended Leland and Gray Seminary in Townsend, Vermont, then studied music in Berlin, Germany and had a successful career as a lieder singer. Later, she became an actress in summer stock. She had the title role on Broadway of Carrie Nation in 1933, which also starred James Stewart, Mildred Natwick, and Joshua Logan. Her first film was Crime Without Passion (1934) in 1934, followed by many, many roles in movies and television. Her husband, writer/director Arthur J. Beckhard was her manager. He died in March 1961 and she died a few months later, after surgery, in Queen of Angels Hospital in Hollywood, California.1885
1885 - 1961, (75).
USA.
123 credits, 1934-1961.