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1-5 of 5
- Actor
- Soundtrack
If any man ever had a curmudgeon character face absolutely made for TV and film, it was Paul Ford. Small-eyed, balding, lugubrious, pot-bellied and with a memorable plum nose to rival that of the great Karl Malden, he made a very late entry into show business, finding major success as blowhard military brass, gruff executives, grouchy sheriffs and blustery judges.
Born Paul Ford Weaver on November 2, 1901, in Baltimore, Maryland, he dropped out of Dartmouth College before working as a salesman throughout the Great Depression. The married Ford was a rather wanderlust family man who decided to give acting a try in his early 40s. He excelled at puppetry and found work staging such shows at the World's Fair. Billing himself as Paul Ford, his middle name and mother's maiden name, he eventually found a fair amount of radio and theatre offers. Making his off-Broadway debut in 1939, he moved to Broadway playing a sergeant in the 1944 play "Decision" and continued on the New York stage with such popular 40's plays as "Kiss Them for Me," "Flamingo Road" and "Command Decision."
Paul moved inauspiciously into films with uncredited roles in the dramatic films The House on 92nd Street (1945), The Naked City (1948) and All the King's Men (1949), then walked up the credits ladder rung by rung with credited roles in Lust for Gold (1949), The Kid from Texas (1950) and Perfect Strangers (1950). Eventually he included the newer medium of TV, finding roles on various anthology series including "Armstrong Circle Theatre," "The Ford Theatre Hour," "The Philco Television Playhouse," "Suspense" and "Studio One in Hollywood."
Paul earned a huge hit on Broadway with his delightfully huffy portrayal of Colonel Wainright Purdy in the 1953 Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning war comedy "Teahouse of the August Moon." He went on to transfer his role to film with The Teahouse of the August Moon (1956). From there, he was given the part of irascible Horace Vandergelder in the movie version of the Thornton Wilder play The Matchmaker (1958) also starring Shirley Booth as Dolly Levi, Shirley MacLaine as Irene Malloy, Anthony Perkins as Cornelius Hackl and Robert Morse as Barnaby Tucker.
Having already conquered radio, stage and film, it was on TV that 54-year-old Paul would achieve "overnight success" and become a household name when he was hired played a befuddled second banana to comedian Phil Silvers on TV. Butting heads week after week as the ever-flustered Colonel Hall with Silvers' classic portrayal of the sly, manipulative Sergeant Bilko in The Phil Silvers Show (1955), Paul amused audiences for four seasons and was Emmy-nominated three times. During this time he scored another Broadway success playing multiple roles in the light-hearted sketch revue "Thurber's Carnival" in 1960.
As a reward for his small screen success, Paul was awarded the opportunity to film another stage hit. Shining in the pompous supporting role of Mayor Shinn in the 1957 Tony-awarded musical hit "The Music Man" (he replaced Tony-winning David Burns, the actor, along with Robert Preston (as Harold Hill) and Pert Kelton (as Mrs. Paroo) transferred his character to the immortal feature film version of The Music Man (1962).
Ford went on playing playing old coot gents and took a third Broadway triumph to film as elderly father-to-be Harry Lambert in the family comedy Never Too Late (1965) co-starring his stage partner Maureen O'Sullivan as expectant wife Edith. Other twilight character film roles included his senator in Advise & Consent (1962), another colonel in It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1963), a general in The Spy with a Cold Nose (1966), a military commander in The Russians Are Coming the Russians Are Coming (1966), a one-time third-party presidential candidate in The Comedians (1967) (for which he won a National Board of Review award for "Best Supporting Actor"), and his last film, as a doctor in the little seen comedy Richard (1972).
Ford eventually retired in 1972, and died four years later due to a massive heart attack in Mineola, New York, on April 12, 1976. He was buried at Holy Cross Cemetery in Los Angeles.
Falling somewhat below W.C. Fields and Walter Matthau in crabby popularity, this delightful curmudgeon nevertheless earned and deserved his brief, late-night success.- Actress
- Casting Director
- Costume and Wardrobe Department
Miriam Cooper was born to Julian Cooper and Margaret Stewart in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1891. The family was Roman Catholic, and the Coopers were fairly well-to-do. After the birth of five children in five years (one of whom died in infancy), Julian Cooper deserted his family and fled to Europe. Margaret Cooper raised Miriam and her siblings Nelson, Gordon and Lenore with financial assistance from her mother-in-law. After grandmother Cooper died, the family lived in abject poverty and was forced to move from Washington Heights to Little Italy. At one point, Miriam spent time in an orphanage when her mother was too sick to take care of her. Miriam was educated at St. Walburga's Academy, a convent school, and at Coopers Union Art School. Before stumbling into the nascent motion picture industry, she was a model for artists Harrison Fisher and Charles Dana Gibson. Her first film role was as an extra in D.W. Griffith's A Blot on the 'Scutcheon (1912). She next traveled to Florida where she played the ingénue in nearly 30 films for Kalem studios. Most of the films were Civil War dramas and romances, and Miriam did all of her own stunts, including horseback riding, running along the tops of trains and swimming a horse across a river, only to be fired in 1913 for asking for a raise.
In 1914 Griffith rediscovered a screen test she made for him and brought her into his circle. Miriam had leading roles in both The Birth of a Nation (1915) and Intolerance (1916). She also fell in love with one of Griffith's assistant directors, Raoul Walsh. Knowing that Griffith would not like the idea of their getting married, Miriam and Walsh were secretly married on the Hopi Indian Reservation in Arizona in 1916. Walsh eventually left Griffith for Fox Films. When Miriam joined him, their marriage became public. Miriam lost interest in her film career after their marriage, but Walsh preferred to direct her, and she made quite a few movies for him at Fox, the most popular of which was probably Evangeline (1919).
Miriam wanted to be a wife and mother, but the couple was unable to have children, so they adopted two boys. Eventually Miriam tired of Walsh's philandering and divorced him in 1925. She never remarried, and although she felt some bitterness and resentment, it was obvious that she continued to love and admire him after the divorce. Miriam made her last film in 1923. She was tired of Hollywood and the film industry, and once she left it, she never looked back. The money she had saved was adequate for her to live very well. She became a golfing enthusiast and hit holes-in-one in three different states. In the 1960s she was rather surprised to be rediscovered by film historians and college students, but she enjoyed their attention. She completed her autobiography "Dark Lady of the Silents" in 1973, before dying of a stroke in 1976.- Production Manager
Léopold Schlosberg was born on 27 June 1899 in Paris, France. He was a production manager, known for Charade (1963), L'invité de la onzième heure (1945) and Club de femmes (1936). He was married to Madeleine Sologne. He died on 12 April 1976 in La Ferté-Imbault, Loir-et-Cher, France.- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Nat Merman was born on 9 February 1906 in New York, USA. He was an assistant director, known for High Powered (1945), Double Exposure (1944) and Maracaibo (1958). He died on 12 April 1976 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- William Walkley was born on 1 November 1896 in Otaki, New Zealand. He was married to Theresa May Stevens and Marjory Ponting. He died on 12 April 1976 in Manly, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.