William Powell, Clara Box, Thelma Todd, Raymond Massey

Who was born on this date:

Actor William Powell was born on July 29, 1892 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He began his Hollywood career in 1922 playing a small role in a production of Sherlock Holmes that starred John Barrymore. His most memorable role in silent movies was as a bitter film director opposite Emil Jannings' Academy Award-winning performance as a fallen general in The Last Command (1928), which led to Powell's first starring role as amateur detective Philo Vance in The Canary Murder Case (1929). 

Powell's most famous role was that of Nick Charles in six Thin Man films, beginning with The Thin Man in 1934. The role provided a perfect opportunity for Powell to showcase his sophisticated charm and his witty sense of humor, and he received his first Academy Award nomination for The Thin Man.  Actress Myrna Loy played his wife, Nora, in each of the Thin Man films. Their partnership was one of Hollywood's most prolific on-screen pairings, with the couple appearing in 14 films together. He and Loy also starred in The Great Ziegfeld the Oscar winning film of 1936 and that same year, he also received his second Academy Award nomination, for the comedy My Man Godfrey.

In 1935, he starred with Jean Harlow in Reckless. Soon it developed into a serious romance, though she died in 1937 before they could marry. His distress over her death, as well as his own battle with colon cancer around the same time, caused him to accept fewer acting roles. His career slowed considerably in the 1940s, although in 1947 he received his third Academy Award nomination for his work in Life with Father. His last film was Mister Roberts in 1955 and despite numerous offers to return to the screen; Powell refused all and stayed retired. 

Powell and Harlow

In his personal life Powell was married three times, first to Eileen Wilson, which ended in a divorce in 1930. The following year he married actress Carole Lombard and they divorced in 1933. As previously discussed, Powell had a close relationship with actress Jean Harlow beginning in 1935, but they never married and the relationship was cut short by her untimely death in 1937.  Powell paid for her final resting place, a $25,000 private room in the Sanctuary of Benediction of the Great Mausoleum, Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale. He married for third and final time in 1940 to Diana Lewis, whom he called "Mousie." They met only three weeks before they wed, yet they remained married until Powell's death. On March 5, 1984, Powell died of heart failure in Palm Springs, California and is buried at the Desert Memorial Park, in Cathedral City, California.

Actress Clara Bow was born on July 29, 1905in Brooklyn, New York. Her high spirits and acting artistry made her the quintessential flapper and the film It brought her global fame and the nickname "The It Girl." Bow came to personify the roaring twenties and is described as its leading sex symbol. She appeared in 46 silent films and 11 talkies, including hits such as Mantrap (1926), It (1927) and Wings (1927). She was first box-office draw in 1928 and 1929 and second in 1927 and 1930. Her presence in a motion picture has been described to have ensured investors, by odds of almost 2-to-1, a "safe return" with only two exceptions. At the apex of her stardom, in January 1929, she received more than 45,000 fan letters. Bow ended her career with Hoop-La (1933), and became a rancher in Nevada. In 1931 she married actor Rex Bell, later politician and Lieutenant Governor, with whom she had two sons.

In 1944, while Bell was running for the U.S. House of Representatives, Bow tried to commit suicide. A note was found in which Bow stated she preferred death to a public life. In 1949 she checked into The Institute of Living to be treated for her chronic insomnia and diffuse abdominal pains. Shock treatment was tried and numerous psychological tests performed. Her pains were considered delusional and she was diagnosed with schizophrenia, despite experiencing neither sound nor vision hallucinations, or psychosis. Bow spent her last years in Culver City, Los Angeles under the constant care of a nurse, living off an estate worth about $500,000 at the time of her death. She died on September 27, 1965 of a heart attack. She was interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.

Actress Thelma Todd was born on July 29, 1906 in Lawrence, Massachusetts. She appeared in over 120 motion pictures between 1926 and 1935 of which many were short films, and was sometimes publicized as "The Ice Cream Blonde." Her most notable film credits include Monkey Business and Horse Feathers with the Marx Brothers, a number of Charley Chase's short comedies, and co-starring with Buster Keaton and Jimmy Durante in Speak Easily. She also had roles in Wheeler and Woolsey farces, several Laurel and Hardy films, the last of which (The Bohemian Girl) featured her in a part that was truncated by her death.

In her late teens, she began entering beauty pageants, winning the title of Miss Massachusetts in 1925. While representing her home state, she was spotted by a Hollywood talent scout and began her career in film. During the silent era, Todd appeared in numerous supporting roles that made full use of her beauty but gave her little chance to act. With the advent of the talkies, Todd was given opportunity to expand her roles when producer Hal Roach signed her to appear with such comedy stars as Harry Langdon, Charley Chase, and Laurel and Hardy. In 1931 she was given her own series, teaming with ZaSu Pitts for slapstick comedies. This was Roach's attempt to create a female version of Laurel and Hardy. When Pitts left Roach in 1933, she was replaced by Patsy Kelly. The Todd shorts often cast her as a working girl having all sorts of problems, and trying her best to remain poised and charming despite the embarrassing antics of her sidekick. In 1931, Todd became romantically involved with director Roland West and starred in his film Corsair.

Thelma Todd became highly regarded as a capable film comedian, and Roach loaned her out to other studios. She also appeared successfully in such dramas as the original 1931 film version of The Maltese Falcon. In August 1934, she opened a successful cafe at Pacific Palisades, called Thelma Todd's Sidewalk Cafe, attracting a diverse clientele of Hollywood celebrities as well as many tourists.

On the morning of Monday, December 16, 1935, Thelma Todd was found dead in her car inside the garage of Jewel Carmen, a former actress and former wife of Todd's lover and business partner, Roland West. Carmen's house was approximately a block from the topmost side of Todd's restaurant. Her death was determined to have been caused by carbon monoxide poisoning. Todd had a wide circle of friends and associates as well as a busy social life; police investigations revealed that she had spent the last night of her life at the Trocadero, a popular Hollywood restaurant, at a party hosted by entertainer Stanley Lupino and his actress daughter, Ida. At the restaurant, she had had a brief but unpleasant exchange with her ex-husband, Pat DeCicco. However, her friends stated that she was in good spirits, and were aware of nothing unusual in her life that could suggest a reason for committing suicide.

The detectives of the LAPD concluded at first that Todd's death was accidental, the result of her either warming up the car to drive it or using the heater to keep warm. Other evidence, however, pointed to foul play. The Grand Jury ruled her death as suicide. Since her body was cremated, a second, more thorough autopsy could not be carried out. It was believed that she was the target of extortion, but refused to pay. It is also possible that she was locked in the garage by her assailant after she started the car. Blood from a wound was found on her face and dress, leading some to believe that she was knocked unconscious and placed in the car so that she would succumb to carbon monoxide poisoning. Todd's death certificate states her cause of death to be accidental carbon monoxide poisoning. She was cremated; after her mother's death, her remains were placed in her mother's casket and buried in Bellevue Cemetery in her home town of Lawrence, Massachusetts.

Who died on this date: 

On July 29, 1983, actor Raymond Massey died. He was born on August 30, 1896 in Toronto, Canada. Drawn to the theatre, in 1922, he appeared on the London stage. His first movie role was High Treason in 1927. In 1929 he directed the London premiere of The Silver Tassie. He played Sherlock Holmes in The Speckled Band in 1931, the first sound film version of the story. In 1934, he starred in The Scarlet Pimpernel and, in 1936, he starred in H. G. Wells's Things to Come. Despite being Canadian, Massey became famous for his quintessential American roles such as abolitionist John Brown in 1940's Santa Fe Trail and again as John Brown in the 1955 low-budget film Seven Angry Men.

He was nominated for a best acting Oscar in 1940 for his portrayal of Abraham Lincoln in Abe Lincoln in Illinois. Massey portrayed the character of "Jonathan Brewster" in the film version of Arsenic and Old Lace. Other notable film credits include Possessed (1947) and The Fountainhead (1949).Massey became well-known on television in the 1950s and 1960s, especially as Doctor Gillespie in the popular series Dr. Kildare. He died of pneumonia in Los Angeles, California on July 29, 1983 and was buried at Beaverdale Memorial Park, New Haven, Connecticut.

www.michaelthomasbarry.com, author of "Fade to Black: Graveside Memories of Hollywood Greats, 1927-1950"

Joe E. Brown, Marie Dressler

Who was born in this date:

Actor Joe E. Brown was born on July 28, 1891 in Holgate, Ohio. He was an American actor and comedian, remembered for his amiable screen persona, comic timing, and enormous smile. He quickly shot to stardom after appearing in the first all-color all-talking musical comedy, On with the Show (1929). He starred in a number of lavish Technicolor Warner Brothers musical comedies including: Sally (1929), Hold Everything (1930), and Song of the West (1930)," Going Wild (1930)". By 1931, Joe E. Brown had become such a star that his name began to appear alone above the title of the movies in which he appeared. Other notable film credits include Fireman, Save My Child (1932),  Elmer, the Great (1933), Alibi Ike (1935) Son of a Sailor (1933), A Very Honorable Guy (1934), A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935) and Polo Joe (1936).

He left Warner Brothers to work for producer David L. Loew, starring in When's Your Birthday? (1937) and The Gladiator (1938) and gradually switched to making "B" pictures. His best known role was in Some Like It Hot (1959), the comedy directed by Billy Wilder in which he played the aging millionaire, Osgood Fielding III. Another of his notable roles was that of "Cap'n Andy Hawkes" in MGM's 1951 remake of Show Boat, a role that he reprised onstage in the 1961 New York City Center revival of the musical, and on tour.

Brown was a sports enthusiast, both in film and personally. He was a television and radio broadcaster for the New York Yankees in 1953. Brown's sports enthusiasm also led to him becoming the first president of PONY Baseball and Softball (at the time named Pony League) when the organization was incorporated in 1953. He died at his home in Brentwood on July 6, 1973 from a stroke. He is buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale.

Who died on this date: 

On July 28, 1934, actress Marie Dressler died. She was born Leila Marie Koerber on November 9, 1868 in Canada. She was one of the top box office draws of the early 1930’s. Her self-styled image as the frumpy, matronly, ugly duckling in many of her films allowed her to soar to the heights of stardom that would culminate with an Academy Award for best actress in 1931. Dressler began her career in film in 1914 in a Mack Sennett comedy entitled, Tillie’s Punctured Romance. Appearing with her in this film were two yet unknown actors, Charlie Chaplin and Mabel Normand, who would go on to fame of their own.

By 1918, Dressler’s career in film was drastically in decline. Hollywood has few roles for an aging actress and by the end of the 1920’s, she was near poverty and practically homeless. Miraculously, an angel appeared to rescue her career; Irving Thalberg at MGM saw potential and set out to make her a star. She appeared in twenty-nine films from 1914 to 1933, major film credits include; Anna Christie (1930), Emma (1932), Dinner at Eight (1933), and Tugboat Annie (1933). Dressler won the 1931 Academy Award for the her portrayal of Min Divot in Min and Bill. She was nominated the following year for a second best acting award for Emma (1932) but lost to Helen Hayes. It was the homely Marie Dressler, who won the coveted exhibitor’s poll as the most popular actress three years in a row (1931-1933), beating out beauties such as Greta Garbo, Jean Harlow and Joan Crawford.

In the midst of her fame Dressler, was quoted as saying, “middle age is the best part of life, you don’t really begin to live or to appreciate life until after you’re 50.”  As she was just reaching the zenith of her success in film and after signing a long term contract with MGM, doctors informed her that she had an advanced case of stomach cancer. The prognosis was not good and she quickly faded away. After slipping into a coma, the actress died on July 28, 1934 at her Montecito, California, estate, surrounded by family and friends. The immediate cause of death was uremia (failure of the kidneys), complicated by congestive heart failure and cancer. Dressler’s funeral was held on July 31, 1934 in the Wee Kirk O’ the Heather Chapel at Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale. In attendance were 150 family, friends and Hollywood notables that included Lionel Barrymore. Close friend and fellow actress Jeanette MacDonald sang during the service. Dressler is interred within the Great Mausoleum at Forest Lawn Glendale in the Sanctuary of Benediction. 

www.michaelthomasbarry.com, author of "Fade to Black: Graveside Memories of Hollywood Greats, 1927-1950"

Donald Crisp, Bob Hope, James Mason, Binnie Barnes

Who was born on this date:

Actor Donald Crisp was an accomplished, director and character actor who was born George William Crisp on July 27, 1882 in Abnerfeldy, Scotland (some sources show his birth place as London, England). He began his career in show business on stage but quickly moved to motion pictures as a director and as an actor. His earliest foray into film as an actor came in The French Maid (1908) and his directorial debut was Her Father’s Silent Partner (1914). He played primarily father type characters and his slight brogue speech pattern added to a tender quality that made for some very memorable film roles. In his award winning film career, he directed over seventy films (primarily during the silent era, 1914-1930) and as an actor appeared in over one hundred and seventy (1908-1963). Crisp’s most famous film credits include: Birth of a Nation (1915), The Return of Sherlock Holmes (1929), Mutiny on the Bounty (1935), Charge of the Light Brigade (1936), The Life of Emile Zola (1937), The Dawn Patrol (1938), Jezebel (1938), Wuthering Heights (1939), The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939), Knute Rockne, All-American (1940), Lassie Come Home (1943), National Velvet (1944), and Prince Valiant (1954).

He won his first and only Academy Award for best supporting actor in 1942 for How Green Was My Valley (1941). After his wife, Jane Murfin’s death in 1957, Crisp went into semi-retirement but returned to the screen shortly stating, “Idleness can ruin men.” He made a few films, none of which were very memorable. His last on-screen performance was in Spencer’s Mountain (1963), co-starring Henry Fonda and Maureen O’Hara. On May 25, 1974, Donald Crisp died from a stroke at the Van Nuys Community Hospital in Van Nuys, California. The actor had suffered several minor strokes in the previous year and was in failing health at the time of his death. His funeral service was held at the Church of the Recessional at Forest Lawn, Glendale and he is buried in the Wee Kirk Church Yard, lot 2138, space 4 at Forest Lawn, Glendale.

Who died on this date:

 

On July 27, 2003, actor Bob Hope died. He was born Leslie Townes Hope on May 29, 1903 in Eltham, London, England. From the age of 12, he worked at a variety of odd jobs at a local boardwalk. Silent film comedian Fatty Arbuckle saw one of Hope's performances and in 1925 got him steady work with Hurley's Jolly Follies. Within a year, Hope had formed an act called the Dancemedians with George Byrne and the Hilton Sisters, conjoined twins who had a tap dancing routine.

Hope, like other stage performers, made his first films in New York. Educational Pictures employed him in 1934 for a short-subject comedy, Going Spanish. Hope sealed his fate with Educational when Walter Winchell asked him about the film. Hope cracked, "When they catch John Dillinger, they're going to make him sit through it twice." Educational fired him, but he was soon before the cameras at New York's Vitaphone studio starring in 20-minute comedies and musicals from 1934 through 1936, beginning with Paree, Paree (1934).

Paramount Pictures signed Hope for the 1938 film The Big Broadcast of 1938, also starring W. C. Fields. During a duet with Shirley Ross, Hope introduced the song later to become his trademark, "Thanks for the Memory." Hope became one of Paramount's biggest stars, and would remain with the studio through the 1950s. Hope's regular appearances in Hollywood films and radio made him one of the best known entertainers in North America, and at the height of his career he was also making a large income from live concert performances.

As a movie star, he was best known for comedies like My Favorite Brunette and the highly successful "Road" movies in which he starred with Bing Crosby and Dorothy Lamour. Hope and Lamour were lifelong friends, and she remains the actress most associated with his film career. The series consists of Road to Singapore (1940), Road to Zanzibar (1941), Road to Morocco (1942), Road to Utopia (1946), Road to Rio (1947), Road to Bali (1952), and The Road to Hong Kong (1962).

Hope's informal teaming with Bing Crosby for the seven "Road" pictures from 1940 to 1962 and countless stage, radio, and television appearances together over the decades were critically important to Hope's career. At the beginning of the "Road" series, Broadway star Hope was relatively little known nationally compared to Crosby, and was actually billed under Dorothy Lamour in the first film, while Crosby had already been a hugely popular singer and movie star for years. After the release of Road to Singapore (1940), Hope's screen career immediately became white hot and stayed that way for over two decades, actually continuing until Cancel My Reservation (1972), his last theatrical starring role.

Hope was host of the Academy Awards ceremony 18 times between 1939 and 1977. His feigned lust for an Academy Award became part of his act. Although Hope was never nominated for an Oscar for his performances, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences honored him with four honorary awards, and in 1960, the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award. While introducing the 1968 telecast, he quipped, "Welcome to the Academy Awards, or, as it's known at my house, Passover." Hope did many specials for the NBC television network in the following decades, beginning in April 1950. These were often sponsored by General Motors (1955–61), Chrysler (1963–73) and Texaco (1975–85), and Hope served as a spokesman for these companies for many years and would sometimes introduce himself as "Bob, from Texaco, Hope

 

Hope's first wartime performance occurred at sea. Aboard the RMS Queen Mary when World War II began in September 1939, he went to the captain to volunteer to perform a special show for the panicked passengers, during which he sang "Thanks for the Memory" with rewritten lyrics. Hope performed his first United Service Organizations (USO) show on May 6, 1941, at March Field, California. He continued to travel and entertain troops for the rest of World War II and later during the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the third phase of the Lebanon Civil War, the latter years of the Iran–Iraq War, and the 1990–1991 Persian Gulf War. On July 27, 2003, Bob Hope died at his home in Toluca Lake. He is interred in the Bob Hope Memorial Garden at San Fernando Mission Cemetery in Los Angeles.

On July 27, 1984, actor James Mason died. He was born on May 15, 1909 in Huddersfield, Yorkshire, England. From 1935 to 1948 he starred in many British films and he became immensely popular for his brooding anti-heroes in The Man in Grey (1943) and The Wicked Lady (1945). He also starred with Deborah Kerr in Hatter's Castle (1942). He then took the lead role in the critically acclaimed and immensely popular The Seventh Veil (1945) that set box office records in postwar Britain and raised him to international stardom. He followed it with a role as a mortally wounded Irish revolutionary in Odd Man Out (1947) and his first Hollywood film, Caught (1949).

Mason's distinctive voice enabled him to play a menacing villain as greatly as his good looks assisted him as a leading man. His roles include Brutus in Julius Caesar (1953), Field marshal Erwin Rommel in The Desert Fox: The Story of Rommel and The Desert Rats, the amoral valet turned spy in Joseph Mankiewicz's 5 Fingers, the declining actor in the first remake of A Star Is Born (1954), Captain Nemo in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (also 1954), a small town school teacher driven insane by the effects of Cortisone in Bigger Than Life (1956), a suave master spy in North by Northwest (1959), a determined explorer in Journey to the Center of the Earth (also 1959), Lolita (1962), Lord Jim (1965), Frankenstein: The True Story (1973), Salem's Lot, and Yellowbeard (1983). One of his last roles was in The Verdict (1982), earned him his third and final Oscar nomination. Mason died on July 27, 1984 from a heart attack in Lausanne, Switzerland. He was cremated and (after a delay of 16 years) his ashes were buried in Corsier-sur-Vevey, Vaud, Switzerland. The remains of Mason's old friend Charlie Chaplin are in a tomb a few steps away.

On July 27, 1998, actress Binnie Barnes died. She was born on May 25, 1903 in Islington, England. She began her acting career in films in 1923, appearing in a short film made by Lee De Forest in his Phonofilm sound-on-film process. Her film career continued in Britain, then in Hollywood, until 1973, with her final role in the comedy 40 Carats. Her most famous film was probably The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933), starring Charles Laughton in the title role, with Barnes as Katherine Howard. She was married to film producer Mike Frankovich and became an American citizen. She died of natural causes at the age of 95 in Beverly Hills, California on July 27, 1998 and is buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale in the Joe E. Brown family plot.

www.michaelthomasbarry.com, author of "Fade to Black: Graveside Memeories of Hollywood Greats, 1927-1950"

Cedric Gibbons

Who died on this date:

Famed film art director, Cedric Gibbons was born on March 23, 1893 in Dublin, Ireland. He is considered one of the most important and influential people in the history of American film. He also made a great impact on motion picture theater architecture through the 1930s to 1950s, the period considered the golden-era of theater architecture. He studied at the Art Students League of New York and worked for his architect father. In 1918, he signed with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and would stay on with the studio until 1956.

Gibbons was one of the original thirty-six founding members of The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and oversaw the design of the Academy Awards statuette in 1929, a trophy for which he himself would be nominated 39 times, winning 11, second only to Walt Disney, who won 26. He retired in 1956 with about 1,500 films credited to him: however, his contract with MGM dictated that he receive credit as art director for every MGM film released in the United States, even though other designers may have done the bulk of the work.

Actress Dolores del Rio, the first wife of Cedric Gibbons

In 1930, Gibbons married actress Dolores del Río and co-designed their house in Santa Monica, an intricate Art Deco residence influenced by Rudolf Schindler. They divorced in 1941 and that same year he married actress Hazel Brooks with whom he remained with until his death on July 26, 1960. Gibbons is buried at the Calvary Cemetery, East Los Angeles.

Actress Hazel Brook, the second wife of Cedric Gibbons

http://www.michaelthomasbarry.com/, author of "Fade to Black: Graveside Memories of Hollywood Greats, 1927-1950"

Walter Brennan

Who was born on this date:

Actor Walter Brennan was born on July 25, 1894 in Swampscott, Massachusetts. He was one of the most successful, recognizable, and dependable character actors of the gold age of cinema. While in college the young Brennan became interested in acting and traveled the vaudeville circuit, performing in small theaters, he also appeared in several films as an extra. In 1935, he got his big break, appearing in the films, The Wedding Night and The Barbary Coast, from which he was offered a regular acting contract with MGM studios. Throughout his storied film career, he primarily played the western side kick but was very capable of playing the scoundrel. He was good friends with actor Gary Cooper and co-starred with the iconic actor in numerous films.

Appearing in over two hundred and thirty motion picture and television roles from 1925 to 1975, Brennan’s most memorable films include: She’s Dangerous (1937), The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1938), The Buccaneer (1938), Meet John Doe (1941), The Pride of the Yankees (1942), My Darling Clementine (1946), Red River (1948), Tammy and the Bachelor (1957), and Rio Bravo (1959). In 1936, Brennan won the first ever supporting actor Oscar for his portrayal of Swan Bostrom in Come and Get It (1935). He was nominated for three additional best supporting actor awards and won twice, Kentucky (1938, won), The Westerner (1940, won), and Sergeant York (1941, nominated). Brennan died after a long battle with emphysema on September 21, 1974 at St. John’s Hospital in Oxnard, California. He is buried at the San Fernando Mission Cemetery, Mission Hills, California.

http://www.michaelthomasbarry.com/, author of "Fade to Black: Graveside Memories of Hollywood Greats, 1927-1950"

Constance Dowling, Alan Curtis, Constance Bennett

Who was born on this date:

Actress Constance Dowling was born on July 24, 1920 in New York City. She was a model and chorus girl before moving to California in 1943. She was the elder sister of actress Doris Dowling. Prior to her move to Hollywood, Dowling appeared in several Broadway productions, including Panama Hattie (with sister Doris), Hold On To Your Hats, and The Strings, My Lord, Are False.

Dowling began her screen career appearing in Up in Arms (1944), then Black Angel (1946) but her film career did not advance. She lived in Italy from 1947 through 1950 and appeared in some unmemorable Italian films. Dowling returned to Hollywood in the 1950s and landed a part in the sci-fi film Gog (1954), this was her last film.

In her personal life, Dowling had been involved in a long affair with married director Elia Kazan. She was later linked with Italian poet/novelist Cesare Pavese who committed suicide in 1950 after being rejected by Dowling. In 1955, Dowling married film producer Ivan Tors and retired from acting after this marriage. On October 28, 1969, Dowling died from a heart attack at the age of 49. She is buried at Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California.

Actor Alan Curtis was born Harry Ueberroth on July 24, 1909 in Chicago, Illinois. He began his career as a model before becoming an actor, appearing in local newspaper ads. His looks did not go unnoticed in Hollywood. He began appearing in films in the late 1930s (including a Technicolor appearance in the Alice Faye-Don Ameche film Hollywood Cavalcade and a memorable role in High Sierra (1941).

He is probably best known as one of the romantic leads in Abbott and Costello's first hit movie Buck Privates. His chance for leading-man stardom came when he replaced John Garfield in the 1943 production of Flesh and Fantasy. The film failed to establish Curtis as a major-name star, but it did typecast him in roles, like the man framed for murder in Phantom Lady (1944) and the detective Philo Vance. He died at the age of 43 on February 2, 1953 from complications during an operation. His unmarked grave is located within the Ueberroth family plot at the Memorial Park Cemetery in Skokie, Illinois.

Who died on this date:

On July 24, 1965, actress Constance Bennett died. She was born on October 22, 1904 in New York City, the daughter of actor Richard Bennett and actress Adrienne Morrison. Her career in film began with Cytherea (1924). The following year she abandoned a burgeoning career in movies to marry Philip Plant but resumed her film career after their divorce. The combination of her delicate blonde features and glamorous fashion style, quickly made her a popular film star.

In 1931, while under contract with Metro Goldwyn Mayer she earned $300,000 for two movies which included The Easiest Way. This made her one of the highest paid stars in Hollywood. The next year she moved to RKO, where she acted in What Price Hollywood? (1932), directed by George Cukor, an ironic and at the same time tragic behind-the-scenes looks at the old Hollywood studio system. She went on to star in films such as Our Betters (1933), Bed of Roses (1933), The Affairs of Cellini (1934), After Office Hours (1935), Topper (1937), Topper Takes a Trip (1939), Merrily We Live (1938) and Two-Faced Woman (1941).

By the 1940s, Bennett was working less frequently in film but was in demand in both radio and theatre. Shrewd investments had made her a wealthy woman, and she founded a cosmetics and clothing company. Hollywood beckoned again in 1947, when she starred The Unsuspected opposite Claude Rains. She made no films from the early 1950s until 1965, when made another comeback in the film, Madame X (1966). On July 24, 1965, shortly after filming was completed, Bennett collapsed and died from a cerebral hemorrhage. In recognition of her military contributions, and as the wife of Theron John Coulter, who had achieved the rank of brigadier general, she was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

http://www.michaelthomasbarry.com/, author of "Fade to Black: Graveside Memories of Hollywood Greats, 1927-1950"

Emil Jannings, Montgomery Clift, Van Heflin

Who was born on this date:

Actor Emil Jannings was the recipient of the first Academy Award for male lead actor, and was born Theodor Friedrich Emil Janenz on July 23, 1884 in Rorschach, Switzerland. The acclaimed actor had eighty film credits between 1914 to 1945, notable motion pictures include: Othello (1922), Faust (1926), Street of Sin (1928), The Patriot (1928), Betrayal (1929), and The Blue Angel (1930). His 1929, Academy Award winning performances were for Way of the Flesh (1927) and The Last Command (1928). Jannings did not attend the awards ceremony.

Because of his thick German accent and the advent of talking pictures, Jannings career began to wane. In the 1930’s he became a supporter and activist in the Nazi party movement in Germany. He was good friends with Nazi Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, and together made dozens of films for the Third Reich. After the end of World War II, his career never again recaptured the brilliance of his early films, and because of his pro-Nazi stance, was blacklisted from American cinema. Emil Jannings died on January 2, 1950 at his home in Zinkenbach, Austria from liver cancer. He is buried at Saint Wolfgang Friedhof Cemetery, Salzburg, Austria.

Who was died on this date:

 On July 23, 1966, actor Montgomery Clift died. He was born on October 17, 1920, in Omaha, Nebraska. Clift's first movie was opposite John Wayne in the 1948 film Red River. In 1949 he appeared in The Search for which he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor. He then appeared in The Heiress (1949) and the The Big Lift (1950). Although Clift gave another critically acclaimed performance, the movie was a box office failure. Clift was set to appear in Sunset Boulevard (which was written specifically for him) but he dropped out at the last minute, as he felt that his character was too close to him in real life (like his character he was good looking, and dating a much older, richer woman).

Entering the 1950s Clift was the most sought-after leading man in Hollywood and his only direct competitor was Marlon Brando. His next movie, A Place in the Sun (1951), is one of his iconic roles. The studio paired up two of the biggest young stars in Hollywood at the time (Clift and Elizabeth Taylor) in what was expected to be a blockbuster that would capitalize on their sex symbol status. Clift's performance in the movie is regarded as one of the signature Method acting performances. He worked extensively on his character and was again nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor.

Arguably Clift's peak came with the 1953 classic From Here to Eternity for received another nomination for an Academy Award for Best Actor but lost again this time to William Holden (who won for Stalag 17). Clift was reportedly devastated over his loss, and was sent an honorary small golden bugle award by the movie's producers which he treasured for the rest of his life.

On the evening of May 12, 1956, while filming Raintree County, Clift got into a serious auto accident when he smashed his car into a telephone pole after leaving a dinner party at the Beverly Hills home of his Raintree County co-star and close friend Elizabeth Taylor and her then-husband Michael Wilding. Alerted by friend Kevin McCarthy, who witnessed the accident, Taylor raced to Clift's side, manually pulling a tooth out of his tongue as he had begun to choke on it. He suffered a broken jaw and nose, a fractured sinus, and several facial lacerations which required plastic surgery.

After a two-month recovery, he returned to the set to finish the film. Against the movie studio's worries over profits, Clift correctly predicted the film would do well, if only because moviegoers would flock to see the difference in his facial appearance before and after the accident. The pain of the accident led him to rely on alcohol and pills for relief, as he had done after an earlier bout with dysentery left him with chronic intestinal problems. As a result, Clift's health and looks deteriorated considerably from then until his death.

His post-accident career has been referred to as the "longest suicide in Hollywood history" because of his alleged substance abuse. Clift continued to work over the next ten years. In 1958, he turned down what became Dean Martin's role in Rio Bravo, which would have reunited him with John Wayne. Clift's last Oscar nomination was for best supporting actor for his role in Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), a 12-minute part. On July 22, 1966 died at his New York City townhouse from a heart attack and is buried at Friends Quaker Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York.

On July 23, 1971, actor Van Heflin died. The talented character actor who often played tough guys with a sensitive and often vulnerable side was born Emmett Evan Heflin, Jr. on December 13, 1910 in Walters, Oklahoma. In his youth, Heflin worked as a merchant marine and got his start in show business by accident while on shore leave in New York City. He was discovered by Broadway director Richard Boleslawski, who cast him in the play, Mr. Moneypenny. The play closed after a short run, and he returned to the sea but the acting bug had been planted. Three years later, Heflin returned state side, and enrolled in drama school. In 1936, after a successful run in which he appeared in eight Broadway plays, Heflin made the switch to motion pictures, and was quickly signed by RKO Pictures, and appeared in his first film, A Woman Rebels (1936). In a memorable screen career that included over fifty motion pictures from 1936 to 1971, Heflin’s most unforgettable movie credits include: The Outcasts of Poker Flat (1937), Santa Fe Trail (1940), The Three Musketeers (1948), Shane (1953), Battle Cry (1955), The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965), and Airport (1970).

Heflin won the best supporting actor Academy Award in 1943, for his portrayal of the hard drinking stooge, Jeff Harnett in Johnny Eager (1942). He almost always played the supporting role in films, his rugged characters seemed to possess a certain vulnerability that showed weakness which often lead to his characters into dire circumstances.

Heflin was an ardent health fanatic in his later years and often swam laps in his Los Angeles area apartment pool. On June 6, 1971, while completing his regular swimming routine, he suffered a heart attack. He was able to get to the side of the pool and hang onto a ladder but was unsuccessful in getting out of the water. Fellow tenants helped pull the stricken actor from the water but when paramedics finally arrived, he was unconsciousness and unresponsive. Heflin was transported to Citizens Emergency Hospital in Hollywood, where he lay in a coma for forty-seven days. The award winning actor died on July 23, 1971, at age sixty, never having regained consciousness. Van Heflin’s remains were cremated and scattered in the Pacific Ocean.

http://www.michaelthomasbarry.com/, author of "Fade to Black: Graveside Memories of Hollywood Greats, 1927-1950"

Ginger Rogers, Barbara Stanwyck

Due to travel there will be no blog from Sunday July 17 to Thursday July 21...sorry for the inconvience !!!

Who was born on this date:

Actress Ginger Rogers was born on July 16, 1911 in Independence, Missouri. The award winning actress, comedian and dance’s given name was Virginia Katherine McMath. Her parents divorced when she was a young child and Rogers was raised primarily by her mother, Lela. Her road to show business began as a dancer in her teens, when she won a 1925 Charleston contest, from which she was offered a regular role in a touring vaudeville company. In 1929, she discovered the acting bug and made her Broadway stage debut in Top Speed. Success on the stage caused Hollywood to take notice, and Rogers iconic career on the silver screen began with 1930’s Young Man of Manhattan. Her film career spanned five decades (1930-1983), in which she appeared in seventy-three feature motion pictures. She is best known for the ten films in which she co-starred Fred Astaire. Their effortless team work on the dance floor and debonair style became a trademark in numerous films of the 1930’s such as Flying Down to Rio (1933), The Gay Divorcee (1934), Top Hat (1935), Roberta (1935), Swing Time (1936), Shall We Dance (1937), and Carefree (1938).

She won her first and only best actress Academy Award in 1941 for the dramatic portrayal of a white collar working girl from the wrong side of the tracks, Kitty Foyle in Kitty Foyle: The Natural History of a Woman (1940). Rogers other notable film credits include: 42nd Street (1933), Vivacious Lady (1938), Bachelor Mother (1939), Tom, Dick, and Harry (1941), I’ll Be Seeing You (1944), and Monkey Business (1952). She made her last on screen performance in the 1965 film, Harlow, after which she appeared exclusively on stage and television.

On April 25, 1996, Ginger Rogers died from congestive heart failure at her home in Rancho Mirage, California. She had suffered from poor health for several years preceding her death, tormented by several strokes that left her wheel chair bound. She is buried at Oakwood Memorial Park in Chatsworth, California next to her beloved mother and ironically rests for eternity just a short distance from her most famous on screen partner, Fred Astaire (who is buried in the Sequoia lawn section).

Actress Barbara Stanwyck was born on July 16, 1907 in Brroklyn, New York. She was nominated for the Academy Award four times, and won three Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe. In 1923, a few months short of her 16th birthday, Ruby auditioned for a place in the chorus at the Strand Roof, a night club over the Strand Theatre in Times Square. A few months thereafter she obtained a job as a Ziegfeld girl in the 1922 and 1923 editions of the Ziegfeld Follies.

Stanwyck's first film was The Locked Door (1929), followed by Mexicali Rose in 1929. Neither film was successful; nonetheless, Frank Capra chose Stanwyck for his Ladies of Leisure (1930). Numerous memorable roles followed, among them the children's nurse who saves two would be juvenile murder victims in Night Nurse (1931), the ambitious woman from "the wrong side of the tracks" in Baby Face (1933), the self-sacrificing mother in Stella Dallas (1937), the con artist who falls for her would-be victim (played by Henry Fonda) in The Lady Eve (1941), the woman who talks an infatuated insurance salesman (Fred McMurray) into killing her husband in Double Indemnity (1944), the columnist caught up in white lies and Christmas romance in Christmas in Connecticut (1945) and the doomed wife in Sorry, Wrong Number (1948).

When Stanwyck's film career declined in 1957, she moved to television. Her 1961–1962 series The Barbara Stanwyck Show was not a ratings success but earned her first Emmy Award. The 1965–1969 Western series The Big Valley on ABC made her one of the most popular actresses on television, winning her another Emmy. Years later, Stanwyck earned her third Emmy for The Thorn Birds.

Robert Taylor and Barbara Stanwyck

In 1936, while making the film His Brother's Wife, Stanwyck met and fell in love with her co-star, Robert Taylor. Following a whirlwind romance, the couple began living together. Their 1939 marriage was arranged with the help of Taylor's studio MGM, a common practice in Hollywood's golden age. Taylor reportedly had affairs during the marriage. When Stanwyck learned of Taylor's fling with Lana Turner, she filed for divorce in 1950 when a starlet made Turner's romance with Taylor public. The decree was granted on February 21, 1951. After the divorce, they acted together in Stanwyck's last feature film The Night Walker (1964). Stanwyck never remarried and collected alimony from Taylor until his death in 1969. Stanwyck was no angel she also had an affair with actor Robert Wagner, whom she met on the set of Titanic. Wagner, who was 22, and Stanwyck, who was 45 at the beginning of the affair, had a four-year romance, as described in Wagner's 2008 memoir, Pieces of My Heart. Stanwyck broke off the relationship. Stanwyck died of congestive heart failure and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease at Saint John's Health Center, in Santa Monica, California on January 20, 1990. Her body was cremated, and her ashes scattered in Lone Pine, California.

http://www.michaelthomasbarry.com/, author of "Fade to Black: Graveside Memories of Hollywood Greats, 1927-1950"

William Dieterle and Margaret Lockwood

Who was born on this date:

Director William Dieterle was born on July 15, 1893 in Germany. He directed his first film in 1923, Der Mensch am Wege, which co-starred a young Marlene Dietrich, but he returned to acting for several years and appeared in such notable German films as Das Wachsfigurenkabinett (Waxworks) (1924) and F.W. Murnau's Faust (1926). In 1927, Dieterle and his wife, Charlotte Hagenbruch, formed their own production company and returned to directing films, such as Sex in Chains (1928) in which he also played the lead role.

In 1930, Dieterle immigrated to the United States when he was offered a job in Hollywood to make German versions of American films; he became a citizen of the United States in 1937. He adapted quickly to Hollywood filmmaking and was soon directing original films. His first, The Last Flight (1931), was a success and has been hailed as a forgotten masterpiece. Other films made during the 1930s include Jewel Robbery (1932), Adorable (1933), A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935) with Reinhardt, The Story of Louis Pasteur (1936), The Life of Emile Zola (1937), Juarez (1939), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939), with Charles Laughton as Quasimodo and Kismet (1944) with Ronald Colman and Marlene Dietrich.

During the 1940s, Dieterle works were infused with more lush, romantic expression and many critics see the films of this period as some of his best works. They include The Devil and Daniel Webster (also known as All That Money Can Buy, 1941), Love Letters (1945) and Portrait of Jennie (1948). His career declined in the 1950s during the McCarthyism period and although he was never blacklisted directly, his libertarian film Blockade (1938) as well as some of the people he worked with were considered suspect. He continued to make American films in the 1950s, including The Turning Point (1952), Salome (1953) with Rita Hayworth, Elephant Walk (1954) with Elizabeth Taylor, and a biopic of Richard Wagner, Magic Fire (1955) for Republic Pictures. He made some films in Germany and Italy, and a notorious U.S. flop, Quick, Let's Get Married (1964), also known as The Confession or Seven Different Ways with Ginger Rogers before retiring in 1965. He died on December 9, 1972 in Ottobrunn, Germany and is buried at Friedhof Hohenbrunn, Germany.

Who died on this date:

On July 15, 1990, actress Margaret Lockwood died. She was born on September 15, 1916 in Karachi, Pakistan. She began studying for the stage at an early age at the Italia Conti, and made her debut in 1928, at the age of 12, at the Holborn Empire, where she played a fairy in A Midsummer Night's Dream. In December of the following year, she appeared at the Scala Theatre in the pantomime The Babes in the Wood. In 1932, she appeared at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in Cavalcade. Lockwood then trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, where she was seen by a talent scout and signed to a contract. In June 1934, she played Myrtle in House on Fire at the Queen's Theatre, and on 22 August 1934 appeared as Margaret Hamilton in Gertrude Jenning's play Family Affairs when it premiered at the Ambassadors Theatre; Helene Ferber in Repayment at the Arts Theatre in January 1936; Trixie Drew in Henry Bernard's play Miss Smith at the Duke of York's Theatre in July 1936; and back at the Queen's in July 1937 as Ann Harlow in Ann's Lapse.

Lockwood’s film career began in 1935, when she appeared in the film version of Lorna Doone. In 1938 she starred in her most successful film, Alfred Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes. In 1940, she played the role of Jenny Sunley in The Stars Look Down. In the early 1940s, Lockwood changed her on-screen image to play villainesses in both contemporary and period films, becoming the most successful actress in British films during that period. Her greatest success was in the title role in The Wicked Lady (1945), a film which was controversial in its day and brought her considerable publicity.

She made a return to the stage in a record-breaking national tour of Noël Coward's Private Lives in 1949, and also played Eliza Doolittle in George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion at the Edinburgh Festival of 1951, and the title role in J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan in 1949, 1950, and 1957 (the latter with her daughter as Wendy). Her subsequent long-running West End hits include an all-star production of Oscar Wilde's An Ideal Husband (1965/66, in which she played the villainous Mrs Cheveley), W. Somerset Maugham's Lady Frederick (1970), Relative Values (Noël Coward revival, 1973), and the thrillers Spider's Web (1955, written for her by Agatha Christie), Signpost to Murder (1962), and Double Edge (1975). Margaret Lockwood lived her final years in seclusion in Kingston-upon-Thames and died in the Cromwell Hospital, Kensington, London on July 15, 1990 from cirrhosis of the liver. Her cremated remains were given to family and final disposition is unknown.

http://www.michaelthomasbarry.com/, author of "Fade to Black: Graveside Memories of Hollywood Greats, 1927-1950"