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- Actress
- Soundtrack
Lupe Velez was born on July 18, 1908, in San Luis Potosi, Mexico, as Maria Guadalupe Villalobos Velez. She was sent to Texas at the age of 13 to live in a convent. She later admitted that she wasn't much of a student because she was so rambunctious. She had planned to become a champion roller skater, but that would change. Life was hard for her family, and Lupe returned to Mexico to help them out financially. She worked as a salesgirl for a department store for the princely sum of $4 a week. Every week she would turn most of her salary over to her mother, but she kept a little for herself so she could take dancing lessons. With her mature shape and grand personality, she thought she could make a try at show business, which she figured was a lot more glamorous than dancing or working as a salesclerk. In 1924 Lupe started her show business career on the Mexican stage and wowed audiences with her natural beauty and talent. By 1927 she had emigrated to Hollywood, where she was discovered by Hal Roach, who cast her in a comedy with Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy. Douglas Fairbanks then cast her in his feature film The Gaucho (1927) with himself and wife Mary Pickford. Lupe played dramatic roles for five years before she switched to comedy. In 1933 she played the lead role of Pepper in Hot Pepper (1933). This film showcased her comedic talents and helped her to show the world her vital personality. She was delightful. In 1934 Lupe appeared in three fine comedies: Strictly Dynamite (1934), Palooka (1934) and Laughing Boy (1934). By now her popularity was such that a series of "Mexican Spitfire" films were written around her. She portrayed Carmelita Lindsay in Mexican Spitfire (1939), Mexican Spitfire Out West (1940), The Mexican Spitfire's Baby (1941) and Mexican Spitfire's Blessed Event (1943), among others. Audiences loved her in these madcap adventures, but it seemed at times that she was better known for her stormy love affairs. She married one of her lovers, Johnny Weissmuller, but the marriage only lasted five years and was filled with battles. Lupe certainly did live up to her nickname. She had a failed romance with Gary Cooper, who never wanted to wed her. By 1943 her career was waning. She went to Mexico in the hopes of jump-starting her career. She gained her best reviews yet in the Mexican version of Naná (1944). Bolstered by the success of that movie, Lupe returned to the US, where she starred in her final film as Pepita Zorita, Ladies' Day (1943). There were to be no others. On December 13, 1944, tired of yet another failed romance, with a part-time actor named Harald Maresch, and pregnant with his child, Lupe committed suicide with an overdose of Seconal. She was only 36 years old.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Seemingly suave, cultivated actor by nature, definitely huge in both talent and girth, and capable of playing much older than he was, Hollywood of the early '40s tragically lost Laird Cregar before it could fully comprehend on how to best utilize his obvious gifts. He was born Samuel Laird Cregar in a well-to-do section of Philadelphia, eventually dropping his first name after forging an acting career. At age eight his parents sent him to England and enrolled him at the Winchester Academy. During his school's off time, his pique in acting escalated after being employed as a page boy with the Stratford-on-Avon Players. Thereafter, his mind was set to become a professional actor. Returning to the U.S., he attended Episcopal Academy in Philadelphia and the Douglas Adams School in Longport, New Jersey. Again, he found meager jobs, such as an usher, in order to stay close to the theater. Awarded a scholarship to the Pasadena Community Playhouse, he trained there for two years before going out on his own and finding minor work on the bi-coastal stage and finding minuscule parts in films.
Laird's break came of his own making. After witnessing Robert Morley's triumph in the title role of "Oscar Wilde" on Broadway, Laird set upon finding backing for his own version of the play. Debuting in Los Angeles and finding resounding success there as well as in San Francisco, film studios began competing for his services with Twentieth Century-Fox winning out. He made his feature debut opposite Paul Muni in Hudson's Bay (1940) in the boisterous role of a fur trapper and solidified his movie standing by appearing flamboyantly as a bullfighting critic at odds with Tyrone Power's matador in the popular Technicolor classic Blood and Sand (1941). He then went on to show a scene-stealing prowess for stylish farce as one of Jack Benny "suitors" in the drag comedy Charley's Aunt (1941).
By the time Laird cut a mean, sinister path in I Wake Up Screaming (1941), playing a detective so insanely hung up on a murdered girl (Carole Landis) that he deliberately frames an innocent man (Victor Mature) for her crime, it was obvious films could rely on him for any of their comedic or dramatic ventures. There seemed nothing he couldn't do, but it was obvious audiences loved him as the 300 lb. man you love to hate - goaded on by his nefarious doings in the film noir classic This Gun for Hire (1942) starring Alan Ladd and Rings on Her Fingers (1942) with Gene Tierney.
On the Los Angeles theater front he gave Monty Woolley a run for the money in Woolley's signature stage role of Sheridan Whiteside in "The Man Who Came to Dinner". Along with the good came some contrived roles in a few mediocre films ranging from training officers to hammy-styled pirates. Even so, he usually stood out among the other actors in some fashion. He even played the Devil himself in the exquisitely humor-laced Ernst Lubitsch comedy Heaven Can Wait (1943).
His film career was capped by his definitive Jack the Ripper in The Lodger (1944). Investing the psychotic role with an intense, gripping realism and off-putting, oily charm, he led a brilliantly seasoned cast and relished a death scene in the film (in truth, the real-life serial killer was never caught) that dared to forever stereotype him as a Sydney Greenstreet-like villain. Unfortunately, his early death robbed film audiences of seeing what course Laird's career would have taken. Sure enough, his last celluloid offering in Hangover Square (1945) was as another despicable character with murder on its maniacal mind. Top-lining a cast that included Linda Darnell (as an object of his affection), and George Sanders, he this time portrayed a temperamental composer who suffers from a split personality disorder and, prone to periodic blackouts, commits brutal murders. Another compelling death scene had his mad character wildly pounding out a concerto while the room around him goes up in flames and the ceiling crashes down on him.
Laird's obsession with avoiding the inevitable stereotype as a "heavy heavy" and wistful pursuit of a romantic leading man career compelled him to go on a reckless, unsupervised crash diet (from 300 lbs to 200 lbs), which is evident by his drastically trimmed-down look in his last film. This proved too strenuous on his system and he was forced to undergo surgery for a severe stomach disorder. His 30-year-old heart gave out on the morning of December 9, 1944, only days after his operation. He was survived by his mother.- Mildred Harris was born on 29 November 1901 in Cheyenne, Wyoming, USA. She was an actress, known for The Doctor and the Woman (1918), For Husbands Only (1918) and The Price of a Good Time (1917). She was married to William Peter Fleckenstein, Everett Terrence McGovern and Charles Chaplin. She died on 20 July 1944 in Hollywood, California, USA.
- Actor
- Director
- Writer
Bud Jamison was born on 15 February 1895 in Vallejo, California, USA. He was an actor and director, known for Three Little Beers (1935), Their First Tintype (1920) and Captain Caution (1940). He was married to Georgia Kathleen Holland. He died on 30 September 1944 in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA.- Actor
- Writer
- Director
Langdon first performed when he ran away from home at the age of 12-13 to join a travelling medicine show. In 1903 he scored a lasting success in vaudeville with an act called "Johnny's New Car" which he performed for twenty years. In 1923, he signed with Principal Pictures as a series star, but transferred to the Mack Sennett Studio when Mack Sennett bought the contract. Early in his film career, he had the good fortune to work regularly with the young Frank Capra. The two developed a unique character of an innocent man-child who found himself in dramatic and hazardous circumstances with only providence and good luck making him come out on top. This character clicked with the public and Langdon enjoyed a streak of artistic and commercial successes using it with Capra's direction. Unfortunately, he began to take the praise of his talent too seriously and broke with Capra so he could hog all the glory himself with his films. This proved to be a disastrous mistake as his first film "Three's a Crowd", a sickeningly sentimental film that plainly showed that he did not even approach the talent and skill of Capra which was needed to keep his character style viable. It has been also speculated the public was getting tired of Langdon's character, which contributed to Langdon's first solo film being an artistic and commercial failure. That film was the first in a series of bombs that ruined Langdon's career and relegated him to minor films from third string companies for the rest of his life.- Music Department
- Actor
- Composer
Alton Glenn Miller was born on March 1, 1904, in Clarinda, Iowa; the son of Lewis Elmer and Mattie Lou Cavender Miller. He started his music studies when his father gave him a mandolin. He soon traded the mandolin for an old horn. In 1916 he switched to trombone. In 1923, he enrolled in the University of Colorado, but after a year, he dropped out of school and moved to Los Angeles, where he joined Ben Pollack's band. He spent most of his time playing gigs and attending auditions.
In 1928, Miller moved to New York, where he played session gigs and made orchestrations. At that time he studied with the Russian musician and mathematician Joseph Schillinger, whose star apprentice was George Gershwin. Miller took Schillinger's instruction on orchestration of a practice exercise, which he developed into the song "Moonlight Serenade", making a small fortune with it. In 1934, Miller joined the Dorsey Brothers' Orchestra for a year, then organized an American band for Ray Noble, and made his debut at the Rainbow Room in New York's Rockefeller Center. The special sound of his band was developed in Miller's orchestration by using the "crystal chorus" and other inventive ways of arrangement.
Miller recorded his own band first time for Columbia Records on April 25, 1935. His instrumental "Solo Hop" reached the Top Ten in 1935, but he did not organize an orchestra under his own name until March of 1937. That band ultimately failed, and in 1938 he reorganized with many different musicians. In 1939, Miller and his new band got an engagement at the Glen Island Casino in New Rochelle, NY, which was a major spot with a radio wire. In 1939, he scored seventeen Top Ten hits, including such songs, as "Sunrise Serenade", "Moonlight Serenade", "Stairway to the Stars", "Moon Love", "Over the Rainbow", "Blue Orchids", "The Man With the Mandolin", and other popular songs, which he composed or orchestrated. Miller scored 31 Top Ten hits in the year 1940, and another 11 Top Ten hits in 1941.
His number one hits included "Song of the Volga Boatmen", "You and I", "Chattanooga Choo Choo", from his first film, 'Sun Valley Serenade'. Miller worked with the vocalists Tex Beneke, Ray Eberle, and the Modernaires with Paula Kelly. On February 10, 1942, Miller was presented with the first ever "Gold record" for "Chattanooga Choo Choo" and scored another 11 Top Ten hits in 1942. That was the first full year of his country's participation in the Second World War.
Although he was well beyond draft age Miller still strongly wanted to use his talents to help the war effort. After being turned down for a Navy commission he applied to the Army and was accepted with the rank of Captain. On September 27, 1942 he gave his last performance as a civilian. The Army assigned him to the Army Air Forces at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. He first organized a marching band, then built a large dance band with over two dozen jazz players and 21 string musicians. From January 1943 to June 1944 the Glenn Miller AAF Band made hundreds of live performances, "I Sustain the Wings" radio broadcasts, while previously-unreleased recordings by the former civilian band scored another 10 Top Ten hits in the year 1943. Miller took his band to Britain in June 1944. There he performed for the allied troops and did radio shows. His last recording of 20 new songs was made weeks before his death; it was released only in 1995.
After the liberation of France, now-Major Glenn Miller wanted to bring his music closer to the troops serving on the Continent and arranged to have the band transferred to Paris. He planned to travel ahead of time to prepare for the full orchestra's arrival but bad weather delayed his flight. On December 15, 1944 he accepted an invitation from another officer who was going to Paris on what turned out to be an unauthorized flight. He apparently was unaware that the plane's pilot was inexperienced in winter flying, and more tragically, that the small UC-64 "Norseman" transport had been suffering from fuel-system problems.
The plane never arrived in Paris, and on December 24, 1944 the AAF officially reported it and its crew as MIA (Missing in Action), under the presumption that it had gone down in the English Channel. In 1985, the British Ministry of Defence came up with explanation of Miller's disappearance, claiming that his plane was struck by a British bomb dropped in the waters by returning RAF pilots. Subsequent research has given credence to the alternate hypothesis that the plane crashed due to icing of its fuel system in the cold air over the Channel. However no wreckage, remains, or IDs have ever been found, precluding any definitive explanation. Glenn Miller was eventually officially declared dead; at his daughter's request a memorial tombstone was placed in Memorial Section H, Number 464-A on Wilson Drive in Arlington National Cemetery in April of 1992,- Dick Purcell was born on 6 August 1905 in Greenwich, Connecticut, USA. He was an actor, known for Captain America (1944), Mystery House (1938) and Heroes in Blue (1939). He was married to Ethelind Terry. He died on 10 April 1944 in Hollywood, California, USA.
- Robert Frazer was born on 29 June 1891 in Worcester, Massachusetts, USA. He was an actor, known for The Vampire Bat (1933), White Zombie (1932) and The Tiger Woman (1944). He was married to Mildred Bright. He died on 17 August 1944 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
- 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.- Merna Kennedy was born on 7 September 1908 in Kankakee, Illinois, USA. She was an actress, known for The Circus (1928), Ghost Valley (1932) and The Big Chance (1933). She was married to Forrest Brayton and Busby Berkeley. She died on 20 December 1944 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Writer
- Additional Crew
- Soundtrack
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was born into a family of old provincial nobility. Failing his final exams at a preparatory school, he entered the École des Beaux-Arts to study architecture. In 1921, he began military service in the 2nd Regiment of Chasseurs, and sent to Strasbourg for pilot training. The next year, he obtained his license, and was offered a transfer to the air force. But his fiancée's family objected, so he settled in Paris and took an office job. His engagement ultimately broke off, and he worked at several jobs over the next few years without success.
By 1926, he was flying again. He became one of the pioneers of international postal flight in the days when aircrafts had few instruments and pilots flew by the seat of their pants. He worked on the Aéropostale between Toulouse and Dakar. His first tale, L'Aviateur (The Aviator), was published in the magazine Le Navire d'Argent. In 1928, he published his first book, Courrier-Sud (Southern Mail), and flew the Casablanca/Dakar route. He became the director of Cap Juby airfield in Rio de Oro, Sahara. In 1929, he moved to South America where he was appointed director of the Aeroposta Argentina Company. In 1931, Vol de Nuit (Night Flight), which won the Prix Femina, was published. He married Salvadoran artist and writer Consuelo Suncin Sandoval de Gómez, who became the model for the temperamental Rose in Le Petit Prince. Theirs was a stormy union as Saint-Exupéry traveled frequently and indulged in numerous affairs.
During World War II, he was in New York City, but returned to France to join a squadron based in the Mediterranean. Now 44, he agreed to collect data on German troop movements in the Rhone River Valley. He took off the night of July 31, 1944, and was never seen again. A lady reported having seen a plane crash around noon on August 1st near the Bay of Carqueiranne. A body wearing a French uniform was found several days later, and buried. In 1998, a fisherman found a silver chain bracelet south of Marseille which was identified as being Saint-Exupéry's. On April 7, 2004, officials confirmed that the wreckage of a Lockheed Lightning P-38 found on the seabed off the coast of Marseille in 2000 was Saint-Exupéry's.
Further research in 2006 by the dive team which recovered the wreckage located a German pilot who was flying a mission at the Bay of Carqueiranne at the time Saint-Exupéry's plane went down. Horst Rippert acknowledged that he shot at the plane, but did not report it, possibly because he was not sure he actually downed it. When the Germans heard American radio broadcasts that Saint-Exupéry was missing, Rippert said he knew that the plane he downed was his. Rippert idolized Saint-Exupéry, read all his books, and had been bothered by the incident his whole life. He told the dive team he would not have shot at the plane had he known it was Saint-Exupéry's.- 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.
- Actor
- Soundtrack
Charles King was born on 31 October 1889 in New York City, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for The Broadway Melody (1929), Chasing Rainbows (1930) and The Five O'Clock Girl (1928). He was married to Lila Rhodes. He died on 11 January 1944 in London, England, UK.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Ferdinand Gottschalk was born on 28 February 1858 in London, England, UK. He was an actor, known for Berkeley Square (1933), She Had to Say Yes (1933) and I Am a Thief (1934). He died on 10 November 1944 in London, England, UK.- Music Department
Shaila Devi was born in 1918, in Comilla district of undivided Bengal. Her father was Rajani Kanta Das. Shaila started singing at an early age by listening to the radio. Her ability to pick up songs readily was noticed by her guardians and soon a formal training in music was arranged for her under Shri Shyama Charan Datta. Very soon other teachers like Ustad Khusru Mian, Samarendra Pal and Harihar Roy were giving her music lessons. Regular training in classical music at an early age from worthy trainers made her voice highly refined and polished, well suited for different types of songs. Occasionally music director Himangshu Datta also gave her lessons, when he happened to be at his hometown Comilla. However, in 1931 or 1932, the exact date is unknown, Shaila was married to Sachindra Mohan Deb. Marriage did not prove to be an impediment with her singing as was usual in those days. On the contrary, financial conditions made it certain that she should continue to sing. Her husband was not very well off and she had to earn as well to maintain the family. So she decided to take up the profession of private tutor in music while she continued to learn herself. She left East Bengal and came to Calcutta sometime in 1938 along with her husband in response to a call by Himangshu Datta. The music circle in Calcutta welcomed the newcomer with great enthusiasm. Himangshu Datta, Bhishmadeb Chattopadhyay, Raichand Boral and Krishna Chandra Dey were amongst those who rendered helping hands to get Shaila established in the world of the radio and records. Devi got attached to Pioneer Records and her first recordings were Bengali devotional songs under the guidance of Krishna Chandra Dey. There was no looking back for her once the first record was published. In 1940 she recorded Bonero Chameli Phirey Ai, a song that became immensely popular, so much that re-makes of this song has been made by several senior artistes of later years. She was one of the regular artistes for the radio programs titled Mahishashurmardini under Pankaj Mallick's direction, singing Bajlo Tomar Alor Benu for some years. For films, Devi sang under music directors like Kaji Nazrul Islam, Rai Chand Boral, Himangshu Datta, Durga Sen, Shailesh Dattagupta, Sachin Dev Burman and many others. Songs like Shuk Kahe Sari, Sudhu Kangaler Mato, Banglar Badhu Bukey Taar Madhu (with Robin Majumdar and Suprava Sarkar) created history. She also recorded Tagore songs as basic records. In the early forties Devi became one of the most sought after female playback singers. She also lent her voice to many Hindi films like Chowringhee and Wapas. She had signed a contract to sing for Meghdoot as well but fate decided otherwise and most tragically she suffered an attack of ruptured appendix and was admitted to the Mayo Hospital in Calcutta on 11th March, 1944. She passed away in the early hours of the very next day on the 12th of March, leaving behind her husband, two daughters, Leena and Subhra, a son Suhas Kusum Deb and a host of mourning admirers. Her younger daughter Subhra died of rheumatic heart disease when she was only fifteen.Shaila Devi's eldest daughter Leena Saha is a singer also and has lent her voice for films and has performed on the stage several times. After Shaila's death the Senola Company released some of her last songs recorded earlier.- Actor
- Writer
- Additional Crew
Richard Bennett was born on 21 May 1870 in Deer Creek, Indiana, USA. He was an actor and writer, known for The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), Damaged Goods (1914) and The Eternal City (1923). He was married to Aimee Raisch Hastings, Adrienne Morrison and Grena Heller. He died on 22 October 1944 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Actor
- Additional Crew
Tall, heavy-set character actor Alan Dinehart dropped out of school to join a repertory company. He had extensive stage experience (including some 27 appearances on Broadway) and, by the time he was signed by Fox in 1931, he had worked not only as an actor but as a stage manager and writer. On screen he appeared for the most part in "B" pictures, notable exceptions being the MGM musical blockbuster Born to Dance (1936) and the 20th Century-Fox classic family drama Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1938). Dinehart specialized in portraying blustering or shifty businessmen, crooked politicians or racketeers. While he is usually described as a supporting player, he actually started out in the early 1930s playing leading roles opposite some of the major female stars of the period.
However, Dinehart's characters were rarely sympathetic. In Street of Women (1932) he essayed an architect who, bored with his society wife, indiscreetly keeps a mistress (Kay Francis) on the side. In Supernatural (1933) he was true to form as the phony spiritualist fleecing a wealthy socialite, played by Carole Lombard; and in Jimmy the Gent (1934) he was an urbane con artist in competition with James Cagney. On rarer occasions Alan found gainful employment as more benevolent characters, point in case his theatrical impressario Theodore von Eltz in Dance, Girl, Dance (1933). All of these performances attracted good reviews from Mordaunt Hall of the New York Times, ranging from "excellent" to "bearing up valiantly".
In unlikely contrast to his self-styled image of "Hollywood's most versatile villain", Dinehart had strong comedic inclinations, co-authoring several comedy plays towards the later stages of his career. The last and most successful of these, "Separate Rooms" (1940-1941), with Dinehart top-billed alongside Glenda Farrell and Lyle Talbot, became one of the longest-running non-musical plays on Broadway at the time, finally closing after 613 performances. Alan's son, Mason Alan Dinehart, followed in his father's footsteps and also became an actor, featured in several westerns and on television from the late 1940's.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Kent Rogers was born on 31 July 1923 in Houston, Texas, USA. He was an actor, known for Horton Hatches the Egg (1942), All-American Co-Ed (1941) and The Heckling Hare (1941). He died on 9 July 1944 in Pensacola, Florida, USA.- Richard Fiske was born on 20 November 1915 in Shelton, Washington, USA. He was an actor, known for Across the Sierras (1941), North from the Lone Star (1941) and The Officer and the Lady (1941). He was married to Marjorie Jean McGregor. He died on 10 August 1944 in La Croix-Avranchin, Manche, France.
- Actor
- Director
Ernest Shields was born on 5 August 1884 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. He was an actor and director, known for The Greyhound Limited (1929), The Birth of Patriotism (1917) and Sheridan's Pride (1914). He was married to Betty Schade. He died on 13 December 1944 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Lina Cavalieri was born on 25 December 1874 in Viterbo, Lazio, Italy. She was an actress, known for Manon Lescaut (1914), The Eternal Temptress (1917) and The Two Brides (1919). She was married to Lucien Muratore, Robert W. Chanler, Giovanni Campari and Aleksandr Beriatinskij. She died on 7 February 1944 in Florence, Tuscany, Italy.
- Lee Powell was born on 15 May 1908 in Long Beach, California, USA. He was an actor, known for The Fighting Devil Dogs (1938), Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe (1940) and Texas Man Hunt (1942). He was married to Norma Rogers. He died on 30 July 1944 in Tinian, Northern Mariana Islands.
- A charismatic German resistance member and would-be assassin of Adolf Hitler, Claus Phillip Maria Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg was born 15 November 1907, 1:00 a.m. CET, in the family's castle in the small Bavarian town of Jettingen (today known as Jettingen-Scheppach). He was born one of a set of twins (his other twin, Konrad Maria, only lived for one day after birth). His parents, Alfred Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg and Caroline Gräfin von Üxküll-Gyllenband, already had given birth to another set of twins, Alexander and Berthold (b. 15 March 1905). The father came from a well-known aristocratic Swabian family, while their mother, although born and raised in Austria, had eastern Prussian and Swedish roots. Claus is described as having been a rather withdrawn child, although far from being shy. His closest intimate, from childhood on, was his brother Berthold. Claus developed passions for literature, music, arts and horseback riding at a very early age and kept them all his life. Unfortunately, in his youth he suffered from poor health, and it was likely that this contributed to his lack of ambition, which in turn contributed to his "average" grades in school while his healthier older brothers managed to be straight-A students. Skilled in singing and playing both violoncello and piano, Claus considered becoming a musician at one point, but had more serious plans about studying architecture. In 1926 he finished school, by which time he had changed his career plans from music to the military and soon enlisted in the army, and after training was posted to the 17th Cavalry Regiment in Bamberg. One year later he was transferred for additional training to Dresden's cavalry school. Although one of the best trainees of his age group, Claus was not popular with his superiors because of minor rule-breaking. His infractions weren't serious--things like smoking in his superiors' presence or always wanting to have the last word--but he nonetheless provoked the authorities at the school, who transferred him to Hanover in 1928.
On the other hand, though not a favorite with his superiors, his colleagues described him as very likable and social, if somewhat stand-offish. Unlike his fellow trainees, however, Claus was interested neither in philandering nor carousing--he preferred to study Russian parallel to his training. During a dancing lesson he met the mother of his future wife Nina, who raved about him to her daughter when she came home from boarding school. They were introduced to each other by the mother and soon became a couple, engaged on 15 November 1930 and married on 26 September 1933. Four children resulted from the marriage: Berthold Maria (born 3 July 1934), Heimeran (born 9 July 1936), Franz Ludwig (born 4 May 1938) and Valerie (born 15 November 1940). The young officer also became more and more successful in his career, and at his various promotions was often the youngest of his rank, due mainly to his variety of skills and outstanding organizational abilities. He was quite the workaholic, although a contributing factor may have been his suffering from sleeping disorders. Surprisingly, he never had health problems because of his stressful and somewhat unhealthy lifestyle--he smoked several packs of cigarettes a day and also was "quite fond" of coffee and wine.
In April 1943, now a colonel and serving in Tunisia, he was seriously wounded in combat--he lost his right hand, his left eye and two fingers of his left hand, in addition to receiving a leg injury, although it was not that serious. He spent five months in a military hospital in Munich and later was sent home to his estate in Jettingen for further recovery. In the fall of 1943, however, he was back at work (now in Berlin) despite both his doctors' and his family's objections. The war, and his injuries, had changed him from a strong supporter of Hitler's regime into a fervent opponent of it, and he became one of the most important conspirators in a plan by senior army officers to overthrow Hitler. Although some of his fellow conspirators preferred just to arrest Hitler and take over the government, von Stauffenberg was adamant that the entire Nazi system had to be destroyed, including Hitler, which is why he volunteered to carry out the assassination personally, a task made easier by his recent appointment as Chief of Staff. On 20 July 1944 the plot was put into motion. Von Stauffenberg was one of the few officers who had direct access to Hitler's headquarters in Rastenburg, Eastern Prussia. He originally planned to place two bombs under Hitler's desk, but was interrupted and was only able to arm one of them. Unfortunately, the bomb--placed in a briefcase--was accidentally moved behind a strong wooden support of the table it was beneath, which was between it and its intended target, Hitler. After the explosion von Stauffenberg saw a dead body being carried out of the building, believed it to be Hitler and notified his fellow conspirators in Berlin so they could put the second part of their plan into motion, which was to seize control of the government. Unfortunately, he was wrong--the body was obviously not that of Hitler, who had survived with only minor injuries because the wooden support of the desk absorbed most of the blast from the bomb. When it became known that Hitler had survived, some of the conspirators lost their nerve and the plot failed. Hours after his flight back to Berlin von Stauffenberg was arrested, as were many of the other conspirators. He was executed on the same night, and more than 200 other conspirators met that same fate within the next few weeks (before being killed many of them were gruesomely tortured, which was filmed by their executioners "for posterity"). Pregnant Nina von Stauffenberg, who barely had known anything about the plot, was taken into clan liability and gave birth to daughter Konstanze on 27 January 1945, in a Nazi maternity clinic. - Actor
- Director
- Writer
Gerron fled to France (because he was Jewish), then settled in Amsterdam in 1933. He was arrested by the SS in 1943 and was sent to Theresienstadt in 1944 to direct a staged documentary intended to persuade world public opinion that Jews were well treated in concentration camps. He made a film called "The Fuhrer Donates a City to the Jews" or in German "Der Fuhrer schenkt den Juden eine Stadt". After he completed the film he was sent to Auschwitz where he was murdered.- Additional Crew
Erwin Rommel, aka "The Desert Fox", was one of Adolf Hitler's most able generals during WWII. He joined the German army in 1910 and won awards for bravery in WW I. He was in the 7th Tank Division at the outbreak of WW II and headed the push to the English Channel. Promoted to the rank of lieutenant general, Rommel led the German army in Africa (known as The Afrika Korps) in its mostly successful North African campaign. He drove the British in Libya back to to El Alamein. This led to his promotion to the rank of Field Marshal. Eventually outmaneuvered by British Gen. Bernard L. Montgomery, he returned to Germany, where he was given charge of the defense of northern France. Implicated in the July 1944 plot to assassinate Hitler, he chose suicide rather than execution.- Director
- Actor
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Giuseppe de Liguoro was born on 10 January 1869 in Naples, Campania, Italy. He was a director and actor, known for Dante's Inferno (1911), Homer's Odyssey (1911) and Re Lear (1910). He died on 19 March 1944 in Rome, Lazio, Italy.- Actor
- Director
- Writer
Edmund Mortimer was born on 21 August 1874 in New York City, New York, USA. He was an actor and director, known for The Broad Road (1923), The Exiles (1923) and The Arizona Romeo (1925). He was married to Louise Bates. He died on 21 May 1944 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Although his career was short-lived, McPhail was fortunate enough to have appeared in some of the finest musicals and operettas of the late 30s. Jeanette MacDonald took an early interest in this handsome baritone, when he performed in the chorus of San Francisco and other of her pictures. The studio signed him on at nineteen as the back-up for Nelson Eddy in The Girl of the Golden West (1938), although McPhail did not get screen time. His career flared briefly in 1939 and 1940, when he appeared with MacDonald, Judy Garland, Eleanor Powell and future wife Betty Jaynes in a series of musical pictures. Although the studio groomed him as the next Nelson Eddy, it failed to recognize the changing interests of the moviegoing public, who tired of his style of singing. His marriage failed, and he took to drink. Roles dried up, and after an earlier suicide attempt, McPhail succeeded in poisoning himself on December 6, 1944.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Yvette Guilbert was born on 20 January 1865 in Paris, France. She was an actress, known for Faust (1926), The Two Orphans (1933) and Iceland Fisherman (1934). She was married to Max Schiller. She died on 3 February 1944 in Aix-en-Provence, Bouches-du-Rhône, France.- Cinematographer
- Director
- Camera and Electrical Department
G.W. Bitzer was born on 21 April 1872 in Roxbury, Massachusetts, USA. He was a cinematographer and director, known for The Birth of a Nation (1915), Broken Blossoms (1919) and Logging in Maine (1906). He was married to Ethel Boddy. He died on 29 April 1944 in Hollywood, California, USA.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Roy Emerton was a big, brawny character actor whose scarred face and resounding deep voice made him a natural for menacing roles. One of his best and most typical was as the evil Boss McGinty in The Triumph of Sherlock Holmes (1935).- Actor
- Writer
- Soundtrack
This movie cowboy was actually born in New Jersey just before the turn of the 20th century, the son of a Protestant minister. He sang in his father's church choir, and after graduating high school he attended the private Blair Academy and then continued his musical training at New York's famous Julliard School (then known as the Institute of Musical Arts). Upon graduation he enlisted in the army and saw combat during World War I in France. After his discharge he taught music for a time in Bernards (NJ) High School.
His musical career picked up some steam and he was hired by the American Opera Company, but after a while decided he was just spinning his wheels there and tried his luck on Broadway. He fared better on The Great White Way, and by the mid-'30s he had made enough of a name for himself that Hollywood came calling, and he headed west to make musicals. He appeared in about a half-dozen of them, then branched out to other genres, showing up in some dramas and even a western or two. He bounced around the lower-level studios for a while, then in 1941 he landed a job with bottom-rung Producers Releasing Corp. (PRC) for a series of singing westerns in which he would star as "The Lone Rider". PRC was not, to be charitable, noted for its lavish production values and the films were pretty threadbare. In 1942 "B" western star Robert Livingston became available after his contract with Republic Pictures ended. Houston was reportedly unhappy with the paltry pay scale at PRC and PRC was unhappy that his "Lone Rider" series wasn't doing better than it was. Livingston, who had been part of the well-received "Three Mesquiteers" series at Republic, was considered by PRC to be a bigger box-office draw than Houston. The combination of all these factors did not bode well for Houston's career, and after his 11th picture for PRC in 1942 he was let go and replaced by Livingston.
Houston left the movie business after that, and in 1944 he collapsed on a street in Hollywood, dead of a heart attack.- Director
- Writer
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Hailed as one of Britain's most promising pre-war film directors, Arthur Woods' career was cut tragically short by his death in World War II at the age of 39. He was the only British director to serve in combat and to be decorated for valor.
The only son of an Anglo-Argentine shipping magnate, Woods was educated at Downside School and Christ's College, Cambridge. A talented artist and musician, he eventually dropped out of medical school to join the Festival Repertory Theatre, where he gained a reputation for scenic design. This in turn led to a job as an editor and art director at British Instructional Films. When the studio merged with British International Pictures, Woods took up screenwriting and direction. In 1933 he became the studio's youngest director and within a year was assigned several of BIP's biggest productions. Shortly afterward, Woods left Elstree for Warner Bros., and at its Teddington studio directed some of the finest quota films of the decade, including the classic thriller They Drive by Night (1938). A major international career seemed assured when MGM chose Woods to direct Haunted Honeymoon (1940). However, at the outbreak of World War II, Woods--a skilled pilot who flew his own movie stunts--volunteered for service in the Royal Air Force. He was killed in 1944 while serving as a night fighter pilot with 85 Squadron.- Actress
- Soundtrack
A very talented singer with a beautiful voice. She starred in two films, the first, Intisar al-chabab (1941), was with her older brother 'Farid Al Atrach' and the second Gharam wa intiqam (1944). Asmahane died in a car accident while filming 'Gharam wa intiqam', it is rumoured, through the war between the secret services in Cairo during World War II.- Hüseyin Rahmi Gürpinar was born on 17 August 1864 in Istanbul, Turkey. He was a writer, known for Efsuncu baba (1950), Cadi (2024) and Mürebbiye (1919). He died on 8 March 1944 in Istanbul, Turkey.
- Carey L. Hastings was born in 1867 in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA. She was an actress and writer, known for The Man Without a Country (1917), The Country Girl (1915) and The Soap-Suds Star (1915). She was married to Mark A. Cain and Colton Tidball. She died on 19 October 1944 in New York City, New York, USA.
- Writer
- Script and Continuity Department
- Additional Crew
Carl Meyer was the son of a stock speculator who committed suicide. He had to leave school at 15 to work as a secretary. Mayer moved away from Graz to Innsbruck and then Vienna, where he worked as a dramatist. Meanwhile, the events of the First World War turned him into a pacifist.
In 1917 he went to Berlin, where he worked at the small Residenztheater. He befriended Gilda Langer, the leading actress of the theatre and probably fell in love with her. He was tired of his job at the theatre when he wrote the script for "Das Kabinett des Doktor Caligari" (1920) together with Hans Janowitz. It is thought that Gilda Langer was supposed to star in the movie, but she suddenly engaged herself with director Paul Czinner and then died unexpectedly early in 1920. Mayer took care of her tombstone and notes from Wagner's "Tristan and Isolde" were engraved in it (this was found out by Olaf Brill who rediscovered the tombstone in 1995).
"Das Kabinett" made Mayer famous and soon he was a leading film writer, working with the best directors in Germany. He worked with F.W. Murnau on "Der Letzte Man" (1924, known as "The Last Laugh" in the USA) and he also wrote the scenario for Murnau's "Sunrise" (1927). But he was a perfectionist who worked slowly and this frequently resulted in conflicts or financial trouble.
Being a Jew as well as a pacifist, he had to flee Germany in 1933 after the Nazis came to power. He went to England, where he worked as an adviser to the British film industry. In London he became friends with director Paul Rotha.
In 1942 he was diagnosed with cancer. Near the end of his life he wanted to make a documentary on London, but due to anti-German sentiments he was unable to find a producer. His illness was maltreated and he died in 1944, poor and almost forgotten. All he left was 23 pounds and two books. He was buried at Highgate Cemetery and his epitaph reads 'Pioneer in the art of the cinema. Erected by his friends and fellow workers.' The city of Graz named a prize after him.- Director
- Actor
- Additional Crew
Wallace Worsley was born on 8 December 1878 in Wappingers Falls, New York, USA. He was a director and actor, known for The Ace of Hearts (1921), A Blind Bargain (1922) and The Penalty (1920). He was married to Julia M. Taylor. He died on 26 March 1944 in Hollywood, California, USA.- Frances Turner was born on 10 June 1856 in New York City, New York, USA. She was an actress, known for The Price of Big Bob's Silence (1912). She was married to William Turner. She died on 8 February 1944 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Additional Crew
- Producer
The motion picture producer Myron Selznick, who was the head of his father's Lewis J. Selznick Pictures in the early 1920s, is most famous for being the first great talent agent in Hollywood and the brother of David O. Selznick. Movie stars for which Selznick received his ten percent included Constance Bennett, W.C. Fields, Paulette Goddard, Katharine Hepburn, Vivien Leigh, Carole Lombard, and Laurence Olivier. Selznick also represented directors, including George Cukor, Alfred Hitchcock (whom he was instrumental in bringing to the United States), and Rouben Mamoulian.
Myron was born on October 5, 1898, the eldest of the two sons of Lewis J. Selznick, one of the pioneers of studio film production. Born Lewis Zeleznik in Kiev, Ukraine in the Russian Empire into a poor Jewish family of eighteen, Selznick migrated to London at the age of twelve, and then to the United States, eventually winding up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where he made his living as a jeweler. His shop was located near the nickelodeon opened by John P. Harris in 1905, which Pennsylvania officials claim was the country's first dedicated movie theater. Selznick and another merchant with a shop near Harris' nickelodeon, Harry Warner, were intrigued by Harris' business, and both would go on to be the founders of film studios.
After becoming the general manager of the East Coast Universal Film Exchange, Lewis J. Selznick started Equitable Pictures, raiding Vitagraph for Clara Kimball Young, a superstar of the silent screen. Selznick was one of the investors who created World Pictures in 1914 to import foreign feature films and to distribute the movies of several newly-established feature-film companies, including Equitable. Eventually, Selznick merged his company with Shubert Pictures and Peerless Pictures and took effective control of World.
World Pictures, whose corporate motto was "Quality Not Quantity," released movies produced by Equitable, Peerless, Shubert Pictures, and various independent companies, with production centered in Fort Lee, New Jersey. World Pictures wound up dominating the companies whose movies it distributed. When World Film Corp. was incorporated in February 1915, Selznick was appointed its vice president and general manager.
A financial innovator, Lewis Selznick inaugurated a new age of Wall Street investment in the film industry. World Film was a large feature film company with a market capitalization of $2 million (75% of which was outstanding stock), earning a net profit of $329,000 for a return of a little over 20% on the outstanding stock for the fiscal year ending June 27, 1915.
Lewis Selznick was ousted as general manager of World Film in 1916. He left World, taking with him the movie star Clara Kimball Young (who likely was his mistress), and forming his own production company, the Clara Kimball Young Film Corp. Selznick's new company also released movies produced by the Schenck brothers, Joseph and Nicholas, who were partners with theater-owner Marcus Lowe in his chain of movie houses.
In the early years of the film industry, there was a constant series of mergers and acquisitions among studios as individual moguls jockeyed for position. In 1917, Selznick merged with Adolph Zukor's Famous Players Pictures, creating Select Pictures, later reorganized as the Selznick Film Co. He eventually bought out Zukor and merged the two companies into Selznick-Select, then acquired World Pictures' film exchanges, which he renamed Republic Distributing Corp. He shifted his operation to California, completing the move in 1920, where he again linked up with Zukor and Jesse Lasky's Paramount-Artcraft, the successor to Famous Players-Lasky.
The slogan "Selznick Pictures Make Happy Hours" was, by the end of the second decade of the new 20th Century, the best-known slogan in the entertainment industry. Colorful and flamboyant, a quote of Selznick's became one of the most famous aphorisms about the motion picture industry: "There's no business in the world in which a man needs so little brains as in the movies."
Personally, Selznick was a spendthrift, living in a high and imperious style, which shocked the more puritanical and abstentious Louis B. Mayer. Unlike most of the other moguls who lusted for legitimacy for their new industry and themselves, Lewis J. Selznick didn't take the movie business too seriously. Other movie magnates were outraged by his cavalier attitude toward the industry and to the moguls themselves.
Among the immigrant businessmen who created Hollywood and the American motion picture industry, many of whom were barely literate when they entered what would become known almost a century later as the "communications industry," it was the cultured and introspective ones who failed. Selznick had a self-deprecating cynicism that eventually diluted his ambition. It was said that in the early 20s, Selznick would rather stay at home surrounded by his ojects d'art than make the rounds of Hollywood. Apparently, he eschewed schmoozing with other industry insiders at their favorite haunts. Lacking their tastes and world view, Selznick wound up distrusted by the other movie magnates.
Lewis Selznick thoroughly grounded his two sons in the movie industry, an industry in which nepotism is taken for granted. Myron attended Columbia University, but he dropped out and then went to work for his father's movie company as a film examiner, an entry-level position, to "earn his bones" in the industry. He became the youngest producer in Hollywood by the time he was 20, and was producer-in-chief of Selznick Pictures by the time he was 21. By 1920, he had been appointed president of the company, a post he held until the company's failure in 1923, when Adolph Zukor bested his old rival, Lewis J. Selznick.
One of Lewis J. and Myron Selnick's protégés was former Follies girl (and courtesan) Olive Thomas, who was billed as "the world's most beautiful girl." She starred in Upstairs and Down (1919), the first film produced by Myron Selznick, and the first film released by the new Selznick Pictures Corp. She also appeared in "The Flapper" (1920), helping give wide currency to the word which helped define the new, modern, liberated woman of what became known as "The Roaring Twenties," and it was Myron who was considered to have made her a star. Married to Mary Pickford's brother Jack, Thomas died under mysterious circumstances on her "second honeymoon" in Paris in 1920, at the height of her youthful fame. Ruled an accidental suicide by French authorities, she perished after ingesting the contents of a full bottle of mercury bi-chloride pills, a common remedy for syphilis at the time, which her husband said she had mistaken for a bottle of aspirin, never explaining why she had downed its entire contents.
The 1920 edition of "Who's Who on the Screen" hailed Myron as being "recognized by all concerned as one of the most thorough and efficient men connected with the industry. Being in absolute charge of the purchasing of all stories and supervising productions for all the Selznick stars, young Mr. Selznick is indeed a busy executive. When the wonderful new Selznick Studio building is formally opened in Long Island City, Myron Selznick will assume command and Studio Managers, Casting Directors, and Film Editors will work under the youthful executive's wing. He is still in his early twenties and from all indications will become one of the great leaders of the fourth industry of the United States."
That prophecy was never to be realized. When Lewis J. Selznick Production, Inc., became financially troubled during a cyclical downturn that hit the industry in 1923, Lewis J. had no one to turn to. His company went bankrupt in 1923 due to over-expansion, done in by the machinations of a vengeful Zukor, who had bought up stock behind his back and forced the company into bankruptcy.
Lewis J. Selznick never produced another movie. He died on January 25, 1933, in Los Angeles, California. It was said that the professional lives of Myron and his younger brother David O. Selznick thereafter were lived to vindicate the Selznick name. David also learned the ropes as a young man at Lewis J. Selznick Production, and as an independent producer for his own Selznick International, David would win back-to-back Best Picture Oscars for "Gone With the Wind" (1939) and "Rebecca" (1940).
After his father went bankrupt, David O. Selznick quit Columbia University like his brother Myron had before him and moved to California to get back into the industry. Without any help from his father, he got a proofreaders job at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. He worked his way up to become an assistant producer in Harry Rapf's unit, then got engaged to Irene Mayer, daughter of Louis B. Mayer, a match strongly disapproved by the M.G.M. boss, who despised David's father.
Lewis J. Selznick had tried to horn in on M.G.M,'s original 1925 production of "Ben-Hur," claiming he had rights to the stage play. David apologized to Mayer for his father, admitting it wasn't right for his father to have pulled such a con, and the two healed their rift. To avoid charges of nepotism, David eventually quit M.G.M. for Paramount, then became production boss at R.K.O. before returning to M.G.M. in 1933 after the heart attack of central producer Irving Thalberg. (The news of the elevation of David O. Selznick to supervising producer at M.G.M. was the source of the famous newspaper headline "The Son-in-Law Also Rises.") After quitting M.G.M. a second time in 1935, he went on to become arguably the greatest independent producer ever, responsible for "Gone With the Wind (1939), the most popular motion picture in cinematic history.
After the collapse of Lewis J. Selznick Production, Myron Selznick tried but failed to establish himself as an independent producer. In 1927, he produced the B-Western The Arizona Whirlwind (1927) with Bill Cody. Two years later, he established himself as a talent agent, creating Myron Selznick & Co., which eventually had offices in Hollywood, New York, and London. His brilliance as an agent made him a millionaire many times over. Selznick became so well-known and such a power in the industry by the early 1940s, that he was mentioned by name in Budd Schulberg's seminal Hollywood novel, "What Makes Sammy Run" (1941).
According to a September 1, 1952 "Time" Magazine cover story on Katharine Hepburn, when she first arrived in Hollywood from Broadway, Myron Selznick, her agent, was appalled at her looks, including her casual way of dressing. He said, "My God, are we sticking them $1,500 a week for this?!?" "Them" was R.K.O., where his brother David was production chief. But Myron's eye for talent was keen, and Hepburn quickly established herself as a star.
Myron built up his agency by signing movie personnel at a time where the studios were cavalier about their employees. In 1930, Myron hired Warner Bros. producer-in-chief Darryl F. Zanuck's former secretary, Marcella Rabwin, to be part of his agency. She had left Zanuck due to sexual harassment, and Rabwin herself had approached Selznick, offering him a proposition; if hired, she'd go back to Warner Bros. and sign up writers and directors, none of whom were under contract. Rabwin's proposition was accepted and proved successful for both her and Myron. Soon she was making more money than anyone else in Selznick's agency. Rabwin quit when Myron asked her to take a pay cut so she'd make less than his male agents. She went back to secretarial work, hired by R.K.O. at $35 per week, and eventually she became David O. Selznick's secretary, moving with him to Selznick International Pictures as his executive assistant.
The actress Marjorie Daw had appeared in England in the silent film with The Passionate Adventure (1924), co-starring Alice Joyce, Clive Brook and Victor McLaglen, a movie co-written by a young Alfred Hitchcock. Daw divorced her husband A. Edward Sutherland to become the wife of Myron Selznick, whose Lewis J. Selznick Enterprises released the film in 1924 in the U.S. Eventually, Myron was the one who "discovered" Histchcock, the director, and brought him to the attention of his brother, Davd O. Selznick, who in turn, brought Hitchcock to Hollywood to direct "Rebecca," the younger Selznick's second consecutive Best Picture Oscar winner.
Myron was no stranger to dealing with his brother as an agent. Earlier, he had represented director-writer William A. Wellman when he was making "A Star is Born" for David, who as a producer, was a notorious control-freak. Behind his director-writer's back, David hired Dorothy Parker and her husband Alan Campbell to rewrite Wellman's dialog. He also hired fellow mogul's son Budd Schulberg and future Hollywood 10 member Ring Lardner, Jr. to help rewrite to the screenplay. When Wellman had had enough of David's meddling, he had Myron threaten to sue his own brother on Wellman's behalf. The meddling stopped.
In 1938, Selznick had a memorable run-in with 20th Century-Fox chief executive Joseph M. Schenck, a former business partner of his father's. He demanded that Loretta Young's salary be doubled to approximately $70,000 a picture and also demanded also that the studio give her the right to work for other studios. Schenck, who had recently been appointed the new president of the Association of Motion Picture Producers, was so incensed by Myron's demands, he ordered Selznick off of the 20th Century-Fox lot.
Despite Schenck's intransigence and influence with other studio executives, the Selznick Agency continued to flourish, and Myron's luck remained good. That year, Myron's horse "Can't Wait" finished third at the Kentucky Derby, a fortuitous augury in a company town mad for horse raising. Before Lew Wasserman assumed the late Myron Selznick's mantle as agent extraordinaire around 1950, Selznick had pioneered the production of motion pictures by the stars he represented.
Perhaps Myron Selznick's most famous exploit in Hollywood was his role in the casting of Vivien Leigh as Scarlet O'Hara in his brother's "Gone With the Wind (1939). Then representing Laurence Olivier, Myron took on as a client Olivier's lover Leigh, who had only appeared in English motion pictures. In December 1938, he invited the couple to attend the filming of the burning of Atlanta sequence on the old R.K.O. back-lot, now owned by his brother's Selznick International Pictures. When they arrived that night for the filming of the sequence, the action was being performed by stunt doubles, as would be expected on any picture. But for this, the most hyped movie of its time, it was absolutely necessary as David O. Selznick had yet to cast his leading lady despite a well-publicized talent search over the past year and the fact that he had actually begun production of the movie that very night.
When Myron, Olivier, and the beautiful Vivien Leigh joined the group watching the filming, Myron introduced his client to David with the immortal line, "Hey genius. Meet your Scarlett O'Hara."
The rest, as they say, was history. "God With the Wind" (1939), with Leigh in an Oscar-wining turn as Scarlett, went on to become the most popular motion picture in history, for over half-a-century touted as the greatest American commercial movie ever made.
Myron, at five-and-a-half feet tall, was quite a contrast with his taller brother David, whom according to David's ex-wife Irene Mayer Selznick, he adored and was extremely proud of. Irene Selznick, in her memoir, comments that Myron was frustrated by the agent business as it did not fully engage his extraordinary intelligence and talents. He let David remain the sole producer in the family, although towards the end of his life, he was involved in the setting up of a production company for another major independent producer, Hunt Stromberg.
A long-time M.G.M. producer, Stromberg was involved in a contract dispute with Louis B. Mayer in 1941. On December 13th, after 18 years with the studio, Stomberg resigned, though he had three years to go on his contract. Mayer released him from his obligations, and Stromberg officially left the studio on February 10, 1942. Hollywood expected Stromberg to join United Artists, or to hook up with Myron's brother David O. Selznick. There were other rumors that he would form a partnership with former United Artists executive Murray Silverstone, who had left his studio. Instead, with the help of Myron Selznick, Stromberg revived his independent production company that had lain dormant for 20 years. Stromberg signed up executives from David O.'s old Selznick International team, including Kay Brown, who had bird-dogged "Gone With the Wind" when the novel was in galleys. Already one of the primary investors in Hunt Stromberg Productions, Inc., it was Myron who negotiated a lucrative five-year distribution deal with United Artists.
Myron Selznick never returned to movie production. He died on Mrch 23, 1944, at the age of 45 years old. According to Irene Selznick, the death of Myron was a tragedy for David as only he and David's former producing partner and best friend, John Hay "Jock" Whitney, had had an ameliorating effect on David's megalomaniacal behavior. Jock was off to military service during World War II when Myron died and when Jock returned to the States after being held as a prisoner of war, he abandoned the movie industry for Wall Street. Without his brother and his best friend, the producer David O. Selznick became reckless and eventually became a shell of himself after engaging in the flamboyantly destructive behavior that had brought his own father to ruin.
Myron Selznick was buried at Hollywood Memorial Park Cemetery (now the Hollywood Forever Cemetery) in Hollywood near the Paramount and R.K.O. studios. The pallbearers at his funeral included Walter Wanger and William Powell, who read the funeral oration. In the fall of 1944, he was disinterred and buried in a crypt at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California, where he was later joined by his beloved brother David.- Guy Usher was born on 9 May 1883 in Mason City, Iowa, USA. He was an actor, known for The Case of the Black Cat (1936), Buck Rogers (1939) and The Spanish Cape Mystery (1935). He was married to Evelyn. He died on 16 June 1944 in San Diego, California, USA.
- Actor
- Soundtrack
Fernand Charpin was born on 1 June 1887 in Marseille, Bouches-du-Rhône, France. He was an actor, known for César (1936), The Baker's Wife (1938) and Marius (1931). He was married to Gabrielle Doulcet. He died on 6 November 1944 in Paris, France.- Max Brand was born on 29 May 1893 in Seattle, Washington, USA. He was a writer, known for The Champion of Lost Causes (1925), The Cavalier (1928) and Uncertain Glory (1944). He was married to Dorothy Shillig. He died on 12 May 1944 in Santa Maria Infante, Lazio, Italy.
- Actor
- Writer
Edwin Stanley was a bespectacled, white haired, distinguished-looking actor who was trained in live theater and who, except a few silent pictures, stayed in that medium until he reached the age of 51. In 1932, he made his screen debut in talking pictures in "Virtue". Thereafter, Stanley appeared in over 200 movies, specializing in officials such as doctors, lawyers, judges, producers, etc. Stanley appeared in several serials, including those featuring Dick Tracy and Flash Gordon. Stanley worked up until his death in 1944.- Actor
- Writer
- Director
Gangly and rugged stage and screen character star Otto Hoffman was born in New York in 1879. Began as a stage performer in the 1890's. Made his movie debut under the direction of Stuart Paton in The White Terror (1915) starring Hobart Henley for the IMP Film Company. Otto directed only one film, The Secret of Black Mountain (1917) made in 1917 starring Vola Vale, afterwards he just concentrated on acting he was much better at it. He most often played cadaverous, crafty, menacing characters in more than 200 movies, such as The Kaiser's Shadow (1918), The Eagle (1925), The Valley of the Giants (1927), The Terror (1928), and Noah's Ark (1928). His ethnic range in many talkies include The Desert Song (1929), Abraham Lincoln (1930), Cimarron (1931), Eddie Cantor's Kid Millions (1934), Girl Loves Boy (1937), W.C. Fields' My Little Chickadee (1940), and his last film just before he died was as Oscar in This Is the Life (1944). Married Laura King and has a daughter Eugenie Hoffman.- Actor
- Stunts
- Writer
Ernie Stanton was born on 23 August 1890 in London, England, UK. He was an actor and writer, known for The Case of the Black Parrot (1941), Stage Struck (1936) and Flippen's Frolics (1936). He died on 6 February 1944 in Oakland, California, USA.- Betty Morrissey was born on 14 September 1907 in Brooklyn, New York, USA. She was an actress, known for A Woman of Paris: A Drama of Fate (1923), Lady of the Night (1925) and Skinner's Dress Suit (1926). She died on 20 April 1944 in New York City, New York, USA.
- Lionel Pape was born on 17 April 1877 in Sussex, England, UK. He was an actor, known for The Philadelphia Story (1940), Raffles (1939) and How Green Was My Valley (1941). He died on 21 October 1944 in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Harry Beresford was born on November 4, 1863 in London, England as Henry William Walter Horseley Beresford. He was an actor and writer, known for Seven Keys to Baldpate (1935), David Copperfield (1935) and Anna Karenina (1935).
He also used the stage name Harry's professional name was Harry J. Morgan.
His first marriage was to actress Emma Dunn, on October 4, 1897, in Chicago. They divorced on February 10, 1909, in New York City, and Dunn was awarded sole custody of their young daughter, Dorothy.
His second marriage was to Edith Wylie (actress). He died on October 4, 1944 in Los Angeles, California, USA. - Actor
- Soundtrack
Lew Kelly was born on 24 August 1879 in St. Louis, Missouri, USA. He was an actor, known for The Lady in Scarlet (1935), Winds of the Wasteland (1936) and Paradise Express (1937). He died on 10 June 1944 in Los Angeles, California, USA.