Tag: D.W. Griffith

Happy 111th Birthday, Joel McCrea!

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Joel McCrea, who was born 111 years ago today in South Pasadena, California, is a favorite of ours. Though he eventually settled into a long run of western pictures, he had previously proven to be adept at many other types of roles, too, from screwball and romantic comedies to thrillers and dramas. Here are 10 JM Did-You-Knows:

  • McCrea’s father was an executive with the L.A. Gas & Electric Company; his mother was a Christian Science practitioner. McCrea had a paper route, delivering the Los Angeles Times to D. W. Griffith and other prominent members of the film community.

  • McCrea graduated from Hollywood High School and was a member of the class of ’28 at Pomona College. While in college, he took drama courses and appeared in school productions and also in plays at the Pasadena Playhouse.

  • While in high school, McCrea was already working in the film industry. An adept horseman, he worked as a stunt double and “reins holder” for stars such as William S. Hart and Tom Mix.

  • Just out of college, McCrea signed with MGM, appearing in The Jazz Age (1929) and earning his first lead role in The Silver Horde (1930). In 1930, he signed with RKO and began to establish his reputation as a handsome leading man.

  • McCrea was good friends with Will Rogers, and the Oklahoma cowboy did much to boost McCrea’s career. It was Rogers who encouraged McCrea to put his money into real estate, and that advice made McCrea a millionaire. In fact, he earned more money in real estate than he did as an actor over his 50-year career.

  • Katharine Hepburn, close friends with McCrea and his wife, actress Frances Dee, admired McCrea’s abilities as an actor, ranking him with Humphrey Bogart and Spencer Tracy.

  • McCrea came by his affinity for all things western—roping, riding, ranching—naturally. His grandfather was a stagecoach driver who survived confrontations with Apache Indians.

  • McCrea turned down the lead role in The Postman Aways Rings Twice (1946) that eventually went to John Garfield.

  • McCrea got to meet Wyatt Earp in 1928 and had the chance to portray the western legend in Wichita (1955).

  • McCrea had the opportunity to reunite with his The More, The Merrier (1943) costars, Jean Arthur and Charles Coburn, in The Impatient Years (1944), but declined the role, which would have found him playing a serviceman, saying, “If I’m too old to be called, I was too old for that kind of show.”

Happy birthday, Joel McCrea, wherever you may be!

Joel McCrea

Happy 117th Birthday, Colleen Moore!

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Actress Colleen Moore was born Kathleen Morrison 117 years ago today (or was it 114 years—there’s some debate about that) in Port Huron, Michigan. She was one of the biggest stars of the silent era and made flappers safe for the average American. Here are 10 CM Did-You-Knows:

  • Her childhood was a happy one and her parents happy together, much in contrast to that other actress who was famous for portraying flappers, Clara Bow.

  • She was fascinated with motion pictures from childhood and dreamed even as a child of being a movie star.

  • When she was a teenager, her uncle, who was editor of The Chicago Tribune, arranged with D. W. Griffith, with whom he was acquainted, for his niece to be given a shot in Hollywood. Griffith agreed, giving Moore five small roles in her first year in Hollywood.

  • Moore had one blue eye and one brown one.

  • She was one of the WAMPAS Baby Stars of 1922.

  • Moore was one of the women most responsible for popularizing the then-controversial bobbed haircut for women.

  • There were two stockbrokers among her four husbands, and Moore was quite savvy in investing her money. As a result, she was very comfortable financially throughout her life and even wrote an investment guide to advise and encourage women to become investors.

  • Moore’s hobby was building extravagant doll houses, the eighth of which became known as “The Enchanted Castle,” took a decade to build, employed dozens of craftsmen, toured the world to raise money for charity, and is now on public display at the Museum of Science & Industry in Chicago.

  • She claimed to have discovered actress Loretta Young and even to have suggested she change her name from Gretchen to Loretta.

  • After appearing in just a few talking pictures, Moore retired from motion pictures in 1934. She later was a partner in the investment firm Merrill Lynch.

Happy birthday, Colleen Moore, wherever you may be!

Colleen Moore

Happy 112th Birthday, Una Merkel!

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In Herman Raucher‘s coming-of-age novel Summer of ’42, his teenaged protagonist (perhaps not coincidentally named … Hermie) has a big crush not on Lana Turner, Betty Grable, or Rita Hayworth, but on Penny Singleton, best known for portraying Blondie, wife to Arthur Lake‘s Dagwood in a long series of comic B-pictures.

Hermie was a little bit embarrassed by his preference in movie stars, but he figured there was not as much competition that way.

We have a similar little thing for Una Merkel, whose 112th birthday it is today. Una came to specialize in playing wise (and sometimes wisecracking), loyal second bananas to the leading ladies in films of the Pre-Code Era, but she was certainly not without her own charms, not the least of which was her Southern drawl.

Una Merkel

Ironically enough, it was Una who was first slated to play Blondie in that popular series of films before the role was finally awarded to Singleton.

Merkel was born Una Kohnfelder in Covington, Kentucky (we’ve long wondered at the choice of Merkel to replace Kohnfelder. It doesn’t seem the typical choice for a studio-concocted screen name) and began her career in silent movies. She’s listed in some sources as having appear in a 1924 short called Love’s Old Sweet Song and a feature film produced in Texas that same year called The Fifth Horseman. This now-lost (and good riddance) picture was an entry in the then-active genre of pro-Ku Klux Klan films, so perhaps the less said about it, the better. (We hope and trust our Una was just in it for the money.)

Merkel is said to have resembled Lillian Gish during the early years of her career, and she served as her stand-in for a while (on the 1928 classic The Wind, among others). After some time on Broadway, she was back before the cameras, portraying Anne Rutledge in D. W. Griffith‘s 1930 biopic, Abraham Lincoln.

As the years passed, Merkel got to stretch out a bit and her career showed staying power (her final role final role was in 1968, on the popular television program I Spy). Along the way, she appeared in Jean Harlow‘s final picture, Saratoga (1937), indulged in a hair-pulling catfight with Marlene Dietrich in Destry Rides Again (1939), and even appeared in the 1961 Disney comedy The Parent Trap as the Evers’ family’s housekeeper.

But our crush stems from her work in the 1930s, when she was every glamour gal’s best pal in movies such as Red-Headed Woman, 42nd Street, and Bombshell.

Here’s a scene from the latter picture, featuring our Una opposite Harlow and Louise Beavers.

This is a revised version of a post that was originally published on Dec 10, 2013.

365 Nights in Hollywood: Kalsomine Kitty of the Kleigs

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Jimmy Starr began his career in Hollywood in the 1920s, writing the intertitles for silent shorts for producers such as Mack Sennett, the Christie Film Company, and Educational Films Corporation, among others. He also toiled as a gossip and film columnist for the Los Angeles Record in the 1920s and from 1930-1962 for the L.A. Herald-Express.
Starr was also a published author. In the 1940s, he penned a trio of mystery novels, the best known of which, The Corpse Came C.O.D., was made into a movie.
In 1926, Starr authored 365 Nights in Hollywood, a collection of short stories about Hollywood. It was published in a limited edition of 1000, each one signed and numbered by the author, by the David Graham Fischer Corporation, which seems to have been a very small (possibly even a vanity) press.
Here’s “Kalsomine Kitty of the Kleigs” from that 1926 collection.

KALSOMINE KITTY OF THE KLEIGS

 
When they made Tommy Green a director the sun beamed a satisfied smile on the big white stages. The birds which infested the trees along the avenue running through the studio, talked about it in chirps.
The white-haired gateman stepped from his self-made pinnacle of pride and told the extras in the waiting room.
The noon whistle seemed to scream its congratulations at twelve o’clock.
They had finally made Tommy Green a director.
It was discussed over the lunch counters, in the studio cafeteria and over the white tablecloths at Mother’s Inn.
Everyone was talking about it.
Everyone was glad—glad for Tommy.
After eight years he had gained the position he had always dreamed of and worked for. Yes, it had been worth while. It seemed a long time, and Tommy had struggled hard. But it had not been in vain after all.
Eight years ago he walked into the studio and asked for a job. Lady Luck had presented him with a prop assistant’s broom and apron and told him to work eight hours a day for twenty-five dollars a week.
Today his salary began with fifteen hundred dollars a week. His contract stated this for one year and an option on five years.
Tommy sat gazing out of his new office window into the studio street. Electricians with leather vests scuffed by. Office boys with Oxford-bag trousers and patent leather shoes strolled slowly, carrying notes to directors.
Girls flickered past in fashion’s latest, carrying manila envelopes with photographs. Some had make-up kits.
Old men with unpressed clothes and Merry Christmas whiskers hobbled by. Young men with highly polished hair and trick suits wandered up and down the street.
Trucks with props whizzed back and forth.
Actors with pink make-up and funny looking clothes hurried from stage to stage. An orchestra was playing “Hearts and Flowers” on Stage One.
On Stage Two a snow scene was being put on. The cameraman cranked away in his shirt sleeves while an electric fan played upon him.
The girl in the salt snow shivered and thought of an ice cream soda.
Tommy looked at his stenographer who wore massive earrings. She was typing out the working synopsis of his first story.

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Times Square Tintypes: Al Jolson

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In this chapter from his 1932 book, Times Square Tintypes, Broadway columnist Sidney Skolsky profiles the Singing Fool, Al Jolson.
 

AL’S HERE

MAMMY!!! AL JOLSON. He drinks a bucket of bromo-seltzer every day.
Caricature of Al JolsonIs very superstitious. He is always knocking wood.
His real name is Asa Yoelson. Got the name Jolson when he was the singing mascot for a regiment in the Spanish-American war. A soldier asked him what his name was. He replied “Yoelson.” The soldier said: “That’s a Swedish name—you’re no Swede. Your name’s Jolson only you don’t know how to pronounce it.” From then on Jolson was his name.
Although he has been married three times women play a small part in his life.
He owns part of the St. Louis National Baseball Club.
His first appearance at the Winter Garden was in the show that opened that theater, Little Miss Innocence. It would be great to record that he made a big hit. The truth of the matter is that he made his first appearance on the stage after midnight and that no one paid any attention to him.
Likes to be patted on the back and is always surrounded by “Yes-men.” It was Walter Winchell who asked: “How many yes-men make a Jolson?”
Is not on speaking terms with his brother Harry. He wishes his brother wouldn’t use his name.
He has to read something in order to fall asleep.
Once started work in a D. W. Griffith picture. Then went to court in order to break the contract. On the witness stand he said: “I knew I was terrible and would never make a hit in pictures.” He was released from the contract. Today he has revolutionized the motion picture industry.
He cracks his knuckles when he is nervous.
His big passion in life is applause. Let an audience encourage him and he’ll break a vocal chord.
As a kid he sang on the streets of Washington and in the backroom of saloons. His boyhood pal at the time was Bill Robinson.
He is known as the second best verse writer in Tin Pan Alley. He doesn’t keep the profits on his songs but donates them to a tuberculosis camp.
Hates cold weather. So much so that one frosty night in Chicago he returned to his hotel room after the evening’s performance of Bombo. While undressing he noticed a sign across the street blinking: “It’s June in Miami. It’s June in Miami.” The next morning he was on his way to Miami, leaving the show cold.
He beams with happiness if anyone compliments him on his ballroom dancing.
Never took a singing lesson until he was past thirty-five. Then stopped after the sixth lesson because he thought they were hurting his voice.
He’s as sentimental as his songs.
Is a great showman and never misses an opportunity. When he arrived in Hollywood to make The Jazz Singer the entire town was at the station to meet him. He sang: “California, Here I Come.”
Mark Hellinger is now writing his life story. Hellinger got all his data when he accompanied the singing fool on his honeymoon abroad. Mark was the odd man.
His favorite word is “baby.”
He bet as much as $100,000 on a horse race and lost.
Never laughs at a joke except to be polite. If the joke really amuses him he says with a serious face, “That’s very funny.”
He knows a kosher restaurant in almost every important town.
Was a personal friend of Presidents Woodrow Wilson and Warren G. Harding. One evening he had dinner with President Harding at the white House. Pork chops was the dish and every time he picked one up the President’s dog, Laddie Boy, would jump and grab it. This wouldn’t have happened if Jolson had been using his knife and fork.
He likes to drive a car fast.
If he ever has a son he wants him to be like Buddy De Sylva.
His favorite game is Hearts. If he loses he makes alibis. If he wins he gloats over the victory.

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