Posts

Stars that passed in 1920

Image
2020 marks the Centennial Deaths of 4 Silent Movie Stars who died in 1920. Clarine E. Seymour  (December 9, 1898 – April 25, 1920) was an American silent film actress. Brief Career In 1917, Seymour appeared in Pathé's Mystery of the Double Cross opposite actress Mollie King. Hal Roach saw her performance and offered her a film contract with his Rolin Film Company. Seymour accepted and relocated to Los Angeles to perform as the leading lady in the Toto the Clown (played by Armando Novello) film comedy serials. Throughout 1918, she appeared in the Toto serial and also had a supporting role in the comedy short Just Rambling Along (1918), opposite Stan Laurel. The deal with Roach soon soured after Seymour claimed she was fired for refusing to do her own stunts. She filed suit against the company and was awarded $1,325 (approximately $23,000 today) in damages. While the case was pending, Seymour appeared in comedy shorts for Al Christie's comedy shorts. In 1...

The Life and Times of Pauline Frederick and Where are her ashes????

Image
Pauline Frederick (born Pauline Beatrice Libbey, August 12, 1883 – September 19, 1938) was an American stage and film actress Pauline in 1916 Early Life Frederick was born Pauline Beatrice Libbey (later changed to Libby) in Boston in 1883 (some sources state 1884 or 1885),the only child of Richard O. and Loretta C. Libbey. Her father worked as a yardmaster for the Old Colony Railroad before becoming a salesman. Her parents separated when she was a toddler and Frederick was raised primarily by her mother to whom she remained close for the remainder of her life (her parents divorced around 1897). As a girl, she was fascinated with show business, and determined early to place her goals in the direction of the theater. She studied acting, singing and dancing at Miss Blanchard's Finishing School in Boston where she later graduated. Her father, however, discouraged her ambitions to be an actress and encouraged her to become an elocution teacher. After pursuing a career...

The MGM Fixers Eddie Mannix and Howard Strickling

Image
Joseph Edgar Allen John "Eddie" Mannix (February 25, 1891 – August 30, 1963)  was an American film studio executive and producer. He is remembered for his work protecting Hollywood stars as a "fixer", a person paid to disguise details of the stars' often colorful private lives to maintain their public image. Among his most lasting contributions to Hollywood was a ledger he maintained that lists the costs and revenues of every MGM film produced between 1924 and 1962, an important reference for film historians. After working as a bouncer and then treasurer of the Palisades Amusement Park, he became involved in motion picture exhibition, eventually working his way up to general manager within MGM in the 1920s. The Eddie Mannix Ledger is in the Margaret Herrick Library, at Fairbanks Center for Motion Picture Study. Personal Life Mannix was married twice and had no children. He married Bernice Fitzmaurice in 1916. Mannix had numerous affair...

Girl 27 The Rape of Patricia Douglas and the Cover up by MGM

Image
Girl 27 Girl 27 is a 2007 documentary film by writer/director David Stenn about the 1937 rape of dancer and sometime movie extra Patricia Douglas (1917–2003) at an M-G-M exhibitors' convention, the front-page news stories that followed, and the studio's subsequent cover-up of the crime. Also covered in the film are a similar assault on singer Eloise Spann and her subsequent suicide, and the better-known scandal involving actress Loretta Young and her "adopted" daughter Judy Lewis, the product of her affair with Clark Gable during the production of The Call of the Wild. David Stenn uses first-person interviews and vintage film footage and music to explore the political power of movie studios in 1930s Hollywood, as well as public attitudes toward sexual assault that discouraged victims from coming forward. The filmmaker's dogged pursuit of Douglas and their resulting friendship is a consistent theme throughout. Renewed interest in the MeToo movement ...

Orson Bean 91 hit and killed by two cars

Image
Orson Bean (born Dallas Frederick Burrows; July 22, 1928 – February 7, 2020) He was a veteran American film, television, and stage actor, and a comedian, writer, and producer. He was a game show and talk show host and a "mainstay of Los Angeles’s small theater scene." He appeared frequently on several televised game shows from the 1960s through the 1980s and was a long-time panelist on the television game show To Tell the Truth. "A storyteller par excellence", he was a favorite of Johnny Carson, appearing on The Tonight Show over 200 times. Bean became one of the first "neocelebrities" in television — someone who was "famous for being famous. Stage Name In an interview on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson in 1974, Bean recounted the source of his stage name. He credited its origin to a piano player named Val at "Hurley's Log Cabin", a restaurant and nightclub in Boston, Massachusetts, where he had once performed. Acc...

Caroline Flack dies at 40 from Suicide

It's been confirmed as Suicide  Caroline Flack dies at 40 Star of Love Island

Remembering Marie Prevost who died on this date in 1937

Image
Marie Prevost (born Marie Bickford Dunn; November 8, 1896 – January 21, 1937) was a Canadian-born film actress. During her 20-year career, she made 121 silent and soundpictures. Prevost began her career during the silent film era. She was discovered by Mack Sennett who signed her to contract and made her one of his "Bathing Beauties" in the late 1910s. Prevost appeared in dozens of Sennett's short comedy films before moving on to feature-length films for Universal. In 1922, she signed with Warner Bros. where her career flourished as a leading lady. She was a favorite of director Ernst Lubitsch who cast her in three of his comedy films: The Marriage Circle (1924), Three Women (1924) and Kiss Me Again (1925). After being let go by Warner Bros in early 1926, Prevost's career began to decline and she was relegated to secondary roles. She was also beset with personal problems, including the death of her mother in 1926 and the breakdown of her marriage to a...