Director Ernst Lubitsch 1947 Forest Lawn Glendale Cemetery

Ernst Lubitsch (January 28, 1892 – November 30, 1947)[1] was a German American[2] actor, screenwriter, producer and film director. His urbane comedies of manners gave him the reputation of being Hollywood's most elegant and sophisticated director; as his prestige grew, his films were promoted as having "the Lubitsch touch."

In 1947 he received an Honorary Academy Award for his distinguished contributions to the art of the motion picture, and he was nominated three times for Best Director.

Life and career

Lubitsch was born in Berlin, the son of Anna (née Lindenstaedt) and Simon Lubitsch, a tailor. His family was Ashkenazi Jewish, his father born in Grodno and his mother from Wriezen-on-the-Oder, outside Berlin.[3][4] He turned his back on his father's tailoring business to enter the theater, and by 1911, he was a member of Max Reinhardt's Deutsches Theater. He made his film debut the following year as an actor, but he gradually abandoned acting to concentrate on directing. He appeared in approximately thirty films as an actor between 1912 and 1920. His last film appearance as an actor was in the 1920 drama Sumurun, opposite Pola Negri and Paul Wegener, in which he also directed.

Weimar years (1918–1922)

In 1918, he made his mark as a serious director with Die Augen der Mumie Ma (The Eyes of the Mummy), starring Pola Negri. Lubitsch alternated between escapist comedies and large-scale historical dramas, enjoying great international success with both. His reputation as a grand master of world cinema reached a new peak after the release of his spectacles Madame Du Barry (retitled Passion, 1919) and Anna Boleyn (Deception, 1920). Both of these films found American distributorship by early 1921. They, along with Lubitsch's Carmen (released as Gypsy Blood in the U.S. in 1921) were selected by The New York Times on its list of the 15 most important movies of 1921.

With glowing reviews under his belt, and American money flowing his way, Lubitsch formed his own production company and set to work on the high-budget spectacular The Loves of Pharaoh (1921). Lubitsch sailed to the United States for the first time in December 1921 for what was intended as a lengthy publicity and professional factfinding tour, scheduled to culminate in the February premiere of Pharaoh. However, with World War I still fresh, and with a slew of German "New Wave' releases encroaching on American movie workers' livelihoods, Lubitsch was not gladly received. He cut his trip short after little more than three weeks and returned to Germany. But he had already seen enough of the American film industry to know that its resources far outstripped the spartan German companies.

Career in Hollywood

Lubitsch finally left Germany for Hollywood in 1922, contracted as a director by Mary Pickford. He directed Pickford in the film Rosita; the result was a critical and commercial success, but director and star clashed during its filming, and it ended up as the only project that they made together. A free agent after just one American film, Lubitsch was signed to a remarkable three-year, six-picture contract by Warner Brothers that guaranteed the director his choice of both cast and crew, and full editing control over the final cut.

Settling in America, Lubitsch established his reputation for sophisticated comedy with such stylish films as The Marriage Circle (1924), Lady Windermere's Fan (1925), and So This Is Paris (1926). But his films were only marginally profitable for Warner Brothers, and Lubitsch's contract was eventually dissolved by mutual consent, with MGM-Paramount buying out the remainder. His first film for MGM, The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg (1927), was well regarded, but lost money.

Lubitsch seized upon the advent of talkies to direct musicals. With his first sound film, The Love Parade (1929), starring Maurice Chevalier and Jeanette MacDonald, Lubitsch hit his stride as a maker of worldly musical comedies (and earned himself another Oscar nomination). The Love Parade (1929), Monte Carlo (1930), and The Smiling Lieutenant (1931) were hailed by critics as masterpieces of the newly emerging musical genre. Lubitsch served on the faculty of the University of Southern California for a time.

His next film was a romantic comedy, written with Samson Raphaelson, Trouble in Paradise (1932). Later described (approvingly) as "truly amoral" by critic David Thomson, the cynical comedy was popular both with critics and with audiences. But it was a project that could only have been made before the enforcement of the Production Code, and after 1935, Trouble in Paradise was withdrawn from circulation. It was not seen again until 1968. The film was never available on videocassette and only became available on DVD in 2003.

Writing about Lubitsch's work, critic Michael Wilmington observed:

"At once elegant and ribald, sophisticated and earthy, urbane and bemused, frivolous yet profound. They were directed by a man who was amused by sex rather than frightened of it-- and who taught a whole culture to be amused by it as well."

Whether with music, as in MGM's opulent The Merry Widow (1934) and Paramount's One Hour with You (1932), or without, as in Design for Living (1933), Lubitsch continued to specialize in comedy. He made only one other dramatic film, the antiwar Broken Lullaby (also known as The Man I Killed, 1932).

In 1935, he was appointed Paramount's production manager, thus becoming the only major Hollywood director to run a large studio. Lubitsch subsequently produced his own films and supervised the production of films of other directors. But Lubitsch had trouble delegating authority, which was a problem when he was overseeing sixty different films. He was fired after a year on the job, and returned to full-time moviemaking. In 1936, he became a naturalized citizen of the United States.

On July 27, 1935 he married British actress Vivian Gaye. They had one daughter, Nicola Lubitsch, on October 27, 1938. When war was declared in Europe, Vivian Lubitsch and her daughter were staying in London. Vivian sent her baby daughter, accompanied by her nursemaid, Consuela Strohmeier, to Montreal aboard the Donaldson Atlantic Line's SS Athenia, which was sunk by a German submarine on September 3, 1939 with a loss of 118 passengers. The child and the nurse survived.

ERNST LUBITSCH WITH GRETA GARBO

In 1939, Lubitsch moved to MGM, and directed Greta Garbo in Ninotchka. Garbo and Lubitsch were friendly and had hoped to work together on a movie for years, but this would be their only project. The film, co-written by Billy Wilder, is a satirical comedy in which the famously serious actress' laughing scene was heavily promoted by studio publicists with the tagline "Garbo Laughs!"

In 1940, he directed The Shop Around the Corner, an artful comedy of cross purposes. The film reunited Lubitsch with his Merry Widow screenwriter Raphaelson, and starred James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan as a pair of bickering co-workers in Budapest, each unaware that the other is their secret romantic correspondent. David Thomson wrote of it:

"The Shop Around the Corner... is among the greatest of films... This is a love story about a couple too much in love with love to fall tidily into each other's arms. Though it all works out finally, a mystery is left, plus the fear of how easily good people can miss their chances. Beautifully written (by Lubitsch's favorite writer, Samson Raphaelson), Shop Around the Corner is a treasury of hopes and anxieties based in the desperate faces of Stewart and Sullavan. It is a comedy so good it frightens us for them. The cafe conversation may be the best meeting in American film. The shot of Sullavan's gloved hand, and then her ruined face, searching an empty mail box for a letter is one of the most fragile moments in film. For an instant, the ravishing Sullavan looks old and ill, touched by loss."

Biographer Scott Eyman attempted to characterize the famed "Lubitsch touch":

"With few exceptions Lubitsch's movies take place neither in Europe nor America but in Lubitschland, a place of metaphor, benign grace, rueful wisdom... What came to preoccupy this anomalous artist was the comedy of manners and the society in which it transpired, a world of delicate sangfroid, where a breach of sexual or social propriety and the appropriate response are ritualized, but in unexpected ways, where the basest things are discussed in elegant whispers; of the rapier, never the broadsword... To the unsophisticated eye, Lubitsch's work can appear dated, simply because his characters belong to a world of formal sexual protocol. But his approach to film, to comedy, and to life was not so much ahead of its time as it was singular, and totally out of any time."

Lubitsch went independent to direct That Uncertain Feeling (1941, a remake of his 1925 film Kiss Me Again), and the dark anti-Nazi farce To Be or Not to Be (1942), which was Jack Benny's only major screen success and Carole Lombard's last picture.

Later career

Lubitsch spent the balance of his career at 20th Century Fox, but a heart condition curtailed his activity, and he spent much of his time in supervisory capacities. It has been claimed that the last picture made by the director with his distinctive "touch" was Heaven Can Wait (1943), another Raphaelson collaboration. The film is about Henry Van Cleve (played by Don Ameche) who presents himself at the gates of Hell to recount his life and the women he has known from his mother onwards, concentrating on his happy but sometimes difficult 25 years of marriage to Martha (Gene Tierney).

After Heaven Can Wait, Lubitsch worked with Edwin Justus Mayer on the scripting process of A Royal Scandal (1945), a remake of Ernst Lubitsch's silent film A Forbidden Paradise. Mayer wrote the screenplay for A Royal Scandal, and had worked with Lubitsch on To Be or Not to Be (1942). The script of A Royal Scandal (1945) was written and prepared under Ernst Lubitsch, and he was the original director of this film, and directed the rehearsals. He became ill during shooting, so Lubitsch hired Otto Preminger to do the rest of the shooting. But A Royal Scandal is considered "a Lubitsch picture." After A Royal Scandal, Ernst Lubitsch regained his health, and directed Cluny Brown (1946), with Charles Boyer and Jennifer Jones.

In March 1947, Lubitsch was awarded a Special Academy Award for his "25-year contribution to motion pictures." Presenter Mervyn LeRoy, calling Lubitsch "a master of innuendo," described some of his attributes as a filmmaker: "He had an adult mind and a hatred of saying things the obvious way." Lubitsch was the subject of several interviews at that time, and consistently cited The Shop Around the Corner as his favorite of his films. Considering his overall career, he mused, "I made sometimes pictures which were not up to my standard, but then it can only be said about a mediocrity that all his works live up to his standard."

Ernst Lubitsch died later that year in Hollywood of a heart attack, his sixth.[5] His last film, That Lady in Ermine with Betty Grable, was completed by Otto Preminger and released posthumously in 1948. He is buried at Forest Lawn Cemetery Glendale.  

Leaving Lubitsch's funeral, Billy Wilder ruefully said, "No more Lubitsch." William Wyler responded, "Worse than that. No more Lubitsch pictures." Wilder had a sign over his office door, which read "How would Lubitsch do it?" He has a Star on the Walk of Fame at 7040 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood, California.

References

1.^ Lubitsch was born at 7 am on January 29.

2.^ Lubitsch was born Russian, naturalized German and became American on January 24, 1936, after Hitler revoked the German citizenship to Russian and Polish emigrés. Eyman, Scott: Ernst Lubitsch: Laughter in Paradise.

3.^ [1]

4.^ [2]

5.^ Obituary Variety, December 3, 1947, page 55.

Further reading

Bourget, J.-L. and O'Neil, E.: Lubitsch o la sátira romántica – Lubitsch: Satire and Romance, Festival Internacional de cine de San Sebastián and Filmoteca Española, San Sebastián/Madrid, Spain, 2006 (bilingual edition, originally published in French, 1987.)

Eyman, Scott: Ernst Lubitsch: Laughter in Paradise, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1993.

Weinberg, Herman G.: The Lubitsch Touch: a Critical Study, New York, Dutton, c1968.

Maid Found Body Parts - Continental Hotel - Downtown Skid Row 2010

A Pennsylvania couple is wanted in the slaying and dismemberment of a Hollywood man whose body was "cut up into five different parts -- basically his limbs were removed," said a Los Angeles detective.

The body was found in a hotel near downtown Los Angeles' skid row. Los Angeles Police Department detectives are seeking Edward Garcia Jr., 36, and his wife, Melissa Hope Garcia, 25 (also known as Melissa Turner). They are believed either to be in Hollywood or en route to Pennsylvania, said LAPD Det. Kelle Baitx.

A housekeeper at the Continental Hotel discovered body parts in a backpack left behind in the room on Nov. 29, 2010. The victim has been identified as 49-year-old Herbert Tracy White.

Additional body parts were found wrapped in blankets underneath the bed, police said, and a knife was recovered in the small hotel room. Baitx said police detectives believed it was a robbery gone wrong.

Continental Hotel representatives declined to comment.

“The crime-scene investigation revealed signs that the suspects were attempting to clean up the scene and attempting to remove the body from the location,” Baitx said.

Investigators used physical evidence left at the scene and witness’ statements to identify the couple.

The Los Angeles district attorney issued a warrant for the couple’s arrest Monday, charging them with capital murder that involved the infliction of torture, according to the arrest warrant. If convicted, they face a possible death sentence or life in prison without the possibility of parole.

-- L.A. Times

Actress Natalie Wood DROWNS in Catalina 1981 Westwood Village Cemetery

Natalie Wood (July 20, 1938 – November 29, 1981) was an American actress.

Wood began acting in movies at the age of four and became a successful child actor in such films as Miracle on 34th Street (1947). A well received performance opposite James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause (1955) earned her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and helped her to make the transition from a child performer. She then starred in the musicals West Side Story (1961) and Gypsy (1962). She also received Academy Award nominations for her performances in Splendor in the Grass (1961) and Love with the Proper Stranger (1963).

Her career continued successfully with films such as Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice (1969). After this she took a break from acting and had two children, appearing in only two theatrical films during the 1970s. She was married to actor Robert Wagner twice, and to producer Richard Gregson. She had one daughter by each: Natasha Gregson and Courtney Wagner. Her younger sister, Lana Wood, is also an actress. Wood starred in several television productions, including a remake of the film From Here to Eternity (1979) for which she won a Golden Globe Award.

Death

In September and October 1981, Wood and Wagner stayed in Raleigh, North Carolina, while Wood did location work for the science-fiction film Brainstorm. Wood then spent most of November in California shooting interior scenes with Christopher Walken and other cast members on the MGM lot in Culver City.

The day after Thanksgiving, Wood, Wagner and Walken went to Catalina Island for the weekend and on the night of November 28, the Wagners' yacht (Splendour) was anchored in Isthmus Cove. Also on board was the boat's skipper, Dennis Davern, who had worked for the couple for many years. The official theory is that Wood either tried to leave the yacht or to secure a dinghy from banging against the hull when she accidentally slipped and fell overboard. When her body was found, she was wearing a down jacket, nightgown, and socks. A woman on a nearby yacht said she heard calls for help at around midnight. The cries lasted for about 15 minutes and were answered by someone else who said, "Take it easy. We'll be over to get you." "It was laid back," the witness recalled. "There was no urgency or immediacy in their shouts." There was much partying going on in the area, though, and while it has never been proven that the woman calling for help was, indeed, Natalie Wood, no other person ever has been identified or come forward as having called out for help on that night. An investigation by Los Angeles County coroner Thomas Noguchi resulted in an official verdict of accidental drowning. Noguchi concluded Wood had drunk "seven or eight" glasses of wine and was intoxicated when she died. Noguchi also wrote that he found Wood's fingernail scratches on the side of the rubber dinghy indicating she was trying to get in. Wood was 43 at the time of her death and is buried in Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery.

On March 11, 2010 Wood's sister Lana Wood decided to re-open the case of her death.

At the funeral, at least a thousand spectators, along with scores of photographers and reporters from around the world, were spread out behind the cemetery walls. Among the guests at her funeral were Laurence Olivier, who flew there from London. Also there were Frank Sinatra, Elizabeth Taylor, Fred Astaire, Rock Hudson, David Niven, Gregory Peck, Gene Kelly, and director Elia Kazan.

"Auntie Mame" Actress Rosalind Russell 1976 Holy Cross Cemetery

Rosalind Russell (June 4, 1907 – November 28, 1976) was an American actress of stage and screen, perhaps best known for her role as a fast-talking newspaper reporter in the Howard Hawks screwball comedy His Girl Friday, as well as the role of Mame Dennis in the film Auntie Mame. She won all 5 Golden Globes for which she was nominated, and was tied with Meryl Streep for wins until 2007 when Streep was awarded a sixth. Russell won a Tony Award in 1953 for Best Performance by an Actress in a Musical for her portrayal of Ruth in the Broadway show Wonderful Town (a musical based the film My Sister Eileen, in which she also starred).

Russell was known for playing character roles, exceptionally wealthy, dignified ladylike women. She had a wide career span from the 1930s to the 1970s and attributed her long career to the fact that, although usually playing classy and glamorous roles, she never became a sex symbol, thereby not being famous for her looks.

Russell died after a long battle with breast cancer in 1976 at the age of 69, although initially her age was misreported because she had shaved a few years off her true age. She was survived by her husband and son. She is buried in Holy Cross Catholic Cemetery in Culver City, California.

"The Rat Patrol" Actor Christopher George 1983 Westwood Village Cemetery

Christopher John George (February 25, 1931 - November 28, 1983) was an American television and film actor who was perhaps best known for his starring role in the 1966-1968 TV series The Rat Patrol. He was nominated for a Golden Globe in 1967 as Best TV Star for his performance in the series. He was also the recipient of a New York Film Festival award as the Best Actor in a Television Commercial. George was married to actress Lynda Day George.

Soon after completing Mortuary, George died of a heart attack on November 28, 1983. He died at Westside Hospital in Los Angeles, California, while under the care of his cardiologist, Dr. Pearl McBroom. A contributing factor in his death is believed to have been the 1967 Rat Patrol mishap. The accident left George with a bad heart that contributed to his death. A Greek Orthodox rosary service was conducted at Westwood Memorial Park and a private funeral was held at Saint Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church in Northridge, California. He is interred in the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles. His death devastated his wife. Afterward, she only worked sporadically in television guest roles until her retirement in the early 1990s.

At his funeral, the Marine Corps provided an honor guard to render military honors. On May 5, 2009, the Marine Corps flew a flag over the Iwo Jima Memorial in honor of his service in the Corps.

George's niece is Wheel of Fortune hostess Vanna White.

West Hollywood Actress Karyn Kupcinet Dies Under Mysterious Circumstances 1963

Karyn Kupcinet (March 6, 1941 – November 28, 1963) was an American actress who was found dead at her West Hollywood, California home, in the days following the JFK assassination. It has been theorized that her death, officially ruled a homicide, was connected to the assassination or was the result of an accidental fall, though her family have disputed such claims.

Death

On the last day of her life, Kupcinet had dinner with future Lost in Space cast member Mark Goddard and his wife, Marcia Rogers Goddard, at their house on Coldwater Canyon Drive in Beverly Hills (near Mulholland Drive). She was due there at 6:30 pm, but arrived an hour late by taxicab. The couple said Kupcinet only toyed with her food during the meal. Marcia Goddard told two officers from the L.A. County Sheriff's Office that during dinner with Kupcinet "... her lips seemed numb. Her voice was funny. She moved her head at odd angles." The Goddards also noticed that her pupils were constricted. Mark Goddard told authorities that he confronted Kupcinet about her altered state during the meal, and she began to cry, putting her arm around him. At one point during the meal, Kupcinet told her friends an unsubstantiated story about a baby that had been abandoned on her doorstep earlier that day. At 8:30 pm, a taxicab arrived to take her home, and she promised to telephone the Goddards soon.


Kupcinet apparently went straight home after dining with her friends. She was visited by freelance writer Edward Stephen Rubin shortly afterward. The two were then joined by actor Robert Hathaway around 9:30 pm. They told detectives they watched TV, including The Danny Kaye Show, with Kupcinet. They all drank coffee until she fell asleep, sitting next to them on the couch. She awoke and went to her room. The men either turned the TV set off or simply lowered the volume (three days later it was still playing with a low volume), and made sure the door was locked behind them before departing at about 11:15 pm. Hathaway said he and Rubin returned to his place and were later joined by Kupcinet's boyfriend, Andrew Prine, who was also Hathaway's neighbor. The three young men watched television and talked until approximately 3:00 am.

The Goddards went to Kupcinet's apartment on November 30, after she failed to telephone the couple as promised. Mark Goddard stated that he had a "funny feeling" that something was wrong. Upon arriving at Kupcinet's apartment, the couple found her nude body lying on the couch. Mark Goddard initially assumed that she had died from a drug overdose.


Upon searching Kupcinet's apartment, police found prescriptions for Desoxyn, Miltown, Amvicel, and other medications. Authorities also found a note written by Kupcinet that reflected in some detail her emotions regarding issues in her life (i.e., parents, self-image, problems with boyfriend) and people she admired.

Coroner Harold Kade concluded that due to a broken hyoid bone in her throat, Kupcinet had been strangled. Her death was officially ruled a homicide.

"Bewitched" Actor David White 1990 Hollywood Forever Cemetery

David White (April 4, 1916 – November 27, 1990) was an American stage, film and television actor best known for playing Darrin's boss Larry Tate in the 1964-72 sitcom Bewitched.

BEWITCHED

Early life

Born in Denver, Colorado, and later moving to Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, he served with the United States Marine Corps during World War II. He began his acting career in live theatre, making his Broadway debut in 1949 in the original play Leaf and Bough.[1]

COLUMBO

Family

He married actress Mary Welch, and their son Jonathan White was born on July 14, 1955. He died on December 21, 1988, aged 33, as one of 270 people to lose their lives in the terrorist bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland.

In 1958, Mary Welch White died during a second childbirth, though their daughter lived.

David White and Dick York became close friends, on and off the set of Bewitched and remained so up until White's death.

SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS

Career

White appeared on numerous TV shows in the 1960s, such as The Fugitive, Mission: Impossible, Bonanza, Perry Mason, Have Gun - Will Travel and Dick Tracy.[2] He appeared in two episodes of the original The Twilight Zone: "I Sing the Body Electric" and "A World of Difference." Though primarily known for television roles, White did have some minor roles in notable films in the 1950s and early 1960s, such as one of the philandering executives in The Apartment, Sweet Smell of Success, and a featured role in Sunrise at Campobello.[2]

In 1964, White was cast as the sycophantic advertising executive Larry Tate on Bewitched, which he played for the show's entire run (1964–1972). The character was the President of the McMann and Tate advertising agency, for which the character of Darrin Stephens worked. Many of the show's episodes revolved around Larry's attempts to win an advertising account. This is the role for which he would become best-known both during his life and posthumously. Larry Tate's baby boy Jonathan was named after White's son.

Following the end of Bewitched, White was a popular character actor on numerous television series for the next decade, ranging from The Love Boat, The Rockford Files and Rhoda, to Quincy, M.E., Cagney and Lacey and Dallas.[2] He played the role of J. Jonah Jameson in the pilot episode of the TV series The Amazing Spider-Man. His final role came in 1986, on an episode of Dynasty.[2] He also appeared in the movie The Happy Hooker Goes to Washington, Disney's Snowball Express, and had a prominent role in the Richard Pryor film Brewster's Millions.[2]

Death

White died of a heart attack on November 27, 1990, at the age of 74. He was interred with his son Jonathan, who had been killed almost two years earlier, at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery.

References

1.^ David White at the Internet Broadway Database
2.^ David White at the Internet Movie Database

Actor Albert "Bud" Duncan 1960 Woodlawn Cemetery

Albert "Bud" Duncan (October 31, 1883 – November 25, 1960) was an American actor of the silent era. He appeared in 167 films between 1912 and 1942. He was born in Brooklyn, New York and died in Los Angeles, California. He is buried at Woodlawn Cemetery in Santa Monica, California.

Hollywood Ten Blacklisted 1947

The Hollywood blacklist—as the broader entertainment industry blacklist is generally known—was the mid-twentieth-century list of screenwriters, actors, directors, musicians, and other U.S. entertainment professionals who were denied employment in the field because of their political beliefs or associations, real or suspected. Artists were barred from work on the basis of their alleged membership in or sympathy toward the American Communist Party, involvement in liberal or humanitarian political causes that enforcers of the blacklist associated with communism, and/or refusal to assist investigations into Communist Party activities; some were blacklisted merely because their names came up at the wrong place and time. Even during the period of its strictest enforcement, the late 1940s through the late 1950s, the blacklist was rarely made explicit and verifiable, but it caused direct damage to the careers of scores of American artists, often made betrayal of friendship (not to mention principle) the price for a livelihood, and promoted ideological censorship across the entire industry

The first systematic Hollywood blacklist was instituted on November 25, 1947, the day after ten writers and directors were cited for contempt of Congress for refusing to give testimony to the House Committee on Un-American Activities. A group of studio executives, acting under the aegis of the Motion Picture Association of America, announced the firing of the artists—the so-called Hollywood Ten—in what has become known as the Waldorf Statement. On June 22, 1950, a pamphlet called Red Channels appeared, focusing on the field of broadcasting. It named 151 entertainment industry professionals in the context of "Red Fascists and their sympathizers"; soon most of those named, along with a host of other artists, were barred from employment in much of the entertainment field. The blacklist was effectively broken in 1960 when Dalton Trumbo, an unrepentant member of the Hollywood Ten, was publicly acknowledged as the screenwriter of the films Spartacus and Exodus. A number of those blacklisted, however, were still barred from work in their professions for years afterward.

The Hollywood Ten

Alvah Bessie, screenwriter
Herbert Biberman, screenwriter and director
Lester Cole, screenwriter
Edward Dmytryk, director
Ring Lardner Jr., screenwriter
John Howard Lawson, screenwriter
Albert Maltz, screenwriter
Samuel Ornitz, screenwriter
Adrian Scott, producer and screenwriter
Dalton Trumbo, screenwriter

Actor George Raft 1980 Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills Cemetery

George Raft (September 26, 1901 – November 24, 1980) was an American film actor identified with portrayals of gangsters in crime melodramas of the 1930s and 1940s. Today George Raft is mostly known for his role in Billy Wilder's 1959 comedy Some Like it Hot and also Scarface (1932), Bolero (1934), and They Drive by Night (1940).

Raft married Grayce Mulrooney, several years his senior, in 1923, long before his stardom. The pair separated soon thereafter, but Grayce, a devout Catholic, refused to grant Raft a divorce, and he remained married to and supported her until her death in 1970. A romantic figure in Hollywood, Raft had love affairs with Betty Grable, Marlene Dietrich, and Mae West. He stated publicly that he wanted to marry Norma Shearer, with whom he had a long romance, but his wife's refusal to allow a divorce eventually caused Shearer to end the affair.

In 1965, Raft was indicted for, and pled guilty to, income tax evasion and could have ended his life behind bars, but the court proved merciful when he wept before the judge, begging that he not be sent to prison, and he was sentenced to probation.

Raft died from leukemia at age 79 in Los Angeles, California, on November 24, 1980. He was interred in Forest Lawn - Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles.

Silent Film Actress Constance Talmadge 1973 Hollywood Forever Cemetery

Constance Talmadge (April 19, 1898 - November 23, 1973) was a silent movie star born in Brooklyn, New York, USA, and was the sister of fellow actresses Norma Talmadge and Natalie Talmadge.

Early life

Although her actual birth year has been in dispute, Talmadge was born on April 19, 1898 in Brooklyn, New York according to the 1900, 1910, and 1920 Censuses. Talmadge was born into a poor family. Her father, Fred, was an alcoholic, and left them when she was still very young. Her mother, Peg, made a living by doing laundry. When a friend recommended that Peg use Norma as a model for title slides in flickers, which were shown in early nickelodeons, Peg decided to try it. This led all three sisters into an acting career.[1]

Career

She began making films in 1914, in a Vitagraph comedy short, In Bridal Attire (1914). Her first major role was as The Mountain Girl and Marguerite de Valois in D.W. Griffith's Intolerance (1916).

Griffith re-edited Intolerance repeatedly after its initial release, and even shot new scenes long after it was in distribution. Grace Kingsley found Talmadge in her dressing room at the Fine Arts Studio, in Los Angeles, in the midst of making up for some new shots.

"Did you really drive those galloping brutes of horses?" asked Kingsley.

"Indeed I did," said Talmadge. "Two women sat behind me at the Auditorium the other night. They said, 'Of course she never really drove those horses herself. Somebody doubled for her.' Know what I did? I turned around and told them, 'I wish I could show you my knees, all black and blue even yet from being cracked up against the dashboard of that chariot!'"

So popular was Talmadge's portrayal of the tomboyish Mountain Girl, Griffith released in 1919 the Babylonian sequence from Intolerance as a new, separate film called The Fall of Babylon. He refilmed her death scene to allow for a happy ending.

Her friend Anita Loos, who wrote many screenplays for her, appreciated her "humour and her irresponsible way of life".[2] Over the course of her career, Talmadge appeared in more than 80 films, often in comedies like A Pair of Silk Stockings (1918), Happiness à la Mode (1919), Romance and Arabella (1919), Wedding Bells (1921) and The Primitive Lover (1922).

Talmadge, along with her sisters, was heavily billed during her early career. According to her 1923 Blue Book of the Screen biography, she was "5'5" tall, 120 lbs, with blonde hair and brown eyes, was an outdoor girl who loved activities."[3]

When Talmadge was asked by a writer for Green Book Magazine what sort of stories she wanted to do in 1920, she said: "Although no less than sixty manuscripts are submitted to me every week, it is exceedingly difficult to get exactly the kind of comedy I especially want. I want comedies of manners, comedies that are funny because they delight one’s sense of what is ridiculously human in the way of little everyday commonplace foibles and frailties – subtle comedies, not comedies of the slap stick variety."

"I enjoy making people laugh. Secondly, because this type of work comes easiest and most naturally to me, I am not a highly emotional type. My sister could cry real tears over two sofa cushions stuffed into a long dress and white lace cap, to look like a dead baby, and she would do it so convincingly that 900 persons out front would weep with her. That is real art, but my kind of talent would lead me to bounce that padded baby up and down on my knee with absurd grimaces that would make the same 900 roar with laughter.

"You see, in my way, I take my work quite as seriously as my sister does hers – I would be just as in earnest about making the baby seem ridiculous as she would about making it seem real. I am not fitted to be a vamp type. There is nothing alluring, or exotic, or erotic, or neurotic about me. I could not pull the vamp stuff to save my life, but if I am assigned a vamp role in a comedy, and I had such a part in my fourth First National picture, In Search of a Sinner. I play it with all the seriousness and earnestness and sincerity with which a real vamp would play it, except that I, of course, over-emphasize all the characteristics of the vampire. I try to handle a comedy role much the same way that a cartoonist handles his pencils. If he is drawing the picture of the late Theodore Roosevelt, with a few strokes he emphasizes Teddy’s eye-glasses and teeth, leaving his ears and nostrils and the lines of his face barely suggestive. One must leave a great deal to the imagination on the screen, because in the span of one short hour we sometimes have to develop a character from girlhood to womanhood through three marriages and two divorces, and perhaps travel half way round the world besides; so, like the cartoonist, I try to emphasize the salient characteristics, which, of course, in my particular work, bring out the humorous side of the person I am portraying."

With the advent of talkies in 1929, Talmadge left Hollywood. Her sister Norma did make a handful of appearances in talking films, but for the most part the three sisters retired all together, investing in real estate and other business ventures. Only a few of her films survive today.[1]

Personal life

Like her sister Norma, Talmadge succumbed to substance abuse and alcoholism later in life. She also had many failed affairs and relationships.[4]

She was married four times, but her early relationships rarely lasted more than a total of three years.

Her first marriage, to John Pialoglou, occurred in 1920 at a double wedding with Dorothy Gish and James Rennie. She divorced Pialoglou two years later. no children. She married Alastair McIntosh in February 1926, divorcing in 1927. no children. She married Townsend Netcher in May 1929, divorcing in 1931. no children. She married Walter Michael Giblon in 1939. This marriage lasted until his death on May 1, 1964. no children.

Talmadge's mother fostered the belief she might one day return to films. “Success and fame cast a spell that can never been quite shaken off,” her mother pointed out in her autobiography. “A woman, because of her love, may say, and in the fervor of the moment believe, that she is ready to give up her chosen work. But there is sure to come a time when keen longing and strong regret for her lost career dominate over the more placid contentments of love and marriage. Then unhappiness and friction ensue.”

Along with her sister Norma, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks, Talmadge inaugurated the tradition of placing her footprints in cement outside Grauman's Chinese Theater. She left a trail of five footprints in her slab.

Her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame is at 6300 Hollywood Blvd.

Burial

Constance Talmadge is interred, along with Norma and Natalie in their own niche in the Abbey of the Psalms in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery, Hollywood.

Complete Filmography

Buddy's First Call (1914)(short)
The Maid from Sweden (1914)(short)
Our Fairy Play (1914)(short)
The Moonstone of Fez (1914)(short)
Uncle Bill (1914)(short)
Buddy's Downfall (1914)(short)
The Mysterious Lodger (1914)(short)
Father's Timepiece (1914)(short)
The Peacemaker (1914)(short)
The Evolution of Percival (1914)(short)
In Bridal Attire (1914)(short)
Fixing Their Dads (1914)(short)
The Egyptian Mummy (1914)(short)
Forcing Dad's Consent (1914)(short)
Georgia Pearce (1915)(*dubious entry into IMDb,not sure about existence of this title)
In the Latin Quarter (1915)(short)
Billy's Wager (1915)(short)
The Green Cat (1915)(short)
The Young Man Who 'Figgered' (1915)(short)
Burglarious Billy (1915)(short)
A Study in Tramps (1915)(short)
The Master of His House (1915)(short)
The Lady of Shalott (1915)(short)
The Boarding House Feud (1915)(short)
The Vanishing Vault (1915)(short)
Spades Are Trumps (1915)(short)
Bertie's Stratagem (1915)(short)
Insuring Cutey (1915)(short)
Captivating Mary Carstairs (1915)(short)
Billy the Bear Tamer (1915)(short)
A Keyboard Strategy (1915)(short)
Can You Beat It? (short)
Beached and Bleached (1915)(short)
The Little Puritan (1915)(short)
The She-Devil (1915)(short)
The Missing Links (1916)
Intolerance (1916)
The Microscope Mystery (1916)
The Matrimaniac (1916)
A Girl of the Timber Claims (1917)
Betsy's Burglar (1917)
Scandal (1917)
The Honeymoon (1917)
The Studio Girl (1918)
The Shuttle (1918)
Up the Road with Sallie (1918)
The Lesson (1918)
Good Night, Paul (1918)
A Pair of Silk Stockings (1918)
Sauce for the Goose (1918)
Mrs. Leffingwell's Boots (1918)
A Lady's Name (1918)
Who Cares? (1919)
Romance and Arabella (1919)
Experimental Marriage (1919)
The Veiled Adventure (1919)
Happiness a la Mode (1919)
A Temperamental Wife (1919)
A Virtuous Vamp (1919)
Two Weeks (1920)
In Search of a Sinner (1920)
The Love Expert (1920)
The Perfect Woman (1920)
Good References (1920)
Dangerous Business (1920)
Mama's Affair (1921)
Lessons in Love (1921)
Wedding Bells (1921)
Woman's Place (1921)
Polly of the Follies (1922)
The Primitive Lover (1922)
East is West (1922)
Dulcy (1923)
The Dangerous Maid (1923)
The Goldfish (1924)
Her Night of Romance (1924)
Seven Chances (1925)
Her Sister from Paris (1925)
The Duchess of Buffalo (1926)
Venus of Venice (1927)
Breakfast at Sunrise (1927)
Venus (1929)

Notes

1.^ http://www.goldensilents.com/stars/constancetalmadge.html
2.^ From Anita Loos's Biography on Il Cinema - Grande Storia Illustrata, Istituto Geografico De Agostini, Novara
3.^ http://silentgents.com/BTalmadgeC.html
4.^ http://www.silentera.com/people/actresses/Talmadge-Constance.html

References

The First Female Stars: Women of the Silent Era by David W. Menefee. Connecticut: Praeger, 2004. ISBN 0-275-98259-9.
The Griffith Actresses. By Anthony Slide. New York: A.S. Barnes and Company, 1973.
The Talmadge Sisters. By Margaret L. Talmadge. New York: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1924.
The Quality You Need Most. By Constance Talmadge in Green Book Magazine, April, 1914.
1900 United States Federal Census, Brooklyn Ward 8, Kings, New York; Roll T623_1047; Page: 4B; Enumeration District: 109.
1910 United States Federal Census, Brooklyn Ward 29, Kings, New York; Roll T624_982; Page: 13B; Enumeration District: 933; Image: 948.
1920 United States Federal Census, Manhattan Assembly District 15, New York, New York; Roll T625_1212; Page: 7A; Enumeration District: 1061; Image: 877.
1905 New York State Census for Kings County, Brooklyn, New York. U.S. Passport Applications, 1795–1925, Ancestry.com.