John Marcellus Huston (pronounced /ˈdʒɒn mɑrˈsɛləs ˈhjuːstən/; August 5, 1906 – August 28, 1987) was an American filmmaker, screenwriter and actor. He directed a wide range of classics during the twentieth century, including The Maltese Falcon (1941), The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948), Key Largo (1948), The Asphalt Jungle (1950), The African Queen (1951), Moulin Rouge (1952) The Misfits (1960), and The Man Who Would Be King (1975).
Early life
Huston was born in Nevada, Missouri, the son of Canadian-born actor, Walter Huston (above with John) and his wife Rhea Gore, a sports reporter. Huston was of Scots-Irish descent on his father's side[1] and English and Welsh on his mother's. He was raised by his maternal grandparents, John Marcellus and Adelia (Richardson) Gore. At the age of ten, Huston suffered a serious illness which left him nearly bedridden for several years. This spurred him to pursue a full life, both intellectually and physically.
Career
John Huston began his film career as a screenwriter on films such as Juarez (1939), Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet (1940) and High Sierra (1941).
Huston's films were insightful about human nature and human predicaments. They also sometimes included scenes or brief dialogue passages that were remarkably prescient concerning environmental issues that came to public awareness in the future, in the period starting about 1970; examples include The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) and The Night of the Iguana (1964). The Misfits (1960) was written by Arthur Miller and featured an all-star cast including Clark Gable, Marilyn Monroe, Montgomery Clift, and Eli Wallach, and was the last screen appearance of screen icons Gable and Monroe. It is well-known that Huston spent long evenings carousing in the Nevada casinos after filming, surrounded by reporters and beautiful women, gambling, drinking, and smoking cigars. Gable remarked during this time that "if he kept it up he would soon die of it."
After filming the documentary Let There Be Light on the psychiatric treatment of soldiers for shellshock, Huston resolved to make a film about Sigmund Freud and psychoanalysis. The film, Freud the Secret Passion, began as a collaboration between Huston and Jean-Paul Sartre. Sartre dropped out of the film and requested his name be removed from the credits. Huston went on to make the film starring Montgomery Clift as Freud.
In the 1970s, he was frequently an actor in Italian films, and continued acting until the age of 80 (Momo, 1986).
Huston is also famous to a generation of fans of J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth stories as the voice of the wizard Gandalf in the Rankin/Bass animated adaptations of The Hobbit (1977) and The Return of the King (1980).
Many of his films were edited by Russell Lloyd, who was nominated for an Oscar for editing The Man Who Would Be King (1975).
The six-foot-two-inch, brown-eyed director also acted in a number of films, with distinction in Otto Preminger's The Cardinal (1963) for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and in Roman Polanski's Chinatown (1974) as the film's central corrupt businessman. John Huston received the AFI Life Achievement Award in 1983.
Academy Awards
In 1941, Huston was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for The Maltese Falcon. He was nominated again and won in 1948 for The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, for which he also received the Best Director award.
Huston received 15 Oscar nominations in the course of his career. In fact, he is the oldest person ever to be nominated for the Best Director Oscar when, at 79 years old, he was nominated for Prizzi's Honor (1985). He also has the unique distinction of directing both his father Walter and his daughter Anjelica in Oscar-winning performances (in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre and Prizzi's Honor, respectively), making the Hustons the first family to have three generations of Academy Award winners.
In addition, he also directed 13 other actors in Oscar-nominated performances: Sydney Greenstreet, Claire Trevor, Sam Jaffe, Humphrey Bogart, Katharine Hepburn, José Ferrer, Colette Marchand, Deborah Kerr, Grayson Hall, Susan Tyrrell, Albert Finney, Jack Nicholson and William Hickey.
Personal life
Huston was an agnostic,[2]
The wives of John Huston:
1. Dorothy Harvey - This marriage lasted 7 years and ended in 1933.
2. Lesley Black - It was during his marriage to Black that he embarked on an affair with married New York socialite Marietta FitzGerald. While her lawyer husband was helping the war effort, the pair were once rumoured to have made love so vigorously, they broke a friend's bed.[3] When her husband returned before the end of the Second World War, Huston went back to Hollywood to await Marietta's divorce. However, on a trip to Barbados she fell in love with billionaire British MP Ronald Tree, and decided to marry him instead. Huston was heartbroken, and after an affair with the fashion designer and writer Pauline Fairfax Potter, married again.
3. Evelyn Keyes - The Hustons adopted a son Pablo (from Mexico); (his affair with Fairfax Potter continued during the marriage).
4. Enrica Soma - They had two children: a daughter, Anjelica Huston (below), and a son, Walter Antony "Tony" Huston, now an attorney. Soma also had a daughter, Allegra Huston, as the result of an extramarital affair with John Julius Norwich; Huston treated the girl as one of his own children following Soma's death four years later.
5. Celeste Shane. In his autobiography, An Open Book, Huston refers to her as a "crocodile", and states only that if he had his life to do over, he wouldn't marry a fifth time.
All marriages ended in divorce except his fourth, to Soma. In addition to his children with Soma, he was with the author Zoe Sallis also the father of director Danny Huston.
Among his friends were Orson Welles and Ernest Hemingway. According to a documentary film about Huston's life (John Huston: The Man, the Movies, the Maverick), he struck and killed a female pedestrian with his car at the corner of Gardner and Sunset in Los Angeles when he was in his late 20s. He was exonerated of wrongdoing at the follow-up inquest.
Huston visited Ireland in 1951 and stayed at Luggala, County Wicklow, the home of Garech Browne, a member of the Guinness family. He visited Ireland several times afterwards and on one of these visits he purchased and restored a Georgian home, St Clerans, of Craughwell, County Galway. He became an Irish citizen in 1964 and his daughter Anjelica attended school in Ireland at Kylemore Abbey for a number of years. A film school is now dedicated to him on the NUIG campus. Huston is also the inspiration for the 1990 film White Hunter Black Heart starring Clint Eastwood, who also directed. In addition, the character of monomanical film director Eli Cross in Richard Rush's The Stunt Man is alleged to be based on Huston.
Huston was an accomplished painter who wrote in his autobiography, "Nothing has played a more important role in my life." As a young man he studied at the Smith School of Art in Los Angeles but dropped out within a few months. He later studied at the Art Students League of New York. He painted throughout his life and was particularly interested in Cubism and the American school of Synchromism. He had studios in each of his homes and owned a wide collection of art including a notable collection of Pre-Columbian art[4] In 1982 he created the label for Château Mouton Rothschild.
A heavy smoker, he suffered from emphysema in his final days. Just before his death, Huston had travelled to Newport, Rhode Island to film a small role in his son Danny's directorial debut, Mr. North (which he also co-wrote). In July of 1987 he was rushed to Charlton Memorial Hospital in nearby Fall River, Massachusetts due to complications from his emphysema. He died shortly thereafter, on August 28, 1987 in Middletown, Rhode Island. Huston's old friend Robert Mitchum replaced him in the role. A few weeks before he died, Marietta visited him and his electrocardiogram "started jumping with excitement as soon as she entered the room." She was, his friends maintained, the only woman he ever really loved.[3]
Huston is interred in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Hollywood, California.
Filmography
Director
1941 The Maltese Falcon
1942 In This Our Life
Across the Pacific
1943 Report from the Aleutians
1945 The Battle of San Pietro
1946 Let There Be Light
1948 The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
Key Largo
1949 We Were Strangers
1950 The Asphalt Jungle
1951 The Red Badge of Courage
The African Queen
1953 Moulin Rouge
Beat the Devil
1956 Moby Dick
1957 Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison
1958 The Barbarian and the Geisha
The Roots of Heaven
1960 The Unforgiven
The Misfits
1962 Freud the Secret Passion
1963 The List of Adrian Messenger
1964 The Night of the Iguana
1966 The Bible: In The Beginning
1967 Reflections in a Golden Eye
Casino Royale
1969 Sinful Davey
A Walk with Love and Death
1970 The Kremlin Letter
1972 Fat City
The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean
1973 The Mackintosh Man
1975 The Man Who Would Be King
1979 Wise Blood
1980 Phobia
1981 Escape to Victory
1982 Annie
1984 Under the Volcano
1985 Prizzi's Honor
1987 The Dead
Screenwriter
The Storm 1930 - Dir: William Wyler (written with Charles Logue, Langdon McCormick, Tom Reed & Wells Root)
A House Divided 1931 - Dir: William Wyler (written with John B. Clymer, Olive Edens and Dale Every)
Murders in the Rue Morgue 1932 - Dir: Robert Florey (written with Tom Reed & Dale Van Every)
The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse 1938 - Dir: Anatole Litvak (written with John Wexley)
Jezebel 1938 - Dir: William Wyler (written with Clements Ripley, Abem Finkel, & Robert Buckner)
High Sierra 1941 - Dir: Raoul Walsh (written with W.R. Burnett)
The Maltese Falcon 1941 - Dir: Huston
Sergeant York 1941 - Dir: Howard Hawks (written with Abem Finkel, Harry Chandler, & Howard Koch)
The Killers 1946 - Dir: Robert Siodmak (written with Anthony Veiller)
Three Strangers 1946 - Dir: Jean Negulesco (written with Howard Koch)
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre 1948 - Dir: Huston
Key Largo 1948 - Dir: Huston (written with Richard Brooks)
We Were Strangers 1949 - Dir: Huston (written with Peter Viertel)
The African Queen 1951 - Dir: Huston (written with James Agee)
Moulin Rouge 1952 - Dir: Huston (written with Anthony Veiller)
Beat the Devil 1953 - Dir: Huston (written with Truman Capote)
Moby Dick 1956 - Dir: Huston (written with Ray Bradbury)
Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison 1957 - Dir: Huston (written with John Lee Mahin)
The Night of the Iguana 1964 - Dir: Huston (written with Anthony Veiller)
The Man Who Would Be King 1975 - Dir: Huston (written with Gladys Hill)
Mr. North 1988 - Dir: Danny Huston (written with Janet Roach & James Costigan)
Actor
Does not include films which he also directed
The Cardinal (1963, dir: Otto Preminger)
Candy (1968, director: Christian Marquand)
Rocky Road to Dublin (Documentary) (as Interviewee, 1968, director: Peter Lennon)
De Sade (1969, dir: Cy Endfield)
Myra Breckinridge (1970, dir: Michael Sarne)
The Deserter (1971, dir: Burt Kennedy)
Man in the Wilderness (1971, dir: Richard C. Sarafian)
The Bridge in the Jungle (1971)
Rufino Tamayo: The Sources of his Art (documentary) (1972, dir: Gary Conklin)
Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973, dir: J. Lee Thompson)
Chinatown (1974, dir: Roman Polanski)
Breakout (1975)
The Wind and the Lion (1975, dir: John Milius)
Tentacles (1977, dir: Ovidio G. Assonitis)
The Hobbit (1977, dir: Arthur Rankin, Jr., Jules Bass)
The Greatest Battle (1978, dir: Umberto Lenzi)
The Bermuda Triangle (1978, dir: René Cardona, Jr.)
Angela (1978, dir: Boris Sagal)
The Visitor (1979, dir: Giulio Paradisi)
Winter Kills (1979, dir: William Richert)
A Minor Miracle (1983, dir: Raoul Lomas)
Notes from Under the Volcano (documentary) (as himself, 1984, dir: Gary Conklin)
Lovesick (1984, dir: Marshall Brickman)
The Black Cauldron (1985) Narrator
Momo (1986, dir: Johannes Schaaf)
References
1.^ http://wc.rootsweb.com
2.^ The religion of director John Huston
3.^ Running Around in High Circles
4.^ [Art by Directors, Karl French, Granta 86, 2004, ISBN 0 90 314169 8
Grace Ellen Rosalie Allen (July 26, 1895[1][2] – August 27, 1964), better known as Gracie Allen, was an American comedienne who became internationally famous as the zany partner and comic foil of husband George Burns. For contributions to the television industry, Gracie Allen was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6672 Hollywood Boulevard.[3]
Early life
Gracie Allen was born in San Francisco, California, to George Allen and Molly Darragh. She made her first appearance on stage at age three and was given her first chance On Air by Eddie Cantor. She was educated at the Star of the Sea Convent School and during that time became a talented dancer. She soon began performing Irish folk dances with her three sisters, who were billed as "The Four Colleens." In 1909 Allen joined her sister, Bessie, as a vaudeville performer. At a performance in 1922 Allen met George Burns and the two formed a comedy act. The two were married on January 7, 1926 in Cleveland, Ohio.
Birth date mystery
Depending on the source, Gracie Allen might have been born on July 26 in 1895, 1896, 1902, or 1906. All public records held by the City and County of San Francisco were destroyed in the earthquake and great fire of April 1906. Her husband, George Burns, also professed not to know exactly how old she was, though it was presumably he who provided the date July 26, 1902, which appears on her death record. Her crypt marker also shows her year of birth as 1902.[4] Allen used to claim that she was born in 1906 but, when pressed for evidence, she would say that her birth certificate had been destroyed in the earthquake. When the person she was telling pointed out that she was born in July but the earthquake was three months earlier in April, she would simply smile and say, "Well, it was an awfully big earthquake." The most reliable information comes from the U.S. Census data collected on June 1, 1900. According to the information in the Census records for the State of California, City and County of San Francisco, enumeration district 38, family 217, page 11-A, one Grace Allen — daughter of George and Maggie Allen, and youngest sister of Bessie, Hazel and Pearl Allen — was born in California in July 1895.[1] In the census taken on April 15, 1910, however, for San Francisco's 39th Assembly District, Enumeration District 216, Page 5A, Grace Allen is listed as being 13 (instead of 14). [5] It should be further noted, however, that census enumerators received their information by word of mouth, often from third parties, and discrepancies between ages from one decade's census to another are not uncommon in this time period.
Double act
The Burns and Allen act began with Allen as the straight man, setting up Burns to deliver the punchlines — and get the laughs. In his book Gracie: A Love Story Burns later explained that he noticed Allen's straight lines were getting more laughs than his punchlines, so he cannily flipped the act over —- he made himself the straight man and let her get the laughs. Audiences immediately fell in love with Allen's character, who combined the traits of stupidity, zaniness, and total innocence. As is often the case with performers who play dumb, Gracie was, in reality, highly intelligent. The reformulated team, focusing on Allen, toured the country, eventually headlining in major vaudeville houses. Many of their famous routines, including "Lambchops" were preserved on early one- and two-reeler short films made while the couple was still performing on the stage. George Burns attributed all of the couple's early success to Allen, modestly ignoring his own brilliance as a straight man. He summed up their act in a classic quip: "All I had to do was say, 'Gracie, how's your brother?' and she talked for 38 years. And sometimes I didn't even have to remember to say 'Gracie, how's your brother?'"
Radio
In the early 1930s, like many stars of their era, Burns and Allen graduated to radio. The show was originally a continuation of their original "flirtation act" (as their vaudeville and short film routines had been). Burns realized that they were simply too old for that material ("Our jokes were too young for us", he later remarked) and changed the show's format in the fall of 1941 into the situation comedy vehicle for which they are best remembered: a working show business married couple negotiating ordinary problems caused by Gracie's "illogical logic," usually with the help of neighbors Harry and Blanche Morton, and their announcer, Bill Goodwin (later replaced by Harry von Zell during the run of their television series). One of the show's running gags (both in radio and television) had Burns firing the announcer at least once every other episode.
Publicity stunts
Burns and Allen frequently used running gags as publicity stunts. During 1932-33 they pulled off one of the most successful in the business: a year-long search for Allen's supposedly missing brother. They would make unannounced cameo appearances on other shows, asking if anyone had seen Allen's brother. Gracie Allen's real-life brother was apparently the only person who didn't find the gag funny, and he eventually asked them to stop. (He dropped out of sight for a few weeks, at the height of the publicity.)
In 1940 the team launched a similar stunt when Allen announced she was running for President of the United States on the Surprise Party ticket. Burns and Allen did a cross-country whistlestop campaign tour on a private train, performing their live radio show in different cities. In one of her campaign speeches Gracie said, "I don't know much about the Lend-Lease Bill, but if we owe it we should pay it." Another typical Gracie-ism on the campaign trail went like this: "Everybody knows a woman is better than a man when it comes to introducing bills into the house." The Surprise Party mascot was the kangaroo; the motto was "It's in the bag." As part of the gag, Allen (in reality, the Burns and Allen writers) published a book, Gracie Allen for President, which included photographs from their nationwide campaign tour and the Surprise Party convention. Allen went on to receive 42,000 votes in the general election in November 1940; only six other female United States presidential and vice-presidential candidates have received more votes in a presidential election.
Allen was also the subject of one of S.S. Van Dine's famous Philo Vance mystery novels, The Gracie Allen Murder Case. Typically, she couldn't resist a classic Gracie Allen review: "S.S. Van Dine is silly to spend six months writing a novel when you can buy one for two dollars and ninety five cents."
Another publicity stunt had her playing a piano concerto at the Hollywood Bowl (and later at Carnegie Hall). The Burns and Allen staff hired a composer to write the Concerto for Index Finger, a joke piece that had the orchestra playing madly, only to pause while Allen played a single (incorrect) note with one finger. On her final "solo," she would finally hit the right note, causing the entire orchestra to applaud. In fact, the actual index-finger playing was done off-stage by a professional pianist.
Television
Around 1948 Burns and Allen became part of the CBS talent raid. Their good friend (and frequent guest star) Jack Benny had decided to jump from NBC over to CBS. William S. Paley, the mastermind of CBS, had recently made it openly clear that he believed talent and not the network made the difference, which was not the case at NBC. Benny convinced Burns and Allen (among others) to join him in the move to CBS. The Burns and Allen radio show became part of the CBS lineup and a year later they also brought their show to television. They continued to use the formula which had kept them longtime radio stars, playing themselves only now as television stars, still living next door to Harry and Blanche Morton. They concluded each show with a brief dialogue performance in the style of their classic vaudeville and earlier radio routines.
Allen retired in 1958, and Burns tried to soldier on without her. The show was re-named The George Burns Show with the cast intact except for Allen. The locale of the show was changed from the Burns home to George Burns' office, with Blanche Morton working as Burns' secretary so she could help Allen keep an eye on him. Allen's absence was only too obvious and impossible to overcome. The renamed show barely lasted a year.
Films
In the early 1930s, Burns and Allen made several short films, preserving several of their classic vaudeville routines on celluloid. They also made two films with W. C. Fields ---(International House (1933) and Six of a Kind (1934))--- and starred with Fred Astaire in A Damsel in Distress, a musical with an original score by George Gershwin, which introduced the song "A Foggy Day." It was Astaire's first film without dancing partner Ginger Rogers. (Astaire and Rogers had decided to work apart for awhile—a career move only since the two remained good friends.) Astaire was to star in the picture, but co-star Joan Fontaine was not a dancer and he was reluctant to dance on screen alone. He also felt the script needed more comic relief to enhance the overall appeal of the film.
George Burns and Gracie Allen had each worked in vaudeville as dancers (aka "hoofers") before forming their act. When word of the project reached them, they called Astaire and were asked to audition. Burns then contacted an act he had once seen that performed a dance using brooms. For the next several weeks, he and Allen worked at home to learn the complicated routine. When they presented the "Whisk Broom Dance" to Astaire, he was so taken by it, that he had them teach it to him and it was added to the film. Throughout the picture Burns and Allen amazed audiences and critics (many did not know either of them could dance) as they "effortlessly" kept pace with the most famous dancer in the films. Their talents were further highlighted as they matched Astaire step by step during the demanding "Funhouse Dance."
"Say good night, Gracie"
The legend was born of their vaudeville routine and carried over to both radio and television. As the show wrap-up Burns would look at Allen and say "Say good night, Gracie" to which she would usually simply reply "Good night." Popular legend has it that Allen would say, "Good night, Gracie." According to George Burns, recordings of their radio and television shows, and several histories of old-time radio (John Dunning's On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio, for example), Gracie never used the phrase. The confusion may have been caused by Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In. Stars Dan Rowan and Dick Martin used a similar sign off routine wherein Rowan would tell Martin to "Say good night, Dick." Martin's reply was always "Good night, Dick." It seemed like something Gracie Allen would have said.
George Burns himself said as much in an interview years later, adding that, surprisingly enough, no one ever thought of having Allen say "Good night, Gracie". However, the former Burns and Allen head writer, Paul Henning, did use the "say good night" bit in at least one episode of the Beverly Hillbillies (The Richest Woman, aired January 5, 1966, two years before Laugh-In premiered. JED: "Say good night, Jethro." JETHRO: "Good night, Jethro.")
This gimmick would later be picked up by Ed Randall in his WFAN radio show Ed Randall's Talkin' Baseball.
Private life
In the 1930s Burns and Allen adopted two children, Sandra Jean and Ronald John, after discovering they could not conceive their own. They agreed to raise the children as Catholics, then let them make their own religious choice as adults. Ronnie eventually joined the cast of his parents' television show playing George and Gracie's son, a serious drama student who disdained comedy. Sandy, by contrast, made only occasional appearances on the show (usually as a waitress or a clerk), and left show business to become a teacher.
As a child, Allen had been scalded badly on one arm, and she was extremely sensitive about the scarring. Throughout her life she wore either full or three-quarter length sleeves in order to hide the scars. The half-forearm style became as much a Gracie Allen trademark as her many aprons and her illogical logic. When the couple moved to Beverly Hills and acquired a swimming pool, Gracie put on a bathing suit and swam the length of the pool to prove to her children that she could swim. (She fought a longtime fear of drowning by privately taking swimming lessons.) She never put on a bathing suit or entered the pool again.
Allen was said to be sensitive about having one green eye and one blue eye (heterochromia), and there was some speculation that plans to film the eighth season of The Burns & Allen Show in color prompted her retirement. However, this seems unlikely, since a one-time-only color episode was filmed and broadcast in 1954 (a clip of which was seen on a recent CBS anniversary show). The reason she retired in 1958 was her health; George Burns noted more than once that she stayed with the television show as long as she did to please him, in spite of her health problems.
In later years Burns admitted that following an argument over a pricey silver table centerpiece Allen wanted, he had a very brief affair with a Las Vegas showgirl. Stricken by guilt, he phoned Jack Benny and told him about the indiscretion. However, Allen overheard the conversation and Burns quietly bought the expensive centerpiece. Nothing more was said. Years later he discovered that Allen had told one of her friends about the episode finishing with, "You know, I really wish George would cheat on me again. I could use a new centerpiece."
Death
Gracie Allen fought a long battle with heart disease, ultimately dying of a heart attack in Hollywood in 1964. She was interred in a crypt at the Freedom Mausoleum at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California. Burns was interred at her side when he died thirty-two years later. ("Gracie Allen and George Burns — Together Again," reads the engraving on the marker.)[6]
Filmography
Lambchops (1929) (short film)
The Big Broadcast (1932) (first feature film)
College Humor (1933)
International House (1933)
Many Happy Returns (1934) (first leading role)
Six of a Kind (1934)
We're Not Dressing (1934)
Love in Bloom (1935)
Here Comes Cookie (1936)
A Damsel in Distress (1937) (first Fred Astaire movie without Ginger Rogers and first in which Burns and Allen danced)
College Swing (1938)
Honolulu (1939)
The Gracie Allen Murder Case (1939) (without Burns — a "Philo Vance" mystery by S. S. Van Dine)
Mr. and Mrs. North (1941) (second murder mystery without Burns)
Two Girls and a Sailor (1944) (guest appearance and last movie)
Radio series
The Robert Burns Panatella Show: 1932 - 1933 CBS
The White Owl Program: 1933 - 1934 CBS
The Adventures of Gracie: 1934 - 1935 CBS
The Campbell's Tomato Juice Program: 1935 - 1937 CBS
The Grape Nuts Program: 1937 - 1938 NBC
The Chesterfield Program: 1938 - 1939 CBS
The Hinds Honey and Almond Cream Program: 1939 - 1940 CBS
The Hormel Program: 1940 - 1941 NBC
The Swan Soap Show: 1941 - 1945 NBC, CBS
Maxwell House Coffee Time: 1945 - 1949 NBC
The Amm-i-Dent Toothpaste Show: 1949 - 1950 CBS
Gracie Allen Award
The Gracie Allen Award is presented by The Foundation of American Women in Radio and Television to recognize and encourage positive and realistic portrayals of women in entertainment, commercials, news, features and other programs. Gracie Allen has twice been nominated to the National Women's Hall of Fame which has so far chosen not to induct her.
References
1.^ http://www.genealogy.com/famousfolks/gracie-allen/index.htm Ancestry of Gracie Allen [(from Genealogy.com)]
2.^ Grace Allen, age 4 years, born July 1805. U.S. Census, June 1, 1908, State of California, County of San Francisco, enumeration district 38, p. 11A, family 217.
3.^ "Hollywood Walk of Fame database". HWOF.com. http://www.hwof.com/stars?recipient=Gracie_Allen.
4.^ Photo of her crypt marker
5.^ Genealogy, Family Trees and Family History Records online - Ancestry.com
6.^ http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-09-01/michaels-foreverland
Burns, George (1988). Gracie: A Love Story. New York: Putnam. ISBN 978-039913384-8
Nichols, Thomas E. "Burns and Allen" (Original research)
Further reading
I Love Her, That's Why!: An autobiography by George Burns (1955, 2003) ISBN 0-758-13841-5
The Third Time Around by George Burns (New York: Putnam, 1980), including transcripts of several classic Burns & Allen routines.
Gracie: A Love Story by George Burns (1989) ISBN 0-140-12656-2
Say Goodnight, Gracie: The Story of George Burns and Gracie Allen by Cheryl Blythe and Susan Hackett (1986, 1989) ISBN 1-559-58019-4
The Great American Broadcast by Leonard Maltin (New York: Dutton, 1997)
On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio by John Dunning (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998)
Charles Boyer (28 August 1899 – 26 August 1978) was a French actor who appeared in more than 80 films between 1920 and 1976. After receiving an education in drama, Boyer started on the stage, but he found his success in movies during the 1930s. Although moving to the U.S., he maintained a heavy French accent. His most famous role was opposite Ingrid Bergman in the 1944 mystery-thriller Gaslight. Other memorable performances were possibly in the era's highly praised romantic dramas, Algiers (1938) and Love Affair (1939). He received four Academy Award nominations for Best Actor.
Early years
Born in Figeac, Lot, Midi-Pyrénées, France, to Maurice and Louise Boyer, Charles was a shy, small-town boy who discovered the movies and theater at the age of eleven. Boyer performed comic sketches for soldiers while working as a hospital orderly during World War I.[1] He began studies briefly at the Sorbonne, and was waiting for a chance to study acting at the Paris Conservatory.[2] He went to the capital city to finish his education, but spent most of his time pursuing a theatrical career. In 1920, his quick memory won him a chance to replace the leading man in a stage production, and he scored an immediate hit.[1] In the 1920s, he not only played a suave and sophisticated ladies' man on the stage but also appeared in several silent films.
MGM signed Boyer to a contract, and he loved life in the United States, but nothing much came of his first Hollywood stay from 1929 to 1931. At first, he did film roles only for the money and found that supporting roles were unsatisfying. However, with the coming of sound, his deep voice made him a romantic star.[1]
His first break came with a very small role in Jean Harlow's Red-Headed Woman (1932).[3] After starring in a French adaptation of Liliom (1934) directed by Fritz Lang, he began to receive public favor;[4] Boyer landed his first leading Hollywood role at the romantic musical Caravan (1934) with Loretta Young.[5] French expatriate Claudette Colbert requested him in the psychiatric drama Private Worlds (1935),[1] which was a modest success.[2]
Stardom
Until the early 1930s, Boyer mainly continued making French films, and Mayerling co-starring Danielle Darrieux in 1936 made him an international star. This was followed by Orage (1938), opposite Michèle Morgan. The offscreen Boyer was bookish and private, far removed from the Hollywood high life. But onscreen he made audiences swoon as he romanced Marlene Dietrich in The Garden of Allah (1936), Jean Arthur in History Is Made at Night (1937), Greta Garbo in Conquest (1937), and Irene Dunne in Love Affair (1939).[1] His first Technicolor film was The Garden of Allah, which established him as a major actor in the U.S.[4]
In 1938, he landed his famous role as Pepe le Moko, the thief on the run in Algiers, an English-language remake of the classic French film Pepe le Moko with Jean Gabin. Although he never invited costar Hedy Lamarr to "Come with me to the Casbah" in the movie, this line was in the movie trailer. The line would stick with him, thanks to generations of impressionists and Looney Tunes parodies.[1][6] Boyer's role as Pepe Le Moko was already world famous when animator Chuck Jones based the character of Pepe le Pew, the romantic skunk introduced in 1945's Odor-able Kitty, on Boyer and his most well-known performance.[7] Boyer's vocal style was also parodied on the Tom and Jerry cartoons, most notably when Tom was trying to woo a female cat. (See The Zoot Cat).
Boyer played in three classic films of unrequited love: All This, and Heaven Too (1940), with Bette Davis; Back Street (1941), with Margaret Sullavan; and Hold Back the Dawn (1941), with Olivia de Havilland and Paulette Goddard.[8]
In contrast to his glamorous image, Boyer began losing his hair early, had a pronounced paunch, and was noticeably shorter than leading ladies like Ingrid Bergman. When Bette Davis first saw him on the set of All This, and Heaven Too, she did not recognize him and tried to have him removed.[7]
In 1943, he was awarded an Honorary Oscar Certificate for "progressive cultural achievement" in establishing the French Research Foundation in Los Angeles as a source of reference (certificate). Boyer never won an Oscar, though he was nominated for Best Actor four times in Conquest (1937), Algiers (1938), Gaslight (1944) and Fanny (1961), the latter also winning him a nomination for the Laurel Awards for Top Male Dramatic Performance.
He is best known for his role in the 1944 film Gaslight in which he played a thief/murderer who tries to convince his newlywed wife that she is going insane.
After World War II
In 1947, he was the voice of Capt. Daniel Gregg in the Lux Radio Theater's presentation of The Ghost and Mrs. Muir,[9] played in the film by Rex Harrison. In 1948, he was made a chevalier of the French Légion d'honneur.
When another film with Bergman, Arch of Triumph (1948), failed at the box office, he started looking for character parts. Apart from several French films such as Max Ophuls' The Earrings of Madame de... (1953, again with Danielle Darrieux) and Nana (1955, opposite Martine Carol), he also moved into television as one of the pioneering producers and stars of Four Star Theatre; Four Star Productions would make him and partners David Niven and Dick Powell rich.[1] In 1956, Boyer was a guest star on I Love Lucy.
On March 17, 1957, he starred in an adaptation for TV of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play, There Shall Be No Night, by Robert E. Sherwood. The performance starred Katharine Cornell, and was broadcast on NBC as part of the Hallmark Hall of Fame.[10] He was nominated for the Golden Globe as Best Actor for the 1952 film The Happy Time; and also nominated for the Emmy for Best Continuing Performance by an Actor in a Dramatic Series for his work in Four Star Playhouse (1952–1956).
In 1951, he appeared on the Broadway stage in one of his most notable roles, that of Don Juan, in a dramatic reading of the third act of George Bernard Shaw's Man and Superman. This is the act popularly known as Don Juan in Hell. In 1952, he won Broadway's 1951 Special Tony Award for Don Juan in Hell. It was directed by actor Charles Laughton. Laughton co-starred as the Devil, with Cedric Hardwicke as the statue of the military commander slain by Don Juan, and Agnes Moorehead as Dona Anna, the commander's daughter, one of Juan's former conquests. The production was a critical success, and was subsequently recorded complete by Columbia Masterworks, one of the first complete recordings of a non-musical stage production ever made. As of 2006, however, it has never been released on CD, but in 2009 it became available as an MP3 download.[11] Boyer co-starred again with Claudette Colbert in the Broadway comedy The Marriage-Go-Round (1958–1960), but said to the producer, "Keep that woman away from me".[12] He was also nominated for the Tony Award as Best Actor (Dramatic) in the 1963 Broadway production of Lord Pengo. Later the same year Boyer performed in Man and Boy on the London and New York stage.[13]
Later career
Onscreen, he continued in older roles: in Fanny (1961) starring Leslie Caron; Barefoot in the Park (1967) with Robert Redford and Jane Fonda; and the French film Stavisky (1974, starring Jean-Paul Belmondo), the latter winning him the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actor,[1] and also received the Special Tribute at Cannes Film Festival.[14]
Another notable TV series, The Rogues, starred Boyer with David Niven and Gig Young; the show lasted through the 1964–1965 season.
His career lasted longer than other romantic actors, winning him the nickname "the last of the cinema's great lovers."[8] He recorded a very dark album called Where Does Love Go? in 1966. The album consisted of famous love songs sung (or rather spoken) with Boyer's distinctive deep voice and French accent. The record was reportedly Elvis Presley's favorite album for the last 11 years of his life, the one he most listened to.[15]
His last major film role was that of the High Lama in a poorly received musical version of Lost Horizon (1973), although he also had a notable part as a corrupt city official in the 1969 film version of The Madwoman of Chaillot, featuring Katharine Hepburn. Later in life, he turned to character parts in such films as: Around the World in 80 Days (1956), How to Steal a Million (1966, featuring Audrey Hepburn), Is Paris Burning? (1966), and Casino Royale (1967).
For his contribution to the motion picture and television industries, Boyer has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6300 Hollywood Blvd.
Personal life
In addition to French and English, Boyer spoke Italian, German, and Spanish.[2][16] His only marriage was to British actress Pat Paterson, whom he met at a dinner party in 1934. The two became engaged after two weeks of courtship and were married three months later.[7] Later, they would move from Hollywood to Paradise Valley, Arizona.[17] The marriage lasted 44 years.
In Hollywood, he also was one of the few close friends of the great French actor/singer Maurice Chevalier. He became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1942.[18][19]
On 26 August 1978, two days after his wife died from cancer, and two days before his own 79th birthday, Boyer committed suicide with an overdose of Seconal while at a friend's home in Scottsdale. He was taken to the hospital in Phoenix, where he died.[17] He was interred in Holy Cross Cemetery, Culver City, California, alongside his wife and son Michael Charles Boyer (1943-1965). Michael had committed suicide after breaking up with his girlfriend.[20]
Filmography
L'Homme du large (1920)
Chantelouve (1921)
Le Grillon du foyer (1922)
Esclave (1922)
Infernal Circle (1928)
La Barcarolle d'amour (1929)
Captain Fracasse (1929)
Le Procès de Mary Dugan (1930)
Revolt in the Prison (1931)
The Magnificent Lie (1931)
Tumultes (1932)
The Man from Yesterday (1932)
Red-Headed Woman (1932)
La Bataille (1933)
L'Épervier (1933)
The Empress and I (1933, voice)
F.P.1 Doesn't Answer (1933)
Moi et l'impératrice (1933)
Liliom (1934)
The Battle (1934)
The Only Girl (1934)
Caravan (1934)
Caravane (1934)
Le Bonheur (1934)
Private Worlds (1935)
Break of Hearts (1935)
Shanghai (1935)
I Loved a Soldier (1936, Unfinished film)
Mayerling (1936)
The Garden of Allah (1936)
History Is Made at Night (1937)
Conquest (1937)
Tovarich (1937)
Orage (1938)
Algiers (1938)
Le Corsaire (1939)
Love Affair (1939)
When Tomorrow Comes (1939)
All This, and Heaven Too (1940)
Back Street (1941)
Hold Back the Dawn (1941)
Appointment for Love (1941)
Tales of Manhattan (1942)
The Heart of a Nation (1943, US version only)
The Constant Nymph (1943)
Flesh and Fantasy (1943, Third segment)
Gaslight (1944)
Together Again (1944)
The Fighting Lady (1944, French version only) Narrator
Confidential Agent (1945)
The Battle of the Rails (1946)
Cluny Brown (1946)
A Woman's Vengeance (1948)
Arch of Triumph (1948)
The 13th Letter (1951)
The First Legion (1951)
The Happy Time (1952)
Thunder in the East (1952)
The Earrings of Madame de... (1953)
Boum sur Paris (1953)
The Cobweb (1955)
Nana (1955)
Lucky to Be a Woman (1956)
Around the World in 80 Days (1956)
Paris, Palace Hotel (1956)
It Happened on the 36 Candles (1957) (uncredited)
La Parisienne (1957)
Maxime (1958)
The Buccaneer (1958)
Fanny (1961)
Midnight Folly (1961)
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1962)
Adorable Julia (1962)
Love Is a Ball (1963)
A Very Special Favor (1965)
How to Steal a Million (1966)
Is Paris Burning? (1966)
Casino Royale (1967)
Barefoot in the Park (1967)
Hot Line (1968)
The April Fools (1969)
The Madwoman of Chaillot (1969)
Lost Horizon (1973)
Stavisky (1974)
A Matter of Time (1976)
Television
Four Star Playhouse (29 episodes, 1952–1956)
Charles Boyer Theater (1953)
The Jackie Gleason Show (1 episode, 1953)
Toast of the Town (2 episodes, 1953)
I Love Lucy episode: Lucy Meets Charles Boyer (1956)
Climax! (1 episode, 1956)
Hallmark Hall of Fame (1 episode, 1957)
Playhouse 90 (1 episode, 1957)
A Private Little Party for a Few Chums (1957)
Goodyear Theatre (unknown episodes, 1957–1958)
Alcoa Theatre (3 episodes, 1957–1958)
What's My Line? (4 episodes, 1957–1958, 1962–1963)
The Dinah Shore Chevy Show (1 episode, 1960)
The Dick Powell Show (4 episodes, 1962–1963)
A Golden Prison: The Louvre (1964, presenter)
The Rogues (8 episodes, 1964–1965)
The Bell Telephone Hour (1 episode, 1966)
The Name of the Game (1 episode, 1969)
Film '72 (1 episode, 1976)
Short subjects
The Candid Camera Story (Very Candid) of the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures 1937 Convention (1937) (uncredited)
Hollywood Goes to Town (1938)
Les îles de la liberté (1943) Narrator
Congo (1945) Voice
On Stage! (1949)
1955 Motion Picture Theatre Celebration (1955) (uncredited)
References
1.^ TCM Film Guide, p. 29.
2.^ Swindell, Larry (1983). Charles Boyer: The Reluctant Lover. Doubleday.
3.^ "Charles Boyer - Biography". Classic Movie Favorites. http://www.classicmoviefavorites.com/boyer/bio.html. Retrieved 2008-09-24.
4.^ "Charles Boyer". All-Movie Guide. http://www.allmovie.com/artist/charles-boyer-7830. Retrieved 2009-06-21.
5.^ Erickson, Hal. "Caravan". All-Movie Guide. http://www.allmovie.com/cg/avg.dll?p=avg&sql=1:86670. Retrieved 2009-06-21.
6.^ Boller, Jr., Paul F.; George, John (1989). They Never Said It: A Book of Fake Quotes, Misquotes, and Misleading Attributions. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-505541-1.
7.^ TCM Film Guide, p. 31.
8.^ "Charles Boyer". TCM Movie Database. http://www.tcmdb.com/participant.jsp?participantId=20494. Retrieved 2009-06-21.
9.^ "Lux Radio Theatre Log". Audio Classics Archive. http://www.audio-classics.com/lluxradio.html. Retrieved 19 May 2010.
10.^ "HALLMARK HALL OF FAME: THERE SHALL BE NO NIGHT, ACT 1 (TV)". The Paley Center for Media. http://www.paleycenter.org/collection/item/?q=Katharine+Cornell&f=people&c=tv&advanced=1&p=1&item=T78:0158. Retrieved 18 May 2010.
11.^ "Don Juan in Hell by George Bernard Shaw". Amazon.com. Saland Publishing. April 28, 2009. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0029BFWWE/ref=dm_sp_alb.
12.^ Dick, Bernard F. (2008). Claudette Colbert: She Walked in Beauty. University Press of Mississippi.
13.^ "Man & Boy". The Actors Company Theatre. http://www.tactnyc.org/salon_show.php?sid=11&id=88. Retrieved 19 May 2010.
14.^ "Charles Boyer Awards". Hollywood.com. http://www.hollywood.com/celebrity/199810/Charles_Boyer_Awards. Retrieved 2008-09-24.
15.^ "Clambake - United Artists 1967". For Elvis Fans Only. EPE. http://www.irishelvisfanclub.com/Clambake.htm. Retrieved 2008-09-24.
16.^ Wilson, Paul F.. "Charles Boyer (1899 - 1978)". Find A Grave. http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=122. Retrieved 2009-06-21.
17.^ "Celebrity Sightings - B". Bankruptcy & Debt Information from Doney & Associates. http://www.doney.net/aroundaz/celebrity/celebrity_b.htm. Retrieved 2008-09-24.
18.^ "Charles Boyer". Classic Movie Stars. http://www.angelfire.com/ri2/rebeccastjames/boyer.html. Retrieved 2008-09-24.
19.^ British Film Institute (1995). Ginette Vincendeau. ed. Encyclopedia of European Cinema (Cassell Film Studies). London: Continuum International Publishing Group (formerly Cassell Academic).
20.^ "Charles Boyer Biography". The Ravin' Maven of Classic Film. http://themave.com/Boyer/bio/bio3.html. Retrieved 6 April 2010.
Bibliography
TCM Film Guide (2006). The 50 Most Unforgettable Actors of the Studio Era: Leading Men. San Francisco, California: Chronicle Books.
Swindell, Larry (1983). Charles Boyer. The Reluctant Lover. Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc.. ISBN 0-385-17052-1.
Stanley Newcomb "Stan" Kenton (December 15, 1911 – August 25, 1979) was a pianist, composer, and arranger who led an innovative, influential, and often controversial American jazz orchestra. In later years he was active as an educator. He had a skull fracture from a fall in 1977 while on tour in Reading, PA. He entered Midway Hospital on August 17, 1979 after a stroke and later died.
His ashes are scattered in the rose garden at Westwood Village Cemetery accompanied by a plaque.
Truman Capote (September 30, 1924 – August 25, 1984) was an American author, many of whose short stories, novels, plays and nonfiction are recognized literary classics, including the novella Breakfast at Tiffany's (1958) and In Cold Blood (1965), which he labeled a "nonfiction novel." At least 20 films and television dramas have been produced from Capote novels, stories and screenplays.
Capote rose above a childhood troubled by divorce, a long absence from his mother and multiple migrations. He discovered his calling by the age of eleven, and for the rest of his childhood he honed his writing ability. Capote began his professional career writing short stories. The critical success of one story, "Miriam" (1945), attracted the attention of Random House publisher Bennett Cerf, resulting in a contract to write Other Voices, Other Rooms (1948). Capote earned the most fame with In Cold Blood (1965), a journalistic work about the murder of a Kansas farm family in their home, a book Capote spent four years writing. A milestone in popular culture, it was the peak of his career, although it was not his final book. In the 1970s, he maintained his celebrity status by appearing on television talk shows.
Friendship with Harper Lee
Capote and his Monroeville neighbor, Harper Lee, remained lifelong friends. He based the character of Idabel in Other Voices, Other Rooms on her, and was in turn the inspiration for the character Dill in Lee's 1960 bestselling, Pulitzer prize-winning novel To Kill a Mockingbird. Capote once acknowledged this: "Mr. and Mrs. Lee, Harper Lee's mother and father, lived very near. Harper Lee was my best friend. Did you ever read her book, To Kill a Mockingbird? I'm a character in that book, which takes place in the same small town in Alabama where we lived. Her father was a lawyer and she and I used to go to trials all the time as children. We went to the trials instead of going to the movies." Like Capote, Dill is creative, bold, and suffers from an unsatisfactory family history. Later, Lee was his crucial partner in doing the investigations for In Cold Blood.
Celebrity
Capote was 5 feet 3 inches (160 cm) tall and openly homosexual. One of his first serious lovers was Smith College literature professor Newton Arvin, who won the National Book Award for his Herman Melville biography in 1951. It was to Arvin that Capote dedicated Other Voices, Other Rooms.
Capote was well known for his distinctive, high-pitched voice and odd vocal mannerisms, his offbeat manner of dress and his fabrications. He often claimed to intimately know people he had in fact never met, such as Greta Garbo. He professed to have had numerous liaisons with men thought to be heterosexual, including, he claimed, Errol Flynn. He traveled in an eclectic array of social circles, hobnobbing with authors, critics, business tycoons, philanthropists, Hollywood and theatrical celebrities, royalty, and members of high society, both in the U.S. and abroad. Part of his public persona was a longstanding rivalry with writer Gore Vidal. Their rivalry prompted Tennessee Williams to complain: "You would think they were running neck-and-neck for some fabulous gold prize." Apart from his favorite authors (Willa Cather, Isak Dinesen, Marcel Proust), Capote had faint praise for other writers. However, one who did get his favorable endorsement was journalist Lacey Fosburgh, author of Closing Time: The True Story of the Goodbar Murder (1977). He also claimed an admiration for Andy Warhol's The Philosophy of Andy Warhol: From A to B and Back Again.
Last years
In the late 1970s, Capote was in and out of rehab clinics, and news of his various breakdowns frequently reached the public. In 1978, talk show host Stanley Siegal did a live on-air interview with Capote, who, in an extraordinarily intoxicated state, confessed that he might kill himself. One year later, when he felt betrayed by Lee Radziwill in a feud with perpetual nemesis Gore Vidal, Capote arranged a return visit to Stanley Siegal's show, this time to deliver a bizarrely comic performance revealing salacious personal details about Radziwill and her sister, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.
Warhol, who often partied with Capote at Studio 54, agreed to paint Capote's portrait as "a personal gift" in exchange for Capote contributing short pieces to Warhol's Interview magazine every month for a year. Initially the pieces were to consist of tape-recorded conversations, but soon Capote dispensed with the tape recorder and chose instead to craft "conversational portraits." The bestselling Music for Chameleons was published in 1980. Capote underwent a facelift, lost weight and experimented with hair transplants. Nevertheless, Capote was unable to overcome his reliance upon drugs and liquor and had grown bored with New York by the turn of the 1980s.
After the revocation of his driver's license (the result of speeding near his Long Island residence) and a hallucinatory seizure in 1980 that required hospitalization, Capote became fairly reclusive. These hallucinations continued unabated and scans revealed that his brain mass had perceptibly shrunk. On the rare occasions when he was lucid, he continued to hype Answered Prayers as being nearly complete and was reportedly planning a reprise of the Black and White Ball to be held either in Los Angeles or a more exotic locale in South America. On a few occasions, he was still able to write. In 1982, a new short story, "One Christmas," appeared in the December issue of Ladies' Home Journal and the following year it became, like its predecessors "A Christmas Memory" and "The Thanksgiving Visitor," a holiday gift book. In 1983, "Remembering Tennessee," an essay in tribute to Tennessee Williams, who had died in February of that year, appeared in Playboy magazine.
Capote died in Los Angeles, California, on August 25, 1984, aged 59.[26] According to the coroner's report the cause of death was "liver disease complicated by phlebitis and multiple drug intoxication".[27] He died at the home of his old friend Joanne Carson, ex-wife of late-night TV host Johnny Carson, on whose program Capote had been a frequent guest. He was interred in the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles, leaving behind his longtime companion, author Jack Dunphy. Dunphy died in 1992, and in 1994 both his and Capote's ashes were scattered at Crooked Pond, between Bridgehampton, New York and Sag Harbor, New York on Long Island, close to where the two had maintained a property with individual houses for many years. Capote also maintained the property in Palm Springs, a condominium in Switzerland that was mostly occupied by Dunphy seasonally, and a primary residence at the United Nations Plaza in New York City. Capote's will provided that after Dunphy's death a literary trust would be established, sustained by revenues from Capote's works, to fund various literary prizes and grants including the Truman Capote Award for Literary Criticism in Memory of Newton Arvin, commemorating not only Capote but also his friend Newton Arvin, the Smith College professor and critic, who lost his job after his homosexuality was exposed.[28]
After his death, fellow writer Gore Vidal described Capote's demise as "a good career move."
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