Madge Kennedy: Pioneer Actress.

Madge Kennedy: Pioneer Actress.It is virtually unique to encounter an actress who had not only been a silent star, but an equally prominent performer on the Broadway stage, but Madge Kennedy was such an actress.




Although born in Chicago, on April 19, 1891, Madge and her family moved to California and then to New York, where the actress began her professional stage career in 1910. When Samuel Goldwyn formed his own production company in 1917, Madge was the third star he signed, following Mabel Normand and Mae Marsh. Between 1917 and 1920, Madge starred in 21 five-reel features for Goldwyn, beginning with “Baby Mine.” When Madge’s contract with Goldwyn expired in 1921 after her last films, “The Girl with a Jazz Heart,” “The Highest Bidder,” and “Oh Mary Be Careful,” she decided to return to the stage. Madge’s return to stage was in “Cornered” (1920), and although she was to make six independent feature films between 1923 and 1926, she primarily devoted her energy to theatrical work. “Poppy” with W.C. Fields, which opened at New York’s Apollo Theatre on September 3, 1923, is the most famous of those stage productions.

With her first husband Harold Bolster, a former Goldwyn executive who died in 1927, Madge formed an independent film production company, Kenma Corporation. Madge produced and starred in “The Purple Highway” (1923) and “Three Miles Out” (1924), both relatively unsuccessful.

In the 1930’s, Madge’s career began to falter. She made her last Broadway appearance in “Bridal Wise” (1932). That might have been the end of Madge’s career had it not been for three fans, Ruth Gordon, Garson Kanin, and George Cukor. In the summer of 1951, the trio was involved in pre-production of “The Marrying Kind,” which the Kanins had scripted and George Cukor was to direct. Judy Holliday and Aldo Ray had been cast in the starring roles, but the three were looking for someone to play Judge Carroll, in whose divorce court Holliday and Ray would air their marital differences. “The Marrying Kind” was followed by fourteen film roles including “Lust for Life” (1956), “North by Northwest” (1959) and “They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?” (1969).

Madge’s later years weren’t easy and she relied upon a pension from the Actor’s Fund to pay the bills. Madge died on June 9, 1987. She was 96 years old.

Silent Film Actress: Maude Fealy.

Maude Fealy (March 4, 1883 – November 9, 1971), was stage and film actress who performed in nearly every film made by Cecil B. DeMille in the post silent film era.

Maude Fealy, is the daughter of actress and acting coach, Margaret Fealy. Her mother remarried to Rafaello Cavallo, the first conductor of the Pueblo, Colorado Symphony Orchestra. At the age of three, she performed on stage with her mother and went on to make her Broadway debut in the 1900 production of Quo Vadis, again with her mother.

Fealy toured England with William Gillette in, Sherlock Holmes from 1901 to 1902. Between 1902 and 1905, she frequently toured with Sir Henry Irving's company in the United Kingdom and by 1907 was the star in touring productions in the United States.

Maude Fealy performed in her first silent film in 1911 for Thanhouser Studios, making another eighteen between then and 1917, after which she did not perform in film for another fourteen years. During the summers of 1912 and 1913, she starred with the Fealy-Durkin Company that put on performances at the Casino Theatre in Denver and the following year began touring the U.S.

She co-wrote The Red Cap with Grant Stewart, a New York playwright and performer, which ran at the National Theatre in Chicago. Though she was not in the cast of that production, the plays plot revolves around the invention of a wheeled luggage carrier invented by Fealy. Other plays authored or co-authored by Fealy include: At Midnight and The Promise.

Fealy taught acting with her mother, under names, Maude Fealy Studio of Speech, Fealy School of Stage and Screen Acting, Fealy School of Dramatic Expression. By the 1930s, she was living in Los Angeles where she became involved in the Federal Theatre Project and at age 50 returned to secondary roles in film, including an uncredited appearance in, The Ten Commandments.

Silent Film Star: Alla Nazimova.

Alla Nazimova (May 22 1879 – 13 July 1945), was a Russian/American theater and film actress, screenwriter, and producer. She is perhaps best known as simply Nazimova, but also went under the name Alia Nasimoff. Nazimova has been portrayed in film three times. The first two were biographical films about Rudolph Valentino: 1975's The Legend of Valentino, in which she was portrayed by Alicia Bond; and 1977's Valentino, in which she was portrayed by Leslie Caron. The most recent film portrayal was in Return to Babylon of 2004, a film about Hollywood's silent movie era, in which Laura Harring played Nazimova. The character of Nazimova appears also in Dominick Argento's opera Dream of Valentino in which she plays the violin.

Sient film Star: Margaret Livingston

Margaret Livingston (November 25, 1900 – December 13, 1985). Best known for her work during the silent film era. Her older sister Ivy also became a film actress.

She made over 50 films during the "silent era", and a further 20 films after she made the transition to sound film. One of her most notable performances was in F.W. Murnau's Sunrise (1927).

Silent Film Star: Janet Gaynor.

Janet Gaynor (October 6, 1906 – September 14, 1984) was one of the most popular actresses of the silent film era. Gaynor became the first winner of the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performances in three films, the first: Seventh Heaven (1927). A Romance silent film and one of the first films to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture. The film was written by H.H. Caldwell, Benjamin Glazer, Katherine Hilliker and Austin Strong and directed by Frank Borzage. Cast: Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell.

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Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927). A silent film directed by German film director F. W. Murnau. The story was adapted by Carl Mayer from the short story Die Reise nach Tilsit by Hermann Sudermann.

Sunrise won an Academy Award for Unique and Artistic Production at the first ever Academy Awards ceremony in 1929. In 1937, Sunrise's original negative was destroyed in a fire. A new negative was created from a surviving print.

Much of the exterior shooting was done at Lake Arrowhead, California.

Please click here to view Silents movie review: Sunrise song of two Humans.

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Street Angel (1928). A silent film about a young woman who finds herself on the streets before joining a traveling carnival, where she meets a vagabond painter. Directed by Frank Borzage. This was the only time which an actress has won for multiple roles.



Her career continued and she performed in the original version of, A Star Is Born (1937). A romantic/drama. Directed by William A. Wellman. Cast: Janet Gaynor Fredric March, Adolphe Menjou, May Robson, Andy Devine, Lionel Stander and Carole Landis.

Silent Film Star: Gertrude Olmstead .

Gertrude Olmstead (November 13, 1897 – January 18, 1975). Appeared in 56 films between 1920 and 1929. Her first credited film role was in the film, The Fox(1921). Today her best known role is, opposite Rudolph Valentino in the film, Cobra(1925). Valentino plays Count Rodrigo Torriani, an Italian noble, who  has a weakness for women. The production of Cobra was troubled by production costs. Also, Paramont Pictures , was unhappy with the final film and believing it would flop, held off releasing it until Valentino appeared in a more successful picture. When the film, Cobra was released in late 1925, it proved to be Valentino's comeback feature. Video: 1 of 8.



After sound films became popular her career faded and she retired from acting in 1929. In 1926, she met MGM director Robert Z. Leonard, and they were married June 8 of that year. Leonard and Olmstead remained married until his death in 1968.

Filmography:

Tipped Off (1920)
The Driftin' Kid (1921)
Sweet Revenge (1921)
Kickaroo (1921)
The Fightin' Fury (1921)
Out o' Luck (1921)
The Fox (1921)
The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1922)
The Loaded Door (1922)
Cameo Kirby (1923)
The Monster (1925)
Cobra (1925)
The Boob (1926)
Becky (1927)
Torrent (1926)
The Show of Shows (1929)
Sonny Boy (1929)

Silent Film Star: Patsy Ruth Miller.

Patsy Ruth Miller (January 17, 1904 – July 16, 1995). After being discovered by the actress Alla Nazimova at a Hollywood party, Patsy Ruth Miller got her first break with a small role in Camille, which starred Rudolph Valentino.Please click here for past articles on Patsy Ruth Miller.

Camille(1921). Silent film starring Rudolph Valentino and Alla Nazimova. It is one of numerous screen adaptations of La Dame aux Camélias by Alexandre Dumas, fils. The original play opened in Paris in 1852. The first Broadway production of the play opened on 9 December 1853. There have been 15 Broadway revivals of the popular play, the last in 1935.
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Silent Film Star: Leatrice Joy

Leatrice Joy (November 7, 1893 – May 13, 1985). Actress best known for her work during the early silent film era. Katharine Hepburn, said it was Leatrices performance in, Manslaughter (1922) that had inspired her to become an actress.

Leatrice Joy Filmography:
Love Nest (1951)
Strong Boy (1929)
Triumph (1924)
The Ten Commandments (1923)
Hollywood (1923) cameo
Manslaughter (1922)
Saturday Night (1922)
The Ace of Hearts (1921)
The Handy Man (1918)
The Messenger (1918)
The Scholar (1918)
The Orderly (1918)
His Day Out (1918)
The Stranger (1918)
The Slave (1917)
The Candy Kid (1917)
The Other Man (1916)

Silent Film Star: Gloria Swanson.

Silent Film Star: Wallace Beery.

Wallace Fitzgerald Beery (April 1, 1885 – April 15, 1949), performed in 250 movies over a 36-year span.

He was a younger brother of actor/film executive William Beery and actor Noah Beery, who also had long careers in the motion picture industry. He was an uncle of actor, Noah Beery, Jr.

At the age of 16 Wallace Beery ran away from home and joined the Ringling Brothers Circus, as an assistant elephant trainer. He left two years later, after being clawed by a leopard. Beery found work in New York City in comic opera as a baritone and began to appear on Broadway. In 1913, he moved to Chicago to work for Essanay Studios, cast as Sweedie, The Swedish Maid, a character in drag. Later, he worked for the Essanay Studios.

In 1915, Beery starred with his wife Gloria Swanson in, Sweedie Goes to College. This marriage did not survive his drinking . Beery began playing villains, and portrayed Pancho Villa in Patria(1917), at a time when Villa was still active in Mexico. Beery reprised the role seventeen years later in one of MGM's biggest hits.

Wallace Beery's best known silent films: The Lost World (1925), Robin Hood with Douglas Fairbanks, Last of the Mohicans (1920), The Round-Up (1920), Old Ironsides (1926), Now We're in the Air (1927), The Usual Way (1913), Casey at the Bat (1927), and Beggars of Life (1928) with Louise Brooks.

Transition to sound

Irving Thalberg hired him under contract to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer as a character actor. Beery appeared in, The Big House(1930), for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor. The same year, he made, Min and Bill. He followed with, The Champ(1931), this time winning the Best Actor Oscar, and the role of Long John Silver in, Treasure Island (1934). The story is about,Robert Louis Stevenson’s famous 1883 novel Treasure Island. Jim Hawkins (Jackie Cooper) discovers a treasure map and travels on a sailing ship to a remote island, but pirates led by Long John Silver (Wallace Beery) threaten to take away the honest seafarers’ riches and lives.

 He received a gold medal from the Venice Film Festival for his second performance as Pancho Villa in Viva Villa! (1934) with Fay Wray.

Other Beery films: Billy the Kid (1930), The Secret Six (1931) with Jean Harlow and Clark Gable, Hell Divers (1931) with Gable, Grand Hotel (1932) with Joan Crawford, Tugboat Annie (1933) with Dressler, Dinner at Eight (1933) opposite Harlow, The Bowery with George Raft and Pert Kelton that same year, China Seas (1935) with Gable and Harlow, and Eugene O'Neill's Ah, Wilderness! (1935).

He starred in several comedies with Marie Dressler and Marjorie Main, but his career began to decline in his last decade. In 1943 his brother Noah Beery appeared with him in the war-time film, Salute to the Marines, followed by Bad Bascomb (1946) and The Mighty McGurk (1947).

Fun Facts:

Beery's first wife was actress Gloria Swanson; the two performed onscreen together. Beery's second wife was Rita Gilman. They adopted Carol Ann, daughter of Rita Beery's cousin. Like his first, this marriage also ended in divorce.

Beery owned and flew his own planes, one a Howard DGA-11. On April 15, 1933 he was commissioned a lieutenant commander in A-V(S), USNR at NRAB Long Beach.

Other Wallace Beery films I have seen:
The Champ
Treasure Island (1934)
A Date With Judy (1948)

Silent Film Star: Viola Dana.

Please click here to read more about silent film actress Viola Dana.

A Trap for Santa” (1909)

Silent Film Star: Anna Q. Nilsson.

In 1907, she was named "Most beautiful woman in America". Nilsson's modeling helped her get a role in the 1911 film Molly Pitcher. Anna's best known films are: Seven Keys to Baldpate (1917), Soldiers of Fortune (1919), The Toll Gate and The Luck of the Irish (both 1920), and The Lotus Eater (1921).

Silent Film Star: Claire Windsor.

Video: Enoch Arden” (1911)

Enoch Arden (1911, Biograph)

“Enoch Arden” (1911) is one of the best Biograph shorts under the direction of D.W. Griffith, an American pioneer film maker. Thirty- three minutes in length, this film is also the first Biograph two-reeler. Based on a poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson, “Enoch Arden” (1911) was released as two parts even though many theatres showed it as one. The story begins in an 18^th century fishing village where a fisherman, Enoch Arden, played by Wilfred Lucas, is pursuing a girl, Annie Lee, played by Linda Arvidson. A wealthy man, Philip Ray, played by Francis J. Grandon, is also pursuing Annie. Enoch wins the girl and marries her. After a few years, the couple have two children. When Enoch cannot afford to pay the bills, he decides to go to sea on a fishing vessel for an extended voyage over Annie’s objections. Unfortunately, Enoch is shipwrecked and swims to a deserted island. Many years pass and Annie is still hopeful that Enoch will return. Through the years, Annie’s friend, Philip Ray, has asked her to marry him, but she always refused. After her two children, played by Florence LaBadie and Robert Harron, are teenagers, Annie agrees to marry Philip and they have a child. A short time later, Enoch is rescued and returns to the village.

“Enoch Arden” (1911) was really an important breakthrough in filmmaking. Griffith certainly was beginning to develop the emotional impact of his camera work. Around this time he had been experimenting with the close-up to clarify an action or object. I loved the scene in which Annie gives Enoch the baby’s curls and the camera moved closer to the actors to make the audience involved in this touching moment. The scene in which Annie screams in terror at the moment when her husband is shipwrecked far away is a fine example of cross-cutting. What made Biograph films different from the rest were the innovative techniques Griffith introduced into pictures. Griffith raised motion picture acting to a higher level which won for it recognition as a genuine art form.

One of the most beautiful and talented actresses of her era, Florence LaBadie was an enormously popular star. Born in Manhattan on April 27, 1888, Florence grew up to become the ideal Gibson Girl: healthy, sporty, and cheerful. In 1908, when Florence and her parents were living in New York’s Upper West Side, she began her acting career touring in stock. Florence worked also as an artist’s model and magazine cover girl. Fellow actress Mary Pickford introduced Florence to Biograph’s D.W. Griffith in the summer of 1909, where she picked up several bit parts. Griffith rarely gave Florence featured roles, and she found herself in competition with Mary Pickford, Florence Lawrence, and Blanche Sweet. Among her noticeable roles was as Robert Harron’s sister in the two-reel “Enoch Arden” (1911). By the summer of 1911, Florence decided it was time to look around at more nurturing studios. After spotting Florence in one of her bit parts at Biograph, Edwin Thanhouser got in touch with her and asked her to join the three-year-old Thanhouser Film Corporation in New Rochelle, New York. Thanhouser was known for filmed versions of classics as well as popular fare. Its stars included James Cruze, Mignon Anderson, and Irving Cummings. They even had their own dog star, Shep. Charles Hite, acting on behalf of an investment group, bought the studio from Edwin Thanhouser in 1912, and its fortunes continued to skyrocket. Florence appeared in an impressive 45 films in 1912 and another 38 in 1913. Early in 1914, Florence was given the leading role in the twenty-two-part “The Million Dollar Mystery,” cementing her position as her studio’s top female star. Although no stars did their own stunts, Florence did as many as Charles Hite would allow her. Florence made another 22 films in 1915. She continued to be a risk taker and a daredevil. She occasionally rode a motorcycle to the studio, and she took aviation lessons on Long Island. On August 22, 1914, Charles Hite, only 39 years old, died in a car accident, shattering Florence and the other Thanhouserites. Edwin Thanhouser resumed ownership of the studio. Hite’s death put the studio on a slow decline, and it began releasing films via Pathe. Many stars left the studio, but Florence stayed put. In April 1916, Florence signed a new star contract, and that June, Edwin Thanhouser rewarded her loyalty with a new car. Florence made only 13 films in 1916 and 1917, as Thanhouser began to wind down its operations. On August 28, 1917, Florence and her boyfriend, Daniel Carson Goodman, were injured in acar accident outside Ossining (about 30 miles north of Manhattan). Goodman survived the wreck. Florence lingered painfully in the hospital for two months before succumbing to internal injuries on October 13, 1917. Another victim was Thanhouser. Less than a year after Florence LaBadie’s death, Edwin Thanhouser sold the studio, and it ceased production.

Video Silent Film: The Painted Lady (1912)

The Painted Lady (1912). Short drama film directed by D. W. Griffith and starring Blanche Sweet.

Cast:
Blanche Sweet
Madge Kirby
Charles Hill Mailes
Kate Bruce
Joseph Graybill
William J. Butler
Lionel Barrymore
Elmer Booth
Christy Cabanne
Harry Carey
Josephine Crowell
Gladys Egan
Dorothy Gish
Lillian Gish
Charles Gorman
Robert Harron
W. E. Lawrence
Walter P. Lewis
Walter Long
Walter Miller
Jack Pickford