BORN ON THIS DAY: DOROTHY GISH

One of the true silent icons celebrates a birthday today March 11th. On this day silent film actress Dorothy Gish was born in 1898. Gish was born in Dayton, Ohio. She had an older sister, Lillian. The Gish sisters' mother, Mary Robinson McConnell "Gish", supported the family after her husband, James Leigh Gish, abandoned the family. When they were old enough, Dorothy and Lillian were brought into their mother's act, and they also modeled. In 1912, their childhood friend, actress Mary Pickford, introduced them to director D.W. Griffith, and the sisters began acting at the Biograph Studios. Dorothy and Lillian Gish both debuted in Griffith's An Unseen Enemy. Dorothy would go on to star in over 100 short films and features, many of them with Lillian.

In Hearts of the World (1918), a film about World War I and the devastation of France, Dorothy found her first foothold, striking a personal hit in a comedy role that captured the essence of her sense of humor. As the “little disturber”, a street singer, her performance was the comic highlight of the film, and her characterization in this role catapulted her into a career as a star of comedy films.

Griffith did not use Dorothy in any of his earliest epics, but while he spent months working on The Birth of a Nation and Intolerance, Dorothy was featured in many feature-length films made under the banner of Triangle and Mutual releases. They were directed by young Griffith protégés such as Donald Crisp, James Kirkwood, and Christy Cabanne. Elmer Clifton directed a series of seven Paramount-Artcraft comedies with Dorothy that were so successful and popular that the tremendous revenue they raked in helped to pay the cost of Griffith’s expensive epics. These films were wildly popular with the public and the critics. She specialised in pantomime and light comedy, while her sister appeared in tragic roles. Dorothy became famous in this long series of Griffith-supervised films for the Triangle-Fine Arts and Paramount companies from 1918 through 1920, comedies that put her in the front ranks of film comediennes. Almost all of these films are now considered to be lost films.

When the film industry converted to talking pictures, Dorothy made one, Wolves (1930), but then chose to take a respite from film work and return to the American stage where she had spent her childhood. George Cukor directed her in Young Love, and the light comedy found success with New York audiences as well as those on the road. A London production followed with equal success.

Television in the 1950s offered many actors the opportunity to appear in plays broadcast live. Dorothy ventured into the new medium, appearing on NBC’s Lux Video Theatre on the night of November 24, 1955, in a production of Miss Susie Slagle’s. The play had been a film in 1945 with her sister, Lillian, made for Paramount Pictures Corporation.

From 1930 until her death, she only appeared in five more movies. Our Hearts Were Young and Gay (1944) was a hit for Paramount. The Magnificent Yankee (1946) presented Dorothy at the Royale Theater. Lillian noted in her pictorial book, Dorothy and Lillian Gish, John Chapman's review of the film: "Miss [Dorothy] Gish and Mr. Calhern give the finest performances I have ever seen them in. She is a delight and a darling."

Director Otto Preminger cast Dorothy in his 1946 film, Centennial Summer, and she was said to have been amused that she and some of the other stars were allowed to sing Jerome Kern’s music. Mae Marsh appeared in the film in one of her many bit parts. The Whistle at Eaton Falls (1951) was a documentary style film produced by Louis de Rochemont. Dorothy played the widow of a mill owner.

She died in 1968 from bronchial pneumonia at the age of 70 at a clinic in Rapallo, Italy where she had been a patient for two years, with sister Lillian at her side. Dorothy Gish was entombed in Saint Bartholomew's Episcopal Church in New York City in the columbarium in the undercroft of the church...

DICK VAN DYKE REMARRIES!

Dick Van Dyke has just become a newlywed after getting hitched to his makeup artist, Arlene Silver.

The 86-year-old Mary Poppins star tells RumorFix.com that he and his 40-year-old significant other tied the knot on Feb. 29. "Kinda on the spur of the moment, we just decided Leap Day would be the best time to do it," says Van Dyke.

The veteran actor met Silver six years ago at the SAG Awards, where, according to Van Dyke, he was "bowled over by her beauty." He hired her as his personal makeup artist and the two became friends. But within the last couple of years, they "fell in love."

This is the second go-around for the song-and-dance man. Van Dyke was previously married to the mother of his four children, Margie Willett, but they eventually divorced. He then lived with Michelle Triola for more than 30 years until her death in 2009.

"I'm not a loner. I have to have a life partner," insists Van Dyke. "I found the perfect one."

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THE LAST DAYS OF BILLIE HOLIDAY

When jazz singer Billie Holiday was first starting out in the 1930s, her phrasing and voice were audio gold. She did not have the great singing voice, but on those jazz 78s of the 1930s, Holiday could express a mood in a few short minutes. Holiday had a very sad life. She was born in 1915, not knowing who her father was and living a childhood where her mother reportedly was a prostitute. By the age of fourteen, Billie herself was a prostitute, and as early as 1930 she and her mom were arrested in a raid.

The 1930s saw Billie at the height of her career. She worked with some greats of jazz like Count Basie, Artie Shaw, and Teddy Wilson. She not only broke color barriers but transended them. Unfortunately, her success was not enough to conquer her past demons. By the 1950s, Holiday's drug abuse, drinking, and relationships with abusive men caused her health to deteriorate. She appeared on the ABC reality series The Comeback Story to discuss attempts to overcome her misfortunes. Her later recordings showed the effects of declining health on her voice, as it grew coarse and no longer projected its former vibrancy.

On March 28, 1957, Holiday married Louis McKay, a Mafia enforcer, who like most of the men in her life was abusive, but he did try to get her off drugs. They were separated at the time of her death, but McKay had plans to start a chain of Billie Holiday vocal studios, à la Arthur Murray dance schools.

Holiday's late recordings on Verve constitute about a third of her commercial recorded legacy and are as popular as her earlier work for the Columbia, Commodore and Decca labels. In later years, her voice became more fragile, but it never lost the edge that had always made it so distinctive.

In early 1959 she found out that she had cirrhosis of the liver. The doctor told her to stop drinking, which she did for a short time, but soon returned to heavy drinking. By May she had lost twenty pounds. Friends Leonard Feather, Joe Glaser, and Allan Morrison tried to get her to check into to a hospital, but she put them off.

On May 31, 1959, Holiday was taken to Metropolitan Hospital in New York suffering from liver and heart disease. She was arrested for drug possession as she lay dying, and her hospital room was raided by authorities. Police officers were stationed at the door to her room. Holiday remained under police guard at the hospital until she died from pulmonary edema and heart failure caused by cirrhosis of the liver on July 17, 1959. In the final years of her life, she had been progressively swindled out of her earnings, and she died with $0.70 in the bank and $750 (a tabloid fee) on her person. Her funeral mass was held at Church of St. Paul the Apostle in New York City.

Gilbert Millstein of The New York Times, who had been the narrator at Billie Holiday's 1956 Carnegie Hall concerts and had partly written the sleeve notes for the album The Essential Billie Holiday described her death in these same 1961-dated sleeve notes:

"Billie Holiday died in the Metropolitan Hospital, New York, on Friday, July 17, 1959, in the bed in which she had been arrested for illegal possession of narcotics a little more than a month before, as she lay mortally ill; in the room from which a police guard had been removed – by court order – only a few hours before her death, which, like her life, was disorderly and pitiful. She had been strikingly beautiful, but she was wasted physically to a small, grotesque caricature of herself. The worms of every kind of excess – drugs were only one – had eaten her ... The likelihood exists that among the last thoughts of this cynical, sentimental, profane, generous and greatly talented woman of 44 was the belief that she was to be arraigned the following morning. She would have been, eventually, although possibly not that quickly. In any case, she removed herself finally from the jurisdiction of any court here below"...

MY FIVE FAVORITE MALE ACTORS

Not suprisingly all of my five favorite actors are from the golden age of Hollywood. I like a lot of the movies made today, but the actors of yesteryear had much more personality and talent. Some of the great actors like Jimmy Stewart and John Wayne did not make my list, but that does not mean I do not like them. I just have my specific favorites:

5. SPENCER TRACY (1900-1967)
I am embarrassed to admit that even though Spencer Tracy made my list, I have not seen a ton of his movies. I have never seen a Tracy-Katherine Hepburn movie all the way through. However, the Tracy movies I have seen like "San Francisco" (1936), "Boy's Town" (1938), and even "It's A Mad,Mad,Mad, Mad World" (1963) show a perfect example of what a geniune acting style he had. Today he is mostly remembered for his movies with Katherine Hepburn, but even his fellow actors said that he was the greatest actor of their generation.

4. CHARLIE CHAPLIN (1889-1977)
People seem to love or hate Charlie Chaplin. I got interested in Chaplin and silent movies in general because of his film biography "Chaplin"(1992) starring Robert Downey Jr.. Even though Chaplin started out in vaudville as a comic, I think every movie he made had a serious message behind it. His masterpiece "City Light"(1931) had a message about class society, "Modern Times"(1936) had a message about the work place and industry, and "The Great Dictator"(1940) had a profound message about the destruction of the world by hate. Of all Chaplin's movies I think "Limelight"(1952) is my favorite. It is his most personal and best example of what a great film maker he was.

3. BING CROSBY (1903-1977)
Anyone that knows me, knows that Bing Crosby is my favorite singer of all-time. After over 30 years collecting his music there are still new items I am discovering. Bing was more than just a crooner though. In his movies he showed a ride range and could have been a great actor. His first real acting movie was in "Pennies From Heaven" (1936) where he played a reformed convict. Bing would go on to be nominated three times in 1944, 1945, and 1954 for an Oscar. He would win in 1944 for his role as Father O'Malley. If you really want to see great Bing Crosby acting, I recommend "The Country Girl" (1954) and the underrated "Man On Fire" (1957). Also, he played a dark doctor in the television movie "Dr. Cook's Garden" (1971).

2. JAMES CAGNEY (1899-1986)
Did James Cagney ever make a bad movie? I would say he probably made a few bad movies, but his acting made any movie worthwhile. From his turn as a gangster in "Public Enemy" (1931) to his return to films in "Ragtime" (1981), Cagney made every movie he was in great. I have a soft spot for his commanding role as gangster Cody Jarrett in "White Heat" (1949), and it is my favorite classic movie of all-time. Cagney should have won an Oscar for that role. Surprisingly he was not even nominated. He did win one for his portrayal of George M. Cohan in "Yankee Doodle Dandy" (1942). Another favorite Cagney role of mine was Marty Snyder, the boyfriend of singer Ruth Etting, in the musical "Love Me Or Leave Me" (1955). The film was a musical but Cagney added the drama that was needed.

1. CARY GRANT (1904-1986)
The biggest blunder that Hollywood ever made was not awarding Cary Grant an Oscar for acting. He started out as Arcibald Leach in England, but he immigrated to California in 1931 and never looked back. His early movies in Hollywood were pretty forgetful, but by 1937 he was making great light comedies like "Topper" and "The Awful Truth". He should have won an Oscar for his role in the tearjerker "Penny Serenade" (1941). In my opinion, he should have at least been nominated for his role in the brillant comedy "Arsenic And Old Lace" (1944). Cary Grant also became one of Alfred Hitchcock's favorite actors and starred in some of the director's best movies like: "Suspicion" (1941), "To Catch A Thief" (1955), and "North By Northwest" (1959) to name just a few. After Grant's only daughter was born in 1966, Grant left movies - never to return...

Who are your favorites....

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD TURNS 50

BY VANCE GARNETT

Harper Lee's 1960 book, which has never been out of print, marked its 50th anniversary in 2010. The motion picture was released to resounding acclamation two years after the book.

I well-remember the debut of "To Kill A Mockingbird." And I still feel privileged to have enjoyed some small involvement in its Washington, D.C. debut.

In 1962, after receiving my discharge papers from the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, I quickly landed my first civilian job as co-manager of the Town Theatre in downtown Washington, D. C. The Town, a first-run movie house, was located in the Masonic Building at New York Avenue and 13th Street Northwest. Since 1987, that building is known as the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

A few months after my being there, the Town Theatre owners learned that this best-selling American novel, which had won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, was in production as a motion picture. The beloved Gregory Peck was playing Atticus Finch, a perfect casting if there ever was one.

In those days, theater owners would bid for first-run rights to a major motion picture, which meant that the film could not be shown at any other area theatre until the first-run was exhausted. In exchange, the theater guaranteed payment of a certain sum of money regardless of the picture's success or failure or length of run.

Town Theatre ownership submitted its bid and patiently waited. Finally, the decision arrived. The Town had won the bid for this highly anticipated motion picture.

A few weeks before the picture's opening, the Town Theatre owners and management sponsored an invitation-only private screening of the film at the Motion Picture Academy of Washington. Guests included political figures, both federal and local as well as movie critics.

To represent the film, Universal Studios sent a young cast member. Although he had delivered impressive performances in television dramas such as “Outer Limits” and “Naked City,” this was his first movie role. When this powerful motion picture ended, many viewers and critics converged on the young actor, praising his performance as the reclusive Arthur “Boo” Radley, and assuring him that he had a bright future in Hollywood. The actor’s name, Robert Duvall.

At that screening, I saw this powerful motion picture for the first time. It was, in a word, riveting. I would see it countless times after that, for it played at the Town Theatre for 16 weeks. Lines would queue up from the front doors on New York Avenue and run west to 13th Street, around the corner to H Street and circle the corner again. The ticket-holders line extended east, from the front doors to the Rocket Room at the corner of 12th Street.

The central figure of the story is, of course, Atticus Finch. Attorney Finch is a wise, principled and courageous man, who dares to defend a black man accused falsely of rape. Finch suffers the indignities of name-calling, rejection, and spit-in-the-face contempt for taking on the case. Through all this, he remains a good neighbor, unwilling to cast execrable judgment upon those who lacked his own insight and sensitivity regarding matters of race.

In addition, the widower is a loving father of son Jem and daughter "Scout." He patiently tries to explain the abuses, injustices, and inequities that the children would witness in their small town community of Maycomb, Alabama.

Gregory Peck had wanted this role of Atticus so much that he originally tried to buy the film rights himself. When Universal offered him the part, he eagerly said, “I’m your boy.”

Harper Lee based the character of Mr. Finch on her own father, Amasa Coleman Lee, a small-town lawyer. The “tomboy” daughter, Scout, she patterned after herself. The friend, Dill, Ms. Lee based on her real-life childhood friend, Truman Capote. The city itself was patterned on the author's own hometown of Monroeville, Alabama.

The oppressive heat of the summertime South, where "men's stiff collars wilted by 9 o'clock in the morning and ladies bathed before noon," could almost be felt by movie audiences. Yet the film was shot entirely in a Uninversal back lot. The courthouse was created to replicate the one in Monroeville.

In Peck's first eloquent summation to the jury, director Robert Mulligan stopped the actor midway through. "Bring it down a little," he cautioned. When action resumed, Peck performed the nine-minute scene in one uninterrupted take after which the mock courtroom, jurors, and crew broke out in applause. The resounding applause was the first of many. Gregory Peck and young Mary Badham, who turned 60 this year, received Oscar nominations for their performances.

The Academy Awards ceremony took place on April 8, 1963, in the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, hosted by Mr. Peck’s long-time friend, Frank Sinatra. While Peck was the sentimental favorite for his portrayal of Atticus Finch, he could not have had more formidable competition than Burt Lancaster for “Birdman of Alcatraz,” Jack Lemmon for “Days of Wine and Roses,” Marcello Mastroianni for “Divorce-Italian Style,” and Peter O’Toole for “Lawrence of Arabia.”

Without question, Peck wanted the prized statue for this performance. He had been nominated four times before and yet had not taken an Oscar home. For good luck, he wore the gold pocket watch and chain, which had belonged to Harper Lee’s late father who died before the movie opened. It was a long evening, but at the end of it, lovely Sophia Loren placed the Oscar for Best Actor in the hands of Gregory Peck.

The film's voice-over narration of the adult Scout was performed, without screen credit, by actress Kim Stanley. Her tone was perfect and seemed an accompaniment to Elmer Bernstein’s splendid soundtrack as she read the tastefully adapted screenplay by Horton Foote. The movie concludes with the narrative voice representing the adult Scout remembering.

"Atticus once said, 'You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view, until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.' Just standing on the Radley porch was enough. The summer that had begun so long ago had ended, and another summer had taken its place....I was to think of these days many times...."

In 2007, the 84-year-old Harper Lee agreed to “think of these days” one more time. She made a significant last journey. First Lady, and former librarian, Laura Bush excitedly welcomed Harper Lee to the White House. George W. Bush presented Ms. Lee with the Presidential Medal of Freedom for her book’s phenomenal contribution to the American culture.

The American Film Institute had named Atticus Finch the number one movie hero of the 20th century. It rated the movie itself second in its "100 Years...100 Cheers" of the most inspirational movies. And it listed the film as #25 of the all-time greatest movies ever made.

Americans are indebted to author Harper Lee and all of the cast, production staff and crew who teamed to create this 50-year-old film classic, “To Kill a Mockingbird.”

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WHY KENNY BAKER QUIT THE JACK BENNY SHOW

On June 18, 1939, singer Kenny Baker appeared on ‘The Jack Benny Program’ and to all the world it sounded like he would be with the rest of the cast the following week broadcasting from Waukegan, Illinois. He never made it.

He never appeared on the Benny show again.

So what happened?

Benny fans have debated for years whether Baker was fired, whether he quit, whether he left on good terms or bad. It took Baker more than five years before he talked about it. And, even then, it seems pieces of the story are missing. Here’s a syndicated news article from 1944, at a time he was on Broadway and had shot a couple of films, including ‘Silver Skates.’

Kenny Baker Tired of Being Just a Jerk
Walks Out of Job Paying Him $150,000 a Year
By Art Cohn

NEW YORK, Nov. 1 (INS)—Kenny Baker was tired of being a jerk, even a $150,000 per year jerk.

The world knew him only as the high-voiced dope on Jack Benny’s program who made such incredibly yappy remarks everyone else on the show sounded like an intellectual by comparison, even Phil Harris. Kenny was the all-American oaf and everyone wanted him to remain that way.

He had become a jerk unconsciously. Most jerks do. He stopped being one intentionally. Most jerks don’t.

“It wasn’t easy walking away from $150,000 a year,” he said last night in his dressing room at the Imperial theatre, “but I realized if I didn’t kill the jerk character it would kill me.”

Kenny had to make his choice: To remain A. Jerk at $3000 a week or to be K. Baker with no offers in sight. It was a big gamble but he took it. He quit Fred Allen’s program more than a year ago and rejected dozens of movie, stage and radio offers—each one wanted him only as a 21-karat Stoopnagle.
“I was doing concerts,” he recalls, “sang with symphonies, went to England and made ‘The Mikado’ but nobody would take me seriously, they thought of me only as a jerk. I couldn't get a straight part to save my soul. That made me mad.”

The fact he has a boyish face and does not look a day over 22, although he is 10 years older, did not help either.

“It’s awfully embarrassing,” he growled. “When I bought a ranch in California last year, the man who sold it to me insisted that my father sign the papers; he didn’t think I was old enough.”

Rather ironical, considering that Baker is, the father of three children—Kenny, Jr., 7; Susan, 4 ½, and Johnny, the 8-month-old baby.
The “jerk,” as he always refers to the character he portrayed on the radio, was an accident.

“Mr. Benny originally hired me only as a soloist,” he says, “after I won a national audition conducted by Eddie Duchin. I was a genuine hayseed when I started on the program. I had lived in Long Beach, California, all my life and had never been on a train, let alone out of the state.

“I was 24, but shaved only once a week. I wore a $22 tuxedo, had the darndest mop of bushy hair and two buck teeth. The first night I stumbled over three chairs and when I was introduced to Mary Livingston I said, ‘How do you do, I am sure.’ It was on the level; that was the way I looked and talked.

“Harry Conn, who was Mr. Benny’s chief script writer at the time, nearly split a gut laughing at me that first night. Then he got together with Mr. Benny and they began giving me hick lines to read...”.

Baker isn’t being altogether forthright when he said “No offers were in sight” when he quit the Benny show. Even if it were true he was under contract to Mervyn LeRoy Productions, as each Benny broadcast reminded listeners, and LeRoy certainly wouldn’t let him sit idle. Not only was he on screens in ‘The Mikado’ in an unjerk-like performance praised by critics, he was also pulling down good cash every Wednesday night as the vocalist on ‘The Texaco Star Theatre,’ starring Ken Murray. In fact, one syndicated newspaper columnist suggested on the day he missed the Benny show in Waukegan that “Texaco would like to have Kenny Baker’s services exclusively.” And that’s exactly what happened. By July 15, newspapers reported Baker’s exclusive contract and that Jack was looking for a new vocalist.

Fans who prefer not to do research have suggested Fred Allen somehow enticed his phoney feuder’s singer away, but Allen didn’t join the ‘Texaco Star Theatre’ until 1940. In a way, Fred joined Kenny’s show.

The article claims Baker quit Allen’s show, but Billboard magazine of August 22, 1942 tells a quite different story. The show was being cut from 60 minutes to a half hour in the fall, which was a perfect opportunity to dump Baker. Reported Billboard: “Baker, who drew $2,000 weekly for singing two songs, proved to be a constant headache to producers because of his alleged prima donna attitude.

“The singer, because of the stipulation in his contract giving him the right to choose his own selections, was allegedly difficult to handle. This might have been worked out, according to an Allen spokesman, but he kept picking slow numbers which consumed anywhere from three to four minutes and which caused Allen a good deal of concern because they slowed the program. Christmas Eve he insisted on doing the Ave Maria in German instead of the customary Latin, an incident which cause Texaco much embarrassment because the mail man brought in loads of protests from irate listeners [remember, the U.S. was fighting Hitler at the time]. This was not the entire reason for X-ing him off the spot, but it helped.

The character that Baker found so objectionable to play on the Benny show was a continuation and modification of the one singer Frank Parker had played on the show. After Baker left, the character was tweaked a little bit more and was handed to Eugene McNulty, along with the name of Dennis Day. If Dennis had a problem playing a daft young man, he never told anyone. It led to a long and lucrative career with Jack, and on his own. In addition, along the way, it was discovered Dennis had a very good ear for mimicry and that was incorporated into the show. And, though all these characters were silly (though not truly moronic like, say, Charlie Cantor’s Finnegan on ‘Duffy’s Tavern’), people weren’t really laughing at them. They had been given comedy lines by Jack Benny, who was the real fall guy on his own programme.

Baker’s hopes of a skyrocketing career after walking away from the Benny show never really materialised, even when compared to Dennis Day. The “weekly half-hour show” mentioned in the newspaper article lasted eight weeks after the story was written and was replaced with Danny Kaye and Harry James. Baker took over ‘Glamour Manor’ (later named ‘The Kenny Baker Show’) in 1946 for a season. He never had a starring radio show after that, let alone one on television. With few prospects, he retired in the early 1950s to record a few gospel albums and, perhaps, mull over whether quitting ‘The Jack Benny Program’ was really the best thing to do. He died forgotten in 1985 at the age of 72...

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FORGOTTEN ONES: DOLORES MORAN

For every pin up like Betty Grable and Rita Hayworth during the wwar, there was a Dolores Moran. Dolores Moran had the beauty it took to becoming a big star, but she just never got the fame that her looks warranted.

Born in 1924, Moran's brief career as a film actress began in 1942 with some uncredited roles in such films as Yankee Doodle Dandy. By 1943 she had become a popular pin-up girl and appeared on the cover of such magazines as Yank. She was given supporting roles in films such as Old Acquaintance (1943) with Bette Davis and Warner Bros. attempted to increase interest in her, promoting her along with Lauren Bacall as a new screen personality when they co-starred with Humphrey Bogart in To Have and Have Not (1944). The film made a star of Bacall, but Moran languished and her subsequent films did little to further her career, this probably had something to do with Howard Hawk's decision to marginalise Moran in order to boost the screen presence of Bacall, excising some of Moran's scenes.

The Horn Blows at Midnight gave her a leading role with Jack Benny and Alexis Smith but her film appearances after this were sporadic, and she suffered ill health that reduced her ability to work. Her film career ended in 1954 with a featured role in the John Payne and Lizabeth Scott western film Silver Lode.

She was married to the film producer Benedict E. Bogeaus in Salome, Arizona, in 1946. Their son, Brett Benedict, born August 30, 1948, in Hollywood, later became a successful businessman. They divorced in 1962, and he died of a heart attack in 1968. Moran is said to have had an affair with director Howard Hawks while filming To Have and Have Not, which Hawks undertook mainly as revenge for his rejection by Bacall in favour of Bogart.

In 1982, Dolores Moran died of cancer. She was survived by her son, sister, and mother...