Tag: Actress

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Dear Reader

Dear Reader #175

Dear Reader,

Clara Bow’s fourteenth movie was Black Lightning. The movie, produced during the Fall of 1924 and released on December 8, 1924, starred Thunder the Marvel Dog, supported by Clara Bow and “An All Star Cast”.

Thunder the Marvel Dog was a male German Shepherd that appeared in movies between 1923 and 1927. During this era, he had plenty of canine ‘rivals’ including Peter the Great, Napoleon, Rex, Strongheart and, more famously, Rin Tin Tin.

Clara loved dogs. However, the plot of this movie was convoluted and, given her ambitious, she could not have been happy as a support player to a dog. Greater days lay ahead, but at this stage of her career Clara was certainly paying her dues as she made her way in Hollywood.

Frances Gifford’s acting career blossomed in the 1930s and 1940s. Her breakthrough arrived in 1941 when she was cast as Nyoka in Jungle Girl, a fifteen-chapter movie serial. The serial was successful. However, tragedy struck on December 31, 1947 when Frances was seriously injured in a car accident. She attempted a comeback, but sadly that accident effectively ended her career.

Sister of actress Mary Pickford, Lottie Pickford (June 9, 1893 – December 9, 1936) also appeared in motion pictures, although her main passion in life was partying.

Lottie’s first starring role arrived in 1914 in The House of Bondage. She played a prostitute, in stark contrast to her sister Mary’s image as “America’s Sweetheart”. 

In 1915 Lottie appeared in The Diamond from the Sky, a silent adventure serial of thirty chapters. The serial was jeopardized when Lottie became pregnant, an incident that placed her on an unofficial Hollywood blacklist for a short time.

Lottie was a socialite who loved to party. Indeed, her parties were notorious all-night affairs that featured an abundance of alcohol, drugs and nudity. This hedonistic lifestyle took its toll and cut short the life of a woman who, despite her socialite status, was regarded as down to earth, friendly and unpretentious.

Tallulah Bankhead (January 31, 1903 – December 12, 1968) amassed nearly 300 film, stage, television and radio roles during her career. Her main forte was the stage – she was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame in 1972.

A hedonist who loved men, women, cigarettes, drugs and alcohol, Tallulah rebelled against her family, prominent conservatives, by supporting the civil rights movement. She also helped families escape persecution during the Spanish Civil War and World War Two.

Marion Davies (January 3, 1897 – September 22, 1961) ran away from a convent to become a chorus girl, a performer in the Ziegfeld Follies and an actress. While performing in the 1916 Follies, nineteen-year-old Marion met fifty-three-year-old newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst. She became his mistress and he promoted her career, often to her detriment.

Throughout her life, Marion was mistakenly associated with the character of Susan Alexander Kane in Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane.  Susan was a singer who lacked talent. However, Welles himself said that Marion was a talented actress, and that he did not base Susan on Marion.

My latest article for the Seaside News appears on page 34 of the magazine.

My 5 x great grandmother Hannah David was born in Llantrisant, Glamorgan in 1757. She married James Morgan on 9 November 1776 in Llantrisant. Thomas Morgan, their first child, of twelve, arrived ten months later. In the 1700s, on average a woman gave birth to eight children so, maybe, the excessive strain of giving birth to twelve children contributed to Hannah’s death in 1802, aged 45. However, there was more to Hannah’s life than motherhood. Read on…

When my 5 x great grandmother Hannah David wasn’t pregnant or nursing one of her twelve children, she was helping her husband James Morgan to run the Swan Inn in Llantrisant.

William Aubrey of Llanwynno owned the property from 1767 until 1801. Hannah’s branch of our family tree connects with the influential and well-to-do Aubreys, so it’s likely that she became the landlady of the Swan through this family connection.

📸 The Swan Inn (Llantrisant.net)

One of the largest inns in the town, the Swan stood near Zozobabel Chapel on Swan Street. Taliesin Morgan’s 1898 history of Llantrisant referred to the Swan Inn as the venue for a number of eisteddfodau held by the Cymreigyddion Society. As such, the inn was a hotbed for promoting Welsh literature, poetry and music.

🧭 Location of the Swan Inn

In the fourth quarter of the 18th century my ancestor’s inn must have been the place to be, a venue reverberating with music and dancing, a place to listen to poems and stories. Hannah must have heard some tales. Maybe she told one or two herself. Maybe I can trace my love of stories to her.

***

Clara Bow Quotes: “Something every girl who goes into motion pictures must learn…if you do make a success of your work, your name is of public interest and where a girl in non-professional may be allowed certain liberties, a screen player is allowed none without attendant publicity.”

Intertitle #15

As ever, thank you for your interest and support.

Hannah xxx

For Authors

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Golden Age Actresses

Golden Age Actresses #2

Born on November 19, 1920 in Brooklyn, New York, to a wealthy insurance broker and a socialite mother, Gene Tierney enjoyed a privileged upbringing, which included exclusive schools, extensive travel and glamorous parties. She caught the eye of Hollywood talent scouts and they offered her a contract.

As a teenager, Gene Tierney endured a mind-numbing season of debutante parties. At the close of the season, she informed her parents of her desire to carve out a career as an actress. Initially reluctant, her parents offered their support. Her father, Howard, secured mentoring and schooling, and he formed a company, to assist Gene in her ambitions.

With Gene Tierney’s star on the rise, eccentric movie mogul Howard Hughes entered the picture. He was besotted with her beauty. However, as she later pointed out, “Cars, furs and gems were not my weakness.” And she rebuffed Hughes. Despite the rebuff, Howard Hughes remained friends with Gene Tierney, one of many influential and powerful people she encountered during her life. 

In 1940, Gene Tierney’s life changed direction when she met fashion designer Oleg Cassini. Within months, the couple married. Her parents were not pleased and a rift developed within the family. Over time, that rift widened until Gene was cut off financially, and from Connecticut high society. Later, she divorced Cassini, remarried him, then divorced him again.

In 1944, Gene Tierney landed the title role in Laura, arguably the highpoint of her acting career. Although the film received mixed reviews – a consistent thread throughout Gene’s career – it did well at the box office, netting over a million dollars, and now is regarded as a cinema classic. As Vincent Price, one of her co-stars in Laura, said, “No one but Gene Tierney could have played Laura. There was no other actress around with her particular combination of beauty, breeding and mystery.”

In 1955, while working with Humphrey Bogart on The Left Hand of God, Bogart noted that Gene had problems. He alerted the executives at Fox studios, but they dismissed his concerns in flippant fashion. As Gene Tierney later wrote, “It was the fashion at the time, still is, to feel that all actors are neurotic, or they would not be actors.” Spells in institutions and sanitariums followed as Gene sought relief from depression and mental health problems.

After enduring long spells of poor mental health, Gene Tierney later wrote, “If you break an arm or a leg it takes months for it to really heal, and years for it to be the same again. So you can imagine the problems with a broken mind.” And, “More than anything, I learned that the mind is the most beautiful part of the body and I am grateful to have mine back.”

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Dear Reader

Dear Reader #173

Dear Reader,

Clara Bow’s twelfth movie was Empty Hearts, produced during the summer of 1924 and released on September 15, 1924. Fourth on the bill, Clara played Rosalie. 

A drama, the plot of Empty Hearts centred on a blackmail letter, relationships, and misunderstandings. The screenplay was based on a story written by Evelyn Campbell a screenwriter, author and actress active during Hollywood’s silent era. Evelyn also wrote Westerns.

At this stage of Clara’s career, B.P. Schulberg was loaning her out to various studios. Indeed, not one of her eight movies made in 1924 was produced by Schulberg. On the whole, these movies were beneath Clara’s talent, and she must have felt frustrated.

Serial Stars

Kay Aldridge

Although she was screen-tested for the part of Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind, Kay Aldridge made her name as a heroine in serials. She starred as Nyoka Gordon in Perils of Nyoka, 1942. In the series, Nyoka confronted a host of villains while looking for her father, who’d disappeared while on expedition in Africa. Each episode ended with the traditional cliffhanger.

Kay also played the heroine in Daredevils of the West, 1943, and Haunted Harbor, 1944. She retired from acting in 1945.

After ten years, I’ve completed the preliminary research on my family tree. Of course, because of missing records, there are gaps, but I’m delighted with the stories I’ve discovered. Now, I intend to trace a branch back in greater detail, starting with my 3 x great grandmother Hannah Morgan, 30 July 1848 – c1881. How far back does this branch go? Stay tuned and find out 😉

The basics of Hannah’s life, outlined below, look ordinary. However, as the mother of five children and the wife of a coal miner, she was one of the women who formed the backbone of Welsh society during the Victorian era.

Hannah’s father was an ostler, so it’s likely she was familiar with horses. Her mother lodged Irish navvies, so from a young age she became accustomed to the Victorian norm – a crowded house.

The points on this modern map highlight where my 3 x great grandmother Hannah Morgan was born and where she lived at the time of each census. The birth records of her five children indicate that her family was constantly on the move as her husband Thomas Jones sought employment in the newly developing coal mines that were transforming the culture and landscape of Glamorgan. Llandyfodwg, highlighted to the north, was Hannah’s last known address.

Hannah Morgan’s family chart and timeline reveal that, in common with many parents of her era, she named her children after her parents. Two of the major events of Hannah’s life occurred during her teenage years when her father died and when she married.

My 3 x great grandparents Hannah Morgan and Thomas Jones married on 22 February 1868, a Saturday, at Ruhama Baptist Chapel, Bridgend. As newlyweds establishing a home maybe they paid attention to advertisements like this one, which appeared on the day of their wedding.

Unfortunately, no pictures of Hannah Morgan or Thomas Jones exist. However, I have managed to find a picture of their son, Richard Morgan Jones, 1874 – 1954. Like his father, Richard was a coal miner in Glamorgan.

My 3 x great grandfather Thomas Jones started his working life as a ‘cow boy’. After that he worked as a coal miner, dicing with death, every day. At random I have selected ten Joneses who worked alongside Thomas in the local coal mines. The brief notes that follow record their fate.

Thomas Jones, aged 22: killed by falling from a byat while moving a stage in the shaft.

Evan Jones, aged 14: killed by a full train passing over him.

William Jones, aged 38: killed when the mineshaft roof fell.

William Jones, aged 37: killed by a fall of coal.

William Jones, aged 16: killed by a fall of coal.

Richard Jones, aged 34: killed when the side of the pit gave way.

David Jones, aged 45: killed when the mine roof collapsed.

Thomas Jones, aged 48: killed by an explosion of firedamp, one of two people killed.

David Jones, aged 26: killed by a gas explosion, one of eleven people killed.

Lewis Jones, aged 12: run over by trams through breakage of coupling chains.

📸 Aberbaiden Colliery

My 3 x great grandmother Hannah Morgan disappeared from the historical record in the 1880s. Some researchers think she emigrated to America. The historical record and my DNA profile confirm that a number of my ancestors did emigrate to America. However, I have found no records that suggest Hannah joined them. With her family, she moved around the Glamorgan coalfields. I suspect that her death record was lost due to the transient nature of her life.

Clara Bow Quotes: “Mr Schulberg could not use me in any of his productions at the time but there was nothing to prohibit him from ‘farming me out’ to other producers for small roles. Looking over my records I find that I played in twenty-seven productions in not so many months. But as time went on, I was getting no place. Always the instructions were the same: ‘Clara, X Blank wants you for a “bit” in their production, which starts Thursday’. Always a “bit”. If this was Hollywood, I wanted no more of it.

Gradually, I became better known. Occasionally, my name would creep into the billing on pictures and executives of the various studios were nodding now and then when I ran across them on the lot. I was getting somewhere.”

Intertitle #13

As ever, thank you for your interest and support.

Hannah xxx

For Authors

#1 for value with 565,000 readers, The Fussy Librarian has helped my books to reach #1 on 36 occasions.

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Don’t forget to use the code goylake20 to claim your discount 🙂

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Dear Reader

Dear Reader #157

Dear Reader,

I’m excited to introduce a new project, Tula, a novel set in the 1920s. Tula is an actress who has climbed from the gutter to become a major star in Hollywood. However, as the story opens, she is in an asylum. How did she get there? 

Tula believes that the recent death of her father triggered her emotional collapse. However, as she chronicles the first twenty-four years of her life, she discovers the true trigger for her breakdown.

This story might sound dark, but light arrives in the shape of Tula’s determination to escape from poverty, and her strength in facing up to and overcoming her emotional problems.

Continuing my research into Eva Marie Saint’s ancestry using public records. I’m looking to answer two questions: was Eva’s talent the result of nurture, or nature? And why am I drawn to her as an actress? Can I find the answers to these questions in her roots?

Today’s record is the 1930 census. This census confirms that Eva was born in New Jersey, that at the age of five she was attending school and literate, and that she lived with her older sister, Adelaide, and her parents, John and Eva. John was a credit man for a rubber company, Eva Senior was a housewife.

Eva’s family rented a home on 81 Street, Queens, New York. Most of their neighbours were born in New York. However, their parents came from Austria, Russia, Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Ireland. They were merchants, bookkeepers, salesmen, secretaries, photographers and hairdressers. 

This was an immigrant area, not the poorest, not the richest. Unlike some actresses, Eva did not enjoy a gilded path to fame and fortune; she had to work for her success. That is something I can relate to, and it partially answers one of my questions. 

However, for the full answers, I need to explore Eva’s parents’ records. More, next time.

***

In the seventeenth century, London’s doctors qualified through an apprenticeship. They set bones, tended injuries and bled patients. Physicians represented a different branch of medicine. They qualified through universities and advised on diet, exercise and drugs.

Treatments centred on purging, sweating and bleeding in an attempt to restore the balance of a patient’s body. 

Physicians charged a fee, usually between 10 and 20 shillings, which placed them well out of the reach of many Londoners.

For day-to-day medical treatments, Londoners visited barbers. Along with offering a haircut and a shave, a barber would bleed a client and draw his teeth. 

Medicines were sold by apothecaries, who developed into pharmacists. These medicines were derived from herbs, plants and vegetables and sold for a penny per dose.

Many of the treatments were ineffective, which led to challenges by ‘new scientists’ like Nicholas Culpepper, pictured. The establishment hated Culpepper because he challenged their cosy cartel, stated that high medical fees were ‘un-Christian’, and because he treated London’s poor.

Caledonia – It’s Worth a Fortune! Series 1, Episode 11 of The Rockford Files. All writers have standby plots. One of John Thomas James’ standby plots was ex-cons looking for hidden money. In Caledonia, JTJ delivered a neat twist at the end.

This episode was directed by Stuart Margolin, a talented actor/director. While Margolin’s direction was always crisp, his greatest contribution to The Rockford Flies was his portrayal of Angel, one of the great support characters of American television. James Garner’s interactions with Stuart Margolin were always a delight to watch.

We are eleven episodes in but Angel, Beth and Becker are yet to appear as regular characters. Even Rocky has only made fleeting appearances at this point. The Rockford Files always had a strong sense of direction, but the series grew in strength when the support characters became regulars.

Stuart Margolin

Len Allchurch, born 12 September 1933, enjoyed a distinguished footballing career, which spanned nearly twenty years. During that time he represented Sheffield United, Swansea Town and Stockport County. 

Born in Swansea, and the brother of the legendary Ivor Allchurch, Len also won eleven caps for Wales and was a member of his country’s 1958 World Cup squad.

In 1950, at the age of seventeen, Len began his professional career with Swansea Town. In March 1961, for a fee of £18,000, he signed for Sheffield United. Len scored six goals in eight games and helped his new club to clinch promotion. 

Over the following three seasons, Len scored 37 goals in 140 appearances for Sheffield United before, in March 1965, transferring to Stockport County. His transfer fee: £10,000, making him the most expensive signing in the club’s history.

Eventually, Len’s career turned full circle and he ended his professional days at his home club, Swansea Town.

Len enjoyed many highlights during his long and distinguished career, but perhaps this remains the most remarkable fact: he did not receive a single caution or booking throughout his entire Football League career.

Len Allchurch 📸 BBC

I’m researching the life of Clara Bow, a superstar in the 1920s. However, before exploring Clara’s life, where did the Bows come from? The answer is England. Like many of their generation, they set sail for America in the 1600s and became planters in Hartford.

The early American Bows were wealthy men and women. However, by the time Clara was born in New York in 1905, the family fortune had long gone. Indeed, Clara’s father Robert flitted from one humble occupation to another, and between 1905 and 1923 the family lived at fourteen different addresses.

Clara Bow was a superstar in the 1920s, yet her birth was not even recorded. Piecing the facts together from various records, a birthdate of 29 July 1905 looks the most likely candidate. Why wasn’t Clara’s birth registered? There were several reasons.

One, Clara’s father, Robert, was often absent from the family home. Two, Clara and her mother, Sarah (pictured), were ill after the birth, and their illnesses were exacerbated by a New York heatwave. Indeed, Sarah was in such poor physical, and probably mental, condition that a doctor warned her not to become pregnant.

Clara was Sarah’s third child. Her first daughter, Alene, was stillborn on 25 June 1903 while her second daughter, Emily, was born and died on 13 May 1904. Given this background, it was a minor miracle that Clara made it to 30 July, let alone beyond.

***

In this month’s issue of Mom’s Favorite Reads…

Multi-award winning author/poet Jessica Bell interviewed by Wendy H Jones. Plus, Author Features, Health, Nature, Photography, Poetry, Recipes, Short Stories, Young Writers, International Country Music Day, and so much more!

As ever, thank you for your interest and support.

Hannah xxx

For Authors

#1 for value with 565,000 readers, The Fussy Librarian has helped my books to reach #1 on 32 occasions.

A special offer from my publisher and the Fussy Librarian. https://authors.thefussylibrarian.com/?ref=goylake

Don’t forget to use the code goylake20 to claim your discount 🙂