25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures, Television Permalink

William Haines

October 25, 2019

Charles William “Billy” Haines was an American film actor and interior designer. A star of the silent era, Haines’ career was cut short in the Thirties as a result of his refusal to deny his homosexuality.

Haines was probably born on January 2, 1900, the third child of George Adam Haines, a cigar maker, and Laura Virginia Haines. Two older siblings died in infancy. He had four younger siblings: Lillian, born in 1902; Ann, born in 1907; George, Jr., born in 1908; and Henry, born in 1917. He was baptized at the Trinity Episcopal Church in Staunton at the age of eight, where he later sang in the choir. He became fascinated with stage performance and motion pictures at an early age, spending hours watching early silent films in the local theatres.

Haines ran away from home at the age of 14, accompanied by another unidentified young man whom Haines referred to as his “boyfriend”. The pair went first to Richmond and then to Hopewell, which had a reputation for immorality. Haines and his boyfriend got jobs working at the local DuPont factory, producing nitrocellulose for $50 a week. To supplement their income, the couple opened a dance hall, which may have also served as a brothel. His parents, frantic over his disappearance, tracked him through the police to Hopewell. Haines did not return home with them, remaining instead in Hopewell and sending money back home to help support the family. The couple remained in Hopewell until most of the town was destroyed by fire in 1915. Haines moved to New York City. It is unclear whether his boyfriend accompanied him. Following the bankruptcy of the family business and the mental breakdown of George, Sr., the family moved to Richmond in 1916. Haines returned home in 1917 to help support them. With his father recovered and employed, Haines returned to New York City in 1919, settling into the burgeoning gay community of Greenwich Village. He worked a variety of jobs and was for a time the kept man of an older woman before becoming a model. Talent scout Bijou Fernandez discovered Haines as part of the Samuel Goldwyn Company’s “New Faces of 1922” contest and the studio signed him to a $40 a week contract. He traveled to Hollywood with fellow contest winner Eleanor Boardman in March of that year.

Haines’s career began slowly, as he appeared in extra and bit parts, mostly uncredited. His first significant role was in Three Wise Fools. He attracted positive critical attention and the studio began building him up as a new star. However, he continued to play small, unimportant parts at Goldwyn. It was not until his home studio loaned him to Fox in 1923 for The Desert Outlaw that he got the opportunity to play a significant role. In 1924, MGM lent Haines to Columbia Pictures for a five-picture deal. The first of these, The Midnight Express, received excellent reviews and Columbia offered to buy his contract. The offer was refused and Haines continued in bit roles for Goldwyn. Haines scored his first big personal success with Brown of Harvard opposite Jack Pickford and Mary Brian. It was in Brown that he crystallized his screen image, a young arrogant man who is humbled by the last reel. It was a formula to which he was repeatedly returned for the next several years.

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures, Radio, Recording Permalink

Will Rogers

October 25, 2019

William Penn Adair “Will” Rogers was a comedian, humorist, social commentator, vaudeville performer, actor,  Native American and member of the Cherokee Nation. He is one of the best-known celebrities in the 1920s and 1930s.

Known as Oklahoma’s favorite son, Rogers was born to a prominent Indian Territory family. He traveled around the world three times, made 71 movies, wrote more than 4,000 nationally-syndicated newspaper columns, and became a world-famous figure. By the mid-1930s, Rogers was adored by the American people. He was the leading political wit of the Progressive Era, and was the top-paid movie star in Hollywood at the time. Rogers died in 1935 with aviator Wiley Post, when their small airplane crashed near Barrow, Alaska.

His vaudeville rope act led to success in the Ziegfeld Follies, which in turn led to the first of his many movie contracts. His 1920s syndicated newspaper column and his radio appearances increased his visibility and popularity. Rogers crusaded for aviation expansion, and provided Americans with first-hand accounts of his world travels. His earthy anecdotes and folksy style allowed him to poke fun at gangsters, prohibition, politicians, government programs, and a host of other controversial topics in a way that was readily appreciated by a national audience, with no one offended. His short aphorisms, couched in humorous terms, were widely quoted; one example is his well-known quip, “I am not a member of an organized political party. I am a Democrat.”

Rogers even provided an epigram on his most famous epigram:

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures, Radio Permalink

Willard Waterman

October 25, 2019

Willard Lewis Waterman was a character actor in films, TV and on radio, remembered best for succeeding Harold Peary as the title character of The Great Gildersleeve at the height of that show’s popularity.

Peary was unable to convince sponsor and show owner Kraft Cheese to allow him an ownership stake in the show. Impressed with better capital-gains deals CBS was willing to offer performers in the high-tax late 1940s, he decided to move from NBC to CBS during the latter’s famous talent raids. Kraft, however, refused to move the show to CBS and hired Waterman to replace Peary as the stentorian Throckmorton P. Gildersleeve.

Waterman attended the University of Wisconsin in the mid-1930s, where he acted in student plays and was a friend of Uta Hagen. He also began his radio career in Madison, and came to NBC in Chicago in early 1936. There he met and replaced Peary on The Tom Mix Ralston Straight Shooters. Not only did the two men become longtime friends, but Waterman ? who actually looked as though he could have been Peary’s sibling, and whose voice was a near-match for Peary’s ? refused to appropriate the half-leering, half-embarrassed laugh Peary had made a Gildersleeve trademark. He stayed with The Great Gildersleeve from 1950 to 1957 on radio and in an ill-fated television version syndicated in 1955.

At the same time he was heard as Gildersleeve, Waterman had a recurring role as Mr. Merriweather in the short-lived but respected radio comedy vehicle for Ronald Colman and his wife Benita Hume, The Halls of Ivy. Waterman’s pre-Gildersleeve radio career, in addition to Tom Mix, had included at least one starring vehicle, a short-lived situation comedy, Those Websters, that premiered in 1945. He also had radio roles between the mid-1930s and 1950 on such shows as Chicago Theater of the Air and Harold Teen, plus four soap operas: Girl Alone, The Guiding Light, Lonely Women, The Road of Life and Kay Fairchild, Stepmother. He is also remembered for his role as Claude Upson in the 1958 film Auntie Mame.

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures Permalink

William Collier

October 25, 2019

William Collier, Jr. was an American film and stage actor who appeared in 89 films.

Collier was born as Charles F. Gal, Jr. in New York City. When his parents divorced, his mother married actor William Collier, Sr., who adopted Charles and gave the boy the new name William Collier Jr. Collier’s stage experience helped him to get his first movie role in 1916, The Bugle Call, at the age of 14.

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures Permalink

William Beaudine

October 25, 2019

William Beaudine was an American film actor and director. He was one of Hollywood’s most prolific directors, turning out films in remarkable numbers and in a wide variety of genres, earning him the nickname “One Shot” Beaudine.

Born in New York City, Beaudine began his career as an actor in 1909 with American Mutoscope and Biograph Company. He married Marguerite Fleischer in 1914, whom he stayed married to until his death.

In 1915, he was hired as an actor as well as a director by the Kalem Company. He was an assistant to director D.W. Griffith on the films The Birth of a Nation and Intolerance. By the time he was 23, Beaudine had directed his first picture, a short called Almost a King. He would continue to direct shorts exclusively until 1922, when he shifted his efforts into primarily making feature length films.

Beaudine worked as a director of silent films for Goldwyn, Metro, First National Pictures, Principal, and Warner Brothers. In 1926, he made Sparrows, the story of orphans imprisoned in a swamp farm, starring Mary Pickford. Beaudine had at least 30 pictures to his credit before the sound era began.

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures, Recording Permalink

William Boyd

October 25, 2019

William Lawrence Boyd was an American film actor best known for portraying Hopalong Cassidy.

Boyd was born in Hendrysburg in Belmont County, located 26 miles east of Cambridge, Ohio. He was reared in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the son of day laborer Charles William Boyd and his wife, the former Lida Wilkens. Following his father’s death, he moved to California and worked as an orange picker, surveyor, tool dresser, and auto salesman. In Hollywood, he found extra work in films like Why Change Your Wife?. During World War I, he enlisted in the army but was exempted because of a “weak heart.” More prominent film roles followed, and he became famous as a leading man in silent film romances with a yearly salary of $100,000. He was the lead actor in Cecil B. DeMille’s The Volga Boatman and in D. W. Griffith’s Lady of the Pavements. Radio Pictures ended Boyd’s contract in 1931 when his picture was mistakenly run in a newspaper story about the arrest of another actor, William “Stage” Boyd, on gambling and liquor charges. Having been reckless with his money, Boyd was broke and without a job.

In 1935 he was offered the supporting role of Red Connors in the movie Hop-Along Cassidy, but asked to be considered for the title role and won it. The original Hopalong Cassidy character, written by Clarence E. Mulford for pulp fiction, was changed from a hard-drinking, rough-living wrangler to its eventual incarnation as a cowboy hero who did not smoke, drink or swear and who always let the bad guy start the fight. Although Boyd “never branded a cow or mended a fence, cannot bulldog a steer”, and disliked western music, he became indelibly associated with the Hopalong character and, like rival cowboy stars Roy Rogers and Gene Autry, gained lasting fame in the Western film genre. The Hopalong Cassidy series ended in 1947 after 66 films, with Boyd producing the last 12.

25 Oct 2019
Radio, Television Permalink

William Bendix

October 25, 2019

William Bendix was an American film, radio, and television actor, best remembered in movies for the title role in the movie The Babe Ruth Story and for portraying clumsily earnest aircraft plant worker Chester A. Riley in radio and television’s The Life of Riley. He also received an Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actor for Wake Island. Bendix, named for his paternal grandfather, was born in Manhattan, New York City, the only son of Oscar Bendix and Hilda Bendix. As a youth in the early 1920s, Bendix was a batboy for the New York Yankees and said he saw Babe Ruth hit more than a hundred home runs at Yankee Stadium. In 1927, he married Theresa Stefanotti. Bendix worked as a grocer until the Great Depression.

Bendix began his acting career at age 30, by way of the New Jersey Federal Theater Project, and made his film debut in 1942. He played in supporting roles in dozens of Hollywood films, usually as a warm-hearted Marine, gangster or detective. He started with appearances in film noir films including a memorable performance in The Glass Key, which also featured Brian Donlevy, Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake. He soon gained more attention after appearing in Alfred Hitchcock’s Lifeboat as Gus, a wounded and dying American sailor.

Bendix’s other well-known movie roles include his portrayal of baseball player Babe Ruth in The Babe Ruth Story and Sir Sagramore opposite Bing Crosby in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, in which he took part in the famous trio, “Busy Doing Nothing”. He also played Nick the bartender in the 1948 film version of William Saroyan’s The Time of Your Life starring James Cagney. Bendix had also appeared in the stage version, but in the role of Officer Krupp. In 1946 he was cast in The Blue Dahlia for the second time alongside Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake.

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures Permalink

William A. Seiter

October 25, 2019

William A. Seiter is an American film director. He was born in New York City. After attending Hudson River Military Academy, Seiter broke into films in 1915 as a bit player at Mack Sennett’s Keystone Studios, doubling a cowboy. He graduated to director in 1918.

At Universal Studios in the mid-1920s, Seiter was principal director of the popular Reginald Denny vehicles, most of which co-starred Seiter’s then wife Laura La Plante. This period also included The Beautiful and Damned and The Family Secret.

In the early talkie era, Seiter helped nurture the talents of RKO’s comedy duo Wheeler & Woolsey in such rollicking features as Caught Plastered and Diplomaniacs. He also directed the Laurel and Hardy feature Sons of the Desert, their only film together. Other films include Sunny, Going Wild, Kiss Me Again, Hot Saturday, Way Back Home, Girl Crazy, Rafter Romance, Roberta, Room Service, Susannah of the Mounties, Allegheny Uprising, You Were Never Lovelier, Up in Central Park, One Touch of Venus.

Among the many stars directed by Seiter during his long career were Shirley Temple, Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Henry Fonda, Margaret Sullavan, Jack Haley, Deanna Durbin, Jean Arthur, John Wayne, Fred MacMurray, Lucille Ball, Rita Hayworth and the Marx Brothers.

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures Permalink

William A. Wellman

October 25, 2019

William Augustus Wellman was an American film director. Although Wellman began his film career as an actor, he worked on over 80 films, as director, producer and consultant but most often as a director, notable for his work in crime, adventure and action genre films, often focusing on aviation themes, a particular passion. He also directed several well regarded satirical comedies.

Wellman directed the 1927 film Wings, which became the first film to win an Academy Award for Best Picture at the 1st Academy Awards ceremony.

Wellman’s father, Arthur Gouverneur Wellman, was a New England Brahmin of English-Welsh-Scottish and Irish descent. William was a great-great-great grandson of Francis Lewis of New York, one of the signatories to the Declaration of Independence. His much beloved mother was an Irish immigrant named Cecilia McCarthy.

Wellman was kicked out of Newton High School in Newton Highlands, Massachusetts, for dropping a stink bomb on the principal’s head. Ironically, his mother was a probation officer who was asked to address Congress on the subject of juvenile delinquency. Wellman worked as a salesman and then at a lumber yard, before ending up playing professional ice hockey, which is where he was first seen by Douglas Fairbanks, who suggested that with Wellman’s good looks he could become a film actor.

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures, Recording Permalink

The Westmores

October 25, 2019

Hollywood make-up pioneers, the Westmores, were honored with the 2,370th star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Marvin and Michael Westmore accepted the award on the behalf of their family. Leron Gubler, Hollywood Chamber of Commerce President and CEO, presided over the ceremony. Guest speaker was motion picture producer, A.C. Lyles.

1645 Vine Street on October 3, 2008.

BIOGRAPHY

The Westmores, a legendary family dynasty of makeup artists have defined beauty and glamour and set the trends over the decades. George Westmore and his six sons, Monte, Ern, Perc, Wally, Bud, and Frank changed the face of Hollywood, literally.

Pioneers of their industry, the Westmores not only created, but they defined the role of makeup artists in Motion Pictures. George Westmore opened the very first makeup department at Selig Studios in 1917. Whether it was First National, Selznick, Eagle-Lion, MGM, or at Warner Brothers, Paramount, 20th Century-Fox, and Universal, the brothers were responsible for creating the signature looks for stars like Rudolph Valentino, Clara Bow, Elizabeth Taylor, Bette Davis, Audrey Hepburn, and even the teenage fashion doll, Barbie.

Wally received acclaim for his work on Dr. Jekel and Mr. Hyde where he was able to create Neanderthal-like characteristics with wax and further evolve his actor gruesome transformation on film with the use of colored lens filters.

In 1931, Ern Westmore received the Academy Cup, the first award ever presented to a makeup artist for his work on Cimarron starring Richard Dix and Irene Dunne.

On the epic film, Gone with the Wind, it was Monte that made Vivian Leigh's hazel eyes appear green at the request of the Director, David O. Selznick.

In 1936, Paul Muni won the Best Actor award for The Story of Louis Pasteur. He thanked only one person, "Perc Westmore deserves as much credit as I for this award."

Together, in 1935, the Westmore brothers opened the most prestigious salon of it's time, the House of Westmore on 6638 Sunset Strip.

Most notable of all of Bud's creations was the molded foam rubber suit he designed for the cult classic The Creature from the Black Lagoon. Bud was also the makeup genius behind The Munsters.

Frank, the youngest of the brothers, was the first Westmore to receive an Emmy award for his ground-breaking work on the television feature film, Kung Fu in 1972. He was nominated for the Kung Fu television series the following year and for his work in 1983 for A Love Affair: The Eleanor and Lou Gehrig Story. He was also the makeup supervisor for the epic film, The Ten Commandments.

Currently, this family's remarkable achievements continue through the work of 3rd and 4th generation Westmore's as notable makeup artists, hairstylists, performers, and producers.

The youngest of Monte Sr.'s three sons, Michael, received an Oscar and a British Academy Award nomination in 1986 for his artistry on Mask, also nine Emmy statuettes and an impressive 42 Emmy nominations over the course of his career. To date, he holds the record for more Emmy nominations than any other makeup artist. Academy Award nominations include 2010, Clan of the Cave Bear and Star Trek: First Contact. Michael designed 18 years of the Star Trek Universe, the Rocky films and Raging Bull.

Marvin Westmore has a British Academy Award nomination for his work on the future noir film, Blade Runner (1983) and has six Emmy nominations for TV series and specials; The Rat Pack, Space Rangers,"V" The Rescue, "V" The Final Battle, Elvis, and Frankenstein. He is the Founder and CEO for both the Westmore Academy of Cosmetic Arts and The George Westmore Research Library and Museum in Burbank, California.

With 57 years experience in the industry, the late Monty Jr.'s remarkable work can be seen in films Where the Money Is, Se7en, The Shawshank Redemption, Jurassic Park, and The Towering Inferno. He was Oscar nominated for his work in 1991 for Hook and received Emmy nominations for The Late Shift and Who Will Love My Children.

Collectively, this family has delivered believable characters that we love in over 1,500 movies, television shows, and specials. Their artistic hand has influenced Hollywood in film and in television where stars were made, and most, were made up by the Westmores.