1.
Frank Borzage
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Frank Borzage was an American film director and actor, most remembered for directing 7th Heaven, Mans Castle, and The Mortal Storm. Frank Borzages father, Luigi Borzaga, was born in Ronzone in 1859, as a stonemason, he sometimes worked in Switzerland, he met his future wife, Maria Ruegg, where she worked in a silk factory. Borzaga emigrated to Hazleton, Pennsylvania in the early 1880s where he worked as a coal miner and he brought his fiancee to the United States and they married in Hazleton in 1883. Their first child, Henry, was born in 1885, the Borzaga family moved to Salt Lake City, Utah, where Frank Borzage was born in 1894, and the family remained based until 1919. The couple had fourteen children, eight of whom survived childhood, Henry, Mary Emma, Bill, Frank, Daniel, Lew, Dolly, Luigi Borzaga died in Los Angeles in a car accident in 1934, his wife Maria died of cancer in 1947. In 1912, Frank Borzage found employment as an actor in Hollywood and his directorial debut came in 1915 with the film, The Pitch o Chance. On June 7,1916, Borzage married vaudeville and film actress Lorena Rena Rogers in Los Angeles, in 1945, he married Edna Stillwell Skelton, the ex-wife of comedian Red Skelton, they were divorced in 1949. Borzage died of cancer in 1962, aged 68, and was interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, for his contributions to film, Borzage was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Borzage was a successful director throughout the 1920s but reached his peak in the late silent, absorbing visual influences from the German director F. W. He won a second Oscar for 1931s Bad Girl. to Three Comrades and his work took a turn to religiosity in such films as Green Light, Strange Cargo and The Big Fisherman. Of his later work only the film noir Moonrise has enjoyed critical acclaim. After 1948, his output was sporadic and he was the original director of Journey Beneath the Desert, but was too sick to continue, and Edgar G. Ulmer took over. Borzage was uncredited for the sequences he did direct, in 1955 and 1957, Borzage was awarded The George Eastman Award, given by George Eastman House for distinguished contribution to the art of film. Frank Borzage, the Life and Times of a Hollywood Romantic, souls Made Great Through Love and Adversity, the Film Work of Frank Borzage. Frank Borzage at the Internet Movie Database Frank Borzage at AllMovie Senses of Cinema, Great Directors Critical Database They Shoot Pictures, a Farewell to Arms – This Borzage-directed adaptation of Ernest Hemingways novel has fallen into the public domain and is available online through the Internet Archive. Frank Borzage and the Classic Hollywood Style Frank Borzage at Find a Grave Frank Borzage at Virtual History
2.
Robert Taylor (actor)
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Robert Taylor was an American film and television actor who was one of the most popular leading men of his time. Taylor began his career in films in 1934 when he signed with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and he won his first leading role the following year in Magnificent Obsession. His popularity increased during the late 1930s and 1940s with appearances in A Yank at Oxford, Waterloo Bridge, during World War II, he served in the United States Naval Air Corps, where he worked as a flight instructor and appeared in instructional films. From 1959 to 1962, he starred in the ABC series The Detectives Starring Robert Taylor, in 1966, he took over hosting duties from his friend Ronald Reagan on the series Death Valley Days. Taylor was married to actress Barbara Stanwyck from 1939 to 1951 and he married actress Ursula Thiess in 1954, and they had two children. A chain smoker, Taylor was diagnosed with cancer in October 1968. He died of the disease in June 1969 at the age of 57, born Spangler Arlington Brugh in Filley, Nebraska, he was the only child of Ruth Adaline and Spangler Andrew Brugh, a farmer turned doctor. During his early life, the family moved several times, living in Muskogee, Oklahoma, Kirksville, Missouri, by September 1917, the Brughs had moved to Beatrice, Nebraska, where they remained for 16 years. As a teenager, Taylor was a star and played the cello in his high school orchestra. Upon graduation, he enrolled at Doane College in Crete, Nebraska, while at Doane, he took cello lessons from Professor Herbert E. Gray, whom he admired and idolized. After Professor Gray announced he was accepting a new position at Pomona College in Los Angeles, Brugh moved to California and he joined the campus theater group and was eventually spotted by an MGM talent scout in 1932 after production of Journeys End. He signed a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer with an initial salary of $35 a week. The studio changed his name to Robert Taylor and he made his film debut in the 1934 comedy Handy Andy, starring Will Rogers. His first leading role was in an MGM short subject called Buried Loot, irene Dunne requested him for her leading man in Magnificent Obsession. This was followed by Camille opposite Greta Garbo, in 1940, he reteamed with Leigh in Mervyn LeRoys drama Waterloo Bridge. After being given the nickname The Man with the Perfect Profile, Taylor began breaking away from his leading man image. That year he portrayed Billy Bonney in Billy the Kid, the next year, he played the title role in the film noir Johnny Eager opposite Lana Turner. After playing a sergeant in Bataan in 1943, Taylor contributed to the war effort by becoming a flying instructor in the U. S. Naval Air Corps
3.
Ruth Hussey
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Ruth Carol Hussey was an American actress best known for her Academy Award-nominated role as photographer Elizabeth Imbrie in The Philadelphia Story. Hussey was born in Providence, Rhode Island, October 30,1911 and she was also known as Ruth Carol ORourke. Her father, George R. Hussey, died of the Spanish flu in 1918 when she was seven years old, ten years later, her mother married a family friend, William ORourke, who had worked at the familys mail-order silver enterprise. Following graduation from the Providence public schools, she went on to art at Pembroke College. She never landed a role in any of the plays for which she tried out at Pembroke and she then received a degree in theatre from the University of Michigan School of Drama, and worked as an actress with a summer stock company in Michigan for two seasons. She also attended Boston Business College and Michigan School of Drama, after working as an actress in summer stock, she returned to Providence and worked as a radio fashion commentator on a local station. She wrote the ad copy for a Providence clothing store and read it on the radio each afternoon and she was encouraged by a friend to try out for acting roles at the Providence Playhouse. The theater director there turned her down, saying the roles were cast only out of New York City. Later that week, she journeyed to New York City and on her first day there, in New York City, she also worked for a time as a model. She then landed a number of roles with touring companies. Dead End toured the country in 1937 and the last theater on the trip was at the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles. MGM signed her to a contract and she made her film debut in 1937. She quickly became a lady in MGMs B unit, usually playing sophisticated. In 1941, exhibitors voted her the third-most popular new star in Hollywood, Hussey also worked with Robert Taylor in Flight Command, Robert Young in H. M. Pulham, Esq. Van Heflin in Tennessee Johnson, Ray Milland in The Uninvited, in 1946, she starred on Broadway in the Pulitzer Prize-winning play State of the Union. Her 1949 role in Goodbye, My Fancy on Broadway caused a Billboard reviewer to write, Miss Hussey brings a splendid aliveness and warmth to the lovely congresswoman. She filled in for Jean Arthur in the 1955 Lux Radio Theater presentation of Shane, playing Miriam Start, alongside original film stars Alan Ladd, in 1960, she co-starred in The Facts of Life with Bob Hope. Hussey was also active in television drama
4.
Walter Pidgeon
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Born in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada, Pidgeon was the son of Hannah, a housewife, and Caleb Burpee Pidgeon, a haberdasher. His brother, Larry, was a writer for the Santa Barbara News-Press. Pidgeon attended local schools and the University of New Brunswick, where he studied law and his university education was interrupted by World War I, and he enlisted in the 65th Battery, Royal Canadian Field Artillery. He never saw action, however, as he was injured in an accident when he was crushed between two gun carriages and spent seventeen months in a military hospital. Following the war, he moved to Boston, Massachusetts, where he worked as a bank runner, at the same time studying voice at the New England Conservatory of Music. Discontented with banking, Pidgeon moved to New York City, where he walked into the office of E. E. Clive, announced that he could act and sing, after acting on stage for several years, he made his Broadway debut in 1925. Pidgeon made a number of silent films in the 1920s and he became a huge star with the arrival of talkies, thanks to his singing voice. He starred in extravagant early Technicolor musicals, including The Bride of the Regiment, Sweet Kitty Bellairs, Viennese Nights and he became associated with musicals, and when the public grew weary of them his career began to falter. In 1935 he took a break from Hollywood and did a stint on Broadway, appearing in the plays Something Gay, Night of January 16th, when he returned to movies, he was relegated to playing secondary roles in films like Saratoga and The Girl of the Golden West. One of his known roles was in The Dark Command, where he portrayed the villain opposite John Wayne, Claire Trevor. It was not until he starred in the Academy Award-winning Best Picture How Green Was My Valley that his popularity returned and he then starred opposite Greer Garson in Blossoms in the Dust, Mrs. Miniver and its sequel, The Miniver Story in 1950. He was also nominated in 1944 for Madame Curie, again opposite Garson and his partnership with her continued throughout the 1940s and into the 1950s with Mrs. Parkington, Julia Misbehaves, That Forsyte Woman, and finally Scandal at Scourie. Although he continued to make films, including The Bad and the Beautiful and Forbidden Planet and he was featured in Take Me Along with Jackie Gleason and received a Tony Award nomination for the musical play. In 1962, he portrayed General Augustus Perry in the episode The Reunion on CBSs Rawhide and his role as Florenz Ziegfeld in Funny Girl was well received. Later, he played Casey, James Coburns sidekick, in Harry in Your Pocket, Pidgeon guest-starred in the episode King of the Valley of CBSs Dick Powells Zane Grey Theater. Pidgeon plays Dave King, a rancher who quarrels with his banker over a $10,000 loan. When the banker dies of an attack on the job after a confrontation with King. Leora Dana plays Anne Coleman, the widow and the ranchers former paramour
5.
Franz Waxman
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Franz Waxman – born Franz Wachsmann – was a German and American composer of Jewish descent, known primarily for his work in the film music genre. His film scores include Bride of Frankenstein, Rebecca, Sunset Boulevard, A Place in the Sun, Stalag 17, Rear Window, Peyton Place, The Nuns Story and he received twelve Academy Award nominations, and won two Oscars in consecutive years. He also received a Golden Globe Award for the former film, bernard Herrmann said that the score for Taras Bulba was the most wonderful thing. Waxman also founded the Los Angeles Music Festival in 1947 with which he conducted a number of West Coast premieres by fellow film composers, Waxman was born Franz Wachsmann in Königshütte to Jewish parents in the German Empires Prussian Province of Silesia. At the age of three Waxman suffered an eye injury involving boiling water tipped from a stove, which left his vision permanently impaired. In 1923, at age 16, Waxman enrolled in the Dresden Music Academy and studied composition, Waxman lived from the money he made playing popular music and managed to put himself through school. While working as a pianist with the Weintraub Syncopators, a band, Waxman met Frederick Hollander. Waxman worked as an orchestrator for the German film industry, including on Hollander’s score for The Blue Angel, Waxman’s first dramatic score was for the film Liliom. That year Waxman suffered a beating by Nazi sympathizers in Berlin that led him to leave Germany and move with his wife first to Paris. In Hollywood, Waxman met James Whale, who had been impressed by Waxmans score for Liliom. The success of his score for Whales Bride of Frankenstein led to the young composer’s appointment as Head of Music at Universal Studios, Waxman, however, was more interested in composition than musical direction for film, and in 1936 he left Universal to become a composer at MGM. Waxman scored a number of pictures during the few years. Waxman was frequently called to work on scores of horror or suspense films, Rebecca was Hitchcock’s first Hollywood film as part of his contract with David O. Selznick, and thus it was the first time he was allowed a full symphonic score. Selznick financed the film at the time as he was making Gone With the Wind. Waxman’s score for Rebecca is eerie and ethereal, often setting the mood and as Jack Sullivan put it, becoming a “soundboard for the subconscious. ”In 1943 Waxman left MGM and moved to Warner Bros. where he worked alongside such great film composers as Max Steiner and Erich Wolfgang Korngold. A period of extended composition followed, including such films as Mr. Skeffington and Objective, a climactic scene in Objective, Burma. was scored fugally, and this would become one of Waxmans trademarks, returning in The Spirit of St. Louis and Taras Bulba. In 1947 Waxman formed the Los Angeles Music Festival, for which he served as director and conductor for the rest of his life. Waxmans goal with the LA Music Festival was to bring the town to “European cultural standards”
6.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
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Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of feature films and television programs. Its headquarters are in Beverly Hills, California and it is one of the worlds oldest film studios. In 1971, it was announced that MGM would merge with 20th Century Fox, over the next thirty-nine years, the studio was bought and sold at various points in its history until, on November 3,2010, MGM filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. MGM Resorts International, a Las Vegas-based hotel and casino company listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol MGM, is not currently affiliated with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. In 1966, MGM was sold to Canadian investor Edgar Bronfman Sr. whose son Edgar Jr. would later buy Universal Studios, the studio continued to produce five to six films a year that were released through other studios, mostly United Artists. Kerkorian did, however, commit to increased production and a film library when he bought United Artists in 1981. MGM ramped up production, as well as keeping production going at UA. It also incurred significant amounts of debt to increase production, the studio took on additional debt as a series of owners took charge in the 1980s and early 1990s. In 1986, Ted Turner bought MGM, but a few later, sold the company back to Kerkorian to recoup massive debt. The series of deals left MGM even more heavily in debt, MGM was bought by Pathé Communications in 1990, but Parretti lost control of Pathé and defaulted on the loans used to purchase the studio. The French banking conglomerate Crédit Lyonnais, the major creditor. Even more deeply in debt, MGM was purchased by a joint venture between Kerkorian, producer Frank Mancuso, and Australias Seven Network in 1996, the debt load from these and subsequent business deals negatively affected MGMs ability to survive as an independent motion picture studio. In 1924, movie theater magnate Marcus Loew had a problem and he had bought Metro Pictures Corporation in 1919 for a steady supply of films for his large Loews Theatres chain. With Loews lackluster assortment of Metro films, Loew purchased Goldwyn Pictures in 1924 to improve the quality, however, these purchases created a need for someone to oversee his new Hollywood operations, since longtime assistant Nicholas Schenck was needed in New York headquarters to oversee the 150 theaters. Mayer, Loew addressed the situation by buying Louis B. Mayer Pictures on April 17,1924, Mayer became head of the renamed Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, with Irving Thalberg as head of production. MGM produced more than 100 feature films in its first two years, in 1925, MGM released the extravagant and successful Ben-Hur, taking a $4.7 million profit that year, its first full year. Marcus Loew died in 1927, and control of Loews passed to Nicholas Schenck, in 1929, William Fox of Fox Film Corporation bought the Loew familys holdings with Schencks assent. Mayer and Thalberg disagreed with the decision, Mayer was active in the California Republican Party and used his political connections to persuade the Justice Department to delay final approval of the deal on antitrust grounds
