Mona Darkfeather
Josephine M. Workman better known by her stage name, Princess Mona Darkfeather was an American actress who starred in Native American and Western dramas, though she was open about not being Native American herself. During the silent era of motion pictures, from 1911 to 1917, she appeared in 102 movies, she is best known for her role as Prairie Flower in The Vanishing Tribe. Her career began in 1909 when she replied to a local newspaper advertisement placed by producer/director Thomas Ince's Bison Motion Pictures. During a time when studios hired Native Americans, the movie studio was looking for an actress with the physical attributes to portray an American Indian and, physically capable of doing stunts and riding horses. While she had never acted before, Workman fit the appearance, she embellished her riding skills, as she did not have any, but quickly learned horsemanship. Given the stage name Mona Darkfeather, she was cast in her first starring role as an Indian maiden named Owanee in the 1911 movie Owanee's Great Love.
She was born Josephine M. Workman in Boyle Heights and baptized at the Plaza Church, Los Angeles, when she was four months old, the daughter of Joseph Manuel Workman and Josephine Mary Belt, her siblings were Mary Cristina Workman. Workman, her grandparents were William Workman, a native of England, Nicolasa Urioste, who hailed from the of New Mexico. According to the Workman and Temple Family Homestead Museum, none of her family members were enrolled in any Indian tribe, her mother was of Chilean descent. Darkfeather claimed Spanish ancestry as well, she was a member of the prominent pioneer Workman family of Los Angeles. In 1870, her grandfather, William Workman, deeded 814 acres of land, a portion of the Rancho La Puente, to his son, Joseph M. Workman. Through this deed, the land would go to Joseph's children upon his death, her parents separated in 1893, Josephine lived with her mother. Joseph Workman deeded his Rancho La Puente land to O. T. Bassett, in 1895. On March 22, 1915, Josephine Workman married David D. Parten, a law enforcement officer who died after being accidentally hit by a backing car.
Darkfeather married film director and actor Frank E. Montgomery in 1912. In 1914, Frank E. Montgomery moved to Spokane, Washington to open and direct at the Frank E. Montgomery of the Spokane School of Motion Picture Acting. Darkfeather became associated with the company as an instructor. Darkfeather and Montgomery divorced in 1928. In late 1928, Darkfeather married banker and financer Alfred Wessling until their divorce in 1935. On December 23, 1937, Montgomery and Darkfeather remarried after nine years of separation and remained married until Montgomery’s death in 1944. After replying in 1909 to a Bison Motion Pictures newspaper ad, which called for "exotic-looking girls" to play "Indian maidens", she soon became famous as "Princess Mona Darkfeather", noted for leaping onto her pinto pony, "Comanche", galloping away bareback. Darkfeather was a noted moving picture artist who starred in roles of Indian and Western dramas. Although she was of European and Chilean descent, Darkfeather's early publicity claimed she was a full-blooded Blackfoot Indian.
Though she admitted in interviews that she was not of Indian ancestry, she said she was an Indian Princess, that she had been made a blood member of the Blackfoot Nation and given the title of princess by a "Chief Big Thunder". So successful was the studio's promotion of "Princess" Mona Darkfeather that over the years, in 2005, she has been yet inaccurately, referred to as an American Indian actress, she played Indian roles in one-reel western melodrama shorts, such as A White Indian and A Blackfoot's Conspiracy, as well as feature length movies. She was by a major movie star, she played leading roles as Spanish women in several historical dramas. Darkfeather appeared in Montgomery’s films through various motion picture companies that he worked for, including Bison Company, Kalem Company, Sawyer Inc. Under the tutelage of her husband/director Frank E Montgomery, Darkfeather played Indian and several Spanish leads in many Bison Company Productions. Darkfeather made movies for Bison starting in 1909, the Selig Polyscope Company between 1909 and 1913, Nestor Studios in 1912 and for Kalem Studios beginning in 1913.
Montgomery directed her in the 101-Bison two-reeler The Massacre of the Fourth Cavalry. Other films he directed her in include A Forest Romance, For the Peace of Bear Valley and Justice of the Wild, all released in 1913, in which she played opposite Harry von Meter. Darkfeather was Cecil B. DeMille's first choice to portray the Indian wife, Nat-u-ritch, in his famous western The Squaw Man, but she was too busy, as she and Montgomery were producing their own movies independently for release through the Kalem Company, she was unavailable to play the role, she and Montgomery joined the Universal Film Company in 1914 and continued to collaborate on scores of westerns. Darkfeather appeared in her last movie, The Hidden Danger, in 1917 retired from the screen. For a while after she retired as a screen actress, she performed on the stage and headlined as Princess Darkfeather. In late August 1918, she made a special appearance at the Liberty Theater in Tacoma, Washington, as actress and lecturer. In her "rat
Sally Blane
Sally Blane was an American actress. She appeared in over 100 movies. Blane was born in Colorado, she was the sister of actresses Polly Ann and Loretta Young and the half-sister of actress Georgiana Young. Blane had her film debut at the age of seven when she appeared in Sirens of the Sea in 1917, she returned to the film business as an adult in the 1920s, playing small parts in a number of silent films. Her career continued into the 1930s when Blane appeared in several low-budget films, including Once a Sinner, A Dangerous Affair, Arabian Knights, Annabelle's Affairs, Hello Everybody!, City Limits, Against the Law, The Silver Streak, This is the Life. Some of her scenes, including one in Annabelle's Affairs, in which she appeared in skimpy lingerie with Jeanette MacDonald and Joyce Compton, were risqué for their day, pre-dating the industry's Hays Code that forbade such shots after 1934; the footage from Annabelle's Affairs is considered lost. Although her appearances began to fade toward the late 1930s, Blane acted in over 100 films.
She appeared onscreen at one time or another with all her sisters, for example with all three in The Story of Alexander Graham Bell. After this, Blane appeared in only four more movies in small supporting roles: Fighting Mad, Charlie Chan at Treasure Island, La Fuga and A Bullet for Joey. Blane, at one time romantically linked to singer Russ Columbo, married actor and director Norman Foster in October 1935. In June 1936, they had their first child, named after her sister Loretta Young, they had a son named Robert. Blane was educated in convent school. Blane died in Palm Springs, California, on August 27, 1997, of cancer at the age of 87. Blane is interred in Culver City's Holy Cross Cemetery. Sally Blane on IMDb Sally Blane at AllMovie Sally Blane at Find a Grave Sally Blane at Virtual History
Sam Barry
Justin McCarthy "Sam" Barry was an American collegiate coach who achieved significant accomplishments in three major sports. He remains one of only three coaches to lead teams to both the Final Four and the College World Series. Barry, four of his USC players, have been inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame as coaches. Born in Aberdeen, South Dakota, Barry starred in basketball and football in high school in Madison, Wisconsin, he continued his success at Lawrence College in Appleton completing his degree at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. He returned to Madison High School to begin his coaching career, became the athletic director at Knox College in Illinois from 1918 to 1922, where he served as coach of football, basketball and track. In 1922, Barry was named basketball coach at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, became a football assistant under Hawkeyes head coach Howard Jones, an association which would continue for 15 years at two universities. Barry coached the baseball team in 1923 and 1924.
He led the Hawkeye basketball team to Big Ten Conference co-championships in 1923 and 1926—the first two conference titles in team history. In 1929, he wrote a handbook on the sport: "Basketball: Individual Play and Team Play" that featured University of Iowa players and facilities, he helped Jones guide the football squad to an undefeated 7–0 season in 1922, winning a share of the Big Ten title—the last for Hawkeyes football until 1956. In 1929, the University of Southern California in Los Angeles was in need of a new basketball coach, Jones—at USC since 1925—recommended his old colleague for the position. Barry followed Jones out west, took over the USC basketball program as well as the baseball team, while resuming his duties as an assistant football coach under Jones. Barry's Trojan basketball teams won Pacific Coast Conference titles in 1930, 1935, 1940—along with eight southern division titles between 1930 and 1940—and conference crowns in baseball in 1930, 1932, 1935, 1936, 1939, 1946, 1947, 1948, 1949.
In 1940, the USC basketball team was considered to be the best in the nation, participated in the nascent NCAA tournament, but they lost their bid for the national title when they were upset in the national semifinal at Kansas City, against Kansas, when the son of opposing coach, Phog Allen, made a basket with seconds left for a one-point victory. Despite the loss, the Helms Athletic Foundation retroactively selected USC as the 1940 national champions. Barry was a valued part of the USC football teams which claimed national championships in 1931, 1932, 1939, as well as seven PCC titles and five Rose Bowl victories, he was Jones' top assistant on the sidelines from 1929 to 1940 serving as the team's chief scout and coach of the "Spartan" scout team. Barry was credited by the "Headman" with devising the strategies that proved most effective in shutting down opponents. Although such titles were not used at the time, Barry's position would have been equivalent to that of the modern defensive coordinator.
The team's football successes included a 25-game winning streak from 1931 to 1933, the undefeated 1938 team's 7–3 victory in the Rose Bowl over Duke — a team which had held every opponent scoreless. After Jones' sudden death from a heart attack in July 1941, Barry was a natural choice to take over the reins of the football team and became head coach of all three major team sports simultaneously, he had not been without success as a head coach himself. The 1941 USC football team finished with a losing record at 2–6–1. Not only was the team mourning the loss of Jones, but Barry found himself facing a schedule in which a majority of USC's opponents were coached by future Hall of Famers, including Paul Brown, Frank Leahy, Clark Shaughnessy. Injuries and illnesses took their toll, depleting the roster at one point to a mere 28 players. Despite these roadblocks, Barry put together a team which improved offensively throughout the year, gaining popularity as the season progressed; the crowd of 86,305 at the USC–Stanford game was the largest in the nation in 1941.
And the team made some upsets, defeating Rose Bowl-bound Oregon State, nearly toppled fourth-ranked Notre Dame on the road in Indiana, falling by only two points. In 1942, other concerns took precedence as the 49-year-old Barry entered the U. S. Navy for service during World War II, he recommended Jeff Cravath to take over his duties as USC football coach, Julie Bescos as basketball coach, Rod Dedeaux as baseball coach for the duration of the war. As a lieutenant commander, Barry was in charge of physical and military training of Navy personnel in the South Pacific, for which he would receive a Naval Commendation from Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal. After leaving the Navy in 1945, Barry resumed his positions leading the USC basketball and baseball teams, while returning as a football assistant under Cravath, he began to restore the basketball program to a nationally competitive level, found his greatest success yet in baseball. At the 1948 College World Series, the Trojans captured their first title by defeating a Yale team captained by future President George Bush.
The finals were held at Hyames Field in Kalamazoo, settled by a 9–2 win in the third and deciding game. The Trojans had a chance to repeat in 1949, but were eliminated when they suffered a pair of extra-inning losses to Wake Forest, both by 2–1 scores; as the years passed, however, it became evident th
Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame
The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame is an American history museum and hall of fame, located at 1000 Hall of Fame Avenue in Springfield, Massachusetts. It serves as the sport's most complete library, in addition to promoting and preserving the history of basketball. Dedicated to Canadian-American physician and inventor of the sport James Naismith, it was opened and inducted its first class in 1959; as of the induction of the Class of 2018, the Hall has formally inducted 389 individuals. The Naismith Hall of Fame was established in 1959 by Lee Williams, a former athletic director at Colby College. In the 1960s, the Basketball Hall of Fame struggled to raise enough money for the construction of its first facility. However, during the following half-decade the necessary amount was raised, the building opened on Feb. 17, 1968, less than one month after the National Basketball Association played its 18th All-Star Game. The Basketball Hall of Fame's Board named four inductees in its first year.
In addition to honoring those who contributed to basketball, the Hall of Fame sought to make contributions of its own. In 1979, the Hall of Fame sponsored a pre-season college basketball exhibition; this Tip-Off Classic has been the start to the college basketball season since, although it does not always take place in Springfield, Massachusetts it returns every few years. In the 17 years that the original Basketball Hall of Fame operated at Springfield College, it drew more than 630,000 visitors; the popularity of the Basketball Hall of Fame necessitated that a new facility be constructed, in 1985, an $11 million facility was built beside the scenic Connecticut River in Springfield. As the new hall opened, it recognized women for the first time, with inductees such as Senda Berenson Abbott, who first introduced basketball to women at Smith College. During the years following its construction, the Basketball Hall of Fame's second facility drew far more visitors than anticipated, due in large part to the increasing popularity of the game but to the scenic location beside the river and the second Hall's interesting modern architecture.
In 2002, the Basketball Hall of Fame moved again—albeit 100 yards south along Springfield's riverfront—into a $47 million facility designed by renowned architects Gwathmey Siegel & Associates. The building's architecture features a metallic silver, basketball-shaped sphere flanked by two symmetrical rhombuses; the dome is illuminated at night and features 80,000 square foot, including numerous restaurants and an extensive gift shop. The second Basketball Hall of Fame was not torn down but rather converted into an LA Fitness health clubs; the current Basketball Hall of Fame features Center Court, a full-sized basketball court on which visitors can play. Inside the building there are a game gallery, many interactive exhibits, several theaters, an honor ring of inductees. A large theater for ceremonies seats up to 300; the honorees inducted in 2002 included the Harlem Globetrotters and Magic Johnson, a five-time NBA champion, three-time NBA finals MVP and Olympic gold medalist. As of 2011, the current Basketball Hall of Fame has exceeded attendance expectations, with basketball fans traveling to the Hall of Fame from all over the world.
Despite the new facility's success, a logistical problem remains for the Basketball Hall of Fame and the City of Springfield. The two entities are separated by the Interstate 91 elevated highway—one of the eastern United States' busiest highways—which inhibits foot-traffic and other interaction between the Basketball Hall of Fame and Springfield's lively Metro Center. Both the Hall and Springfield have made public statements about cooperating further so as to facilitate more business and recreational growth for both. Urban planners at universities such as UMass Amherst have called for the I-91 to be moved, or to be re-configured so as to be pedestrian-friendly to Hall of Fame visitors. In 2010, the Urban Land Institute announced a plan to make the walk between Springfield's Metro Center and the Hall of Fame easier. In contrast to the Pro Football and the National Baseball Halls of Fame, Springfield honors international and American professionals, as well as American and international amateurs, making it arguably the most comprehensive Hall of Fame among major sports.
From 2011 to 2015 seven committees were, as of 2016 six committees are employed to both screen and elect candidates. Four of the committees screen prospective candidates: North American Screening Committee Women's Screening Committee International Screening Committee Veterans Screening Committee, with "Veterans" defined as individuals whose careers ended at least 35 years before they are considered for election. Since 2011, the Veterans and International Committees vote to directly induct one candidate for each induction class. Three committees were formed in 2011 to directly elect one candidate for each induction class: American Basketball Association Committee - This committee was permanently disbanded in 2015 because it had fulfilled its purpose over the previous five years. Contributor Direct Election Committee Other committees may choose to elect contributors. For example, the 2014 class included two contributors. Early African-American Pioneers of the Game CommitteeIndividuals who receive at least seven votes from the North American Screening Committee or five votes from one of the other screening committees in a given year are eligible to advance to an Honors Committee, composed of 12 members plus rotating groups of 12 specialists (one group for
Mary Astor
Mary Astor was an American actress. She is best remembered for her role as Brigid O'Shaughnessy in The Maltese Falcon. Astor began her long motion picture career as a teenager in the silent movies of the early 1920s; when talkies arrived, her voice was considered too masculine and she was off the screen for a year. After she appeared in a play with friend Florence Eldridge, the film offers came in, she was able to resume her career in talking pictures. In 1936, her career was nearly destroyed by scandal. Astor had an affair with playwright George S. Kaufman and was branded an adulterous wife by her ex-husband, in a custody fight over her daughter. Overcoming these stumbling blocks in her private life, Astor had greater success on screen winning an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in The Great Lie. Astor was a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer contract player through most of the 1940s and continued to work in film, television and on stage until her retirement in 1964, she authored five novels.
Her autobiography was a bestseller, as was her book, A Life on Film, about her career. Director Lindsay Anderson wrote of Astor in 1990 that "when two or three who love the cinema are gathered together, the name of Mary Astor always comes up, everybody agrees that she was an actress of special attraction, whose qualities of depth and reality always seemed to illuminate the parts she played". Astor was born in Quincy, the only child of Otto Ludwig Langhanke and Helen Marie de Vasconcellos. Both of her parents were teachers, her German father emigrated to the United States from Berlin in 1891 and became a naturalized U. S. citizen. They married on August 1904 in Lyons, Kansas. Astor's father taught German at Quincy High School until the U. S. entered World War I. On, he took up light farming. Astor's mother, who had always wanted to be an actress, taught elocution. Astor was home-schooled in academics and was taught to play the piano by her father, who insisted she practice daily, her piano talents came in handy when she played piano in her films The Great Lie and Meet Me in St. Louis.
In 1919, Astor sent a photograph of herself to a beauty contest in Motion Picture Magazine, becoming a semifinalist. When Astor was 15, the family moved to Chicago, with her father teaching German in public schools. Astor appeared in various amateur stage productions; the following year, she sent another photograph to Motion Picture Magazine, this time becoming a finalist and runner-up in the national contest. Her father moved the family to New York City, in order for his daughter to act in motion pictures, he managed her affairs from September 1920 to June 1930. A Manhattan photographer, Charles Albin, saw her photograph and asked the young girl with haunting eyes and long auburn hair, whose nickname was "Rusty", to pose for him; the Albin photographs were seen by Harry Durant of Famous Players-Lasky and Astor was signed to a six-month contract with Paramount Pictures. Her name was changed to Mary Astor during a conference among Paramount Pictures chief Jesse Lasky, film producer Walter Wanger, gossip columnist Louella Parsons.
Astor's first screen test was directed by Lillian Gish, so impressed with her recitation of Shakespeare that she shot a thousand feet of her. She made her debut at age 14 in the 1921 film Sentimental Tommy, but her small part in a dream sequence wound up on the cutting room floor. Paramount let her contract lapse, she appeared in some movie shorts with sequences based on famous paintings. She received critical recognition for the 1921 two-reeler The Beggar Maid, her first feature-length movie was John Smith, followed that same year by The Man. In 1923, she and her parents moved to Hollywood. After appearing in several larger roles at various studios, she was again signed by Paramount, this time to a one-year contract at $500 a week. After she appeared in several more movies, John Barrymore saw her photograph in a magazine and wanted her cast in his upcoming movie. On loan-out to Warner Bros. she starred with him in Beau Brummel. The older actor wooed the young actress, but their relationship was constrained by Astor's parents' unwillingness to let the couple spend time alone together.
It was only after Barrymore convinced the Langhankes that his acting lessons required privacy that the couple managed to be alone at all. Their secret engagement ended because of the Langhankes' interference and Astor's inability to escape their heavy-handed authority, because Barrymore became involved with Astor's fellow WAMPAS Baby Star Dolores Costello, whom he married. In 1925, Astor's parents bought a Moorish style mansion with 1 acre of land known as "Moorcrest" in the hills above Hollywood; the Langhankes not only lived lavishly off of Astor's earnings, but kept her a virtual prisoner inside Moorcrest. Moorcrest is known not only for its ornate style, but its place as the most lavish residence associated with the Krotona Colony, a utopian society founded by the Theosophical Society in 1912. Built by Marie Russak Hotchener, a Theosophist who had no formal architectural training, the house combines Moorish and Mission Revival styles and contains such Arts and Crafts features as art-glass windows, Batchelder tiles.
Moorcrest, which has since undergone a multimillion-dollar renovation, remains standing. Before the Langhankes bought it, it was rented by C
The Wizard of Oz (1939 film)
The Wizard of Oz is a 1939 American musical fantasy film produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures. Considered to be one of the greatest films in cinema history, it is the best-known and most commercially successful adaptation of L. Frank Baum's 1900 children's book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Directed by Victor Fleming, the film stars Judy Garland as Dorothy Gale alongside Ray Bolger, Jack Haley, Bert Lahr, Frank Morgan, Billie Burke and Margaret Hamilton with Charley Grapewin, Pat Walshe, Clara Blandick and Singer's Midgets as the Munchkins. Characterized by its legendary use of Technicolor, fantasy storytelling, musical score and memorable characters, the film has become an icon of American popular culture, it was nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture, but lost to Gone with the Wind directed by Victor Fleming. It did win in two other categories: Best Original Song for "Over the Rainbow" and Best Original Score by Herbert Stothart. While the film was considered a critical success upon release in August 1939, it failed to make a profit for MGM until the 1949 re-release, earning only $3,017,000 on a $2,777,000 budget, not including promotional costs, which made it MGM's most expensive production at that time.
The 1956 television broadcast premiere of the film on the CBS network reintroduced the film to the public. It was among the first 25 films that inaugurated the National Film Registry list in 1989, it is one of the few films on UNESCO's Memory of the World Register. The film is among the top ten in the BFI list of the 50 films you should see by the age of 14; the Wizard of Oz is the source of many quotes referenced in contemporary popular culture. Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson, Edgar Allan Woolf received credit for the screenplay, but uncredited contributions were made by others; the songs were written by Harold Arlen. The musical score and the incidental music were composed by Stothart. Dorothy Gale lives with her dog Toto on the Kansas farm of her Aunt Uncle Henry. Toto bites Miss Almira Gulch on the leg, she obtains an order from the sheriff for Toto to be euthanized, she takes Toto away on her bicycle, but he escapes and returns to Dorothy, she decides to run away. She meets Professor Marvel, a kindly fortune teller who uses his crystal ball to make Dorothy believe that Aunt Em may be dying of a broken heart.
Dorothy races home, arriving just as a tornado strikes. Locked out of the farm's storm cellar, she seeks shelter in her bedroom. Wind-blown debris knocks her unconscious and the house is sent spinning in the air, she awakens to see various figures fly by, including Miss Gulch on her bicycle, who transforms into a witch on a broomstick. The house lands in Munchkinland in the Land of Oz. Glinda the Good Witch of the North and the Munchkins welcome her as a heroine, as the falling house has killed the Wicked Witch of the East, her sister, the Wicked Witch of the West, arrives to claim the slippers, but Glinda transports them onto Dorothy's feet first. The Wicked Witch of the West swears revenge on Dorothy vanishes. Glinda tells Dorothy to keep the slippers on and follow the yellow brick road to the Emerald City, where she can ask the Wizard of Oz to help her get back home. On her journey, Dorothy meets the Scarecrow, who wants a brain, the Tin Woodman, who desires a heart, the Cowardly Lion, who needs courage.
Dorothy invites them to accompany her to the Emerald City, where they can ask the Wizard to help them too. Despite the Witch's attempts to foil their journey, they reach the Emerald City and are permitted to see the Wizard, who appears as a large ghostly head surrounded by fire and smoke, he agrees to grant their wishes. As the foursome and Toto make their way to the Witch's castle, the Witch captures Dorothy and plots her death in order to remove her slippers. Toto leads her three friends to the castle, they don the guards' uniforms, march inside and free Dorothy. The Witch and her guards surround them; the Witch sets fire to the Scarecrow, causing Dorothy to toss a bucket of water, inadvertently splashing the Witch, who melts away. The guards give Dorothy her broomstick; the Wizard stalls in fulfilling his promises, until Toto pulls back a curtain and exposes the "Wizard" as a middle-aged man operating machinery and speaking into a microphone. Admitting to being a humbug, he insists, he gives the Scarecrow a diploma, the Lion a medal and the Tin Man a ticking heart-shaped watch, helping them see that the attributes they sought were within them.
He offers to take Dorothy and Toto home in his hot air balloon. He reveals that he, too, is from Kansas, worked at a carnival when a tornado brought him to the Emerald City, he was accepted the job as Wizard due to hard times. As Dorothy and the Wizard prepare to depart, distracted by a cat, leaps from Dorothy's arms; as she pursues Toto, the balloon disembarks with the Wizard. Glinda appears and tells Dorothy the ruby slippers have the power to return her to Kansas if she taps her heels together three times repeating "There's no place like home." Dorothy wakes up in her bedroom surrounded by her family and friends, including Toto. Everyone dismisses her adventure as a dream, but Dorothy insists it was real and says she will never run away from home again, she declares: "There's no place like home!" Production on
