1.
W. S. Van Dyke
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Known as a reliable craftsman who made his films on schedule and under budget, he earned the name One Take Woody for his quick and efficient style of filming. Woodbridge Strong Van Dyke II was born on March 21,1889 in San Diego and his father was a Superior Court judge who died the day his son was born. His mother, Laura Winston, returned to her acting career. As a child actor, Van Dyke appeared with his mother on the circuit with traveling stock companies. They traveled up and down the coast and into the Middle West, when he was five years old, they appeared at the old San Francisco Grand Opera House in Blind Girl. He would later remember his unusual education, I think Ive been to school in state in the Union. Whenever the company stopped off long enough in any city I went back behind a school desk, the rest of the time my mother taught me. When Van Dyke was fourteen years old, he moved to Seattle to live with his grandmother, while attending business school, he worked a number of part-time jobs, including janitor, waiter, salesman, and railroad attendant. Van Dykes early adult years were unsettled, and he moved from job to job, in 1909, he married actress Zelda Ashford, and the two joined various touring theater companies, finally arriving in Hollywood in 1915. In 1915, Van Dyke found work as an assistant director to D. W. Griffith on the film The Birth of a Nation, the following year, he was Griffiths assistant director on Intolerance. That same year he worked as an assistant director to James Young on Unprotected, The Lash, in 1917, Van Dyke directed his first film, The Land of Long Shadows for Essanay Studios. That same year he directed five films, The Range Boss, Open Places, Men of the Desert, Gift O Gab. In 1927, he traveled to Tacoma to direct two silent films for the new H. C, weaver Productions, Eyes of the Totem and The Heart of the Yukon. During the silent era he learned his craft and by the advent of the talkies was one of MGMs most reliable directors, many of his films were huge hits and top box office in any given year. He received Academy Award for Best Director nominations for The Thin Man and San Francisco and he also directed the Oscar-winning classic Eskimo, in which he also has a featured acting role. The earthquake sequence in San Francisco is considered one of the best special-effects sequences ever filmed, to help direct, Van Dyke called upon his early mentor, D. W. Griffith, who had fallen on hard times. Van Dyke was also known to hire old-time, out-of-work actors as extras, because of his loyalty, he was much beloved and admired in the industry. Van Dyke was known for allowing ad-libbing and for coaxing natural performances from his actors and he made stars of Nelson Eddy, James Stewart, Myrna Loy, Johnny Weissmuller, Maureen OSullivan, Eleanor Powell, Ilona Massey, and Margaret OBrien
2.
Charles Lederer
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Charles Lederer was an American screenwriter and film director. A child prodigy, he entered college at age 13, Lederer is recognized for his comic and acerbic adaptations and collaborative screenplays of the 1940s and early 1950s. His screenplays frequently delved into the corrosive influences of wealth and power, Lederer was born in New York City to two prominent figures in the American theater, Broadway producer George Lederer and singer Reine Davies. After his parents were separated, Lederer and his younger sister Pepi moved to California and were raised by his mothers sister, actress Marion Davies. He grew up in Hollywood, spending time at San Simeon, the enchanted castle on the hill. He was a prodigy and was admitted to UC Berkeley at the age of 13. According to biographer William MacAdams, Hollywood was home to Lederer, virtually none of the film community had grown up in Los Angeles, but Lederer had been brought there when he was 11 by Marion Davies, his mothers sister. Lederer thus knew the movie colony inside out as seen from the top, when he was 19, Lederer became friends with Ben Hecht, who introduced him to the New York literati. His friendship with Hecht led to his being hired to write dialogue for the film The Front Page. He later moved back to Hollywood to become a full-time screenwriter, Lederer is recognized for his acerbic wit, with adaptations and collaborative screenplays written mostly during the 1940s and early 1950s. His screenplays frequently delved into the corrosive influences of wealth and power, yet his comedy writing was also among the best of the period, and he, along with Hecht and Herman Mankiewicz became major contributors to the film genre known as screwball comedy. He was friends with screenwriters Joseph and Herman Mankiewicz, Herman would later become co-screenwriter of Citizen Kane. After becoming friends with Lederer, Herman told Joe to come to the office of their mutual friend Charlie Lederer, as explained by Hollywood columnist Pauline Kael, Mankiewicz found himself on story-swapping terms with the power behind it all, Hearst himself. Lederer, a prodigy, who had entered college at thirteen. Lederer was Marion Davies’s nephew – the son of her sister Reine. Marion was childless, and Lederer was very close to her, he spent a deal of his time at her various dwelling places, and took his friends to meet both her and Hearst. ”After finishing the script for Citizen Kane, Mankiewicz gave a copy to Lederer. In some crazily naive way, Mankiewicz seems to have imagined that Lederer would be pleased by how good it was, but Lederer, apparently, was deeply upset and took the script to his aunt and Hearst. It went from them to Hearsts lawyers, Lederer, however, told director Peter Bogdanovich that Kael was totally incorrect in this matter, and she never bothered to check with him
3.
Harry Kurnitz
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Harry Kurnitz was an American playwright, novelist, and prolific screenwriter who wrote swashbucklers for Errol Flynn and comedies for Danny Kaye. He also wrote some mystery fiction under the name Marco Page, Kurnitz grew up in Philadelphia and attended the University of Pennsylvania. He entered journalism as a book and music reviewer for The Philadelphia Record in 1930, in his spare time he wrote fiction. A mystery story Kurnitz wrote in 1937, Fast Company, about skulduggery in the rare-book business, metro-Goldwyn-Mayer bought the book, and Kurnitz wrote the screenplay. Kurnitz wrote more than forty movie scripts, among them Witness for the Prosecution, What Next, Corporal Hargrove. and his first play was Reclining Figure, a 1954 comedy about painters and their patrons and the tricks of the dealers and collectors who prey on them. Later, Kurnitz wrote the hit comedy Once More, with Feeling, other plays included High Fidelity and The Girl Who Came to Supper, a musical he wrote with Noël Coward, who composed the music and lyrics. On March 18,1968, Kurnitz died of a heart attack, at the time of his death he was working on a detective story. How to Steal a Million Goodbye Charlie A Shot in the Dark Surprise Package Once More, Harry Kurnitz at the Internet Broadway Database Harry Kurnitz at the Internet Movie Database Harry Kurnitz at Find a Grave
4.
William Powell
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William Horatio Powell was an American actor. A major star at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, he was paired with Myrna Loy in 14 films, including the Thin Man series based on the Nick and Nora Charles characters created by Dashiell Hammett. Powell was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor three times, for The Thin Man, My Man Godfrey, and Life with Father, an only child, Powell was born in Pittsburgh to Nettie Manila and Horatio Warren Powell, on July 29,1892. His father was born in West Middlesex, Pennsylvania, to William S. in 1907, he moved with his family to Kansas City, Missouri, where he graduated from Central High School in 1910. After high school, he left home for New York and the American Academy of Dramatic Arts at the age of 18, in 1912, Powell graduated from the AADA, and worked in some vaudeville and stock companies. Powells most famous role was that of Nick Charles in six Thin Man films, beginning with The Thin Man in 1934, Myrna Loy played his wife, Nora, in each of the Thin Man films. Their on-screen partnership, beginning alongside Clark Gable in 1934 with Manhattan Melodrama, was one of Hollywoods most prolific, Loy and Powell starred in the Best Picture of 1936, The Great Ziegfeld, with Powell in the title role and Loy as Ziegfelds wife Billie Burke. That same year, he received his second Academy Award nomination. In 1935, he starred with Harlow in Reckless, a serious romance developed between them, and in 1936, they were reunited on screen and with Loy and Spencer Tracy in the screwball comedy Libeled Lady. Harlow died from uremia at the age of 26 in June 1937 before they could marry and his distress over her death, as well as a cancer diagnosis, caused him to accept fewer acting roles. Powells career slowed considerably in the 1940s, although he received his third Academy Award nomination in 1947 for his role as the cantankerous Clarence Day and his last film was 1955s Mister Roberts. In 1915, he married Eileen Wilson who was born Julia Tierney, with whom he had his child, William David Powell. Powells son became a writer and producer before a period of ill health led to his suicide in 1968. On June 26,1931, Powell married actress Carole Lombard, the marriage lasted just over two years. They were divorced in 1933, though they, too, remained on good terms, Powell was devastated when he learned of her death in 1942. In 1937, Powell was diagnosed with cancer and he underwent surgery and experimental radium treatment which put the disease in full remission within two years. Given his own health and sorrow over Jean Harlows death, Powell did not undertake any film roles for over a year during this period, three weeks after they met, on January 6,1940, Powell married actress Diana Lewis, whom he called Mousie. Powell died in Palm Springs, California, on March 5,1984, at the age of 91 and he is buried at the Desert Memorial Park in Cathedral City, California, near his son William David Powell and wife Diana Lewis
5.
Myrna Loy
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Myrna Loy was an American film, television and stage actress. Trained as a dancer, Loy devoted herself fully to a career following a few minor roles in silent films. She was originally typecast in roles, often as a vamp or a woman of Asian descent. During World War II, Loy served as assistant to the director of military and she was later appointed a member-at-large of the U. S. While the height of her popularity was during the 1930s and 40s, she continued to pursue stage, television. Loy was born in Helena, Montana, the daughter of Adelle Mae and rancher David Franklin Williams and she had a younger brother, David Williams. Loys paternal grandparents were Welsh, and her grandparents were Scottish and Swedish. Her first name was derived from a stop near Broken Bow, Nebraska. Her father was also a banker and real estate developer and the youngest man elected to the Montana state legislature. Her mother studied music at the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago, during the winter of 1912, Loys mother nearly died from pneumonia, and her father sent his wife and daughter to La Jolla, California. Loys mother saw great potential in Southern California, and during one of her husbands visits, among the properties he bought was land he later sold at a considerable profit to Charlie Chaplin so the filmmaker could construct his studio there. Although her mother tried to persuade her husband to move to California permanently, he preferred ranch life and the three eventually returned to Montana. Loys father died on November 7,1918, of Spanish influenza, and Loys mother was able to realize her dream to permanently relocate her family to California. Loy attended the exclusive Westlake School for Girls in Los Angeles, California, when her teachers objected to her participating in theatrical arts, her mother enrolled her in Venice High School, and at 15, she began appearing in local stage productions. In 1921, Loy posed for Venice High School sculpture teacher Harry Fielding Winebrenner for the central figure Inspiration in his sculpture group Fountain of Education. Completed in 1922, the group was erected in front of the campus outdoor pool in May 1923 where it stood for decades. Fountain of Education can be seen in the scenes of the 1978 film Grease. Loy left school at the age of 18 to help with the familys finances and she obtained work at Graumans Egyptian Theatre, where she performed in elaborate musical sequences that were related to and served as prologues for the feature film
