The Best Actor 1930

Robert Montgomery was born Henry Montgomery Jr., the elder son of New York businessman Henry Montgomery and his wife, Mary Weed (Barney), a native of Brooklyn, Kings County, New York. Montgomery had a younger brother, Donald. He was not related to Belinda Montgomery.

As a child, he enjoyed a privileged life. His father, Henry Montgomery, was the president of the New York Rubber Co. When Henry Montgomery died and owing to the Depression, the family fortune was gone. Henry Jr. and his younger brother, Donald, worked at a number of jobs. He later went to New York to be a writer, and on the advice of a friend, tried acting. He worked with George Cukor on the stage and his first film, at MGM, was So This Is College (1929), changing his forename.

When Norma Shearer picked him to be her leading man in Private Lives (1931), he was set. He ran the gamut of different characters over the years. He served as President of the Screen Actors Guild from 1935-38 and 1946-47.. His stay with MGM lasted 16 years, and was only interrupted by WWII when he joined the navy. He saw action in both Europe and the Pacific.

He returned to MGM in 1945 and co-starred with John Wayne in the John Ford-directed They Were Expendable (1945) and then made his directorial debut with Lady in the Lake (1946) (although he had directed a few scenes, uncredited, in They Were Expendable (1945) when John Ford took ill). He left MGM to become an independent director, preferring work behind the camera instead of in front.

A staunch Republican, he was a friendly witness before the House Un-American Activities in 1947 during the McCarthy era and then spent most of his time on television and stage. His popular show, Robert Montgomery Presents (1950), was where his daughter, Elizabeth Montgomery (who later gained lasting fame as beautiful witch Samantha Stevens on Bewitched (1964)), got her first acting job.

Robert Montgomery died of cancer on September 27, 1981, aged 77, at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan, New York City. His body was cremated and the ashes were given to the family.

The Academy Award-nominated film actor Chester Morris, who will forever be associated with the character Boston Blackie, was born John Chester Brooks Morris on February 16 1901 in New York City, the son of actor William Morris and comedienne Etta Hawkins.

Chester Morris made his Broadway debut as a teenager in 1918 in the play "The Copperhead," in support of the great Lionel Barrymore, who coincidentally would play Boston Blackie in a silent picture (The Face in the Fog (1922)) a generation before Morris would make that role his own. A year earlier, Chester Morris had made his movie debut in Van Dyke Brooke's An Amateur Orphan (1917), but he didn't really become a movie actor until the sound era. Instead, Morris made his acting bones on the boards, appearing on Broadway in the plays "Thunder" and "The Mountain Man" in 1919. He returned to the Great White Way in 1922 in the comedy "The Exciters" following it up with the comedy-drama "Extra" in 1923. Now established, Chester Morris began billing himself as "the youngest leading man in the country."

He appeared without credit in 'Cecil B. DeMille's The Road to Yesterday (1925), though his dark, good-looks and chiseled jaw made him a natural for movie stardom, it wasn't until the transition of the movies from silent pictures to the talkies that he became a movie actor. He was one of the first actors to be nominated for an Academy Award when in 1930 (the second year of the as-yet non-nicknamed Oscars) he was recognized with a nod as Best Actor for Alibi (1929), his first talking picture. But it was his appearance in The Big House (1930), the film for which he is best known (other than his portrayal of Boston Blackie in the eponymous detective series of the 1940s) that he broke through to stardom.

From 1930 through the middle of the decade, he was a star with good roles in first-rate pictures, usually assaying a tough guy. However, his star dimmed and by the end of the decade he was appearing in B-pictures, but beginning in 1941, the Boston Blackie series at Columbia Pictures revived his career. In all, he appeared in 14 pictures as the detective. He later segued to TV work in the 1950s and '60s, appearing in the occasional film such as his last, The Great White Hope (1970), which meant he had been a working movie actor for seven decades.

Although he was afflicted with cancer, it is unclear whether he took his own life as he was apparently in good spirits and left no note September 11, 1970.

In 1902, 16-year-old Wallace Beery joined the Ringling Brothers Circus as an assistant to the elephant trainer. He left two years later after a leopard clawed his arm. Beery next went to New York, where he found work in musical variety shows. He became a leading man in musicals and appeared on Broadway and in traveling stock companies. In 1913 he headed for Hollywood, where he would get his start as the hulking Swedish maid in the Sweedie comedy series for Essanay. In 1915 he would work with young ingénue Gloria Swanson in Sweedie Goes to College (1915). A year later they would marry and be wildly unhappy together. The marriage dissolved when Beery could not control his drinking and Gloria got tired of his abuse. Beery finished with the Sweedie series and worked as the heavy in a number of films. Starting with Patria (1917), he would play the beastly Hun in a number of films. In the 1920s he would be seen in a number of adventures, including The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921), Robin Hood (1922), The Sea Hawk (1924) and The Pony Express (1925). He would also play the part of Poole in So Big (1924), which was based on the best-selling book of the same name by Edna Ferber. Paramount began to move Beery back into comedies with Behind the Front (1926). When sound came, Beery was one of the victims of the wholesale studio purge. He had a voice that would record well, but his speech was slow and his tone was a deep, folksy, down home-type. While not the handsome hero image, MGM executive Irving Thalberg saw something in Beery and hired him for the studio. Thalberg cast Beery in The Big House (1930), which was a big hit and got Beery an Academy Award nomination. However, Beery would become almost a household word with the release of the sentimental Min and Bill (1930), which would be one of 1930's top money makers. The next year Beery would win the Oscar for Best Actor in The Champ (1931). He would be forever remembered as Long John Silver in Treasure Island (1934) (who says never work with kids?). Beery became one of the top ten stars in Hollywood, as he was cast as the tough, dim-witted, easy-going type (which, in real life, he was anything but). In Flesh (1932) he would be the dim-witted wrestler who did not figure that his wife was unfaithful. In Dinner at Eight (1933) he played a businessman trying to get into society while having trouble with his wife, link=nm0001318]. After Marie Dressler died in 1934, he would not find another partner in the same vein as his early talkies until he teamed with Marjorie Main in the 1940s. He would appear opposite her in such films as Wyoming (1940) and Barnacle Bill (1941). By that time his career was slowing as he was getting up in age. He continued to work, appearing in only one or two pictures a year, until he died from a heart attack in 1949.

Lew Ayres was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota and raised in San Diego, California. A college dropout, he was found by a talent scout in the Coconut Grove nightclub in Los Angeles and entered Hollywood as a bit player. He was leading man to Greta Garbo in The Kiss (1929), but it was the role of Paul Baumer in All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) that was his big break. He was profoundly affected by the anti-war message of that film, and when, in 1942, the popular star of Young Dr. Kildare (1938) and subsequent Dr. Kildare films was drafted, he was a conscientious objector. America was outraged, and theaters vowed never to show his films again, but quietly he achieved the Medical Corps status he had requested, serving as a medic under fire in the South Pacific and as a chaplain's aid in New Guinea and the Phillipines. His return to film after the war was undistinguished until Johnny Belinda (1948) - his role as the sympathetic physician treating the deaf-mute Jane Wyman won him an Academy Award nomination as Best Actor. Subsequent movie roles were scarce; an opportunity to play Dr. Kildare in television was aborted when the network refused to honor his request for no cigarette sponsorship. He continued to act, but in the 1970s put his long experience into a project to bring to the west the philosophy of the East - the resulting film, Altars of the World (1976), while not a box-office success, won critical acclaim and a Golden Globe Award. Lew Ayres died in Los Angeles, California on December 30, 1996, just two days after his 88th birthday.

It was Lionel Barrymore who gave Louis Wolheim (Cornell '07) his start as an actor. Wolheim had had his face more or less smashed in and his nose nicely fractured while playing on a scrub Cornell football team. Later as a Cornell Instructor he found life none too easy. He had worked off and on as an extra in the Wharton studio but never received much attention. Barrymore had only to look at him once to realize that Wolhelm's face was his fortune. Through Barrymore, Wolheim gained an entree into New York theatrical life. On the legitimate stage he made a great success in "Welcome Wing" and "The Hairy Ape," climaxing these plays by his triumph in "What Price Glory". ~ Cornell Daily Sun, Issue 70, 5 January 1932, Page 2

His real name was Theodor Friedrich Emil Janenz, and in the early 1900s, he was already working in the theater under Max Reinhardt's company. Important movies where he defined himself as a convincing actor were Passion (1919) and Quo Vadis? (1924), followed by The Last Laugh (1924) (aka The Last Laugh) in 1924 and Variety (1925) (aka Variety) in 1925. In 1928, he became the first male leading actor to receive the academy award for The Last Command (1928) directed by Josef von Sternberg. In 1929, Stenberg directed him in his world famous movie The Blue Angel (1930) (aka The Blue Angel) co-starring the young Marlene Dietrich (her first role). Later on, he concentrated on theater and dedicated his acting skills to the Nazi regime and also took part in the realization of Ohm Krüger (1941) in 1941, an expensive anti-British film production. When the Second World War ended, the US government cleaned his image, and he converted to Catholicism. He played in a few more German movies, but his career never recaptured its brilliance.

Fritz Kampers was born on 14 July 1891 in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. He was an actor and director, known for Three from the Filling Station (1930), Der Bettelstudent (1936) and Little Man What Now (1933). He died on 1 September 1950 in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Bavaria, Germany.

Gustav Diessl was an Austrian artist, film and stage actor. He studied art, painting and sculpture in Vienna. From 1921 he worked in Berlin as an actor for G.W. Pabst in his silent film, "Abgründe" (1928). In 1929 he played in The White Hell of Pitz Palu (1929) ("The White Hell of Pitz Palu"). After that he became famous in USA, but returned to Germany after making only one film in Hollywood. He also played in Italian films. After a short-lived first marriage, he cohabited with Camilla Horn for a couple of years, but in 1938 he married opera star Maria Cebotari, with who he had two sons; one of them lives today in England and the other one in New Zealand. Gustav Diessl died, much too young,in Vienna.

Ben Lyon was your average boyish, easy-going, highly appealing film personality of the Depression-era 1930s. Although he never rose above second-tier stardom, he would enjoy enduring success both in the United States and in the UK.

Born Ben Lyon, Jr. in Atlanta, Georgia, the future singer/actor was the son of Alvine Valentine (Wiseberg) and Benjamin Bethel "Ben" Lyon, a pianist-turned-businessman, and the youngest of four. His maternal grandparents were German Jewish immigrants. Raised in Baltimore, he started performing in amateur productions as a teen before earning marquee value on Broadway opposite such stars as Jeanne Eagels.

Hollywood took notice of the baby-faced charmer and soon Ben was ingratiating filmgoers opposite silent film's most honored leading ladies. He appeared with Pola Negri in Lily of the Dust (1924), Gloria Swanson in Wages of Virtue (1924), Barbara La Marr in The White Moth (1924), Mary Astor in The Pace That Thrills (1925) and Claudette Colbert, in her only silent feature, in For the Love of Mike (1927). He advanced easily into talkies and was particularly noteworthy as the dashing hero in Howard Hughes' Hell's Angels (1930), in which Ben actually piloted his own plane (Ben had trained as a pilot during WWI) and filmed some of the airborne scenes for Hughes himself. That same year was also a banner year for him in his personal life after marrying Paramount Pictures film star Bebe Daniels, with whom he had appeared in Alias French Gertie (1930).

As both of their movie careers started to decline, the talented twosome decided to work up a husband-and-wife music hall and vaudeville act. They took their show to England and became a hit at the London Palladium. At one point he served in the U.S. Army Air Force and rose to the rank of Lt. Colonel in charge of Special Services for the U.S. Air Corps in England. Soldiers, sailors and airmen (from 1939) listened to Ben and Bebe weekly on the air waves with their popular, long-running BBC broadcast "Hi, Gang!" The couple remained in England throughout WWII performing on stage and doing their valid part to entertain and honor the troops.

After a brief postwar stay in Hollywood in 1946, where Ben had taken an executive position with Fox, the couple returned to England and headlined another popular 1950s radio show, "Life with the Lyons," which spawned two family-styled films that included children Barbara Lyon and Richard Lyon. In the early 1960s Bebe suffered multiple strokes and left the limelight, passing away in 1971. Ben remarried (to former actress Marian Nixon) and settled in the US, where he died in 1979 of a heart attack while on vacation.

John Wayne was born Marion Robert Morrison in Iowa, to Mary Alberta (Brown) and Clyde Leonard Morrison, a pharmacist. He was of English, Scottish, Ulster-Scots, and Irish ancestry.

Clyde developed a lung condition that required him to move his family from Iowa to the warmer climate of southern California, where they tried ranching in the Mojave Desert. Until the ranch failed, Marion and his younger brother Robert E. Morrison swam in an irrigation ditch and rode a horse to school. When the ranch failed, the family moved to Glendale, California, where Marion delivered medicines for his father, sold newspapers and had an Airedale dog named "Duke" (the source of his own nickname). He did well at school both academically and in football. When he narrowly failed admission to Annapolis he went to USC on a football scholarship 1925-7. Tom Mix got him a summer job as a prop man in exchange for football tickets. On the set he became close friends with director John Ford for whom, among others, he began doing bit parts, some billed as John Wayne. His first featured film was Men Without Women (1930). After more than 70 low-budget westerns and adventures, mostly routine, Wayne's career was stuck in a rut until Ford cast him in Stagecoach (1939), the movie that made him a star. He appeared in nearly 250 movies, many of epic proportions. From 1942-43 he was in a radio series, "The Three Sheets to the Wind", and in 1944 he helped found the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals, a Conservative political organization, later becoming its President. His conservative political stance was also reflected in The Alamo (1960), which he produced, directed and starred in. His patriotic stand was enshrined in The Green Berets (1968) which he co-directed and starred in. Over the years Wayne was beset with health problems. In September 1964 he had a cancerous left lung removed; in 1977 when Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope was being made, John Waynes archive voice was used for the character Garindan ezz Zavor, later in March 1978 there was heart valve replacement surgery; and in January 1979 his stomach was removed. He received the Best Actor nomination for Sands of Iwo Jima (1949) and finally got the Oscar for his role as one-eyed Rooster Cogburn in True Grit (1969). A Congressional Gold Medal was struck in his honor in 1979. He is perhaps best remembered for his parts in Ford's cavalry trilogy - Fort Apache (1948), She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949) and Rio Grande (1950).

By the time that he was 20, Lewis Stone had turned prematurely grey. He enlisted to fight in the Spanish American War and when he returned, he returned to be a writer. This turned to acting and he began to appear in films during the middle teens. His career was again interrupted by war as he served in the cavalry during World War I. After the war, he returned to films and quickly graduated to lead roles. With his distinguished look and grey hair, he was able to play the roles of well mannered romantic men. In 1921, Lewis starred in Don't Neglect Your Wife (1921). In the next year, he starred with Alice Terry, who played the heroine, and Ramon Novarro in The Prisoner of Zenda (1922) and Scaramouche (1923). In 1924, Metro merged into the new MGM where Lewis remained for the rest of his career. He was busy over the next few years and garnered an Academy Award nomination for The Patriot (1928). In 1928, he appeared in the first of a series of pictures with Greta Garbo. In A Woman of Affairs (1928) he played the older doctor, a friend of the family. But two years later in Romance (1930), he played her lover.

Lewis made the transition from silent to sound with The Trial of Mary Dugan (1929), which starred Norma Shearer. Sound did not cause Lewis any problems and he continued to be busy with his roles as the distinguished lead. The Big House (1930) was highly successful for MGM and he appeared in other popular movies such as The Phantom of Paris (1931) with John Gilbert and Red-Headed Woman (1932) with Jean Harlow. He appeared with Garbo in Inspiration (1931), Mata Hari (1931), Grand Hotel (1932) and Queen Christina (1933). In the late 30s he took on a role for which he was long remembered - the role of Judge James Hardy who had a son named Andy. Judge Hardy was the father audiences wanted in the late 30s early 40s. He was kind, intellectual, fair and as patient as he had to be with Andy, played by Mickey Rooney. This series occupied most of his screen time until it ended and he did slow down during the late 40s. In the 50s he continued to appear in a number of pictures including remakes of the two he had made 30 years before with Alice Terry. He suffered a heart attack and died in 1953 after appearing in over 200 films.

Richard Barthelmess was born into a theatrical family in which his mother was an actress. While attending Trinity College in Connecticut, he began appearing in stage productions. While on vacation in 1916, a friend of his mother, actress Alla Nazimova, offered him a part in War Brides (1916), and Richard never returned to college. He appeared in a number of films before signing a contract with D.W. Griffith in 1919. Griffith put Richard into Broken Blossoms (1919) with Lillian Gish which made him a star. He had an uncanny ability to become the characters he played. The next year, he was again teamed with Lillian in Way Down East (1920). This film would become the standard for many movies in the future. Best remembered is the river scene in which Richard jumps over the ice floes in search of Lillian as she heads towards the falls. He formed Inspiration Pictures to make Tol'able David (1921) and gave one of his best performances as a lad who saves the U.S. mail from the outlaws. He remained popular throughout the twenties and became one of the biggest stars at First National Pictures. He received Academy Award nominations for The Patent Leather Kid (1927) and The Noose (1928). Sound was not a medium that would embrace Richard. He did make a number of talkies in the first few years of sound, but his acting technique was not well suited for sound and the parts began to get smaller. With his career over by the mid-30s, but he came back with a fine performance in Howard Hawks's Only Angels Have Wings (1939). Richard joined the Navy Reserve in 1942, and when the war ended he retired to Long Island and lived off his real estate investments.

Although he appeared in approximately 100 movies and TV shows, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. never really intended to take up acting as a career. However, the environment into which he was born and the circumstances naturally led him to be a thespian. Noblesse oblige.

He was born Douglas Elton Fairbanks, Jr. in New York City, New York, to Anna Beth (Sully), daughter of a very wealthy cotton mogul, and actor Douglas Fairbanks (born Douglas Elton Thomas Ullman), then not yet established as the swashbuckling idol he would become. Fairbanks, Jr. had German Jewish (from his paternal grandfather), English, and Scottish ancestry.

He proved a gifted boy early in life. To the end of his life he remained a multi-talented, hyperactive man, not content to appear in the 100 films mentioned above. Handsome, distinguished and extremely bright, he excelled at sports (much like his father), notably during his stay at the Military Academy in 1919 (his role in Claude Autant-Lara's "L'athlète incomplete" illustrated these abilities). He also excelled academically, and attended the Lycéee Janson de Sailly in Paris, where he had followed his divorced mother. Very early in his life he developed a taste for the arts as well and became a painter and sculptor. Not content to limiting himself to just one field, he became involved in business, in fields as varied as mining, hotel management, owning a chain of bowling alleys and a firm that manufactured popcorn. During World War II he headed London's Douglas Voluntary Hospital (an establishment taking care of war refugees), was President Franklin D. Roosevelt's special envoy for the Special Mission to South America in 1940 before becoming a lieutenant in the Navy (he was promoted to the rank of captain in 1954) and taking part in the Allies' landing in Sicily and Elba in 1943. A fervent Anglophile, was knighted in 1949 and often entertained Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip in his London mansion, "The Boltons".

His film career began at the age of 13 when he was signed by Paramount Pictures. He debuted in Stephen Steps Out (1923) but the film flopped and his career stagnated despite a critically acclaimed role in Stella Dallas (1925). Things really picked up when he married Lucille Le Sueur, a young starlet who was soon to become better known as Joan Crawford. The young couple became the toast of the town (one "Screen Snapshots" episode echoes this sudden glory) and good parts and success followed, such as the hapless partner of Edward G. Robinson in Little Caesar (1931) a favorably reviewed turn as the villain in The Prisoner of Zenda (1937) or more debonair characters in slapstick comedies or adventure yarns. The 1930s were a fruitful period for Fairbanks, his most memorable role probably being that of the British soldier in Gunga Din (1939); although it was somewhat of a "swashbuckling" role, Fairbanks made a point of never imitating his father. After the World War II, his star waned and, despite a moving part in Ghost Story (1981), he did not appear in a major movie. Now a legend himself, Douglas Fairbanks Jr. left this world with the satisfaction of having lived up to the Fairbanks name at the end of a life nobody could call "wasted".

Born in Staunton, Virginia, William Haines ran off to live life on his own terms while still in his teens, moving to New York City and becoming friends with such later Hollywood luminaries as designer Orry-Kelly and Cary Grant. His film career started slowly, but by the end of the silent era he was regularly named as the #1 male box-office draw. He also became fast friends with a number of contemporaries, such as Joan Crawford and Marion Davies, whose fame would eclipse his. His career faded rapidly in the early 1930s, and he was finally released allegedly due to a fight with MGM mogul Louis B. Mayer over Haines' refusal to end his relationship with his lover, Jimmie Shields. However, as his film career ended, his interior design career blossomed, resulting in major work for Jack L. Warner and the Bloomingdales, and culminating in the refurbishing of the American ambassador's residence in London, England. Although Haines was quite open about his homosexuality and entertained many of Hollywood's gay set - including George Cukor and Clifton Webb - his story is missing from many histories of the era. Haines and Shields remained a couple for 50 years; Crawford called them "the happiest married couple in Hollywood."

The zaniest of all madcap comedy teams were the Marx Brothers, namely Groucho (aka Julius Henry), Chico (aka Leonard), and Harpo (aka Adolph). There were also Zeppo (aka Herbert) -- who featured in their early comedies as a straight man and later became a theatrical agent -- and Gummo (aka Milton), who eschewed the entertainment industry for a career in business. Though the Marxes were born in New York, their father Simon (nicknamed 'Frenchie') originally hailed from Germany. He was a clothing cutter, who (according to Groucho) had lofty aspirations of becoming a tailor. He later changed his name to Sam. Their mother came from Alsace-Lorraine and was a noted beauty named Minnie Schoenberg. The brothers were raised in the Jewish faith and grew up in a poor Manhattan neighbourhood of mostly Italian and German immigrants on East 93rd Street.

Groucho Marx was the first to enter show business as a boy soprano with the Gus Edwards show 'Boys and Girls'. His first 'proper job' was on Coney Island, singing a song while sitting on a keg of beer. This earned him a dollar. Chico Marx became a piano salesman at Shapiro and Bernstein. In 1908, Minnie, whose parents had once operated a travelling theatrical troupe, organised Groucho, Harpo Marx, Gummo Marx and a kid named Lou Levy into a musical act on vaudeville. They became known as the Four Nightingales. With further additions, this expanded into the Six Mascots by 1912. The Marxe's uncle, a well-established German-born comic and vaudevillian named Al Shean, began to refine the show business personae of the brothers and also contributed to writing their first successful skit. Groucho now started walking with a loping stoop and became verbose. Harpo donned a red wig and became a mute. Chico wore a pointy hat and adopted an Italian accent. Their growing success on the vaudeville circuit led to a sojourn in England in the early 20s where they appeared in a musical revue entitled On the Balcony. In 1924, Groucho, Harpo, Chico and Zeppo achieved their first major breakthrough on Broadway in the comedy musical I'll Say She Is. Groucho, playing Napoleon Bonaparte, sported his painted on moustache for the first time on the big stage (the cigar came later). In 1925, the Marxes headlined with their own material in The Cocoanuts which later also became their first talking picture.

The brothers (after 1933 minus straight man Zeppo Marx) went on to star in another dozen motion pictures. These included Animal Crackers (1930), Monkey Business (1931), Horse Feathers (1932) and Duck Soup (1933) (for Paramount) and A Night at the Opera (1935),A Day at the Races (1937) (arguably their best), At the Circus (1939), Go West (1940) and The Big Store (1941) (for MGM). By the early 30s, their on- screen characters had become fully-fledged. Few directors could fully contain (or control) them, though some did better than others. Groucho pretty much dominated (and chewed) the scene as the garrulous master of barbed insults and double entendres (he also wrote or co-wrote most of the gags and one-liners). His characters had memorable names like Hugo Z. Hackenbush, J. Cheever Loophole and Rufus T. Firefly. Chico was slow-witted and somewhat shady, playing the piano with his inimitable style during musical interludes. Finally, child-like Harpo, eating plates, drinking ink and chasing girls (and, of course, playing the harp). Matronly Margaret Dumont, often on the receiving end of Groucho's jokes, remained mostly stoic, never quite 'getting it'.

Their uniquely anarchic style of comedy has remained popular to this day, neatly summed up by Fiorello (Chico) pointing out to Otis P. Driftwood (Groucho) in A Day at the Races that in a Marx Brothers contract "There ain't no Sanity Clause".



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Willy Fritsch was born on 27 January 1901 in Kattowitz, Upper Silesia, Germany [now Katowice, Slaskie, Poland]. He was an actor, known for Woman in the Moon (1929), Inglourious Basterds (2009) and Amphitryon (1935). He was married to Dinah Grace. He died on 13 July 1973 in Hamburg, Germany.

First he should take over his father's inheritance. When his parents divorced, Rühmann was just 14 years old. His father then committed suicide. In 1919, after completing his schooling and completing his secondary school leaving certificate, Rühmann took acting lessons. He got his first theater role a year later in the play "Rose Bernd". Shortly afterwards, Rühmann played with Theo Lingen at the Residenztheater in Hanover. In 1923 Rühmann became a member of the Schauspielhaus Munich, from where he moved to the Munich Kammerspiele a year later. During this time he married the actress Maria Herbot. Rühmann got his major roles from 1927 in Berlin with Max Reinhardt. Among others, he played here with Marlene Dietrich and Hans Albers.

In 1930, Rühmann realized his dream and got his pilot's license. The famous film "The Three from the Gas Station" was also made during this time. The film, which was one of the first German sound films, made him the most popular actor in Germany. During the Second World War, Rühmann was indifferent to politics. He tried to come to terms with the rules of National Socialist cultural policy, which benefited his career. He was later blamed for his friendship with high-ranking members of the Nazi regime. In 1938 he divorced his wife. Shortly afterwards he married the actress Hertha Feiler, with whom he also had a son. From 1938 to 1945 Rühmann was a member of the Berlin State Theater under the direction of Gustav Gründgens. During the Second World War, Rühmann was drafted into the Wehrmacht as a pilot. The funny film "Quax, the Break Pilot" was made, which was specially commissioned from Ufa-Film in 1941 by Propaganda Minister Josef Goebbels to keep the people happy.

In 1944, Rühmann appeared in the legendary comedy "Die Feuerzangenbowle", one of the classics that was produced to calm the "home front" during the war years. The film became one of his most famous films. After the end of the war, Rühmann was "denazified" and a temporary ban on playing was lifted. He moved back to Munich with his family and founded his own film company "Comedia" here in 1947. But this didn't bring him any luck; he had several failures. It wasn't until the film "Don't Be Afraid of Big Animals" came out that things started to look up again financially. Rühmann became a respected actor in post-war German cinema. He also had great success with "The Captain of Köpenick" by Carl Zuckmayer, among others. In this film, Rühmann played a shoemaker who took advantage of the confusion of authority in the military hierarchy to put himself in the position of a captain. In the 1950s, successful entertainment films such as "When the Father and the Son", "Charley's Aunt" and "The Pauker" were made.

With the thriller "It Happened in Broad Daylight" he asserted himself in demanding roles. In 1957 Rühmann was awarded the German Film Critics' Prize. Over time, the comedian became a character actor. Rühmann made a film in Hollywood in 1965: "The Ship of Fools" alongside Vivien Leigh. "The Love Carousel" was also created in 1965 with Gert Fröbe and Curd Jürgens. In 1966 the actor received the Federal Cross of Merit and in 1972 the Federal Film Prize. In 1968 Rühmann got his first television role in the film "Death of a Salesman" by Arthur Miller. Two years later his wife died. On October 9, 1974, he married Hertha Droemer for the third time. After the film "Fondenes Fressen" was filmed, Rühmann withdrew from acting and only appeared occasionally on television.

During this time he wrote his autobiography "That was it". A final film was released in 1993: "Far away, so close" by Wim Wenders. In 1995 he was posthumously awarded the Golden Camera as "Greatest German Actor of the Century".

Heinz Rühmann died on October 3, 1994 at the age of 92 on Lake Starnberg.

Born to Alice Cooper and Charles Cooper. Gary attended school at Dunstable school England, Helena Montana and Grinnell College, Grinnell, Iowa (then called Iowa College). His first stage experience was during high school and college. Afterwards, he worked as an extra for one year before getting a part in a two-reeler by the independent producer Hans Tiesler . Eileen Sedgwick was his first leading lady. He then appeared in The Winning of Barbara Worth (1926) for United Artists before moving to Paramount. While there he appeared in a small part in Wings (1927), It (1927), and other films.

The words "suave" and "debonair" became synonymous with the name Adolphe Menjou in Hollywood, both on- and off-camera. The epitome of knavish, continental charm and sartorial opulence, Menjou, complete with trademark waxy black mustache, evolved into one of Hollywood's most distinguished of artists and fashion plates, a tailor-made scene-stealer, if you will. What is often forgotten is that he was primed as a matinée idol back in the silent-film days. With hooded, slightly owlish eyes, a prominent nose and prematurely receding hairline, he was hardly competition for Rudolph Valentino, but he did possess the requisite demeanor to confidently pull off a roguish and magnetic man-about-town. Fluent in six languages, Menjou was nearly unrecognizable without some type of formal wear, and he went on to earn distinction as the nation's "best dressed man" nine times.

Born on February 18, 1890, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, he was christened Adolphe Jean Menjou, the elder son of a hotel manager. His Irish mother was a distant cousin of novelist / poet James Joyce ("Ulysses") (1882-1941). His French father, an émigré, eventually moved the family to Cleveland, where he operated a chain of restaurants. He disapproved of show business and sent an already piqued Adolphe to Culver Military Academy in Indiana in the hopes of dissuading him from such a seemingly reckless and disreputable career. From there Adolphe was enrolled at Stiles University prep school and then Cornell University. Instead of acquiescing to his father's demands and obtaining a engineering degree, however, he abruptly changed his major to liberal arts and began auditioning for college plays. He left Cornell in his third year in order to help his father manage a restaurant for a time during a family financial crisis. From there he left for New York and a life in the theater.

Adolphe toiled as a laborer, a haberdasher and even a waiter in one of his father's restaurants during his salad days, which included some vaudeville work. Oddly enough, he never made it to Broadway but instead found extra and/or bit work for various film studios (Vitagraph, Edison, Biograph) starting in 1915. World War I interrupted his early career, and he served as a captain with the Ambulance Corps in France. After the war he found employment off-camera as a productions manager and unit manager. When the New York-based film industry moved west, so did Adolphe.

Nothing of major significance happened for the fledgling actor until 1921, an absolute banner year for him. After six years of struggle he finally broke into the top ranks with substantial roles in The Faith Healer (1921) and Through the Back Door (1921), the latter starring Mary Pickford. He formed some very strong connections as a result and earned a Paramount contract in the process. Cast by Mary's then-husband Douglas Fairbanks as Louis XIII in the rousing silent The Three Musketeers (1921), he finished off the year portraying the influential writer/friend Raoul de Saint Hubert in Rudolph Valentino's classic The Sheik (1921).

Firmly entrenched in the Hollywood lifestyle, it took little time for Menjou to establish his slick prototype as the urbane ladies' man and wealthy roué. Paramount, noticing how Menjou stole scenes from Charles Chaplin favorite Edna Purviance in Chaplin's A Woman of Paris: A Drama of Fate (1923), started capitalizing on Menjou's playboy image by casting him as various callous and creaseless matinée leads in such films as Broadway After Dark (1924), Sinners in Silk (1924), The Ace of Cads (1926), A Social Celebrity (1926) and A Gentleman of Paris (1927). His younger brother Henri Menjou, a minor actor, had a part in Adolphe's picture Blonde or Brunette (1927).

The stock market crash led to the termination of Adolphe's Paramount contract, and his status as leading man ended with it. MGM took him on at half his Paramount salary and his fluency in such languages as French and Spanish kept him employed at the beginning. Rivaling Gary Cooper for the attentions of Marlene Dietrich in Morocco (1930) started the ball rolling for Menjou as a dressy second lead. Rarely placed in leads following this period, he managed his one and only Oscar nomination for "Best Actor" with his performance as editor Walter Burns in The Front Page (1931). Not initially cast in the role, he replaced Louis Wolheim, who died ten days into rehearsal. Quality parts in quality pictures became the norm for Adolphe during the 1930s, with outstanding roles given him in The Great Lover (1931), A Farewell to Arms (1932), Forbidden (1932), Little Miss Marker (1934), Morning Glory (1933), A Star Is Born (1937), Stage Door (1937) and Golden Boy (1939).

The 1940s were not as golden, however. In addition to entertaining the troops overseas and making assorted broadcasts in a host of different languages, he did manage to get the slick and slimy Billy Flynn lawyer role opposite Ginger Rogers' felon in the "Chicago" adaptation Roxie Hart (1942), and continued to earn occasional distinction in such post-WWII pictures as The Hucksters (1947) and State of the Union (1948). His last lead was in the crackerjack thriller The Sniper (1952), in which he played an (urbane) San Francisco homicide detective tracking down a killer who preys on women in San Francisco, and he appeared without his mustache for the first time in nearly two decades. Also active on radio and TV, his last notable film was the classic anti-war picture Paths of Glory (1957) playing the villainous Gen. Broulard.

Adolphe's extreme hardcore right-wing Republican politics hurt his later reputation, as he was made a scapegoat for his cooperation as a "friendly witness" at the House Un-American Activities Commission hearing during the Joseph McCarthy Red Scare era. Following his last picture, Disney's Pollyanna (1960), in which he played an uncharacteristically rumpled curmudgeon who is charmed by Hayley Mills, he retired from acting. He died after a nine-month battle with hepatitis on October 29, 1963, inside his Beverly Hills home. Three times proved the charm for Adolphe with his 1934 marriage to actress Verree Teasdale, who survived him. The couple had an adopted son named Peter. His autobiography, "It Took Nine Tailors" (1947), pretty much says it all for this polished, preening professional.

Conrad Nagel was born on 16 March 1897 in Keokuk, Iowa, USA. He was an actor and director, known for Quality Street (1927), Red Wine (1928) and The Ship from Shanghai (1930). He was married to Michael Coulson Smith, Lynn Merrick and Ruth Helms. He died on 24 February 1970 in New York City, New York, USA.

Ralph Graves was born on 23 January 1900 in Cleveland, Ohio, USA. He was an actor and writer, known for Rich Men's Sons (1927), Flight (1929) and Ticket to a Crime (1934). He was married to Betty Flournoy, Virginia Goodwin and Marjorie Seaman. He died on 18 February 1977 in Santa Barbara, California, USA.

Lowell Sherman was one of the early cinema's first major stars who successfully made the transition from actor to director. Born in either 1885 or 1888, his parents were John Wm. Sherman, a theatrical producer (1855-1924), and Julia Gray Sherman, an actress and daughter of actress Kate Gray.

In 1905 Lowell embarked on his first real stage work in New York and his first film work took place in 1914. From the start, he proved to be a respected actor who played the roles of the playboy and villain very well. He directed early films for Greta Garbo and Katharine Hepburn, married three times and attended the 1921 party at the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco that scandalously ended the career of Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle. Sherman died of pneumonia in December 1934.

John Boles was an American actor who worked prolifically in both leading and supporting roles for 28 years. He was born in Greenville, Texas and graduated from the University of Texas, where he had studied medicine, in 1917. Boles' parents wanted their son to continue with a career in the medical field, but after being selected to perform in an opera, he discovered his real love for acting and singing. In the meantime, he taught French and singing in a New York high school and worked as an interpreter for a group of students touring Europe. He's also notable for acting as a U.S. spy during World War I, in Bulgaria, Germany, and Turkey.

Boles moved to Hollywood in the 1920s to continue acting in stage musicals and operettas, which eventually led to MGM hiring him to appear in The Sixth Commandment (1924). After a three-year hiatus from Hollywood to focus on stage work, Boles returned to star opposite Gloria Swanson in the hit The Love of Sunya (1927). He wasn't able to show off his singing skills until the arrival of sound pictures not long after. He starred in a few lavish musicals in the early days of sound movies, notably The Desert Song (1929), Rio Rita (1929), and Song of the West (1930). In 1930, Boles signed a contract with Universal Pictures and starred in such musicals as King of Jazz (1930) and One Heavenly Night (1930) for the studio.

Boles continued to work in a number of both musical and non-musical parts throughout the 1930s. Notable roles include Victor Moritz in Frankenstein (1931); an engaged attorney who falls in love with Irene Dunne in The Age of Innocence (1934); another leading part opposite Swanson, this time as her bickering beau in Music in the Air (1934); a wealthy bachelor who adopts Shirley Temple in Curly Top (1935); Temple's Confederate officer father in The Littlest Rebel (1935); manipulator Rosalind Russell's husband in Craig's Wife (1936); and Barbara Stanwyck's husband in Stella Dallas (1937).

In 1943, Boles played the role of a colonel in the star-studded Thousands Cheer (1943). By this point, his acting career had declined. Boles' final part was in 1952, starring opposite Paulette Goddard in Babes in Bagdad (1952). He retired from the film industry shortly thereafter, and found a new career in the oil business.

Boles married Marcelite Dobbs in 1917, and the couple had two daughters: Frances and Janet. They remained married until he died of a heart attack on February 27, 1969 at the age of 73.

Popular Hollywood leading man of late silents and early talkies. He is best remembered for his teaming with Janet Gaynor in 12 screen romances between 1927 and 1934. He retired from films in the early 1940s, but TV audiences of the 1950s would see him as Gale Storm's widower dad in the popular television series My Little Margie (1952).