One of the most imposing character players of Hollywood’s golden age, this ursine, accomplished thespian played his share of cold-hearted businessmen, crooked politcos and legendary historical figures in the course of a quarter-century on the screen. Born to the slums of…
Read more →January 19, 1907: An Exciting Honeymoon and The Life of a Cowboy are the first films to be reviewed in the entertainment trade magazine Variety. January 18, 1923: Drug addiction claims leading man Wallace Reid, whose morphine dependency followed an…
Read more →January 10, 1927: Set in the year 2000, Fritz Lang‘s sci-fi opus, Metropolis (Metropolis: Fritz Lang’s Timeless Vision), opens. It’s among the first to use miniatures in place of enormous sets. January 10, 1914: With Mack Sennett’s instruction to Charlie Chaplin to “get…
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This outspokenly indomitable, unconventionally pretty New Englander reached Broadway and Hollywood through seeming force of will, and her craftwork and determination ensured a performing legacy that has endured for generations after her heyday. Born in Lowell, Massachusetts to a patent…
Read more →January 4, 1954: The U.S. Supreme Court upholds the right of film distributors to confine first-run engagements to downtown theaters. January 8, 1954: Sydney Greenstreet, memorable screen heavy (in every sense of the term) of The Maltese Falcon and other…
Read more →January 1, 1900: French film pioneer Charles Pathé releases the historical re-enactment Episodes of the Transvaal War in Paris. December 31, 1903: Capital Execution is the first feature from what will be a thriving Danish film industry, until its decline…
Read more →December 19, 1909: The first use of freeze frame for dramatic effect is employed by D.W. Griffith for the film A Corner in Wheat. December 24, 1906: Considered to be the first feature-length (70 minutes) motion picture, the Australian drama…
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December 12, 1939: Douglas Fairbanks, dashing and athletic leading man of the silent era and co-founder of United Artists, dies of a heart attack at age 56. December 14, 1939: Seventy-five years after General Sherman set it ablaze, the city…
Read more →December 7, 1919: Director/actor Erich von Stroheim, “The Man You Love to Hate,” makes his directorial debut with Blind Husbands. December 11, 1930: A protest of All Quiet on the Western Front by members of the Nazi Party in Berlin…
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Struggles with his weight might have cost him a leading man’s conventional career arc, but this native New Yorker’s indisputable presence and gifts granted Edmond O’Brien some four decades as one of Hollywood’s most compelling character players. Born in the…
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