Monthly archives for July, 2011

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BLACKS ON SCREEN

Jul29
2011 Leave a Comment Written by classicmovieguys

We’re starting a new series today about black actors during Hollywood’s Golden age of the 30′s and 40′s.

Naturally, we’ll begin our series with the first African-American performer to be recognized by the Motion Picture Academy, Oscar winner Hattie McDaniel.

Hello everybody. Joe Morella and Frank Segers back with more chat about movie classics and classic movie stars.

Hattie McDaniel had been in films for a decade when she won the Oscar for best supporting actress in 1939 for her portrayal of Mammy in “Gone With the Wind.” She had made history by even being nominated!  And her win was a complete surprise.

Hattie had had some good parts in the 1930′s including one opposite Paul Robeson when they both supported Irene Dunne and Allan Jones in the first film version of “Show Boat.”

She’d appeared in several films with Clark Gable at MGM and it has been reported that Gable was instrumental in getting her the part of Mammy. (They were close friends.)

But winning the Oscar wasn’t a career changer for McDaniel.  She returned to playing maids in small roles for the rest of her career.

She did do a musical number in “Thank Your Lucky Stars,” in 1943.  She had been a singer all her life, and claimed to be the first black woman to sing on American radio. (No guarantees from the management on that one, although Hattie at one time was considered “the colored Sophie Tucker.”)

Hattie was born according to one source (there remains some confusion about her exact birth date) in the summer of 1892 in Wichita, Kansas. Her father was a freed slave who became a Baptist preacher. Her mother sang spirituals.

As a teenager, McDaniel began singing professionally, and was undoubtedly one of the first women of color at the time to be heard on the radio. (By 1915, she was vocalizing with an outfit called Prof. George Morrison’s Negro Orchestra.)

Anyway, Hattie was popular on the medium of radio, and had her own program originating the part of “Beulah,” about a wise and funny maid. For the first season on the new medium of TV Beulah was portrayed by Ethel Waters, but then Hattie took over the role and kept it until ill health forced her to retire. She was replaced by Louise Beavers.

Hattie is pictured above accepting her award from Fay Bainter, who had won in the same best supporting actress  category the previous year (1938) for her performance as Bette Davis’ aunt in “Jezebel.” It would be 10 years before another African-American actress would be nominated for an Academy Award. Any idea who? or when?

Let us know.

McDaniel had married four times, and had spent most of her money by 1952 when she died of breast cancer in Woodland Hills, California.  (Her estate totaled less than  $10,000 back then, about $80,000 in today’s dollars.) She willed her Oscar to Howard University but somehow the statuette was misplaced in the 1960′s, and has never been recovered.

Five years ago, McDaniel was the face of a commemorative stamp issued by the U.S. Office as part of its Black Heritage series.

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Rooney–The Longest Career in Show Business?

Jul28
2011 Leave a Comment Written by classicmovieguys

 

Mickey Rooney.  Too manic for Frank.  Very Talented for Joe. He’s been working in Show Business for over 90 years!

He has an honorary Oscar for his work in “Boy’s Town,” and has been nominated for Oscars three times. And, he still keeps working. (His best known mainstream commercial picture of the last few years was 2006′s “Night At The Museum,” starring Ben Stiller.)

Morella and Segers here again to muse about the phenomenon that is Mickey Rooney. Frank took some potshots in a yesterday’s blog.  Now its time for some Rooney compliments from Joe.  Who’s right?  Let us know what YOU think.

Joe loves Rooney’s impersonations of Gable, Lionel  Barrymore and Carmen Miranda performed in the Mickey/Judy Garland hit films, “Babes in Arms,” (an Oscar Nomination) “Babes on Broadway,” and “Strike Up the Band.”  Mickey and Judy (pictured together in yesterday’s photo) were great together on screen and in LIVE performances. After 1943′s  musical “Girl Crazy” they both went on to more dramatic work.

Rooney was superb in “The Human Comedy,” (pictured above) the William Saroyan story about a telegraph delivery boy in a small town having to deliver bad news to families during World War II. It  garnered him his second Academy Award Nomination.

He was also excellent in “National Velvet,” the charming MGM horse drama featuring a very young Elizabeth Taylor. Rooney played the talented horse trainer who propells Taylor into an equestrian championship.

The picture’s charm was enhanced inadvertently by comparison with MGM’s unfortunate 1978 remake, “International Velvet,” starring Tatum O’Neal sporting a fake English accent. (An aside:  Frank recalls visiting the set of the remake, and getting into an altercation with cast member Anthony Hopkins.  He’ll thankfully save the details of that encounter for another blog.)

Back to Mickey Rooney.  His career hit a rough patch after he served in the Army (mostly entertaining troops) and returned to Hollywood.  He was too old for Andy Hardy roles and at 5-feet-2 hardly the leading man type.

He entered radio and then television, but continued making films and hit his stride as a character actor with 1962′s boxing drama “Requium for a Heavyweight.”

Whatever our differences about his merits as an actor, we both salute the amazing durability of Mickey Rooney.

 

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MICKEY ROONEY — Last Silent Star Standing?

Jul27
2011 1 Comment Written by classicmovieguys

Poised to turn 91 on Sept. 23, MICKEY ROONEY,  the former Joe Yule Jr. (Brooklyn born in 1920) is still with us, still working. Here he is pictured putting on a show way back when with pal-costar Judy what’s-er-name.)

Because his parents were vaudevillians, Rooney made his stage debut at 15 months as part of the family act.

That means that he has worked in show business for 90 continuous years.

We believe that HAS to be a record. And, since Rooney began making two-reel comedies in 1927, playing a comic strip character known as Mickey McGuire, the nonagenarian also has the distinction of being among the last silent movie stars still around.  (Can you name any others?) He certainly has had one of the Longest careers in Movies.

Joe Morella and Frank Segers, your Classic Movie guys, reflecting on the long-running phenomenon that is Mickey Rooney.

Say what you will about Rooney’s life and career, the pint sized dynamo (he’s all of 5 feet 2 inches) is a trooper.  He is perhaps bext remembered for the 13 Andy Hardy movies that made him an international star from 1938 to 1944.

We began our series on child stars with Shirley Temple. Although Rooney preceded her in films, he didn’t become a star until after she had.  But he became an even bigger star and made an easy transition from child roles to teenage roles to adult roles.

The Classic Movie guys part company to a large degree on Rooney as an actor. Joe likes much of his work.  Frank finds much of his output unwatchable today, his manic bounce and energy grating and — given the insanity of his personal life — even hypocritical.

However much Mickey made the part of Andy Hardy in his own, there was a huge gap between reel life and reality. Esther Williams recalls the Mickey Rooney she encountered when cutting her teeth as an MGM starlet in 1942′s “Andy Hardy’s Double Life.”

Wrote Esther, “Now in his early twenties…he was still a self absorbed kid. I didn’t find him very likable…Mickey took advantage of his stardom.  Everyone in the studio gave him free rein. He had a bookie waiting for his calls every day, always playing the horses. We all knew that ‘Mickey’s on the phone’ meant that filming could not resume until he’d concluded his ‘business’.”

We wonder if Andy Hardy ever imagined playing the horses, although, as British-born author-critic David Thomson observed, “Andy became Rooney: cheeky, naughty, improvisational, immensely talented as a mime, dancer, comic, singer and ham.”

No question that gambling, the eight marriages and nine children, and other “business” gave Rooney powerful incentives to keep on working.

Two of Mickey’s wives were certified world class knockouts — No. 1, Ava Gardner and No. 3, Martha Vickers, who plays the gorgeously slutty daughter in director Howard Hawks 1946 film noir, “The Big Sleep.”

Then there were the multiple affairs including one with Lana Turner. And who know what went on between Rooney and Judy Garland.

That Ava Gardner actually had married Rooney dumbfounded Esther Williams. It was “something I found absolutely unimaginable, at least from a physical viewpoint. Ava told me years later that he was a difficult and arrogant fellow.”

 

Cineastes today most often point to three Rooney titles as his best:  1935′s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” directed by Max Reinhardt and William Dieterle; 1938′s “Boys Town” directed by Norman Taurog; and director Don Siegel’s 1957 drama, “Baby Face Nelson.”

Although diminutive, Mickey could certainly turn it on as a tough guy. Frank’s favorite Roooney outing is 1950′s low-budget noir, “Quicksand,” with Rooney playing a grease monkey who beats up Peter Lorre.  (Can’t go wrong there.)  In 1951, Rooney also made another crime picture, “The Strip.”

Also well worth checking into as is British director Michael Hodges’ 1971 title, “Pulp.” The picture, shot in Malta, has Rooney playing an expatriate Hollywood actor who hires a paperback writer (Michael Caine) to pen his autobiography. A great cast (including Lizabeth Scott, Lionel Stander and Al Lettieri) supports a refreshingly controlled and convincing Rooney performance.

Tomorrow Joe will expound on his favorite and least favorite Rooney pix.

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Beyond CHER and BEYONCE

Jul26
2011 Leave a Comment Written by classicmovieguys

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One name stars have been around a long time — think Moliere.

Hello Everybody, Joe Morella and Frank Segers here again.

Ever wonder how the one name phenom started? Of course there are numerous stars who were known by one name. Chaplin, Pickford, Valentino,  Garbo, Gable, Monroe, Presley, Brando. The list goes on.

But we’re talking about stars with only ONE name.

The 1940′s had Annabella, Belita, Zorina, and Valli. The 50′s produced Liberace and Fabian.  The 6o’s spawned Cher. And let’s not forget two of the biggest stars with one name –Rin-tin-tin and Lassie.

But when did stars start billing themselves with only one name? Always tricky to declare firsts (an old rule working at Variety was never write something was “the first,” because someone would come out of the woodwork to prove you wrong.)

Probably the first silent star with single-name billing was Nazimova, the Russian actress who starred and produced in the1920′s.   Nazimova, pictured above, was a major film and stage actress and her career spanned nearly 30 years.

Actually Nazimova DID have a first name (it was Alla).  To further confuse matters, she was born in 1879 in Yalta (now in the Ukraine) as Mariam Leventon.  No matter. She will always remain  simply Nazimova in film history.

She had changed her name very early on when she first took to the stage. Her father, who wished to protect family respectability, insisted on it. Being an actress back then was considered not too many steps above being a streetwalker.

At 17, Nazimova studied with method acting guru, Konstantin Stanislavsky, at the Moscow Art Theater. (She also wed an acting student, her one and only marriage.) By the turn of the century she was touring Europe in “Hedda Gabler” and “A Doll’s House,” establishing herself as a foremost Ibsen interpreter.  When she played Broadway in 1905, Nazimova decided to stay put in the U.S.

By 1918, she was a star at MGM, and made 11 silents over a three-year-period. Her broad, stylized acting style was mostly applied to roles of independent women suffering great personal anguish. (Note, no happy faces in the above photos!) She was a reformed prostitute in 1918′s “Revelation,” and costarred with Valentino in the title role of 1921′s “Camille.”

According to Hollywood lore, Nazimova was bi-sexual, living for 13 years with gay actor Charles Bryant to maintain appearances. When the cash was rolling in, she bought home situated on a 3-1/2-acre spread off Sunset Boulevard, named the place “the Garden of Allah” and tossed lavish feeds for Hollywood’s elite.

Two interesting trivia items about Nazimova — she was the godmother of actress Nancy Reagan and the aunt of RKO producer Val Lewton (nee Vladimir Leventon), the man responsible for what Frank believes are among the best films ever made: 1942′s “Cat People” and 1944′s “The Curse of the Cat People.”

Nazimova made her comeback film, (and first talkie) “Escape,” in 1940, playing Robert Taylor’s mother.  Then she portrayed Tyrone Power’s mother in “Blood and Sand.”

One of our previously published blogs shows a marvelously playful photo of Joseph Cotten dancing with Jennifer Jones and Claudette Colbert in the arms of Robert Walker. (It’s worth taking a few minutes to type in Cotten’s name in our search box to bring up this delicious snapshot.)

The photo was taken when the quartet costarred in David O Selznick’s production of the wartime drama “Since You Went Away,” in 1944. It was the last movie Nazimova ever made.

The (probably?) first of the one-named actresses was 65 at the time. She died a year later in Los Angeles of heart problems.

 

 

 

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How to See More Never Before Seen Photos

Jul25
2011 1 Comment Written by classicmovieguys

Today we’re running another never before seen photo from the Donald Gordon Collection (that’s Donald on the right), our private source of so many great candids of famous Hollywood personalities taken in the early Forties.

And here’s today’s hook.   We challenge you, our highly knowledgeable readers, to identify this star from the 1940′s.

Do YOU know who SHE is? If so, we’d like to hear from you.

Hi everybody.  Those classic movie guys, Mr. Joe Morella and Mr. Frank Segers, here with another round of memories about the old, golden days of Hollywood. Mrs. Norman Maine is out shopping at the moment.

We thought we’d refresh your knowledge on how to best  use Classic Movie Chat (or should we say chatter?) First off, to learn more about us, hit the “about” logo on top of this page.

To contact us, hit  ”Contact Us.” If you want to comment on a particular entry, just hit “Leave a Comment.”  If that line says “1 comment,”  or  ”2 comments,” hit that to find out what other people have already said.

If you’d like to see blogs with Never Seen Before Photos, just scan over to Categories and hit that.  All our entries which contain pictures — which can only be seen on our site (or at least were first introduced on our site) — will immediately pop up.

If you’d like information as to whether we’ve ever discussed your favorite star just type in the star’s name where you see the spot that says “Type Your Search” For those of you who are computer savvy these may seem silly directions, but for many of us, like Joe and Frank, checking out blogs is a new form of entertainment and we need all the advice we can get.

And, of course, if you have any suggestions for how we can better serve you, our reading public, please get ‘em to us pronto.

Now, just WHO is that woman pictured above?

Stay tuned.

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YES, THAT WAS AVA

Jul22
2011 2 Comments Written by classicmovieguys

Ava Gardner served one of the longest apprenticeships in the history of MGM. That figures since although she never formally trained as an actress, she was one of the most beautiful actresses on the studio lot.  (And, she was strong willed, foul-mouthed and brainy to boot.)

Ava later recalled that after an early screen test, the unnamed director exclaimed, “She can’t talk! She can’t act! She’s sensational.”

Hello everybody.  Joe Morella and Frank Segers back again with some Hollywood lore.

Yesterday we ran a picture of MGM starlet Gardner, who was signed by the studio in 1941, groomed and educated and then lent out dozens of times to appear as an extra or bit player to gain acting experience before the studio began using her in supporting and, later, starring roles.

Fact is, Ava disliked her years at MGM. “Christ, after 17 years of slavery, you can ask that question?,” she once responded to a show biz reporter (neither of us!), who inquired innocently if she had any “fun” during her long studio tenure. MGM, she added, “tried to sell me like a prize hog.”

Her big break came in 1946 when MGM lent her to Universal to star as the femme fatale in “The Killers,” a huge hit which launched Burt Lancaster’s career.  As Kitty Collins, the cause of Lancaster’s character, Swede’s downfall, Ava lit up the screen. Director Robert Siodmak’s “The Killers” still stands as one of the best film noir dramas ever made.

MGM knew now she was ready for bigger things and cast her in 1947′s “The Hucksters” opposite Clark Gable (pictured above). The film also introduced to Hollywood a young British actress by the name of Deborah Kerr.

Ava’s private life was by then known by all who followed movie news.  She’d wed and divorced Mickey Rooney, a marriage that last all of  16 months.  She was pursued by Howard Hughes. She’d married and divorced the much married bandleader Artie Shaw, a union that lasted one year.

Ava’s last and most famous marriage to Frank Sinatra endured a bit longer, just under six years beginning in 1951. “Angel” was Sinatra’s nickname for her her. Despite the tempestuousness of their union, they remained close friends for as long they both lived.

It’s been calculated that Gardner’s trio of famous spouses married a total of 20 times.

Garder’s taste in high-profile paramours was not terrific either.  Director John Huston recalls that during the Italy shooting of his 1966 epic, “The Bible,” George C. Scott fell madly in love with her. “(Scott) was insanely jealous, extremely demanding of Ava’s time and attention, and he became violent when they were not forthcoming.

“This very intensity turned her off, and pretty soon she started avoiding him. Scott (was) an on-and-off drinker, and he was on at the time,” Huston wrote.  Scott threatened Ava several times, once in a bar. He later broke into her hotel suite, “causing a scandal.”

Huston recalls then when Ava and Scott (separately) returned to the States, “I think Frank Sinatra commissioned a couple of his lads to go around with her.”  Nine years after their divorce, “Ava and Frank (bore) a great affection for each other, and when in trouble, she always turn(ed) to him.”

Gardner became more reclusive in her later years, settling in London with her prized pet Corgi and a longtime, dedicated housekeeper. A pair of strokes in 1986 left her partially paralyzed.  She died of pneumonia in 1990 at age 67, and was buried in her native North Carolina.

One of Hollywood’s most beautiful stars is remembered today via a 5,000-square-foot storefont museum on East Market St. in Smithfield, North Carolina. Opened 11 years ago, the Ava Gardner Museum does brisk business.

 



 


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WASN’T SHE AN EXTRA IN_______??

Jul21
2011 Leave a Comment Written by classicmovieguys

 

A very few film actors (Orson Welles, Linda Darnell, Warren Beatty, Janet Leigh come to mind) became stars overnight and received star billing in their first movie.  But most Hollywood stars of the golden era come up through the ranks playing supporting parts first and being groomed for stardom.

Hello everybody. Mr. Joe Morella and Mr. Frank Segers here again.  Even MRS. Norman Maine (Vicki Lester) had to play some bit parts first.

One actress, a major MAJOR star of the 1950′s and 60′s had one of the longest apprenticeships ever at MGM.

During her years of acting classes and lessons in poise and such she was often lent out to other studios.  See if you can pick her out of the line-up in today’s photo from a cheapie anti-Nazi flick of the early 40′s.

Here are some clues. She married three times. ALL of her husbands were famous. Her first husband is still living. She eventually left the States and settled in London.

She was a hard drinker, drove many men mad with desire and was a pretty good actress to boot. She is considered today to be one of the most beautiful women ever to have appeared in a Hollywood movie. She has a museum dedicated to her memory.

More on our raven haired beauty tomorrow.

By the way, have you ever seen such a gorgeous collection of suspects in any lineup anywhere?  Only in Hollywood where even Nazis have great taste in women.

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Was SHIRLEY TEMPLE the most famous Child Star?

Jul20
2011 Leave a Comment Written by classicmovieguys

Was she? or Wasn’t she?  That old ad slogan (does she or doesn’t she) comes to mind.   Well, she WAS.  The most famous child star of all time — so far.

Hello everybody.  Mr. Joe Morella and Mr. Frank Segers here.  Mrs. Norman Maine has left the building.

Shirley Temple. She’s had a drink named for her.  Dolls were made in her image. (Check ebay and find out how much a Shirley Temple doll in good condition goes for!) Her name is synonomous with child star. Her DVDs are still being pitched on cable tv infomercials.

We’re going to begin a series on child stars of the Golden Years, and of course we had to kick off with the Little Princess herself.

What explains Shirley Temple’s amazing durability? Even Frank, who has little use for child actors of any stripe, grudgingly finds himself liking her — at least a little.

Could today’s stressed economic times have something to do with Temple’s continued popularity as a child star?  Just asking.

The height of her fame, from 1934 to 1938, was dead in the middle of the Great Depression when movie audiences craved optimism from any source including a child actress sporting dimpled cheeks, twinkling eyes and golden curls (56 of them, according to legend).

“It is a sidelong proof of how far the Depression had inroaded confidence in the 1930s that it took Shirley Temple to reassure so many” writes author-critic David Thomson. “(She) was a supreme, technical actress unequalled for the amount of sentiment she could dispense without disturbing gullability.”

Novelist Graham Greene once speculated in a magazine article that Shirley was an adult impersonating a child. (The magazine carrying the piece got sued.) But even the most skeptical concede, as does Thomson, that “she was a phenomenon who only had to be observed for an audience to be held…There was an elfin perfection about her.”

Shirley was a California girl, born in Santa Monica in 1928.  But age 3, driven by yet another pushy stage mother, she was already before the cameras. Fox put her under contract in 1934 when the studio starred her in director Alexander Hall’s “Little Miss Marker,” a seminal film in her career which helped make her a star.

Fox threw the resources of the entire studio behind her in a succession of hits including “Bright Eyes, 1935′s “The Little Colonel” and “Curly Top, 1936′s “Captain January,” ”Poor Little Rich Girl” and “Dimples.” None other than John Ford stepped in to direct 1937′s “Wee Willie Winkie” while Alan Dwan in 1938 directed “Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm.”

After “Bright Eyes,” Shirley was presented with a special Academy Award for her “outstanding  contribution  to screen entertainment.” (We suspect the citation was a Zanuck-engineered award.)  She also had performed a tap dancing routine with the great Bill “Bojangles” Robinson.   But things at Fox began to sour in the late Thirties, exacerbated by mogul Darryl Zanuck’s decision NOT to loan her to MGM to appear in “The Wizard of Oz.”

By the early Forties Shirley had decamped to MGM, and then to producer David Selznick, who noted that even at age of 15 — perilous territory for a child star — Shirley drew more fan mail than Jennifer Jones, Ingrid Bergman or Joan Fontaine.

But adolescence finally took its toll. As the mid-Forties approached, her screen career was heading south in a hurry. Curiously, as an ingenue, Temple appeared in John Ford’s 1948 Western, Fort Apache, opposite actor John Agar, Shirley’s first husband.

The marriage to Agar ended a year later and by 1950, Shirley was safely married (until his death in 2005) to San Francisco businessman Charles Black, who confessed that he had never — not even once — seen any of her movies.

Shirley Temple Black in her later years got involved in politics as a Republican, and served ambassadorships in Ghana and the then Czechoslovakia. She won praise for going public with her breast cancer battle, and subsequent mastectomy.

As the bright, bouncy, cheerful child star, Shirley inspired a vast outpouring of merchandise sales — dolls, mugs, hats, dresses, the works. In different forms and degrees, that Temple-inspired merchandise mania continues today.  As the French say, “plus ca change…..

 

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BOB HOPE and ECSTASY!

Jul19
2011 Leave a Comment Written by classicmovieguys

 

When Bob Hope arranged for Hedy Lamarr to co-star with him in 1951′s “My Favorite Spy,” Hedy was fresh off a huge hit, “Samson and Delilah,” but not in the good graces of her bosses at Paramount.

(She had refused for familiar reason$ to do a promotional tour on behalf of the Biblical epic.)

Hello everybody.  Joe Morella and Frank Segers back to discuss another of Hope’s alluring leading ladies.

Hope, like all the other filmgoers of his era had seen Hedy posed with top leading men.


Hope loved being in that company. What Hope hadn’t thought of was Hedy’s real co-star (see below).

But Hedy and Hope were friends.  She’d been on his radio show. She actually had a keen sense of humor off-camera, and liked his brand of comedy. When Hope offered her a role in “My Favorite Spy,” the third of the comedian’s “My Favorite….” trilogy, Hedy jumped at the chance.

Lamarr impressed Hollywood — and Hope — with her strikingly mature beauty. When Hedy came to Hollywood in 1937, she had already been heralded as “the most beautiful girl in the world.” She also became in short order the most glamorous of glamour queens.

According to Stephen Michael Shearer’s biography, “Beautiful: The Life of Hedy Lamarr,” she was to be paid $125,000 for 10 weeks work on the picture. Hope’s salary was his then standard per-picture fee of $150,000.  In 1951, that was a lot of money for both.

Hope wound up dominating “My Favorite Spy,” and Hedy was not ecstatic about the result. The picture was a commercial success (earning about $2.6 million int the U.S., as per Shearer) because of Hope’s popularity.

When Hedy saw the final release she was upset. Some of her best comedic moments in the picture were cut.  Hedy never forgave Hope, and he never forgave her for not doing PR before the film’s release.” Said Hedy, “I didn’t think we made that great of a teaming. We didn’t look right together.”

So much for ecstasy. But by 1965 they had apparently forgotten their tiff and Lamarr appeared on one of Hope’s TV specials.

By the way, we’ve referred to “ecstasy” in our headline and in today’s blog.  The word has special signficance in Hedy Lamarr’s career.  Can you tell us why?

Meanwhile, we can promise more on Hedy and “ecstasy” soon on Classic Movie Chat.

 

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MYSTERY MAN IDENTIFIED

Jul18
2011 Leave a Comment Written by classicmovieguys

Several weeks ago we ran this never-before-published picture unearthed from The Donald Gordon Collection, showing our late pal Donald (on the right) with a young man we just couldn’t identify.

Stumped, we turned to you, our online cognescenti, to come to the rescue with a photo ID.

Joe Morella and Frank Segers back again with the good news that our mystery was pithily solved by an e-mail comment we received on June 26 with these words:  ”I believe it’s Stanley Clements.”

Our online sleuth is Christine Feehan. After a bit of checking on our part we confirmed that Christine is absolutely right. The guy on the left IS Stanley Clements.

Here’s another picture of him.

The next question might logically be:  just who IS Stanley Clements?

Born Stanislaw Klimowicz on Long Island, New York in the summer of 1926, Clements harbored show biz aspirations from an early age. But the time he was 11, he had won an amateur singing contest and toured with the Major Bowes’ Amateur Hour show. By 1941 he was signed by 20th Century Fox.  His forte was playing juvenile toughs.  Young adult roles came later after Clements’ 1946-47 military service.

The reason we, and a lot of other people, were confused, and thought he was one of the Dead End Kids is that Clements did play one of the Eastside Kids in one or two features in that series in the early 4o’s. Also, in the mid 50′s, he replaced Leo Gorcey in the final few Bowery Boys programmers (the series ended in 1958).

But he wasn’t, as we knew, ever a member of The Dead End gang. In fact Clements had, under Darryl Zanuck’s aegis at Fox, actually made several A films.  He had parts in “The More The Merrier,” “Going My Way,” and “Salty O’Roarke.” which starred Alan Ladd and Gail Russell.

Clements also costarred in Allied Artists’”Bad Boy” which was the screen debut of Audie Murphy.  That film starred Lloyd Nolan, Jane Wyatt, James Gleason and featured other child actors who’d grown into teenagers, Jimmy Lydon and Dickie Moore. He played a Western Union delivery boy in Allied Artists 1948 release, “The Babe Ruth Story”, costarring William Bendix and Claire Trevor.

As he aged, Clements worked more and more in television, taking roles in a host of prime time network series from “The Loretta Young Show” in the mid 50′s, to the Perry Mason series a decade later and “Gunsmoke” in the 70′s.  The actor is no longer with us — he died of emphysema in 1981 at the age of 55.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect today of Clements’ career is the first of the two women he married and divorced. For three years beginning in 1945, he was wed to Gloria Grahame, then a young starlet before her big breaks.

The couple had met on a USO tour in Texas.  They wed, then split, then reconciled, then finally divorced.  But they carried on for years afterward.  It’s been reported that on his wedding night to his second wife in 1951, Clements actually spent the night with Grahame.

Gloria Grahame was a talented actress but a  tortured soul with a complicated personal life.  She is today regarded as the reigning empress of film noir femme fatales.

We’ll have much more on her story in later entries. For now, we’re thankful to Christine Feehan for pointing us in the right direction. We knew you out there would be able to recognize stars of the golden era, even if we had temporarily forgotten them!

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