Cliff Aliperti's Blog: Immortal Ephemera, page 4

Richard Dix

Written by Cliff Aliperti and originally published on Immortal Ephemera

Thanks to those who wrote to point out Barbara Stanwyck's birthday was July 16, not July 17. Sorry about that, the post was planned to celebrate her birthday, but I think I must have glanced at my calendar and somehow came back with the wrong number (Sorry, Wrong Number, heh heh). Anyway, it's been corrected on the Stanwyck Store page, and I thank you again for the alerts because I really hadn't spotted my mistake this tim...

Barbara Stanwyck

Written by Cliff Aliperti and originally published on Immortal Ephemera

Barbara Stanwyck (1907-1990)

Screen legend born Ruby Catherine Stevens in Brooklyn, NY, raised by her sister from age four, then to the orphanage whenever showgirl big sis took road work. Dropped out of school at fourteen and took on a series of odd jobs until becoming a Ziegfeld Follies dancer in 1923. Also a chorus girl at Tex Guinan's clubs, she got her Broadway break and took the Barbara Stanwyck name while playing a c...

Mary Philbin

Written by Cliff Aliperti and originally published on Immortal Ephemera

Mary Philbin (1902-1993)

A star recalled more for beauty than talent, Philbin will be forever remembered for tearing the mask from Lon Chaney's face to reveal his tortured visage in The Phantom of the Opera (1925). Born in Chicago, she was runner-up in a contest sponsored by the Elks in that city's Herald-Examiner (Gertrude Olmsted won), but the Laemmles and Universal director Erich von Stroheim liked what they saw and Phi...

Ann Sothern

Written by Cliff Aliperti and originally published on Immortal Ephemera

Ann Sothern (1909-2001)

Born Harriette Arlene Lake in Valley City, ND, Ann Sothern is remembered for multiple Golden Age television hits following a movie career highlighted by ten Maisie features for MGM between 1939-47. After a run of Hollywood bit parts through 1930, Harriette Lake left for Broadway where she gained enough notice to be rediscovered by Hollywood. She spent a couple of years at Columbia, where she was rec...

Pola Negri

Written by Cliff Aliperti and originally published on Immortal Ephemera

Pola Negri (1897-1987)

Born Apolonia Chalupec in Poland, from where she rose from poverty to become a stylish Hollywood movie star by the 1920s. Young Apolonia was accepted into Warsaw's Imperial Ballet Academy, and while a bout of tuberculosis ended her dancing career, she emerged from the sanitarium with her health and her new name, Pola Negri. She was accepted into the Warsaw Imperial Academy of Dramatic Arts, and made...

Richard Arlen

Written by Cliff Aliperti and originally published on Immortal Ephemera

Richard Arlen (1899-1976)

Born Sylvanus Richard Mattimore in St. Paul, MN according to modern sources (older sources say Charlottesville, VA). Joined Canada's Royal Flying Corps as a pilot during World War I, but saw no action. Held odd jobs including sports editor of a Duluth, MN newspaper, and working the oil fields of Texas and Oklahoma, before heading to Los Angeles with movie star dreams. When he failed to get into pi...

Claudette Colbert

Written by Cliff Aliperti and originally published on Immortal Ephemera

Claudette Colbert (1903-1996)

Born Émilie Claudette Chauchoin in Saint-Mandé, France, arrived in Manhattan a few years later. Her stage debut came at age fifteen at the Provincetown Playhouse in a play by her high school English teacher. Colbert's Broadway break came while attending the Art Students League of New York when acquaintance Anne Morrison offered her a role in her play The Wild Wescotts, which opened at the end...

Gloria Stuart

Written by Cliff Aliperti and originally published on Immortal Ephemera

Gloria Stuart (1910-2010)

Born Gloria Stewart in Santa Monica, CA, she later shortened her last name to Stuart for better balance on the marquee. Best remembered—and possibly only remembered by some—for her portrayal of "Old Rose" in Titanic (1997), a performance that earned Stuart an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress at age 87. But beyond that, she had already long ago played in two John Ford films, thr...

Olivia de Havilland

Written by Cliff Aliperti and originally published on Immortal Ephemera

I hope I didn't chop this one down too much—so many classics, so many honors, for the actress who turned 103 earlier this week ...

Olivia de Havilland (born 1916)

Five-time Academy Award nominee and two-time winner, immortalized for her portrayal of Melanie in Gone With the Wind (1939), de Havilland was born a British citizen in Tokyo, Japan. Older sister of fellow Academy Award winner Joan Fontaine. Olivia, Joan, and thei...

Madge Evans

Written by Cliff Aliperti and originally published on Immortal Ephemera

Madge Evans (1909-1981)

Born Margherita Evans in New York City, she’d be an artists' model as an infant, and find fame and fortune as soon as the next decade as Baby Madge, film star. She grew up to become that rare child star who found Hollywood success in adulthood. Evans debuted on film in 1914, and was a busy Hollywood child star through to the early 1920s. Some titles that ring a bell from this era include The Seven S...