Cliff Aliperti's Blog: Immortal Ephemera, page 8

James Gleason

Written by Cliff Aliperti and originally published on Immortal Ephemera

James Gleason (1882-1959)

Born in New York to a show biz family, Gleason is said to have made his stage debut at the age of two months. Served in both the Spanish-American War and World War I, and in between acted on both coasts and married the actress Lucile Webster—their son Russell Gleason also became a film actor. Gleason organized the Milwaukee Stock Company and wrote a couple of plays which he took to New York: Is Za...

Frank McHugh

Written by Cliff Aliperti and originally published on Immortal Ephemera

Frank McHugh (1898-1981)

Homestead, PA born son of actors made his stage debut with his family's McHugh Stock Company at age six. Joined the Marguerite Bryant Players at age seventeen, and found his way to Broadway about a decade later in 1925. McHugh spent the late '20s on Broadway and London stages, finding his breakthrough roles in Tenth Avenue (1927) and Florenz Ziegfeld's Show Girl (1929). According to a 1937 Warner B...

Laurence Olivier

Written by Cliff Aliperti and originally published on Immortal Ephemera

Laurence Olivier (1907-1989)

English actor is one of the greatest stage actors of all-time, though we do Olivier's legend no disservice concentrating upon his film career: he won four Academy Awards and was nominated another nine times for acting, directing, and producing films. He married three times, each time to an actress: Jill Esmond, most famously to Vivien Leigh, and Joan Plowright, who survived him at his death. Ol...

Robert Montgomery

Written by Cliff Aliperti and originally published on Immortal Ephemera

Robert Montgomery (1904-1981)

Fishkill Landing, NY born Montgomery debuted on Broadway in 1924, and kept busy on the New York stage through 1928. His film debut came a year later, and a year after that he had an important supporting role for MGM in The Big House (1930). Greater stardom came as Norma Shearer's leading man in The Divorcee (1930), Strangers May Kiss (1931), and Private Lives (1931). By this time Montgomery h...

Dolores Del Rio

Written by Cliff Aliperti and originally published on Immortal Ephemera

Originally I was just going to send a James Stewart mini-bio today since he was born on this date in 1908 ... but then I noticed Turner Classic Movies was running six Dolores Del Rio movies this evening (beginning at 8 pm EDT), so I decided to send her page along to you too. A two-for-one special for your Monday morning! Enjoy!

Dolores Del Rio (1904-1983)

Legendary Latin American actress born in Mexico, was winner of three...

James Stewart

Written by Cliff Aliperti and originally published on Immortal Ephemera

James Stewart (1908-1997)

Indiana, PA born screen legend began acting at Princeton, which led to a summer stock opportunity and his friendship with Henry Fonda, who had belonged to the same troupe. Stewart joined Fonda in New York in 1932, and struggled along on Broadway for a few years until he began landing better parts. His feature film debut came for MGM in The Murder Man (1935) starring Spencer Tracy, but Stewart quic...

Margaret Sullavan

Written by Cliff Aliperti and originally published on Immortal Ephemera

Margaret Sullavan (1909-1960)

Norfolk, VA born Sullavan preferred stage to screen, so only ever appeared in sixteen films, most worth mention. After having studied drama and dance in Boston, twenty-year-old Sullavan made her professional debut with Harvard’s University Players in The Devil in the Cheese in 1929. Her co-star was Henry Fonda, who became the first of Sullavan’s four husbands in 1931. She made her Broadway deb...

Joseph Cotten

Written by Cliff Aliperti and originally published on Immortal Ephemera

Joseph Cotten (1905-1994)

Petersburg, VA born Cotten came to the stage in the 1920s, made it to Broadway in the early 1930s and remained busy throughout the decade, capping it off with his portrayal of C.K. Dexter Haven in The Philadelphia Story on Broadway. A few years earlier Cotten began a lifelong friendship with Orson Welles and was an original member of Welles' Mercury Theatre company when it was founded in 1937. It...

Maureen O’Sullivan

Written by Cliff Aliperti and originally published on Immortal Ephemera

Maureen O'Sullivan (1911-1998)

Irish born actress best remembered as Jane opposite Johnny Weissmuller in six Tarzan pictures for MGM beginning with Tarzan the Ape Man (1932). Made her screen debut in 1930 after being discovered by director Frank Borzage, who was filming on location in Ireland. In Hollywood, O'Sullivan also starred in a number of worthy classics not including the name Tarzan in their titles: Tugboat Annie (...

Henry Fonda

Written by Cliff Aliperti and originally published on Immortal Ephemera

Henry Fonda (1905-1982)

Grand Island, Nebraska born screen legend and patriarch of the Fonda acting family began acting in Omaha after dropping out of college. He traveled east in the late 1920s and appeared in summer stock where he met actress Margaret Sullavan, who he married in 1931, the first of Fonda's five marriages. Fonda followed Sullavan to Broadway in 1932, and from there he was plucked by Hollywood to make his f...