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1-7 of 7
- Actor
- Soundtrack
Lean, tall American character actor Arthur Hunnicutt was known for playing humorously wise rural roles. He attended Arkansas State Teachers College in his native state, but was forced to drop out in his third year due to lack of funds. He joined a theatre company in Massachusetts, then migrated to New York, where he began to find acting roles on Broadway and on tour. He played in numerous productions, including the leading role in "Tobacco Road", a part his rangy country persona was made for. He took a few roles in small films in the early 1940s, then returned to stage work. In 1949 he came back to Hollywood permanently and began a long career as a reliable supporting player. His wonderfully written and vibrantly played role in the Howard Hawks Western The Big Sky (1952) won him acclaim and an Oscar nomination for Supporting Actor. He continued playing similar characters, almost always sympathetic, for the remainder of his career. He was stricken with cancer of the tongue and died in 1979.- Director
- Actor
- Writer
Actor / director John Cromwell was born December 23, 1887, in Toledo, OH. He made his Broadway debut on October 14, 1912, in Marian De Forest's adaptation of Louisa May Alcott's "Little Women" at the Playhouse Theatre. The show was a hit, running for a total of 184 performances. Cromwell appeared in another 38 plays on Broadway between February 24, 1914--when he appeared in Frank Craven's "Too Many Cooks" at the 39th Street Theatre (a hit show he co-directed with Craven that ran for a total of 223 performances)--and October 31, 1971, when he closed with "Solitaire/Double Solitaire" at the John Golden Theatre after 36 performances. In addition to "Cooks", Cromwell directed or staged 11 plays and produced seven plays on Broadway. Among the highlights of his Broadway acting career were his multiple appearances as a Shavian actor. He was "Charles Lomax" in the original Broadway production of George Bernard Shaw's "Major Barbara" in 1915 (Guthrie McClintic, who married Katharine Cornell in 1921 and became a notable Broadway director, played a butler) and as "Capt. Kearney" in the revival of "Captain Brassbound's Conversion" the following year (McClintic played "Marzo"). He also appeared as "Brother Martin Ladvenu" in Katharine Cornell's 1936 "Saint Joan", directed by McClintic, and played "Freddy Eynsford Hill" in Cedric Hardwicke's 1945 revival of "Pygmalion", starring Gertrude Lawrence as "Eliza Doolittle" and Raymond Massey as "Henry Higgins".
As for William Shakespeare, he played "Paris" to Katharine Cornell's "Juliet" and Maurice Evans' "Romeo" in McClntic's "Rome and Juliet" in 1935, and appeared as "Rosenkrantz" in McClintic's 1936 Broadway staging of "Hamlet", with John Gielgud in the title role, Lillian Gish as "Ophelia" and Judith Anderson as "Gertrude". He also appeared as "Lennox" in the 1948 revival of Shakespeare's "Scottish Play", with Michael Redgrave as "Macbeth" and Flora Robson as "Lady Macbeth" (young actors also featured in the play who went on to renown were Julie Harris, Martin Balsam and Beatrice Straight). Cromwell won a Tony Award as Best Featured Actor in a Play in 1952 for "Point of No Return", in which he supported Henry Fonda, and appeared as the father, "Linus Larabee Sr.", in "Sabrina Fair" the next year.
With the advent of sound pictures, Cromwell went "Hollywood" in 1929, appearing in The Dummy (1929) in support of Ruth Chatterton and Fredric March. He also co-directed two talkies with A. Edward Sutherland that year, Close Harmony (1929) and The Dance of Life (1929) (he had a bit part as a doorman in the latter). After learning the craft of directing, he directed The Mighty (1929) with George Bancroft, in which he made innovative use of sound. He also directed Jackie Coogan in Tom Sawyer (1930) the next year. He made his name with Ann Vickers (1933) in 1933 and Of Human Bondage (1934) in 1934, two films he shot for RKO based on novels by the preeminent writers Sinclair Lewis and W. Somerset Maugham. Both movies ran into censorship trouble. Lewis' "Ann Vickers" featured Irene Dunne as a reformer and birth control advocate who has a torrid extramarital affair. The novel had been condemned by the Catholic Church, and the proposed movie adaptation proved controversial. The Studio Relations Committee, headed by James Wingate (whose deputy was future Production Code Administration head Joseph Breen, a Roman Catholic intellectual) condemned the script as "vulgarly offensive" before production began. The SRC, which oversaw the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors Association's Production Code, refused to approve the script without major modifications, but RKO production chief Merian C. Cooper balked over its excessive demands. Though studio head B.B. Kahane protested the SRC's actions to MPPDA President Will Hays, the studio agreed to make "Ann Vickers" an unmarried woman at the time of her affair, thus eliminating adultery as an issue, and the film received a Seal of Approval. The battle over "Ann Vickers" was one of the reasons the more powerful PCA was created in 1934 to take the place of the SRC.
Joseph Breen, now head of the PCA, warned that the script for W. Somerset Maugham's "Of Human Bondage" was "highly offensive" because the prostitute "Mildred", whom the protagonist, medical student "Philip Carey", falls in love with, comes down with syphilis. Breen demanded that Mildred be turned into less of a tramp, that she be afflicted with tuberculosis rather than syphilis and that she be married to Carey's friend whom she cheats on him with. RKO gave in on every point, as the PCA, unlike the SRC, had the ability to levy a $25,000 fine for violations of the Production Code. Despite the changes, chapters of the Catholic Church's Legion Of Deceny condemned the film in Chicago, Detroit, Omaha and Pittsburgh. Despite a picket line manned by local priests in Chicago, Cromwell's film broke all records at the Hippodrome Theater when it played there in August 1934. Five hundred people had to be turned away opening night. It seemed that wherever the Legion of Decency had condemned the film, it played to capacity crowds. In 1935 Breen ruled that "Of Human Bondage" would have to be changed if RKO wished to re-release it.
Other major films Cromwell directed include Little Lord Fauntleroy (1936), The Prisoner of Zenda (1937), Algiers (1938), Abe Lincoln in Illinois (1940), Since You Went Away (1944) and Anna and the King of Siam (1946). In 1951 he directed The Racket (1951) starring Robert Mitchum, Lizabeth Scott, and Robert Ryan; he had appeared in the original staging of the Broadway play by Bartlett Cormack on which the movie was based back in 1927.
Busy on Broadway in the 1950s, it was seven years before he directed another film, The Goddess (1958), with a screenplay by Paddy Chayefsky and starring Kim Stanley. He directed two more minor films before calling it quits as a movie director in 1961. As a director, Cromwell eschewed flashy camera work, as he felt it detracted from both the story and the actors' performances. Late in his life director Robert Altman cast Cromwell as an actor in two of his films, 3 Women (1977) and A Wedding (1978).
John Cromwell died on September 26, 1979, in Santa Barbara, CA.- Nancy Cushman was born on 26 April 1913 in Brooklyn, New York, USA. She was an actress, known for The Swimmer (1968), 'Way Out (1961) and The Web (1950). She was married to Duncan McMartin Baldwin (actor). She died on 26 September 1979 in New York City, New York, USA.
- Actress
- Additional Crew
Betty Collins was born on 6 December 1909 in Arizona, USA. She was an actress. She died on 26 September 1979 in Santa Barbara, California, USA.- Countess Alexandra Lvovna Tolstoy (Aleksandra Tolstaya) was the youngest daughter of the famous Russian writer Count Lev Tolstoy. She was born in 1884, in Yasnaya Polyana, the ancestral estate of the Tolstoy family. Her mother, named Sofia Andreevna Bers, was the literary secretary for Leo Tolstoy, and made Alexandra an assistant to her writer father. Alexandra managed most of the secretarial work for Leo Tolstoy during his later years. She became the keeper of the Tolstoy archive after the writer's death in 1910.
Alexandra shared the "Tolstoyan" ideas and was the follower her father's position of non-violence, but she felt a duty call at the beginning of the First World War. She participated in action by helping the wounded, and became one of the leading organizers of hospitals for the wounded soldiers. Alexandra Tolstoy was decorated for her courage with three Medals of the Order of St. George, rising to the rank of Colonel.
After the Russian Revolution of 1917, Countess Alexandra Tolstoy was arrested five times by the Communists. She was sentenced for supporting the right of free speech and assembly. After release she worked as a keeper of her father's estate in Yasnaya Polyana, which was turned into a Tolstoy's National Museum. She left Russia in 1929, and settled in the United States. There she co-founded the Tolstoy Foundation in 1939, with the sponsorship from such prominent intellectuals as Sergei Rachmaninoff, Igor Sikorsky, Tatiana Schaufuss, Boris Bakhmeteff, and Boris Sergievsky. Former President Herbert Hoover became the first Honorary Chairman from 1939-1964.
Under the leadership of Alexandra Tolstoy, the Tolstoy Foundation assisted more than 500,000 people to escape from political persecution and the horrors of war. In 1948, she testified before the government on behalf of the Displaced Persons Act and was instrumental in its passage. In 1941, on a generous private donation the Tolstoy Foundation acquired Reed Farm north of New York City. She provided the 70-acre Farm for a resettlement center for over 30,000 refugees directly sponsored by the Foundation during the Second World War and after. She organized English classes and occupational therapy for the immigrants, as well, as a summer camp for needy children.
Countess Alexandra Tolstoy was known for her remarkable calmness and dignity. She died in 1979, at age 96, and was laid to rest in the Russian cemetery of Spring Valley, New York, USA. - Vera Budreyko was born on 15 June 1905. She was an actress, known for Ne zabud... Stantsiya Lugovaya (1967) and Teni (1953). She died on 26 September 1979.
- Tony Van Otterloo was born on 13 March 1910. He was an actor, known for Rubber (1936), Veertig jaren (1938) and Willem van Oranje (1934). He died on 26 September 1979.