May 11, 2008
Who's the Jewish Movie Star? Take 4: Answer
The Jewish movie star is Max Aaronson, who changed his name to Gilbert Anderson, and was known to millions of early movie goers as Broncho Billy Anderson .
Yup, the first cowboy hero of the motion pictures was a Jewish kid from Little Rock, Arkansas.
Not one correct guess from dozens of brave attempts from all across the globe.
Not even our champs, movie maven sisters Buttercup and Tamster were able to solve this one.
I admit, this was obscure. Beyond obscure.
Anywhoo. Onward.
Max's father, Henry, was a dry goods salesman and his mother Esther, a mother and homemaker. The family moved to St. Louis Missouri in 1883 and here Max, a teenager, was an office clerk like his brothers Jerome, Edward, and Nathaniel. Max became a cotton-buyer a year later, in partnership with his brother-in-law Louis Roth. But Max was restless, a dreamer—and he was stage struck.
After taking courses in a St. Louis acting school, Max headed for New York City, and with no professional experience headed straight for Broadway. He was a dismal failure, hauled off-stage and fired during his very first appearance.
Theatrical agents had such a low opinion of young Aaronson's talents that one suggested he try the pictures.
This was an insult.
Acting was considered an indecent profession by the general public, but even theater actors looked down on motion picture actors as little better than trash.
To protect his reputation, Max Aaronson, desperate for money and fame, adopted the stage name, Gilbert M. Anderson, and applied to the Edison film studio at 41 East 21st Street, for work.
Anderson appeared in several early films, some lasting just a minute or two.
In October, 1903, Edwin S. Porter began casting a film at the Edison studios. Porter asked Anderson if he could ride a horse. Anderson said yes.
He was lying.
When the cast arrived on location and Anderson started to mount up from the wrong side; the horse bucked and Anderson was thrown to the ground.
Max Aaronson AKA Broncho Billy, the first western
movie star.
Porter forgave him and Anderson ended up playing three different roles in The Great Train Robbery: a train robber on foot, a man shot in the back during the robbery, and a tenderfoot in a saloon dancing to gun shots directed at his feet.
The Great Train Robbery opened at Huber's Museum, a grimy vaudeville house on 14th street in New York. After the vaudeville show, when the film was announced to the theater's usual patrons—thieves, prostitutes and drug addicts—the crowd started to drift towards the exit. But then the movie began and the audience was riveted.
Anderson was there: “I've seen some receptions to plays, but I've never seen such a reception to a picture in my life. They got up and shouted and yelled, and then when it was all over they yelled 'Run it again! Run it again!' You couldn't get them out. They sat there two or three times, and finally they put on the lights to chase them out... And I said to myself: that's it; it's going to be the picture business for me.”
The Great Train Robbery, 1903. Just twelve minutes long, this was first western. Some of the scenes were hand-tinted. Director Edwin S. Porter used new cinematic techniques such as cross-cutting between scenes to advance the story and build suspense.
Anderson along with George K. Spoor founded the Chicago-based Essany Studios and there began developing his Broncho Billy character in a series of one-reelers.
The very first film with Gilbert M. Anderson as Broncho Billy was called Broncho Billy's Redemption, 1910.
Here's the synopsis from David Kiehn's Broncho Billy and the Essany Film Company:
Redemption comes to Broncho Billy, a cattle Rustler, when he discovers a young woman and her father unconscious from illness out in the prairie. He decides to take them into town for medical attention, knowing he'll be arrested by the sheriff as an outlaw.
Broncho Billy's Redemption: Jack O'Brien looks at Anderson, hands held up, as Clara Williams is moved to the doctor's office.
Anderson's insistence on plausible Western geography eventually brought Anderson and his crew west to Niles California, a sleepy town near San Francisco. There Anderson built a working studio with full production facilities.
The Niles Essany Studio, 1913.
The Niles Essany scenario department in 1914: George Cantwell and his boss Josephine Rector.
The Niles Essany darkroom. Film was developed in studio.
The Niles Essany editing room. Just benches with rewinds.
Broncho Billy was the mythic westerner—often an an outlaw—with a strong sense of right and wrong.
Millions thrilled to Broncho Billy's adventures, and though Anderson was not handsome or physically imposing, his powerful personality, his insistence on authentic locations, the eternally conflicted hero—moral and physical—plus hair-raising stunts and good triumphing over evil made Broncho Billy the first western movie star.
Anderson, in handcuffs, plays cards with the sheriff, in Broncho Billy's
Double Escape.
Anderson and leading lady Marguerite Clayton in Broncho Billy's Decision.
From Broncho Billy's legacy emerged all subsequent Hollywood Western stars, among them: William S. Hart, Tom Mix, Harry Carey, and of course the greatest western hero of all John Wayne.
Anderson starred and directed his Broncho Billy films from 1910 until 1916. Anderson yearned to expand into feature films, but his partner was wary of this new form, and Essany missed the boat on the public's appetite for feature films.
Anderson had a keen eye for talent and insisted on signing the young English comedian Charlie Chaplin to a contract for the unheard sum of $1,250 per week and a $10,000 bonus. Anderson's partner, George K. Spoor hesitated. He didn't believe any talent was worth that much money, but Anderson persisted and the deal was finalized.
Francis X. Bushman, Charlie Chaplin and G.M. Anderson in Chicago, 1914.
Chaplin's films for Essany went on to become blockbusters—especially “The Tramp,” 1915, the film that ends with the iconic shot of the lonely tramp—back to the camera—sadly shuffling down the road, and then straightening his spine and bravely heading forward to his next adventure.
At Niles, Anderson and Chaplin appeared together in Chaplin’s “The Champion,” released in 1915, the only film in which the two stars appeared together.
Chaplin left Essanay after only one year for The Mutual Film Company where he was offered more money and more creative control. This caused a serious rift between Anderson and Spoor. Anderson wanted to hold onto Chaplin, pay his escalating price, but Spoor was unwilling to enter the bidding war.
After 10 years, and over 1,200 films, Essany closed the Niles studio.
Like so many early film pioneers who could not keep pace with the rapidly changing industry, Anderson drifted from one bad business venture to the next, and was all but forgotten by the business he helped invent. In 1958 Anderson was awarded a special Academy Award as “one of a small group of pioneers whose belief in a new medium, and whose contributions to its development, blazed the trail along which the motion picture has progressed, in their lifetime, from obscurity to world-wide acclaim.”
Unfortunately, Anderson did not attend the ceremony.
Max Aaronson AKA Broncho Billy, passed away at the Academy's Brierwood Convalescent Hospital in 1970. He was 90 years old.
Aaronson, the grandson of a rabbi, never discussed his Jewish roots publicly. And contrary to halacha, Jewish law, he was cremated after death.
The only book about Anderson is David Kiehn's Broncho Billy and the Essany Film Company. This is a fine but rather dry book about a narrow period of Anderson's career. As far as I know there is no biography of Anderson and that is a shame. All the photos and information from this essay are from Kiehn's informative volume.
Broncho Billy: Back in the Saddle in Niles
Broncho Billy DVD: The Son of a Gun
Broncho Billy: Closeted Jewish Movie Star
Chaplin's Essanay comedies on DVD
Hollywood's First Western Hero, Broncho Billy: A Jewish Kid Who Couldn't Ride a Horse
Sylvia Sidney Replaces Clara Bow
Douglas Sirk Directs Linda Darnell
Less Dialogue is More: Mervyn LeRoy, Vivien Leigh, Robert Taylor and Waterloo Bridge.
Alla Nazimova
Charlton Heston: A Moment of Silence
Lilyan Tashman.
Carmel Myers: The Rabbi's Beautiful Daughter
Colleen Moore: The Stars and Stripes
Colleen Moore's Wedding Night
One Hairstyle, Three Memoirs: Alma Rubens, Colleen Moore, Louise Brooks
Theda Bara: The Vamp Adopts the Troops
Movie Magazines: They Don't Print 'em Like They Used To
Alma Rubens: Dope Fiend, But Not a Jewess
Wallace Reid: Hollywood Shooting Star
Olive Thomas: Hollywood's First Suicide
Mary Pickford: The Greatest Movie Star
Seraphic Secret Chats with Actress Coleen Gray about John Wayne, Howard Hawks, and Stanley Kubrick
Susan Peters: The Great Unknown and Tragic Actress
The Blond Machine Gun: Jean Harlow
Peg Entwistle & The Hollywood Sign
Brigitte Bardot & Sean Connery in Shalako—Sorta
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 07:12 AM | Comments (4)
May 09, 2008
Who's the Jewish Movie Star? Take 4
This great Jewish movie star wishes Israel a happy 60th Birthday.
Who's the Jewish movie star?
Instead of posting your answer in the comments section, send your guess directly to robert.avrech@gmail.com.
Good luck.
Answer on Sunday.
Karen and I wish all our friends a wonderful miracle in Shabbat .
Here's a photo from the editing dept at MGM during World War II with equipment arranged to look like cannons. Oh, how times have changed.
Sylvia Sidney Replaces Clara Bow
Douglas Sirk Directs Linda Darnell
Less Dialogue is More: Mervyn LeRoy, Vivien Leigh, Robert Taylor and Waterloo Bridge.
Alla Nazimova
Charlton Heston: A Moment of Silence
Lilyan Tashman.
Carmel Myers: The Rabbi's Beautiful Daughter
Colleen Moore: The Stars and Stripes
Colleen Moore's Wedding Night
One Hairstyle, Three Memoirs: Alma Rubens, Colleen Moore, Louise Brooks
Theda Bara: The Vamp Adopts the Troops
Movie Magazines: They Don't Print 'em Like They Used To
Alma Rubens: Dope Fiend, But Not a Jewess
Wallace Reid: Hollywood Shooting Star
Olive Thomas: Hollywood's First Suicide
Mary Pickford: The Greatest Movie Star
Seraphic Secret Chats with Actress Coleen Gray about John Wayne, Howard Hawks, and Stanley Kubrick
Susan Peters: The Great Unknown and Tragic Actress
The Blond Machine Gun: Jean Harlow
Peg Entwistle & The Hollywood Sign
Brigitte Bardot & Sean Connery in Shalako—Sorta
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 12:48 AM | Comments (5)
May 04, 2008
Who's the Jewish Movie Star? Take 3: Answer
Early studio portrait.
The Jewish movie star is Sylvia Sydney. Real name Sophia Kosow, 1910 - 1999.
As I suspected, the privacy of e-mailing answers resulted in greater participation.
Mazal Tov to all those who guessed correctly. First in were movie-maven sisters: Buttercup and Tamster, who are three for three in our “Who's the Jewish Movie Star Quiz,” — our reigning champs.
Toronto Pearl came in with the correct answer a few minutes later, and Miranda Rose Smith followed a day later, but Miranda is in another time zone so she's at a disadvantage.
Sylvia Sidney, publicity photo from Paramount.
Seraphic Friend Toronto Pearl sent us this picture of Sylvia Sidney's grandfather.
Moyshe Kosovski, father of Mr. Victor Kossow and grandfather of Hollywood screen actress Sylvia Sidney. Sidney was her stepfather's name. From: The Grodno Site
Seraphic Friend Miranda Rose Smith writes: “Did you know she [Sylvia Sidney] was an embroiderer? I picked up a copy of her book on needlepoint in a used bookstore.”
What would Seraphic Secret be without our loyal and savvy readers?
Sylvia Sidney's rise to stardom is, sadly, linked to the tragic fall of Clara Bow, 1905 - 1965, one of the greatest actresses in the history of motion pictures.
Clara Bow, at the height of her popularity she received 40,000 fan letters a week.
Bow, “The It Girl” was an instinctive performer whose radiant presence lit up the screen from 1924 to 1930. She was from Brooklyn, the product of an impoverished, dysfunctional family. Her mother, a part time prostitute, was mad and twice tried to murder Bow. Clara's father raped her when she was a teenager. With just a fifth grade education, Clara dreamed of escaping her miserable life and getting into motion pictures. She won a beauty contest, secured a screen test, came out to California where she clawed her way to the top, performing in endless programmers before she finally broke through as a genuine star.
Producer B.P. Schulberg had her under personal contract. He discovered a formula that clicked with the public and sometimes had her working in three movies simultaneously. At the height of her stardom during the silent era Bow was the most popular actress in Hollywood receiving 40,000 fan letters a week.
But Bow's personal demons, a series of public scandals, a grueling schedule, and the coming of sound conspired to destroy her magnificent career.
By 1930, Clara's value to Paramount was no longer what it once was. Schulberg, who owed his success to Bow, called her “Crisis-a-Day-Clara.”
He concentrated instead on his new protege—and mistress—the beautiful and waif like Sylvia Sidney. The contrast between the two actresses could not have been greater. Whereas Clara Bow was coarse and gutter-mouthed. Sidney was refined, a lady. Where Clara was an unpredictable genius, pure instinct, Sidney was a thoughtful, stage-trained actress.
Sylvia Sidney, publicity photo when she was under contract to
B.P. Schulberg, early 1930's.
In 1931, with her nerves shattered and her contract dissolved by Schulberg, Bow returned to her dressing room to pack her belongings, there she discovered that it was already assigned to Sylvia Sidney.
Bow was finished. Hollywood's biggest star was twenty-five years old.
B.P. Schulberg abandoned his wife and children for Sylvia Sidney. He then exited Paramount with Sidney and produced a series of pictures for her that failed at the box office. He gambled away his fortune. Sidney walked out on him when she caught him in bed with two prostitutes.
Schulberg died in 1957. Thirty years later, Sylvia Sidney was nominated for an Emmy award for her touching performance in An Early Frost, a made for television movie about AIDS.
The best book about Clara Bow is by screenwriter David Stenn, Clara Bow: Runnin' Wild.
My favorite Sylvia Sidney movies are Alfred Hitchcock's Sabotoge. And Fritz Lang's You Only Live Once. Her delicacy, understated acting style, and vulnerability are used perfectly in both films. Unfortunately, these performances locked her into a type she could not escape and she was cast again and again in the same roles as the long-suffering heroine. Sidney became bored with the parts assigned to her and returned to the stage as often as possible.
Sylvia Sidney, studio portrait, early 1930's.
Though not observant, this fine actress never tried to hide her Jewish roots like so many other Hollywood Jews. Sylvia Sidney was horrified by news of The Holocaust and was determined to do something for her people. Like most American Jews, Sidney must have had relatives trapped and doomed under the Nazi onslaught.
In 1943 Bronx born Sylvia Sidney participated in the dramatic pageant “We Will Never Die.”
Determined to alert the American public about the Nazi slaughter of the Jews, [screenwriter Ben] Hecht authored a dramatic pageant that he called “We Will Never Die.” (The title derived from a biblical verse affirming Jewish national survival.) With its cast of hundreds, “We Will Never Die” would be an extraordinary production in every sense of the word. According to Hecht’s plan, the actors would stand in front of two forty-foot-high tablets of the Ten Commandments. They would read aloud a long list of Jews who made important contributions to civilization throughout history. They would describe the Nazi slaughter of the Jews in painful detail. A group of children, garbed in white rags and their faces painted gray to resemble corpses, would quietly say the words “Remember us” over and over again. The performance would culminate in the dramatic reciting of “Kaddish,” the traditional Jewish prayer for the dead, by fifty elderly rabbis who had escaped from Europe.
We Will Never Die, 1943.
Edward G. Robinson, real name Emanuel Goldenberg, and Sylvia Sidney,
two of the stars of "We Will Never Die," reviewing the script with director
Billy Rose.
I'm aware of only one book about Sylvia Sidney, Sylvia: A Memoir of Hollywood Star Sylvia Sidney by Sally Miller. Have not read it, so I'm clueless.
Lobby Card for Clara Bow's Wild Party, 1929. Directed by Dorothy Arzner.
Douglas Sirk Directs Linda Darnell
Less Dialogue is More: Mervyn LeRoy, Vivien Leigh, Robert Taylor and Waterloo Bridge.
Alla Nazimova
Charlton Heston: A Moment of Silence
Lilyan Tashman.
Carmel Myers: The Rabbi's Beautiful Daughter
Colleen Moore: The Stars and Stripes
Colleen Moore's Wedding Night
One Hairstyle, Three Memoirs: Alma Rubens, Colleen Moore, Louise Brooks
Theda Bara: The Vamp Adopts the Troops
Movie Magazines: They Don't Print 'em Like They Used To
Alma Rubens: Dope Fiend, But Not a Jewess
Wallace Reid: Hollywood Shooting Star
Olive Thomas: Hollywood's First Suicide
Mary Pickford: The Greatest Movie Star
Seraphic Secret Chats with Actress Coleen Gray about John Wayne, Howard Hawks, and Stanley Kubrick
Susan Peters: The Great Unknown and Tragic Actress
The Blond Machine Gun: Jean Harlow
Peg Entwistle & The Hollywood Sign
Brigitte Bardot & Sean Connery in Shalako—Sorta
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 12:10 PM | Comments (6)
May 02, 2008
Who's the Jewish Movie Star? Take 3
Who's the Jewish Movie Star?
She starred opposite such great actors as Spencer Tracy, Henry Fonda, Joel McCrea, Fredric March, George Raft and Cary Grant.
Instead of posting your answer in the comments section, send your guess directly to robert.avrech@gmail.com.
Good luck.
Answer on Sunday.
Karen and I wish all our friends a wonderful miracle in Shabbat .
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 12:50 PM | Comments (5)
April 28, 2008
Who's the Jewish Movie Star? Take 2: Answer
Alla Nazimova in Camille, 1921. Scan courtesy of Dr. Macro.
In Evelyn F. Scott's lovely, nostalgia drenched memoir Hollywood: When Silents Were Golden—her mother was Beulah Marie Dix, a screenwriter prominently associated with the Cecil B. DeMille—the author describes an evening in Hollywood when the DeMille swimming pool overflowed and flooded the property.
We went to the movies instead and saw a desperately exotic Alla Nazimova die in arms of desperately handsome Valentino in Camille, and cried enough to flood another pool.
The picture is Alla Nazimova and the still is from Camille.
Mazal Tov to Seraphic Friends Tamster and Buttercup for correctly guessing the identity of our Jewish movie star. This was a tough one.
Alla Nazimova, (1879 - 1945) real name Miriam Edez Adelaida Leventon, was born in Yalta, Crimea, Russia. Her father was Yaakov Leventon and her mother was Sonya Horowitz. Nazimova's childhood was miserable. Her parents separated when she was just a child and she was shuffled from foster homes to boarding schools, and to various relatives.
A brilliant and talented teenager, she gravitated to the theater and studied in Stanislavsky's Moscow Art Theater.
Nazimova achieved major stardom in Europe, then came to American Broadway where she was a huge hit. Nazimova then turned her talents to the exciting new medium of motion pictures.
In 1917 she was earning $30,000 per film, with a $1,000 per day bonus for every day of filming. So successful were her films that she was given a $13,000 per week contract in Hollywood. At the time, actress Mary Pickford was earning just $3,000 per week. Keep in mind those were the days before income taxes—when a dollar was actually worth something. Nazimova produced, wrote and starred in her own films in order to control every aspect of her artistic vision.
From 1917 until 1922, Nazimova was a major power in Hollywood. She was generous to younger actors and helped start the careers of Anna May Wong, Patsy Ruth Miller, and Rudolph Valentino.
Nazimova developed her own filmic techniques which were quite daring. Her highly styalized Salome is rigorously based on the drawings of Aubrey Beardsley.
Her private life was quite scandalous, even for scandal-ridden Hollywood, and her mansion on Sunset Boulevard, The Garden of Allah, built in 1919, became infamous for debauched parties. In 1927, desperate for money, Nazimova turned the mansion and grounds into the Garden of Allah Apartments.
Nazimova's popularity waned by 1925, and she withdrew from film production and returned to the stage.
A more mature, but absolutely riveting Nazimova can be seen as Robert Taylor's mother in Escape (1940) and as Tyrone Power's mother in Blood and Sand (1941).
Alla Nazimova, early studio portrait.
Douglas Sirk Directs Linda Darnell
Less Dialogue is More: Mervyn LeRoy, Vivien Leigh, Robert Taylor and Waterloo Bridge.
Alla Nazimova
Charlton Heston: A Moment of Silence
Lilyan Tashman.
Carmel Myers: The Rabbi's Beautiful Daughter
Colleen Moore: The Stars and Stripes
Colleen Moore's Wedding Night
One Hairstyle, Three Memoirs: Alma Rubens, Colleen Moore, Louise Brooks
Theda Bara: The Vamp Adopts the Troops
Movie Magazines: They Don't Print 'em Like They Used To
Alma Rubens: Dope Fiend, But Not a Jewess
Wallace Reid: Hollywood Shooting Star
Olive Thomas: Hollywood's First Suicide
Mary Pickford: The Greatest Movie Star
Seraphic Secret Chats with Actress Coleen Gray about John Wayne, Howard Hawks, and Stanley Kubrick
Susan Peters: The Great Unknown and Tragic Actress
The Blond Machine Gun: Jean Harlow
Peg Entwistle & The Hollywood Sign
Brigitte Bardot & Sean Connery in Shalako—Sorta
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 11:38 AM | Comments (11)
April 25, 2008
Who's the Jewish Movie Star? Take 2
This great star of the silent era wishes you a lovely and meaningful Shabbat.
Do you know who she is?
And can you name the film from which this still is taken?
Hint: In 1917 she was earning $30,000 for each film, with a $1,000 per day bonus for every day of filming. Keep in mind those were the days before personal income taxes, when a dollar actually had some value.
Answer on Monday.
Karen and I wish all our friends a wonderful miracle in Shabbat and a joyous Shivei and Acharon Shel Pesach, last days of Passover.
Who's The Jewish Movie Star? Take 1
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 04:29 AM | Comments (6)
April 06, 2008
Who's Jewish Movie Star? Take 1: Answer
Lilyan Tashman 1899-1934.
Congratulations to Tamster for guessing correctly.
We will be blogging about this talented and unique Hollywood star in the near future.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 01:34 PM | Comments (6)
April 04, 2008
Who's the Jewish Movie Star? Take 1
This Jewish movie star wishes you all a lovely and meaningful Rest in Shabbat.
Can you identify the Hollywood star?
She was born into an Orthodox family from Brooklyn. After working as a teen-age model she was featured in the Ziegfled Follies. Soon, Hollywood came calling and she was offered a series of feature roles. Her career flourished.
She appeared opposite the biggest stars of the era: Gloria Swanson, Richard Barthelmess, Helen Twelvetrees, Mabel Normand, Norma Shearer, Bing Crosby, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Nancy Carroll, Mary Astor, Caludette Colbert, Melvyn Douglas, Franchot Tone, Robert Montgomery, Herbert Marshall, Joan Blondell, Lon Chaney, Joan Crawford, and Myrna Loy. Our actress had a lovely, contralto voice so the transition to sound was smooth for this talented actress.
Known as one of the most stylish and well-dressed women in Hollywood, our actress once repainted her living room in order to color coordinate with her outfit for a lavish Gatsbyesque party she was hosting at her Malibu beach house.
Though rich and famous, our actress never forgot her roots, and was always more than generous to Jewish charities, especially to children's hospitals.
So beloved was our actress by her Jewish fans that at her levaya, her funeral—it was strictly Orthodox, on the Lower East Side, was a massive crowd of over 10,000 hysterical fans. Also in attendance, Hollywood royalty : Mary Pickford, Sophie Tucker, Fanny Brice and Jack Benny. Eddie Cantor delivered the hesped, the eulogy.
Women fainted, and scores of mourners pushed past the police guards attempting to steal flowers and wreaths as souvenirs. Several women fell into the open grave. There were scores of injuries before the police restored order.
Answer on Sunday.
Karen and I wish all our friends a lovely and meaningful Rest in Shabbat.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 02:03 PM | Comments (5)
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