Meanwhile... Back at the Ranch

2025-04-26T18:39:00.002+02:00

DAMES AHOY from 1930 and one of Universal's last silents featured light leading man Glenn Tryon and a newcomer named Helen Wright (. Aclittle research tells us that Miss Wright, who appears to have been busier appearing in fashion layout (pictured) than movies, came from Long Beach, CA and was educated at Poly High there. she was, her publicity claimed, a singer as well having studied with Elizabeth David White. she did one more movie, a talkie Western with Hoot Gibson, SPURS (1930). and that was it.

2025-04-12T19:34:00.005+02:00

a Broadway soubrette of some note - "TheFaithful Heart," "The Dancers" (1923) - Flora Sheffield had come to New York with her actor brother Reginald Sheffield but by 1930 both Sheffields answered the call of the new sound pictures and relocated to Hollywood. but while Reginald established himself as a busy character actor and would become even more famous as the real-life father of Tarzan's boy Johnny Sheffield, Flora made but two motion picture appearances. Alonggwith another newcomer, June Collyer, she provided ingenue prettiness as Kitty in CHARLEY'S AUNT (1930), with Charles Ruggles as the eponymous Charley, and a supporting role in the first talkie version of that age-old barnstormer EAST LYNNE. That was pretty much it for Miss Sheffield who died age 70 in 1968. Henry Byron Warner abd Sheffield 1925

HARRY ARRAS DIED ON THE SET

2025-04-11T10:57:00.002+02:00

Veteran screen bit player Harry Arras, of the original Long Beach Balboa Company, was stricken on the set of Warner Bros.' ESCAPE FRIM CRIME January 28, 1942. the actor, who usually played cops but was most likeky cast as a prison guard or inmate in this Richard Travis B film, suffered a fatal heart attack.

Arras, who was 59, left his wife Julia and their home on 3803 Cimarron St. in Baldwin Hills (pictured today courtesy of Google Maps)

HOLLYWOOD BOULEVARD

2025-04-09T19:09:00.000+02:00

from the American Fiom Institute Catalog: Although many reviews and publicity items credit George Clemens as cinematographer, Karl Struss is credited on the screen. Most contemporary sources give Faith Thomas sole story credit and make no mention of Max Marcin, who is credited on the screen with Thomas. In a modern interview, director Robert Florey states that the idea for this film was taken from his 1927 experimental short film, The Life and Death of 9413--a Hollywood Extra. Many former and present stars appear in the film. According to Florey, before principal photography started (in late May 1936), he shot a week of location sequences on Hollywood Boulevard and in Santa Barbara and Malibu, CA. Florey had planned to have each scene in the film open on an exterior of a well-known location. However, after the initial editing, associate producer Edward Cline ordered the picture trimmed to emphasize the plot line, and eighteen exteriors were cut. The appearances of Evelyn Brent, Louise Brooks, Alice Lake, Florence Lawrence, Rosemary Theby and a major cameo by Harold Lloyd were edited out; while the roles of Mae Marsh and Gary Cooper were reduced. HR production charts list Dorothy Wilson, Ann Evers and Louise Stanley in the cast, although their appearance in the final film has not been confirmed. Modern sources credit Gregory Stone with music. ...

LORNA BALFOUR

2025-03-26T13:32:00.003+01:00

Perusing a who's who I came across the name Lorna Balfour, who played Beryl Mercer's daughter in a Janet Gaynor-Charles Farrell programmer for Fox Film, MERRILY MARY ANN (1931). The following year she was dead at 19. After surgery according to the IMDb website. Okay not much but was there more? Of course there was. She was really Lorna Noy, the British-born daughter of Wilfred Noy (1883-1948), a British actor/director briefly in Hollywood 1925-1929. Noy's chief claim to fame was that he was the maternal uncle of film and stage star Leslie Howard. Lorna Noy, as she billed herself, came to Hollywood in her teens and ended up

playing a foil to rubber-legged comic Leon Errol in a Los Angeles stage run of the farce "Lost Sheep" and supporting Bebe Daniels in a Henry Duffy production of "The Last of Mrs. Cheyney." With her connection to Wilfred Noy abd Leslie Howard motion pictures seemed if not inevitable then at least an obvious posdibility but MERRILY MARY ANN became her lone screen appearance. We don't know what illnes she had that necessitated the fatal operation and hope that someone may enlighten us. Suffice it to say she was only 19 when she passed away and sadly left nothing behind. Even her home in what is today West Hollywood, 2402 Laurel Pass, is of this writing just an empty overgrown lot.

VARIETY GIRL Andra Verne (1922-2015)

2016-09-02T11:17:00.001+02:00

Ever since I first saw this production still from the 1947 Paramount "all star" extravaganza Variety Girl I have wondered, not about the stars pictured - from Gary Cooper to Barbara Stanwyck - but the starlets (male and female) who for once achieved equal billing. None more so than #46, one Andra Verne, who also turned up, briefly and in the background, in the Alan Ladd- Veronica Lake starrer Saigon (1948). It was not much to go on, and in truth it took me 50+ years to discover who hid behind the intriguing name of Andra Verne. And that person, as you will see, is so much more than a long forgotten name listed in a casting sheet or two. So here, in the words of the author of her obituary, is the story of Andra Verne, Variety Girl's number 46:

IN MEMORIAM: ANNE STRAKACZ-APPLETON

By Marek Żebrowski

Anne Strakacz-Appleton died in Sacramento, California on Friday, 31 July 2015. She was 93 years old. Widow of Louis B. Appleton, Jr., she leaves daughters Amy and Louise, residing in California, daughter Marguerite, a resident of Kansas, and four grandchildren.

Born in Warsaw on 17 March 1922, Anne Strakacz was the only child of Sylwin Strakacz, a career diplomat and longtime secretary to Ignacy Jan Paderewski. Anne’s mother, Aniela Karszo-Siedlewska, came from a very prominent Warsaw family of politicians, doctors and lawyers.

Known to her family and close friends as Anetka, she grew up between Warsaw and Riond-Bosson, Paderewski’s long-time residence near Lausanne, Switzerland. A precocious child, she was articulate and outspoken from an early age. Her mother recalled Anetka’s christening at the Sypniewski estate in Poland in November 1924. As soon as Anetka was held up by Paderewski, she solemnly enquired if he had his own teeth. This unexpected question elicited gales of laughter, also from her new godfather, who obligingly demonstrated that the teeth were still firmly his.

Educated in the prestigious Miss Platter’s School in Warsaw, throughout her life Anetka was fluent in Polish and French, and later mastered English when she and her family followed Paderewski on his last voyage to the United States in 1940. Throughout the 1930s, Anetka’s spirited presence was much appreciated by Paderewski, especially after his wife died in 1934. Her summer visits in Switzerland gradually extended to a permanent residence as the political situation throughout Europe worsened on the eve of World War II.

As a teenager, Anetka was a direct eyewitness to many truly fascinating events and met a great number of prominent musicians, intellectuals and politicians. Blessed with clear and unfailing memory, she faithfully remembered Paderewski’s piano students (Aleksander Brachocki, Stanisław Dygat, Stanisław Szpinalski, Henryk Sztompka, Albert Tadlewski), Paderewski’s co-editors of the monumental Chopin Edition (Ludwik Bronarski, Józef Turczyński), the visits of Polish politicians associated with the so-called Front Morges political faction (Józef Haller, Wojciech Korfanty, Gen. Władysław Sikorski), as well as many other notables from practically every corner of the world. Conversing with Anetka about almost any topic—history, politics, music or poetry—was always a rare delight, since probing insights and mesmerizing details were invariably forthcoming, oracle-style, practically without prompting.

Just like her father to whom she was especially close, Anetka was a devoted and courageous advocate for Paderewski, her benevolent and ever-present godfather. It became especially true after Anetka’s father died in Los Angeles in 1973, and she resolutely continued the family mission of honoring Paderewski’s good name. Anetka’s dedication to this task was exemplary and unrelenting: her steely wit and unassailable intellect are on full display in an op-ed published by the New York Times in 1990, where in a bravura argument she methodically demolished a myth about Greta Garbo visiting Paderewski in Switzerland in 1938. Over Paderewski’s long and eventful life, there were many wild tales about him and those she could refute, Anetka certainly did. After all, she was there, she met the people, she saw things, and she knew the facts.

Some facts were almost too cinematic and needed no embellishment, like Paderewski’s last moments, witnessed by Anetka and her mother in a New York hotel on a hot June 1941 evening. In his last breath Paderewski’s quietly had asked for a sip of champagne. Indeed, it was exactly like that and, quite possibly in honor of Paderewski’s memory, Anetka always had a chilled bottle of choice champagne on standby for visitors who called on her for decades to come.

After Paderewski’s death, the Strakacz family moved from the East Coast to Los Angeles, where Anetka—with her beauty and unmistakably continental flair—enjoyed a brief acting career in Hollywood and worked as a make-up artist and the main representative for Max Factor in Europe. Endowed with a great singing voice and truly spellbinding stage presence (inheriting her father’s musical talents and her mother’s 1930s glamour), Anetka often performed with such notable Hollywood film composers as Henry Vars or Bronisław Kaper, who accompanied her at the piano.

Also in Hollywood, Anetka met Louis B. Appleton, Jr., a producer, writer and director whom she married in 1949. They were married for 63 years until Louis died in 2013 at the age of 98. Eventually retiring to Rancho Murieta in northern California, Anetka bravely continued to champion Paderewski’s legacy. She gathered a number of memorabilia left to her by Helena Liibke (Madame Paderewska’s secretary who came to live with the Appletons in Rancho Murieta) and cooperated on preserving them with Małgorzata Perkowska at the Institute of Musicology at Jagiellonian University in Kraków as well as with a number of researchers at the Hoover Institution at Stanford and the Polish Music Center at the University of Southern California. This is how young Paderewski’s letters to his future wife were donated to Jagiellonian University, that’s how Hoover Institution over the years has amassed a significant portfolio of Paderewski’s papers, and that’s how Polish Music Center became a repository for many of Paderewski’s personal items, correspondence, photographs and concert programs.

Surrounded by books and still more books, and propped in her favorite, semi-reclined position with an old-fashioned IBM Selectric typewriter on permanent stand-by, Anetka would engage in her other great hobby—writing and translating poetry. This she did almost to the end of her life, patiently correcting proofs and continuing to devour volumes of Polish, French and English poets. Reading well into the night, as was her lifelong habit, she finally fell asleep to the cadence of music and verse that accompanied her entire storied life.

The final home of REX LEASE

2016-04-20T19:35:00.001+02:00

5262 Mary Ellen Ave., Van Nuys, CA

This San Fernando Valley property, currently under repairs, became the final home of silent era B Western star and later bit player/riding extra Rex Lease. The former "Cyclone of the Saddle" died here at the age of 62 sometime between New Years Eve, 1965 and January 2, 1966. His body was discovered by his son on January 3.

The home of BASIL RATHBONE and OUIDA BERGERE

2016-04-06T21:27:00.001+02:00

10728 Bellagio Rd, Los Angeles, CA

The party-giving Rathbones purchased this Bel Air mansion in June of 1939 for the-then hefty amount of $65,000.

HALA LINDA in LEGION OF MISSING MEN (Monogram 1937)

2016-03-27T15:50:00.001+02:00

"A dour foreign legion picture," as the always perceptive Don Miller called it in his groundbreaking little tone B Movies, Legion of Missing Men takes a turn from desert stock to the incongruous sight of one Hala Linda performing in a dive frequented by our Leggionaires Ralph Forbes, Ben Alexander and Paul Hurst. The little ditty the supposedly Parisian Miss Linda performs, "You Are My Romance," was penned by Flo Browne and Richard B. Gump. The latter, as it turned out, was Hala's husband and the son of Abraham Levinston, "the San Francisco 'jade king'." Later that same year, Miss Linda, described as a "red haired Scandinavian actress" l(born Lindelof), learned that her husband had divorced her while they were still cohabiting! He, in turn, called his wife a gold digger and the couple quickly headed for court,me demanding that the divorce stand.

Hala Linda in Legion of Missing Men

http://youtu.be/Da_WFkBOGD0

Hala Linda Gump in court

The (forgotten) women of the BIG FOUR FILM CORP. 1930-1931

2016-02-24T11:41:00.001+01:00

Founded by John R. Freuler, formerly of the American Film Company, Big Four Film Corporation was created to produce very low budget Westerns starring a constantly changing array of formerly silent Western performers: Jack Perrin, Lane Chandler, Buffalo Bill, Jr., Yakima Canutt, Bob Custer, and Wally Wales. Children and canines were also represented, by Buzz Barton and Rin Tin Tin, Jr.

The leading ladies were not of the same caliber as the cowboy stars, but instead rank amateurs and chorus girls. Typical of the former was one Bonnie Jean Gray, "a well known Burbank horsewoman," who decorated Big Four's final release, Flying Lariats (1931) starring Wally Wales. Miss Gray had formerly toured the west coast as a trick rider with the Jayhawk Night Rodeo.

Charline Burt Beyond the Rio Grande (1930, Jack Perrin). Miss Burt came from slapstick comedy, including Mack Sennett. Sadly, this Western appears to be lost.

Renee Borden Ridin' Law (1930, Jack Perrin), Canyon Hawks (1930, Yakima Canutt)

Bob Steele and Renee Borden in Western Justice (1934)

Aline Goodwin Firebrand Jordan (1930, Lane Chandler) Miss Goodwin, who almost exclusively appeared in silent and early sound Grade Z Westerns, later became an extra.

Aline Goodwin and Lane Chandler in Firebrand Jordan.

Betty Baker Bar L Ranch (1930, Buffalo Bill, Jr.) Miss Baker hailed from South Carolina (b. 1907) but grew up in Los Angeles where she was educated at Metropolitan High School. She previously appeared opposite silent Western stars Buddy Roosevelt, Wally Wales and Buffalo Bill, Jr. Bar L Ranch appears to be her final film.

Betty Baker 1927

Lorraine LaVal So This is Arizona (1931, Wally Wales), Riders of the Cactus (1931, Wally Wales). Miss LaVal also appeared as a telegraph operator in Big Four's final release, Flying Lariats.

Pauline Parker Human Targets (1932, Rin Tin Tin) This appears to have ben Parker's only screen appearance.

EDNA ASLIN

2016-02-22T23:06:00.001+01:00

In honor of the US primary contests I give you early 1930 Z-Western starlet Edna Aslin, here demonstrating a certain lack of decision by advertising both the GOP elephant and the Democratic donkey. Miss Aslin, who sometimes spelled her name Aselin, starred opposite Ed Cobb, Jay Wilsey and other Robert J. Horner Western stalwarts.

ETHEL BECK in GUN GRIT at Talisman Studio.

2016-02-22T15:14:00.001+01:00

Well, actually, who is/was Ethel Beck? The nominal leading lady in a Jack Perrin western cum gangster movie Gun Grit (1936), she clearly was no actress. The film is a bottom-of-the-barrel effort from indie producer William Berke made at the cheap Talisman Studio and directed by one Lester Williams who was William Berrke under any other name. Miss Beck is seen her holding a baby billed in the film as "Baby Lester," who was actually the producer's own son, Lester William Berke. Junior took over from his father when William Berke suddenly passed away while helming the sci fi flick Missile to the Moon in 1958.

Gun Grit was released by Atlantic Pictures Corp. and was one of four Perrin "Blue Ribbon" westerns coproduced by Berke and the star himself.

The Talisman Studio, formerly Fine Arts and Tiffany-Stahl, at 4516 Sunset Blvd but seen here from Lyman Pl.

The lot as it appears today

The home of MAY WYNN

2016-02-05T22:01:00.001+01:00

'745 Domingo Dr., Newport Beach, CA

This rather drab condiminium complex near the Pacific Ocean in the Orange County community of Newport Beach is home to former Copa dancer Donna Lee Hickey who, under contract to Columbia Pictures in 1954, took the name of the character she played in The Caine Mutiny and became May Wynn. A true "Whatever Became of ...?" starlet, Wynn married TV actor Jack Kelly in 1956, a union described as one of Hollywood's most solid until the couple divorced in 1964.

May Wynn and her leading man from The Caine Mutiny, Robert Francis, in their second film together, They Rode West (1955). May was dating the handsome Francis when he was tragically killed in an airplane disaster that same year. That Robert Francis was the male lover of billionaire Howard Hughes, as at least one modern writer claims, is wholly unsubstantiated. Then again, who could have blamed Howard?

The home of PATRICIA MEDINA and JOSEPH COTTEN

2016-02-05T13:11:00.001+01:00

17800 Tramonto Dr., Pacific Palisades, CA

This forbidding home overlooking the Pacific once belonged to the Hollywood acting duo of Patricia Medina (1919-2012) and Joseph Cotten (1905-1994). Earlier, the abode housed Judith Exner, famous for sharing her not inconsiderable charms with both Mafioso Sam Giancana and President John F. Kennedy. And allegedly around the same time. The property is right above the infamous garage on Castellamare where blonde comedienne Thelma Todd was found dead from carbon monoxide poisoning December 16, 1935.

CAROL KELLY of the acting Kellys.

2016-02-04T15:01:00.001+01:00

Born in New York City in 1934, Carol Kelly was out of a performing family that also included sister Nancy Kelly and brother Jack Kelly, both of whom enjoyed long screen and television careers. Carol, though, not so much and her only prominent assignment came in Terror in a Texas Town 1958), a low budget but quite interesting western starring Sterling Hayden, directed by cult phenomenon Joseph H. Lewis and penned by actor Nedrick Young. The later, who was blacklisted, was unbilled.

Carol married prolific actor Joe Marross in 1958 but divorced him four years later. In her complaint, she alleged that her husband beat her and once even pulled her around the house by her ankles. "I guess I just can't adjust to marriage," Marross had explained in lieu of an apology. Carol was awarded full custody of their son, Michael.

The Home of MONA KNOX

2016-02-04T00:06:00.001+01:00

1400 N. Gardner, West Hollywood, CA

The final home of 1950s starlet and popular girl-about-town Mona Knox (1929-2008)

Richard Crane and Mona Knox in Thundering Caravans (Republic, 1952), which starred Allan "Rocky" Lane but came with no caravans at all.

The home of MYRNA HANSEN

2016-02-03T22:42:00.001+01:00

2037 Coldwater Canyon Dr., Beverly Hills, CA

The current home of Myrna Hansen (b. 1934), Miss U.S.A. of 1953 and the runner-up in that year's Miss a Universe contest. Earned successive contracts with Universal-International (was there along with Mamie Van Doren and Rock Hudson) and MGM, but did mostly cheesecake layouts.

R.I.P. GREGG PALMER (1927-2015)

2015-11-06T09:21:00.001+01:00

ZARAH TAZIL in A SCREAM IN THE NIGHT (c.1935)

2015-10-01T12:44:00.001+02:00

Now how many Moroccan actresses do you think dabbled in Grade Z screenwriting in Hollywood in the 1930s? None, would be the obvious answer in a sane world. But this isn't a sane world and if you dig deep enough you'll actually come up with one Zarah Tazil, who is credited with writing or co-writing a handful of minuscule Bill Cody oaters released in the mid-1930s. Zarah also appeared as fiery senoritas in a couple of them but is probably best remembered as an equally fiery French-speaking, or rather French-screaming, villainess in Lon Chaney's A Scream in the Night, a very mild actioner set in "the Orient" that didn't enjoy a wide release until 1943, a good eight or so years after it had been filmed at the old Marshall Neilan studio on Glendale Blvd. Miss Tazil earned a "technical advisor" credit in that one but who exactly was she? And how did she end up being credited with writing Bill Cody westerns? Well, we just don't know. The only clue is that the producers of both the Cody Westerns and Scream, Ray Kirkwood, advertised six additional Lon Chaney films to be filmed, all scripted by Miss Tazil. Only The Shadow of Silk Lennox emerged but our Zarah was credited as art director rather than screenwriter. She seems indeed to have been closely connected to Mr. Kirkwood but just how close remains unknown. Was she actually Mrs. KIrkwood?

TOVE LINDAN in HOUSE OF DANGER (1933)

2015-09-30T00:03:00.001+02:00

I've come across the odd name Tove Lindan a couple of times while researching low budget early talkies. Tove, who according to the IMDb, hailed from Nebraska, rarely had much to do in those poverty row potboilers but according to a February 1930 wire service report, she was "a famous American unknown in America." She had lived in "the Orient" since childhood, the news story went on to reveal, and become a famous actress there. Perhaps. But if her brief appearance as a house party flirt in House of Danger (1934), a mild little whodunit from shoestring company Peerless starring Onslow Stevens, is anything to go by she wasn't a very good actress. But there you are. According to the California Death Index, Tove Lindan passed away aged 64 on July 6, 1965. Since I've failed to locate any photos of the lady, this screenshot will have to suffice.

The home of JAMES BRIDGES and JACK LARSON

2015-09-21T14:40:00.001+02:00

449 N. Skyewiay Rd., Los Angeles, CA.

This fantastic Brentwood house built by Frank Lloyd Wright was the home of director James Bridges (d. 1994) and his longtime companion, the original TV "Jimmy Olsen," Jack Larson. The latter died yesterday, September 20, 2015. Jack Larrson was 87.

Jack Larson on Superman:

The home of ETHEL TEARE

2015-09-19T11:30:00.001+02:00

1133 Laguna Ave., Los Angeles, CA

Could this ramshackle home near Echo Park date back to 1920? If so, it belonged at the time to Mack Sennett comedienne Ethel Teare (1894-1959).

Old Hollywood and "New"

2015-08-24T15:19:00.001+02:00

An interesting mix at a function in 1955: (l. to r.) Betty Blythe, silent screen femme fatale, Hank Mann, silent screen slapstick comic, Susan Cabot, 1950s starlet, Mack Sennett, legendary silent screen slapstick producer and innovator, and Peggie Castle, 1950s starlet. The veterans enjoyed long lives but both of the starlets died tragically, Cabot murdered by her own son, and Castle, an incurable alcoholic whose life had completely unravelled, of a heart attack.

MAMIE VAN DOREN meets royalty

2015-08-23T21:22:00.001+02:00

Yes, our Mamie Van Doren chats up Prince Axel of Denmark at the Universal commissary in 1954. The prince was a cousin of Edward VII of United Kingdom and a great-uncle of the current Queen of Denmark, Margrethe II. His mansion at the outskirts of Copenhagen is today the British Embassy.

Lili Kardell and Joan Bradshaw in LOOKING FOR DANGER (Allied Artists, 1957)

2015-08-23T20:40:00.001+02:00

Huntz Hall gets star billing in this the fourth to the last of Allied Artists' patented Bowery Boys comedies, in which, once again, Stanley Clements stands in for the much missed Leo Gorcey, who had left the series the previous year. In a flashback to their adventures in the last war, the boys infiltrate the Casablanca household of Sultan Sidi-Omar (Michael Granger), who is a Nazi spy. His fiancée, the lovely Shareen (Lili Kardell), is also a spy, however for the allied cause. And so it goes. "Sach" rolls his "r's" menacingly pretending to be German and slapstick ensues, latter-day Bowery style. Nothing to get too excited about, but kinda fun if in the mood.

From Norrkjöping, Sweden (rather than Stockholm as is usually claimed) Lili Kardell appeared quite a bit on television but was better known as one of James Dean's girlfriends. "I was like his sister," a sobbing Lili told the Swedish press when Dean got himself killed in his brand new Porsche. Sadly, Miss Kardell did not enjoy a long life, either, dying at the age of only 50 in New York City in 1987.

Among the obligatory harem girls in Looking for Danger we find Texas-born starlet Joan Bradshaw, who someone at the IMDb actually believes became a top Hollywood producer confidante of Steven Spielberg. Perhaps. If true, though, the now 74-year-old Miss Bradshaw will probably enjoy the rather revealing photo I shall post below. Va Va Voom, madam producer is all I can say!

This Joan Bradshaw, anyway, hailed from Houston, was Miss Texas and danced on television's Arthur Murray Party when actress Jean Simmons allegedly suggested she give Hollywood a try. In May if 1961, she became the third wife of producer Frank Ross, following in the footsteps of Jean Arthur and Joan Caulfield. The newlyweds honeymooned in Palm Springs.