A New Sybil's "WHO'Z DAT?"… WALTER HUSTON (April 5, 1883 – April 7, 1950)

Darlings! Mummy has made a decision! After reading dozens of posts and having hundreds of conversations with well-meaning folks who just don't know about the great CHARACTER actors who gave films the depth and genius that surrounded and supported the so-called "stars", I am going to post a regular, special entry called "SYBIL'S WHO'Z DAT?"....there'll be photos and a mini-bio, and the next time you see one of those familiar, fabulous faces that you just "can't quite place".......well, maybe these posts will help. Some of these actors worked more, had longer and broader careers, and ended up happier, more loved, and even wealthier than the "stars" that the public worships. (I think there may be a metaphor in that! What do you think???). And speaking of “character” actors, Mummy is going to introduce everyone to the concept of a “character LEAD”!! These actors may not have been lyrically handsome or beautiful, but they often played the leading roles in the most interesting and classic films out of Hollywood. Technically, Bette Davis was one!... almost from the very start of her career. And by her OWN choice! Spencer Tracy was another. Well, my next guest here is not only a classic example, but his range of both comedy and drama, heroes and villains, insure him a seat at the Olympus of character leads! And he started one of the great Hollywood dynasties as well! Walter Huston! (April 5, 1883 – April 7, 1950)

You’ve seen him everywhere, but he’s so chameleon that many folks don’t realize it’s actually HIM in some of the great classic pictures. Born in Toronto, Canada into a farming family and originally trained as an engineer, Huston turned to his other passion acting in 1902, appearing in Vaudeville and stage plays. In 1904, he married Rhea Gore (1882-1938) and gave up acting to work as a manager of electric power stations in Nevada and Missouri. By 1909, his marriage floundering, he began appearing in vaudeville with an older actress called Bayonne Whipple (1865 - 1937) (born Mina Rose). They were billed as "Whipple and Huston" and in 1915 they married. Vaudeville was their livelihood into the 1920s. In 1924 he starred in the premiere production of Eugene O’Neill’s DESIRE UNDER THE ELMS at the Provincetown Playhouse Theatre in Greenwich Village, which then moved to Broadway. To the end of his life, O'Neill (the only American playwright to win the Nobel Prize for Literature) maintained that Huston’s performance was the greatest by any actor in any of his works. For the next few years, Huston appeared on Broadway and then moved to Hollywood as the “talkies” first began to appear. He immediately began starring opposite some of the great film actors of the early 30’s; Gary Cooper in THE VIRGINIAN (1929), Jean Harlow in BEAST OF THE CITY (1932), and Joan Crawford in RAIN (1932). His range ran from heroic icons like the title role in ABRAHAM LINCOLN (1930) to corrupt judges in NIGHT COURT (1932).

Huston received the first of his four Academy Award nominations for the eponymous DODSWORTH (1936), the role he had originated on Broadway in 1934. Huston continued to return to the stage over the years, alternating work between New York and Hollywood. He scored on of his greatest stage successes in KNICKERBOCKER HOLIDAY (1944) as Peter Stuyvesant singing the immortal Kurt Weill/Maxwell Anderson classic “September Song”. Huston once said, “I was certainly a better actor after my years in Hollywood. I had learned to be natural - never to exaggerate. I found I could act on the stage in just the same way as I had acted in a studio: using my ordinary voice, eliminating gestures, keeping everything extremely simple.”. Huston received his second Best Actor nomination playing Mr. Scratch in the film adaptation of Stephen Vincent Benet’s THE DEVIL AND DANIEL WEBSTER (1941) and his third Oscar nod (for Best Supporting Actor) playing the father of George M. Cohan’s (James Cagney) in YANKEE DOODLE DANDY (1942) the following year. Just before playing Lucifer, he had made a brief cameo appearance as the dying sea captain (uncredited) who delivers THE MALTESE FALCON (1941) to the office of Sam Spade (Humphrey Bogart). That film represented the directorial debut of his son John Huston, who had established himself in Hollywood as a screenwriter in the 1930s. John Huston, as a practical joke, had his father enter the scene and die over 10 different takes.

Walter would go on to win an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in 1948 for his role as the old miner in his writer-director son John' s THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE (1948), co-starring with Bogart. Accepting his Academy Award, the elder Huston said, "Many years ago.... Many, MANY years ago, I brought up a boy, and I said to him, 'Son, if you ever become a writer, try to write a good part for your old man sometime.' Well, by cracky, that's what he did!". Walter Huston died the following year in Beverly Hills from an aortic aneurysm, two days after his 67th birthday. The legacy he leaves is not only his own beautifully crafted work, but also the Huston dynasty; his brilliant actor/director son John, and grandchildren Angelica, Danny, and Tony.

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Sybil Bruncheon's WHO'Z DAT?... Happy Birthday to Marni Nixon (February 22, 1930 – July 24, 2016)...

Born Margaret Nixon McEathron, and known professionally as Marni Nixon. She was an American soprano and ghost singer for featured actresses in musical films. She was the singing voice of many leading actresses and stars on the soundtracks of several musicals, including Deborah Kerr in THE KING AND I, Natalie Wood in WEST SIDE STORY, and Audrey Hepburn in MY FAIR LADY, although her roles were concealed from audiences when the films were released. Several of the songs she dubbed appeared on AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs list.

Besides her voice work in films, Nixon's career included roles of her own in film, television, opera and musicals on Broadway and elsewhere throughout the United States, performances in concerts with major symphony orchestras, and recordings.

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Sybil Bruncheon's "WHO'Z DAT?"... Aquarius Goes Hollywood!... The ACTORS!

[Clockwise from upper left: Edgar Bergen (with Charlie McCarthy); Jimmy Durante; S.Z. Sakall; Clark Gable; Edward Arnold; Ronald Colman, Ronald Reagan, John Carradine]

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Sybil Bruncheon's "Who'z Dat?"... Happy, Happy Birthday to PINOCCHIO (February 23,1940)...

On February 23rd, 1940, Walt Disney's PINOCCHIO was released to theaters by RKO Radio Pictures. It wasn't just the children who sat thunderstruck at the visuals, imagination, and deeply moving story of a little toy that wanted to "be real".... When Monstro the Whale swept onto the giant movie screens of America with surging waves and tiny seagulls skittering out of the way to emphasize the appalling scale, when the ironically named Pleasure Island towering over the boys began to whirl into a terrifying nightmare of glittering lights and donkey-ears, and when the final resolution of death and transfiguration took place with the Blue Fairy and Jiminy Cricket standing by, gasps, screams, and tears flowed freely...

Whatever Disney's personal issues and prejudices were, his ability to mobilize the great talents that made one iconic piece of art after another at his studios remains fixed. 82 years later, even the stills from this and so many of his other films are spellbinding... "Cartoon"??? "Cartoon"... The word is laughable...

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Sybil Bruncheon's "WHO'Z DAT?"... Hollywood Birthdays in JANUARY... BEHIND THE SCENES!

(clockwise from top center: Leslie Bricusse 1/29,  Cecil Beaton 1/14, Ernst Lubitsch 1/29 & Adolph Zukor 1/7, Artur Rubenstein 1/28, Jerome Kern 1/27, Federico Fellini 1/20, Carl Laemmle 1/17, Jimmy Van Heusen 1/26, Henry King 1/24, Mack Sennett 1/17, D.W. Griffith 1/22, and Hal Roach 1/14.)

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Sybil Bruncheon's "WHO'Z DAT?"... Birthdays in JANUARY... The LEADING LADIES!

(clockwise from top center: Suzanne Pleshette 1/31 & Tippi Hedren 1/19, Luise Rainer 1/12, Jean Simmons 1/31, Patricia Neal 1/20, Loretta Young 1/6, Tallulah Bankhead 1/31, Katharine Ross 1/29, Joan Leslie 1/26, Vanessa Redgrave 1/30, Faye Dunaway 1/14, and Moira Shearer 1/17.)

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Sybil BRUNCHEON's "WHO'Z DAT?"... Birthdays in JANUARY... the FUNNY GIRLS!

(clockwise from top center: Ann Sothern, Josephine Hull, Jean Stapleton, Constance Collier, Butterfly McQueen, Gypsy Rose Lee, Chita Rivera, Ethel Merman, Marion Davies, Carol Channing, Sophie Tucker, and Margaret O’Brien.)

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HAPPY BIRTHDAY in OCTOBER!... another Sybil's "Who'z Dat?" Quiz…

Can you figure out who the Birthday Celebrities are in Mummie's collage? Answers are posted below…

(Clockwise from top left: Lloyd Corrigan, Jerome Cowan, Douglas Dumbrille, Jane Darwell, Juanita Moore, Marsha Hunt, Sig Ruman, Spring Byington, and Miriam Hopkins)

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A New SYBIL'S "WHO'Z DAT?"... BEULAH BONDI (May 3, 1889 – January 11, 1981)

Darlings! Mummy has made a decision! After reading dozens of posts and having hundreds of conversations with well-meaning folks who just don't know about the great CHARACTER actors who gave films the depth and genius that surrounded and supported the so-called "stars", I am going to post a regular, special entry called "SYBIL'S WHO'Z DAT?"....there'll be photos and a mini-bio, and the next time you see one of those familiar, fabulous faces that you just "can't quite place".......well, maybe these posts will help. Some of these actors worked more, had longer and broader careers, and ended up happier, more loved, and even wealthier than the "stars" that the public "worships". (I think there may be a metaphor in that! What do you think???).                                

Here's our next guest!! Make way for a great lady of Hollywood! Beulah Bondi (May 3, 1889 – January 11, 1981). Bondi was born as Beulah Bondy in Valparaiso, Indiana, the daughter of Eva Suzanna (née Marble), an author, and Abraham O. Bondy, who worked in real estate. Bondi began her acting career on the stage at age seven, playing the title role in the play LITTLE LORD FAUNTLEROY in a production at the Memorial Opera House. She graduated from the Frances Shimer Academy in 1907 and gained her Bachelors and Masters degrees in oratory at Valparaiso University in 1916 and 1918. She made her Broadway debut in Kenneth S. Webb's ONE OF THE FAMILY at the 49th Street Theatre on December 21, 1925. She next appeared in another hit, Maxwell Anderson's SATURDAY’S CHILDREN in 1926. It was Bondi's performance in Elmer Rice's Pulitzer Prize-winning SREET SCENE, which opened at the Playhouse Theatre on January 10, 1929, that brought her to Hollywood at the advanced age of 43 for her movie debut as "Emma Jones" in (1931), in which Bondi reprised her stage role. This was followed by "Mrs. Davidson" in RAIN (1932), which starred Joan Crawford and Walter Huston.

She was one of the first five women to be nominated for an Academy Award in the newly-created category of "Best Supporting Actress" for her work in THE GORGEOUS HUSSY (1936), although she did not win. Two years later, she was nominated again for OF HUMAN HEARTS (1938) and lost again, but her reputation as a character actress kept her employed. She would most often be seen in the role of the mother of the star of the film for the rest of her career, with the exception of MAKE WAY FOR TOMORROW (1937) as the abandoned Depression-era 'Ma' Cooper. She often played mature roles in her early film career even though she was only in her early 40s. Some of her favorite and most popular performances included THE SNAKE PIT (1948) and ON BORROWED TIME (1939).

For folks doubting the range of a "character" actress, you have only to watch her in Frank Capra's IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE (1946). Bondi plays the ideal and iconic mother to Jimmy Stewart in several scenes and then transforms into a veritable psychopathic crone when she no longer recognizes him in the nightmare sequence. She appeared in many Oscar-nominated films over the years and played James Stewart’s mother four times: IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE, MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON (1939), OF HUMAN HEARTS, and VIVACIOUS LADIES (1938).

In addition to consistent film work throughout the 1940s, she made the transition into television. Her television credits included Alfred Hitchcock Presents and Howard Richardson’s Ark of Safety on the Goodyear Television Playhouse. She made her final appearances as Martha Corinne Walton on The Waltons in the episodes "The Conflict" (1974) and "The Pony Cart" (1976). She received an Emmy award for her performance in the latter episode. When her name was called, it first appeared that she was not present, but she was given a standing ovation as she walked slowly to the podium, where she thanked everyone for honoring her while she was still alive.

Despite the fact that she was known for playing mother figures, Bondi never married nor had children in real life. Tragically, she died from pulmonary complications due to broken ribs suffered when she tripped over her cat on January 11, 1981. She was living in Los Angeles at the time and was 92. She was given a star on Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1718 Vine Street in Hollywood, California. Her body was cremated and her ashes were scattered at sea.

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Sybil Bruncheon's "WHO'Z DAT?"... MARIE DRESSLER (November 9, 1868 – July 28, 1934)

Darlings! Mummy has made a decision! After reading dozens of posts and having hundreds of conversations with well-meaning folks who just don't know about the great CHARACTER actors who gave films the depth and genius that surrounded and supported the so-called "stars", I am going to post a regular, special entry called SYBIL'S "WHO'Z DAT?"....there'll be photos and a mini-bio, and the next time you see one of those familiar, fabulous faces that you just "can't quite place".......well, maybe these posts will help. Some of these actors worked more, had longer and broader careers, and ended up happier, more loved, and even wealthier than the "stars" that the public "worships". (I think there may be a metaphor in that! What do you think???). Well, while you’re thinking it over, step aside and make way for the true meaning of the Hollywood “battleship”…or “battle axe” ...whatever!

It’s MARIE DRESSLER (November 9th, 1868 – July 28th, 1934). Born Leila Marie Koerber in Cobourg, Ontario, Canada to parents Alexander Rudolph Koerber, who was Austrian and a former officer in the Crimean War, and Anna Henderson, a musician. Her father was a music teacher in Cobourg and the organist at St. Peter's Anglican Church, where as a child Marie would sing and assist in operating the organ. According to Dressler, the family regularly moved from community to community during her childhood, though this is unconfirmed. There is no information about her childhood education, either. It has been suggested by Cobourg historian Andrew Hewson that Dressler attended a private school, but this is doubtful if Dressler's recollections of the family living in poverty are correct. The Koerber family eventually moved to the United States, where Alexander Koerber is known to have worked as a piano teacher in the late 1870s and early 1880s in Bay City, Michigan, Findlay, Ohio, and Saginaw, Michigan. Her first known acting appearance was as Cupid at age five in a church theatrical performance. Residents of the towns the Koerbers lived in recalled Dressler acting in many amateur productions, and Leila often aggravated her parents with those performances. 

Dressler left home at fourteen to begin her acting career with the Nevada Stock Company, telling the company she was actually eighteen. The pay was either $6 a week, and Dressler sent half to her mother. It was at this time that Dressler adopted the name of an aunt as her stage name. According to Dressler, her father objected to her using the name of Koerber. The identity of the aunt was never confirmed, though Dressler denied that she adopted the name from a store awning. Dressler's sister Bonita, five years older, left home at about the same time. Bonita also worked in the opera company. The Nevada Stock Company was a traveling troupe that played mostly in the American Midwest. Dressler described the experience as a "wonderful school in many ways. Often a bill was changed on an hour's notice or less. Every member of the cast had to be a quick study.” Dressler made her professional debut as a chorus girl named Cigarette in the play UNDER TWO FLAGS, a dramatization of life in the Foreign Legion.

Dressler would remain with the troupe for three years, while her sister left to marry playwright Richard Ganthony. The company eventually ended up in a small Michigan town without money or a booking. Dressler joined the Robert Grau Opera Company, which also toured the midwest, and she received an improvement in pay to $8 per week, although Dressler claims she never received any wages. She ended up in Philadelphia, where she joined the Starr Opera Company as a member of the chorus. A highlight for her with the Starr company was portraying Katisha in THE MIKADO when the regular actress was unable to go on, due to a sprained ankle, according to Dressler. After the touring with different plays including one in which she was required to hit a baseball into the audience every night, she finally quit regional theatre and moved to New York City.

In 1892, she made her debut on Broadway at the Fifth Avenue Theatre in WALDEMAR, THE ROBBER OF THE RHINE which only lasted five weeks. Dressler had hoped to become an operatic diva or tragedienne, but the writer of WALDEMAR, Maurice Barrymore, convinced her to accept that her best chance of success was in comedy roles. Years later she would appear with his sons, Lionel and John in motion pictures and would also become good friends with his daughter Ethel. After years of more touring around the country and even to London, and a couple of bankruptcies involving her own productions and theatre companies, she settled once again in NYC. During World War I, along with the Barrymores she helped sell Liberty Bonds, and in the 1919 Actors’ Equity Strike she helped organize the first union for stage chorus players, which brought her into direct conflict with the big Broadway producers including George M. Cohan. From one of her successful Broadway roles, she played the titular role in the first full-length 6 reel screen comedy, 1914's TILLIE’S PUNCTURED ROMANCE opposite Charlie Chaplin and Mabel Normand. She went on to make several shorts in the film studios on the East coast, but mostly worked in New York City on the Broadway stage. Her career declined somewhat in the 1920s and Dressler was reduced to living on her savings while sharing an apartment with a friend and even living in a servant’s room in the Hotel Ritz.

In 1927, she returned to films at the age of 59 and experienced a remarkable string of successes. Dressler had many ups and downs in her amazing career, although she finally appeared some forty films. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1930–31 for MIN AND BILL opposite Wallace Beery and was named the top film star for 1932 and 1933. Her appearance in the classic DINNER AT EIGHT (1933) directed by George Cukor remains an iconic star-turn despite the incandescent performances of fellow super-stars John and Lionel Barrymore, Jean Harlow, Billie Burke, and Wallace Beery.

Tragically, she would die of cancer in 1934 at the peek of her career. She was married twice but had no children, and was rumored to have had affairs with other actresses in Hollywood. Dressler was interred in a crypt in the Great Mausoleum in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California. For her contribution to the motion picture industry, Marie Dressler has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1731 Vine Street. After MIN AND BILL, Dressler and Beery added their footprints to the cement forecourt of Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, with the inscription "America's New Sweethearts, Min and Bill.” For me, with her gruff delivery and heart of gold, Dressler will remain one of the greatest “sweethearts” that ever graced the silver screen. Along with her fellow Birthday-girl Edna May Oliver (November 9th, 1883), I could look at her forever!... For people who love films from the Golden Age of Hollywood, Dressler remains yet another one of the Platinum performers that, once seen, can never be forgotten! She, like Edna May Oliver, is truly a perfect example of enduring power and talent in one who was never just "another pretty face". 

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