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

(clockwise from top center: Ray Milland 1/3, Randolph Scott 1/23 & Cary Grant 1/18, Elvis Presley 1/8, Robert Stack 1/13, Paul Newman 1/26, Rod Taylor 1/11, Dana Andrews 1/1, Paul Henreid 1/10, and Troy Donahue 1/27)

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Sybil Bruncheon's "WHO'Z DAT?"... Hollywood Birthdays in JANUARY!... The CHARACTERS!

(clockwise from top center: Billy Gray 1/13, Ernest Borgnine 1/24, Conrad Veidt 1/22, Sal Mineo 1/10, James Earl Jones 1/17, Sabu 1/27, José Ferrer 1/8, William Warfield 1/22, Dan Duryea 1/23, Leon Ames 1/20, Ron Moody 1/8, Paul Scofield 1/21, and William Bendix 1/4.)

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Sybil Bruncheon's "WHO'Z DAT?"... Hollywood Birthdays in NOVEMBER!... The CHARACTERS!

(Clockwise from top center: Marie Dressler, Edward Van Sloan and Boris Karloff, Mischa Auer, Ed Wynn, Edna May Oliver, Norman Lloyd, Will Rogers, Burgess Meredith, Jack Elam, Esther Rolle, Jack Oakie, and Michael Gough)

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Sybil Bruncheon's "WHO'Z DAT?"... Hollywood Birthdays in AUGUST!... The Talents Behind the Screen!!

Answers Below!

Top row, left to right: Richard Mulligan (with Gregory Peck), Preston Sturges, Richard Aldrich (with Bette Davis and Joan Crawford)

Middle row: Cecil B. DeMille (with Yul Brynner and Ann Baxter), Alfred Hitchcock, Friz Freleng, Alan Jay Lerner and Leonard Bernstein

Lower Middle Row: Roman Polanski and John Huston, James Wong Howe, Dorothy Parker

Bottom row: Dore Schary, Mark Sandrich (with Fred Astaire), Ring Lardner, Richard Attenborough, Julius and Philip Epstein

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Sybil Bruncheon's "WHO'Z DAT?"... Hollywood Birthdays in AUGUST!... The Characters!!...

Answers Below!

(Top row, left to right: Raymond Massey, Oskar Homolka, Joseph Calleia and Charles Boyer, Carroll O’Connor

Middle row: Burt Lahr and Jack Haley, Carl “Alfalfa” Switzer, Cantinflas

Bottom row: Hoot Gibson, Reginald Owen, Dom DeLuise, Louis Armstrong, John Huston, Leo Carrillo)

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Sybil Bruncheon's "WHO'Z DAT?"... Hollywood Birthdays in AUGUST!... The Great Beauties!!...

Answers Below!

(Top row, left to right: Ann Blyth, Debra Paget, Jean Hagen, Rhonda Fleming and Arlene Dahl.

Middle row: Ingrid Bergman, Maureen O’Hara, Andrea Leeds, Norma Shearer.

Bottom row: Martha Hyer, Billie Burke, Jane Wyatt, Myrna Loy, Dolores del Rio, Anita Page)

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A New Sybil Bruncheon's "WHO'Z DAT?"... GENE LOCKHART (July 18, 1891 – March 31, 1957)...

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!! … EUGENE “GENE” LOCKHART! (July 18, 1891 – March 31, 1957)

Lockhart was a Canadian character actor, singer, and playwright. He also wrote the lyrics to a number of popular songs. Born in London, Ontario, his father had studied singing, and young Gene displayed an early interest in drama and music. Shortly after the 7-year-old danced a Highland fling in a concert given by the 48th Highlanders' Regimental Band, his father joined the band as a Scottish tenor. The Lockhart family accompanied the band to England. While his father toured, Gene studied at the Brompton Oratory School in London. At the age of 15, he was appearing in sketches with actress Beatrice Lillie. Lockhart was educated in various Canadian schools and at the Brompton Oratory School in London, England. He also played football for the Toronto Argonauts. Lockhart had a long stage career; he also wrote professionally and taught acting and stage technique at the Juilliard School in New York City. He had also written theatrical sketches, radio shows, special stage material, song lyrics and articles for stage and radio magazines.

He made his Broadway debut in 1916, in the musical THE RIVIERA GIRL. He was a member of the travelling play THE PIERROT PLAYERS (for which he wrote the book and lyrics). This play introduced the song, “The World Is Waiting For The Sunrise” for which Lockhart wrote the lyrics along with Canadian composer Ernest Seitz.. (The song was subsequently made popular by Les Paul and Mary Ford in the 1950s.) HEIGH-HO (1920) followed, a musical fantasy with score by Deems Taylor and book and lyrics by Lockhart. It had a short run (again, with him in the cast). Lockhart's first real break as a dramatic actor came in the supporting role of Bud, a mountaineer moonshiner, in SUN UP (1923). This was an American folk play, first presented by The Players, a theatrical club, in a Greenwich Village little theater, and, after great notices, it moved to a larger house for a two-year run. During this engagement, in 1924 at the age of 33, Lockhart married Kathleen Lockhart (nee Kathleen Arthur), an English actress and musician. He also wrote and directed the Broadway musical revue BUNK OF 1926. He sang in DIE FLEDERMAUS for the San Francisco Opera Association.

On Broadway, Lockhart originated the role of Uncle Sid in Eugene O'Neill’s only comedy, AH! WILDERNESS! His performance was so compelling that O'Neill wrote to Lockhart: "Every time your Sid has come in for dinner I've wanted to burst into song, and every time you've come down from that nap I've felt the cold gray ghost of an old heebie-jeebie." The acclaim for his acting in AH, WILDERNESS allowed Lockhart to proceed to Hollywood and remain there almost without interruption. Although he made his film debut in the silent in the 1922 version of SMILIN’ THROUGH as the Rector, his big break came after his triumph in AH! WILDERNESS when he returned to Hollywood in the talkie BY YOUR LEAVE (1934) where he played the playboy Skeets. Lockhart subsequently appeared in more than 300 motion pictures. He often played villains, including a role as the treacherous informant Regis in ALGIERS, the American remake of PEPE LE MOKO, which gained him an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. He also appeared in the movie THE SEA WOLF (1941), adapted from the novel by Jack London, as the tragic ship's doctor opposite the great Edward G. Robinson, Ida Lupino, and John Garfield. He played the suspicious Georges de la Trémouille, the Dauphin's chief counselor, in the famous 1948 film, JOAN OF ARC, starring Ingrid Bergman. But it was a tribute to his amazing versatility that he had his most memorable successes as lovable, "good guy" supporting roles including Bob Cratchit in A CHRISTMAS CAROL (1938) which also starred his own very accomplished actress/wife Kathleen as Mrs. Cratchit and his daughter June as one of the children. He is very well remembered as the flustered judge in MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET (1947) with John Payne, Maureen O’Hara, and Edmund Gwynne, and as the Starkeeper in the 1956 film version of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s CAROUSEL with Shirley Jones and Gordon MacRae.

His great sense of comedy is shown playing the bumbling city sheriff in HIS GIRL FRIDAY (1940) opposite Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell. Lockhart’s down-to-Earth style also got him cast in a number of Hollywood’s prestigious bio-pics including THE STORY OF ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL (1939) with Don Ameche and Henry Fonda, EDISON THE MAN (1940) with Spencer Tracy, and ABE LINCOLN IN ILLINOIS (1940) with Raymond Massey. He did return to Broadway to take over from Lee J. Cobb as Willy Loman, during the original run of DEATH OF A SALESMAN in 1949. His last film role was that of the Equity Board President in the 1957 film biopic JEANNE EAGELS.

Late on Saturday, March 30, 1957, Lockhart suffered a heart attack while sleeping in his apartment at 10439 Ashton Avenue in West Los Angeles. He was taken to St. John's Hospital and died on Sunday afternoon, March 31. He is buried in Holy Cross Cemetery. Although he was married to Kathleen for 33 years, June Lockhart was his only child. He has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6307 Hollywood Boulevard, one for motion pictures and one for television.

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Sybil Bruncheon's "WHO'Z DAT?"... Hollywood Birthdays in JULY!... The Fabulous Faces!

Answers Below!

(Clockwise from upper left: George Tobias, Olivia de Havilland, and James Cagney; Emil Jannings; Arthur Treacher; Yul Brynner; Rudy Vallee; Walter Brennan; Charles Laughton; Theda Bara; Jason Robards, Jr.)

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A New Sybil Bruncheon's "WHO'Z DAT?"... ONA MUNSON (June 16, 1903 – February 11, 1955)

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. (and feel free to share them with your friends!) 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, folks, make way for a lady! A lovely lady who, sadly did NOT end up very happily, but who was much loved. Ona Munson (June 16, 1903 – February 11, 1955).

Munson was born Owena Wolcott in Portland, Oregon. Blessed with a distinctive voice and clear American diction, she was among the better vocal actresses of the late 1920s, and she won plaudits in vaudeville. Trained as a dancer in Portland, Oregon, she first appeared on Broadway in GEORGE WHITE’S SCANDALS in 1919 when she was only 16 years of age. She co-starred with Eddie Buzzell in NO OTHER GIRL and married him during the run. She first came to fame on Broadway as the singing and dancing ingenue in the original production of NO, NO, NANETTE (1925) which made her a star, a status that was solidified by 1926's TWINKLE, TWINKLE and comedies such as MANHATTAN MARY (1927).  From this, Munson had a very successful stage and radio career in New York. She introduced the song "You're the Cream in My Coffee” in the 1927 Broadway musical HOLD EVERYTHING.

Her first starring role was in a Warner Brothers talkie called GOING WILD (1930). Originally this film was intended as musical but all the numbers were removed prior to release due to the public's distaste for musicals which had virtually saturated the cinema in 1929-1930. Munson appeared the next year in a musical comedy called HOT HEIRESS (1931) in which she sings several songs along with her co-star Ben Lyon. She also starred in BROADMINDED (1931) and FIVE STAR FINAL (1932). One of the smartest women in Hollywood in the 1930s, she chafed at roles that had her mooning at cowboys from ranch windows or playing blonde secretaries. She briefly retired from the screen, only to return in 1938.

When David O. Selznick was casting his production GONE WITH THE WIND (1939), he first announced that Mae West was to play Belle, but this was a publicity stunt. Tallulah Bankhead refused the role as too small. Munson herself was the antithesis of the voluptuous Belle: freckled and of slight build. Although her performance is one of the most memorable and beloved in the film, Munson’s career was stalemated by the acclaim she received from GONE WITH THE WIND; for the remainder of her career, she was typecast in similar roles. Two years later, she played a huge role as another madam, albeit a Chinese one, in Josef von Sternberg’s film noir THE SHANGHAI GESTURE. Her performance is so convincing that most people did not even recognize her as the same actress. Her last film was THE RED HOUSE released in 1947. She went on to perform on radio sporadically including co-starring (as Lorelei Kilbourne) with Edward G. Robinson on BIG TOWN.

Although she was married three times (to actor and director Edward Buzzell in 1926, to Federal Loan Administrator Stewart McDonald in 1941, and surrealist painter and set designer Eugene Berman in 1949) and had an affair with Ernst Lubitsch from 1932 to ’35, all of these have been termed "lavender" marriages.—i.e., a cover for stars concerned with keeping their homosexuality out of the public eye. They were intended to conceal her bisexuality and her affairs with women, including filmmaker Dorothy Arzner, Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich and playwright Mercedes de Acosta. Munson has been listed as a member of a group called the "sewing circle", a clique of lesbians organized by actress Alla Nazimova. 

In 1955, plagued by ill health, she committed suicide at the age of 51 with an overdose of barbiturates in her apartment in New York. A note found next to her deathbed read, "This is the only way I know to be free again...Please don't follow me."

For her contribution to the motion picture industry, Ona Munson has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6211 Hollywood Boulevard.

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Sybil Bruncheon's "WHO'Z DAT?"... GEMINI goes Hollywood!

Answers below!

(Clockwise from upper left: Russell Simpson; James Gleason; Basil Rathbone; Charles Coburn and Marilyn Monroe; Frank McHugh; Blanche Yurka; Herbert Marshall; Charles Winninger; Eleanor Parker and Lucile Watson; Robert Montgomery, Dame May Whitty, and Rosalind Russell; Cliff Edwards - Jiminy Cricket)

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