John Alvin “Johnnie” Ray (January 10, 1927 – February 24, 1990) was an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. Extremely popular for most of the 1950s, Ray has been cited by critics as a major precursor of what would become rock and roll, for his jazz and blues-influenced music and his animated stage personality. Tony Bennett credits Ray as being the true father of rock and roll.
British Hit Singles & Albums noted that Ray was “a sensation in the 1950s, the heart-wrenching vocal delivery of ‘Cry’ … influenced many acts including Elvis and was the prime target for teen hysteria in the pre-Presley days.”
In 1952, Ray rose very quickly from obscurity to stardom in the United States. He became a major star in the United Kingdom by performing and releasing recordings there in 1953 and was supported by many acts including Frank Holder. He matched these achievements in Australia the following year. His career in his native United States began to decline in the late 1950s, and his American record label dropped him in 1960. He never regained a strong following there and very rarely appeared on American television after 1973.His fan base in other countries, however, remained strong until his last year of performing, which was 1989. His recordings never stopped selling outside the United States.
Early life
Johnnie Ray was born January 10, 1927, in Dallas, Oregon, to parents Elmer and Hazel (Simkins) Ray. Along with older sister Elma, Ray spent part of his childhood on a farm in Dallas and attended grade school there. The family later moved toPortland, Oregon, where Ray attended high school.
At age 13, Ray became deaf in his left ear following a mishap that occurred during a Boy Scout “blanket toss.” In later years, Ray performed wearing a hearing aid. Surgery performed in 1958 left him almost completely deaf in both ears, although hearing aids helped his condition.
Career
Inspired by rhythm singers like Kay Starr, LaVern Baker and Ivory Joe Hunter, Ray developed a unique rhythm-based singing style, described as alternating between pre-rock R&B and a more conventional classic pop approach. He began singing professionally on a Portland, Oregon, radio station at age 15.
Ray first attracted the attention of Bernie Lang, a song plugger, who was taken to the Flame Showbar nightclub in Detroit, Michigan by local DJ, Robin Seymour of WKMH. Lang went to New York to sell the singer to Danny Kessler of the Okeh label, a subsidiary of Columbia Records. Kessler came over from New York, and he, Lang and Seymour went to the Flame. According to Seymour, Kessler’s reaction was, “Well, I don’t know. This kid looks well on the stand, but he will never go on records.”
It was Seymour and Lowell Worley of the local office of Columbia who persuaded Kessler to have a test record made of Ray. Worley arranged for a record to be cut at the United Sound Studios in Detroit. Seymour told reporter Dick Osgood that there was a verbal agreement that he would be cut in on the three-way deal in the management of Ray. But the deal mysteriously evaporated, and so did Seymour’s friendship with Kessler.
Ray’s first record, the self-penned R&B number for OKeh Records, “Whiskey and Gin,” was a minor hit in 1951. The following year he dominated the charts with the double-sided hit single of “Cry” and “The Little White Cloud That Cried“. Selling over two million copies of the 78rpm single, Ray’s delivery struck a chord with teenagers and he quickly became a teen idol. When OKeh parent Columbia Records realized that Ray had developed a fan base of white listeners, he was moved over to the Columbia label.
20th Century Fox capitalized on his stardom by including him in the ensemble cast of the movie There’s No Business Like Show Business (1954) alongside Ethel Merman as his mother, Dan Dailey as his father, Donald O’Connor as his brother and Marilyn Monroe as his sister-in-law. Ray’s performing style included theatrics later associated with rock and roll, including tearing at his hair, falling to the floor, and crying. Ray quickly earned the nicknames “Mr. Emotion”, “The Nabob of Sob”, and “The Prince of Wails” among others.
More hits followed, including “Please Mr. Sun,” “Such a Night,” “Walkin’ My Baby Back Home,” “A Sinner Am I.” and “Yes Tonight Josephine.” He had a United Kingdom number 1 hit with “Just Walkin’ in the Rain” (which Ray initially disliked) during the Christmas season in 1956. He hit again in 1957 with “You Don’t Owe Me a Thing,” which reached number 10 on the Billboard chart. Though his American popularity was declining in 1957, he remained popular in the United Kingdom, breaking the record at the London Palladium formerly set by fellow Columbia Records artist Frankie Laine. In later years, he retained a loyal fan base overseas, particularly in Australia.
Later career
Ray had a close relationship with journalist and television game show panelist Dorothy Kilgallen. They became acquainted soon after his sudden rise to stardom in the United States. They remained close as his American career declined. Two months before Kilgallen’s death in 1965, her newspaper column plugged Ray’s engagements at the Latin Quarter in New York and the Tropicana Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. He began his engagement at the Latin Quarter immediately after an eight-month vacation in Spain during which he and new manager Bill Franklin had extricated themselves from contracts with Bernie Lang, who had managed Ray from 1951 to 1963. Ray and Franklin believed that a dishonest Lang had been responsible for the end of Ray’s stardom in the United States and for large debts that he owed the Internal Revenue Service.
In early 1969, Ray befriended Judy Garland, performing as her opening act during her last concerts in Copenhagen, Denmark and Malmö, Sweden. Ray was also the best man during Garland’s wedding to nightclub manager Mickey Deans in London.
In the early 1970s, Ray’s American career revived to a limited extent, as he had not released a record album or single for more than ten years. He made network television appearances on The Andy Williams Show in 1970 and The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson three times during 1972 and 1973. His personal manager Bill Franklin resigned in 1976 and cut off contact with the singer a few years later. His American revival turned out to be short-lived as Ray’s career had already begun to decline as the 1980s approached. Speculation why has been attributed to booking agents and songwriters not knowing who he was or what his “sound” was like, thus ignoring him as a commercial talent.
In 1981, Ray hired Alan Eichler as his manager and resumed performing with an instrumental quartet rather than with the large orchestras he and his audiences had been accustomed to for the first 25 years of his career. When Ray and the quartet performed at a New York club called Marty’s on Third Avenue and East 73rd Street in 1981,The New York Times stated, “The fact that Mr. Ray, in the years since his first blush of success, has been seen and heard so infrequently in the United States is somewhat ironic because it was his rhythm and blues style of singing that help lay the groundwork for the rock-and-roll that turned Mr. Ray’s entertainment world around. Recently, Ringo Starr of the Beatles pointed out that the three singers the Beatles listened to in their fledgling days were Chuck Berry, Little Richard. and Johnnie Ray.”
In 1986, Ray appeared as a Los Angeles taxicab driver in Billy Idol‘s “Don’t Need a Gun” video and is name-checked in the lyrics of the song. During this time period, Ray was generally playing small venues in the United States such as Citrus College in Los Angeles County, California. He performed there in 1987 “with a big-band group,” according to a Los Angeles Times profile of him during that year.
While his popularity continued to wane in the United States, Australian, English and Scottish promoters booked him for large venues as late as 1989, his last year of performing.
Personal life
In 1951, when Ray was obscure and not yet signed to a record label, he was arrested in Detroit for accosting and soliciting an undercover vice squad police officer in the restroom of the Stone Theatre, a burlesque house. When he appeared in court, he pleaded guilty. He paid a fine and was released. Because of his obscurity at the time, the Detroit newspapers did not report the story. After his sudden rise to fame the following year, rumors about his sexuality began to spread.
Despite her knowledge of the solicitation arrest, Marilyn Morrison, daughter of the owner of West Hollywood’sMocambo nightclub, married Ray on May 25, 1952. The wedding ceremony took place in New York a short time after he gave his first New York concert at the Copacabana. Aware of the singer’s sexuality, Morrison told a friend she would “straighten it out.” The couple separated in January 1953 and divorced in 1954.Several writers have noted that the Ray-Morrison marriage occurred under false pretenses, and that Ray had a long-term relationship with his manager, Bill Franklin. Ray later blamed rumors about his sexuality for the breakup of his marriage to Morrison.
In 1959, Ray was arrested again in Detroit for soliciting an undercover officer at the Brass Rail, a bar that was described many years later by one biographer as a haven for musicians and by another biographer as a gay bar. Ray went to trial following this second arrest and was found not guilty.
Ray, along with some of his friends, denied publicly throughout his life that he was gay. Two years after his death, several friends shared with biographer Jonny Whiteside their knowledge of Ray’s homosexuality.
Later years and death
In 1960, Ray was hospitalized after contracting tuberculosis. In 1965, he was 38 years old when he was emotionally devastated by the death of close friend Dorothy Kilgallen. Biographer Jonny Whiteside claimed that Ray managed to stay sober despite his grief. He began to regain his health. Shortly after he returned to the United States from a European concert tour that he headlined with Judy Garland, an American doctor informed him that he was well enough to drink an occasional glass of wine. Ray resumed drinking heavily and his health quickly began to decline. He continued touring until he gave his final concert, a benefit for the Grand Theater in Salem, Oregon, on October 6, 1989. In early 1990, poor health forced him to check into Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. On February 24, 1990, he died of liver failure at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles. He is buried at Hopewell Cemetery near Hopewell, Oregon.
In 1999, Bear Family Records issued two five CD sets of his entire body of work, each containing an 84-page book on his career. Companies like Sony and Collectables have kept his large catalogue of recordings in continual release worldwide.
Here’s a Ray clip from There’s No Business Like Show Business….
Mario Lanza (born Alfred Arnold Cocozza; January 31, 1921 – October 7, 1959) was an American tenor, actor and Hollywood film star of the late 1940s and the 1950s.
Lanza began studying to be a professional singer at the age of 16. After appearing at the Hollywood Bowl in 1947, Lanza signed a seven-year film contract with Louis B. Mayer, the head of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer who saw his performance and was impressed by his singing. Prior to this, the adult Lanza had sung only two performances of an opera. The following year (1948), however, he would sing the role of Pinkerton in Puccini’s Madama Butterfly in New Orleans.
His film debut was in That Midnight Kiss (1949) with Kathryn Grayson and Ethel Barrymore. The following year, in The Toast of New Orleans, his featured popular song “Be My Love” became his first million-selling hit. In 1951, he played the role of Enrico Caruso (1873–1921), his tenor idol, in the biopic, The Great Caruso, which produced another million-seller with “The Loveliest Night of the Year” (a song which used the melody of Sobre las Olas). The Great Caruso was the top-grossing film that year.
The title song of his next film, Because You’re Mine, was his final million-selling hit song. The song went on to receive an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song. After recording the soundtrack for his next film, The Student Prince, he embarked upon a protracted battle with Studio Head Dore Schary arising from artistic differences with director Curtis Bernhardt, and was eventually dismissed by MGM.
Lanza was known to be “rebellious, tough, and ambitious,” and during most of his film career, he suffered from addictions to overeating and alcohol that had a serious effect on his health and his relationships with directors, producers and, occasionally, other cast members. Hollywood columnist Hedda Hopper wrote, “his smile, which was as big as his voice, was matched with the habits of a tiger cub, impossible to housebreak.” She adds that he was the “last of the great romantic performers.” He made three more films before dying of an apparent pulmonary embolism at the age of 38. At the time of his death in 1959 he was still “the most famous tenor in the world.” Author Eleonora Kimmel concludes that Lanza “blazed like a meteor whose light lasts a brief moment in time.”
Early years
Born Alfred Arnold Cocozza in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, he was exposed to classical singing at an early age by his Abruzzese-Molisan Italian parents. His mother, Maria Lanza, was from Tocco da Casauria a province of Pescara in the region of Abruzzo. His father, Antonio Cocozza, was from the town of Filignano a province of Isernia in the region of Molise. By age 16, his vocal talent had become apparent. Starting out in local operatic productions in Philadelphia for the YMCA Opera Company while still in his teens, he later came to the attention of longtime (1924–49) principal Boston Symphony conductor Serge Koussevitzky. In 1942, Koussevitzky provided young Cocozza with a full student scholarship to the Berkshire Music Center at Tanglewood, Massachusetts. Reportedly, Koussevitzky would later tell him, “Yours is a voice such as is heard once in a hundred years.”
Opera career
His opera debut, as Fenton in Otto Nicolai’s The Merry Wives of Windsor (in English), came at the Berkshire Music Festival in Tanglewood on August 7, 1942, after a period of study with conductors Boris Goldovsky and Leonard Bernstein. This was when Cocozza adopted the stage name Mario Lanza, for its similarity to his mother’s maiden name, Maria Lanza.
His performances at Tanglewood won him critical acclaim, with Noel Straus of The New York Times hailing the 21-year-old tenor as having “few equals among tenors of the day in terms of quality, warmth and power”. Herbert Graf subsequently wrote in Opera News (October 5, 1942), “A real find of the season was Mario Lanza […] He would have no difficulty one day being asked to join the Metropolitan Opera.” Lanza sang Nicolai’s Fenton twice at Tanglewood, in addition to appearing there in a one-off presentation of Act III of Puccini’s La Bohème with the noted Mexican soprano Irma González, baritone James Pease and mezzo-soprano Laura Castellano. Music critic Jay C. Rosenfeld wrote in The New York Times of August 9, 1942, “Irma González as Mimì and Mario Lanza as Rodolfo were conspicuous by the beauty of their voices and the vividness of their characterizations.” In an interview shortly before her own death in 2008, González recalled that Lanza was “very correct, likeable, with a powerful and beautiful voice.”
Lanza as Giuseppe Verdi’s Otello
His budding operatic career was interrupted by World War II, when he was assigned to Special Services in the U.S. Army Air Corps. He appeared in the wartime shows On the Beam and Winged Victory. He also appeared in the film version of the latter (albeit as an unrecognizable member of the chorus). He resumed his singing career with a concert in Atlantic City with the NBC Symphony Orchestra in September 1945 under Peter Herman Adler, subsequently his mentor. The following month, he replaced tenor Jan Peerce on the live CBS radio program Great Moments in Music on which he made six appearances in four months, singing extracts from various operas and other works.
He studied with Enrico Rosati for fifteen months, and then embarked on an 86-concert tour of the United States, Canada and Mexico between July 1947 and May 1948 with bass George London and soprano Frances Yeend. Reviewing his second appearance at Chicago’s Grant Park in July 1947 in the Chicago Sunday Tribune, Claudia Cassidy praised Lanza’s “superbly natural tenor” and observed that “though a multitude of fine points evade him, he possesses the things almost impossible to learn. He knows the accent that makes a lyric line reach its audience, and he knows why opera is music drama.”
In April 1948, Lanza sang two performances as Pinkerton in Puccini’s Madama Butterfly for the New Orleans Opera Association conducted by Walter Herbert with stage director Armando Agnini. Reviewing the opening-night performance in the St. Louis News (April 9, 1948), Laurence Oden wrote, “Mario Lanza performed … Lieutenant Pinkerton with considerable verve and dash. Rarely have we seen a more superbly romantic leading tenor. His exceptionally beautiful voice helps immeasurably.” Following the success of these performances, he was invited to return to New Orleans in 1949 as Alfredo in Verdi’s La traviata. But, as biographer Armando Cesari wrote, Lanza by 1949 “was already deeply engulfed in the Hollywood machinery and consequently never learned [that key mid-Verdi tenor] role.”
At the time of his death, Lanza was preparing to return to the operatic stage. Conductor Peter Herman Adler, with whom Lanza had previously worked both in concert and on the soundtrack of The Great Caruso, visited the tenor in Rome during the summer of 1959 and later recalled that, “[Lanza] was working two hours a day with an operatic coach, and intended to go back to opera, his only true love.” Adler promised the tenor “all possible help” in his “planning for his operatic future.” In the October 14, 1959, edition of Variety, it was reported that Lanza had planned to make his return to opera in the role of Canio in Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci during the Rome Opera’s 1960–61 season. This was subsequently confirmed by Riccardo Vitale, Artistic Director of the Rome Opera. Variety also noted that preparations had been underway at the time of Lanza’s death for him to participate in recording a series of complete operas for RCA Italiana.
Film career
A concert at the Hollywood Bowl in August 1947 had brought Lanza to the attention of Louis B. Mayer, who promptly signed Lanza to a seven-year film contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The contract required him to commit to the studio for six months, and at first Lanza believed he would be able to combine his film career with his operatic and concert one. In May 1949, he made his first commercial recordings with RCA Victor. His rendition of the aria “Che gelida manina” (from La Bohème) from that session was subsequently awarded the prize of Operatic Recording of the Year by the (United States) National Record Critics Association.
The Toast of New Orleans
Lanza’s first two starring films, That Midnight Kiss and The Toast of New Orleans, both opposite top-billed Kathryn Grayson, were commercial successes, and in 1950 his recording of “Be My Love” from the latter became the first of three million-selling singles for the young singer, earning him enormous fame in the process. While at MGM, Lanza worked closely with the Academy Award-winning conductor, composer, and arranger Johnny Green.
In a 1977 interview with Lanza biographer Armando Cesari, Green recalled that the tenor was insecure about the manner in which he had become successful, and was keenly aware of the fact that he had become a Hollywood star before first having established himself on the operatic stage.
“Had [Lanza] been already a leading tenor, if not the leading tenor at the Metropolitan Opera House], and come to Hollywood in between seasons to make a picture, he would have had [the security of having] the Met as his home,” Green remarked. According to Green, Lanza possessed “the voice of the next Caruso. [Lanza] had an unusual, very unusual quality…a tenor with a baritone color in the middle and lower registers, and a great feeling for the making of music. A great musicality. I found it fascinating, musically, to work with [him].”
The Great Caruso
In 1951, Lanza portrayed Enrico Caruso in The Great Caruso, which proved a success. At the same time, Lanza’s increasing popularity exposed him to intense criticism by some music critics, including those who had praised his work years earlier. His performance earned him compliments from the subject’s son, Enrico Caruso Jr., a tenor in his own right. Shortly before his own death in 1987, Enrico Jr. wrote in Enrico Caruso: My Father and My Family (posthumously published by Amadeus in 1990) that:
“I can think of no other tenor, before or since Mario Lanza, who could have risen with comparable success to the challenge of playing Caruso in a screen biography… Lanza was born with one of the dozen or so great tenor voices of the century, with a natural voice placement, an unmistakable and very pleasing timbre, and a nearly infallible musical instinct.”
The Student Prince
In 1952, Lanza was dismissed by MGM after he had pre-recorded the songs for The Student Prince. The reason most frequently cited in the tabloid press at the time was that his recurring weight problem had made it impossible for him to fit into the costumes of the Prince. However, as his biographers Cesari and Mannering have established, Lanza was not overweight at the beginning of the production, and it was, in fact, a disagreement with director Curtis Bernhardt over Lanza’s singing of one of the songs in the film that led to Lanza walking off the set. MGM refused to replace Bernhardt, and the film was subsequently made with English actor Edmund Purdom, who was dubbed to Lanza’s recorded voice.
Depressed by his dismissal, and with his self-confidence severely undermined, Lanza became a virtual recluse for more than a year, frequently seeking refuge in alcoholic binges. During this period, Lanza also came very close to bankruptcy as a result of poor investment decisions by his former manager, and his lavish spending habits left him owing about $250,000 in back taxes to the IRS.
Serenade
Lanza returned to an active film career in 1955 in Serenade, released by Warner Bros. However the film was not as successful as his previous films, despite its strong musical content, including arias from Der Rosenkavalier, Fedora, L’arlesiana, and Otello, as well as the Act III duet from Otello with soprano Licia Albanese. Ms. Albanese said of Lanza in 1980: I had heard all sorts of stories about Mario [Lanza]. That his voice was too small for the stage, that he couldn’t learn a score, that he couldn’t sustain a full opera; in fact, that he couldn’t even sing a full aria, that his recordings were made by splicing together various portions of an aria. None of it is true! He had the most beautiful lirico spinto voice. It was a gorgeous, beautiful, powerful voice. I should know because I sang with so many tenors. He had everything that one needs. The voice, the temperament, perfect diction. . . . Vocally he was very secure. All he needed was coaching. Everything was so easy for him. He was fantastic!
He then moved to Rome, Italy in May 1957, where he worked on the film Seven Hills of Rome, and returned to live performing in November of that year, singing for Queen Elizabeth II at the Royal Variety Show at the London Palladium. From January to April 1958, Lanza gave a concert tour of the UK, Belgium, the Netherlands, France and Germany. He gave a total of 22 concerts on this tour, receiving mostly positive reviews for his singing. Despite a number of cancellations, which resulted from his failing health during this period, Lanza continued to receive offers for operatic appearances, concerts, and films.
In September 1958, he made a number of operatic recordings at the Rome Opera House for the soundtrack of what would turn out to be his final film, For the First Time. It was then that he came to the attention of that opera house’s artistic director, Riccardo Vitale, who promptly offered the tenor carte blanche in his choice of operatic roles. Lanza also received offers to sing in any opera of his choosing from the San Carlo in Naples. At the same time, however, his health continued to decline, with the tenor suffering from a variety of ailments, including phlebitis and acute high blood pressure. His old habits of overeating and crash dieting, coupled with binge drinking, compounded his problems.
Death
In April 1959, Lanza reportedly suffered a minor heart attack followed in August by double pneumonia. On September 25, 1959, he entered Rome’s Valle Giulia clinic for the purpose of losing weight for an upcoming film. While in the clinic, he underwent a controversial weight loss program colloquially known as “the twilight sleep treatment,” which required its patients to be kept immobile and sedated for prolonged periods. On October 7, a day before his scheduled discharge, he died at the age of 38. No autopsy was performed. He was buried at the Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California. Maria Caniglia, Franco Fabrizi and Enzo Fiermonte attended the funeral. Frank Sinatra sent his condolences by telegram.
Legacy
Lanza was the first RCA Victor Red Seal artist to win a gold disc and the first artist to sell 2 1/2 million albums. Lanza was referred to by some sources as the “new Caruso” after his “instant success” in Hollywood films, while MGM hoped he would become the movie studio’s “singing Clark Gable” for his good looks and powerful voice.
In 1994, outstanding tenor José Carreras paid tribute to Lanza during a worldwide concert tour, saying of him, “If I’m an opera singer, it’s thanks to Mario Lanza.” His equally outstanding colleague Plácido Domingo echoed these comments in a 2009 CBS interview with, “Lanza’s passion and the way his voice sounds are what made me sing opera. I actually owe my love for opera … to a kid from Philadelphia.”
Even today “the magnitude of his contribution to popular music is still hotly debated,” and because he appeared on the operatic stage only twice, many critics feel that he needed to have had more “operatic quality time” in major theaters before he could be considered a star of that art form. His films, especially The Great Caruso, influenced numerous future opera stars, including Joseph Calleja, José Carreras, Plácido Domingo and Luciano Pavarotti. According to opera historian Clyde McCants, “Of all the Hollywood singers who performed operatic music… the one who made the greatest impact was Mario Lanza.” Hollywood gossip columnist Hedda Hopper concluded “there had never been anyone like Mario, and I doubt whether we shall ever see his like again.”
In 1998, a Golden Palm Star on the Palm Springs, California, Walk of Stars was dedicated to him. Mario Lanza has been awarded two Stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame: a Star for Recording at 1751 Vine Street, and a Star at 6821 Hollywood Boulevard for Motion Pictures.
Portrayal on stage
In October 2007, Charles Messina directed the big budget musical Be My Love: The Mario Lanza Story, written by Richard Vetere, about Lanza’s life, which was produced by Sonny Grosso and Phil Ramone, and which premiered at The Tilles Center for the Performing Arts in Greenvale, New York.
Taylor was married to actress Barbara Stanwyck from 1939 to 1951. He married actress Ursula Thiess in 1954, and they had two children. A chain smoker, Taylor was diagnosed with lung cancer in October 1968. He died of the disease in June 1969 at the age of 57.
Early life
Born Spangler Arlington Brugh Taylor in Filley, Nebraska, he was the son of Ruth Adaline (née Stanhope) and Spangler Andrew Brugh, who was a farmer turned doctor. During his early life, the family moved several times, living in Muskogee, Oklahoma;, Kirksville, Missouri, and Fremont, Nebraska. By September 1917, the Brughs had moved to Beatrice, Nebraska, where they remained for 16 years.
As a teenager, Brugh was a track star and played the cello in his high school orchestra. Upon graduation, he enrolled at Doane College in Crete, Nebraska. While at Doane, he took cello lessons from Professor Herbert E. Gray, a man whom he admired and idolized. After Professor Gray announced he was accepting a new position at Pomona College in Los Angeles, Brugh moved to California and enrolled at Pomona. He joined the campus theatre group and was eventually spotted by an MGM talent scout in 1932 after production of Journey’s End.
Career
He signed a seven-year contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer with an initial salary of $35 a week, which rose to $2500 by 1936. The studio changed his name to Robert Taylor. He made his film debut in the 1934 comedy, Handy Andy, starring Will Rogers (on a loan-out to 20th Century Fox). His first leading role was in an MGM short subject called Buried Loot. Irene Dunne requested him for her leading man in Magnificent Obsession. This was followed by Camille, oppositeGreta Garbo.
After being given the nickname “The Man with the Perfect Profile,” Taylor began breaking away from his perfect leading man image and began appearing in darker roles beginning in 1941. That year he portrayed Billy Bonney (better known as Billy the Kid) in Billy the Kid. The next year, he played the title role in the film noirJohnny Eager oppositeLana Turner. After playing a tough sergeant in Bataan in 1943, Taylor contributed to the war effort by becoming a flying instructor in U.S. Naval Air Corps. During this time, he also starred in instructional films and narrated the 1944 documentary The Fighting Lady.
By the mid-1950s, Taylor began to concentrate on westerns, his preferred genre. He starred in a comedy western in 1955 co-starring Eleanor Parker, Many Rivers To Cross. In 1958 he shared the lead with Richard Widmark in the edgy John Sturges western, The Law and Jake Wade. In 1958, he left MGM and formed his own production company, Robert Taylor Productions, and the following year starred in the ABC hit television series The Detectives Starring Robert Taylor (1959–1962). Following the end of the series in 1962, Taylor continued to appear in films and television including A House Is Not a Home and two episodes of Hondo.
Robert Taylor received the 1953 World Film Favorite – Male, award at the Golden Globes (tied with Alan Ladd).
In 1963, NBC filmed, but never aired, four episodes of what was to have been The Robert Taylor Show, a series based on case files from the United States Department of Health, Education and Welfare. The project was suddenly dropped, and Warner Brothers studio boss Jack Webb sold the network a replacement series, Temple Houston, starring Jeffrey Hunter as frontier lawyerTemple Lea Houston, an actual historical figure. WB had only six weeks to get the first episode of Temple Houston on the air, and the pilot was unusable. The series ran for only 26 weeks.
In 1964, Taylor co-starred with his former wife, Barbara Stanwyck, in William Castle‘s psychological horror film The Night Walker. In 1965, after filming Johnny Tiger in Florida, Taylor took over the role of narrator in the television series Death Valley Days, when Ronald Reagan left to pursue a career in politics. Taylor would remain with the series until his death in 1969.
Taylor was dubbed “the man with the perfect profile.” His beautiful granddaughter, actress Mary Taylor (b. August 7, 1990 Santa Monica, California), was dubbed “the perfect profile of a woman” and “the blonde of angelic face.”
Personal life
After three years of dating, Taylor married Barbara Stanwyck on May 14, 1939 in San Diego, California. Zeppo Marx‘s wife, Marion, was Stanwyck’s matron of honor and her godfather, actor Buck Mack, was Taylor’s best man. Stanwyck divorced Taylor (reportedly at his request) in February 1951. The couple had no children.
Taylor met German actress Ursula Thiess in 1952. They married in Jackson Hole, Wyoming on May 23, 1954. They had two children together, son Terrance (born 1955) and daughter Tessa (born 1959). Taylor was also stepfather to Thiess’ two children from her previous marriage, Manuela and Michael Thiess. On May 29, 1968, shortly before Taylor’s death from lung cancer, Ursula Thiess found her son Michael’s body in a West Los Angeles motel room. He died from what was later determined to be a drug overdose. One month before his death, Michael had been released from a mental hospital. In 1964, he spent a year in a reformatory for attempting to poison his natural father with insecticide.
Politics
In February 1944, Taylor helped found the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals. In October 1947, Taylor was called to testify before the House Committee on Un-American Activities regarding Communism in Hollywood. He did this reluctantly, regarding the hearings as a “circus” and refusing to appear unless subpoenaed. In his testimony concerning the Screen Actors Guild (SAG), delivered on October 22, 1947, Taylor stated: “It seems to me that at meetings, especially meetings of the general membership of the Guild, there was always a certain group of actors and actresses whose every action would indicate to me that, if they are not Communists, they are working awfully hard to be Communists,” becoming the first witness to “name names” by singling out actors Howard Da Silva and Karen Morley.
Taylor alleged that at meetings of the SAG, Da Silva “always had something to say at the wrong time,” and these remarks ultimately resulted in Da Silva being hounded out of Hollywood and blacklisted on Broadway and New York radio, while Morley never worked again after her name surfaced at the hearings. Taylor went on to declare that he would refuse to work with anyone who was even suspected of being a Communist: “I’m afraid it would have to be him or me, because life is too short to be around people who annoy me as much as these fellow-travellers and Communists do.”
Taylor also labeled screenwriter Lester Cole “reputedly a Communist,” while adding, “I would not know personally.” In consequence, Cole was sent to prison and was never able to write again under his own name. After the hearings, Taylor’s films were banned in Hungary and in Czechoslovakia and there were calls to boycott his films in France.
Flying
In 1952, Taylor starred in the film Above and Beyond, a biopic of Enola Gay pilot Paul Tibbets. The two men met and found that they had much in common. Both had considered studying medicine, and were avid skeet-shooters and fliers. Taylor learned to fly in the mid-1930s, and served as a United States Navy flying instructor during World War II. His private aircraft was a Twin Beech called “Missy” (his then-wife Stanwyck’s nickname) which he used on hunting and fishing trips.
Death
In October 1968, Taylor underwent surgery to remove a portion of his right lung after doctors suspected that he had contracted coccidioidomycosis (known as “valley fever”). During the surgery, doctors discovered that he had lung cancer. Taylor, who had smoked three packs of cigarettes a day since he was a boy, quit smoking shortly before undergoing surgery. During the final months of his life, he was hospitalized seven times due to infections and complications related to the disease. He died of lung cancer on June 8, 1969, at Saint John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, California.
I met Max Baer, Sr. through his son, Max, Jr., whom I palled with when I lived in Sacramento in 1956. Max, Sr. was a gentleman and full of fun and life. One Sunday, he drove Max Jr. and me to a local movie theater. It was a cool day. When he saw I was shivering, he removed his brown suede jacket and insisted I wear it. Needless to say, I could stick out my elbows and barely have them reach the shoulders. I was very saddened when he passed three years later in Hollywood while I was overseas in the service.
Max Baer (February 11, 1909 – November 21, 1959) was an American boxer of the 1930s (one-time Heavyweight Champion of the World) as well as a referee, and had an occasional role on film or television. He was the brother of heavyweight boxing contender Buddy Baer and father of actor Max Baer, Jr. (best known as Jethro Bodine on The Beverly Hillbillies). Baer is rated #22 on Ring Magazine’s list of 100 greatest punchers of all time.
Early life
Maximilian Adelbert Baer was born on June 11, 1909 in Omaha, Nebraska to Jacob Baer (1875–1938), who was Jewish, and Dora Bales (1877–1938), who was of Scottish-Irish Protestant American ancestry. Baer was nominally raised in a nonsectarian home. Max led his public life as a Jew. Today the Reform and Reconstructionist branches of Judaism could consider Max Jewish because one of his parents was Jewish, while the Orthodox and Conservative branches of Judaism would not, because his mother was not Jewish. His eldest sister was Frances May Baer (1905–1991), his younger sister was Bernice Jeanette Baer (1911–1987), his younger brother was boxer-turned-actor Jacob Henry Baer, better known as Buddy Baer (1915–1986), and his adopted brother was August “Augie” Baer.
Move to California
In May 1922, tired of the Durango, Colorado winters, which aggravated Frances’s rheumatic fever and Jacob’s high blood pressure, the Baers drove to the milder climes of the West Coast, where Dora’s sister lived in Alameda, California. Jacob’s expertise in the butcher business led to numerous job offers around the San Francisco Bay Area. While living in Hayward, Max took his first job as a delivery boy for John Lee Wilbur. Wilbur ran a grocery store and bought meat from Jacob.
The Baers lived in the Northern Californian towns of Hayward, San Leandro, and Galt before moving to Livermore in 1926. Livermore was cowboy country, surrounded by tens of thousands of acres of rangeland that supported large cattle herds that provided fresh meat to the local area. In 1928, Jacob bought the Twin Oaks Ranch in Murray Township where he raised over 2,000 hogs, a spread he worked with daughter Frances’s husband, Louis Santucci. Baer often credited working as a butcher boy, carrying heavy carcasses of meat, stunning cattle with one blow, and working at a gravel pit, for developing his powerful shoulders (an article in the January, 1939 edition of The Family Circle Magazine reported that Baer also took the Charles Atlas exercise course.)
Professional boxing career
Baer turned professional in 1929, progressing steadily through the Pacific Coast ranks. A ring tragedy little more than a year later almost caused caused him to drop out of boxing for good.
Frankie Campbell
Baer fought Frankie Campbell on August 25, 1930, in San Francisco in a ring built over home plate at San Francisco’s Recreation Park for the unofficial title of Pacific Coast champion. In the second round, Campbell clipped Baer and Baer slipped to the canvas. Campbell went toward his corner and waved to the crowd. He thought Baer was getting the count. Baer got up and flew at Campbell, landing a cheap shot right at Campbell’s turned head that sent him to the canvas.
After the round, Campbell said to his trainer, “Something feels like it snapped in my head,” but went on to handily win rounds 3 and 4. As Baer rose for the 5th round, Tillie “Kid” Herman, Baer’s former friend and trainer, who had switched camps overnight and was now in Campbell’s corner, savagely taunted and jeered Baer. In a rage and determined to end the bout with a knockout, Baer soon had Campbell against the ropes. As he hammered him with punch after punch, the ropes were the only thing holding Campbell up. Herman, as Campbell’s chief second, had the option of throwing in the towel, but did not. Referee Toby Irwin seemed indifferent to Baer’s gratuitous attack, and by the time Irwin finally stopped the fight, Campbell collapsed to the canvas. Baer’s own seconds reportedly ministered to Campbell, and Baer stayed by his side until an ambulance arrived 30 minutes later. Baer visited the stricken fighter’s bedside, where he offered Frankie’s wife Ellie the hand that hit her husband. She took that hand and the two stood speechless for a moment. “It was unfortunate, I’m awfully sorry,” said Baer. “It even might have been you, mightn’t it?” she replied.
At noon the next day, with a lit candle laced between his crossed fingers, and his wife and mother beside him, Frankie Campbell was pronounced dead. Upon the surgeon’s announcement of Campbell’s death, Baer broke down and sobbed inconsolably. Brain specialist Dr. Tilton E. Tillman declared death had been caused by a succession of blows on the jaw and not by any struck on the rear of the head, and that Campbell’s brain had been “knocked completely loose from his skull” by Baer’s blows.
Ernie Schaaf
The Campbell incident earned Max the reputation as a “killer” in the ring. This publicity was further sensationalized by Baer’s return bout with Ernie Schaaf, who had bested Baer in a decision during Max’s Eastern debut bout at Madison Square Garden on September 19, 1930.
An Associated Press article in the September 9, 1932 Sports section of the New York Times describes the end of the return bout as follows:
“Two seconds before the fight ended Schaaf was knocked flat on his face, completely knocked out. He was dragged to his corner and his seconds worked over for him for three minutes before restoring him to his senses… Baer smashed a heavy right to the jaw that shook Schaaf to his heels, to start the last round, then walked into the Boston fighter, throwing both hands to the head and body. Baer drove three hard rights to the jaw that staggered Schaaf. Baer beat Schaaf around the ring and into the ropes with a savage attack to the head and body. Just before the round ended Baer dropped Schaaf to the canvas, but the bell sounded as Schaaf hit the floor.”
Schaaf complained frequently of headaches after that bout. Five months after the Baer fight, on February 11, 1933, Schaaf died in the ring after taking a left jab from the Italian fighter Primo Carnera. The majority of sports editors noted, however, that an autopsy later revealed Schaaf had meningitis, a swelling of the brain, and was still recovering from a severe case of influenza when he touched gloves with Carnera. Schaaf’s obituary stated that “just before his bout with Carnera, Schaaf went into reclusion in a religious retreat near Boston to recuperate from an attack of influenza,” which produced the meningitis. The death of Campbell and accusations over Schaaf’s demise profoundly affected Baer, even though he was ostensibly indestructible and remained a devastating force in the ring. According to his son, actor/director Max Baer Jr. (who was born seven years after the incident):
My father cried about what happened to Frankie Campbell. He had nightmares. In reality, my father was one of the kindest, gentlest men you would ever hope to meet. He treated boxing the way today’s professional wrestlers do wrestling: part sport, mostly showmanship. He never deliberately hurt anyone.
In the case of Campbell, Baer was charged with manslaughter. Baer was eventually acquitted of all charges, but the California State Boxing Commission still banned him from any in-ring activity within the state for the next year. Baer gave purses from succeeding bouts to Campbell’s family, but lost four of his next six fights. He fared better when Jack Dempsey took him under his wing.
Max Schmeling
In June 1933, Baer fought and defeated (by a technical knockout) German heavyweight and former world champion, Max Schmeling, at Yankee Stadium. Schmeling was favored to win, and was Adolf Hitler‘s favorite fighter. The Nazi tabloid Der Stürmerpublicly attacked Schmeling for fighting a non-Aryan, calling it a “racial and cultural disgrace.”
Hitler summoned Schmeling for a private meeting in April, where he told Schmeling to contact him for help if he had any problems in the U.S., and requested that during any press interviews, he should tell the American public that news reports about Jewish persecution in Germany were untrue. However, a few days after that meeting, Hitler put a national ban on boxing by Jews along with a boycott of all Jewish businesses. When Schmeling arrived in New York, he did as Hitler requested, and denied problems of anti-Semitism existed, adding that many of his neighbors were Jews, as was his manager.
Although the Great Depression, then in full force, had lowered the income of most citizens, sixty thousand people attended the fight. NBC radio updated millions nationwide as the match progressed. Baer, who was half Jewish, wore trunks that displayed the Star of David, a symbol he wore in all his future bouts. When the fight began, he dominated the rugged Schmeling into the tenth round, when Baer knocked him down and the referee stopped the match. Columnist Westbrook Pegler wrote about Schmeling’s loss, “That wasn’t a defeat, that was a disaster,” while journalist David Margolick claimed that Baer’s win would come to “symbolize Jewry’s struggle against the Nazis.”
Baer became a hero among Jews, those who identified with Jews, and those who despised the Nazis. According to biographer David Bret, after the war ended, it was learned that Schmeling had in fact saved the lives of many Jewish children during the war while still serving his country. Swedish film star Greta Garbo considered Baer’s defeat of Schmeling to be a “mini-victory” over German fascism, and she invited him to visit her while she was filming Queen Christina in Hollywood, which led to a romance. Their relationship lasted until he had to return to New York to train for his next fight, against Primo Carnera.
World Heavyweight Champion
On June 14, 1934, Baer, after knocking him down 11 times, won by technical knockout over the massive, 275-pound (125-kg) Primo Carnera, Heavyweight Champion of the World, to win the world title, which he would hold for 364 days.
Cinderella Man Braddock
On June 13, 1935, one of the greatest upsets in boxing history transpired in Long Island City, New York, as Baer fought down-and-out boxer James J. Braddock in the so-called Cinderella Man bout. Baer hardly trained for the bout. Braddock, on the other hand, was training hard. “I’m training for a fight. Not a boxing contest or a clownin’ contest or a dance,” he said. “Whether it goes one round or three rounds or 10 rounds, it will be a fight and a fight all the way. When you’ve been through what I’ve had to face in the last two years, a Max Baer or a Bengal tiger looks like a house pet. He might come at me with a cannon and a blackjack and he would still be a picnic compared to what I’ve had to face.” Baer, ever the showman, “brought gales of laughter from the crowd with his antics” the night he stepped between the ropes to meet Braddock. As Braddock “slipped the blue bathrobe from his pink back, he was the sentimental favorite of a Bowl crowd of 30,000, most of whom had bet their money 8-to-1 against him.”
Max undoubtedly paid the penalty for underestimating his challenger beforehand and wasting too much time clowning. At the end of 15 rounds Braddock emerged the victor in a unanimous decision, outpointing Baer 8 rounds to 6 in the “most astounding upset since John L. Sullivan went down before the thrusts of Gentleman Jim Corbett back in the nineties.” Braddock took heavy hits from Baer, but kept coming at him until he wore Max down.
Decline and retirement
Baer and his brother Buddy both lost fights to Joe Louis. In the second round of Max’s September 1935 match, Joe knocked Baer down to one knee, the first time he had ever been knocked to the canvas in his career. A sizzling left hook in the fourth round brought Max to his knee again, and the referee called the bout soon after. It was learned weeks later that Baer fought Louis with a broken right hand that never healed from his fight with Jimmy Braddock. Max was virtually helpless without his big right hand in the Louis fight. In the first televised heavyweight prizefight, Baer lost to Lou Nova on June 1, 1939, on WNBT-TV in New York.
White Heavyweight Champ
Baer was awarded a belt declaring him the “White Heavyweight Champion of the World” after he scored a first round T.K.O. over Pat Cominsky in a bout at Roosevelt Stadium in Jersey City, New Jersey on 26 September, 1940, but it was a publicity stunt. The fight was not promoted as being for a “white heavyweight championship,” and Cominsky would not have won the belt had he beaten Baer.
The belt was a publicity stunt dreamed up by boxing promoters who were trying to pressure promoter Mike Jacobs into giving the ex-world heavyweight champion a rematch with current champ Joe Louis. Jacobs refused. Baer retired after his next fight, on 4 April 1941, when he lost to Lou Nova on a T.K.O. in the eighth round of scheduled 10-rounder at Madison Square Garden. Nova did get a shot at Louis.
Career statistics
Max Baer boxed in 84 professional fights from 1929 to 1941. In all, his record was 71–13–0. 53 of those fights were knockouts, making him a member of the exclusive group of boxers to have won 50 or more bouts by knockout. Baer defeated the likes of Ernie Schaaf, Walter Cobb, Kingfish Levinsky, Max Schmeling, Tony Galento, Ben Foord, and Tommy Farr. He was Heavyweight Champion of the World from June 14, 1934 to June 13, 1935.
Baer’s motion picture debut was in The Prizefighter and the Lady (1933) opposite Myrna Loy and Walter Huston. In this MGM movie he played Steven “Steve” Morgan, a bartender that the Professor, played by Huston, begins training for the ring. Steve wins a fight, then marries Belle Mercer, played by Loy. He starts seriously training, but it turns out he has a huge ego and an eye for women. Featured were Baer’s upcoming opponent, Primo Carnera, as himself, whom Steve challenges for the championship, andJack Dempsey, as himself, former heavyweight champion, acting as the referee.
On March 29, 1934, The Prizefighter and the Lady was officially banned in Germany at the behest of Joseph Goebbels, Adolf Hitler‘s Minister of Propaganda and Public Entertainment, even though it received favorable reviews in local newspapers as well as in Nazi publications. When contacted for comment at Lake Tahoe, Baer said, “They didn’t ban the picture because I have Jewish blood. They banned it because I knocked out Max Schmeling.” Baer enlisted, as well as his brother Buddy, in the United States Army when World War II began.
Baer acted in almost 20 movies, including Africa Screams (1949) with Abbott and Costello, and made several TV guest appearances. A clown in and out of the ring, Baer also appeared in a vaudeville act and on his own TV variety show. Baer appeared in Humphrey Bogart‘s final movie, The Harder They Fall (1956), opposite Mike Lane as Toro Moreno, a Hollywood version of Primo Carnera, whom Baer defeated for his heavyweight title. Budd Schulberg, who wrote the book from which the movie was made, portrayed the Baer character, “Buddy Brannen”, as bloodthirsty, and the unfounded characterization was reprised in the movie Cinderella Man.
In 1951, Baer teamed up with another titleholder, friend, Light Heavyweight Champion (1929-’34), and boxer-turned actor/comedian, Maxie Rosenbloom. Together, the two starred in SkipAlong Rosenbloom (written by Rosenbloom). They embarked on a comedy tour, billed as “The Two Maxie’s.” Baer would also take the stage at Rosenbloom’s comedy club on Wilshire Blvd, Slapsy Maxie’s, which was featured in the film Gangster Squad. Baer and Rosenbloom remained friends until Baer’s death in 1959.
Baer additionally worked as a disc jockey for a Sacramentoradiostation, and for a while he was a wrestler. He served as public relations director for a Sacramento automobile dealership and referee for boxing and wrestling matches.
Family
Baer married twice, to actress Dorothy Dunbar (married July 8, 1931-divorced October 6, 1933), and to Mary Ellen Sullivan (1903–1978), married June 29, 1935-his death 1959), the mother of his 3 children: actor Max Baer, Jr. (born 1937), James Manny Baer (born 1942), and Maudie Marian Baer (born 1944).
Baer never got to see his son perform as an actor on television. Max Baer Jr., played Jethro Bodine in the television series The Beverly Hillbillies and appeared on several other shows.
At the time of his death on November 21, 1959, Baer was scheduled to appear in some TV commercials in Los Angeles before returning to his home in Sacramento.
Death
On Wednesday, November 18, 1959, Baer refereed a nationally televised 10-round boxing match in Phoenix. At the end of the match, to the applause of the crowd, Baer grasped the ropes and vaulted out of the ring, then joined fight fans in a cocktail bar. The next day, he was scheduled to appear in several television commercials in Hollywood. On his way, he stopped in Garden Grove, California, to keep a promise he had made thirteen years earlier to the then five-year-old son of his ex-sparring partner, Curly Owens. Baer presented the now 18-year-old with a foreign sports car on his birthday, as he had said he would.
Baer checked into the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel upon his arrival on November 19. Hotel employees said he looked fit but complained of a cold. As he was shaving, the morning of November 21, he experienced chest pains. He called the front desk and asked for a doctor. The desk clerk said, a house doctor would be right up.”
“A house doctor?” he replied jokingly, “no, dummy, I need a people doctor.”
A doctor gave Baer medicine, and a fire department rescue squad administered oxygen. His chest pains subsided and he was showing signs of recovery when he was stricken with a second attack. Just a moment before, he was joking with the doctor, declaring he had come through two similar but lighter attacks earlier in Sacramento. Then he slumped on his left side, turned blue and died within a matter of minutes. His last words reportedly were, “Oh God, here I go.”
Glenn Ford (May 1, 1916 – August 30, 2006) was a Canadian-born American actor from Hollywood’s Golden Era with a career that lasted over 50 years. Despite his versatility, Ford was best known for playing ordinary men in unusual circumstances.
Early life and career
Born Gwyllyn Samuel Newton Ford at Jeffrey Hale Hospital in Quebec City, Ford was the son of Anglo-Quebecers Hannah Wood Mitchell and Newton Ford, a railway conductor. Through his father, Ford was a great-nephew of Canada’s first Prime Minister, Sir John A. Macdonald. Ford moved to Santa Monica, California, with his family at the age of eight. He became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1939.
After Ford graduated from Santa Monica High School, he began working in small theatre groups. While in high school, he took odd jobs including working for Will Rogers who taught him horsemanship. Ford later commented that his railroad executive father had no objection to his growing interest in acting, but told him, “It’s all right for you to try to act, if you learn something else first. Be able to take a car apart and put it together. Be able to build a house, every bit of it. Then you’ll always have something.” Ford heeded the advice and during the 1950s, when he was one of Hollywood’s most popular actors, he regularly worked on plumbing, wiring, and air conditioning at home. At times, he worked as a roofer and installer of plate-glass windows.
Ford acted in West Coast stage companies before joining Columbia Pictures in 1939. His stage name came from his father’s hometown of Glenford, Alberta. His first major movie part was in the 1939 film, Heaven with a Barbed Wire Fence.
Military service
Ford interrupted his film career to volunteer for duty in World War II with the United States Marine Corps Reserve on December 13, 1942. He was assigned in March 1943 to active duty at the Marine Corps Base in San Diego. He was sent to Marine Corps Schools Detachment (Photographic Section) in Quantico, Virginia, three months later, with orders as a motion-picture production technician. Promoted to sergeant, Ford returned to the San Diego base in February 1944 and was next assigned to the radio section of the Public Relations Office, Headquarters Company, Base Headquarters Battalion. There he staged and broadcast the radio program Halls of Montezuma. Ford was honorably discharged from the Marines on December 7, 1944, for duodenal ulcers that had him hospitalized for several months.
In 1958, Ford joined the U.S. Naval Reserve and was commissioned as a lieutenant commander and made a public affairs officer – a position he had portrayed the previous year in the comedy Don’t Go Near the Water. During his annual training tours, he promoted the Navy through radio and television broadcasts, personal appearances, and documentary films. He was promoted to commander in 1963, and captain in 1968.
Ford went to Vietnam in 1967 for a month’s tour of duty as a location scout for combat scenes in a training film entitled Global Marine. He traveled with a combat camera crew from the demilitarized zone south to the Mekong Delta. For his service in Vietnam, the Navy awarded him a Navy Commendation Medal. His World War II decorations are as follows: American Campaign Medal, Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal, World War II Victory Medal, Rifle Marksman Badge, and the US Marine Corps Reserve Medal. He retired from the Naval Reserve in the 1970s at the rank of captain.
Acting career
Following military service, Ford’s breakthrough role was in 1946, starring alongside Rita Hayworth in the noir classic Gilda. The New York Times movie reviewer Bosley Crowther praised Ford’s “stamina and poise in a thankless role” despite the movie’s poor direction. He went on to be a leading man opposite Hayworth in a total of five films.
Ford’s film career flourished in the 1950s and 1960s and continued into the 1980s with many television roles. His major roles in thrillers, dramas and action films include A Stolen Life with Bette Davis, The Secret of Convict Lake with Gene Tierney, The Big Heat, Blackboard Jungle, Framed, and Interrupted Melody with Eleanor Parker, Experiment in Terror with Lee Remick, Don’t Go Near The Water with Gia Scala, Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and westerns such as Jubal, The Fastest Gun Alive, 3:10 to Yuma and Cimarron. Ford’s versatility also allowed him to star in a number of popular comedies, such as The Teahouse of the August Moon, Don’t Go Near the Water, The Gazebo, Cry for Happy and The Courtship of Eddie’s Father.
In 1971, Ford signed with CBS to star in his first television series, a half hour comedy/drama titled The Glenn Ford Show. However, CBS head Fred Silverman noticed that many of the featured films being shown at a Glenn Ford film festival were westerns. He suggested doing a western series instead, which resulted in the “modern day western” series, Cade’s County. Ford played southwestern Sheriff Cade for one season (1971–1972) in a mix of police mystery and western drama. In The Family Holvak (1975–1976), Ford portrayed a depression era preacher in a family drama, reprising the same character he had played in the TV film, The Greatest Gift.
In 1978, Ford had a supporting role in Superman, as Clark Kent’s adoptive father, Jonathan Kent, a role that introduced Ford to a new generation of film audiences. In Ford’s final scene in the film, the theme song from Blackboard Jungle, “Rock Around the Clock,” is heard on a car radio.
In 1981, Ford co-starred with Melissa Sue Anderson in the slasher film Happy Birthday to Me.
In 1991, Ford agreed to star in a cable network series, African Skies. However, prior to the start of the series, he developed blood clots in his legs which required a lengthy stay in Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. Eventually he recovered, but at one time his situation was so severe that he was listed in critical condition. Ford was forced to drop out of the series and was replaced by Robert Mitchum.
The 2006 movie Superman Returns includes a scene where Ma Kent (played by Eva Marie Saint) stands next to the living room mantel after Superman returns from his quest to find remnants of Krypton. On that mantel is a picture of Glenn Ford as Pa Kent.
Personal life
Ford’s first wife was actress and dancer Eleanor Powell (1943–1959), with whom he had his only child, Peter (born 1945). The couple appeared together on screen just once, in a short subject produced in the 1950s entitled Have Faith in Our Children. When they married, Powell was more famous than Ford. Ford subsequently married actress Kathryn Hays (1966–1969), Cynthia Hayward (1977–1984), and Jeanne Baus (1993–1994). All four marriages ended in divorce. Ford was not on good terms with his ex-wives, except for Cynthia Hayward with whom he remained close until his death. He also had a long-term relationship with actress Hope Lange in the early 1960s, although they never married.
For the first half of his life, Glenn Ford supported the U.S. Democratic Party – in the 1950s he supported Adlai Stevenson for President – and in later years became a supporter of the Republican Party, campaigning for his friend Ronald Reagan in the 1980 and 1984 presidential elections.
Ford attempted to purchase the Atlanta Flames in May 1980 with the intention of keeping the team in the city. He was prepared to match a $14 million offer made by Byron and Daryl Seaman, but was outbid by an investment group led by Nelson Skalbania and included the Seaman brothers which acquired the franchise for $16 million on May 23 and eventually moved it to Calgary.
Ford lived in Beverly Hills, California, where he illegally raised 140 leghorn chickens, until he was stopped by the Beverly Hills Police Department.
Awards
After being nominated in 1957 and 1958, in 1962, Ford won a Golden Globe Award as Best Actor for his performance in Frank Capra’s Pocketful of Miracles. He was listed in Quigley’s Annual List of Top Ten Box Office Champions in 1956, 1958, and 1959, topping the list at number one in 1958.
For his contribution to the motion picture industry, Ford has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6933 Hollywood Blvd. In 1978, he was inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. In 1987 he received the Donostia Award in the San Sebastian International Film Festival, and in 1992 he was awarded the Légion d’honneur medal for his actions in the Second World War.
Ford was scheduled to make his first public appearance in 15 years at a 90th birthday tribute gala in his honor hosted by the American Cinematheque at Grauman’s Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood on May 1, 2006, but at the last minute, he had to bow out. Anticipating that his health might prevent his attendance, Ford had the previous week recorded a special filmed message for the audience, which was screened after a series of in-person tributes from friends including Martin Landau, Shirley Jones, Jamie, Farr and Debbie Reynolds.
Death
Ford suffered a series of minor strokes which left him in frail health in the years leading up to his death. He died in his Beverly Hills home on August 30, 2006, at the age of 90.
Leonard Simon Nimoy (March 26, 1931 – February 27, 2015) was an American actor, film director, poet, singer-songwriter, and photographer. He was known for his role as Mr. Spock of the Star Trek franchise.
Nimoy began his career in his early twenties, teaching acting classes in Hollywood and making minor film and television appearances through the 1950s, as well as playing the title role in Kid Monk Baroni. Foreshadowing his fame as a semi-alien, he played Narab, one of three Martian invaders in the 1952 movie serial Zombies of the Stratosphere.
In 1965, he made his first appearance in the rejected Star Trek pilot “The Cage,” and went on to play the character of Spock until 1969, followed by eight feature films and guest slots in the various spin-off series. The character has had a significant cultural impact and garnered Nimoy three Emmy Award nominations; TV Guide named Spock one of the 50 greatest TV characters. After the original Star Trek series, Nimoy starred in Mission: Impossible for two seasons, hosted the documentary series In Search of…, narrated Civilization IV, and made several well-received stage appearances. He also had a recurring role in the science fiction series Fringe.
Nimoy’s fame as Spock was such that both of his autobiographies, I Am Not Spock (1975) and I Am Spock (1995), were written from the viewpoint of sharing his existence with the character. Nimoy has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Early life
Leonard Simon Nimoy was born on March 26, 1931 in the West End of Boston, Massachusetts, the son of Yiddish-speaking Orthodox Jewish immigrants from Iziaslav, Soviet Union (now Ukraine). His parents left Iziaslav separately—his father first walking over the border into Poland—and reunited in the United States. His mother, Dora (née Spinner), was a homemaker, and his father, Max Nimoy, owned a barbershop in the Mattapan section of Boston. He had an elder brother, Melvin.
Nimoy began acting at the age of 8 in a children’s and neighborhood theater. His parents wanted him to attend college and pursue a stable career, or even learn to play the accordion—with which, his father advised, Nimoy could always make a living—but his grandfather encouraged him to become an actor. His first major role was at 17, as Ralphie in an amateur production of Clifford Odets’ Awake and Sing!, which dealt with the struggles of a matriarchal Jewish family during the Great Depression. Nimoy said the role “lit a passion” that led him to pursue an acting career. “I never wanted to do anything else.”
Nimoy took drama classes at Boston College and, after saving $600 from selling vacuum cleaners, at the Pasadena Playhouse, where he became a devotee of Konstantin Stanislavsky’s Method acting concepts. Nimoy said that the stage allowed him to explore the “psychological, emotional, and physical territories of life that can’t be done anywhere else,” which he said led him into acting. He took method actor Marlon Brando as a role model, and like him, wore jeans and T-shirt. Between studies, to have some income, he took a job at an ice cream parlor on the Sunset Strip.
After two years of part-time study, in 1977 Nimoy earned a MA in Education from Antioch College. He received an honorary doctorate from Antioch University in Ohio, awarded for activism in Holocaust remembrance, the arts, and the environment, and an honorary doctorate of humane letters from Boston University.
In 1953, Nimoy enlisted in the United States Army Reserve at Fort McPherson Georgia, serving for 18 months until 1955, leaving as a sergeant. Part of Nimoy’s time in the military was spent with the Army Special Services, putting on shows which he wrote, narrated, and emceed. During that period, he also directed and starred in A Streetcar Named Desire, with the Atlanta Theater Guild.
Nimoy spent over a decade receiving only small parts in low quality movies and the lead in one, along with a minor TV role. He believed that playing the title role in the 1952 film Kid Monk Baroni would make him a star, but the film failed after playing briefly. While serving in the military the film gained a larger audience on television, and after his discharge he got steadier work playing a “heavy,” where his character used street weapons like switchblades and guns, or had to threaten, hit or kick people. Despite overcoming his Boston accent, because of his lean appearance Nimoy realized that becoming a star was not likely. He played more than 50 small parts in B movies, television series such as Perry Mason and Dragnet, and serials such as Republic Pictures’ Zombies of the Stratosphere (1952), which Nimoy played Narab, a Martian. To support a wife and two children he often did other work, such as delivering newspapers, working in a pet shop, and driving cabs.
Nimoy played an Army sergeant in the 1954 science fiction thriller Them! and a professor in the 1958 science fiction movie The Brain Eaters, and had a role in The Balcony (1963), a film adaptation of the Jean Genet play. With Vic Morrow, he co-produced a 1966 version of Deathwatch, an English-language film version of Genet’s play Haute Surveillance, adapted and directed by Morrow and starring Nimoy. The story dealt with three prison inmates. Partly as a result of his role, he then taught drama classes to members of Synanon, a drug rehab center, explaining: “Give a little here and it always comes back.”
On television, Nimoy appeared as “Sonarman” in two episodes of the 1957–1958 syndicated military drama The Silent Service, based on actual events of the submarine section of the United States Navy. He had guest roles in the Sea Hunt series from 1958 to 1960 and a minor role in the 1961 The Twilight Zone episode “A Quality of Mercy.” He also appeared in the syndicated Highway Patrol starring Broderick Crawford.
In 1959, Nimoy was cast as Luke Reid in the “Night of Decision” episode of the ABC/Warner Bros. Western series, Colt .45, starring Wayde Preston and directed by Leslie H. Martinson.
Nimoy appeared four times in ethnic roles on NBC’s Wagon Train, the No. 1 program of 1962. He portrayed Bernabe Zamora in “The Estaban Zamora Story” (1959), “Cherokee Ned” in “The Maggie Hamilton Story” (1960), Joaquin Delgado in “The Tiburcio Mendez Story” (1961) and Emeterio Vasquez in “The Baylor Crowfoot Story” (1962).
Nimoy appeared in Bonanza (1960), The Rebel (1960), Two Faces West (1961), Rawhide (1961), The Untouchables (1962), The Eleventh Hour (1962), Perry Mason (1963; playing murderer Pete Chennery in “The Case of the Shoplifter’s Shoe,” episode 13 of season 6), Combat! (1963, 1965), Daniel Boone, The Outer Limits (1964), The Virginian (1963–1965; first working with Star Trek co-star DeForest Kelley in “Man of Violence”, episode 14 of season 2, in 1963), Get Smart (1966) and Mission: Impossible (1969–1971). He appeared again in the 1995 Outer Limits series. He appeared in Gunsmoke in 1962 as Arnie and in 1966 as John Walking Fox.
Nimoy and Star Trek co-star William Shatner first worked together on an episode of The Man from U.N.C.L.E., “The Project Strigas Affair” (1964). Their characters were from opposite sides of the Iron Curtain, though with his saturnine looks, Nimoy was the villain, with Shatner playing a reluctant U.N.C.L.E. recruit.
On the stage, Nimoy played the lead role in a short run of Gore Vidal’s Visit to a Small Planet in 1968 (shortly before the end of the Star Trek series) at the Pheasant Run Playhouse in St. Charles, Illinois.
Star Trek
His legacy as that character is key to the enjoyment of Star Trek. The way that Spock was used as a device for the writers to examine humanity and examine what it meant to be human, that’s really what Star Trek was all about. And in finding Leonard Nimoy, they found the perfect person to portray that. Matt Atchity, Editor-in-Chief, Rotten Tomatoes.
Nimoy’s greatest prominence came from his role as Spock, the half-Vulcan, half-human alien hybrid on Star Trek series. It is considered one of the most popular alien characters ever portrayed on television. Biographer Dennis Fischer notes that television viewers admired Spock’s “coolness, his intelligence,” and his ability to take on successfully any task. As a result, he adds, Nimoy’s character “took the public by storm,” nearly eclipsing the star of the show, William Shatner’s Captain Kirk.
Nimoy and Shatner, who portrayed his commanding officer, became close friends during the years the show was on television, and were “like brothers,” said Shatner. Star Trek was broadcast from 1966 to 1969. Nimoy earned three Emmy Award nominations for his work on the program.
Among Spock’s recognized and unique symbols that he incorporated into the series was the Vulcan salute, which became identified with him. Nimoy created the sign himself from his childhood memories of the way kohanim (Jewish priests) hold their hand when giving blessings. During an interview, he translated the Priestly Blessing from Numbers 6:24–26 which accompanies the sign and described it during a public lecture:
“May the Lord bless and keep you and may the Lord cause his countenance to shine upon you. May the Lord be gracious unto you and grant you peace. The accompanying spoken blessing, Live long and prosper.”
Nimoy also came up with the concept of the “Vulcan Nerve Pinch,” which he suggested as a replacement for the scripted knock out method of using the butt of his phaser. He wanted a more sophisticated way of rendering a person unconscious. Nimoy explained to the show’s director that Spock had, per the story, gone to the Vulcan Institute of Technology and had studied human anatomy. Spock also had the ability to project a unique form of energy through his fingertips. Nimoy explained the idea of putting his hand on his neck and shoulder to Shatner, and they rehearsed it. Nimoy credits Shatner’s acting during the “pinch” that sold the idea and made it work on screen.
He went on to reprise the Spock character in Star Trek: The Animated Series and two episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation. When a new Star Trek series was planned in the late 1970s, Nimoy was to be in only two out of eleven episodes, but when the show was elevated to a feature film, he agreed to reprise his role. The first six Star Trek movies feature the original Star Trek cast including Nimoy, who also directed two of the films. He played the elder Spock in the 2009 Star Trek movie and reprised the role in a brief appearance in the 2013 sequel, Star Trek Into Darkness, both directed by J. J. Abrams.
After Star Trek
Following Star Trek in 1969, Nimoy immediately joined the cast of the spy series Mission: Impossible, which was seeking a replacement for Martin Landau. Nimoy was cast in the role of Paris, an IMF agent who was an ex-magician and make-up expert, “The Great Paris.” He played the role during seasons four and five (1969–1971). Nimoy had strongly been considered as part of the initial cast for the show, but remained in the Spock role on Star Trek.
He co-starred with Yul Brynner and Richard Crenna in the Western movie Catlow (1971). He also had roles in two episodes of Rod Serling’s Night Gallery (1972 and 1973) and Columbo (1973) where he played a murderous doctor who was one of the few criminals with whom Columbo became angry. Nimoy appeared in various made for television films such as Assault on the Wayne (1970), Baffled! (1972), The Alpha Caper (1973), The Missing Are Deadly (1974), Seizure: The Story Of Kathy Morris (1980) and Marco Polo (1982). He received an Emmy Award nomination for best supporting actor for the television film A Woman Called Golda (1982), for playing the role of Morris Meyerson, Golda Meir’s husband opposite Ingrid Bergman as Golda in her final role.
In 1975, Leonard Nimoy filmed an opening introduction to Ripley’s World of the Unexplained museum located at Gatlinburg, Tennessee and Fisherman’s Wharf at San Francisco, California. In the late 1970s, he hosted and narrated the television series In Search of…, which investigated paranormal or unexplained events or subjects. He also had a character part as a psychiatrist in Philip Kaufman’s remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
Stage
Nimoy also won acclaim for a series of stage roles. In 1971 he played the starring role of Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof, which toured for eight weeks. Nimoy, who had performed in the Yiddish theater as a young man, said the part was like a “homecoming” for him, explaining that his parents, like Tevya, also came from a shtetl in Russia and could relate to the play when they saw him in it. Later that year he starred as Arthur Goldman in The Man in the Glass Booth at the Old Globe Theater in San Diego.
He starred as Randle McMurphy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest in 1974, a year prior to its release as a feature film, with Jack Nicholson in the same role. During the run of the play, Nimoy took over as its director and wanted his character to be “rough and tough,” and insisted on having tattoos. The costumer for the show, Sharon White, was amused: “That was sort of an intimate thing. . . . Here I am with Mr. Spock, for god’s sakes, and I am painting pictures on his arms.”
In 1975 he toured with and played the title role in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Sherlock Holmes. A number of authors have noted parallels between the rational Holmes and the character of Spock, and it became a running theme in Star Trek fan clubs. Star Trek writer Nicholas Meyer said that “the link between Spock and Holmes was obvious to everyone.” Meyer gives a few examples, including a scene in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, in which Spock quotes directly from a Conan Doyle book and credits Holmes as a forefather to the logic he was espousing. In addition, the connection was implied in Star Trek: The Next Generation, which paid homage to both Holmes and Spock.
By 1977, when Nimoy played Martin Dysart in Equus on Broadway, he had played 13 important roles in 27 cities, including Tevye, Malvolio in Twelfth Night, and Randle McMurphy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. In 1981 he starred in Vincent, a one man show which Nimoy wrote and published as a book in 1984. The audio recording of the play is available on DVD under the title, Van Gogh Revisited. It was based on the life of artist Vincent van Gogh, in which Nimoy played Van Gogh’s brother Theo. Other plays included Oliver!, at the Melody Top Theater in Malwaukee, 6 Rms Riv Vu opposite Sandy Dennis, in Florida, Full Circle with Bibi Anderson in Washington, D.C., and later in Full Circle. He was in Camelot, The King and I, Caligula, The Four Poster, and My Fair Lady.
Star Trek films
After directing a few television show episodes, Nimoy started film directing in 1984 with the third installment of the film series. Nimoy would go on to direct the second most successful film (critically and financially) in the franchise after the 2009 Star Trek film, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986), and Three Men and a Baby, the highest grossing film of 1987. These successes made him a star director. At a press conference promoting the 2009 Star Trek movie, however, Nimoy said he had no further plans or ambition to direct, although he enjoyed directing when he did it.
Other work after Star Trek
Nimoy lent his voice as narrator to the 1994 IMAX documentary film, Destiny in Space, showcasing film-footage of space from nine Space Shuttle missions over four years time.
In 1999, he voiced the narration of the English version of the Sega Dreamcast game Seaman and promoted Y2K educational films.
Together with John de Lancie, another actor from the Star Trek franchise, Nimoy created Alien Voices, an audio-production venture that specializes in audio dramatizations. Among the works jointly narrated by the pair are The Time Machine, Journey to the Center of the Earth, The Lost World, The Invisible Man and The First Men in the Moon, as well as several television specials for the Sci-Fi Channel. In an interview published on the official Star Trek website, Nimoy said that Alien Voices was discontinued because the series did not sell well enough to recoup costs.
In 2001, Nimoy voiced the role of the Atlantean King Kashekim Nedakh in the Disney animated feature Atlantis: The Lost Empire which featured Michael J. Fox voicing the lead role.
Nimoy provided a comprehensive series of voice-overs for the 2005 computer game Civilization IV. He did the television series Next Wave where he interviewed people about technology. He was the host in the documentary film The Once and Future Griffith Observatory, currently running in the Leonard Nimoy Event Horizon Theater at the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles. Nimoy and his wife, Susan Bay-Nimoy, were major supporters of the Observatory’s historic 2002–2004 expansion.
In 2009 he voiced the part of “The Zarn,” an Altrusian, in the television-based movie Land of the Lost, starring Will Ferrell.
Nimoy also provided voiceovers for the Star Trek Online massive multiplayer online game, released in February 2010, as well as Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep as Master Xehanort, the series’ leading villain. Tetsuya Nomura, the director of Birth by Sleep, stated that he chose Nimoy for the role specifically because of his role as Spock.
Nimoy was also a frequent and popular reader for “Selected Shorts”, an ongoing series of programs at Symphony Space in New York City (that also tours around the country) which features actors, and sometimes authors, reading works of short fiction. The programs are broadcast on radio and available on websites through Public Radio International, National Public Radio and WNYC radio. Nimoy was honored by Symphony Space with the renaming of the Thalia Theater as the Leonard Nimoy Thalia Theater.
Special appearances
From 1982 to 1987, Nimoy hosted the children’s educational show Standby: Lights, Camera, Action on Nickelodeon. He worked occasionally as a voice actor in animated feature films, including the character of Galvatron in The Transformers: The Movie in 1986. Nimoy also provided the narration for the 1991 CBS paranormal series Haunted Lives: True Ghost Stories.
In 1994, Nimoy performed as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in The Pagemaster. In 1998, he had a leading role as Mustapha Mond in Brave New World, a TV-movie version of Aldous Huxley’s novel.
The handprints of Leonard Nimoy in front of The Great Movie Ride at Walt Disney World’s Disney’s Hollywood Studios theme park
From 1994 until 1997, Nimoy narrated the Ancient Mysteries series on A&E including “The Sacred Water of Lourdes” and “Secrets of the Romanovs.” He also appeared in advertising in the United Kingdom for the computer company Time Computers in the late 1990s. In 1997, Nimoy played the prophet Samuel, alongside Nathaniel Parker, in The Bible Collection movie David. Nimoy also appeared in several popular television series, including Futurama and The Simpsons, as both himself and Spock.
In 2000, he provided on-camera hosting and introductions for 45 half-hour episodes of an anthology series entitled Our 20th Century on the AEN TV Network. The series covers world news, sports, entertainment, technology, and fashion using original archive news clips from 1930 to 1975 from the National Archives in Washington, D.C. and other private archival sources.
Nimoy played the reoccurring enigmatic character of Dr. William Bell on the television show Fringe. Nimoy opted for the role after previously working with Abrams, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman on the 2009 Star Trek film and offered another opportunity to work with this production team again. Nimoy also was interested in the series, which he saw was an intelligent mixture of science and science fiction, and continued to guest star through the show’s fourth season, even after his stated 2012 retirement from acting. Nimoy’s first appearance as Bell was in the Season 1 finale, “There’s More Than One of Everything,” which explored the possible existence of a parallel universe.
In the May 9, 2009 episode of Saturday Night Live, Nimoy appeared as a surprise guest in the “Weekend Update” segment with Zachary Quinto and Chris Pine, who play the young Spock and Kirk in the Star Trek that had just premiered days earlier. In the sketch, Quinto and Pine attempt to appease long-time Trekkers by assuring them that the new film would be true to the original Star Trek
Producer
In 1991, Nimoy starred in Never Forget, which he co-produced with Robert B. Radnitz. The movie was about a pro bono publico lawsuit by an attorney on behalf of Mel Mermelstein, played by Nimoy as an Auschwitz survivor, against a group of organizations engaged in Holocaust denial. Nimoy said he experienced a strong “sense of fulfillment” from doing the film.
In 2007, he produced the play, Shakespeare’s Will by Canadian playwright Vern Thiessen. The one-woman show starred Jeanmarie Simpson as Shakespeare’s wife, Anne Hathaway. The production was directed by Nimoy’s wife, Susan Bay.
Retirement
In April 2010, Leonard Nimoy announced that he was retiring from playing Spock, citing both his advanced age and the desire to give Zachary Quinto the opportunity to enjoy full media attention with the Spock character. Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep was to be his final performance; however, in February 2011, he announced his intent to return to Fringe and reprise his role as William Bell. Nimoy continued voice acting despite his retirement; his appearance in the third season of Fringe included his voice (his character appeared only in animated scenes), and he provided the voice of Sentinel Prime in Transformers: Dark of the Moon.
In May 2011, Nimoy made a cameo appearance in the alternate version music video of Bruno Mars’ “The Lazy Song.” Aaron Bay-Schuck, the Atlantic Records executive who signed Bruno Mars to the label, is Nimoy’s stepson.
Nimoy provided the voice of Spock as a guest star in a Season 5 episode of the CBS sitcom The Big Bang Theory titled “The Transporter Malfunction,” which aired on March 29, 2012. Also in 2012, Nimoy reprised his role of William Bell in Fringe for the fourth season episodes “Letters of Transit” and “Brave New World” parts 1 & 2. Nimoy reprised his role as Master Xehanort in the 2012 video game Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance. On August 30, 2012, Nimoy narrated a satirical segment about Mitt Romney’s life on Comedy Central’s The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. In 2013, Nimoy reprised his role as Ambassador Spock in a cameo appearance in Star Trek Into Darkness, becoming the only actor from the original series to appear in Abrams’ Star Trek films.
Other career work
Nimoy’s interest in photography began in childhood; for the rest of his life, he owned a camera that he rebuilt at the age of 13. In the 1970s studied photography at the University of California, Los Angeles. His photography studies at UCLA occurred after Star Trek and Mission: Impossible, when Nimoy seriously considered changing careers. His work has been exhibited at the R. Michelson Galleries in Northampton, Massachusetts and the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art.
Nimoy made his directorial debut in 1973, with the “Death on a Barge” segment for an episode of Night Gallery during its final season. It was not until the early 1980s that Nimoy resumed directing on a consistent basis, ranging from television shows to motion pictures. Nimoy directed Star Trek III: The Search for Spock in 1984 and Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home in 1986. He also directed the 1987 film Three Men and a Baby. His final directorial credit was in 1995 for the episode “Killshot,” the pilot for the television series Deadly Games.
Nimoy authored two volumes of autobiography. The first was called I Am Not Spock (1975) and was controversial, as many fans incorrectly assumed that Nimoy was distancing himself from the Spock character. In the book, Nimoy conducts dialogues between himself and Spock. The contents of this first autobiography also touched on a self-proclaimed “identity crisis” that seemed to haunt Nimoy throughout his career. It also related to an apparent love/hate relationship with the character of Spock and the Trek franchise.
I went through a definite identity crisis. The question was whether to embrace Mr. Spock or to fight the onslaught of public interest. I realize now that I really had no choice in the matter. Spock and Star Trek were very much alive and there wasn’t anything that I could do to change that.
The second volume, I Am Spock (1995), saw Nimoy communicating that he finally realized his years of portraying the Spock character had led to a much greater identification between the fictional character and himself. Nimoy had much input into how Spock would act in certain situations, and conversely, Nimoy’s contemplation of how Spock acted gave him cause to think about things in a way that he never would have thought if he had not portrayed the character. As such, in this autobiography Nimoy maintains that in some meaningful sense he has merged with Spock while at the same time maintaining the distance between fact and fiction.
Nimoy also composed several volumes of poetry, some published along with a number of his photographs. A later poetic volume entitled A Lifetime of Love: Poems on the Passages of Life was published in 2002. His poetry can be found in the Contemporary Poets index of The HyperTexts. Nimoy adapted and starred in the one-man play Vincent (1981), based on the play Van Gogh (1979) by Phillip Stephens.
In 1995, Nimoy was involved in the production of Primortals, a comic book series published by Tekno Comix about first contact with aliens, which had arisen from a discussion he had with Isaac Asimov. There was a novelization by Steve Perry.
During and following Star Trek, Nimoy also released five albums of musical vocal recordings on Dot Records. On his first album, Mr. Spock’s Music from Outer Space, and half of his second album Two Sides of Leonard Nimoy, science fiction-themed songs are featured where Nimoy sings as Spock. On his final three albums, he sings popular folk songs of the era and cover versions of popular songs, such as “Proud Mary” and Johnny Cash’s “I Walk the Line”. There are also several songs on the later albums that were written or co-written by Nimoy. He described how his recording career got started:
Charles Grean of Dot Records had arranged with the studio to do an album of space music based on music from Star Trek, and he has a teenage daughter who’s a fan of the show and a fan of Mr. Spock. She said, ‘Well, if you’re going to do an album of music from Star Trek, then Mr. Spock should be on the album.’ So Dot contacted me and asked me if I would be interested in either speaking or singing on the record. I said I was very interested in doing both. … That was the first album we did, which was called Mr. Spock’s Music from Outer Space. It was very well received and successful enough that Dot then approached me and asked me to sign a long-term contract.
Nimoy’s voice appeared in sampled form on a song by the pop band Information Society in the late Eighties. The song, “What’s on Your Mind (Pure Energy)” (released in 1988), reached No. 3 on the US Pop charts, and No. 1 on the Dance charts.
Nimoy played the part of the chauffeur in the 1985 music video of The Bangles’ cover version of “Going Down to Liverpool.” He also appeared in the alternate music video for the song “The Lazy Song” by pop artist Bruno Mars.
Personal life
Nimoy had long been active in the Jewish community. He could speak and read Yiddish, his first language. In 1997, he narrated the documentary A Life Apart: Hasidism in America, about the various sects of Hasidic Orthodox Jews. In October 2002, Nimoy published The Shekhina Project, a photographic study exploring the feminine aspect of God’s presence, inspired by Kabbalah. Reactions have varied from enthusiastic support to open condemnation. Nimoy said that objections to Shekhina did not bother or surprise him, but he smarted at the stridency of the Orthodox protests, and was saddened at the attempt to control thought.
Nimoy was married twice. In 1954, he married actress Sandra Zober (1927–2011), whom he divorced in 1987. On New Year’s Day of 1989, he married actress Susan Bay, cousin of director Michael Bay.
In a 2001 DVD, Nimoy revealed that he became an alcoholic while working on Star Trek and ended up in drug rehabilitation. William Shatner, in his 2008 book Up Till Now: The Autobiography, spoke about how later in their lives, Nimoy tried to help Shatner’s alcoholic wife, Nerine Kidd.
Nimoy has said that the character of Spock, which he played twelve to fourteen hours a day, five days a week, influenced his personality in private life. Each weekend during the original run of the series, he would be in character throughout Saturday and into Sunday, behaving more like Spock than himself—more logical, more rational, more thoughtful, less emotional and finding a calm in every situation. It was only on Sunday in the early afternoon that Spock’s influence on his behavior would fade off and he would feel more himself again—only to start the cycle over again on Monday morning. Years after the show he observed Vulcan speech patterns, social attitudes Vulcan patterns of logic and emotional suppression in his own behavior.
Nimoy was a private pilot and had owned an airplane. The Space Foundation named Nimoy as the recipient of the 2010 Douglas S. Morrow Public Outreach Award for creating a positive role model that inspired untold numbers of viewers to learn more about the universe.
In 2009, Nimoy was honored by his childhood hometown when the Office of Mayor Thomas Menino proclaimed the date of November 14, 2009, as Leonard Nimoy Day in the City of Boston.
In 2014, Walter Koenig revealed in a Las Vegas Sun interview that Leonard Nimoy personally and successfully advocated equal pay for both his and Nichelle Nichols’ work on Star Trek to the show’s producers. This incident was confirmed by Nimoy in a Trekmovie interview and happened during his years at Desilu.”
Illness and death
In February 2014, Nimoy revealed publicly that he had been diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), a condition he attributed to a smoking habit he had given up about 30 years earlier. On February 19, 2015, having been in and out of hospitals for the past several months, Nimoy was taken to UCLA Medical Center for chest pain.
Nimoy died of complications of COPD on February 27, 2015, at the age of 83, in his Bel Air home. He was survived by his wife; two children; six grandchildren; a great-grandchild; and his elder brother, Melvin. A few days before his death, Nimoy shared some of his poetry on social media website Twitter:
A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory.
Nimoy’s remains were buried during a service in Los Angeles on March 1, 2015. The service was restricted to family and close friends, including Nimoy’s wife, their two children, and his stepson.
Personal tributes
Cast members of Star Trek who had worked alongside Nimoy gave personal tributes after his death. William Shatner wrote of Nimoy, “I loved him like a brother. … We will all miss his humor, his talent, and his capacity to love.” George Takei called him an “extraordinarily talented man” and a very decent human being. Walter Koenig said that after working with Nimoy, he discovered his “compassion, his intelligence and his humanity.” Nichelle Nichols noted that Nimoy’s integrity, passion and devotion as an actor “helped transport Star Trek into television history.” Zachary Quinto, who portrayed Spock as a young man in Star Trek and Star Trek Into Darkness, wrote, “My heart is broken. I love you profoundly my dear friend. And I will miss you every day.”
U.S. President Barack Obama, who had met Nimoy in 2007, remembered him as “a lifelong lover of the arts and humanities, a supporter of the sciences, generous with his talent and his time.” Former NASA astronaut Buzz Aldrin called Nimoy “a fellow space traveler because he helped make the journey into the final frontier accessible to us all.”
James Cagney (July 17, 1899 – March 30, 1986) was an American actor and dancer, both on stage and in film, though he had his greatest impact in film.
Known for his consistently energetic performances, distinctive vocal style, and deadpan comic timing, he won acclaim and major awards for a wide variety of performances. He is best remembered for playing multi-faceted tough guys in movies like The Public Enemy (1931), Taxi! (1932), Angels with Dirty Faces (1938) and White Heat (1949), and was often typecast or limited by this view earlier in his career. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked him eighth among its 50 Greatest American Screen Legends. Orson Welles said of Cagney that he was “maybe the greatest actor who ever appeared in front of a camera.”
In his first professional acting performance, Cagney danced costumed as a woman in the chorus line of the 1919 revue Every Sailor. He spent several years in vaudeville as a dancer and comedian, until he got his first major acting part in 1925. He secured several other roles, receiving good notices, before landing the lead in the 1929 play Penny Arcade. After rave reviews, Warner Bros. signed him for an initial $500-a-week, three-week contract to reprise his role; this was quickly extended to a seven-year contract.
Cagney’s seventh film, The Public Enemy, became one of the most influential gangster movies of the period. Notable for a famous scene in which Cagney pushes a grapefruit against his co-star’s face, the film thrust him into the spotlight. He became one of Hollywood’s biggest stars and one of Warner Brothers’ biggest contracts. In 1938, he received his first Academy Award for Best Actor nomination, for Angels with Dirty Faces for his subtle portrayal of the tough guy/man-child Rocky Sullivan. In 1942, Cagney won the Oscar for his energetic portrayal of George M. Cohan in Yankee Doodle Dandy. He was nominated a third time in 1955 for Love Me or Leave Me. Cagney retired from acting and dancing in 1961 to spend time on his farm with his family. He exited retirement, twenty years later, for a part in the 1981 movie Ragtime, mainly to aid his recovery from a stroke.
Cagney walked out on Warner Brothers several times over the course of his career, each time returning on much improved personal and artistic terms. In 1935, he sued Warners for breach of contract and won. This was one of the first times an actor prevailed over a studio on a contract issue. He worked for an independent film company for a year while the suit was being settled—and established his own production company, Cagney Productions, in 1942, before returning to Warners four years later. Jack Warner called him “The Professional Againster,” in reference to Cagney’s refusal to be pushed around. Cagney also made numerous morale-boosting troop tours before and during World War II, and was president of the Screen Actors Guild for two years.
Early life
Cagney was born on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City. His biographers disagree as to the actual location: either on the corner of Avenue D and 8th Street or in a top floor apartment at 391 East Eighth. His father, James Francis Cagney, Sr., was of Irish descent. By the time of his son’s birth, he was a bartender and amateur boxer, though on Cagney’s birth certificate, he is listed as a telegraphist. His mother was Carolyn (née Nelson); her father was a Norwegian ship captain while her mother was Irish.
Cagney was the second of seven children, two of whom died within months of birth. He was sickly as a young child—so much so that his mother feared he would die before he could be baptized. He later attributed his sickness to the poverty his family had to endure. The family moved twice while he was still young, first to East 79th Street, and then to East 96th Street. He was confirmed at St. Francis de Sales Roman Catholic Church in Manhattan, where he would eventually have his funeral service.
The red-haired, blue-eyed Cagney graduated from Stuyvesant High School in New York City in 1918, and attended Columbia College of Columbia University where he intended to major in art. He also took German and joined the Student Army Training Corps, but dropped out after one semester, returning home upon the death of his father during the 1918 flu pandemic.
Cagney held a variety of jobs early in his life, giving all his earnings to his family: junior architect, copy boy for The New York Sun, book custodian at the New York Public Library, bellhop, draughtsman, and night doorman. While Cagney was working for the New York Public Library, he met Florence James, who helped him into an acting career. Cagney believed in hard work, later stating, “It was good for me. I feel sorry for the kid who has too cushy a time of it. Suddenly he has to come face-to-face with the realities of life without any mama or papa to do his thinking for him.”
He started tap dancing as a boy (a skill that eventually contributed to his Academy Award) and was nicknamed “Cellar-Door Cagney” after his habit of dancing on slanted cellar doors. He was a good street fighter, defending his older brother Harry, a medical student, when necessary. He engaged in amateur boxing, and was a runner-up for the New York State lightweight title. His coaches encouraged him to turn professional, but his mother would not allow it. He also played semi-professional baseball for a local team, and entertained dreams of playing in the Major Leagues.
His introduction to films was unusual. When visiting an aunt who lived in Brooklyn opposite Vitagraph Studios, Cagney would climb over the fence to watch the filming of John Bunny movies. He became involved in amateur dramatics, starting as a scenery boy for a Chinese pantomime at Lenox Hill Neighborhood House, one of the first settlement houses in the nation, where his brother Harry performed and his soon-to-be friend, Florence James, directed. He was initially content working behind the scenes and had no interest in performing. One night, however, Harry became ill, and although Cagney was not an understudy, his photographic memory of rehearsals enabled him to stand in for his brother without making a single mistake. Therefore, Florence James has the unique distinction of being the first director to put him on a stage. Afterward, he joined a number of companies as a performer in a variety of roles.
While working at Wanamaker’s Department Store in 1919, Cagney learned, from a colleague who had seen him dance, of a role in the upcoming production Every Sailor. A wartime play in which the chorus was made up of servicemen dressed as women, it was originally titled Every Woman. Cagney auditioned for the role of a chorus girl, despite considering it a waste of time; he only knew one dance step, the complicated Peabody, but he knew it perfectly. This was enough to convince the producers that he could dance, and he copied the other dancers’ moves while waiting to go on. He did not find it odd to play a woman, nor was he embarrassed. He later recalled how he was able to shed his own natural shy persona when he stepped onto the stage: “For there I am not myself. I am not that fellow, Jim Cagney, at all. I certainly lost all consciousness of him when I put on skirts, wig, paint, powder, feathers and spangles.”
Had Cagney’s mother had her way, his stage career would have ended when he quit Every Sailor after two months; proud as she was of his performance, she preferred that he get an education. Cagney appreciated the $35 a week he was paid, which he called “a mountain of money for me in those worrisome days.” In deference to his mother’s worries, he got employment as a brokerage house runner. This did not stop him looking for more stage work, however, and he went on to successfully audition for a chorus part in the William B. Friedlander musical Pitter Patter, for which he earned $55 a week—he sent $40 to his mother each week. So strong was his habit of holding down more than one job at a time, he also worked as a dresser for one of the leads, portered the casts’ luggage, and understudied for the lead. Among the chorus line performers was sixteen-year-old Frances Willard “Billie” Vernon, whom he married in 1922.
The show began Cagney’s ten-year association with vaudeville and Broadway. Cagney and his wife were among the early resident of Free Acres, a social experiment established by Bolton Hall in Berkeley Heights, New Jersey.
Pitter Patter was not hugely successful, but it did well enough to run for 32 weeks, enabling Cagney to join the vaudeville circuit. He and Vernon toured separately with a number of different troupes, reuniting as “Vernon and Nye” to do simple comedy routines and musical numbers. “Nye” was a rearrangement of the last syllable of Cagney’s surname. One of the troupes Cagney joined was Parker, Rand and Leach, taking over the spot vacated when Archie Leach—who later changed his name to Cary Grant—left.
After years of touring and struggling to make money, Cagney and Vernon moved to Hawthorne, California in 1924, partly for Cagney to meet his new mother-in-law, who had just moved there from Chicago, and partly to investigate breaking into the movies. Their train fares were paid for by a friend, the press officer of Pitter Patter, who was also desperate to act. They were not successful at first; the dance studio Cagney set up had few clients and folded, and he and Vernon toured the studios, but garnered no interest. Eventually, they borrowed some money and headed back to New York via Chicago and Milwaukee, enduring failure along the way when they attempted to make money on the stage.
Cagney secured his first significant non-dancing role in 1925. He played a young tough guy in the three-act play Outside Looking In by Maxwell Anderson, earning $200 a week. As with Pitter Patter, Cagney went to the audition with little confidence he would get the part. He had no experience with drama at this point. Cagney felt that he only got the role because his hair was redder than that of Alan Bunce, the only other redheaded performer in New York. Both the play and Cagney received good reviews; Life magazine wrote, “Mr. Cagney, in a less spectacular role [than his co-star] makes a few minutes silence during his mock-trial scene something that many a more established actor might watch with profit.” Burns Mantle wrote that it “…contained the most honest acting now to be seen in New York.”
Following the show’s four-month run, Cagney went back to vaudeville for the next couple of years. He achieved varied success, but after appearing in Outside Looking In, the Cagneys were more financially secure. During this period, he met George M. Cohan, whom he later portrayed in Yankee Doodle Dandy, though they never spoke.
Cagney secured the lead role in the 1926–27 season West End production of Broadway by George Abbott. The show’s management insisted that he copy Broadway lead Lee Tracy’s performance, despite Cagney’s discomfort in doing so, but the day before the show sailed for England, they decided to replace him. This was a devastating turn of events for Cagney; apart from the logistical difficulties this presented—the couple’s luggage was in the hold of the ship and they had given up their apartment. He almost quit show business. As Vernon recalled, “Jimmy said that it was all over. He made up his mind that he would get a job doing something else.”
The Cagneys had run-of-the-play contracts, which lasted as long as the play did. Vernon was in the chorus line of the show, and with help from the Actors’ Equity Association, Cagney understudied Tracy on the Broadway show, providing them with a desperately needed steady income. Cagney also established a dance school for professionals, then landed a part in the play Women Go On Forever, directed by John Cromwell, which ran for four months. By the end of the run, Cagney was exhausted from acting and running the dance school.
He had built a reputation as an innovative teacher, so when he was cast as the lead in Grand Street Follies of 1928, he was also appointed the choreographer. The show received rave reviews and was followed by Grand Street Follies of 1929. These roles led to a part in George Kelly’s Maggie the Magnificent, a play the critics disliked, though they like Cagney’s performance. Cagney saw this role (and Women Go on Forever) as significant because of the talented directors he met. He learned “…what a director was for and what a director could do. They were directors who could play all the parts in the play better than the actors cast for them.”
Warner Bros. (1930–1935)
Playing opposite Cagney in Maggie the Magnificent was Joan Blondell, who starred again with him a few months later in Marie Baumer’s new play Penny Arcade. While the critics panned Penny Arcade, they praised Cagney and Blondell. Al Jolson, sensing film potential, bought the rights for $20,000. He then sold the play to Warner Brothers, with the stipulation that they cast Cagney and Blondell in the film version. Re-titled Sinners’ Holiday, the film was released in 1930. Cagney was given a $500-a-week, three-week contract. In the fjilm, he portrays Harry Delano, a tough guy who becomes a killer, but generates sympathy because of his unfortunate upbringing. This role of the sympathetic “bad” guy was a recurring character type for Cagney throughout his career. During filming of Sinners’ Holiday, he also demonstrated the stubbornness that characterized his work attitude. He later recalled an argument he had with director John Adolfi about a line: “There was a line in the show where I was supposed to be crying on my mother’s breast… [The line] was ‘I’m your baby, ain’t I?’ I refused to say it. Adolfi said ‘I’m going to tell Zanuck.’ I said ‘I don’t give a shit what you tell him, I’m not going to say that line.'” They took the line out.
Despite this outburst, the studio liked him, and before his three-week contract was up—while the film was still shooting—they gave Cagney a three-week extension, which was followed by a full seven-year contract at $400 a week. The contract, however, allowed Warners to drop him at the end of any 40-week period, effectively only guaranteeing him 40 weeks income at a time. As when he was growing up, Cagney shared his income with his family. Cagney received good reviews, and immediately starred in another gangster role in The Doorway to Hell. The film was a financial hit, helping cement Cagney’s growing reputation. He made four more movies before his breakthrough role.
Warner Brothers′ succession of gangster movie hits, in particular Little Caesar with Edward G. Robinson, culminated with the 1931 film The Public Enemy. Due to the strong reviews in his short film career, Cagney was cast as nice-guy Matt Doyle, opposite Edward Woods as Tom Powers. However, after the initial rushes, each was reassigned the other’s part. The film cost only $151,000 to make, but it became one of the first low-budget films to gross $1 million.
Cagney received widespread praise for his role. The New York Herald Tribune described his performance as “…the most ruthless, unsentimental appraisal of the meanness of a petty killer the cinema has yet devised.” He received top billing after the film, but while he acknowledged the importance of the role to his career, he always disputed that it changed the way heroes and leading men were portrayed; he cited Clark Gable’s slapping of Barbara Stanwyck six months earlier (in Night Nurse) as more important. Night Nurse was actually released three months after The Public Enemy, and Gable punched Stanwyck in the film, knocking her character unconscious, then carried her across the hall, where she woke up later.
Many critics view the scene in which Cagney pushes a grapefruit into Mae Clarke’s face as one of the most famous moments in movie history. The scene itself was a late addition, and who thought of the idea is a matter of debate. Producer Darryl Zanuck claimed he thought of it in a script conference, director William Wellman claimed that the idea came to him when he saw the grapefruit on the table during the shoot, and writers Glasmon and Bright claimed it was based on the real life of gangster Hymie Weiss, who threw an omelet into his girlfriend’s face. Cagney himself usually cited the writers’ version, but the fruit’s victim, Clarke, agreed that it was Wellman’s idea, saying, “I’m sorry I ever agreed to do the grapefruit bit. I never dreamed it would be shown in the movie. Director Bill Wellman thought of the idea suddenly. It wasn’t even written into the script.”
However, according to Turner Classic Movies (TCM), the grapefruit scene was a practical joke that Cagney and co-star Mae Clarke decided to play on the crew while the cameras were rolling. Wellman liked it so much that he left it in. TCM also notes that the scene made Clarke’s ex-husband, Lew Brice, very happy. “He saw the film repeatedly just to see that scene, and was often shushed by angry patrons when his delighted laughter got too loud.”
Filmmakers have mimicked it many times, such as Lee Marvin’s character splashing scalding coffee in the face of Gloria Grahame in The Big Heat. Cagney himself was offered grapefruit in almost every restaurant he visited for years after, and Clarke claimed it virtually ruined her career because of typecasting.
Cagney’s stubbornness became well known behind the scenes, not least after his refusal to join in a 100 percent participation free charity drive pushed by Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. Cagney did not object to donating money to charity, but rather to being forced to. Already he had acquired the nickname “The Professional Againster.”
Along with George Raft, Edward G. Robinson and Humphrey Bogart, all of whom were Warner Bros. actors, Cagney defined what a movie gangster was. In G Men (1934), though, he played a lawyer who joins the FBI.
Warners was quick to team its two rising gangster stars—Edward G. Robinson and Cagney—for the 1931 film Smart Money. So keen was the studio to follow up the success of Robinson’s Little Caesar that Cagney actually shot Smart Money (for which he received second billing in a supporting role) at the same time as The Public Enemy. As in The Public Enemy, Cagney was required to be physically violent to a woman on screen, a signal that Warners was keen to keep Cagney in the public eye. This time, he slapped co-star Evalyn Knapp.
With the introduction of the United States Motion Picture Production Code of 1930, and particularly its edicts concerning on-screen violence, Warners allowed Cagney a change of pace. They cast him in the comedy Blonde Crazy, again opposite Blondell. As he completed filming, The Public Enemy was filling cinemas with all-night showings. Cagney began to compare his pay with his peers, thinking his contract allowed for salary adjustments based on the success of his films. Warners disagreed, however, and refused to give him a raise. The studio heads also insisted that Cagney continue promoting their films, even ones he was not in, which he opposed. Cagney moved back to New York, leaving his apartment to his brother Bill to look after.
While Cagney was in New York, his brother, who had effectively become his agent, angled for a substantial pay rise and more personal freedom for his brother. The success of The Public Enemy and Blonde Crazy forced Warners’ hand. They eventually offered Cagney a contract for $1000 a week. Cagney’s first film upon returning from New York was 1932’s Taxi!. The film is notable for not only being the first time that Cagney danced on screen, but it was also the last time he allowed himself to be shot at with live ammunition (a relatively common occurrence at the time, as blank cartridges and squibs were considered too expensive and hard to find to use in most motion picture filming). He had been shot at in The Public Enemy, but during filming for Taxi!, he was almost hit.
In his opening scene, Cagney spoke fluent Yiddish, a language he had picked up during his boyhood in New York City. Critics praised the film. Taxi! was the source of one of Cagney’s most misquoted lines; he never actually said, “MMMmmm, you dirty rat!”, a line commonly used by impressionists. The closest he got to it in the film was, “Come out and take it, you dirty, yellow-bellied rat, or I’ll give it to you through the door!” The film was swiftly followed by The Crowd Roars and Winner Take All.
Despite his success, Cagney remained dissatisfied with his contract. He wanted more money for his successful films, but he also offered to take a smaller salary should his star wane. Warners refused, and so Cagney once again walked out. He held out for $4000 a week, the same salary as Edward G. Robinson, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., and Kay Francis. Warners refused to cave in this time, and suspended Cagney. Cagney announced that he would do his next three pictures for free if Warners canceled the five years remaining on his contract. He also threatened to quit Hollywood and go back to Columbia University to follow his brothers into medicine. After six months of suspension, Frank Capra brokered a deal that increased Cagney’s salary to around $3000 a week, and guaranteed top billing and no more than four films a year.
Having learned about the block-booking studio system that almost guaranteed the studios huge profits, Cagney was determined to spread the wealth. He regularly sent money and goods to old friends from his neighborhood, though he did not generally make this known. His insistence on no more than four films a year was based on his having witnessed actors—even teenagers—regularly being worked 100 hours a week to turn out more films. This experience was an integral reason for his involvement in forming the Screen Actors Guild in 1933.
Cagney returned to the studio and made Hard to Handle in 1933. This was followed by a steady stream of films, including the highly regarded Footlight Parade, which gave Cagney the chance to return to his song-and-dance roots. The film includes show-stopping scenes with Busby Berkeley-choreographed routines. His next notable film was 1934’s Here Comes the Navy, which paired him with Pat O’Brien for the first time. The two would have an enduring friendship.
In 1935, Cagney was listed as one of the Top Ten Moneymakers in Hollywood for the first time, and was cast more frequently in non-gangster roles; he played a lawyer who joins the FBI in G-Men, and he also took on his first, and only, Shakespearean role, as top-billed Nick Bottom in A Midsummer Night’s Dream alongside Joe E. Brown as Flute and Mickey Rooney as Puck.
Cagney’s last movie in 1935 was Ceiling Zero, his third film with Pat O’Brien. O’Brien received top billing, which was a clear breach of Cagney’s contract. This, combined with the fact that Cagney had made five movies in 1934, again against his contract terms, caused him to bring legal proceedings against Warners for breach of contract. The dispute dragged on for several months. Cagney received calls from David Selznick and Sam Goldwyn, but neither felt in a position to offer him work while the dispute went on. Meanwhile, while being represented by his brother William in court, Cagney went back to New York to search for a country property where he could indulge his passion for farming.
Independent years (1936–1937)
Cagney spent most of the next year on his farm, and went back to work only when Edward L. Alperson from Grand National Films, a newly established, independent studio, approached him to make movies for $100,000 a film and 10% of the profits. Cagney made two films for Grand National: Great Guy and Something to Sing About. He received good reviews for both,] but overall the production quality was not up to Warners standards, and the films did not do well. A third film, Dynamite, was planned, but Grand National ran out of money.
Cagney also became involved in political causes, and in 1936, agreed to sponsor the Hollywood Anti-Nazi League] Unknown to Cagney, the League was in fact a front organization for the Communist International (Comintern), which sought to enlist support for the Soviet Union and its foreign policies.
The courts eventually decided the Warner Brothers lawsuit in Cagney’s favor. He had done what many thought unthinkable: taking on the studios and winning. Not only did he win, Warners knew that he was still a star and invited him back for a five-year, $150,000 a film deal, with no more than two pictures a year. Cagney would also have full say over what films he did and did not make. Additionally, William Cagney was guaranteed the position of assistant producer for the movies his brother starred in.
Cagney had demonstrated the power of the walkout in keeping the studios to their word. He later explained his reasons, saying, “I walked out because I depended on the studio heads to keep their word on this, that or other promise, and when the promise was not kept, my only recourse was to deprive them of my services.” Cagney himself acknowledged the importance of the walkout for other actors in breaking the dominance of the studio system. Normally, when a star walked out, the time he or she were absent was added onto the end of an already long contract, as happened with Olivia de Havilland and Bette Davis. Cagney, however, walked out and came back to a better contract. Many in Hollywood watched the case closely for hints of how future contracts might be handled.
Artistically, the Grand National experiment was a success for Cagney, who was able to move away from his traditional Warners tough guy roles to more sympathetic characters. How far he could have experimented and developed will never be known, but back in the Warners fold, he was once againplaying tough guys.
Return to Warner Bros. (1938–1942)
Cagney’s two films of 1938, Boy Meets Girl and Angels with Dirty Faces, both costarred Pat O’Brien. The former saw Cagney in a comedy role, and received mixed reviews. Warners had allowed Cagney his change of pace, but was keen to get him back to playing tough guys, which was more lucrative. Ironically, the script for Angels was one that Cagney had hoped to do while with Grand National, but the studio had been unable to secure funding.
Cagney starred as Rocky Sullivan, a gangster fresh out of jail and looking for his former associate, played by Humphrey Bogart, who owes him money. While revisiting his old haunts, he runs into his old friend Jerry Connolly, played by O’Brien, who is now a priest concerned about the Dead End Kids’ futures, particularly as they idolize Rocky. After a messy shootout, Sullivan is eventually captured by the police and sentenced to death in the electric chair. Connolly pleads with Rocky to “turn yellow” on his way to the chair so that the Kids will lose their admiration for him, and hopefully avoid turning to crime. Sullivan refuses, but on his way to his execution, he breaks down and begs for his life. It is unclear whether this cowardice is real or just feigned for the Kids’ benefit. Cagney himself refused to say, insisting he liked the ambiguity. The film is regarded by many as one of Cagney’s finest, and garnered him an Academy Award for Best Actor nomination for 1938. He lost to Spencer Tracy in Boys Town. Cagney had been considered for the role, but lost out on it due to his typecasting. (He also lost the role of Notre Dame football coach Knute Rockne in Knute Rockne, All American to his friend Pat O’Brien for the same reason.) Cagney did, however, win that year’s New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor.
His earlier insistence on not filming with live ammunition proved to be a good decision. Having been told while filming Angels with Dirty Faces that he would be doing a scene with real machine gun bullets (a common practice in the Hollywood of the time), Cagney refused and insisted the shots be added afterwards. As it turned out, a ricocheting bullet passed through exactly where his head would have been.
During his first year back at Warners, Cagney became the studio’s highest earner, making $324,000. He completed his first decade of movie-making in 1939 with The Roaring Twenties, his first film with Raoul Walsh and his last with Bogart. After The Roaring Twenties it would be a decade before Cagney made another gangster film. Cagney again received good reviews; Graham Greene stated that “Mr. Cagney, of the bull-calf brow, is as always a superb and witty actor.” The Roaring Twenties was the last film in which Cagney’s character’s violence was explained by poor upbringing, or their environment, as was the case in The Public Enemy. From that point on, violence was attached to mania, as in White Heat. In 1939, Cagney was second to only Gary Cooper in the national acting wage stakes, earning $368,333.
His next notable role was George M. Cohan in Yankee Doodle Dandy, a film Cagney “took great pride in” and considered his best. Producer Hal Wallis said that having seen Cohan in I’d Rather Be Right, he never considered anyone other than Cagney for the part. Cagney, on the other hand, insisted that Fred Astaire had been the first choice, but turned it down.
Filming began the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor, and the cast and crew worked in a “patriotic frenzy” as the United States’ involvement in World War II gave the cast and crew a feeling that “they might be sending the last message from the free world,” according to actress Rosemary DeCamp. Cohan was given a private showing of the film shortly before his death, and thanked Cagney “for a wonderful job.” A paid première, with seats ranging from $25 to $25,000, raised $5,750,000 for war bonds for the US treasury.
“Smart, alert, hard-headed, Cagney is as typically American as Cohan himself… It was a remarkable performance, probably Cagney’s best, and it makes Yankee Doodle a dandy”
Time magazine
Many critics of the time and since have declared it Cagney’s best film, drawing parallels between Cohan and Cagney; they both began their careers in vaudeville, struggled for years before reaching the peak of their profession, were surrounded with family and married early, and both had a wife who was happy to sit back while he went on to stardom. The film was nominated for eight Academy Awards and won three, including Cagney’s for Best Actor. In his acceptance speech, Cagney said, “I’ve always maintained that in this business, you’re only as good as the other fellow thinks you are. It’s nice to know that you people thought I did a good job. And don’t forget that it was a good part, too.”
Independent again (1942–1948)
Cagney announced in March 1942 that he and brother William were setting up Cagney Productions to release films though United Artists. Free of Warners again, Cagney spent some time relaxing on his farm in Martha’s Vineyard before volunteering to join the USO. He spent several weeks touring the US, entertaining troops with vaudeville routines and scenes from Yankee Doodle Dandy. In September 1942, he was elected president of the Screen Actors Guild.
Almost a year after the creation of his new production company, Cagney Productions produced its first film, Johnny Come Lately, in 1943. While the major studios were producing patriotic war movies, Cagney was determined to continue dispelling his tough guy image, so he produced a movie that was a “complete and exhilarating exposition of the Cagney ‘alter-ego’ on film.” According to Cagney, the film “made money but it was no great winner,” and reviews varied from excellent (Time) to poor (New York’s PM).
“I’m here to dance a few jigs, sing a few songs, say hello to the boys, and that’s all.”
Cagney to British reporters
Following the film’s completion, Cagney went back to the USO and toured US military bases in the UK. He refused to give interviews to the British press, preferring to concentrate on rehearsals and performances. He gave several performances a day for the Army Signal Corps of The American Cavalcade of Dance, which consisted of a history of American dance, from the earliest days to Fred Astaire, and culminated with dances from Yankee Doodle Dandy.
The second movie Cagney’s company produced was Blood on the Sun. Insisting on doing his own stunts, Cagney required judo training from expert Ken Kuniyuki and Jack Halloran, a former policeman. The Cagneys had hoped that an action film would appeal more to audiences, but it fared worse at the box office than Johnny Come Lately. At this time, Cagney heard of young war hero Audie Murphy, who had appeared on the cover of Life magazine. Cagney thought that Murphy had the looks to be a movie star, and suggested that he come to Hollywood. Cagney felt, however, that Murphy could not act, and his contract was loaned out and then sold.
While negotiating the rights for his third independent film, Cagney starred in 20th Century Fox’s 13 Rue Madeleine for $300,000 for two months of work. The wartime spy film was a success, and Cagney was keen to begin production of his new project, an adaptation of William Saroyan’s Broadway play The Time of Your Life. Saroyan himself loved the film, but it was a commercial disaster, costing the company half a million dollars to make; audiences again struggled to accept Cagney in a non-tough guy role.
Cagney Productions was in serious trouble; poor returns from the produced films, and a legal dispute with Sam Goldwyn Studio over a rental agreement forced Cagney back to Warners. He signed a distribution-production deal with the studio for the film White Heat, effectively making Cagney Productions a unit of Warner Brothers.
Back to Warners (1949–1955)
Cagney’s portrayal of Cody Jarrett in the 1949 film White Heat is one of his most memorable. Cinema had changed in the ten years since Walsh last directed Cagney (in The Strawberry Blonde), and the actor’s portrayal of gangsters had also changed. Unlike Tom Powers in The Public Enemy, Jarrett was portrayed as a raging lunatic with few if any sympathetic qualities. In the 18 intervening years, Cagney’s hair had begun to gray, and he developed a paunch for the first time. He was no longer a romantic commodity, and this was reflected in his performance. Cagney himself had the idea of playing Jarrett as psychotic; he later stated that “it was essentially a cheapie one-two-three-four kind of thing, so I suggested we make him nuts. It was agreed so we put in all those fits and headaches.”
Cagney’s final lines in the film – “Made it, Ma! Top of the world!” – was voted the 18th greatest movie line by the American Film Institute. Likewise, Jarrett’s explosion of rage in prison on being told of his mother’s death is widely hailed as one of Cagney’s most memorable performances. Some of the extras on set actually became terrified of the actor because of his violent portrayal. Cagney attributed the performance to his father’s alcoholic rages, which he had witnessed as a child, as well as someone that he had seen on a visit to a mental hospital.
“[A] homicidal paranoiac with a mother fixation”
Warner Bros. publicity description of Cody Jarrett in White Heat
The film was a critical success, though some critics wondered about the social impact of a character that they saw as sympathetic. Cagney was still struggling against his gangster typecasting. He said to a journalist, “It’s what the people want me to do. Some day, though, I’d like to make another movie that kids could go and see.” However, Warners, perhaps searching for another Yankee Doodle Dandy, assigned Cagney a musical for his next picture, 1950’s The West Point Story with Doris Day, an actress he admired.
His next film, Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye, was another gangster movie, which was the first by Cagney Productions since its acquisition by Warners. While compared unfavorably to White Heat by critics, it was fairly successful at the box office, with $500,000 going straight to Cagney Productions’ bankers to pay off their losses. Cagney Productions was not a great success, however, and in 1953, after William Cagney produced his last film, A Lion Is in the Streets, the company came to an end.
Cagney’s next notable role was the 1955 film Love Me or Leave Me, his third with Day. Cagney played Martin “Moe the Gimp” Snyder, a lame Jewish-American gangster from Chicago, a part Spencer Tracy had turned down. Cagney described the script as “that extremely rare thing, the perfect script.” When the film was released, Snyder reportedly asked how Cagney had so accurately copied his limp, but Cagney himself insisted he had not, having based it on personal observation of other people when they limped: “What I did was very simple. I just slapped my foot down as I turned it out while walking. That’s all.”
His performance earned him another Best Actor Academy Award nomination, 17 years after his first. Reviews were strong, and the film is considered one of the best of his later career. In Day, he found a co-star he could build a rapport with, such as he had had with Blondell at the start of his career. Day herself was full of praise for Cagney, stating that he was “the most professional actor I’ve ever known. He was always ‘real’. I simply forgot we were making a picture. His eyes would actually fill up when we were working on a tender scene. And you never needed drops to make your eyes shine when Jimmy was on the set.”
Cagney’s next film was Mister Roberts, directed by John Ford and slated to star Spencer Tracy. It was Tracy’s involvement that ensured that Cagney accepted a supporting role, although in the end, Tracy did not take part. Cagney had worked with Ford before on What Price Glory?, and they had gotten along fairly well. However, as soon as Ford met Cagney at the airport, the director warned him that they would “tangle asses,” which caught Cagney by surprise. He later said, “I would have kicked his brains out. He was so goddamned mean to everybody. He was truly a nasty old man.” The next day, Cagney was slightly late on set, incensing Ford. Cagney cut short his imminent tirade, saying “When I started this picture, you said that we would tangle asses before this was over. I’m ready now – are you?” Ford walked away, and they had no more problems, even though Cagney never particularly liked Ford.
Cagney’s skill at noticing tiny details in other actors’ performances became apparent during the shooting of Mister Roberts. While watching the Kraft Music Hall anthology television show some months before, Cagney had noticed Jack Lemmon performing left-handed. The first thing that Cagney asked Lemmon when they met was if he was still using his left hand. Lemmon was shocked; he had done it on a whim, and thought no one else had noticed. He said of his co-star, “his powers of observation must be absolutely incredible, in addition to the fact that he remembered it. I was very flattered.”
The film was a success, securing three Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, Best Sound Recording and Best Supporting Actor for Lemmon, who won. While Cagney was not nominated, he had thoroughly enjoyed the production. Filming on Midway Island and in a more minor role meant that he had time to relax and engage in his hobby of painting. He also drew caricatures of the cast and crew.
Later career (1955–1961)
Cagney worked with MGM on the Western film Tribute to a Bad Man, a role that had originally been written for Spencer Tracy. He received praise for his performance, and the studio liked his work enough to offer him These Wilder Years with Barbara Stanwyck. The two stars got on well; they had both previously worked in vaudeville, and they entertained the cast and crew off-screen by singing and dancing.
In 1956, Cagney undertook one of his very rare television roles, starring in Robert Montgomery’s Soldiers From the War Returning. This was a favor to Montgomery, who needed a strong fall season opener to stop the network from dropping his series. Cagney’s appearance ensured that it was a success. The actor made it clear to reporters afterwards that television was not his medium: “I do enough work in movies. This is a high-tension business. I have tremendous admiration for the people who go through this sort of thing every week, but it’s not for me.”
The following year, Cagney appeared in Man of a Thousand Faces, in which he played Lon Chaney. He received excellent reviews, with the New York Journal American rating it one of his best performances, and the film, made for Universal, was a box office hit. Cagney’s skill at mimicry, combined with a physical similarity to Chaney, helped him generate empathy for his character.
Later in 1957, Cagney ventured behind the camera for the first and only time to direct Short Cut to Hell, a remake of the 1941 Alan Ladd film This Gun for Hire, which in turn was based on the Graham Greene novel A Gun for Sale. Cagney had long been told by friends that he would make an excellent director, so when he was approached by his friend, producer A. C. Lyles, he instinctively said yes. He refused all offers of payment, saying he was an actor, not a director. The film was low budget, and shot quickly. As Cagney recalled, “We shot it in twenty days, and that was long enough for me. I find directing a bore, I have no desire to tell other people their business.”
In 1959, Cagney played a labor leader in what proved to be his final musical, Never Steal Anything Small, which featured a comical song and dance duet with Cara Williams, who played his girlfriend.
For Cagney’s next film, he traveled to Ireland for Shake Hands with the Devil, directed by Michael Anderson. Cagney had hoped to spend some time tracing his Irish ancestry, but time constraints and poor weather meant that he was unable to do so. The overriding message of violence inevitably leading to more violence attracted Cagney to the role of an Irish Republican Army commander, and resulted in what some critics would regard as the finest performance of his final years.
Cagney’s career began winding down, and he made only one film in 1960, the critically acclaimed The Gallant Hours, in which he played Admiral William F. “Bull” Halsey. The film, although set during the Guadalcanal Campaign in the Pacific Theater during World War II, was not a war film, but instead focused on the impact of command. Cagney Productions, which shared the production credit with Robert Montgomery’s company, made a brief return, though in name only. The film was a success, and The New York Times’ Bosley Crowther singled its star out for praise: “It is Mr. Cagney’s performance, controlled to the last detail, that gives life and strong, heroic stature to the principal figure in the film. There is no braggadocio in it, no straining for bold or sharp effects. It is one of the quietest, most reflective, subtlest jobs that Mr. Cagney has ever done.”
“I never had the slightest difficulty with a fellow actor. Not until One, Two, Three. In that picture, Horst Buchholz tried all sorts of scene-stealing didoes. I came close to knocking him on his ass.”
James Cagney on the filming of One, Two, Three
Cagney’s penultimate film was a comedy. He was handpicked by Billy Wilder to play a hard-driving Coca-Cola executive in the film One, Two, Three. Cagney had concerns with the script, remembering back 23 years to Boy Meets Girl, in which scenes were re-shot to try to make them funnier by speeding up the pacing, with the opposite effect. Cagney received assurances from Wilder that the script was balanced. Filming did not go well, though, with one scene requiring 50 takes, something Cagney was unaccustomed to. In fact, it was one of the worst experiences of his long career. For the first time, Cagney considered walking out of a film. He felt he had worked too many years inside studios, and combined with a visit to Dachau concentration camp during filming, he decided that he had had enough, and retired afterward. One of the few positive aspects was his friendship with Pamela Tiffin, to whom he gave acting guidance, including the secret that he had learned over his career: “You walk in, plant yourself squarely on both feet, look the other fella in the eye, and tell the truth.”
Later years and retirement (1961–1986)
Cagney remained in retirement for twenty years, conjuring up images of Jack Warner every time he was tempted to return, which soon dispelled the notion. After he had turned down an offer to play Alfred Doolittle in My Fair Lady, he found it easier to rebuff others, including a part in The Godfather Part II. He made few public appearances, preferring to spend winters in Los Angeles, and summers either at his Martha’s Vineyard farm or at Verney Farms in New York State. When in New York, he and Billie Vernon held numerous parties at the Silver Horn restaurant, where they got to know Marge Zimmerman, the proprietress.
Cagney was diagnosed with glaucoma and began taking eye drops, but continued to have vision problems. On Zimmerman’s recommendation, he visited a different doctor, who determined that glaucoma had been a misdiagnosis, and that Cagney was actually diabetic. Zimmerman then took it upon herself to look after Cagney, preparing his meals to reduce his blood triglycerides, which had reached alarming levels. Such was her success that, by the time Cagney made a rare public appearance at his American Film Institute Lifetime Achievement award ceremony in 1974, he had lost 20 pounds (9.1 kg) and his vision had improved. Charlton Heston opened the ceremony, and Frank Sinatra introduced Cagney. So many Hollywood stars attended—said to be more than for any event in history—that one columnist wrote at the time that a bomb in the dining room would have ended the movie industry. In his acceptance speech, Cagney lightly chastised the impressionist Frank Gorshin, saying, “Oh, Frankie, just in passing, I never said ‘MMMMmmmm, you dirty rat!’ What I actually did say was ‘Judy, Judy, Judy!'”—a joking reference to a similar misquotation attributed to Cary Grant.
“I think he’s some kind of genius. His instinct, it’s just unbelievable. I could just stay at home. One of the qualities of a brilliant actor is that things look better on the screen than the set. Jimmy has that quality.”
Director Miloš Forman
While at Coldwater Canyon in 1977, Cagney had a minor stroke. After two weeks in the hospital, Zimmerman became his full-time caregiver, traveling with him and Billie Vernon wherever they went. After the stroke, Cagney was no longer able to undertake many of his favorite pastimes, including horseback riding and dancing, and as he became more depressed, he even gave up painting. Encouraged by his wife and Zimmerman, Cagney accepted an offer from the director Miloš Forman to star in a small but pivotal role in the film Ragtime (1981).
This film was shot mainly at Shepperton Studios in Surrey, England, and on his arrival at Southampton aboard the Queen Elizabeth 2, Cagney was mobbed by hundreds of fans. Cunard Line officials, who were responsible for the security at the dock, said they had never seen anything like it, although they had experienced past visits by Marlon Brando and Robert Redford.
Despite the fact that Ragtime was his first film in twenty years, Cagney was immediately at ease: Flubbed lines and miscues were committed by his co-stars, often simply through sheer awe. Howard Rollins, who received a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for his performance, said, “I was frightened to meet Mr. Cagney. I asked him how to die in front of the camera. He said ‘Just die!’ It worked. Who would know more about dying than him?” Cagney also repeated the advice he had given to Pamela Tiffin, Joan Leslie, and Lemmon. As filming progressed, Cagney’s sciatica worsened, but he finished the nine-week filming, and reportedly stayed on the set after completing his scenes to help the other actors with their dialogue.
Cagney’s frequent co-star, Pat O’Brien, appeared with him on the British chat show Parkinson in the early 1970s and they both made a surprise appearance at the Queen Mother’s command birthday performance at the London Palladium in 1980. His appearance on stage prompted the Queen Mother to rise to her feet, the only time she did so during the whole show, and she later broke protocol to go backstage to speak with Cagney directly.
Cagney made a rare TV appearance in the lead role of the movie Terrible Joe Moran in 1984. This was his last role. His health was fragile and more strokes had confined him to a wheelchair. The producers, however, worked his real-life disabilities into the role. The film made use of fight clips from Cagney’s boxing movie Winner Take All (1932), despite the fact that the TV-movie is about an entirely different character.
Personal life
In 1920, Cagney was a member of the chorus for the show Pitter Patter, where he met Frances Willard “Billie” Vernon. They married on September 28, 1922, and the marriage lasted until his death in 1986. Frances Cagney died in 1994. In 1941, they adopted a son whom they named James Cagney, Jr., and later a daughter, Cathleen “Casey” Cagney. Cagney was a very private man, and while he was very willing to give the press opportunities for photographs, he generally spent his time out of the public eye.
Cagney’s son married Jill Lisbeth Inness in 1962. The couple had two children, James III and Cindy. Cagney Jr. died from a heart attack on January 27, 1984 in Washington, D.C., two years before his father’s death. He had become estranged from his father and had not seen or talked to him since 1982.
Cagney’s daughter Cathleen married Jack W. Thomas in 1962. She too was estranged from her father during the final years of his life. She died on August 11, 2004.
As a young man, Cagney became interested in farming – sparked by a soil conservation lecture he had attended – to the extent that during his first walkout from Warners, he help to found a 100-acre (0.40 km2) farm in Martha’s Vineyard. Cagney loved that there were no concrete roads surrounding the property, only dirt tracks. The house was rather run-down and ramshackle, and Billie was initially reluctant to move in, but soon came to love the place as well. After being inundated by movie fans, Cagney sent out a rumor that he had hired a gunman for security. The ruse proved so successful that when Spencer Tracy came to visit, his taxi driver refused to drive up to the house, saying, “I hear they shoot!” Tracy had to go the rest of the way on foot.
In 1955, having shot three films, Cagney bought a 120-acre (0.49 km2) farm in Stanfordville, Dutchess County, New York, for $100,000. Cagney named it Verney Farm, taking the first syllable from Billie’s maiden name and the second from his own surname. He turned it into a working farm, selling some of the dairy cattle and replacing them with beef cattle. He expanded it over the years to 750 acres (3.0 km2). Such was Cagney’s enthusiasm for agriculture and farming that his diligence and efforts were rewarded by an honorary degree from Florida’s Rollins College. Rather than just “turning up with Ava Gardner on my arm,” to accept his honorary degree, Cagney turned the tables upon the college’s faculty by writing and submitting a paper on soil conservation.
Cagney, born in 1899 (prior to widespread use of automobiles) loved horses from childhood. As a child, he often sat on the horses of local deliverymen, and rode in horse-drawn streetcars with his mother. As an adult, well after horses were replaced by automobiles as the primary mode of transportation, Cagney raised horses on his farms, specializing in Morgans, a breed he was particularly fond of.
Cagney was a keen sailor and owned boats harbored on both US coasts, His joy in sailing, however, did not protect him from occasional seasickness—becoming ill, sometimes, on a calm day while weathering rougher, heavier seas] at other times. Cagney greatly enjoyed painting, and claimed in his autobiography that he might have been happier, if somewhat poorer, as a painter than a movie star. The renowned painter Sergei Bongart taught Cagney in his later life and owned two of Cagney’s works. Cagney often gave away his work but refused to sell his paintings, considering himself an amateur. He signed and sold only one painting, purchased by Johnny Carson to benefit a charity.
Political views
In his autobiography, Cagney said that as a young man, he had no political views, since he was more concerned with where the next meal was coming from. However the emerging labor movement of the twenties and thirties soon forced him to take sides. The first version of the National Labor Relations Act was passed in 1935 and growing tensions between labor and management fueled the movement. Fanzines in the 1930s, however, described his politics as “radical.” This somewhat exaggerated view was enhanced by his public contractual wranglings with Warners at the time, his joining of the Screen Actors Guild in 1933, and his involvement in the revolt against the so-called “Merriam tax“. The “Merriam Tax” was an underhanded method of funneling studio funds to politicians: during the 1934 Californian gubernatorial campaign, the studio executives would ‘tax’ their actors, automatically taking a day’s pay from their biggest-earners, ultimately sending nearly half a million dollars to the gubernatorial campaign of Frank Merriam. Cagney (as well as Jean Harlow) publicly refused to pay and Cagney even threatened that, if the studios took a day’s pay for Merriam’s campaign, he would give a week’s pay to Upton Sinclair, Merriam’s opponent in the race.
He supported political activist and labor leader Thomas Mooney’s defense fund, but was repelled by the behavior of some of Mooney’s supporters at a rally. Around the same time, he gave money for a Spanish Republican Army ambulance during the Spanish Civil War, which he put down to being “a soft touch.” This donation enhanced his liberal reputation. He also became involved in a “liberal group…with a leftist slant,” along with Ronald Reagan. However, when he and Reagan saw the direction the group was heading in, they resigned on the same night.
Cagney was accused of being a communist sympathizer in 1934, and again in 1940. The accusation in 1934 stemmed from a letter police found from a local Communist official that alleged that Cagney would bring other Hollywood stars to meetings. Cagney denied this, and Lincoln Steffens, husband of the letter’s writer, backed up this denial, asserting that the accusation stemmed solely from Cagney’s donation to striking cotton workers in the San Joaquin Valley. William Cagney claimed this donation was the root of the charges in 1940. Cagney was cleared by U.S. Representative Martin Dies, Jr., on the House Un-American Activities Committee.
Cagney became president of the Screen Actors Guild in 1942 for a two-year term. He took a role in the Guild’s fight against the Mafia, which had begun to take an active interest in the movie industry. His wife, Billie Vernon once received aphone call telling her that Cagney was dead. Cagney alleged that, having failed to scare him and the Guild off, they sent a hit man to kill him by dropping a heavy light onto his head. Upon hearing of the rumor of a hit, George Raft made a call, and the hit was supposedly canceled.
During World War II, Cagney raised money for war bonds by taking part in racing exhibitions at the Roosevelt Raceway and selling seats for the premiere of Yankee Doodle Dandy. He also let the Army practice maneuvers at his Martha’s Vineyard farm.
After the war, Cagney’s politics started to change. He had worked on Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt’s presidential campaigns, including the 1940 presidential election against Wendell Willkie. However, by the time of the 1948 election, he had become disillusioned with Harry S. Truman, and voted for Thomas E. Dewey, his first non-Democratic vote. By 1980, Cagney was contributing financially to the Republican Party, supporting his friend Ronald Reagan’s bid for the presidency in the 1980 election. As he got older, he became more and more conservative, referring to himself in his autobiography as “arch-conservative.” He regarded his move away from liberal politics as “…a totally natural reaction once I began to see undisciplined elements in our country stimulating a breakdown of our system… Those functionless creatures, the hippies … just didn’t appear out of a vacuum.”
Death
Cagney died at his Dutchess County farm in Stanfordville, New York, on Easter Sunday 1986, of a heart attack. He was 86 years old. A funeral Mass was held at Manhattan’s St. Francis de Sales Roman Catholic Church. The eulogy at the funeral was given by his close friend, who was also the President of the United States at the time, Ronald Reagan. His pallbearers included the boxer Floyd Patterson, the dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov (who had hoped to play Cagney on Broadway), actor Ralph Bellamy, and the director Miloš Forman.
Cagney’s body is interred in the Cemetery of the Gate of Heaven in Hawthorne, New York.
Honors and legacy
In 1974, Cagney received the American Film Institute’s Life Achievement Award. Charlton Heston, in announcing that Cagney was to be honored, called him “…one of the most significant figures of a generation when American film was dominant, Cagney, that most American of actors, somehow communicated eloquently to audiences all over the world …and to actors as well.”
He received the Kennedy Center Honors in 1980. In 1984, Ronald Reagan awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
In 1999, the U.S. Postal Service issued a 33-cent stamp honoring Cagney.
Cagney was among the most favored actors for the director Stanley Kubrick and the actor Marlon Brando, and was considered by Orson Welles to be “…maybe the greatest actor to ever appear in front of a camera.” Warner Brothers would arrange private screenings of Cagney films for Winston Churchill.
Susan Hayward(June 30, 1917 – March 14, 1975), an American actress.
After working as a fashion model in New York, Hayward traveled to Hollywood in 1937. She secured a film contract, and played several small supporting roles over the next few years.
After Hayward’s second marriage and subsequent move to Georgia, her film appearances became infrequent, although she continued acting in film and television until 1972. She died in 1975 of brain cancer.
Early life
Hayward was born Edythe Marrenner inBrooklyn, the youngest of three children born to Ellen (née Pearson) and Walter Marrenner. Her paternal grandmother was an actress, Kate Harrigan, from County Cork, Ireland. Her mother was of Swedish descent. She had an older sister Florence (born May 1910) and an older brother Walter, Jr. (born December 1911).
Hayward was educated at Public School 181, and later attended The Girls’ Commercial High School (later renamed Prospect Heights High School). During her high school years, she acted in various school plays and was named “Most Dramatic” by her class. She graduated in June 1935.
Coincidentally, entertainer Lena Horne was born on exactly the same day (June 30, 1917) as Susan Hayward and also born in Brooklyn, N.Y.
Hayward began her career as a photographer’s model, going to Hollywood in 1937, aiming to secure the role of Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind. Although she did not win the role, Hayward found employment playing bit parts until she was cast in Beau Geste (1939) opposite Gary Cooper. During the war years, she acted with John Wayne twice, as a second lead in Reap the Wild Wind (1942), and as his leading lady in The Fighting Seabees (1944). She also starred in the film version of The Hairy Ape (1944). Later, in 1956, she was cast by Howard Hughes to play Bortai in the historical epic The Conqueror, as John Wayne’s leading lady.
During the 1950s she won acclaim for her dramatic performances as President Andrew Jackson‘s melancholic wife in The President’s Lady (1953); the alcoholic actress Lillian Roth in I’ll Cry Tomorrow (1955), based on Roth’s best-selling autobiography of the same name, for which she received a Cannes award; and the real-life California murderer Barbara Graham in I Want to Live! (1958). Hayward’s portrayal of Graham won her the Academy Award for Best Actress. In 1959, she played the lead, Mary Sharron, in Woman Obsessed.
Though Hayward never truly became known as a singer because she hated her own singing, she acted out roles as singers in several films. In I’ll Cry Tomorrow, however, though a “ghost singer” was actually recruited, it is her own voice that is actually heard on the soundtrack. Susan Haward performed in the musical biography of Jane Froman in the 1952 film, With a Song in My Heart, a role that won her the Golden Globe for Best Actress Comedy film. Jane Froman’s voice was dubbed as Hayward acted out the songs.
In 1961, Hayward starred as a working girl who becomes the wife of the state’s next governor (Dean Martin) and ultimately takes over that office herself in Ada. The same year, she played Rae Smith in Ross Hunter‘s lavish remake of Back Street, which also starred John Gavin and Vera Miles. In 1967, Hayward replaced Judy Garland as Helen Lawson in the film adaptation of Jacqueline Susann‘s Valley of the Dolls. She received good reviews for her performance in a Las Vegas production of Mame, but left the production. She was replaced by Celeste Holm.
She continued to act into the early 1970s, when she was diagnosed with brain cancer. Her final film role was as Dr. Maggie Cole in the 1972 made-for-TV drama Say Goodbye, Maggie Cole. (The film was intended to be a pilot for a weekly television series, but because of Hayward’s cancer diagnosis and failing health, the series was never produced). Her last public appearance was at the Academy Awards telecast in 1974 to present the Best Actress award despite being very ill. With Charlton Heston‘s support, she was able to present the award.
Personal life
Hayward was married to actor Jess Barker for ten years and they had two children, fraternal twin sons named Gregory and Timothy, born February 19, 1945. The marriage was described in Hollywood gossip columns as turbulent. They divorced in 1954. Hayward survived a subsequent suicide attempt after the divorce. During the contentious divorce proceedings, Hayward felt it necessary to stay in the United States and not join the Hong Kong location shooting for the film Soldier of Fortune. She shot her scenes with co-star Clark Gable indoors in Hollywood. A few brief, distant scenes of Gable and a Hayward double walking near landmarks in Hong Kong were combined with the indoor shots.
In 1957, Hayward married Floyd Eaton Chalkley, commonly known as Eaton Chalkley. He was a Georgia rancher and businessman who had formerly worked as a federal agent. Though he was an unusual husband for a Hollywood movie star, the marriage was a happy one. She lived with him on a farm near Carrollton, Ga. The couple also owned property across the state line in Cleburne County, just outside of Heflin, Alabama. She became a popular figure in an area that in the 1950s was off the beaten path for most celebrities. In December 1964, she and her husband were baptized Catholic by Father McGuire at SS Peter and Paul’s Roman Catholic Church on Larimar Avenue, in the East Liberty section of Pittsburgh. She had met McGuire while in China and promised him that if she ever converted, he would be the one to baptize her. Chalkley died on January 9, 1966. Hayward went into mourning and did little acting for several years, and took up residence in Florida, because she preferred not to live in her Georgia home without her husband.
Hayward was a proponent of astrology. She particularly relied on the advice of Carroll Righter, who called himself “the Gregarious Aquarius” and the self-proclaimed “Astrologer to the Stars”, who informed her that the optimum time to sign a film contract was exactly 2:47 a.m., causing her to set her alarm for 2:45 so that she could be sure to obey his instructions.
Death
Hayward was diagnosed with brain cancer in 1973. On March 14, 1975, she suffered a seizure in her Beverly Hills home and died at age 57. Her two sons survived her from Hayward’s marriage with Barker. Her funeral was held on March 16 at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Roman Catholic Church in Carrollton. Susan Hayward was buried in the church’s cemetery next to Chalkley.
There is speculation that Hayward may have developed cancer from radioactive fallout from atmospheric atomic bomb tests while making The Conqueror with John Wayne. Several production members, as well as Wayne himself, Agnes Moorehead, Pedro Armendáriz and its director Dick Powell, later succumbed to cancer and cancer-related illnesses.
For her contribution to the film industry, Susan Hayward has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6251 Hollywood Boulevard.
Jeff Chandler (December 15, 1918 – June 17, 1961) an American film actor and singer in the 1950s, best remembered for playing Cochise in Broken Arrow (1950), and for being one of Universal International‘s most popular male stars of the decade.
Early life
Chandler was born Ira Grossel to a Jewish family in Brooklyn, the only child of Anna (née Herman) and Phillip Grossel. His mother raised him after his parents separated when he was a child.
He attended Erasmus Hall High School, the alma mater of many stage and film personalities. His father was connected with the restaurant business and got his son a job as a restaurant cashier. Chandler said he always wanted to act, but courses for commercial art were cheaper, so he studied art for a year and worked as a layout artist for a mail order catalogue.
Chandler eventually saved up enough money to take a drama course at the Feagin School of Dramatic Art in New York. He worked briefly in radio, and then got a job in a stock company on Long Island as an actor and stage manager. He worked for two years in stock companies, acting in a performance of The Trojan Horse with Gordon MacRae and his wife.
Chandler formed his own company, the Shady Lane Playhouse, in Illinois in 1941. This toured the Midwest with some success before the war came along.
He served in World War II for four years, mostly in the Aleutians, finishing with the rank of lieutenant. His enlistment record for the Cavalry on November 18, 1941 gave his height as six foot four inches and his weight as 210 pounds.
Radio
After being discharged from the military, Chandler moved to Los Angeles with $3,000 he had saved and soon found work as a radio actor. He appeared in episodes of anthology drama series such as Escape and Academy Award Theater, and became well known for playing the lead in Michael Shayne and bashful biology teacher Phillip Boynton on Our Miss Brooks. Chandler was the first actor to portray Chad Remington in Frontier Town. In 1945 he was involved in a serious car accident on the way to a screen test which resulted in a large scar on his forehead.
Chandler had acted on radio in Rogue’s Gallery with Dick Powell, who was impressed enough to give the actor his first film role, a one-line part as a gangster in Johnny O’Clock (1947).
His performance as Boynton in Our Miss Brooks brought him to the attention of executives at Universal, who were looking for someone to play an Israeli leader in Sword in the Desert (1948). Chandler was cast and impressed the studio so much he ended up being signed to Universal for a seven-year contract.
Stardom
Chandler’s first movie for Universal under his new contract was Abandoned (1949), and then he was borrowed by 20th Century Fox to play Cochise in Broken Arrow (1950). This film was a considerable hit, earning Chandler an Oscar nomination and establishing him as a star. He later reprised the role as the legendary Apache chief in The Battle at Apache Pass (1952) and in a cameo in Taza, Son of Cochise (1954). He was the first actor nominated for an Academy Award for portraying an American Indian.
Chandler’s success in Broken Arrow led to him being cast as a variety of nationalities from different historical periods, such as an Arab chief in Flame of Araby (1951) and a Polynesian in Bird of Paradise (1951). He also played an embittered Union cavalryman in Two Flags West (1950). In 1952 exhibitors voted him the 22nd most popular star in the US and he signed a fresh contract with Universal.
In 1957, Chandler left Universal and signed a contract with United Artists. Having long desired to be an executive he formed his own company, Earlmar Productions, with agent Meyer Mishkin. Together they produced the film Drango (1957), which Chandler also directed for a few weeks.
Chandler was due to star in Operation Petticoat (1959) but fell ill and had to pull out. He later formed another production company, August, for which he made The Plunderers, at Allied Artists.
Singing
Chandler had a concurrent career as a singer and recording artist, releasing several albums and playing nightclubs. In 1955 he became only the second star to play at the Riviera, after Liberace was the featured headliner. In her autobiography Hold the Roses (2002), Rose Marie wrote, “Jeff Chandler was a great guy, but he was no singer. He put together an act and we opened at the Riviera. He came with a conductor, piano player, light man, press agent, and manager. None of it helped”. And “Everybody raved about Jeff’s singing, but let’s face it: he really didn’t sing very well. He definitely had guts to open in Vegas.” He left to work on a movie after three and a half weeks.
Personal life
Chandler married actress Marjorie Hoshelle (1918–1989) in 1946. The couple had two daughters, Jamie Tucker (1947–2003) and Dana Grossel (1949–2002), before separating in 1954. They reconciled but his wife applied for divorce again in 1957.
Both of Chandler’s daughters died of cancer, as did his mother, maternal aunt, uncle and grandfather.
When his friend Sammy Davis, Jr. lost an eye in an accident and was in danger of losing the other, Chandler offered to give Davis one of his own eyes. Chandler himself had nearly lost an eye and had been visibly scarred in an auto accident years earlier.
He was romantically linked with Esther Williams, who claimed in her 1999 autobiography Chandler was a cross dresser and she broke off the relationship. According to the Los Angeles Times, many friends and colleagues of Chandler’s rejected Williams’ claims. Jane Russell commented, “I’ve never heard of such a thing. Cross-dressing is the last thing I would expect of Jeff. He was a sweet guy, definitely all man.”
His public support for Israel’s 1956 attack on Egypt prompted the United Arab Republic to ban his films in Arab countries in 1960.
Death
Shortly after completing his role in Merrill’s Marauders in 1961, Chandler injured his back while playing baseball with U.S. Army Special Forces soldiers who served as extras in the movie. He entered a Culver City hospital and had surgery for a spinal disc herniation, on May 13, 1961. There were severe complications; an artery was damaged and Chandler hemorrhaged. In a seven-and-a-half-hour emergency operation over-and-above the original surgery, he was given 55 pints of blood. Another operation followed, date unknown, where he received an additional 20 pints of blood. He died on June 17, 1961. His death was deemed malpractice and resulted in a large lawsuit and settlement for his children. He is buried at Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery in Culver City.
For his contribution to the motion picture industry, Jeff Chandler has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, at 1770 Vine Street.
Critical appraisal
Film historian David Shipman once wrote this analysis of Chandler:
Jeff Chandler looked as though he had been dreamed up by one of those artists who specialize in male physique studies or, a mite further up the artistic scale, he might have been plucked bodily from some modern mural on a biblical subject. For that he had the requisite Jewishness (of which he was very proud) – and he was not quite real. Above all, he was impossibly handsome. He would never have been lost in a crowd, with that big, square, sculpted 20th-century face and his prematurely grey wavy hair. If the movies had not found him the advertising agencies would have done – and in fact, whenever you saw a still of him you looked at his wristwatch or pipe before realizing that he wasn’t promoting something. In the colored stills and on posters his studio always showed his hair as blue, heightening the unreality. His real name was Ira Grossel and his film-name was exactly right.
An obituary of Chandler stated: “Known for his careful attention to detail in making pictures, Chandler was often described as introverted. But colleagues who worked with him closely said he had an easy, light-hearted approach on the set that helped ease some of the strain of production.
As a “bonus,” here’s a brief trailer for Broken Arrow. It’s focus is James Stewart, but it both gives a nice taste of the film’s style, and provides a good look at Jeff Chandler as Cochise in the final frames…
John Alvin “Johnnie” Ray (January 10, 1927 – February 24, 1990) was an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. Extremely popular for most of the 1950s, Ray has been cited by critics as a major precursor of what would become rock and roll, for his jazz and blues-influenced music and his animated stage personality. Tony Bennett credits Ray as being the true father of rock and roll.
Ray’s first record, the self-penned R&B number for OKeh Records, “Whiskey and Gin,” was a minor hit in 1951. The following year he dominated the charts with the double-sided hit single of “Cry” and “The Little White Cloud That Cried“. Selling over two million copies of the 78rpm single, Ray’s delivery struck a chord with teenagers and he quickly became a teen idol. When OKeh parent Columbia Records realized that Ray had developed a fan base of white listeners, he was moved over to the Columbia label.
In early 1969, Ray befriended Judy Garland, performing as her opening act during her last concerts in Copenhagen, Denmark and Malmö, Sweden. Ray was also the best man during Garland’s wedding to nightclub manager Mickey Deans in London.
In 1960, Ray was hospitalized after contracting tuberculosis. In 1965, he was 38 years old when he was emotionally devastated by the death of close friend Dorothy Kilgallen. Biographer Jonny Whiteside claimed that Ray managed to stay sober despite his grief. He began to regain his health. Shortly after he returned to the United States from a European concert tour that he headlined with Judy Garland, an American doctor informed him that he was well enough to drink an occasional glass of wine. Ray resumed drinking heavily and his health quickly began to decline. He continued touring until he gave his final concert, a benefit for the Grand Theater in Salem, Oregon, on October 6, 1989. In early 1990, poor health forced him to check into Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. On February 24, 1990, he died of liver failure at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles. He is buried at Hopewell Cemetery near Hopewell, Oregon.
Jess Waid 