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Joan Blondell
in Cry Havoc (1943)
Born	Rose Joan Blondell (1906-08-30)August 30, 1906 New York City, New York, U.S.
Died	December 25, 1979(1979-12-25) (aged 73) Santa Monica, California, U.S.
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1927–1979
Spouse	George Barnes (1933–36) Dick Powell (1936–44) Mike Todd (1947–50)

Rose Joan Blondell (August 30, 1906 – December 25, 1979) was an American actress^[1] who performed in movies and on television for five decades as Joan Blondell.

After winning a beauty pageant, Blondell embarked upon a film career. Establishing herself as a sexy wisecracking blonde, she was a pre-Code staple of Warner Brothers and appeared in more than 100 movies and television productions. She was most active in films during the 1930s, and during this time she co-starred with Glenda Farrell in nine films, in which the duo portrayed gold-diggers. Blondell continued acting for the rest of her life, often in small character roles or supporting television roles. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her work in The Blue Veil (1951).

Blondell was seen in featured roles in two films released shortly before her death from leukemia, Grease (1978) and the remake of The Champ (1979).

Early life[link]

Blondell was born to a vaudeville family in New York City. Her father, known as Eddie Joan Blondell, Jr., was born in Indiana in 1866 to French parents, and was a vaudeville comedian and one of the original Katzenjammer Kids. Blondell's mother was Kathryn ("Katie") Cain, born April 13, 1884, in Brooklyn of Irish American parents. Her younger sister, Gloria, also an actress,^[2] was briefly married to film producer Albert R. "Cubby" Broccoli (the future producer of the James Bond film series) and bears a strong resemblance to her older sister, Joan. Blondell also had a brother, the namesake of her father and grandfather. Her cradle was a property trunk as her parents moved from place to place and she made her first appearance on stage at the age of four months when she was carried on in a cradle as the daughter of Peggy Astaire in The Greatest Love.

Joan had spent six years in Australia and seen much of the world by the time her family, who had been on tour, settled in Dallas, Texas when she was a teenager. Under the name Rosebud Blondell, she won the 1926 Miss Dallas pageant and placed fourth for Miss America in Atlantic City, New Jersey, in September of that same year. She attended what is now the University of North Texas, then a teacher's college, in Denton, where her mother was a local stage actress, and she worked as a fashion model, a circus hand, and a clerk in a New York store. Around 1927, she returned to New York, joined a stock company to become an actress, and performed on Broadway. In 1930, she starred with James Cagney in Penny Arcade.^[3]

Career[link]

Blondell in the trailer for the 1932 film Three on a Match

Penny Arcade only lasted three weeks, but Al Jolson saw it and bought the rights to the play for $20,000. He then sold the rights to Warner Brothers with the proviso that Blondell and Cagney be cast in the film version. Placed under contract by Warners, she moved to Hollywood where studio boss Jack Warner wanted her to change her name to "Inez Holmes", but Blondell refused. She began to appear in short subjects, and was named as one of the WAMPAS Baby Stars in 1931.

Blondell was paired with James Cagney in such films as Sinners' Holiday (1930) – the film version of Penny Arcade – and The Public Enemy (1931), and was one half of a gold-digging duo with Glenda Farrell in nine films. During the Great Depression, Blondell was one of the highest paid individuals in the United States. Her stirring rendition of "Remember My Forgotten Man" in the Busby Berkeley production of Gold Diggers of 1933, in which she co-starred with Dick Powell and Ruby Keeler, became an anthem for the frustrations of the unemployed and the government's failed economic policies. (Even though she was cast in many of the classic Warners musicals, she was not a singer, and in the Forgotten Man number, she mostly talked and acted her way through the song.) In 1937, she starred opposite Errol Flynn in The Perfect Specimen.

This 1932 promotional photo of Blondell was later banned under the now unenforceable Motion Picture Production Code.

By the end of the decade, she had made nearly fifty films, despite having left Warner Bros. in 1939. Continuing to work regularly for the rest of her life, Blondell was well received in her later films, despite being relegated to character and supporting roles after the mid-1940s (she was billed below the title for the first time in 14 years in 1945's Adventure, which starred Clark Gable and Greer Garson), and received an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress nomination for her role in The Blue Veil (1951). She was also featured prominently in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945); Nightmare Alley (1947); The Opposite Sex (1956), which paired her with ex-husband Dick Powell's wife, June Allyson; Desk Set (1957); and Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (1957). She received considerable acclaim for her performance as Lady Fingers in Norman Jewison's The Cincinnati Kid (1965), garnering a Golden Globe nomination and National Board of Review win for Best Supporting Actress. John Cassavetes cast her as a cynical, aging playwright in his film Opening Night (1977). Blondell was widely seen in two films released not long before her death, Grease (1978) and the remake of The Champ (1979) with Jon Voight and Rick Schroder.

Blondell also appeared in various television programs, including the episode "You're All Right, Ivy" of Jack Palance's circus drama, The Greatest Show on Earth, which aired on ABC in the 1963—1964 television season. Her co-stars in the segment were Joe E. Brown and Buster Keaton. In 1965, she was in the running to replace Vivian Vance as Lucille Ball's sidekick on the hit CBS television comedy series The Lucy Show. Unfortunately, after filming her second guest appearance as 'Joan Brenner' (Lucy's new friend from California), Blondell walked off the set right after the episode had completed filming when Ball humiliated her by harshly criticizing her performance in front of the studio audience and technicians.

With Cagney in Footlight Parade (1933)

Blondell continued working on television. In 1968, she guest-starred on the CBS-TV sitcom Family Affair. She also replaced Bea Benaderet, who was ill, for one episode on the CBS television series Petticoat Junction. In that installment, Blondell played FloraBelle Campbell, a lady visitor to Hooterville, who had once dated Uncle Joe (Edgar Buchanan) and Sam Drucker (Frank Cady). That same year, Blondell co-starred in the ABC western series Here Come the Brides, set in the Pacific Northwest of the 19th century. Her co-stars included singer Bobby Sherman and actor-singer David Soul. For her performance as Lottie Hatfield, Blondell received two consecutive Emmy nominations for outstanding continued performance by an actress in a dramatic series.

In 1972, she had an ongoing supporting role in the NBC series Banyon as Peggy Revere, who operated a secretarial school in the same building as Banyon's detective agency. This was a 1930s period action drama starring Robert Forster in the titular role. Her students worked in Banyon's office, providing fresh faces for the show weekly. The series was replaced mid-season.

Blondell has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her contribution to Motion Pictures, at 6309 Hollywood Boulevard. In December 2007, the Museum of Modern Art in New York City mounted a retrospective of Blondell's films in connection with a new biography by film professor Matthew Kennedy and theatrical revival houses such as Film Forum in Manhattan have also projected many of her films recently.

Personal life[link]

from the trailer for the film Broadway Gondolier (1935)

Blondell was married three times, first to cinematographer George Barnes in a private wedding ceremony on 4 January 1933 at the First Presbyterian Church in Phoenix, Arizona. They had one child — Norman S. Powell, who became an accomplished producer, director, and television executive — and divorced in 1936. On 19 September 1936, she married her second husband, actor, director, and singer Dick Powell. They had a daughter, Ellen Powell, who became a studio hair stylist, and Powell adopted her son by her previous marriage. Blondell and Powell were divorced on 14 July 1944.

On 5 July 1947, Blondell married her third husband, producer Mike Todd, whom she divorced in 1950. Her marriage to Todd was an emotional and financial disaster. She once accused him of holding her outside a hotel window by her ankles. He was also a heavy spender who lost hundreds of thousands of dollars gambling (high-stakes bridge was one of his weaknesses) and went through a controversial bankruptcy during their marriage. An often-repeated myth is that Mike Todd "dumped" Joan Blondell for Elizabeth Taylor. In actuality, Blondell left Todd of her own accord years before he met Taylor.

She died of leukemia in Santa Monica, California, on Christmas Day 1979 at the age of 73 with her children and her sister at her bedside. She is interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.

She wrote a novel titled Center Door Fancy (New York: Delacorte Press, 1972), which was a thinly disguised autobiography.

Filmography[link]

Features[link]

This list of Blondell's feature-film appearance is believed to be complete.

Short subjects[link]

• The Heart Breaker (1930)
• Broadway's Like That (1930)
• The Devil's Parade (1930)
• An Intimate Dinner in Celebration of Warner Bros. Silver Jubilee (1930)
• How I Play Golf, by Bobby Jones; No. 10: Trouble Shots (1931)
• Just Around the Corner (1933)
• Hollywood Newsreel (1934)
• Meet the Stars#2: Baby Stars (1941)
• The Cincinnati Kid Plays According to Hoyle (1965)

References[link]

Bibliography[link]

• Matthew Kennedy, Joan Blondell: A Life Between Takes (University Press of Mississippi, 2007) ISBN 1-57806-961-0

Further reading[link]

• Oderman, Stuart, Talking to the Piano Player 2. BearManor Media, 2009. ISBN #1-59393-320-7.
• Grabman, Sandra, Plain Beautiful: The Life of Peggy Ann Garner. BearManor Media, 2005. ISBN #1-59393-017-8.

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Joan Blondell

• Joan Blondell at the Internet Broadway Database
• Joan Blondell at the Internet Movie Database
• Joan Blondell at the TCM Movie Database
• Joan Blondell at AllRovi
• Photographs of Joan Blondell
• Joan Blondell Q&A with Biographer Matthew Kennedy
• Joan Blondell at Find a Grave

Barbara Stanwyck
From Stella Dallas in 1937
Born	Ruby Catherine Stevens (1907-07-16)July 16, 1907 Brooklyn, New York
Died	January 20, 1990(1990-01-20) (aged 82) Santa Monica, California
Cause of death	congestive heart failure chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1927–1986
Spouse	Frank Fay (m.1928–1935; divorced) Robert Taylor (m.1939–1951; divorced)

Barbara Stanwyck (July 16, 1907 – January 20, 1990) was an American actress. She was a film and television star, known during her 60-year career as a consummate and versatile professional with a strong screen presence, and a favorite of directors including Cecil B. DeMille, Fritz Lang and Frank Capra. After a short but notable career as a stage actress in the late 1920s, she made 85 films in 38 years in Hollywood, before turning to television.

Stanwyck was nominated for the Academy Award four times, and won three Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe. She was the recipient of honorary lifetime awards from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 1981, the American Film Institute in 1987, the Film Society of Lincoln Center, the Golden Globes, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, and the Screen Actors Guild. She has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and is ranked as the eleventh greatest female star of all time by the American Film Institute.^[1]

Early life[link]

Barbara Stanwyck was born Ruby Catherine Stevens in Brooklyn, New York on July 16, 1907.^[2] She was the fifth and youngest child of Catherine Ann (née McPhee) and Byron E. Stevens; the couple were working-class, her father a native of Massachusetts and her mother an immigrant from Nova Scotia, Canada.^[3][4] Stanwyck had English and Scottish ancestry.^[2] When she was four, her mother was killed when a drunken stranger pushed her off a moving streetcar.^[5] Two weeks after the funeral, Byron Stevens joined a work crew digging the Panama canal^[6] and was never seen again.^[5] Ruby and her brother Byron were raised by their elder sister Mildred, five years Ruby's senior.^[6] When Mildred got a job as a John Cort showgirl, Ruby and Byron were placed in a series of foster homes (as many as four in a year), from which Ruby often ran away.^{[7][N 1]}

During the summers of 1916 and 1917, Ruby toured with Mildred, and practiced her sister's routines backstage.^[8] Another influence toward performing was watching the movies of Pearl White, whom Ruby idolized.^[10] At age 14, she dropped out of school to take a job wrapping packages at a Brooklyn department store.^[11] Ruby never attended high school, "although early biographical thumbnail sketches had her attend Brooklyn's famous Erasmus Hall High School" ^[12] Soon after, she took a job filing cards at the Brooklyn telephone office for a salary of $14 a week, a salary that allowed her to become financially independent.^[13] She disliked both jobs; her real interest was to enter show business even as her sister Mildred discouraged the idea. She next took a job cutting dress patterns for Vogue, but because customers complained about her work, she was fired.^[9] Her next job was as a typist for the Jerome H. Remick Music Company, a job she reportedly enjoyed. But her continuing ambition was to work in show business and her sister gave up trying to dissuade her.^[14]

Ziegfeld girl[link]

Barbara Stanwyck as a Ziegfeld girl (c. 1924)

In 1923, a few months short of her 16th birthday, Ruby auditioned for a place in the chorus at the Strand Roof, a night club over the Strand Theatre in Times Square.^[15] A few months later, she obtained a job as a dancer in the 1922 and 1923 seasons of the Ziegfeld Follies, dancing at the New Amsterdam Theater. "I just wanted to survive and eat and have a nice coat," Stanwyck said.^[16][17] For the next several years, she worked as a chorus girl, performing from midnight to seven a.m. at nightclubs owned by Texas Guinan. She also occasionally served as a dance instructor at a speakeasy for gays and lesbians owned by Guinan.^[18] One of her good friends during those years was pianist Oscar Levant, who described her as being "wary of sophisticates and phonies."^[16]

In 1926, Ruby was introduced to Willard Mack by Billy LaHiff who owned a popular pub frequented by showpeople.^[19] Mack was casting his play The Noose and LaHiff suggested that the part of the chorus girl be played by a real chorus girl. Mack agreed and gave the part to Ruby after a successful audition.^[20] She co-starred with actors Rex Cherryman and Wilfred Lucas.^[21] The play was not a success. In an effort to improve it, Mack decided to expand Ruby's part to include more pathos.^[22] The Noose re-opened on October 20, 1926^[23] and became one of the most successful plays of the season, running for nine months and 197 performances.^[17] At the suggestion of either Mack or David Belasco, Ruby changed her name to Barbara Stanwyck by combining her character's first name, Barbara Frietchie, and Stanwyck, after the name of another actress in the play, Jane Stanwyck.^[23]

Stanwyck received rave reviews for her performance in The Noose and was summoned by film producer Bob Kane to make a screen test for his upcoming 1927 silent film Broadway Nights. She lost the lead role because she could not cry in the screen test but got a minor part as a fan dancer.^[24] This marked Stanwyck's first film appearance. She played her first lead part on stage that year in Burlesque. The play was panned by the critics but Stanwyck received acclaim for her performance.^[7] While playing in Burlesque, Stanwyck was introduced to her future husband, actor Frank Fay, by Oscar Levant. She and Fay later claimed that they disliked each other at first but became close after the sudden death of Rex Cherryman, Stanwyck's fellow actor and amour.^[7] Cherryman had become ill early in 1928 and his doctor advised him to take a sea voyage to Paris where he and Stanwyck had arranged to meet. He died soon thereafter at the age of 31.^[25] Stanwyck's and Fay's relationship developed into a romance and they married on August 26, 1928. They soon moved to Hollywood^[7] where their careers took different paths.

Film career[link]

in The Gay Sisters (1942)

Stanwyck's first sound film was The Locked Door (1929), followed by Mexicali Rose in 1929. Neither film was successful; nonetheless, Frank Capra chose Stanwyck for his Ladies of Leisure (1930).^[17] Numerous memorable roles followed, among them the children's nurse who saves two little girls from being gradually starved to death by a vicious Clark Gable in Night Nurse (1931), the ambitious woman from "the wrong side of the tracks" in Baby Face (1933), the self-sacrificing mother in Stella Dallas (1937), Molly Monahan in 'Union Pacific' (1939) with Joel McCrea, the con artist who falls for her would-be victim (played by Henry Fonda) in The Lady Eve (1941), the woman who talks an infatuated insurance salesman (Fred McMurray) into killing her husband in Double Indemnity (1944), the columnist caught up in white lies and Christmas romance in Christmas in Connecticut (1945) and the doomed wife in Sorry, Wrong Number (1948). Stanwyck was reportedly one of the many actresses considered for the role of Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With The Wind (1939), although she wasn't given a screen test. In 1944, Stanwyck was the highest-paid woman in the United States.^[17]

Pauline Kael described Stanwyck's acting, "[she] seems to have an intuitive understanding of the fluid physical movements that work best on camera" and in reference to her early 1930s film work, "early talkies sentimentality ... only emphasizes Stanwyck's remarkable modernism."^[27] Stanwyck was known for her accessibility and kindness to the backstage crew on any film set. She knew the names of their wives and children, and asked after them by name. Frank Capra said she was "destined to be beloved by all directors, actors, crews and extras. In a Hollywood popularity contest she would win first prize hands down."^[28]

Studio photograph c.1960

Television career[link]

When Stanwyck's film career declined in 1957, she moved to television. Her 1961–1962 series The Barbara Stanwyck Show was not a ratings success but earned her first Emmy Award.^[17] The 1965–1969 Western series The Big Valley on ABC made her one of the most popular actresses on television, winning her another Emmy.^[17] She was billed as "Miss Barbara Stanwyck", and her role as frontier family matron Victoria Barkley was likened to that of Ben Cartwright, played by Lorne Greene in the series Bonanza. Stanwyck's costars included Richard Long as Jarrod Thomas Barkley, (who had been in Stanwyck's 1953 film All I Desire), Peter Breck as the hot-headed Nick Barkley, Linda Evans as Audra Barkley, and Lee Majors as Heath Barkley, the son fathered out-of-wedlock by the Stanwyck character's husband with another woman.

Years later, Stanwyck earned her third Emmy for The Thorn Birds.^[17] In 1985, she made three guest appearances on the hit primetime soap opera Dynasty prior to the launch of its ill-fated spin-off series The Colbys in which she starred alongside Charlton Heston, Stephanie Beacham and Katharine Ross. Unhappy with the experience, Stanwyck remained with the series for only one season^[17] (it lasted for two), and her role as Constance Colby Patterson would prove to be her last. Earl Hamner Jr. (producer of The Waltons) had initially wanted Stanwyck for the lead role of Angela Channing on the successful 1980s soap opera Falcon Crest, but she turned it down; the role ultimately went to her best friend Jane Wyman.

William Holden credited her with saving his career when they co-starred in Golden Boy (1939). They remained lifelong friends. When Stanwyck and Holden were presenting the Best Sound Oscar, Holden paused to pay a special tribute to Stanwyck. Shortly after Holden's death, Stanwyck returned the favor. Upon receiving her honorary Oscar, she said aloud: "And tonight, my golden boy, you got your wish."^[29]

Personal life[link]

With Robert Taylor in 1941

Stanwyck married her first husband, actor Frank Fay, on August 26, 1928. They adopted a son, Dion Anthony "Tony" Fay, on December 5, 1932. The marriage was a troubled one. Fay's successful career on Broadway did not translate to the big screen, whereas Stanwyck achieved Hollywood stardom. Fay engaged in physical confrontations with his young wife, especially when he was inebriated.^{[citation needed]} Some claim that this union was the basis for A Star is Born.^[30] The couple divorced on December 30, 1935. Stanwyck won custody of their adoptive son.

In 1936, while making the film His Brother's Wife (1936), Stanwyck met and fell in love with her co-star, Robert Taylor. Following a whirlwind romance, the couple began living together. Their 1939 marriage was arranged with the help of Taylor's studio MGM, a common practice in Hollywood's golden age. She and Taylor enjoyed time together outdoors during the early years of their marriage, and were the owners of acres of prime West Los Angeles property. Their large ranch and home in the Mandeville Canyon section of Brentwood, Los Angeles is to this day referred to by locals as the old "Robert Taylor ranch".^[31]

In 1941, while making the Preston Sturges film The Lady Eve with co-star Henry Fonda, Stanwyck and Fonda had a tempestuous affair, which was kept secret at the time.^[32] Years later, Fonda confided to his then fourth wife Afdera that "Barbara was ... gay [and had] no inhibitions. She'd do anything in bed to please a man."^[32] Taylor himself reportedly had affairs during the marriage. When Stanwyck learned of Taylor's fling with Lana Turner, she filed for divorce in 1950 when a starlet made Turner's romance with Taylor public. The decree was granted on February 21, 1951. After the divorce, they acted together in Stanwyck's last feature film, The Night Walker (1964). Stanwyck never remarried, collecting alimony of 15 percent of Taylor's salary until Taylor's death in 1969.

Stanwyck had an affair with actor Robert Wagner, whom she met on the set of Titanic. Wagner, who was 22, and Stanwyck, who was 45 at the beginning of the affair, had a four-year romance, as described in Wagner's 2008 memoir, Pieces of My Heart. Stanwyck broke off the relationship.^[33]

She was a conservative-minded Republican along with such contemporaries as William Holden, Ginger Rogers, Gary Cooper, and Double Indemnity co-star Fred McMurray.^[34][35][36]

Later life[link]

Stanwyck's retirement years were active, with charity work outside the limelight. Her decline began after she was robbed and assaulted inside her Beverly Hills home in 1981. The following year, while filming The Thorn Birds, the inhalation of special-effects smoke on the set may have caused her to contract bronchitis. The illness was perhaps compounded by her cigarette habit; she had been a smoker since age 9 until four years before her death.^[37]

Barbara Stanwyck died on January 20, 1990 of congestive heart failure and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease at Saint John's Health Center, in Santa Monica, California. Her body was cremated, and her ashes scattered in Lone Pine, California.

Filmography[link]

Awards and honors[link]

Academy Awards

• 1938 – Nominated, Best Actress in a Leading Role for Stella Dallas
• 1942 – Nominated, Best Actress in a Leading Role for Ball of Fire
• 1945 – Nominated, Best Actress in a Leading Role for Double Indemnity
• 1949 – Nominated, Best Actress in a Leading Role for Sorry, Wrong Number
• 1981 – Won, Academy Honorary Award "for superlative creativity and unique contribution to the art of screen acting"

Emmy Awards

• 1961 – Won, Outstanding Performance by an Actress in a Series (Lead) for The Barbara Stanwyck Show
• 1966 – Won, Outstanding Continued Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Dramatic Series for The Big Valley
• 1967 – Nominated, Outstanding Continued Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Dramatic Series for The Big Valley
• 1968 – Nominated, Outstanding Continued Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Dramatic Series for The Big Valley
• 1983 – Won, Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series or a Special for The Thorn Birds

Golden Globes

• 1966 – Nominated, Best TV Star – Female for The Big Valley
• 1967 – Nominated, Best TV Star – Female for The Big Valley
• 1968 – Nominated, Best TV Star – Female for The Big Valley
• 1984 – Won, Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Series, Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for TV for The Thorn Birds
• 1986 – Won, Cecil B. DeMille Award

Other awards

• 1941 – Hollywood Walk of Fame, star located at 1751 Vine Street
• 1967 – Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award
• 1973 – Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
• 1981 – Film Society of Lincoln Center Gala Tribute
• 1981 – Los Angeles Film Critics Association Career Achievement Award
• 1987 – American Film Institute Life Achievement Award

References[link]

Notes

Citations

Bibliography

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Barbara Stanwyck

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Barbara Stanwyck

• Barbara Stanwyck at the Internet Movie Database
• Barbara Stanwyck at the TCM Movie Database
• Barbara Stanwyck at AllRovi
• Barbara Stanwyck at the Internet Broadway Database
• That Old Feeling: Ruby in the Rough Time Magazine, 2001
• Saluting Stanwyck: A Life On Film Los Angeles Times, 1987

Guy Kibbee
from Mama Steps Out (1937)
Born	Guy Bridges Kibbee (1882-03-06)March 6, 1882 El Paso, Texas, U.S.
Died	May 24, 1956(1956-05-24) (aged 74) East Islip, New York, U.S.
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1931–1950
Spouse	Helen Shea (m. 1918–1923) «start: (1918)–end+1: (1924)»"Marriage: Helen Shea to Guy Kibbee" Location: (linkback:http://en-wiki.pop.wn.com/index.php/Guy_Kibbee) 4 children Esther Reed (m. 1925–1956) «start: (1925)–end+1: (1957)»"Marriage: Esther Reed to Guy Kibbee" Location: (linkback:http://en-wiki.pop.wn.com/index.php/Guy_Kibbee) (his death), 3 children

Guy Bridges Kibbee (March 6, 1882 – May 24, 1956) was an American stage and film actor.

Born in El Paso, Texas, Kibbee began his entertainment career on Mississippi riverboats and eventually became a successful Broadway actor. In the 1930s, Kibbee moved to California and became part of what became known as "Warner Bros.' stock company", contracted actors who cycled through different productions in supporting roles. Kibbee's specialty was daft and jovial characters and he is best remembered for the films 42nd Street (1933), The Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933), Captain Blood (1935), and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), though he gives a deftly subtle performance as the expat inn owner in Joan Crawford's Rain (1932).

Kibbee died from complications arising from Parkinson's disease in Long Island, New York in 1956.

Selected filmography[link]

In popular culture[link]

Guy Kibbee eggs,^[1] is the name for a breakfast dish that consists of a hole cut out of the center of a slice of bread, and an egg cracked into it, all of which is fried in a skillet. The actor prepared this dish in the film Mary Jane's Pa, hence the eponym.

References[link]

1. ^ "Guy Kibbee Eggs". seriouseats.com. http://www.seriouseats.com/2009/09/guy-kibbee-eggs-in-toast-breakfast.html. Retrieved Dec 16, 2011. 

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Guy Kibbee

• Guy Kibbee at the Internet Movie Database
• Guy Kibbee at the Internet Broadway Database
• Guy Kibbee at the TCM Movie Database

This article about a United States film actor or actress born in the 1880s is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

Glenda Farrell
in the trailer for the film Havana Widows (1933)
Born	(1904-06-30)June 30, 1904 Enid, Oklahoma, U.S.
Died	May 1, 1971(1971-05-01) (aged 66) New York City, New York, U.S.
Years active	1928–1969
Spouse	Thomas Richards (1921–1929) Dr. Henry Ross (1941–1971)

Glenda Farrell (June 30, 1904 – May 1, 1971) was an American film actress.

Career[link]

Farrell came to Hollywood towards the end of the silent era. Farrell began her career with a theatrical company at the age of 7. She played the role of Little Eva in Uncle Tom's Cabin. She paused at times to continue her education but appeared with a number of theatrical companies and in several Broadway productions.

She was in the cast of Cobra and The Best People with actress Charlotte Treadway, at the Morosco Theater in Los Angeles, California, in 1925.

Farrell was first signed to a long-term contract by First National Pictures in July 1930. She was given the female lead in Little Caesar directed by Mervyn Leroy.

Warner Brothers signed her to re-create on film the role she played in Life Begins on Broadway. Farrell worked on parts in twenty movies in her first year with the studio. She came to personify the wise-cracking, hard-boiled, and somewhat dizzy blonde of the early talkies, along with fellow Warner Brothers brassy blonde, Joan Blondell, with whom she would be frequently paired.

in Mary Stevens, M.D. (1933)

Her brassy persona was used to great effect in Little Caesar (1931) opposite Edward G. Robinson, I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932) opposite Paul Muni, Havana Widows (1933) with Blondell, Gambling Ship (1933) opposite Cary Grant, Bureau of Missing Persons (1933) opposite Pat O'Brien, Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933) opposite Lionel Atwill and Fay Wray, and The Big Shakedown (1934) with Charles Farrell and Bette Davis.

She became one of Warner Brothers’ most prolific actresses of the 1930s, solidifying her success with her own film film series, as Torchy Blane, "Girl Reporter". In this role Farrell was promoted as being able to speak 400 words in 40 seconds. Farrell would portray the character Torchy Blane in seven films, from 1937 to 1939 when the role was taken over by Jane Wyman.

in the first of the Torchy Blane series, Smart Blonde (1937)

In 1937 she starred opposite Dick Powell and Joan Blondell in the Academy Award nominated Lloyd Bacon and Busby Berkeley directed musical comedy Gold Diggers of 1937.

When her Warner Brothers contact expired in 1939 she opted to focus on her stage career once again. She said that working in plays gave her more of a sense of individuality whereas in films you get frustrated because you feel you have no power over what you're doing.

Farrell went out of vogue in the 1940s but made a comeback later in life, appearing in Secret of the Incas (1954), the Charlton Heston adventure epic upon which Raiders of the Lost Ark was based a quarter century later,^[1] and winning an Emmy Award in 1963, for her work in the television series Ben Casey. She was appearing on Broadway in Forty Carats in 1969 when she was diagnosed with lung cancer. She remained with the show until ill health forced her departure in November 1970.

Glenda Farrell has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her contribution to Motion Pictures, at 6524 Hollywood Boulevard.

Personal life[link]

Farrell was born to Charles and Wilhelmina "Minnie" Farrell of Irish and German descent in Enid, Oklahoma, and she had two brothers named Richard and Gene. Her son with her first husband Thomas Richards was B-Western "sidekick" actor Tommy Farrell. She dated Hollywood film writer Robert Riskin in the early 1930s and married Jack Durant of the Mitchell and Durant vaudeville team in June 1931.^[2] In 1941 Farrell became the wife of Dr. Henry Ross,^[3] a West Point graduate and Army physician who served on General Eisenhower's staff.^[4] In 1971, she died from lung cancer, aged 66, at her home in New York City and was interred in the West Point Cemetery, West Point, New York.^[5] When Dr. Ross died in 1991, he was buried with her.^[4]

Filmography[link]