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Sylvia Of Hollywood
Sylvia Ulback (6 April 1881 – 2 March 1975), known as Sylvia of Hollywood, was an early Hollywood fitness guru. Between 1926 and 1932, "Madame Sylvia", as she was also known, specialized in keeping movie stars camera-ready through stringent massage, diet and exercise. Early life Sylvia was born Synnøve Johanne Waaler (or Wilhelmsen)"Sylvia, Beauty Advisor, Weds", ''Los Angeles Times'', 6 July 1932. in Kristiania, Norway (now Oslo). Her mother, Amelia Wilhelmsen, was an opera singer, and her father, Oscar Waaler, was an artist. Forbidden to be a doctor by her parents, Sylvia went into nursing at 16. Having studied massage, she opened an office in Bremen, Germany when she was 18 years old. Sylvia and her first husband Andrew Ulback, a lumber dealer came to America – first New York then to Chicago – in 1921 or 1922 after her husband lost his business in the war. In 1926, Sylvia, her husband and two sons relocated to Hollywood, ostensibly for Andrew's health. (She eschewed ...
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Oslo
Oslo ( , , or ; sma, Oslove) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of in 2019, and the metropolitan area had an estimated population of in 2021. During the Viking Age the area was part of Viken. Oslo was founded as a city at the end of the Viking Age in 1040 under the name Ánslo, and established as a ''kaupstad'' or trading place in 1048 by Harald Hardrada. The city was elevated to a bishopric in 1070 and a capital under Haakon V of Norway around 1300. Personal unions with Denmark from 1397 to 1523 and again from 1536 to 1814 reduced its influence. After being destroyed by a fire in 1624, during the reign of King Christian IV, a new city was built closer to Akershus Fortress and named Christiania in honour of the king. It became a municipality ('' formannskapsdistrikt'') on 1 January 1838. The city fu ...
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Mary Duncan
Mary Duncan (August 13, 1894 – May 9, 1993) was an American stage and film actress. She is best known for her performances in F.W. Murnau's '' City Girl'' (1930) and ''Morning Glory'' (1933). Early years Duncan was born in Luttrellville, Virginia, the sixth of eight children born to Capt. William S. Duncan and his wife, Ada Thaddeus Douglass. She attended Cornell University for two years (or one year) before settling on acting as a career. When she left Cornell, she studied acting under Yvette Guilbert. Career Duncan began her career as a child actress playing on the Broadway stage from 1910. Her Broadway credits include ''Human Nature'' (1925), ''All Wet'' (1925), ''New Toys'' (1924), ''The Egotist'' (1922), ''Face Value'' (1921), and ''Welcome to Our City'' (1919). In 1926 she played "Poppy" in the smash hit and controversial play '' The Shanghai Gesture'', in which Florence Reed played her mother (known as "Mother Goddam"). Reed's character kills her daughter in ...
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John Gilbert (actor)
John Gilbert (born John Cecil Pringle; July 10, 1897 – January 9, 1936) was an American actor, screenwriter and director. He rose to fame during the silent film era and became a popular leading man known as "The Great Lover". His breakthrough came in 1925 with his starring roles in ''The Merry Widow'' and ''The Big Parade''. At the height of his career, Gilbert rivaled Rudolph Valentino as a box office draw. Gilbert's career declined precipitously when silent pictures gave way to talkies. Though Gilbert was often cited as one of the high-profile examples of an actor who was unsuccessful in making the transition to sound films, his decline as a star had far more to do with studio politics and money than with the sound of his screen voice, which was rich and distinctive. Early life and stage work Born John Cecil Pringle in Logan, Utah, to stock-company actor parents, John George Pringle (1865–1929) and Ida Adair Apperly Gilbert (1877–1913), he struggled through a childhoo ...
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Constance Cummings
Constance Cummings CBE (May 15, 1910 – November 23, 2005) was an American-British actress with a career spanning over 50 years. Early life Cummings was born in Seattle, Washington, the only daughter and younger child of Kate Logan (née Cummings), a concert soprano, and Dallas Vernon Halverstadt, a lawyer. Her mother was sister to Helen Cummings Bruce, whose daughter, Helen Bruce Baldwin, was the wife of famed 20th century journalist Hanson W. Baldwin. Cummings' parents separated when she was 10 years old, and she never saw her father again. She attended St. Nicholas Girls' School in Seattle. Career The San Diego Stock Company gave Cummings her initial acting opportunity in a "walk-on part" playing a prostitute in a 1926 production of ''Seventh Heaven.'' She debuted on Broadway as a chorus girl, a member of the ensemble in ''Treasure Girl'' (1928) by the age of 18. While appearing on Broadway, she was discovered by Samuel Goldwyn, who brought her to Hollywood in 1931. ...
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Ronald Colman
Ronald Charles Colman (9 February 1891 – 19 May 1958) was an English-born actor, starting his career in theatre and silent film in his native country, then immigrating to the United States and having a successful Hollywood film career. He was most popular during the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s. He received Oscar nominations for ''Bulldog Drummond'' (1929), ''Condemned'' (1929) and ''Random Harvest'' (1942). Colman starred in several classic films, including ''A Tale of Two Cities'' (1935), ''Lost Horizon'' (1937) and ''The Prisoner of Zenda'' (1937). He also played the starring role in the Technicolor classic '' Kismet'' (1944), with Marlene Dietrich, which was nominated for four Academy Awards. In 1947, he won an Academy Award for Best Actor and Golden Globe Award for Best Actor for the film '' A Double Life''. Colman was an inaugural recipient of a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his work in motion pictures. He was awarded a second star for his television work. Early ye ...
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Laura Hope Crews
Laura Hope Crews (December 12, 1879 – November 12, 1942) was an American actress who is best remembered today for her later work as a character actress in motion pictures of the 1930s. Her best-known film role was Aunt Pittypat in ''Gone with the Wind''. Early life Crews was the daughter of stage actress Angelena Lockwood and backstage carpenter John Thomas Crews. She had three older siblings. Crews started acting at age four. Her first stage appearance was at Woodward's Gardens. She stopped acting to finish school and then returned to acting in 1898. As she was a native San Franciscan, the records pertaining to her early life were destroyed in the earthquake and fire of 1906. Most of Crews' formal education came in San Jose, as the family had moved there following the remarriage of Crews' mother. Career In 1898, Crews performed in San Francisco as an ingenue with the Alcazar Stock Company. Two years later, she and her mother moved to New York City, where Crews began to ...
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Lawrence Tibbett
Lawrence Mervil Tibbett (November 16, 1896 – July 15, 1960) was an American opera singer and recording artist who also performed as a film actor and radio personality. A baritone, he sang leading roles with the Metropolitan Opera in New York City more than 600 times from 1923 to 1950. He performed diverse musical theatre roles, including Captain Hook in ''Peter Pan'' in a touring show. Biography Lawrence Tibbett was born Lawrence Mervil Tibbet (with a single final "t") on November 16, 1896, in Bakersfield, California. His father was a part-time deputy sheriff, killed in a shootout with outlaw Jim McKinney in 1903. Tibbett grew up in Los Angeles, earning money by singing in church choirs and at funerals. He graduated from Manual Arts High School in 1915. A year later, he met his future wife, Grace Mackay Smith, who rented a room in his mother's house.Mobile ''Times Register''. During World War I, he served in the Merchant Marine, after which he found employment singing as prol ...
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Ernest Torrence
Ernest Torrence (born Ernest Torrance-Thomson, 26 June 1878 – 15 May 1933) was a Scottish film character actor who appeared in many Hollywood films, including '' Broken Chains'' (1922) with Colleen Moore, '' Mantrap'' (1926) with Clara Bow and '' Fighting Caravans'' (1931) with Gary Cooper and Lili Damita. A towering (6' 4") figure, Torrence frequently played cold-eyed and imposing villains. Biography Education and early work He was born to Colonel Henry Torrence Thayson and Jessie (née Bryce) on 26 June 1878, in Edinburgh, Scotland, and as a child was an exceptional pianist and operatic baritone and graduated from the Stuttgart Conservatory, Edinburgh Academy before earning a scholarship at London's Royal Academy of Music. He toured with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company in such productions as ''The Emerald Isle'' (1901), '' Little Hans Andersen'' (1903) and ''The Talk of the Town'' (1905) before disarming vocal problems set in and he was forced to abandon this career pat ...
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Elsie Janis
Elsie Janis (born Elsie Bierbower, March 16, 1889 – February 26, 1956) was an American actress of stage and screen, singer, songwriter, screenwriter and radio announcer. Entertaining the troops during World War I immortalized her as "Forces Sweetheart, the sweetheart of the AEF" (American Expeditionary Force). Early life Elsie Bierbower was born in Marion, Ohio, the daughter of Josephine Janis and John Eleazer Bierbower. She had a brother, Percy John. Stage Bierbower first took to the stage at age 2. By age 11, she was a headliner on the vaudeville circuit, performing under the name Little Elsie. As she matured, using the stage name Elsie Janis, she began perfecting her comedic skills. Acclaimed by American and British critics, Janis was a headliner on Broadway theatre, Broadway and London. On Broadway, she starred in a number of successful shows, including ''The Vanderbilt Cup'' (1906), ''The Hoyden'' (1907), ''The Slim Princess'' (1911), and ''The Century Girl'' (1916). ...
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Constance Bennett
Constance Campbell Bennett (October 22, 1904 – July 24, 1965) was an American stage, film, radio, and television actress and producer. She was a major Hollywood star during the 1920s and 1930s; during the early 1930s, she was the highest-paid actress in Hollywood. Bennett frequently played society women, focusing on melodramas in the early 1930s and then taking more comedic roles in the late 1930s and 1940s. She is best remembered for her leading roles in ''What Price Hollywood?'' (1932), '' Bed of Roses'' (1933), '' Topper'' (1937), '' Topper Takes a Trip'' (1938), and had a prominent supporting role in Greta Garbo's last film, ''Two-Faced Woman'' (1941). She was the daughter of stage and silent film star Richard Bennett, and the older sister of actress Joan Bennett. Early life Bennett was born in New York City, the eldest of three daughters of actress Adrienne Morrison and actor Richard Bennett. Her younger sisters were actresses Joan Bennett and Barbara Bennett. All th ...
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Grace Moore
Mary Willie Grace Moore (December 5, 1898January 26, 1947) was an American operatic soprano and actress in musical theatre and film.Obituary ''Variety'', January 29, 1947, page 48. She was nicknamed the "Tennessee Nightingale." Her films helped to popularize opera by bringing it to a larger audience. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in ''One Night of Love''. In 1947, Moore died in a plane crash at the age of 48. She published an autobiography in 1944 titled ''You're Only Human Once''. In 1953, a film about her life was released titled '' So This Is Love'' starring Kathryn Grayson. Early life Moore was born Mary Willie Grace Moore, the daughter of Tessa Jane (née Stokely) and Richard Lawson Moore. She was born in the community of Slabtown (now considered part of Del Rio) in Cocke County, Tennessee. By the time she was two years old, her family had relocated to Knoxville, a move Moore later described as traumatic, as she found urban ...
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Norma Talmadge
Norma Marie Talmadge (May 2, 1894 – December 24, 1957) was an American actress and film producer of the silent film, silent era. A major box-office draw for more than a decade, her career reached a peak in the early 1920s, when she ranked among the most popular idols of the American screen. A specialist in melodrama, her most famous film was ''Smilin' Through (1922 film), Smilin’ Through'' (1922), but she also scored artistic triumphs teamed with director Frank Borzage in ''Secrets (1924 film), Secrets'' (1924) and ''The Lady (1925 film), The Lady'' (1925). Her younger sister Constance Talmadge was also a movie star. Talmadge married millionaire film producer Joseph M. Schenck and they successfully created their own production company. After reaching fame in the film studios on the East Coast, she moved to Hollywood, Los Angeles, Hollywood in 1922. Talmadge was one of the most elegant and glamorous film stars of the roaring twenties, Roaring '20s. However, by the end of the si ...
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