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Thomas Meighan
Thomas Meighan (April 9, 1879 – July 8, 1936) was an American actor of silent films and early talkies. He played several leading-man roles opposite popular actresses of the day, including Mary Pickford and Gloria Swanson. At one point he commanded $10,000 per week. Early life Meighan was born to John and Mary Meighan in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His father was the president of Pittsburgh Facing Mills, and his family was well-off. Meighan's parents encouraged him to go to college but he refused. At the age of 15, his father sent him to work shoveling coal, which quickly changed his mind. He attended Mount St. Mary's College to study pharmacology. After three years of study, Meighan decided he wished to pursue acting. Early theatre career After dropping out of college in 1896, Meighan became a juvenile player in the Pittsburgh Stock Company headed by Henrietta Crosman. He was paid $35 per week. Meighan soon found success. He first appeared on Broadway in 1900, and four yea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Western Pennsylvania, the second-most populous city in Pennsylvania behind Philadelphia, and the 68th-largest city in the U.S. with a population of 302,971 as of the 2020 census. The city anchors the Pittsburgh metropolitan area of Western Pennsylvania; its population of 2.37 million is the largest in both the Ohio Valley and Appalachia, the second-largest in Pennsylvania, and the 27th-largest in the U.S. It is the principal city of the greater Pittsburgh–New Castle–Weirton combined statistical area that extends into Ohio and West Virginia. Pittsburgh is located in southwest Pennsylvania at the confluence of the Allegheny River and the Monongahela River, which combine to form the Ohio River. Pittsburgh is known both as "the Steel City" for its more than 300 steel-related businesses and as the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Miracle Man (1919 Film)
''The Miracle Man'' is a 1919 American silent drama film starring Lon Chaney and based on a 1914 play by George M. Cohan, which in turn is based on the novel of the same title by Frank L. Packard. The film was released by Paramount Pictures, directed, produced, and written by George Loane Tucker, and also stars Thomas Meighan and Betty Compson. The film made overnight successes of the three stars, most notably putting Chaney on the map as a character actor. Paramount remade the film in 1932 also titled '' The Miracle Man'' with Hobart Bosworth, Chester Morris, John Wray, and Sylvia Sidney. Today, the majority of the 1919 film is considered lost, with only two fragments, totaling about three minutes, surviving. Plot The film takes place in a small, New England town in 1919 (the Broadway play 1914), where a group of con men plan to use a faith healer to collect money. In New York City's Chinatown, four crooks conspire to swindle a small New England town. The gang co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anna May Wong
Wong Liu Tsong (January 3, 1905 – February 3, 1961), known professionally as Anna May Wong, was an American actress, considered the first Chinese-American movie star in Hollywood, as well as the first Chinese-American actress to gain international recognition. Her varied career spanned silent film, sound film, television, stage, and radio. As one of the first women depicted on the reverse of the quarter in the 2022–2025 American Women quarters series, she is also the first Asian American to appear on a U.S. coin. Born in Los Angeles to second-generation Taishanese Chinese-American parents, Wong became infatuated with films and began acting in films at an early age. During the silent film era, she acted in '' The Toll of the Sea'' (1922), one of the first films made in color, and in Douglas Fairbanks' '' The Thief of Bagdad'' (1924). Wong became a fashion icon and had achieved international stardom in 1924. Wong had been one of the first to embrace the flapper look. In 19 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Estelle Taylor
Ida Estelle Taylor (May 20, 1894 – April 15, 1958) was an American actress, singer, model, and animal rights activist. With "dark-brown, almost black hair and brown eyes," she was regarded as one of the most beautiful silent film stars of the 1920s. After her stage debut in 1919, Taylor began appearing in small roles in World and Vitagraph films. She achieved her first success with ''While New York Sleeps'' (1920), in which she played three different roles, including a "vamp." She was a contract player of Fox Film Corporation and, later, Paramount Pictures, but for the majority of her career she freelanced. She became famous and was commended by reviewers for her portrayals of historical women in important films: Miriam in ''The Ten Commandments'' (1923), Mary, Queen of Scots in ''Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall'' (1924), and Lucrezia Borgia in ''Don Juan'' (1926). Although she made a successful transition to sound films, she retired from film acting in 1932 to focus entirely on ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Alaskan (1924 Film)
''The Alaskan'' is a 1924 American silent adventure drama film based on a novel by James Oliver Curwood set in northwoods country, as his novels tend to be, in this case Alaska. The film was produced and released by Paramount Pictures and directed by Herbert Brenon. The picture stars Thomas Meighan, Estelle Taylor and an early role by Anna May Wong. Cast * Thomas Meighan as Alan Holt * Estelle Taylor as Mary Standish * John Sainpolis as Rossland * Frank Campeau as Stampede Smith * Anna May Wong as Keok * Alphonse Ethier as John Graham * Maurice de Canonge as Tautuk (as Maurice Cannon) * Charles Ogle as Lawyer Preservation With no prints of ''The Alaskan'' located in any film archives, it is a lost film. See also *List of lost films For this list of lost films, a lost film is defined as one of which no part of a print is known to have survived. For films in which any portion of the footage remains (including trailers), see List of incomplete or partially lost fil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Roaring Twenties
The Roaring Twenties, sometimes stylized as Roaring '20s, refers to the 1920s decade in music and fashion, as it happened in Western society and Western culture. It was a period of economic prosperity with a distinctive cultural edge in the United States and Europe, particularly in major cities such as Berlin, Buenos Aires, Chicago, London, Los Angeles, Mexico City, New York City, Paris, and Sydney. In France, the decade was known as the '' années folles'' ("crazy years"), emphasizing the era's social, artistic and cultural dynamism. Jazz blossomed, the flapper redefined the modern look for British and American women, and Art Deco peaked. In the wake of the military mobilization of World War I and the Spanish flu, President Warren G. Harding " brought back normalcy" to the United States. The social and cultural features known as the Roaring Twenties began in leading metropolitan centres and spread widely in the aftermath of World War I. The spirit of the Roaring Twent ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phonofilm
Phonofilm is an optical sound-on-film system developed by inventors Lee de Forest and Theodore Case in the early 1920s. Introduction In 1919 and 1920, Lee De Forest, inventor of the audion tube, filed his first patents on a sound-on-film process, DeForest Phonofilm, which recorded sound directly onto film as parallel lines. These parallel lines photographically recorded electrical waveforms from a microphone, which were translated back into sound waves when the movie was projected. Some sources say that DeForest improved on the work of Finnish inventor Eric Tigerstedt — who was granted German patent 309.536 on 28 July 1914 for his sound-on-film work — and on the Tri-Ergon Exchange, patented in 1919 by German inventors Josef Engl, Hans Vogt, and Joseph Massole. The Phonofilm system, which recorded synchronized sound directly onto film, was used to record vaudeville acts, musical numbers, political speeches, and opera singers. The quality of Phonofilm was poor at first, impr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lee DeForest
Lee de Forest (August 26, 1873 – June 30, 1961) was an American inventor and a fundamentally important early pioneer in electronics. He invented the first electronic device for controlling current flow; the three-element " Audion" triode vacuum tube in 1906. This started the Electronic Age, and enabled the development of the electronic amplifier and oscillator. These made radio broadcasting and long distance telephone lines possible, and led to the development of talking motion pictures, among countless other applications. He had over 300 patents worldwide, but also a tumultuous career— he boasted that he made, then lost, four fortunes. He was also involved in several major patent lawsuits, spent a substantial part of his income on legal bills, and was even tried (and acquitted) for mail fraud. Despite this, he was recognised for his pioneering work with the 1922 IEEE Medal of Honor, the 1923 Franklin Institute Elliott Cresson Medal and the 1946 American Institute of E ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Allan Dwan
Allan Dwan (born Joseph Aloysius Dwan; April 3, 1885 – December 28, 1981) was a pioneering Canadian-born American motion picture director, producer, and screenwriter. Early life Born Joseph Aloysius Dwan in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Dwan, was the younger son of commercial traveler of woolen clothing Joseph Michael Dwan (1857–1917) and his wife Mary Jane Dwan, née Hunt. The family moved to the United States when he was seven years old on December 4, 1892 by ferry from Windsor to Detroit, according to his naturalization petition of August 1939. His elder brother, Leo Garnet Dwan (1883–1964), became a physician. Allan Dwan studied engineering at the University of Notre Dame and then worked for a lighting company in Chicago. He had a strong interest in the fledgling motion picture industry, and when Essanay Studios offered him the opportunity to become a scriptwriter, he took the job. At that time, some of the East Coast movie makers began to spend winters in California whe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bebe Daniels
Phyllis Virginia "Bebe" Daniels (January 14, 1901 – March 16, 1971) was an American actress, singer, dancer, writer, and producer. She began her career in Hollywood during the silent film era as a child actress, became a star in musicals such as '' Rio Rita'', and later gained further fame on radio and television in Britain. Over the course of her 50-year career, Daniels appeared in 230 films. Early life and career Daniels was born Phyllis Virginia Daniels (Bebe was a childhood nickname) in Dallas, Texas. Her father was a travelling theater manager, Scottish-born Melville Daniel MacNeal, who changed his name to Danny Daniels after a disagreement with his own father over his ambition to change from the medical profession to show business. Her mother was Phyllis de Forest Griffin, born in Colombia of an American father and a Colombian mother, a stage actress who was in Danny's travelling stock company when their child was born. At the age of ten weeks her father proudly carried ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Why Change Your Wife?
''Why Change Your Wife?'' is a 1920 American silent comedy film directed by Cecil B. DeMille and starring Gloria Swanson. Plot Frumpy wife Beth devotes herself to bettering her husband's mind and expanding his appreciation for the finer things in life, such as classical music. When he goes shopping at a lingerie store to buy some sexier clothes for her, he meets Sally, the shop girl. Rejected by his wife for a night out on the town, he takes Sally, who douses him with her perfume. When Beth smells another woman's perfume, she kicks him out and files for divorce. Beth's Aunt Kate takes her shopping to get her mind off of her broken heart. While in the dress shop, Beth overhears women gossiping about how her dull appearance led to her losing her husband. She determines to "play their game" and gets a new "indecent" wardrobe. Meanwhile the manipulative Sally convinces the dejected Robert to marry her. He finds that his second wife annoys him as much as his previous one. Later t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lila Lee
Lila Lee (born Augusta Wilhelmena Fredericka Appel; July 25, 1905 – November 13, 1973) was a prominent screen actress, primarily a leading lady, of the silent film and early sound film eras. Early life The daughter of Augusta Fredericka Appel and Carl Appel, Lee was born Augusta Wilhelmena Fredericka Appel on July 25, 1905, in Union Hill, New Jersey (now part of Union City), into a middle-class family of German immigrants who relocated to New York City. She had an older sister, Pauline ("Peggy"), who was born in Hamburg, Germany. Searching for a hobby for their gregarious young daughter, the Appels enrolled Lila in Gus Edwards' kiddie review shows where she was given the nickname of "Cuddles"; a name that she would be known by for the rest of her acting career. Her stagework became so popular with the public that her parents had her educated with private tutors. Edwards would become Lee's long-term manager. Lillian Edwards, wife of Gus Edwards, was Lee's guardian. When ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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