I’m slowly closing in on the present.
For Sunday we start with Lillian Harmer (1883). Harmer appeared in 60 films and shorts in about a seven year span. She was almost always uncredited. Most of the films weren’t even that memorable, although she was in LITTLE MISS NOBODY with Virginia’s friend Jane Withers and in the 1937 version of A STAR IS BORN. She took uncredited a step further in THE BIG BROADCAST OF 1936. Her role is undetermined, according to IMDb. The cast sheets say she’s in there, but nobody knows where.
Alfred Herman (1889) was the art director on AFTER TONIGHT (1933), Ginny’s comeback film at age six after she refused to strip for MOBY DICK and was fired a couple of years earlier. The next year he did LONG LOST FATHER. He spent his entire twenty year career at RKO and was nominated for an Oscar for LOVE AFFAIR, an Irene Dunne-Charles Boyer feature. Since I have no photo, I have another excuse to run that really cute photo of Ginny from the final scene of AT.
May McAvoy (1899) had a brief career as a silent leading lady, but was doing small parts by the time she reached ginnydom. She apparently had and undetermined role in BORN TO SING (1942). She was Al Jolson’s leading lady in THE JAZZ SINGER, so Ginny now has a connection to the great entertainer other than that unfortunate finale in BABES ON BROADWAY (1941).
Kenneth MacDonald (1901) played Hutchins in OUTSIDE THESE WALLS (1939). MacDonald played a lot of heavies, cowboys, and cowboy heavies during a long career. Much of that career was also spent being a foil for the Three Stooges. I’ve chosen a photo representing how I know him, as Judge Carter on PERRY MASON.
Bradley Page (1901) was A.J. Barvin, the circus owner in FIXER DUGAN (1939). Two years earlier he played the bandit Sonoma in THE OUTCASTS OF POKER FLAT. He was a regularly working actor and was billed as often as not. Here Luck (Virginia Weidler) lets him know he can’t look at the cards even if she’s on his lap…and playing HIS hand for him.
If John Ford had certain actors he liked to cast, and Preston Sturges had certain actors he liked to cast, why shouldn’t Cecil B. DeMille have certain actors he liked to cast? No reason at all, I figure. Henry Wilcoxon (1905) was one of those actor. He and DeMille had a long collaboration and Wilcoxon eventually even became DeMille’s associate producer. He was Marc Antony in DeMille’s version of CLEOPATRA and appeared in THE TEN COMMANDMENTS. In non-DeMille work, he was the vicar in the Mrs. Miniver films. He played Lt. Tarryton in SOULS AT SEA (1937).
I always picture Hillary Brooke (1914) with Abbott and Costello, although she had a full career without them. She apparently was an uncredited Philadelphia Main Line Society woman in THE PHILADELPHIA STORY (1940). If someone has a photo of that, please send it to me. Since I love the Lone Wolf movies, I remember her as the female lead in COUNTER-ESPIONAGE, where Lanyard fights the Nazis. Years ago, I heard someone on television talk about Morgan Fairchild learning to “smile down” to look more appealing in photos. I think Hillary is smiling down in this one.
Darwood Kaye (1929) played Waldo in a lot of OUR GANG shorts in the 1930s, then graduated to feature film character parts. He was Killer in BEST FOOT FORWARD (1943). He quit films in 1946 and became a Seventh Day Adventist pastor and his son followed in his footsteps. The photo is taken from my TV screen, so it isn’t the best. I really need to transfer this film to DVD.
