Katharine Houghton Hepburn was an American actress whose career as a Hollywood leading lady spanned six decades. She was known for her headstrong independence, spirited personality, and outspokenness, cultivating a screen persona that matched this public image, and regularly playing strong-willed, sophisticated women. She worked in a varied range of genres, from screwball comedy to literary drama, which earned her various accolades, including four Academy Awards for Best Actress—a record for any performer.
Spencer Bonaventure Tracy was an American actor. He was known for his natural performing style and versatility. One of the major stars of Hollywood's Golden Age, Tracy was the first actor to win two consecutive Academy Awards for Best Actor, from nine nominations. During his career, he appeared in 75 films and developed a reputation among his peers as one of the screen's greatest actors. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Tracy as the 9th greatest male star of Classic Hollywood Cinema.
Bad Girl is a 1931 American pre-Code drama film directed by Frank Borzage and starring Sally Eilers, James Dunn, and Minna Gombell. The screenplay was adapted by Edwin J. Burke from the 1928 novel by Viña Delmar and the 1930 play by Delmar and Brian Marlowe. The plot follows the courtship and marriage of two young, working-class people and the misunderstandings that result from their not having learned to trust and communicate with one another. The film propelled then-unknown actors Eilers and Dunn to stardom. It was nominated for three Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and won for Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay.
Victor Lonzo Fleming was an American film director, cinematographer, and producer. His most popular films were Gone with the Wind, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Director, and The Wizard of Oz. Fleming has those same two films listed in the top 10 of the American Film Institute's 2007 AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies list.
Ralph Rexford Bellamy was an American actor whose career spanned 65 years on stage, film, and television. During his career, he played leading roles as well as supporting roles, garnering acclaim and awards, including a Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play for Sunrise at Campobello as well as Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor nomination for The Awful Truth (1937).
Garson Kanin was an American writer and director of plays and films.
The Power and the Glory is a 1933 pre-Code film starring Spencer Tracy and Colleen Moore, written by Preston Sturges, and directed by William K. Howard. The picture's screenplay was Sturges' first script, which he delivered complete in the form of a finished shooting script, for which he received $17,500 and a percentage of the profits. Profit-sharing arrangements, now a common practice in Hollywood, were then unusual and gained Sturges much attention.
William Joseph Patrick O'Brien was an American film actor with more than 100 screen credits. Of Irish descent, he often played Irish and Irish-American characters and was referred to as "Hollywood's Irishman in Residence" in the press. One of the best-known screen actors of the 1930s and 1940s, he played priests, cops, military figures, pilots, and reporters. He is especially well-remembered for his roles in Knute Rockne, All American (1940), Angels with Dirty Faces (1938), and Some Like It Hot (1959). He was frequently paired onscreen with Hollywood star James Cagney. O'Brien also appeared on stage and television.
Marguerite Churchill was an American stage and film actress whose career lasted 30 years, from 1922 to 1952. She was John Wayne's first leading lady, in The Big Trail (1930).
Quick Millions is a 1931 pre-Code crime film directed by Rowland Brown and starring Spencer Tracy, Marguerite Churchill, Sally Eilers, and featuring George Raft as the sidekick with a solo eccentric dance performance.
Dorothea Sally Eilers was an American actress.
20,000 Years in Sing Sing is a 1932 American pre-Code drama film set in Sing Sing Penitentiary, the maximum security prison in Ossining, New York, starring Spencer Tracy as an inmate and Bette Davis as his girlfriend. It was directed by Michael Curtiz and based on the nonfiction book Twenty Thousand Years in Sing Sing written by Lewis E. Lawes, the warden of Sing Sing from 1920 to 1941.
The Old Man and the Sea is a 1958 American adventure drama film directed by John Sturges and starring Spencer Tracy. The screenplay by Peter Viertel was based on the 1952 novella of the same name by Ernest Hemingway.
Orders Is Orders is a 1933 British comedy film starring Charlotte Greenwood, James Gleason and Cyril Maude about an American film crew who move into a British army barracks to start making a film, much to the commander's horror. Much of the film concerns the interaction between the American crew and the British officers. It is based upon the 1932 play Orders Are Orders by Ian Hay and Anthony Armstrong. It was shot at the Lime Grove Studios in London with sets designed by the art director Alfred Junge.
Strange Illusion is a 1945 film noir. Loosely inspired by Hamlet, it was envisioned as a modern crime film. It was directed by Edgar G. Ulmer and starred Jimmy Lydon, Warren William and Sally Eilers. According to noir historian Spencer Selby the film is "a stylish cheapie by the recognized master of stylish cheapies."
Sailor's Luck is a 1933 American pre-Code romantic comedy film directed by Raoul Walsh for Fox Film Corporation. It stars James Dunn, Sally Eilers, Victor Jory, and Frank Moran.
Whipsaw is a 1935 American crime drama film directed by Sam Wood and starring Myrna Loy and Spencer Tracy. Written by Howard Emmett Rogers, based on a story by James Edward Grant, the film is about a government agent working undercover traveling across the country with an unsuspecting woman, hoping she will lead him to her gang of jewel thieves. The film was produced by Harry Rapf for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and was released on December 18, 1935, in the United States.
Dance Team is a 1932 American Pre-Code comedy film directed by Sidney Lanfield and written by Edwin J. Burke. The film stars James Dunn, Sally Eilers, Ralph Morgan, Minna Gombell, Edward Crandall and Nora Lane. The film was released on January 17, 1932, by Fox Film Corporation.
Second Hand Wife is a 1933 American pre-Code drama film written and directed by Hamilton MacFadden. The film stars Sally Eilers, Helen Vinson, Ralph Bellamy, and Victor Jory. The film was released on January 8, 1933 by Fox Film Corporation.
