Frances Dade | |
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 | |
| Born | February 14, 1907 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Died | January 21, 1968 (aged 60) Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Occupation | Actress |
| Spouse | Brock Van Avery (m. 1932) |
Frances Pemberton Dade (February 14, 1907 – January 21, 1968) [1] was an American film and stage actress of the late 1920s and 1930s.
Dade was born on February 14, 1907, to Frances Rawle Pemberton and Francis Cadwallader Dade Jr. in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. [2] [3] [4] She was grandniece to Confederate General John Clifford Pemberton and first cousin to athlete Hobey Baker.[ citation needed ] She studied for one year at the School of the Theater in New York. [5]
Dade acted at the Empire Theater in Toronto in 1928 and 1929, performing in a different play each week. Her other stock theater experience came in Alabama, Michigan, and New York. She did not like performing in touring companies, saying that the experience was "like traveling in a trunk". [5] Dade moved to Hollywood, California in the late 1920s to pursue an acting career. She first caught the attention of Samuel Goldwyn as Lorelei Lee in the touring company of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes . [6] He gave her a contract, [7] though she later went freelance. Her first film role was in 1928, when she had an uncredited role alongside stars Dorothy Boyd and Mabel Poulton in The Constant Nymph . She also appeared in such films as Raffles (1930) and Seed (1931). [8]
In 1931, Dade was cast in the biggest role of her career as Lucy Weston in Dracula , [9] which starred Bela Lugosi and Helen Chandler. The scene with Bela Lugosi hovering over her prostrate body remains an indelible part of pop culture. Dade was also the first actress to ever play the character of Lucy in a motion picture. [7] That role would catapult her to brief notoriety, and would result in her being selected as one of thirteen WAMPAS Baby Stars, including Marian Marsh, Karen Morley, and Marion Shilling, that same year. [10] [11]
Despite her performance in Dracula, Dade's film role offers dwindled. She starred in six films in 1931, three of which were horror films. In 1932, she was featured in only one film, Big Town, and she appeared on Broadway in Collision. [12]
Dade retired from acting and married wealthy socialite Brock Van Every [13] on August 12, 1932, in Philadelphia. They had a daughter. The marriage developed problems, and they were divorced in 1958. She eventually moved back home to Philadelphia, and went into nursing. [5]
In 1967, Dade was diagnosed with cancer, after which she lived with her daughter in Plainfield, New Jersey. Dade died at Birchwood Convalescent Center in Edison, New Jersey, [5] in 1968, at the age of 60. [14]
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1930 | He Knew Women | Monica Grey | |
| Raffles | Ethel Crowley | ||
| Grumpy | Virginia Bullivant | ||
| The Devil to Pay! | Bidder for Bed | Uncredited | |
| 1931 | Dracula | Lucy | |
| The She-Wolf | Faire Breen | ||
| Seed | Nancy | ||
| Pleasure | Joan Channing | ||
| Daughter of the Dragon | Joan Marshall | ||
| Range Law | Ruth Warren | ||
| 1932 | Scandal for Sale | Manicurist | Uncredited |
| Big Town | Patricia Holman |
Béla Ferenc Dezső Blaskó, known professionally as Bela Lugosi, was a Hungarian–American actor, best remembered for portraying Count Dracula in the 1931 horror film classic Dracula, Ygor in Son of Frankenstein (1939) and his roles in many other horror films from 1931 through 1956.
Edward Davis Wood Jr. was an American filmmaker, actor, screenwriter, and pulp novelist.
William Henry Pratt, known professionally as Boris Karloff and occasionally billed as Karloff the Uncanny, was an English actor. His portrayal of Frankenstein's monster in the horror film Frankenstein (1931), his 82nd film, established him as a horror icon, and he reprised the role for the sequels Bride of Frankenstein (1935) and Son of Frankenstein (1939). He also appeared as Imhotep in The Mummy (1932), and voiced the Grinch in, as well as narrating, the animated television special of Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1966), which won him a Grammy Award.
The WAMPAS Baby Stars was a promotional campaign sponsored by the United States Western Association of Motion Picture Advertisers, which honored 13 young actresses each year whom they believed to be on the threshold of movie stardom. The campaign ran from 1922 to 1934, except for 1930 and 1933.
Sidney Fox was an American stage and film actress in the late 1920s and 1930s. Fox's Hollywood film debut was in Universal Pictures' 1931 production Bad Sister, which is notable for also being the first film of actress Bette Davis.
Dracula is a 1931 American pre-Code supernatural horror film directed and co-produced by Tod Browning from a screenplay written by Garrett Fort and starring Bela Lugosi in the title role. It is based on the 1924 stage play Dracula by Hamilton Deane and John L. Balderston, which in turn is adapted from the 1897 novel Dracula by Bram Stoker. Lugosi portrays Count Dracula, a vampire who emigrates from Transylvania to England and preys upon the blood of living victims, including a young man's fiancée.
Adrienne Ames was an American film actress. Early in her career she was known as Adrienne Truex.
Helen Chandler was an American film and theater actress, best known for playing Mina Seward in the 1931 horror film Dracula.
White Zombie is a 1932 pre-Code horror film independently produced by Edward Halperin and directed by Victor Halperin. The screenplay by Garnett Weston, based on The Magic Island by William Seabrook, is about a young woman's transformation into a zombie at the hands of an evil voodoo master. Bela Lugosi stars as the zombie master "Murder" Legendre, with Madge Bellamy appearing as his victim. Other cast members include Joseph Cawthorn, Robert W. Frazer, John Harron, Brandon Hurst, and George Burr MacAnnan.
Bela Lugosi (1882–1956), best known for the original screen portrayal of Bram Stoker's Dracula in 1931, performed in many films during the course of his 39-year film career. He appeared in films made in his native Hungary, Germany and New York before re-locating to Hollywood in 1928. Films are listed in order of release.
Guadalupe Natalia Tovar Sullivan, known professionally as Lupita Tovar, was a Mexican-American actress best known for her starring role in the 1931 Spanish-language version of Drácula. It was filmed in Los Angeles by Universal Pictures at night using the same sets as the Bela Lugosi version, but with a different cast and director.
For the Irish-born American nurse, see Mary G. Boland.
Murders in the Rue Morgue is a 1932 American horror film directed by Robert Florey, based on Edgar Allan Poe's 1841 short story "The Murders in the Rue Morgue". The plot is about Doctor Mirakle, a carnival sideshow entertainer and scientist who kidnaps Parisian women to mix their blood with that of his gorilla, Erik. As his experiments fail because of the quality of his victims' blood, Mirakle meets with Camille L'Espanye, and has her kidnapped and her mother murdered, leading to suspicion falling on Camille's fiance, Pierre Dupin, a medical student who has already become interested in the earlier murders.
Garrett Elsden Fort was an American short story writer, playwright, and Hollywood screenwriter. He is mostly known for his connections with 1930s horror films, with film historian Gary Don Rhodes describing him as "one of, if not the pre-eminent horror film screenwriters of the classic era." He was a close follower of Meher Baba, and travelled to India while developing a screenplay based on Baba's philosophy.
Charlotte Ganahl Walker was a Broadway theater actress.
Dracula is a stage play written by the Irish actor and playwright Hamilton Deane in 1924, then revised by the American writer John L. Balderston in 1927. It was the first authorized adaptation of Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula. After touring in England, the original version of the play appeared at London's Little Theatre in July 1927, where it was seen by the American producer Horace Liveright. Liveright asked Balderston to revise the play for a Broadway production that opened at the Fulton Theatre in October 1927. This production starred Bela Lugosi in his first major English-speaking role.
Carroll Borland better known by the stage-spelling Carol Borland, was an American professor, writer, and actress. She is best known for having portrayed Luna, the daughter of Bela Lugosi's character, Count Mora, in Mark of the Vampire, and for creating the iconic look of the female vampire with her waist-length dark hair and Adrian-designed shroud in this film.
Marion Helen Schilling was an American stage and film actress. She was one of the most famous "B" leading ladies of the 1930s.
Lucille Lund was an American actress. She is best known for her role in the film The Black Cat (1934).
Dracula is a film series of horror films from Universal Pictures based on the 1897 novel Dracula by Bram Stoker and its 1927 play adaptation. The series is a loose collection of films, with historians stating that the films all reference characters, events or at least passing knowledge of the 1931 English-language production of Dracula, with historians noting that Dracula's Daughter and Son of Dracula are more closely related to the 1931 film while the character of Dracula would make smaller appearances in later films such as House of Frankenstein and House of Dracula. After Dracula's Daughter, the character of Dracula and other vampires in the series became more Americanized, starting with the release of Son of Dracula, and the later House of films. The character of Dracula appears in all the films outside of Dracula's Daughter, where he is portrayed by Bela Lugosi, Lon Chaney Jr., and John Carradine in the House of films.
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