William Clark Gable was an American film actor. Often referred to as The King of Hollywood, he had roles in more than 60 motion pictures in a variety of genres during a career that lasted 37 years, three decades of which was as a leading man. He was named the seventh greatest male movie star of classic American cinema by the American Film Institute.
The Barretts of Wimpole Street is a 1934 American romantic drama film directed by Sidney Franklin based on the 1930 play of the same title by Rudolf Besier. It depicts the real-life romance between poets Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning, despite the opposition of her abusive father Edward Moulton-Barrett. The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture and Shearer was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress. It was written by Ernest Vajda, Claudine West, and Donald Ogden Stewart, from the successful 1930 play The Barretts of Wimpole Street by Rudolf Besier, and starring Katharine Cornell.
The Divorcee is a 1930 American pre-Code drama film written by Nick Grindé, John Meehan, and Zelda Sears, based on the 1929 novel Ex-Wife by Ursula Parrott. It was directed by Robert Z. Leonard, who was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director. The film was also nominated for Best Picture, and won Best Actress for its star Norma Shearer.
Edith Norma Shearer was a Canadian-American actress who was active on film from 1919 through 1942. Shearer often played spunky, sexually liberated women. She appeared in adaptations of Noël Coward, Eugene O'Neill, and William Shakespeare, and was the first five-time Academy Award acting nominee, winning Best Actress for The Divorcee (1930).
A Free Soul is a 1931 American pre-Code drama film that tells the story of an alcoholic San Francisco defense attorney who must defend his daughter's ex-boyfriend on a charge of murdering the mobster she had started a relationship with, who he had previously gotten an acquittal for on a murder charge. Directed by Clarence Brown it stars Norma Shearer, Leslie Howard, Lionel Barrymore, and Clark Gable.
Irving Grant Thalberg was an American film producer during the early years of motion pictures. He was called "The Boy Wonder" for his youth and ability to select scripts, choose actors, gather production staff, and make profitable films, including Grand Hotel, China Seas, A Night at the Opera, Mutiny on the Bounty, Camille and The Good Earth. His films carved out an international market, "projecting a seductive image of American life brimming with vitality and rooted in democracy and personal freedom", states biographer Roland Flamini.
Romeo and Juliet is a 1936 American film adapted from the play by William Shakespeare, directed by George Cukor from a screenplay by Talbot Jennings. The film stars Leslie Howard as Romeo and Norma Shearer as Juliet, and the supporting cast features John Barrymore, Basil Rathbone, and Andy Devine.
George Edward Hurrell was a photographer who contributed to the image of glamour presented by Hollywood during the 1930s and 1940s.
Idiot's Delight is a 1939 MGM comedy drama with a screenplay adapted by Robert E. Sherwood from his 1936 Pulitzer-Prize-winning play of the same name. The production reunited director Clarence Brown, Clark Gable and Norma Shearer eight years after they worked together on A Free Soul. The play takes place in a hotel in the Italian Alps during 24 hours at the beginning of a world war. The film begins with the backstory of the two leads and transfers the later action to a fictitious Alpine country rather than Italy, which was the setting for the play. In fact, Europe was on the brink of World War II. Although not a musical, it is notable as the only film in which Gable sings and dances, performing Irving Berlin's "Puttin' On the Ritz" with a sextette of chorus girls.
Marie Antoinette is a 1938 American historical drama film produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It was directed by W. S. Van Dyke and starred Norma Shearer as Marie Antoinette. Based upon the 1932 biography of the ill-fated Queen of France by the Austrian writer Stefan Zweig, it had its Los Angeles premiere at the legendary Carthay Circle Theatre, where the landscaping was specially decorated for the event.
Secrets is a 1933 American pre-Code Western film directed by Frank Borzage and starring Mary Pickford in her last film role. The film is a remake of Secrets (1924), a silent film starring Norma Talmadge, which was based on a 1922 play of the same name.
Pride and Prejudice is a 1940 American film adaptation of Jane Austen's 1813 novel Pride and Prejudice, starring Greer Garson and Laurence Olivier. Directed by Robert Z. Leonard, the screenplay was written by Aldous Huxley and Jane Murfin, adapted specifically from the stage adaptation by Helen Jerome, in addition to Jane Austen's novel. The story is about five sisters from an English family of landed gentry who must deal with issues of marriage, morality and misconceptions. The film was released on July 26, 1940 in the United States by MGM and was critically well received. The New York Times film critic praised the film as "the most deliciously pert comedy of old manners, the most crisp and crackling satire in costume that we in this corner can remember ever having seen on the screen."
The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg, also known as The Student Prince and Old Heidelberg, is a 1927 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer silent drama film based on the 1901 play Old Heidelberg by Wilhelm Meyer-Förster. It was directed by Ernst Lubitsch, and stars Ramon Novarro and Norma Shearer.
Raphael Kuhner Wuppermann, known professionally as Ralph Morgan, was a Hollywood stage and film character actor, and union activist. He was a brother of actor Frank Morgan as well as the father of actress Claudia Morgan.
Strange Interlude is an experimental play in nine acts by American playwright Eugene O'Neill. O'Neill began work on it as early as 1923 and developed its scenario in 1925; he wrote the play between May 1926 and the summer of 1927, and completed its text for publication in January 1928, during the final rehearsals for its premiere performance. Strange Interlude opened on Broadway on January 30, 1928, and won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Lynn Fontanne originated the central role of Nina Leeds on Broadway. It was also produced in London at the Lyric Theatre in 1931. It was included in Burns Mantle's The Best Plays of 1927-1928. Because of its length, around five hours if uncut, the play has sometimes been produced with a dinner break or on consecutive evenings. The play's themes – a woman's sexual affairs, mental illness, abortion, and deception over paternity – were very controversial for the 1920s. It was censored or banned in many cities outside New York.
China Seas is a 1935 American adventure film starring Clark Gable as a brave sea captain, Jean Harlow as his brassy paramour, and Wallace Beery as a suspect character. The oceangoing epic also features Rosalind Russell, Lewis Stone, Akim Tamiroff, and Hattie McDaniel, while humorist Robert Benchley memorably portrays a character reeling drunk from one end of the film to the other.
The Wolf Man is a 1924 American silent drama film that starred John Gilbert and Norma Shearer, before they signed with the newly formed MGM. Directed by Edmund Mortimer, the film's story was written by Reed Heustis, and written by Fanny and Frederic Hatton. The Wolf Man is now considered lost.
Norma Shearer (1902–1983) was a Canadian American film actress who was nominated five times for an Academy Award. She and her sister Athole were assisted in their pursuit of show business careers by their mother Edith Fisher Shearer. After amassing numerous letters of introduction from a variety of show business-related people in Canada, the trio relocated to New York, hoping to get into musical theatre.
Oliver Peters Heggie, billed as O. P. Heggie, was an Australian film and theatre actor best known for portraying the hermit who befriends the Monster in the film Bride of Frankenstein (1935). He was born Otto Peters Heggie at Angaston, South Australia to a local pastoralist. He was educated at Whinham College and the Adelaide Conservatoire of Music. He died in Los Angeles of pneumonia. He is buried at Woodside Cemetery, Yarmouth Port, Barnstable County, Massachusetts.
The Snob is a 1924 American silent drama film directed by Monta Bell. The film starred Norma Shearer and John Gilbert, together with Phyllis Haver, Conrad Nagel, and Hedda Hopper. The film was written by Monta Bell, and was based on the novel The Snob: The Story of a Marriage by Helen Reimensnyder Martin.
