The Gay Divorcee is a 1934 American musical film directed by Mark Sandrich and starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. It also features Alice Brady, Edward Everett Horton, Eric Blore, and Erik Rhodes. The screenplay was written by George Marion Jr., Dorothy Yost, and Edward Kaufman. It was based on the Broadway musical Gay Divorce, written by Dwight Taylor with Kenneth S. Webb and Samuel Hoffenstein adapting an unproduced play by J. Hartley Manners.
Roderick Ross La Rocque was an American actor.
Cruise of the Jasper B is a 1926 American silent action/adventure comedy film produced by Cecil B. DeMille and directed by James W. Horne. The film is loosely based on the 1916 novel of the same name by American poet Don Marquis, although the film adaptation and novel share little in common.
Forbidden Paradise is a 1924 American silent drama film, directed by Ernst Lubitsch, produced by Famous Players-Lasky, and distributed by Paramount Pictures. The film is based on a 1922 Broadway play, The Czarina, by Edward Sheldon, who adapted the Hungarian-language book by Melchior Lengyel and Lajos Bíró. The play starred Doris Keane, in one of her last stage roles, as Catherine the Great. Basil Rathbone costarred with Keane. The film stars Pola Negri as Catherine the Great and Rod La Rocque in the Rathbone role. Clark Gable makes his second appearance on film.
The Golden Bed is a 1925 American silent drama film directed by Cecil B. DeMille. It is based on the novel Tomorrow's Bread by Wallace Irwin. Jeanie MacPherson wrote the screenplay.
The Locked Door is a 1929 American pre-Code drama film directed by George Fitzmaurice, and starring Rod LaRocque, Barbara Stanwyck, William "Stage" Boyd and Betty Bronson. It is based on the 1919 play The Sign on the Door by Channing Pollock. The play was first adapted for the screen in 1921 as The Sign on the Door, starring Norma Talmadge. It was Stanwyck's first starring role and first talking film.
Jazzmania is a 1923 American silent drama film directed by Robert Z. Leonard and starring his then-wife Mae Murray. In keeping with Murray's previous films and a few of her succeeding films, the movie possesses some of the most provocative attire worn by an actress in film up to that time. As with Fascination, Edmund Goulding wrote the original screen story and screenplay.
Rogues and Romance is a surviving 1920 American silent drama film directed by George B. Seitz. The film was a feature-length version of the serial Pirate Gold, also directed by Seitz, and was shot in Europe. The film survives incomplete in the Library of Congress collection and George Eastman House Motion Picture Collection.
Let Us Be Gay is a 1930 American pre-Code romantic comedy-drama film produced and distributed by MGM. It was directed by Robert Z. Leonard and stars Norma Shearer. It was filmed concurrently with and based upon the 1929 play by Rachel Crothers starring Tallulah Bankhead, which ran for 128 performances at London's Lyric Theater. Critics generally preferred Tallulah's rendition to Shearer's.
Sin Takes a Holiday is a 1930 American pre-Code romantic comedy film, directed by Paul L. Stein, from a screenplay by Horace Jackson, based on a story by Robert Milton and Dorothy Cairns. It starred Constance Bennett, Kenneth MacKenna, and Basil Rathbone. Originally produced by Pathé Exchange and released in 1930, it was part of the takeover package when RKO Pictures acquired Pathé that year; it was re-released by RKO in 1931.
The Gay Diplomat is a 1931 American film. Directed by Richard Boleslawski for RKO Radio Pictures, it starred Ivan Lebedeff, Genevieve Tobin and Betty Compson.
Gigolo is a 1926 American silent romance drama film produced by Cecil B. DeMille and released by Producers Distributing Corporation. William K. Howard directed and Rod La Rocque and Jobyna Ralston star. The film is based on a novel, Gigolo, by Edna Ferber.
Wallace Smith was an American book illustrator, comic artist, reporter, author, and screenwriter. He became Washington correspondent for the Chicago American at the age of 20, remaining with that newspaper for over a decade. According to the book The Madhouse on Madison Street, Smith was "one of the most colorful reporters who ever worked for the Hearst papers," and was born with the last name of Schmidt, which he changed to Smith during World War I.
He was sent to Mexico and did illustrated reporting on several campaigns of Pancho Villa against the Carranza regime. In 1920 he originated the Joe Blow comic panel feature for the Chicago American. In 1921-22 he was assigned to California to cover the Roscoe Arbuckle trials and the William Desmond Taylor murder case. The articles bylined by Smith and Eddie Doherty were so inflammatory that Under-Sheriff Eugene W. Biscailuz, fearing for their safety, offered to provide them each with a bodyguard, but they both declined. In 1923–1924 he contributed with his illustrations for The Chicago Literary Times, a magazine done in the format and style of a tabloid scandal sheet, co founded by Ben Hecht and Maxwell Bodenheim with whom he previously collaborated illustrating their books.
Smith moved to Hollywood embarking on successful, decade-long, screenplay-writing career. His services were in high demand - he wrote or contributed to twenty-six screenplays, often enhancing them with detailed scene sketches. Smith's work included screen adaptations of his novels The Captain Hates the Sea and The Gay Desperado and also Two Arabian Knights, The Lost Squadron, Friends and Lovers.
In 1935, Smith's novel Bessie Cotter about a prostitute's life on the streets of Chicago was judged indecent in England and the publisher fined the equivalent of $1,000. It was published a year earlier in the United States.
He died of a heart attack in his home in Hollywood on January 31, 1937, and was survived by his wife, Echo Smith.
His archival papers are at the University of Oregon. The papers include Smith's manuscripts and published pieces, minor correspondence, drawings and illustrations, photographs, and miscellaneous documents.
Beau Bandit is a 1930 American Pre-Code Western film, directed by Lambert Hillyer, from a screenplay by Wallace Smith, based on his short story, "Strictly Business" which appeared in the April 1929 edition of Hearst's International-Cosmopolitan. The film starred Rod La Rocque, Mitchell Lewis, Doris Kenyon, and Walter Long. The story is based loosely on the legend of Robin Hood.
Rita La Roy was an American actress and dancer, beginning her career in 1929, and having her last significant role in 1940.
Hi, Gaucho! was a 1935 American comedy film directed by Tommy Atkins, from a screenplay by Adele Buffington. Released by RKO Radio Pictures on October 11, 1935, the film stars John Carroll, Steffi Duna, Rod La Rocque, and Montagu Love.
Double Danger is a 1938 American crime drama directed by Lew Landers, using a screenplay by Arthur T. Horman and J. Robert Bren based on Horman's story. The film stars Preston Foster and Whitney Bourne, with supporting roles by Donald Meek and Samuel S. Hinds. Produced by RKO Radio Pictures, it was released on January 28, 1938.
Don't Call It Love is a 1923 American silent romantic comedy film directed by William C. deMille and written by Clara Beranger and Julian Street based upon the play Rita Coventry by Hubert Osborne. The film stars Agnes Ayres, Jack Holt, Nita Naldi, Theodore Kosloff, Rod La Rocque, and Robert Edeson. The film was released on December 24, 1923, by Paramount Pictures.
Captain Swagger is a 1928 American silent crime drama film directed by Edward H. Griffith and stars Rod La Rocque. The film was produced and distributed by the Pathé Exchange company. Utilizing the RCA Photophone sound-on-film sound system, the film was rereleased in the United States with talking sequences, synchronized music, and sound effects.
Filling His Own Shoes is a 1917 American silent comedy film directed by Harry Beaumont and starring Bryant Washburn, Hazel Daly and Rod La Rocque.
