Lorreta Young

Gretchen Young was born on January 6, 1913 in Salt Lake City, Utah. She was the daughter of Gladys Royal Young and John Earl Young. When she was three,
her parents separated and her mother moved Gretchen and her two sisters to California and into the home of Gladys' sister.
Loretta's father later moved to join them. Gladys later found him with the maid and told him to get out. His children never saw him again. The family moved to a boarding house that Gladys ran.
Around that time Loretta and her cousin went to live with actress Mae Murray, whom they called "Aunt Mazi". After a year, they both returned to their mothers.
When Loretta was 10, her mother married one of her boarders, George Belzer. They had daughter Georgianna two years later.
When Lorreta Young was three years old, her mother took her and her sisters to Hollywood, where she established a boarding house.
Gretchen was appearing on screen as a child extra by the time she was four, joining her elder sisters, Polly Ann Young and Elizabeth Jane Young (later better known as Sally Blane), as child players.
Gretchen then left the screen to attend convent school, but returned at age 14 with a bit appearance in the Colleen Moore vehicle Naughty But Nice (1927).
Changing her name to Loretta Young, letting her blond hair revert to its natural brown and with her blue eyes, satin complexion and exquisite face, she quickly graduated from bit player to ingénue to leading lady.
She made headlines in 1930 when she and Grant Withers, who was previously married and nine years her senior, eloped to Yuma, Arizona, with the 17-year-old Loretta. They had both appeared in Warner Bros.' The Second Floor Mystery (1930).
The marriage was annulled in 1931, the same year in which the pair would again co-star on screen in a film ironically titled Too Young to Marry (1931).
Loretta always showed an elegant sort of beauty in her films, many of which were rather pedestrian fare. Yet she could act if called upon. Examples of her acting ability are her performances in The Farmer's Daughter (1947) or in Come to the Stable (1949).
She retired from films in 1953 and began a second, equally successful career as hostess of "Letter to Loretta" (1953), a half-hour drama anthology series which ran on NBC from September 1953 to September 1961.
In addition to hosting the series, she frequently starred in episodes.
Although she is most remembered for her stunning gowns and swirling entrances, over the broadcast's eight-year run she also showed again that she could act. She won Emmy awards for best actress in a dramatic series in 1954, 1956 and 1958.

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Dirk Bogarde

Dirk Bogarde (1921-1999), British actor and writer. Born Derek Niven Van den Bogaerde in Hampstead, London, he was originally a scenic designer until his stage debut in 1939.He was born Derek Jules Gaspard Ulric Niven van den Bogaerde on March 28, 1921, to Ulric van den Bogaerde, the art editor of "The Times" (London) newspaper,
and actress Margaret Niven in the London suburb of Hampstead.
He was one of three children, with sister Elizabeth and younger brother Gareth. His father was Flemish and his mother was of Scottish descent.
Theatre roles in the post-war period brought him to the attention of the Rank Organisation, which made him a star for the first time in the film Esther Waters (1948).
Often cast as a spivvish type, Bogarde’s role in the comedy Doctor in the House (1954), a box-office success, encouraged Rank to cast him in several sequels and to mould him into a matinée idol.
He went against this character when he chose to play a homosexual in Victim (1961), the first major English-language film on the subject.
His portrayal of a valet in The Servant (1963) was the first of four films with the director Joseph Losey, and it gave serious impetus to his career, especially when he was given the Best Actor award for the role by the British Film Academy.

Bogarde’s first role in a Hollywood film was in Song Without End (1960), in which he played the composer Franz Liszt, but few of his American ventures were happy, with the possible exception of the underrated Justine (1969) by George Cukor.
Later that year he appeared in La Caduta Degli Dei (The Damned), a perverse group-portrait of a wealthy German family by Luchino Visconti.
Bogarde worked with Visconti again on Morte a Venezia (1971; Death in Venice), in which he played a musician so besotted with a youth that he cannot leave the plague-ridden city.
His few subsequent films, all made in Europe, were mostly less distinguished, although Daddy Nostalgie (1990; These Foolish Things) was a moving story of a dying man's reconciliation with his daughter, directed by Bertrand Tavernier.

Bogarde worked occasionally in radio dramas in his last years though he concentrated on his writing; both his volumes of autobiography and fiction were best-sellers.
He published his first volume of memoirs, A Postillion Struck by Lightning, in 1977, with the sixth and final volume appearing in 1995; he also wrote novels, including A Gentle Occupation (1980) and Jericho (1992).
His last book, For the Time Being, was published in 1998. He suffered a stroke in September 1996 and died of a heart attack on May 8, 1999. He was knighted in 1992.

Clara Bow

Clara Gordon Bow, destined to become The flapper of the 1920's, was born and raised in poverty in Brooklyn, New York, on July 29, 1905. Her family was also beset with violence.
Her mother tried to slit Clara's throat when she attempted to enter the film industry. She won a photo beauty contest which launched her movie career that would eventually number 58 films, from 1922 to 1933.
It was the movie It (1927), which was to define her career. The film starred Clara as a shop girl who was asked out by the store's owner.
As you watch the silent film you can see the excitement as she prepared for her date with the boss, her girlfriend trying hard to assist her.
She was trying to use a pair of scissors to modify her dress in order to look more "sexy".
This movie did a lot to change society's mores as there was only a few years between World War I and Clara Bow, but this movie went a long way in how society looked at itself. Clara was flaming youth in rebellion. In the film she was presenting a worldly wisdom that some how sex meant having a good time.
But you shouldn't be misled by the film, because she was still close to Lillian Gish in that when her boss tries to kiss her goodnight, she slaps him.
Yes, she, too, was a good girl and a first cousin of Trueheart Susie. At the height of her popularity she received over 45,000 fan letters a month.
She, too, was probably the most overworked and underpaid star in the industry. With the coming of sound, which did lend itself to her thick Brooklyn accent, her popularity waned.
Clara was also involved in several court battles ranging from unpaid taxes to being in divorce court for "stealing" women's husbands.
After the court trials, she made a couple of attempts to get back in the public eye. One was Call Her Savage (1932) in 1932. It was somewhat of a failure at the box office and her last was in 1933 in a film called Hoop-La (1933).
She, then, married cowboy star, Rex Bell at the age of 26 and retired from the film world at the age of 28. She was a doting mother of her two sons and would do anything to please them.
Haunted by a weight problem, and a mental imbalance, she never entered show business again.
Clara was confined to a sanitarium from time to time and was not allowed access to her loving sons she adored very much.
She died of a heart attack in West Los Angeles, on September 26, 1965. She was 60 years old. Today she is finding a renaissance among movie buffs, who are recently discovering the virtues of silent film.
The actress who wanted so much to be like the wonderful young lady in It (1927) has the legacy of her films to confirm what a wonderful lady she really was.

Humphrey Bogart

The son of a moderately wealthy Manhattan surgeon (who was secretly addicted to opium) and a famed magazine illustrator, Humphrey Bogart was educated at Trinity School, New York City, sent to Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, in preparation for medical studies at Yale.
He was expelled from Phillips and joined the U.S. Naval Reserve.
From 1920 to 1922, he managed a stage company owned by family friend William A. Brady (the father of actress Alice Brady), performing a variety of tasks at Brady's film studio in New York.
He then began regular stage performances. Alexander Woollcott described his acting in a 1922 play as inadequate.
In 1930, he gained a contract with Fox, his feature film debut in a ten-minute short, Broadway's Like That (1930), co-starring Ruth Etting and Joan Blondell.
Fox released him after two years. After five years of stage and minor film roles, he had his breakthrough role in The Petrified Forest (1936) from Warner Bros.
He won the part over Edward G. Robinson only after the star, Leslie Howard, threatened Warner Bros,
that he would quit unless Bogart was given the key role of Duke Mantee, which he had played in the Broadway production with Howard.
The film was a major success and led to a long-term contract with Warner Bros. From 1936 to 1940, Bogart appeared in 28 films, usually as a gangster, twice in Westerns and even a horror film.
His landmark year was 1941 (often capitalizing on parts George Raft had stupidly rejected) with roles in classics such as High Sierra (1941) and as Sam Spade in one of his most fondly remembered films, The Maltese Falcon (1941).
These were followed by Casablanca (1942), The Big Sleep (1946), and Key Largo (1948). Bogart, despite his erratic education, was incredibly well-read and he favored writers and intellectuals within his small circle of friends.
In 1947, he joined wife Lauren Bacall and other actors protesting the House Un-American Activities Committee witch hunts.
He also formed his own production company, and the next year made The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948).
Bogie won the best actor Academy Award for The African Queen (1951) and was nominated for Casablanca (1942) and as Captain Queeg in The Caine Mutiny (1954), a film made when he was already seriously ill. He died in his sleep at his Hollywood home following surgeries and a battle with throat cancer.

Jean Harlow

Harlean Carpenter, who later became Jean Harlow, was born in Kansas City, Missouri, on March 3, 1911. She was the daughter of a successful dentist and his wife.
She eloped at age 16 with a young businessman and wound up in Los Angeles where she found work as an extra and bit player (examples: Moran of the Marines (1928) and Liberty (1929)) and somewhat more prominently in Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy shorts (Double Whoopee (1929), Bacon Grabbers (1929)).
Her first big break came in 1930 when Howard Hughes revamped his unreleased 1927 silent Hell's Angels (1930) into a sound version, replacing the heavy accented Swede Greta Nissen with Harlow, the girl who, with her divorce in 1929, had adopted her mother's maiden.
Hughes loaned her out for a number of movies which, like Frank Capra's Platinum Blonde (1931), featured her platinum hair and more than obvious sexuality.
In 1932 Hughes sold her contract to MGM, and her role in Red-Headed Woman (1932) for that studio led the Hays Office to forbid the depiction of unpunished adultery. She married Irving Thalberg's right-hand man, Paul Bern. The marriage ended after a few weeks: the day after his former Mrs. Bern was found floating in the Sacramento River, after allegedly committing suicide.
Harlow had another brief marriage, to cinematographer Harold Rosson, followed by an affair with William Powell. She made three films with Spencer Tracy and six with Clark Gable, receiving much improved critical acclaim for her acting, allure and comedic talent. During the filming of Saratoga (1937) she was hospitalized for uremic poisoning, and died on June 7 of cerebral edema at age 26.

Yul Brynner

Born Yuliy Borisovich Brynner, his mother Marusya Blagоvidova was the daughter of a Russian doctor and his father, Boris Brynner was an engineer and inventor.
Yul was named after his paternal grandfather, Jules Brynner.
After his father abandoned the family, his mother took Yul and his sister, Vera Bryner to China, where they attended a school run by the YMCA. They relocated again in 1934, this time to Paris.
He made an immediate impact upon launching his film career in 1956, appearing not only in the film version of The King and I that year, but also in major roles in,
"The Ten Commandments" opposite Charlton Heston and Anastasia opposite Ingrid Bergman.
However, he found his perfect role in The King And I.
The Academy Award-winning success that might have become a trap for a lesser star became the ongoing glory of his career, from the peak of his stardom to his untimely death.
He later appeared in such films as the Biblical epic Solomon and Sheba (1959), as Solomon, The Magnificent Seven (1960), and Westworld (1973).
He also co-starred with Marlon Brando in Morituri; Katharine Hepburn in The Madwoman of Chaillot and William Shatner in a film version of The Brothers Karamazov.
He starred with Barbara Bouchet in Death Rage, 1976. His final feature film appearance was in the sequel to Westworld, titled Futureworld with Peter Fonda and Blythe Danner, in 1976.
In 1977, Brynner embarked upon a stage revival of The King and I, and though he was dogged by tales of his outrageous temperament and seemingly petty demands during the tour, audiences loved the show.
Brynner was married four times, the first three ending in divorce.
He had three children and adopted two others. His fourth wife, Kathy Lee, was a dancer in The King and I shows. They married in 1983.
He developed lung cancer in the mid-1980s, he left a powerful public service announcement denouncing smoking as the cause, for broadcast after his death.
The cancer and its complications, after a long illness, ended his life.
Brynner was cremated and his ashes buried in a remote part of France, on the grounds of the Abbey of Saint-Michel de Bois Aubry, a short distance outside the village of Luzé.
He remains one of the most fascinating, unusual and beloved stars of his time.