Today, The Grandma has been watching some films interpreted by PauletteGoddard, one of the prominent leading actress during the Golden Age of Hollywood.
Paulette Goddard (born Marion Levy; June 3, 1910-April 23, 1990) was an American actress and socialite. Her career spanned six decades, from the 1920s to the early 1970s. She was a prominent leading actress during the Golden Age of Hollywood.
Born in New York City and raised in Kansas City, Missouri, Goddard initially began her career as a child fashion model and performer in several Broadway productions as a Ziegfeld Girl. In the early 1930s, she moved to Hollywood and gained notice as the romantic partner of actor and comedian CharlieChaplin, appearing as his leading lady in Modern Times (1936) and The Great Dictator (1940).
After signing with Paramount Pictures, Goddard became one of the studio's biggest stars with roles in The Cat and the Canary (1939) with Bob Hope, The Women (1939) with Joan Crawford, North West Mounted Police (1940) with Gary Cooper, Reap the Wild Wind (1942) with John Wayne and Susan Hayward, So Proudly We Hail! (1943) (for which she received a nomination for Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress), Kitty (1945) with Ray Milland, and Unconquered (1947) with Gary Cooper.
Goddard was noted as a fiercely independent woman for her time, being described by one executive as dynamite. Her marriages to Chaplin, the actor Burgess Meredith, and the writer Erich Maria Remarque received substantial media attention. Following her marriage to Remarque, Goddard moved to Switzerland and largely retired from acting. In the 1980s, she became a notable socialite.
Goddard died in Switzerland in 1990.
Goddard was born in New York City, as Marion Levy, the daughter of Joseph Russell Le Vee, the son of a prosperous cigar manufacturer from Salt Lake City, and Alta Mae Goddard.
Goddard first visited Hollywood in 1929.
Chaplin sent her to local acting teacher Neely Dickson at the Hollywood Community Theater to, in Dickson's words, give her a polish. It marked a turning point in Goddard's career when Chaplin cast her as his leading lady in his next box office hit, Modern Times (1936). Her role as The Gamin, an orphan girl who runs away from the authorities and becomes The Tramp's companion, was her first credited film appearance and garnered her mainly positive reviews, Frank S. Nugent of The New York Times describing her as the fitting recipient of the great Charlot's championship.
Following the success of Modern Times, Chaplin planned other projects with Goddard in mind as a co-star. However, Chaplin worked on his projects slowly, and Goddard worried that the public might forget about her if she did not continue to make regular film appearances.
On April 23, 1990, aged 79, Goddard died at her home in Switzerland.
Arguably, Goddard's foremost legacies remain her two feature films with CharlesChaplin -Modern Times and The Great Dictator- and a $20 million donation to New York University (NYU) in New York City to fund an institution devoted to European studies, named after Remarque.
I lived in Hollywood long enough to learn to play tennis and become a star, but I never felt it was my home. I was never looking for a home, as a matter of fact.
Today, The Grandma has been reading about UnitedArtist, the Americanproduction and distribution company, that was founded on a day like today in 1919.
United Artists Corporation (UA), was an American production anddistributioncompany.
Founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks, the studio was premised on allowing actors to control their own interests, rather than being dependent upon commercial studios.
UA was repeatedly bought, sold, and restructured over the ensuing century. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer acquired the studio in 1981 for a reported $350 million ($1 billion today).
On September 22, 2014, MGM acquired a controlling interest in entertainment companies One Three Media and Lightworkers Media, then merged them to revive United Artists' television production unit as United Artists Media Group (UAMG). However, on December 14 of the following year, MGM wholly acquired UAMG and folded it into MGM Television.
United Artists was briefly revived again in 2018 as United Artists Digital Studios, being launched along with the Stargate Origins web series and the Stargate Command streaming service. In December 2019 following the closure of Stargate Command, by early 2020 the original UA incarnation was folded, this time permanently, into MGM.
Mirror, the joint distribution venture between MGM and Annapurna Pictures, was subsequently rebranded as United Artists Releasing in early February 2019, in honor of its 100th anniversary, and currently the UA name lives on in that company.
In 1918, Charlie Chaplin could not get his parent company First National Pictures to increase his production budget despite being one of their top producers. Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks had their own contracts, with First National and Famous Players-Lasky respectively, but these were due to run out with no clear offers forthcoming. Sydney Chaplin, brother and business manager for Charlie, deduced something was going wrong, and contacted Pickford and Fairbanks. Together they hired a private detective, who discovered a plan to merge all production companies and to lock in exhibition companies to a series of five-year contracts.
Chaplin, Pickford, Fairbanks, and D. W. Griffith incorporated United Artists as a joint venture company on February 5, 1919.
Each held a 25 percent stake in the preferred shares and a 20 percent stake in the common shares of the joint venture, with the remaining 20 percent of common shares held by lawyer and advisor William Gibbs McAdoo. The idea for the venture originated with Fairbanks, Chaplin, Pickford and cowboy star William S. Hart a year earlier. Already Hollywood veterans, the four stars talked of forming their own company to better control their own work.
They were spurred on by established Hollywood producers and distributors who were tightening their control over actor salaries and creative decisions, a process that evolved into the studio system. With the addition of Griffith, planning began, but Hart bowed out before anything was formalized. When he heard about their scheme, Richard A. Rowland, head of Metro Pictures, apparently said, The inmates are taking over the asylum.
The four partners, with advice from McAdoo (son-in-law and former Treasury Secretary of then-President Woodrow Wilson), formed their distribution company. Hiram Abrams was its first managing director, and the company established its headquarters at 729 Seventh Avenue in New York City.
The original terms called for each star to produce five pictures a year. By the time the company was operational in 1921, feature films were becoming more expensive and polished, and running times had settled at around ninety minutes (eight reels). The original goal was thus abandoned.
UA's first production, His Majesty, the American, written by and starring Fairbanks, was a success. Funding for movies was limited. Without selling stock to the public like other studios, all United had for finance was weekly prepayment installments from theater owners for upcoming movies. As a result, production was slow, and the company distributed an average of only five films a year in its first five years.
In 1941, Pickford, Chaplin, Disney, Orson Welles, Goldwyn, Selznick, Alexander Korda, and Wanger -many of whom were members of United Artists- formed the Society of Independent Motion Picture Producers (SIMPP). Later members included Hunt Stromberg, William Cagney, Sol Lesser, and Hal Roach.
The Society aimed to advance the interests of independent producers in an industry controlled by the studio system. SIMPP fought to end ostensibly anti-competitive practices by the seven major film studios -Loew's (MGM), Columbia Pictures, Paramount Pictures, Universal Pictures, RKO Radio Pictures, 20th Century Fox, and Warner Bros./First National-that controlled the production, distribution, and exhibition of motion pictures.
In 1942, SIMPP filed an antitrust suit against Paramount's United Detroit Theatres. The complaint accused Paramount of conspiracy to control first-and subsequent-run theaters in Detroit. This was the first antitrust suit brought by producers against exhibitors that alleged monopoly and restraint of trade.
In 1948, the U.S. Supreme Court Paramount Decision ordered the major Hollywood movie studios to sell their theater chains and to end certain anti-competitive practices. This court ruling ended the studio system.
By 1958, SIMPP achieved many of the goals that led to its creation, and the group ceased operations.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer acquired the studio in 1981 for a reported $350 million ($1 billion today).
Today, The Grandma is relaxing at home. She has received the wonderful visit of one of her closest friends, Claire Fontaine, who shares lots of hobbies with The Grandma.
They love classic and mute films and they have been talking about RudolphValentino, the Italian actor based in the United States who starred in several well-known silent films and became a sex symbol during the 1920's.
Rodolfo Alfonso Raffaello Pierre Filiberto Guglielmi di Valentina d'Antonguella (May 6, 1895-August 23, 1926), known professionally as RudolphValentino, was an Italian actor based in the United States who starred in several well-known silent films including The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, The Sheik, Blood and Sand, The Eagle, and The Son of the Sheik.
He was a sex symbol of the 1920s, who was known in Hollywood as the Latin Lover, a title invented for him by Hollywood moguls, The Great Lover, or simply Valentino. His premature death at the age of 31 caused mass hysteria among his fans and further propelled his status as a cultural film icon.
Valentino was born in Castellaneta, Apulia, Kingdom of Italy and named Rodolfo Pietro Filiberto Raffaello Guglielmi di Valentina d'Antonguella.Hisfather, Giovanni Antonio Giuseppe Fedele Guglielmi di Valentina d'Antonguella, was Italian; he was a captain of cavalry in the Italian Army, later a veterinarian, who died of malaria when Rodolfo was 11 years of age.
After living in Paris in 1912, he soon returned to Italy. Unable to secure employment, he departed for the United States in 1913. He was processed at Ellis Island at age 18 on December 23, 1913. Although he found unparalleled fame and success in America, Valentino never filed the necessary papers for naturalization, and so retained his Italian citizenship.
Arriving in New York City, he supported himself with odd jobs such as busing tables in restaurants and gardening. Valentino once worked as a bus boy at Murray's on 42nd Street and was well liked, but didn't do a good job and was fired. While he was living on the streets, Valentino would occasionally come back to Murray's for lunch and the staff would slip him some food.
Around 1914, Restaurateur Joe Pani who owned Castles-by-the-Sea, the Colony, and the Woodmansten Inn was the first to hire Rudolph to dance the tango with Joan Sawyer for $50 per week. Eventually, he found work as a taxi dancer at Maxim's Restaurant-Cabaret. Among the other dancers at Maxim's were several displaced members of European nobility, for whom a premium demand existed.
Rudolph Valentino
In 1917, Valentino joined an operetta company that traveled to Utah, where itdisbanded. He then joined an Al Jolson production of Robinson Crusoe, Jr. which was travelling to Los Angeles.
By fall, he was in San Francisco with a bit part in a theatrical production of Nobody Home.While in town, Valentino met actor Norman Kerry, who convinced him to try a career in cinema, which was still in the silent film era.
Valentino and Kerry moved back to Los Angeles and became roommates at the Alexandria Hotel. He continued dancing, teaching dance, and building up a following that included older female clientele who would let him borrow their luxury cars. At one point after the United States entered World War I,both Kerry and Valentino tried to get into the Canadian Air Force to fly and fight in France.
With his dancing success, Valentino found a room of his own on Sunset Boulevard and began actively seeking screen roles. His first part was as an extra in the film Alimony, moving on to small parts in several films.
Despite his best efforts, he was typically cast as a heavy (villain) or gangster. At the time, the archetypal major male star was Wallace Reid, with a fair complexion, light eyes, and an All-American look, with Valentino the opposite, eventually supplanting Sessue Hayakawa as Hollywood's most popular exotic male lead.
By 1919, he had carved out a career in bit parts. It was a bit part as a cabaret parasite in the drama Eyes of Youth that caught the attention of screenwriter June Mathis, who thought he would be perfect for her next movie. He also appeared as second lead in The Delicious Little Devil (1919) with star Mae Murray.
In 1919, Valentino also impulsively married actress Jean Acker. Their marriage was never consummated.
Displeased with playing heavies, Valentino briefly entertained the idea of returning to New York permanently. He returned for a visit in 1917, staying with friends in Greenwich Village, eventually settling in Bayside, Queens. There he met Paul Ivano, who would greatly help his career.
Valentino's final film for Metro was the Mathis-penned The Conquering Power. The film received critical acclaim and did well at the box office. After the film's release, Valentino made a trip to New York, where he met with several French producers. Yearning for Europe, better pay, and more respect, Valentino returned and promptly quit Metro.
After quitting Metro, Valentino took up with Famous Players-Lasky, forerunner of the present-day Paramount Pictures, a studio known for films that were more commercially focused. Mathis soon joined him, angering both Ivano and Rambova.
Rudolph Valentino
In November 1921, Valentino starred alongside Gloria Swanson in Beyond the Rocks.
In 1922, Valentino began work on another Mathis-penned film, Blood and Sand.
Valentino went on strike for financial reasons. At the time of his lawsuit against the studio, Valentino was earning $1,250 per week, with an increase to $3,000 after three years. This was $7,000 per week less than Mary Pickford made in 1916.
He was also upset over the broken promise of filming Blood and Sand in Spain, and the failure to shoot the next proposed film in either Spain or at least New York. Valentino had hoped while filming in Europe he could see his family, whom he had not seen in 10 years.
Valentino returned to the United States in reply to an offer from Ritz-Carlton Pictures, working through Famous Players, which included $7,500 a week, creative control, and filming in New York.
The first film under the new contract was Monsieur Beaucaire, wherein Valentino played the lead, the Duke of Chartres.
During the filming of Monsieur Beaucaire, both Charlie Chaplin and DouglasFairbanks approached Valentino privately, due to his contract with Ritz-Carlton, about joining with United Artists. Valentino's contract with United Artists provided $10,000 a week for only three pictures a year, plus a percentage of his films. Valentino chose his first UA project, The Eagle.
In 1923, Valentino published a book of poetry titled Day Dreams. He later serialized events in various magazines. With Liberty magazine, he wrote a series entitled, How You Can Keep Fit in 1923. My Life Story was serialized in Photoplay during his dance tour. The March issue was one of the best-selling ever for the magazine. He followed that with My Private Diary, serialized in Movie Weekly magazine. Most of the serials were later published as books after his death.
On August 15, 1926, Valentino collapsed at the Hotel Ambassador on Park Avenue in Manhattan. He was hospitalized at the New York Polyclinic Hospital. Following an examination, he was diagnosed with appendicitis and gastric ulcers, and surgery was performed immediately.
During the early hours of Monday, August 23, Valentino was briefly conscious and chatted with his doctors about his future, but soon lapsed into a coma. He died a few hours later at the age of 31.
An estimated 100,000 people lined the streets of Manhattan to pay their respects at his funeral. Suicides of despondent fans were reported. Windows were smashed as fans tried to get in and an all-day riot erupted on August 24.
Over 100 mounted officers and NYPD's Police Reserve were used to restore order. A phalanx of officers lined the streets for the remainder of the viewing. Polish actress Pola Negri, claiming to be Valentino's fiancée, collapsed in hysterics while standing over the coffin.
Today, The Watsons and TheGrandma have been studying how to prepare an Cambridge Key EnglishTest.
They have been practising with some examples and The Grandma has explained them how to prepare a good speaking.
She has been talking about personal experiences and how important is to be explain them. She has remembered a beautiful personal story about Charlie Rivel, the clown, and his town, Cubelles.
Cubelles is a municipality situated in the comarca of Garraf in Catalonia.
Josep Andreu i Lasserre (April 23, 1896-July 26, 1983), best known asCharlie Rivel, was an internationally known Catalan circus clown.
He was born in Cubelles, El Garraf. His parents Pere Andreu Pausas and Marie-Louise Lasarre were circus artists as well.
He debuted at the age of three and formed the group Los Rivels with his brothers Polo Rivel and René Rivel. He took his artistic first name from CharlieChaplin whom he encountered first in 1910. Each respected the other. Legend has it that Chaplin later asked him: Is it you who imitate me or I who imitate you?
He later discovered his definitive routine, featuring a chair, a guitar and a long jersey.
In 1971, he appeared in Federico Fellini's film Clowns.
He performed in the interval act for the Eurovision Song Contest 1973 in Luxembourg.
The Charlie Rivel Hall in Cubelles is a museum dedicated to him.
The 1st Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), honored the best films of 1927 and 1928 and took place on May 16, 1929, at a private dinner held at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel in Los Angeles, California. AMPAS president Douglas Fairbanks hosted the show. Tickets cost $5, 270 people attended the event and the presentation ceremony lasted fifteen minutes. Awards were created by Louis B. Mayer, founder of Louis B. Mayer Pictures Corporation, at present merged into Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It is the only Academy Awards ceremony not to be broadcast either on radio or television.
During the ceremony, the AMPAS presented Academy Awards, now commonly referred to as Oscars, in twelve categories. Winners were announced three months before the live event. Unlike later ceremonies, an actor or director could be awarded for multiple works within a calendar year. Emil Jannings, for example, was given the Best Actor award for his work in both The Way of All Flesh and The Last Command. Moreover, Charlie Chaplin and Warner Brothers each received an Honorary Award.
Major winners at the ceremony included 7th Heaven and Sunrise, which each received three awards, and Wings, receiving two awards. Among its honors, Sunrise won the award for Unique and Artistic Picture and Wings won the award for Outstanding Picture, now known as Best Picture. These two categories at the time were seen as equally the top award of the night intended to honor different and equally important aspects of superior film making. The next year, the Academy dropped the Unique and Artistic Picture award, and decided retroactively that the award won by Wings was the highest honor that could be awarded.
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