1930s Actresses

[DosViolines]

Carole Lombard


source: http://mysite.verizon.net/res0qaye/id5.html


source: http://www.fortunecity.com/lavendar/mockingbird/159/titlef.htm


source: http://www.thegoldenyears.org/lombard.html


source: celeb-stars.com

 

[Orchide]

These are fabulous

 

[Estella*]

luxury's lap, dosviolines, somnambule (and everyone else who contributed) you are a brilliant bunch of people
i didn't even guess i would find so many breathtaking images in here
i was always more attracted to the 'idea' of the twenties and neglected the thirties a bit (of course the actors and actresses were sometimes big in both decades)
you opened my eyes
a bit

 

[Orchide]

Okay, I will start with Kay Francis as she is one of my very favorites of the early 30's

She was the Queen of the racy Pre-Codes and was known for being a glammy clothes horse.
Here is a little bio on her from IMDB:

Birth name
Katherine Edwina Gibbs

Height
5' 9" (1.75 m)
This black-haired beauty was one of Hollywood's foremost leading ladies of the 1930s. Left most of her $1 million estate to train dogs at Seeing Eye, Inc.

Birth year has been in speculation for some time, with sources stating the year as anywhere between 1899-1908. Studio records (which occasionally were used to her detriment when the studio got mad at her) reflect the year of birth as 1899. However, her listing in the U.S. Census taken in April 1910, when she was living at a convent school, gives her age as five years.

Her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame is located at 6766 Hollywood Blvd.

Because of a speech impediment, she was known around the Paramount lot as "the wavishing Kay Fwancis."

Salary
My Bill (1938) $5,250/week

Film buffs still revere her, but the public at large has forgotten Kay Francis, despite the fact that she was one of the top screen stars of the 1930s. Dark-haired and sad-eyed, with a slight but easily distinguishable lisp, she often played fallen women and fashionable society types. Francis, once a stenographer (whose mother founded the Katherine Gibbs secretarial school), acted in summer stock and on Broadway before making her film debut opposite Walter Huston in Gentlemen of the Press (1929). As a Paramount contractee, she played foil to The Marx Brothers in The Cocoanuts (also 1929), and starred or costarred in Street of Chance, Paramount on Parade, For the Defense (all 1930), Ladies' Man, 24 Hours and Girls About Town (all 1931), among others. Trouble in Paradise (1932) gave Francis one of her best screen roles, as the potential victim of jewel thieves Herbert Marshall and Miriam Hopkins, in a stylish comedy directed by Ernst Lubitsch.

She signed with Warner Bros. in 1932, almost immediately getting another career-boosting role as the doomed lover of William Powell in the popular One-Way Passage Warners kept her busy over the next seven years in mostly tailor-made vehicles, but the ascendancy of Bette Davis in the decade's later years eventually cost Francis her standing as the studio's top female star. Her Warners films include Street of Women, Jewel Robbery (both 1932), Mary Stevens, M.D., The House on 56th Street (both 1933), Mandalay, Wonder Bar (opposite Al Jolson), British Agent (all 1934), I Found Stella Parish (1935), The White Angel (1936, playing Florence Nightingale), Stolen Holiday, Confession (both 1937), My Bill, Secrets of an Actress (both 1938), and King of the Underworld (1939).

She went on to play "the other woman" with Cary Grant and Carole Lombard in In Name Only (1939), and Deanna Durbin's mother in It's a Date (1940), but soon drifted into B movies. A notable exception: Four Jills in a Jeep (1944), in which she played herself, one of four Hollywood actresses who entertained troops during World War 2. She retired from the screen in 1946, returned to the stage, and then left show business for good. She died of cancer and left most of her stillconsiderable fortune to various charities.
photos from kayfrancis.net

If you have never seen her on film, she reminds me a bit of Isabella Rosselini's energy and of course with amazing blue eyes
She is statuesque and wears clothes like nobody else and appears tough but she has a lisp which makes her vulnerable and adorable somehow
Here are some screen caps from kayfrancis.net of "Girls About Town" a flick of hers just so you can see how great she looks onscreen:

 

[Orchide]

More Kay

kayfrancis.net

 

[Orchide]

Some more Kay clippings and articles I found fascinating- I love vintage mags- one is even an article on her style
(kayfrancis.net)
I love the part where she talks about how "men are susceptible to bright colours and picturesque effects. They love to see women wear gloves"
middle page is not tranferring- oh well-

 

[Orchide]

Here is a fun photo spread of a Farm Themed party Kay threw at her house-


The thing I love about vintage mags and such is that is really gives you a specific idea of how popular and huge someone like Kay was back then and what her appeal was and how her style was very covetable even though she is not a household name nowadays.

kayfrancis.net

 

[DosViolines]

^ Thanks for all the Kay Francis pics

That article is a great find!

Some Ann Sheridan pics


source: doctormacro.com


source: http://www.geocities.com/proxima3c/Pictures/Close_Ups_2/


source: operagloves.com

 

[Orchide]

^ gorgeous
here are two more Magazine covers with Kay on them-
(from Trouble In Paradise blog)

^so pretty but notice they painted her eyes brown here...strange.

 

[DosViolines]

^ Thanks Orchide

Here's an actress I've never heard of: Toby Wing.


source: doctormarco.com

From IMDb

Mini biography

Born Martha Virginia Wing in Amelia Court House, Virginia, in 1915 and taking the stage name Toby after a family nickname, Toby Wing moved to Hollywood in the 1920s with her father Paul R. Wing, who served as an assistant director in the 1920s and 1930s. She found bit parts in some of the pictures for which her father worked and eventually landed a rather historic part as one of the original Goldwyn Girls, getting billing as the girl "with a face like the morning sun." Her beauty was not just in the movies; off camera, she lured to her door many a celebrated suitor (Maurice Chevalier, Alfred Vanderbilt, Franklin Roosevelt Jr., Jackie Coogan and wealthy Toronto playboy Erskine Eaton -- to name a few). In 1936, upon mourning the untimely death of one of her suitors (army pilot John T. Helms) Miss Wing swore off men -- falling in love with them, that is. She announced that "I have really given up falling in love with men! Oh, yes! My career is now to be my life." But that was before meeting and marrying in 1938 Henry Tindall "Dick" Merrill, the famous and record-setting aviator. She epitomized the platinum blond of the Jean Harlow ilk that graced our theaters in the 1930s. She began her career in Samuel Goldwyn's 1931 "Palmy Days" with Eddie Cantor and George Raft. It was also Busby Berkeley's signature work -- noted for the extravaganza and the overhead camera angles. Thirty-eight films and twelve years later she ended her movie career, but, in these films and for this little more than one decade of work, she managed quite a lasting appeal. She competed in good stead with the likes of Rita Hayworth and Betty Grable as a soldier's favorite pinup girl during WWII; she even received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in recent years. During her heyday, she is reputed to have received more fan mail than Claudette Colbert and Marlene Dietrich. Her most noted roles (though all were of a brief and often uncredited nature) include the beauty in the white fox bra to whom Dick Powell sings "Young and Healthy" in Busby Berkeley's original "42nd Street." She also worked alongside Ida Lupino and Jack Oakie in the 1934 "Murder at the Vanities" and with Fred MacMurray, Carole Lombard and John Barrymore in the 1937 "True Confession." Her final film role occurred in the 1943 "The Marines Come Thru." Her performances were not limited to movies, however; she appeared in musical theater also -- most notably an appearance in Cole Porter's 1938 "You Never Know." She died peacefully at her home in Mathews Virginia in March 2001.

 

[Orchide]

^ she is cute- I do recognise her from the Busby Berkeley musicals- and from being in "Babyface" with Barbara Stanwyck- I think she only has one line but I remember her. I guess she really wasn't a star but did alot of chorus/dance stuff she is precious though!
I found this blurb on her:
From All Movie Guide: With her cotton-candy hairdo and infectious smile, Richmond's Toby Wing (born Martha Virginia Wing) was the quintessential Hollywood chorus girl, rarely given much to do but always awarded choice close-ups as Busby Berkeley's kaleidoscopic cameras panned over or below Warner Bros.' line of chorines. In films from childhood, Wing first gained notice as one of the Goldwyn Girls gracing Eddie Cantor's Palmy Days (1931) and The Kid From Spain (1932), and she was highly visible in (and the very picture of) 42nd Street's "Young and Healthy" number. But when all is said and done, Wing did more cheesecake layouts than actual performing and she later became something of a joke.

 

[DosViolines]

^
I found this blurb on her:
But when all is said and done, Wing did more cheesecake layouts than actual performing and she later became something of a joke.

^ That's sad

 

[Orchide]

I know- I thought so too
If you ever get a chance to see "Babyface", you can't miss her though- the platinum hair and cute face. I tried to dig up more on her but there isn't much to be found. Now, I wanna see "Murder at the Vanities" though- she is in it and it looks like a cute backstage showgirl pre-code flick

 

[somnambule]

i´m on a cloud sailing straight to seventh heaven right now.thanks so much for the kay francis goodies,orchide and thanks for the beauitufl carole lombard pics dosviolines !!
so now i can shed some light regarding my sources.my kay francis pics were obviously from kayfrancis.net and i did some research:the ann dvorak pic of which i thought that i found it on ebay was from anndvorak.com and the other pic as well.sorry,for the confusion .
anna k,some more for your bliss and hopeful conversion !!
from the source cited above...
the first 2 are by hurrell

 

[Orchide]

Oooh goody^ those are great

 

[somnambule]

.....

 

[somnambule]

glad you like them,orchide .

the wonderful luise rainer (thinking of anna k hereheart: .she is of german-jewish origin.she worked with the famous max reinhardt in vienna before emigrating to the US because of hitler.she gained the oscar for best actress in two consecutive years:the great ziegfeld 1936 and the good earth 1937.the first time i saw her was not in one of her movies but in a german talkshow on tv several years ago.at that time i hadn´t seen any of her films and not even hheard her name before,but i was immediately intriguied by her.she must have been well into her eighties yet she was still full of grace and dignitiy and she seemed to be a very intelligent woman too.now she´s 95 years old and as far as i know she still lives in the states.

sources:silverscreensirens.com,poster.de....first pic by hurrell

 

[DosViolines]

^ Those are lovely somnambule! Especially the first one of luise rainer

 

[Orchide]

I love Luise- what a great actress
I just made a hugeeeeee post and then it timed out and erased it
I will see if I have the stamina to type it all again right now

 

[Orchide]

Loretta Young- take two and this time I will "save" before hitting submit.
She actually started acting quite quite young-

and even had a small part in "The Sheik" with Valentino - and got an Oscar in the 40's and then had her own popular tv show in the 60's but I have to say I love the Loretta Young of the early 30's pre-codes

She is fantastic and gorgeous in "Midnight Mary"- also if you get the chance to see the dvd of "Rebecca"- they include auditions and Loretta's is on there- she is the only other contender aside from Joan Fontaine and her acting is so moving and good, you almost forget her impossible great looks and think she could play a mousy girl

Here is a trivia bio on her from IMDB for those who didn't know of her secret child she had with Clark Gable in the mid-30's :
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 around 4 her family minus her father moved to California and into the home of Gladys sister. Loretta's father moved to be with them. Later Gladys found him with the maid and told him to get out. His children never saw him alive again. The family moved to a boarding house that Gladys ran. Around that time also she and her cousin went to live with an actress the called Aunt Mazi and these girls who had lived a poor life lived the life of a movie star's daughters. After a year they both went back to their biological mothers. When Loretta was 10 her mother got married again to one of her boarders George Belzer and they had daughter Georgianna two years later. At the age of 14 Loretta answered the phone and the person at the other line who was looking for her sister Polly Ann hired her. Gretchen was under contract, had braces put on her teeth and had her name changed to Loretta. In 1930 Loretta got married to her costar Grant Withers. They eloped to Arizona were the legal age to get married was 16 Loretta was just 17. Less than a year later they got divorced. In 1935 she was considered to be a very successful actress when she made Call of the Wild with a King, Clark Gable. After one night they had made a baby. Because of the strick moralty clauses in their contract and the fact that Clark was married they could not tell anybody, except her mother, Gladys Royal Belzer. Mother and daughter went to Europe during Loretta's pregnancy and she delivered a healthy baby girl on November 6, 1935 in a house that nobody knew about, but family. Her daughter was brought up thinking that Loretta had adopted her, and did not know Clark Gable was her father until after she had had a child herself. In 1940 Loretta got married again to businessman Thomas Lewis. Even though now her daughter is called Judy Lewis, Tom never adopted her. Four years after they got married Loretta had Christopher Paul Lewis. About a year later Loretta had Peter Charles. Loretta continued to make movies until the early 1950's when she decided to go into television. She was very popular for about eight years and then the show went off the air. In 1960 she tried a new show with a new concept, but that did not work. By that time Loretta was a grandmother. Judy had gotten married about three years before and had a baby girl in 1959. Loretta and Tomm Lewis divorced in the early 1960's. Loretta enjoyed retirement. Sleeping late, visting her son Chris and daughter in law Linda. She had traveled alot. She and her friend Josie Wayne, John's first ex-wife, traveled to India and saw the Taj Mahal. In 1990 she became a great-grandmother when her granddaughter (Judy's daughter) had a boy. Loretta died in 2000 of ovarian cancer.

Spouse
Jean Louis (10 August 1993 - 20 April 1997) (his death)
Tom Lewis (31 July 1940 - 1969) (divorced) 2 children
Grant Withers (26 January 1930 - 1931) (divorced)

Mother of director Christopher Lewis.

Miss Young's return to the screen following convent school came about rather fortuitously. A casting call was sent out by the producers of "Naughty But Nice" for Polly Ann Young. Answering the telephone, the young Gretchen replied that her sister was unavailable and wondered if she herself might substitute. And so she did. It was merely a bit part, but it led to a movie contract and eventual stardom for Loretta Young.

Cast members in the 1939 film "The Story of Alexander Graham Bell" included not only Loretta Young but, portraying her character's sisters, her real-life, actress sisters as well: Polly Ann Young and Sally Blane. Further, portraying the fourth on-screen sister was a fourth real-life sister, Georgiana Young, although the latter was not a professional actress. (Years later, Georgiana, whom Loretta dubbed "Georgie," would appear occasionally on Loretta's TV show.)

In 1972, Miss Young sued NBC for violating her contract in allowing reruns of "The Loretta Young Show" to be shown, wherein audiences might have ridiculed her gowns and hairstyles, which were by then 10 or even 20 years out of date. The court awarded her more than a half-million dollars.

Had an illegitimate daughter by Clark Gable. For years this was covered up in Hollywood, and was presented as an adoption. The daughter's resemblance to both parents is uncanny.

Loretta Young's third husband was Academy Award winning clothing and costume designer, Jean Louis. He was well known for designing for the stars at Columbia Studios, Universal and in his own salon in Beverly Hills. His most famous creations included the strapless gown for Rita Hayworth in the film, "Gilda," as well as Marilyn Monroe's white sequined gown she wore to sing "Happy Birthday, Mr. President" to John F. Kennedy. Jean Louis married Loretta after the death of his first wife, Maggy, who was a personal friend of Loretta for over 50 years.

Loretta Young died at the home of her sister Georgiana Montalban and Georgiana's husband, actor Ricardo Montalban, early morning Saturday 12 August.

In her posthumously published autobiography, she admitted that her "adopted" daughter, Judy Lewis, was her biological daughter by Clark Gable.

Sister of Polly Ann Young and Sally Blane, half-sister of Georgiana Young, sister-in-law of Norman Foster, half-sister-in-law of Ricardo Montalban, mother of Judy Lewis.

Country singer Loretta Lynn was named after her.

In 1976 there was talk of a comeback role for Loretta, as Mother Cabrini in a biography of the first American to attain sainthood to be directed by Martin Scorsese. The project unfortunately never materialised.

Caused a buzz in 1999 when she appeared on the cover of 'Vanity Fair' looking a lot younger than her 86 years, "todays air brushing techniques can do wonders" was her explanation.

She is the mother of singer/songwriter Peter Lewis, a former member of the infamous 1960s rock band Moby Grape.

These next two pictures will amaze you They are Loretta in Vanity Fair Mag- both taken 70 years apart- the first in 1929 by Edward Steichen and the other in 1999 which was on the cover.
She is stunning

all pics from google images, IMDB, and lorettayoung.com