In I Confess, a 1953 film noir by Alfred Hitchcock (1899-1980) from Warner Bros., a Catholic priest, Fr. Logan (played by Montgomery Clift) hears the confession of a man who works in the rectory and just killed another man.
That killer had been dressed as a priest and, among other circumstances, points to Fr. Logan as the primary suspect for the police Inspector (Karl Malden) and prosecutor (Brian Aherne) for the murder of Villette, a prominent lawyer.
Because of the seal of confession – that is, when a person confesses his sins to a priest in Confession, the priest must maintain absolute secrecy about anything that the person confesses – Fr. Logan does not and cannot under any circumstances divulge the identity of the confessed killer though he (and the audience) knows it.
Even after Fr. Logan is arrested for the crime and put on trial for murder for it, the priest does not reveal the identity of the killer but only protests for his own innocence.
Hitchcock’s black-and-white film was shot by cinematographer Robert Burks (1909-1968) who would later shoot Hitchcock’s The Birds in 1964. It is edited by German-born Rudi Fehr (1911-1999) who in 1954 edited Hitchcock’s triumphant color feature, Dial M For Murder.
The story in I Confess was based on a 1902 play by Paul Anthelme Bourde (1851-1914), a French journalist who coined the term “decadent” for the avant-garde when he called indecipherable poets such as Symbolist Stéphane Mallarmé (1842-1898) one in the late 19th century.
The film follows the play which is about a killer who confesses to a priest knowing his crime cannot be betrayed. To complicate matters further, the killer blackmails the priest for a long-ago love affair he had with Ruth Grandfort (Anne Baxter), the wife of a leading citizen, and who still loves him. For the priest, the love affair is in the past though for Mrs. Grandfort it is not.
This work is in the public domain in the U.S. because it was published in the U.S. between 1927 and 1977, inclusive, without a copyright notice.
Clearly, for Hitchcock in I Confess, the priest in this situation is a highly curious figure. By the end of the film, it becomes clear that the seal of confession is a cross for the priest because of his priesthood – and though sins do not always deal with high crime – demonstrates the personified sacramental nature of self-sacrifice that is involved for the priest with each confession he hears. Throughout the film, Fr. Logan is a tragi-comic figure as he simply does not state the obvious of who the murderer is on behalf of social justice and his own innocence, but equally personifying the religious nature of living with and taking on another’s sin particularly when a person refuses their own responsibility and makes amends for it. In I Confess, the murderer has no intention of turning himself in and is content to let the priest under seal of confession take the rap in the courtroom of the law and public opinion.
Fr. Logan never impedes law enforcement’s investigation. He continually states his own innocence for which a jury of his peers is brought in to decide what to believe.
The sin of commission/omission – and in I Confess it is for and surrounds the gravity of murder – remains with the impenitent Otto Keller (O.E. Hasse) although his loving wife, Alma (Dolly Hass), to whom Keller confessed the crime outside confession’s seal, cannot abide by his secret.
If, despite the seal of confession, crimes can be revealed to government investigators then the sanctuary of the law of the cross is extricated to get at evil – which is not contradiction nor improvement to the confessional box (the priest may ask the penitent for a release from the sacramental seal to discuss the confession) but its obligatory public replacement. As there is often no transparency and plenty of state secrets in and around various government agencies, this becomes no less problematical than breaking down a Catholic (and Lutheran) church’s confessional door as well as, in the United States, violating the free exercise of religion (the First Amendment).
Although found “not guilty” for lack of evidence to convict, the presiding judge expresses his disbelief in Fr. Logan’s innocence. When Fr. Logan exits the court building, he is followed and faced by a hostile crowd – “Preach us a sermon, Logan!” The prosecutor, as he watches the ugly scene from his office above, is forced to lament his actions: ”Do you think I enjoyed it?” he says, washing his hands. After Fr. Logan is crashed into a car window in the crowd, Alma, Keller’s wife, (her name means “soul”) rushes in towards the priest to tell what she knows – and which an accompanying police guard relates to the Inspector – “She said he was innocent.”
Considered Hitchcock’s once most Catholic of films, I Confess is a tight drama with a truly despicable villain, whose murderous rampages continue. The film is ahead of its time in terms of direction – presaging some of the camera angles, editing, pacing and themes of international crime and psychological dramas that would come to greater fruition in the decades ahead.
An online search by title at the US copyright office yielded no copyright renewal. In the absence of renewal of the US copyright, this poster art entered the public domain 28 years after its US publication date.
FEATURE Image: This color photograph of Marilyn Monroe was made by Bruno Bernard — Bernard of Hollywood — on August 3, 1952, during the poolside press party at bandleader Ray Anthony’s California home. Co‑organized by 20th Century‑Fox, the event was engineered to showcase Monroe’s rapid ascent and to promote Anthony’s novelty song, Marilyn. She is wearing the same dress used in her Niagara publicity stills and scenes, a deliberate continuity meant to reinforce her emerging screen persona. Bernard had known her since 1946, when she was still Norma Jeane, and he remained one of the few photographers able to catch her in genuinely relaxed, luminous moments. His poolside images from this period are among the most candid records of her early stardom. “Marilyn Monroe – 1952, Niagara” by Movie-Fan is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.
Marilyn Monroe in 1951 was emerging fast, already drawing notice from critics who tagged her as “the new blonde bombshell.” The black‑and‑white portrait of Marilyn Monroe was made in late 1951 by Ernest Bachrach, RKO’s chief portrait photographer, and syndicated widely through 1952. Shot both on location and in the studio spaces at RKO Radio Pictures in Los Angeles, the session was designed as a high‑visibility publicity campaign for Fritz Lang’s Clash by Night (1952). Monroe had pushed hard to be loaned out from 20th Century‑Fox for the supporting role of Peggy, a confident, blue‑collar cannery worker — a part she knew could shift how Hollywood viewed her.
Bachrach, a master of glamour portraiture, photographed her with the explicit aim of presenting her as a credible dramatic actress alongside veterans like Barbara Stanwyck. The film ultimately altered the trajectory of her career: for the first time, Monroe received billing above the title in a major motion picture. Bachrach’s photo campaign amplified that breakthrough, making her a household name even before the film reached theaters. It also demonstrated to studio executives that her magnetism held just as strongly in casual, sporty attire as in tight, high‑glamour wardrobe — a fusion that helped define the emerging “girl next door” aesthetic of 1950s Hollywood photography. “Marilyn Monroe, por Ernest Bachrach, 1951” by Antonio Marín Segovia is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
Marilyn Monroe started 1953 as Hollywood’s “It” girl. PHOTO: “Marilyn Monroe 1953” by Movie-Fan is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0. The photograph has absolutely nothing to do with the 1952 Ray Anthony party. It shows Marilyn in a cropped frame from late 1953, captured at the spectacular Hollywood film premiere for How to Marry a Millionaire. She is wearing a famous custom white lace gown designed by William Travilla. But it does relate to the party in that it is bound together by the explosive phenomenon of her meteoric rise.
In early 1953, Marilyn Monroe transitioned from a hard-working studio starlet into the absolute, undisputed “It Girl” of global popular culture. This specific phenomenon changed her life, transformed Hollywood marketing, and left a permanent mark on entertainment history.
Before 1953, 20th Century Fox viewed Marilyn as a profitable novelty. But by January 1953, a perfect storm of media alignment occurred. The groundwork laid by those 1952 events—like the Ray Anthony party, the LIFE magazine cover, and the continuous press blitzes—finally culminated in a box-office avalanche.
In a single twelve-month span, Monroe released three consecutive, massive cinematic triumphs: January 1953 (Niagara) where she starred as a dark, dangerous femme fatale; July 1953 (Gentlemen Prefer Blondes) where she cemented her legendary comedic timing and musical icon status in the shocking pink Travilla gown; and November 1953 (How to Marry a Millionaire) where she solidified her mass commercial appeal as a whispery “dumb blonde” comedic character.
Hollywood had never seen an actress command the cultural conversation in one year like this. She was the original high-concept, serial franchise film star. Her face and body sold newspapers, magazines, makeup, and movie tickets at an unprecedented velocity.
At the same time, Marilyn redefined what an “It Girl” could be. It Girls came in all types previously—from the aloof, untouchable elegance of stars like Greta Garbo or Joan Crawford to the gritty, working-class, uninhibited trail that Bow and Harlow blazed. Marilyn introduced a radiant, highly accessible, and deeply vulnerable form of sexuality. She projected a playful, “wink-at-the-camera” warmth that made audiences feel like she was letting them in on the fun.
A tragic irony of Marilyn becoming the ultimate 1953 “It Girl” is that the very phenomenon that made her immortal also trapped her in her “dumb blonde” or “glamour queen” roles and persona, so that in late 1954 she walked away from Hollywood temporarily – and when she came back things were not quite the same. Decades later, the visual shorthand established during her 1953 peak remains the definitive blueprint for modern celebrity culture. The hyper-focus on her hair, her outfits, her dating life, and her physical form set the stage for how modern pop stars and icons are scrutinized by the media today.
Bandleader Ray Anthony released the two-minute single Marilyn in 1952 with rising film star Marilyn Monroe definitely in mind.
Hollywood lore claims Marilyn Monroe swept into the 1952 release party for the song Marilyn in a bright pink dress, briefly touching down in a wobbling helicopter before vanishing just as theatrically. In reality she arrived quietly by car. The helicopter, brought in separately, became a convenient prop once publicists realized its value: they had her climb aboard and pose with Ray Anthony to manufacture the impression of a dramatic aerial entrance. The afternoon itself had the usual Hollywood chaos — Lassie trotted up to greet her, and Mickey Rooney jumped behind the drums with Anthony’s orchestra to play for her.
By the end of 1951 she had completed thirteen films, most for 20th Century‑Fox, and by 1952 she was poised on the threshold of major stardom.
In 1952 she added five more. In Clash by Night (RKO), Kate Cameron of the New York News tagged her as “the new blonde bombshell.” In Fox’s We’re Not Married, Alton Cook of the New York World‑Telegram wrote that “Marilyn supplies beauty. She is Hollywood’s foremost expert.” Fox’s Monkey Business prompted Paul C. Beckley of the New York Herald Tribune to note the shift underway: “Not seen her before. I now know what’s that about.” She finished the year in Fox’s anthology O. Henry’s Full House, where Archer Winston of the New York Post singled out her “stunning proportions.”
This iconic black‑and‑white close‑up of Marilyn Monroe (above) was made in early 1953 by 20th Century‑Fox’s chief portrait photographer, Frank Powolny, as a deliberate publicity image for her breakthrough film Niagara. The styling, the expression, the heavy‑lidded “bedroom eyes” — all echo the Philippe Halsman Life magazine portrait from January 1952 (published April 7, 1952), because both sessions caught her at the exact moment she was standardizing and weaponizing her look.
The 1953 shoot took place at the Fox studios in Los Angeles, a high‑glamour promotional session meant to generate marketing material for Niagara and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Used widely in posters, press kits, and magazine syndication, the portrait is historically important because it crystallized her trademark expression: head tipped slightly back, eyes half‑closed, lips parted just enough to show her teeth.
Its impact was immediate. The image fixed her aesthetic in the public imagination and helped shift her from rising starlet to fully recognized global symbol of Hollywood glamour. Decades later, the tight crop — platinum curls, parted lips, beauty mark, and that unmistakable gaze — remains one of the most reproduced portraits in pop culture. It was this Powolny series that Andy Warhol appropriated for his 1962 silkscreens after her death. Marilyn didn’t merely suggest the look she had explored with Halsman; she executed it so precisely that the studio seized it and mass‑marketed its power. “Marilyn Monroe – 1952 / fotografiada por Philippe Halsman para LIFE” by Antonio Marín Segovia is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
Taken by Canadian journalist‑photographer Jock Carroll in June 1952 on location in Niagara Falls, Canada, this candid portrait (above) comes from his two‑week assignment for Weekend Magazine, which had commissioned him to profile the 26‑year‑old rising actress as she filmed her breakthrough thriller Niagara. The image captures a candid, windswept moment during one of their informal walks along the Niagara River: Monroe in a simple white sleeveless top, her small medallion pendant visible, her blonde curls blown out by the mist and wind rolling off the falls.
Across the assignment Carroll shot more than 400 candid photographs. The easy rapport they developed allowed him to capture unguarded moments — including the now‑famous sequence of Monroe practicing how to smoke in her room at the General Brock Hotel for an upcoming role. A selection of his images ran with his profile in the August 9, 1952 issue of Weekend Picture Magazine.
Most of the negatives remained unseen for decades until they resurfaced in 1996 in Falling for Marilyn: The Lost Niagara Collection, which established the set as a major historical record. Today, this windswept portrait is celebrated for stripping away the studio‑manufactured bombshell veneer, offering instead an unfiltered, radiant glimpse of Norma Jeane at her most natural and effortlessly charming.
Jock Carroll’s candid photograph (above) catches Marilyn Monroe from behind as she suddenly breaks into a light jog in her high heels along the concrete pier toward the Maid of the Mist, Niagara Falls thundering behind her. Carroll wanted movement rather than a stiff publicity pose, something that showed her responding naturally to the environment. She wears a button‑back, off‑the‑shoulder top and a pale pencil skirt, the outfit emphasizing the clean, unforced lines of her stride.
In the finished 1953 film, director Henry Hathaway devoted 116 uninterrupted feet of film to a single shot of Monroe walking away from the camera in a tight pencil skirt — one of the longest “walking‑away” shots in cinema history. It permanently established her swinging gait as a defining element of her star power, a signature that audiences recognized instantly and never forgot.
Marilyn Monroe’s performance and appearance in Niagara in 1953 from 20th Century-Fox were highly praised. One critic observed: “Seen from any angle…Marilyn Monroe leaves little to be desired.” (A.H. Weiler, New York Times).Public Domain. in the United States. Because it was an uncopyrighted promotional still distributed freely to the public by the movie studio between 1931 and 1963, its copyright was never registered or renewed.
Publicity portrait of Marilyn Monroe as Rose Loomis in the 1953 film Niagara. By Gene Kornman (1897-1978). This work is in the public domain because it was published in the United States between 1931 and 1963, and although there may or may not have been a copyright notice, the copyright was not renewed.
Marilyn Monroe’s momentum in 1953 never faltered. Her three Twentieth Century‑Fox releases that year — Niagara, praised as “seductive,” Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, deemed “alluring,” and How to Marry a Millionaire, celebrated for her “magnificent proportions” — collectively cemented her acting career and her place as America’s enduring screen symbol.
Ray Anthony (b. 1922), one of the last living figures from post‑war Old Hollywood, belongs to the same generation whose era effectively closed with Marilyn’s death in 1962. Four years her senior, he reached his hundredth birthday in California on January 20, 2022.
Most of that remarkable cohort born in 1922 — Ava Gardner, Jason Robards, Betty White, Judy Garland, Doris Day, Cyd Charisse, Kim Hunter, Eleanor Parker, Veronica Lake, and many others — has now passed, leaving only a few witnesses to that vanished world.
Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio — the movie star and the former major‑league baseball great — married in 1954. “Evan Esar” by Peter K. Levy is marked with Public Domain Mark 1.0.
Ray Anthony’s rise in the early 1950s came through a wildly popular dance band that kept producing records that instantly entered American social life. Numbers like The Hokey Pokey and The Bunny Hop became fixtures at wedding receptions throughout the 1960s and 1970s, part of the soundtrack of mid‑century celebration.
When Anthony released his single Marilyn, the world’s most famous sex symbol was still unattached, though being actively courted by New York Yankees legend Joe DiMaggio. They would marry in 1954. By then Marilyn had already been declared Hollywood’s “It Girl” of 1952, her career hovering at the edge of full stardom — an excitement that made the Marilyn release party crackle.
Photo of musician Ray Anthony and Marilyn Monroe from the cover of Down Beat magazine in 1952.This work is in the public domain because it was published in the United States between 1931 and 1963, and although there may or may not have been a copyright notice, the copyright was not renewed.
Anthony had a particular fondness for glamorous Hollywood blondes. He married one in 1955: Mamie Van Doren, with whom he had a son before divorcing in 1961. In 1956 he appeared alongside another blonde bombshell, Jayne Mansfield, in the musical comedy The Girl Can’t Help It.
Surrounded by beauty, music, and the energy of post‑war Hollywood, Anthony reached a fitting milestone in 1957 when he received his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Marilyn Monroe received her Hollywood Walk of Fame star on February 8, 1960. see – Marilyn Monroe – Hollywood Walk of Fame – retrieved July 16, 2026.
This explanatory article may be periodically updated.
FEATURE image: Portrait of Molière, c. 1658, Pierre Mignard (1612-1695), Château de Chantilly. Pierre Mignard is one of the major classic French portrait artists. When the artist crossed paths with Molière in Avignon in 1658, after having worked in Orange and Saint-Rémy, a great friendship started between the two men, until the death of Molière in 1673. The portrait of Molière in Chantilly probably dates from this Avignon meeting, as the writer appears to be under forty years old.
Pierre Mignard, self portrait, 1650.
Molière was born into a well-to-do family on January 15, 1622 at Rue St. Honoré in Paris and grew up near the Bastille at Rue Saint-Antoine. The greatest genius of the French theater was baptized at St. Eustache as Jean-Baptiste Poquelin. He adopted the stage name of Molière in the mid1640s after he founded his first theater troupe.
Nicolas Mignard (1606-1668). Molière (1622-1673) dans le rôle de César de la “Mort de Pompée”, tragédie de Corneille. Paris, musée Carnavalet.Nicolas Mignard (1606-1668), self portrait, La Fondation Calvert Museum, Avignon. Mignard was a painter and older brother of Pierre Mignard.St. Eustache in Paris was where Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, dit Molière, was baptized. PHOTO credit: “Around St. Eustache Paris 1e (40)” by Julie70 Joyoflife is marked with CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.
Known as the “Shakespeare of France,” Molière was a profound theater actor, writer and poet. His plays’ wit and characters are timeless, including Tartuffe (1664), Don Juan (1665), and The Misanthrope (1666).
In 2007 French film, “Molière,” Romain Duris is Molière and Laura Morante is Elmire
The fictional film is told in flashback to 1645. It is a conflation of different periods in Molière’s life into one earlier period. In 1645, 23-year-old bachelor Molière was bailed out of debtor’s prison. Molière was married and much older when his great, controversial play, Tartuffe, appeared in the mid1660s.
In the film, Molière poses as “Monsieur Tartuffe” (a priest) who serves as tutor for Orgon’s children. In history, older Molière played the part of the householder and trusting husband, Orgon, in his play, Tartuffe. In the film, a young Molière as Tartuffe, as in the play, falls in love with Elmire, Orgon’s neglected wife of the household.
In this scene Molière delivers a letter to Elmire from her secret admirer which, unknown to her, was written by the debonaire M. Tartuffe (Duris as young Molière).
Today any type of true romance can be heart-warming, but in the 17th century romance was viewed through the lens of means and ends, either of which could be scandalous.
Molière’s great plays Don/m Juan and Tartuffe were halted in their tracks by French religious and royal authorities who were concerned that their characters and plots could provoke popular scandal. In the mid1660s, the Archbishop of Paris condemned Molière’s work -– and the libertine Molière himself — and then turned to the highest state authority, the king, with whom the top bishop was privileged to be closely aligned, to carry out his sentence. For Molière, the Ancien Régime was alive and well: the American and French Revolutions a distant century in the future.
“But I ought to warn you, strictly between the pair of us, that in Don Juan my master you see the greatest scoundrel that ever walked on Earth. He is a madman, a dog, a devil, a Turk. He is a heretic who believes in neither Heaven, nor saint, nor God, nor the bogeyman. He lives the life of an absolute brute beast. He is an Epicurean hog, a regular Sardanapalus who is deaf to every Christian remonstrance, and looks on all that we others believe as nothing but old wives’ tales. You say he has married your mistress. He would have done far more than that to gratify his desires. He would have married you, and her dog and cat as well. It costs him nothing to marry. That is the best baited trap he has.” – Sganarelle, servant of Don Juan, played by Molière. From Don Juan (1665).
“You see him as a saint. … I see right through him. He’s a fraud.” – Dorine, played by Madeleine Béjart, Act 1, Scene 1. From Tartuffe (1664).
“It’s true – those whose private conduct is the worst,/Will mow each other down to be the first/To weave some tale of lust, and hearts broken/Out of a simple kiss that’s just a token/Between friends.”– Dorine, played by Madeleine Béjart, Act 1, Scene 1. From Tartuffe (1664).
“See, I revere/Everyone whose worship is sincere./Nothing is more noble or beautiful/Than fervor that is holy, not just dutiful.“ – Cléante, played by La Thorillière, Act I, Scene 4. From Tartuffe (1664).
“What good would it do to dissent? A father’s power is great.” – Mariane, played by Mlle de Brie, Act 2, Scene 3. From Tartuffe (1664).
“Don’t be deceived by hollow shows; / I’m far … from being what men suppose.“ – Tartuffe, played by Du Croisy, Act 3, Scene 6. From Tartuffe (1664).
“There’ll be no sins for which we must atone,/Because evil only exists when it’s known.” – Tartuffe, played by Du Croisy, Act 4, Scene 5. From Tartuffe (1664).
“Ah! Ah! You are a traitor and a liar!/Some holy man you are, to wreck my life, / Marry my daughter? Lust after my wife?” – Orgon, played by Molière, Act 4, Scene 7. From Tartuffe (1664).
“Damn all holy men! They’re filled with deceit!/I now renounce them all, down to the man.” – Orgon, played by Molière, Act 5, Scene 1. From Tartuffe (1664).
“All that we most revere, he uses/To cloak his plots and camouflage his ruses.” – Dorine, played by Madeleine Béjart, Act 5, Scene 7. From Tartuffe (1664).
While “mixing it up” in politics has shown itself to be the Church’s normal path, it was Molière’s irreligious observations of such that proved a major theme in his wittiest dramas and brought him into trouble with the authorities. While a young King Louis XIV (1638-1715) approved orders that banned some of Molière’s farces, the royal personage was reluctant to do so. It had been the priests who were stung by Molière’s popular ridicule with its social risk of being overthrown by its witty truths. Yet the church’s well-connected desires to cancel Molière proved only partly successful in the mid-17th century and, afterwards, hardly at all.
Molière and His Times: Writers of 17th Century French Literature
The 17th century contained and continued the wealth of French literature in its many genres including these literati, among others, in poetry, novels, fairty tales, essays. philosophy, theology, and drama.
POETRY
François de Malherbe (1555-1628) by Robert Lefevre. Public Domain.Jean de La Fontaine (1621-1695) by Hyacinthe Rigaud. Carnavalet Museum, Paris. Public Domain.Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux (1636-1711) dit Boileau, 1678, by Jean-Baptiste Santerre. Public Domain.
NOVELS AND FAIRY TALES
Savinien de Cyrano de Bergerac (1619-1655), c. 1654, by Zacharie Heince. Public Domain.Charles Perrault (1628-1703), c. 1670, oil on canvas, 135.50 x 97.50 cm, by Charles Le Brun. Public Domain.
Rene Descartes (1596-1650), c. 1648, by Jan Baptist Weenix (1621-16590, Utrecht Centraal Museum. Public Domain.
THEOLOGY
Saint Francis de Sales (1567-1622). Seated portrait wih a copy of his work, “Introduction to the Devout Life,” oil on canvas, c.1790s, 77 cm x 99.5 cm, unknown artist. Public Domain. François Fénelon (1651-1715) by Joseph Vivien. Public Domain. Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet (1627-1704) by Hyacinthe Rigaud. Public Domain.
DRAMA
Pierre Corneille (1606-1684), 1647, by Charles Le Brun. Public Domain. Jean Racine (1639-1699). Public Domain. Jean Rotrou (1609-1650). Paul Scarron (1610-166), c. 17th century, artist unknown, Musée de Tessé, Le Mans, France. French poet, dramatist, and novelist, born in Paris, Scarron was the first husband of Françoise d’Aubigné, who later became Madame de Maintenon and secretly married King Louis XIV of France.Public Domain.
Molière’s Comedy: Wit And Types
Molière wrote drama based on actual facts of society and human nature. Using ludicrous incidents, he headed straight to a moral purpose. His plays were very instructive and had all the makings of high comedy. Molière attracted his audience as a premier dramatist of wit.
His characters are not individuals but types which are intense. This comic form is mainly indigenous to France and contrasted to Italy’s dramatic form of tragedy.
The City of Paris Plays a Role
Paris is a theatrical city. Similar to today’s Beaubourg in fine weather, there were outdoor performances at the Pont Neuf and Place Dauphine. The Hotel de Bourgogne on Rue Etienne Marcel was used in the 16th century by the Confraternité de la Passion for passion plays. In the mid1620s when America was wilderness there were street parades of comedians in Paris to lure spectators into the theatre. Stock farce characters included Aurlupin (a mean-spirited school teacher), Gros Guillaume (dressed in a flour sack), and Captain Fracasse (breaking plates and things). At the permanent flea market of St. Germain de Prés, spectacles were put on stage. Goods were sold, some of it junk, because, as Daumier observed, “people are always fooled.”
Molière’s mother died when he was 10 years old and he was raised by a nurse maid. In his later plays there are often such maids and servant girls.
In Paris, three rival theatre groups coexisted: that of the Marais; that of the Hôtel de Bourgogne; and, that of the Palais-Royal, directed by Molière. After Molière’s death, the actors of the Marais joined Molière’s troupe of actors by royal order. This new troupe settles at the Hotel Guénégaud, rue Mazarine. Public domain.La Thorillière (1626-1680). François de La Thorillière was Molière’s companion and kept the register of the company during the 1663-1664 and 1664-1665 seasons. He moved to the Hôtel de Bourgogne after Molière’s death. In 1680 La Thorillière, head of the troupe of the Hôtel de Bourgogne and the last rival in Paris of Molière’s former troupe, died. The King ordered these two troupes of French actors established in Paris to play together going forward. Public Domain. La Grange (1635-1692). On August 25, 1680, the actors of La Thorillière’s Hotel de Bourgogne and Molière’s former troupe now led by La Grange’s Hotel Guénégaud gave their first joint performance. On October 21, 1680, an official royal letter signed at Versailles, established the unique troupe, composed of 27 actors and actresses chosen by the King for their excellence, to have a monopoly of performances in French so to “make performances of comedies more perfect.” The repertoire includes Corneille, Molière, Racine, Jean Rotrou, Paul Scarron, and others. Public Domain.
Molière Schools in Paris and Orléans; penniless for 15 years
Molière was a commuter student at the Collège de Clermont behind the Sorbonne. Founded in the 1560s by the Jesuits who had a tremendous hold on educating the young in this period, it was renamed Lycée Louis-le-Grand in the 1680s. Nobility and the well-to-do bourgeois schooled together though segregated by a so-called “golden barrier” of identity (an illiberal, reactionary practice). Molière received a strict, excellent education and was a Latinist. He went to Orléans to study law but didn’t pursue it. His father sent him to Narbonne to become a royal tapestry maker (the family business) but Molière was idealistic and chose to be in theater. Following his bliss, twenty-something Molière, around the time of the 2007 film included above, was virtually penniless for the next 15 years.
In the shadow of the queen of the sciences (theology), cultural authorities of church and state officially ordered the boycott of theater as immoral. But the people in Paris mostly ignored these bans and theater life thrived.
Molière’s first theater production flops and he is bailed out of debtor’s prison by a street contractor
By the 17th century the Renaissance social fad of tennis had faded away and Molière rented empty courts for the theater. He joined Madeliene Béjart, four years older and from a family of actors, and established his first theater in June 1643 called Illustre Théâtre (“Illustrious Theater”). The first performances in the tennis court featuring the 22-year-old Molière and the others opened on January 1, 1644.
To build the theater, Molière fell into debt in 1644. The first performances were a complete flop and Molière was thrown into debtor’s prison for 3 days in July 1645. A paving contractor paid the bail to release the young actor/writer, a remarkable historical fact.
Madeleine Béjart (1618-72) playing Madelon in “Précieuses Ridicules” by Molière, oil paint on stone, French School, 17th century (after 1659,). Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris. Public Domain.
In Paris in the 1640s there were two official theatre troupes and Molière’s Illustre Théâtre was not one of them. The troupe did have a royal protector, the king’s brother. But no financial bailout was provided by Gaston d’Orléans (1608-1660) and Molière’s first theater had to be auctioned off with proceeds going to creditors.
Gaston d’Orléans (1608-1660) by Anthony Van Dyck, 1634. Musée Condé. Molière’s noble sponsor would not be held financially responsible for the bad luck of the young actor’s first theatre troupe in Paris.
In 1646 Molière and Mme. Béjart joined a troupe led by Charles Dufresne (1611-1684) and left for the provinces, specifically to Nantes and points south. Success as an actor was fleeting, and Molière was very close to returning to his father’s business as a tapestry maker. Molière, like his fellow actors, could not afford costumes and wore street clothes on stage. His was just one theatre troupe among the 1,000 or so in France. Others in the defunct Illustre Théâtre joined Molière in 1648. Dufresne handed over the direction of the troupe to Molière in 1650 who rechristened the troupe Comédiens de SAR le prince de Conti. The prince de Conti (1629-1666), fifth in line to be king, was Molière’s new patron and friend. At the domaine de la Grange des Prés at Pézenas in Languedoc, the actor-playwright discussed plays and theater with the prince.
Armand de Bourbon, prince de Conti (1629-1666). The prince in Languedoc was a patron and friend of Molière in the 1650s. Le musée du Vieux Nîmes.Anne-Marie Martinozzi (1637-1672) was the wife of the prince de Conti. She was also the niece of Cardinal Mazarin, successor to Richelieu. Though there were interludes of life together at Pézenas with the prince, much of their marriage was lived apart. It is the princess who shows herself in love, writing her husband numerous letters. Château de Versailles.
In the 1650s, Molière’s troupe became moderately successful performing all over southern Mediterranean France. Though Molière kept a notebook to record his ideas and character types these personal items have been lost.
Portrait of Molière, c. 1658 , Pierre Mignard (1612-1695), Château de Chantilly.
The prince de Conti, Languedoc governor, was the king’s cousin, and, upon marrying Anne-Marie Martinozzi (1637-1672) in 1654, an in-law of sorts to Cardinal Mazarin (Anne-Marie was Mazarin’s niece). The prince de Conti, however, lived with his mistress at Pézenas among Molière’s free-spirited actors. In 1655 the prince, being engaged in military campaigns in Spain and experiencing failing health, had a religious awakening. He discarded the mistress, returned to his wife and banished the theatre. Molière had, overnight, been cancelled.
Allowance of theater in society based on moral grounds would continue to evolve as audiences continued to enjoy its entertainment value. Finding a need and filling it, Molière sold drama as morality and used witty plot and dialogue that slayed his subject close to the bone.
Armande Béjart (1645-1700).Armande Béjart was in Molière’s troupe in 1653 under the name of Mademoiselle Menou and played child roles. Married to Molière in 1662, she was the inspiration for all his heroines: the Princess of Élide, Charlotte, Célimène, Lucinde, Elmire, Alcmène, Élise, Angélique, Lucile, Hyacinthe, Henriette. Armande and Molière’s daughter, Madeleine-Esprit, survived but their two sons did not. When Molière died in 1673, Armande encouraged the troupe, led by La Grange. In 1677 Armande remarried a man not in the theater named Guérin d’Etriché and they had a son. She became Mademoiselle Guérin on stage in the troupe brought together by Louis XIV in 1680 and retired in 1694.
After being cancelled by the prince de Conti who became an implacable enemy of the theater until his death in 1666, the reputation of Molière’s traveling troupe was being critically appreciated at the highest levels. In 1658, the king’s brother, 18-year-old Philippe d’Orléans, le Monsieur (1640-1701), arranged an audition for Molière and his troupe in Paris. The result was that King Louis XIV approved the Troupe de Monsieur to share the royal theater, the Petit-Bourbon. Molière immediately premiered there on November 2, 1658. The troupe soon had to build up its cast and repertoire to meet the Paris audience’s expectations and Molière looked to provide them with original comedies. This was notably aided by the addition, in 1659, of 24-year-old La Grange, who would play young romantic lead roles.
Philippe d’Orléans (1640-1701). Musée des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux. Le Monsieur, the king’s younger brother, wears an ostentatiously beautiful bow-tie. Pierre Mignard, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux. Public Domain.
Also in 1659, having acquired the king’s favor, Molière set about to write the first of his great works: Précieuses Ridicules. In 1662 he married Madeleine Béjart’s younger sister (possibly daughter), Armande. The king was godfather to their child as Molière now performed at the Palais Royal for the king and the royal family. In the next years, Molière wrote plays about marriage, jealousy, and adultery, including The Imaginary Cuckold in 1660; Don Garcie de Navarre and The School for Husbands in 1661; and, a great success, The School for Wives in 1662. Opening in December 1662, by the end of May 1663, audiences filled the theatre to watch The School for Wives, a play whose scheming plot is more straightforward than its characters, in over 60 performances. It was afterward attacked by critics who expressed outrage for its sexual references and irreligiosity, but also, possibly, envy for its newness and blatant success. A flurry of artful broadsides between Molière and the King’s Actors at The Hôtel de Bourgogne followed in pamphlets and on their respective stages.
“People of quality know everything without ever having learned anything.” (Les gens de qualité savent tout sans avoir jamais rien appris.) – Mascarille, played by Molière, Act 1, Scene 8. From Précieuses Ridicules (1659).
“A man’s not simple to take a simple wife. Your wife, no doubt, is a wise, virtuous woman. But brightness, as a rule, is a bad omen. And I know men who’ve undergone much pain because they married girls with too much brain. I want no intellectual, if you please.” – Arnolphe, Act 1, Scene 1. From School For Wives (1662).
“It must be confessed that love is a skillful instructor. It teaches us to be what we never were before. By its lessons a complete change in our manners is often the work of a moment. It overcomes obstacles in our very nature, and its sudden effects seem like miracles. It makes misers liberal in an instant, cowards become heroes, and, dear gentlemen, it turns the most inexperienced mind into a nimble wit, as it gives understanding to the most simple.” – Horace, Act 3, Scene 4. From School For Wives (1662).
Artist’s imaginary depiction of Lully’s Armide, Salle du Palais-Royal, 1761, by Gabriel de Saint-Aubin (1724-1780), Boston Museum of Fine Arts.
Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632-1687): Italian-born French composer to “The Sun King” King Louis XIV, and collaborator with Molière on comédies-ballets whcih culminated in 1670 with Le bourgeois gentilhomme.
In 1664 famous French composer J.B.- Lully (1632-1687) began a series of 13 comedy-ballets with Molière including La Princesse d’Élide (1664); Le Mariage forcé (1664), L’Amour médecin, (1665), George Dandin ou le mari confondu (1668), Monsieur de Pourceaugnac (1669), Le Bourgeois gentilhomme (1670), and Psyché (1671). Their collaboration, which was sometimes stormy, ended in 1671. Lully was born as G.B. Lulli in Florence, Italy. He was brought from Florence to Paris in 1646 by the Duc de Guise and placed in the service of La Grande Mademoiselle, Mlle. De Montpensier (1627-1693), the duke’s niece, at her court in the Tuileries. She despised Cdl. Mazarin and was involved in the Fronde (1648-1653) which was defeated by Louis XIV. Following Mlle de Montpensier’s exile to her château at Saint-Fargeau in Burgundy, Lully, who had been learning the best of French and Italian music, was released from her service and in 1653 was made Louis XIV’s court composer (“compositeur de la music instrumentale”) where he was in charge of the king’s personal violin orchestra. An innovative composer, Lully employed his skills and talents to ballet, theater, and opera while ascending the ranks at court. In 1661 Lully became “surintendant de la music et compositeur de la musique de la chambre” which gave Lully, not yet 30 years old, greater responsibilities for the king’s music.
Full-length portrait engraving of Jean-Baptiste Lully by Henri Bonnart (1642-1711).
In 1662 Lully became a naturalized Frenchman, married Madeleine Lambert, and was appointed “maître de la musique de la famille royale.” In these early years, as he wrote operas and theatre music for Molière, the ostentatious Lully was envied by other musicians as his success at court continued unabated. In 1681, Lully was made sécretaire de Roi, an ennobling position, signed Monsieur de Lully, escuyer, conseiller, Secrétaire du Roy, Maison, Couronne de France & de ses Finances, & Sur-Intendant de la Musique de sa Majesté. In the 1680’s, the last decade of his life, Lully turned to writing religious music. In January 1687, while beating time during a performance with his cane on the floor, Lully injured his foot which became infected and he died soon after. Lully is the epitome of the French royal composer having written almost everything to the taste and service of the king. Lully’s three sons – Louis, J.B. and Jean-Louis -also became court composers in the king’s service. Louis XIV died in 1715.
Philippe Quinault (1635-1688) in 1670. When Lully turned to opera he teamed up with Philippe Quinault as librettist. Of the 13 tragédies lyriques Lully wrote between 1673 and 1686 – a quintessentially French type of opera – he wrote 11 of them with Quinault.
1660’s: High point for Molière’s plays
The middle 1660s was a high point for Molière’s plays: Tartuffe; Festin de Pierre (Don Juan) and Le Misanthrope were all written in two or three years (1664-1666). These great comedies of genius, however, were not well received in their day as audiences continued to follow diktats of church and state who condemned the theater and this mocking satire of the authorities (themselves). In May 1664, Molière staged the first three acts of his developing Tartuffe at Versailles. Called The Hypocrite, the play was immediately banned by Louis XIV. When it opened again in 1667 as The Imposter, it was again immediately banned. Any future performance adventured excommunication with the threat extended to its audience. It was not until February 1669 that Louis XIV finally allowed the performance of Tartuffe in its complete five-act form where it instantly became the hottest ticket in Paris.
Molière: Last years
A now prosperous man wanting to continue to practice his theory of the stage as layman’s pulpit and yet retain his hard-earned social position, Molière in his final years turned to light and innocuous spectacles to teach and entertain French society. In 1665 Don Juan ran for 15 performances though it, too, was censored and its financial proceeds had to go to the Church.
“I expect you to be sincere and as an honourable man never to utter a single word that you don’t really mean.” – Alceste, played by Molière, Act 1, Scene 1. From The Misanthrope (1666).
“There’s a season for love and another for prudishness, and we may consciously choose the latter when the hey-day of our youth has passed—it may serve to conceal some of life’s disappointments.” – Célimène, played by Armande Béjart-Molière, Act 3, Scene 4. From The Misanthrope (1666).
“I’ll confront her in no uncertain terms with her villainy, confound her utterly, and then bring to you a heart entirely freed from her perfidious charms.” – Alceste, played by Molière, Act , Scene . From The Misanthrope (1666).
“The failings of human nature in this life give us opportunities for exercising our philosophy, which is the best use we can put our virtues to. If all men were righteous, all hearts true and frank and loyal, what purpose would most of our virtues serve?” – Philinte, played by La Grange, Act 5, Scene 1. From The Misanthrope (1666).
“You shall observe me push my weakness to its furthest limit and show how wrong it is to call any of us wise and demonstrate that there’s some touch of human frailty in every one of us.” – Alceste, played by Molière, Act 5, Scene 4. From The Misanthrope (1666).
Denied Catholic burial at his death in 1673, Molière is at rest in Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris since 1817
A baptized Catholic, Molière died in 1673 at 51 years old. He was denied a religious burial because he was a theater actor. The Catholic Church impugned Molière’s work. Educated by the Jesuits, Molière never renounced his Catholicism, and was probably not an atheist. He was secretly buried in a Catholic cemetery in a section of unbaptized infants. In 1792, during the French Revolution, Molière’s remains were transferred to the museum of French Monuments. In 1817, Molière was placed in Père Lachaise Cemetery where he resides today.
Molière’s Tomb, Père-Lachaise Cemetery, Paris, 1854, Etching in warm black on ivory laid paper, The Art Institute of Chicago.
Molière’s legacy
Though he disguises himself as a virtuous man, Tartuffe is a hypocrite. As the French and the world celebrate Molière’s 400th birth anniversary they can reflect on the relevance of Molière’s drama for today. Molière would have sufficient material today to write and perform another of his witty comedy and drama for the 21st century. Any ridicule of contemporary types of recognized hypocrites would likely face the menace of cancellation similar to what Molière faced in the 1660s. Yet as antagonized power and interest look to lower the curtain on such work, its actors on stage with its original music, brilliant costume and witty plot and dialogue would meet with the roaring laughter and hand clapping of audiences indicating their approval that the show must go on.
Comedy scenes according to Molière (Lustspielszenen nach Molière), wallpaper, c. 1825-1830, Deutsches Tapetenmuseum, Kassel, Germany. Photo credit: “lustspiel Moliere 1825” by janwillemsen is marked with CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.
FEATURE IMAGE: Jerry (Curley) Howard, Moe Howard and Larry Fine are The Three Stooges. “The Three Stooges” by twm1340 is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.
The year 2022 marks the 100th anniversary of the start of The Three Stooges in show business.
The Stooges began in 1922 as part of a vaudeville act called “Ted Healy and his Stooges.” It started with two stooges originally – brothers Moe and Shemp Howard. Larry Fine joined the act in 1925 or shortly thereafter. Their first Hollywood feature (with Ted Healy) was called Soup to Nuts in 1930. The Stooges worked with Healy until 1934. In that time Shemp broke off on his own to work for Warner Bros. Vitaphone and Jerry Howard, Moe’s younger brother, joined the act as Curley.
Between 1934 and 1958 The Three Stooges made over 90 two-reel shorts featuring their ribald comedy. Starting in 1934 and until the end of the 1950s, The Three Stooges had 26 different opening credits.
In chronological order, all The Stooges’ opening credits from 1934 to 1958.
Moe and Larry appeared in all of them. Curley appeared in 19; Shemp, 6; and Joe, one.
In 1934 there were 4 updates; 6 in 1935; 1 each in 1936, 1937, and 1939; 2 in 1940; 1 in 1943; and 2 in 1945. The 9th (1935), 12th (1937), and 13th (1939) versions were significant brand updates for the Stooges’ opening credits.
In 1946 there were 2 updates – Curley’s last and Shemp’s first. In the postwar years there were less updates – one each in 1947, 1950, 1952, and 1953.
Moe’s brother, Curley, died in 1952 after a long illness. Shemp died suddenly from a heart attack in 1955. Though Curley and Shemp’s comedy styles are very different from one another, they are both equally very funny. Though similar in body type to Curley, Joe Besser brought his own unique comic personality to the act from 1956 to 1958. Joe Besser passed away in 1988.
In 1959 Columbia Pictures released Three Stooges shorts for the first time on television. TV broadcasts in the 1960’s brought a new generation of fans to the Stooges. In 1970 the Stooges were scheduled for a new TV sitcom series but Larry Fine had a paralyzing stroke.
Both Larry and Moe died in 1975. Eight years later, in 1983, The Three Stooges were inducted onto the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Melbourne Spurr (1888-1964) arrived in Hollywood around 1917 at 28 years old. Spurr first worked at the studio of photographer Fred Hartsook (1876-1930) where he shot portraits of silent film stars.
Melbourne Spurr (1888-1964). Public Domain.
GLAMOUR PHOTOGRAPHER MELBOURNE SPURR’S CAREER LAUNCHED BY SILENT SCREEN STAR MARY PICKFORD
After Spurr photographed Mary Pickford at the Hartsook studio, Pickford personally helped Spurr launch his career as a Hollywood portrait photographer. Regarding Mary Pickford, Spurr once said, “[she] always comes back to me, so I guess she thinks I’m not a bad photographer.”
By 1916 Mary Pickford (1892-1979) was a big star and had full authority over the films in which she appeared. She was earning a record-breaking $10,000 a week which was a staggering amount of money in the midteens (about $240,000 a week today).
Mary Pickford (1892-1979) in a photograph taken in about 1914 was a big star in Hollywood.
MELBOURNE SPURR BECAME ONE OF THE MOST POPULAR CELEBRITY PHOTOGRAPHERS IN THE WORLD
Pickford’s special personal interest in Spurr’s career was matched or exceeded by the popularity of his photographs her distributed to the public. The film indutrsy and public’s insatiable interest in Spurr’s portraits following his published Mary Pickford shots made Spurr overnight one of the most popular celebrity portrait photographer in Hollywood. By the mid1920’s Melbourne Spurr was one of the most popular celebrity photographers in the world.
Spurr’s sitters through the roaring 20’s included, among many others, Mary Astor, Marion Davies, Pola Negri, Theda Bara, Norma and Constance Talmadge, Harold Lloyd, Buster Keaton, Fatty Arbuckle, John Barrymore, Lucille Ricksen—and, of course, Alice Terry.
PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAPH OF ALICE TERRY, FILM ACTRESS AND DIRECTOR
Spurr’s portrait photograph of Alice Terry presents a very close-cropped close-up with piercing, radiant eyes, perfect lips, and rich toning.
Alice Terry (1900-1987) began her career as a film actress and director in the silent film era.
Between 1916 and 1933 Terry appeared in 39 films. She started in Not My Sister in 1916. That same year, Terry made the anti-war film, Civilization. In 1921 she starred as Marguerite Laurier, her most acclaimed role, in prominent Irish director Rex Ingram’s film, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Alice Terry and Rex Ingram married that same year.
In 1925, Rex Ingram (1892-1952), was a director on Ben-Hur, an extravaganza production that started in 1923 and became one of the biggest box-office hits of the decade. Working on this film in Italy gave Alice Terry and Rex Ingram the idea to relocate to Nice on the French Riviera and set up their own film studio. In the next years the expatriate actress-director and director made several films for M-G-M on-location in southern Europe and North Africa. Alice Terry made her final film in 1933 in an appearance in Baroud, a film she and Rex Ingram co-directed.
SPURR’S POPULARITY DECLINES AS STUDIO SYSTEM MANDATES IN-HOUSE PHOTOGRAPHERS
With studio consolidation and competition becoming more intense, major movie studios mandated that their stars be photographed only by studio photographers. So was inaugurated the age of motion picture inhouse operators heralding the legendary careers of glamour portrait photographers George Hurrell, Clarence Sinclair Bull, Eugene Robert Richee and others. Since Spurr chose to keep his own studio and not work for a major studio, he began to lose business. It had been for one glorious decade—the 1920’s— that Melbourne Spurr shined in Hollywood.
FEATURE image: Ethel Barrymore on the cover of The Theatre in August 1901 following the close of the successful Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines which ran on Broadway for 168 performances from February to July 1901 and made 22-year-old Ethel Barrymore a star. Public Domain.
Ethel Barrymore’s breakout performance as Madame Trentoni in the 1901 Broadway romantic comedy Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines at the Garrick Theatre transformed her into a major theatrical celebrity, launching a legendary 60-year career across the American stage and cinema.
22-year-old Ethel Barrymore on stage at the Garrick Theatre on West 35th Street in New York City in Clyde Fitch’s Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines in 1901. Dramatist Clyde Fitch (1865-1909) wrote over 60 plays in his career that ranged from comedies and farces to melodramas. Fitch was the most popular writer for the Broadway stage in his time and specialized in writing important dramatic parts for women. Fitch’s new play was a romantic comedy set in the States years after the Civil War. Ethel Barrymore played Madame Trentoni, the female lead and the play’s love interest. The 1901 Broadway production made Barrymore a star. The public domain photograph is in the archive of the Museum of the City of New York.
By John P. Walsh
Stage and screen actress Ethel Barrymore (1879-1959) was the sister to older brother Lionel (1878-1954) and younger brother John (1882-1942) Barrymore. Though Ethel Barrymore was absolutely devoted to the stage from her youth, she began to appear in major silent films starting in 1914. Much later, in the 1940’s, the veteran stage actress was nominated twice for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She won the golden statuette in 1944 for her role as Ma Mott in the film None but the Lonely Heart starring Cary Grant who used a Cockney accent for his part.
By the time Barrymore appeared in her first feature motion picture, The Nightingale, in 1914, she was a celebrated stage actress on both sides of the Atlantic. Coming from the famous American acting family of Drews and Barrymores, the just 16-year-old Ethel Barrymore made her Broadway stage debut in 1895 alongside her uncle, John Drew, Jr. (1853-1927).
Ethel Barrymore at 17 years old in 1896. In 1895, a 16-year-old Barrymore made her Broadway stage debut alongside her uncle, Jack Drew, Jr., a famous and well-liked actor.
John Drew, Jr. in 1896. A versatile actor, Drew was so highly esteemed by his fellow actors that they elected him the lifetime president of New York City’s Players’ Club. The private social club for actors founded in the 1840’s at 16 Gramercy Park remains active today.
Before she was 20 years old, Ethel appeared several times on the London stage. Her first role was that of Miss Kittridge in William Gillette’s new play, Secret Service (1895). After that show closed, she was offered and played other roles on the London circuit. By the turn of the 20th century, a vibrant and talented Ethel Barrymore gained the especial attentions of several male admirers that included dukes, actors, writers and politicians.
As a young, vibrant actress touring the London circuit, she caught the attention of many high-society suitors, famously refusing a marriage proposal from a young Winston Churchill, who became a lifelong friend.
Winston Churchill in 1900. A public domain photograph in the Imperial War Museum.
One such admirer of Ethel Barrymore was eligible bachelor, enthusiastic theater hound, and nascent politician Winston Churchill (1874-1965). Though Ethel had many propositions and proposals in this period—she was even briefly engaged to a man until Ethel broke it off—any marriage proposal made to her by Churchill was refused. Churchill and Barrymore, however, became lifelong friends.
Poster for William Hooker Gillette’s 1895 play, Secret Service, on the London stage which featured young American actress Ethel Barrymore in its cast. The poster promotion depicts the play as a royal entertainment which attracts princes and princesses, dukes and duchesses. William Gillette (1853-1937) wrote melodramas and spy plays that were very popular with audiences. In 1899, Gillette first created the role of Sherlock Holmes for the stage, a role which he himself played for over 30 years.
Ethel Barrymore at 19 years old in 1898.
Young Ethel Barrymore. From a famous American acting family, she was was devoted to the stage at an early age.
At 20 years old Ethel Barrymore gained the attention of many male admirers, including dukes, actors, writers and politicians. Though briefly engaged around the turn of the century, Ethel broke it off. Ethel finally married in 1909. She met her husband, Russell Griswold Colt (1882–1960), at Sherry’s restaurant at 44th Street and Fifth Avenue in New York City while having lunch with her uncle, John Drew, Jr. The marriage produced three children, though it ended in divorce in 1923.
When Ethel returned to the United States, she began to appear in various stage productions. It was in 1901 when the 22-year-old actress was cast in the role of Mrs. Trentoni in Clyde Fitch’s Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines on Broadway that Ethel Barrymore became a star.
Ethel Barrymore dressed in one of the Edwardian costumes as Madame Trentoni in the 1901 Broadway play, Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines.
The plot of Clyde Fitch’s Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines—in which her character Madame Trentoni falls in love with a man who initially bets he can win her affection—ran for 168 performances from February to July 1901 and cemented Ethel Barrymore’s celebrity status.
Act 1.
Clyde Fitch’s Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines introduces Robert Carrolton Jinks and his friends who form a club to boost the presidential campaign for General U.S. Grant in 1868. Calling themselves “Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines,” they think to try out their marching abilities by greeting the arrival of a steamer carrying Madame Trentoni, a famous opera singer. Though sight unseen, Jinks bets money that he can make Madame Trentoni fall in love with him. The boat is late and everyone leaves the dock except for a gaggle of reporters who wait to greet the opera singer. When Jinks returns, after he lays eyes on Madame Trentoni (played by Ethel Barrymore) he falls in love with her. After Captain Jinks sees she is having trouble at customs, he pulls out money which the customs official mistakes for a bribe and Jinks is promptly arrested.
When Jinks is released on bail he calls on Madame Trentoni who has stopped to visit her foster father. She is as much in love with him as he is with her and their courtship progresses rapidly. When Jinks tries to call off the bet he made with his friends, they refuse until he finally agrees to pay off the bet with an I.O.U.
Jinks’ friends are also smitten with Madame Trentoni but she is totally uninterested in them. This gets them angry and they decide to ruin it for Jinks. They tell Madame Trentoni’s foster father that jinks intends to marry Madame Trentoni solely for her money — and as proof pull out the signed I.O.U. that says “I.O.U. $1,000 for the bet regarding Madame Trentoni.” The foster father flies into a rage, tells Madame Trentoni about the I.O.U, and she decides to never see Jinks again.
ACT 2.
Jinks has no idea why Madame Trentoni is so angry at him. When he finally discovers what his friends have falsely told her, he tries to gain admittance to her apartment to tell her the truth. When she learns the real facts of the matter, Madame Trentoni throws her arms around her Captain Jinks.
In that intimate position, a detective suddenly bursts into the room to arrest Jinks. In all the tumult surrounding the loss of his love interest, Jinks forgot to appear in court for his bribery case. It appeared Jinks had skipped bail. Madame Trentoni tells the detective that she and her sweetheart have had a misunderstanding and only now are having the chance to make up. Her plea and the promise that Captain Jinks will appear in court tomorrow for his case is approved by the detective, who departs. Captain Jinks and Madame Trentoni embrace, and the curtain goes down on the couple living happily ever after.
Act 3.
The public domain photographs above are in the archive of the Museum of the City of New York.
Cultural Phenomenon: The play soon triggered an insatiable public demand for Ethel Barrymore’s style, photos, and postcards.
Color promotional poster for Captain Jinks and the Horse Marines starring Elizabeth Kennedy. After the Broadway show starring Ethel Barrymore closed in July 1901, a new production and cast appeared in 1902. The theatrical poster highlights New York’s Garrick Theatre run. (Library of Congress collection)
Ethel Barrymore as Madame Trentoni in 1901.
Ethel Barrymore on the cover of The Theatre in August 1901 following the close of her successful Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines run which made 22-year-old Ethel Barrymore a star.
Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines was produced in 1901 at the Garrick Theatre. The 910-seat theatre was built in 1890 by Francis Hatch Kimball (1845-1919) and located at 67 W. 35th Street in New York City.
The Garrick opened as Harrigan’s Theatre and became the Garrick in 1895. It was sold to the Schubert brothers in 1916 and leased to Otto Kahn who renamed it the Théâtre du Vieux-Colombier in 1917.
Management reverted to the Schuberts in 1925 when the theatre featured popular burlesque until the onset of the Great Depression. The building was demolished in 1932.
Screenshot, October 2019, site of GARRICK THEATRE (1890-1932), 67 W. 35th Street, New York City. The Garrick Theatre was where Ethel Barrymore starred as Madame Trentoni in Clyde Fitch’s Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines. A smash hit, the Broadway production made Ethel Barrymore one of the 20th century’s major theatrical and film stars. In 2006 the site had a multi-level parking garage which was later replaced by a hotel devlopment. The brownstone building in the middle distance appears to have survived from the late 19th-century period.
Following her 1901 success, Ethel Barrymore became a cultural style icon. She went on to headline numerous top-rated Broadway plays throughout the early 1900s.
Both photographs above, Ethel Barrymore in 1901. As a new theatrical celebrity Barrymore’s image, style, and fashion were in demand by the public.
Ethel Barrymore in 1901.
Barrymore with a fur muf and feather hat in a hairstyle à la mode. The demand by the public for images of theatrical celebrities was insatiable.
In the 20th century’s first decade, Ethel Barrymore became a theatrical celebrity. Her image was in demand in photographs and picture post cards of the time. Throughout the first third of the twentieth century, Barrymore continually appeared in popular stage productions. Following the success of Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines, Barrymore appeared in the next years in many top-rated popular Broadway productions.
A few highlights included in 1903 Barrymore appearing for 60 performances in the title role in Cousin Kate at the brand-new Hudson Theatre at 139–141 West 44th Street. In 1905 Barrymore played Norma Helmer in Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll House for 23 performances at The Lyceum Theatre at 149 West 45th Street. Also in 1905 Barrymore appeared in Alice Sit-by-the-Fire at the Empire Theatre. In 1908 Barrymore played the title role in Lady Frederick for 96 performances, again at the Hudson Theatre. There were a dozen more productions Barrymore was involved in before 1910.
Another side of Ethel Barrymore, at the piano in 1903. Before she took to a career on the stage, Ethel Barrymore aspired to be a concert pianist as a youth.
Ethel Barrymore, 1904, by photographer Arnold Genthe. The actress was starring in several plays that year including in the title role of Kate Curtis in My Cousin Kate at the Empire Theatre. Barrymore would reprise the role briefly in 1907.
Ethel Barrymore in a photograph by William Morrison of Chicago in 1907. In the 1900’s Ethel Barrymore was a theatrical celebrity whose image displayed the latest fashion, make-up, and hairstyles that helped express the style of the times.
Ethel Barrymore in 1908. She was starring in the title role of Lady Frederick at the Hudson Theatre that year. The Broadway play ran for 96 performances.
Ethel Barrymore made her silent film debut in 1914 with The Nightingale and balanced stage work with cinema, later winning an Oscar in 1944.
With her film debut in 1914 in The Nightingale, a film written especially for her by playwright Augustus Thomas (1857-1934), Ethel Barrymore began in the new silent flickering medium of cinema in the footsteps of her brothers Lionel and John, who made their film debuts a couple of years earlier.
While Ethel made at least 14 films between 1914 and 1919 (some films are lost) she continued with her stage work and appeared in a dozen more Broadway productions throughout the 1910’s. When she decided to interrupt her film work in 1920 –and did not return to the movies until 1932 in the M-G-M film Rasputin and the Empress starring with her brothers (Ethel played Czarina Alexandra) – she appeared in a dozen more plays in the 1920’s, all in prominent Broadway theatres.
In 1922 she starred as Juliet in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet for 23 performances at the Longacre Theatre at 220 West 48th Street as well as her celebrated role as Constance Middleton in Somerset Maugham’s new comedy play, The Constant Wife, in 1927. It ran for 296 performances at Maxime Elliot’s Theatre at 109 West 39th Street (it was demolished in 1960). The play had previewed in Cleveland, Ohio, at the Ohio Theatre in early November 1926 with Ethel Barrymore in the title role. It opened on Broadway at the end of November 1926 and ran until August 1927. After the Broadway show closed, Ethel Barrymore toured the production. Maugham dedicated his play to Ethel Barrymore and later said her performance was by far the best of any he had seen given for any of his plays.
Barrymore’s extensive stage work in this period also included, in 1928, appearing in the role of Sister Gracia in The Kingdom of God. The play was selected by Ethel Barrymore herself as the premier production in the Schubert Theatre chain’s newly-built 1,058-seat venue at 243 W. 47th Street in New York City. The new Broadway venue was named the Ethel Barrymore Theatre. Since its opening on December 20, 1928, the Ethel Barrymore Theatre has, without exception, presented legitimate Broadway productions continuously from that time to the present day.
Ethel Barrymore died on June 18, 1959, two months shy of her 80th birthday, at her home in Hollywood. She is buried in the Main Mausoleum in Calvary Cemetery in East Los Angeles, California. (see – https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/59/Ethel-Barrymore – retrieved June 18, 2024). The middle sister of Lionel and John Barrymore, Ethel is great aunt of Drew Barrymore. A screen legend and New York and London stage celebrity for more than 60 years Ethel Barrymore is a First Lady of the American Theatre.
Ultimate Honor: Ethel Barrymore had a permanent 1,058-seat Broadway theatre named after her in 1928.
The Ethel Barrymore Theatre on West 47th street in New York City opened on December 20, 1928. It has been in continuous operation as a legitimate theatre since its first production, The Kingdom of God, a play Barrymore selected and starred in. Photo Credit: “Barrymore Theatre” by ensign_beedrill is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
Three famous actors, Philadelphia-born, in 1904. They were the third generation of the Royal Family of the American stage. From left: John (1882–1942), Ethel (1879–1959), and Lionel (1878–1954) BARRYMORE, performed on stage, screen, and radio. Their grandparents, the Drews, managed the Arch St. Theatre in Philadelphia.
FEATURE image: “Cary Grant” by classic film scans is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
By John P. Walsh
Cary Grant made 72 feature films between 1932 and 1966- 34 in the 1930’s, 20 in the 1940’s, 13 in the 1950’s, and 5 in the 1960’s. (Grant also appeared in 10 more short films between 1932 and 1976). His feature films ranged from all classics of the genre. The debonair English-American actor with boundless energy and superb timing tangled with THRILLERS—Suspicion (1941), To Catch a Thief (1955), North by Northwest (1959)— COMEDIES—Bringing Up Baby (1938), His Girl Friday (1940), The Philadelphia Story (1940)— ROMANCES—Notorious (1946), An Affair to Remember (1957) – and much more. Grant was nominated twice for an Academy Award for Best Actor – in 1941 for Penny Serenade (directed by George Stevens) and None but the Lonely Heart in 1944 – but did not win.
In his 34-year Hollywood career Grant made his last films in the 1960’s. These included That Touch of Mink (1962), Charade (1963), Father Goose (1964), and Walk, Don’t Run (1966). These films became some of his best work. Afterwards, Grant decided to retire at what was a professional – and personal – high note. In June 1965 the 61-year-old Grant married actress Dyan Cannon, 33 years his junior, and they both had their first child, a girl, born in February 1966. It was Dyan Cannon’s first marriage; Grant’s fourth. They divorced in 1968.
With an acting career spanning four decades—Grant’s film debut was in 1932 for Paramount Pictures’ comedy, This is the Night—Grant said good-bye to the silver screen at 62 years old. In 1970 he received his sole Oscar, an honorary one, for which he was pleased and humbled in his acceptance speech before the Academy. It was Hollywood’s Golden Age, and in that time, Cary Grant was a household name synonymous with suavity, comedy, drama, romance, and perpetually fit and tanned-and-pressed good looks.
The 66-year-old leading man and comic actor, whose film career ranged from 1932 to 1966, never won an Oscar. In 1970 he thanked the Academy whose audience that night gave him a standing ovation. Grant, who made over 80 films, including a long list of classic titles, expressed gratitude for “being privileged to be part of Hollywood’s most glorious era.”
“Ours is a collaborative medium—we all need each other,” Cary Grant said as he accepted his honorary Oscar from presenter and friend Frank Sinatra at the 42nd Annual Academy Awards ceremony on April 7, 1970 at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles, California.
Grant’s final film came in 1966 with the summer release of the comedy, Walk, Don’t Run. It was one more film made by one of Grant’s new production companies and distributed by Columbia Pictures. Grant’s departure from film coincided with the birth of his daughter, Jennifer— Grant becoming a father for the first time. Grant called her his “best production”— and now wanted to give her all his time and attention. Grant said: “My life changed the day Jennifer was born. I’ve come to think that the reason we’re put on this earth is to procreate. To leave something behind. Not films, because you know that I don’t think my films will last very long once I’m gone. But another human being. That’s what’s important.”
Cary Grant and wife Dyan Cannon with their baby daughter who was born on February 26, 1966.
Grant starting wooing Dyan Cannon in 1962. Within a three-year whirlwind courtship, she became pregnant with Grant’s baby so that, in1965, the 28-year-old actress wanted a marriage proposal. Cary Grant was the epitome of cinema’s best and most important actors. After their marriage, Dyan Cannon discovered that their relationship turned polite and frostier than she had expected with Hollywood’s quintessential leading man. On March 20, 1968 — less than three years after tying the knot in a secret wedding ceremony in Las Vegas, Nevada followed by a honeymoon in England taking a private jet supplied Howard Hughes – Cannon sought and got a divorce. While Cannon received alimony from Grant to raise their daughter, the young mother and up-and-coming actress had to sort things out more completely after their break-up. Theirs had been a love affair with many memorable romantic moments. But what Grant told her when they were still dating was remembered by Cannon after the marriage failed. Grant said: “I don’t know what it is, but something happens to love when you formalize it. It cuts off the oxygen.”
Grant appears in character as an angel named Dudley in this promotional photograph for the 1947 fantasy romance film, The Bishop’s Wife. By seductively playing a certain song on the harp, Dudley convinces a rich woman to support the bishop’s cathedral building project. In real life, Grant was an ardent piano player.
CHARADE (1963):
When Grant first asked to meet Dyan Cannon, she assumed it was for an acting part. Grant began his romance with then-25-year-old Dyan Cannon in 1962. That fall the couple flew from California to New York where Cannon began rehearsing for The Fun Couple, a Broadway comedy play starring Jane Fonda and directed by Andreas Voutsinas. Grant meanwhile worked with film director Stanley Donen on Charade, a romantic-comedy pseudo-Hitchcock mystery thriller that Grant co-starred in with Audrey Hepburn. Hepburn had been filming another romantic comedy, Paris When it Sizzles, with William Holden.
Promotional poster for Stanley Donen’s Hitchcock-inspired suspense thriller, Charade. The 1963 hit film was made in Paris in 1962 and 1963 and released during Christmas 1963. It starred Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn.
Charade’s animated Main Title and music follow a widescreen shot of a pre-dawn countryside in Europe as a speeding train finally approaches and screeches past. A body is dumped out of the moving train, plunges down the ravine and stops in a ditch, the camera providing a close-up of the dead victim’s face. Colorful animation follows of pinwheels as the wood-block-driven music heighten tension for what will be two charming lovers, Grant and Hepburn, caught in a mysterious web of criminals after money.
The Main Title for Charade with its punchy animated titles by Maurice Binder (1918-1991) was composed by Henry Mancini (1924-1994). The Main Theme from Charade was the first of a number of successful film score collaborations Mancini had with film director Stanley Donen in the 1960’s.
Stills montage of Maurice Binder’s Main Title for Charade that accompanies Henry Mancini’s music.
Grant reluctantly left Cannon and the comforts of his suite at the Plaza Hotel in New York City to make his way to Paris to shoot Charade (Hepburn lived near Paris). Many Paris locations were used in the film: near Notre Dame is the Pont au Double bridge, just below the Quai de Montebello. During the filming of Charade, Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn walked along the riverbank below this bridge as they discussed who the killer is. Another location was the Musée Cernuschi just outside of Parc Monceau on the Avenue Velasquez. The museum is featured in Charade where it is used as Reggie’s apartment which she finds ransacked after returning from a holiday ski trip. Finally, the Palais Royal near the Louvre appears in Charade in its final scenes when the real Carson Dyle is revealed and shooting begins.
Shooting scenes for Charade involved many locations in Paris.
When Dyan Cannon had her first holiday break from Broadway rehearsals at Christmas 1962, she hopped on a flight to Paris. Arriving on December 26, Grant and Cannon spent the next several days together in his hotel. On New Year’s Eve, the couple were the special guests of Audrey Hepburn and her husband Mel Ferrer at their castle where a sumptuous dinner and many flights of crisp and creamy French champagne were served. Cannon flew back to the States on January 2, 1963, after a most pleasant holiday. She resumed her theater work in New York City while Grant and Hepburn stayed behind in Paris to continue filming Charade.
Cary Grant, making his 70th film, was reluctant to leave the U.S. in late 1962 for Paris to film Charade. The film premiered at Radio City Music Hall in New York City on Christmas Day 1963.
Radio City Music Hall in 2008. Charade opened on December 25, 1963 at Radio City Music Hall. The film made six million dollars while the reviews, though mixed, were mainly positive. Critics did remark on the age difference between the romantic leads –Cary Grant was 59 years and Audrey Hepburn, at 34, was almost half his age. In early 1964 the suave and likeable leading man of the last 30 years was thinking about retirement. But there were still some things he hoped to accomplish first.
The film Charade is well-known for its Hitchcock-style inspiration and screenplay by the original story’s author Peter Stone (1930-2003). From Stone’s 1961 short story, The Unsuspecting Wife, the film Charade offers witty lines and a head-knocking, heart-pounding whodunit. In Charade, Regina “Reggie” Lampert (Hepburn) is on winter holiday in the French Alps. Returning to her home in Paris, she is shocked to find that it has been ransacked of everything of value. The mysterious victim thrown off the train in the Main Title and the mysterious man Reggie met on holiday in Grenoble– Peter Joshua, alias Alexander Dyle, alias Adam Canfield, alias Brian Cruikshank (Cary Grant) –converge into her life to help her solve the mystery of why these crimes have occurred and what they mean. Charade is about hidden money, spies and larcenists, double-crossing and being on the run. In addition to all that, it’s a love story. Charade was one of the last of the suspense-screwball comedy films –a staple of the Hollywood film genre since the 1930’s that faded in the gritty realist films of the 1960’s and 1970’s until its reemergence in the 1980’s.
Father Goose (1964):
With Charade in the rear-view mirror, Grant came home just as Cannon became mostly absent. Throughout 1964 and much of 1965 Cannon had done no film work yet but continued a busy theater career as she was touring the country in the musical How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. Looking for something to do with his time, Grant formed a production company and made Father Goose.
Grant’s character, Walter Eckland, played against Grant’s film type. Ecklund was a bedraggled loner in the South Pacific during World War II who reluctantly takes under his protection an unmarried French school teacher (Leslie Caron) and her seven grade school students. They were suddenly made refugees from the war during a Japanese bombing raid. The heart-warming Father Goose was a mega-hit at its release during Christmas 1964 and made millions of dollars. Receipts, however, were significantly less than in each of Grant’s three previous films — Operation Petticoat in 1959 with Tony Curtis, That Touch of Mink in 1962 with Doris Day, and Charade. Despite a lot of pre-Oscar buzz, Grant wasn’t nominated for his performance. Father Goose was one more disappointment for Grant as he worked to possibly be given an Academy Award before he might retire.
Photographs above and below: Cary Grant in Operation Petticoat (1959).
That Touch of Mink (1962):
Cary Grant and Doris Day in the hit romantic comedy, That Touch of Mink. Grant was dismayed that his 1964 romantic comedy adventure film Father Goose made less money than Charade and almost $6 million less than That Touch of Mink in 1962 and Operation Petticoat in 1959 combined.
That Touch of Mink co-starred Doris Day and Cary Grant. It was the hit movie of summer of 1962 though outshined in the movie world by Lawrence of Arabia and The Longest Day later that year. The romantic-comedy is great fun—it won a Golden Globe award for Best Comedy Picture-—and became a popular rerun on TV for the next decade.
Cary Grant was cast as wealthy businessman Philip Shane, a role originally meant for Rock Hudson. That Touch of Mink was, above all, intended to be a Doris Day vehicle. From 1962 to 1964 Doris Day was the top box office star in Hollywood. Her presence definitely contributed to Universal Pictures’ bottom line since That Touch of Mink was the fourth biggest money maker of the year.
Playing working girl Cathy Timberlake, the movie is basically a stylish “boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back”—and given a chance to learn his lesson, they get married. American audiences loved the concept as well as Day and Grant together on the big screen. The film was the fastest million-dollar earner of 1962 and set a record at the time for the highest gross earnings in an initial theatrical release.
For Grant it was his second highest grossing film of his 30-year career, which was especially prosperous since the 58-year-old actor was a co-producer. Grant made $4 million for That Touch of Mink (around $35 million in today’s money). Three weeks after its opening, Betsy Drake, Grant’s third wife, filed for divorce.
The court proceedings of the high-profile couple after over a decade of marriage were followed closely in the press. The settlement for Drake who told the papers: “I was always in love with him and I still am…but…he left me long ago,” included more than one million dollars in cash and profit sharing in every Cary Grant film ever made up to that time.
That Touch of Mink, a film thick with early 1960’s conventional sensibilities, was nominated for 3 Academy Awards. Both Grant and Doris Day never won an Academy Award. The story goes that after her exit from films Doris Day was offered the Honorary Oscar multiple times but always turned it down. Grant won and accepted his Honorary Academy Award in 1970. In 1962 That Touch of Mink was nominated for Best Sound, Best Art Direction and Best Screenplay. In the first two categories Oscar went to Lawrence of Arabia and in the third to Divorce Italian Style.
That Touch of Mink was the fastest million-dollar earner of 1962 and set a record at the time for the highest gross earnings in an initial theatrical release. It was mainly a Doris Day vehicle that co-starred Cary Grant who co-produced.
Newly married in June 1965 to Dyan Cannon who was expecting their baby, Grant announced he was flying to Japan to make another movie. Grant returned to California permanently just in time to drive his wife to the hospital to deliver their first child, a baby daughter, born on February 26, 1966.
In June 1965, with Father Goose and the Oscars behind him and Dyan Cannon’s national tour ended—Grant and Cannon, who was now pregnant, got married. After a secret marriage ceremony in Las Vegas and a honeymoon, their news was eventually publicized. As the excitement began to settle down, Grant informed Cannon he would be making another film—and was traveling to Japan by himself for the next many months.
Walk, Don’t Run (1966):
Grant formed another production company and, with producer Sol C. Siegel, signed with Columbia Pictures to distribute his new film. Buying the rights to The More the Merrier, a World War II-era comedy, Grant took the role that had been nominated in the early 1940’s for an Academy Award. Grant’s 1966 remake was called Walk, Don’t Run in which he played a British industrialist, Sir William Rutland.
The music is by Quincy Jones including its main title, “Happy Feet.”
Grant’s mid 1960’s romantic-comedy vehicle is familiar territory that allowed the now-married father to continue to cash in on his popularity. The film is light fare even when compared to other such Grant vehicles such as Dream Wife (1953), Houseboat (1955), and, more recently, Father Goose (1964). Walk, Don’t Run was a safe remake of an Oscar-nominated World War II-era comedy, The More the Merrier, directed by George Stevens, and starring Jean Arthur, Joel McCrea, and Charles Coburn with Grant taking the Coburn part, a role which was Oscar-nominated in 1943 for Best Supporting Actor. Transferred to the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo during a housing shortage, the story is about three strangers who come to share an apartment — industrial magnate Sir William Rutland (Grant), American Olympian Steve Davis (Jim Hutton), and young single British expat Christine Easton (Samantha Eggar). For Grant’s last film he intentionally worked it so he did not get the girl. Instead, Sir William plays matchmaker to Christine, engaged to boring British diplomat Julius Haversack (John Standing), so that she goes for Hutton. Grant personally cast Hutton and Eggar for their roles. Very predictable fare with stodgy stage direction, the decent performances by the leads bestride what amounts to an anachronistic production, despite its contemporary setting and delightful score from Quincy Jones, his first big break in films.
In the film, Christine, whose tiny apartment it is, would prefer a female roommate. She sublets to Sir William because he is pushy, charming and a fellow Brit in need. But he immediately sublets half of his portion to Hutton, making for three. Comedy results from three outsized adults sharing a very small living space as they pursue their lives’ conflicting schedules as normally as possible.
Samantha Eggar glows in each of her scenes in Walk, Don’t Run though she hasn’t much to work with in terms of a script as evidenced here.
Walk, Don’t Run was one of Quincy Jones’s first big breaks. The 33-year-old Chicago-born Jones came to score the film after its star and Executive Producer, Cary Grant, recommended him for the job. Grant met him briefly through their mutual friend, singer Peggy Lee. From that meeting Grant felt Jones’ style would be perfect for the film and he made sure he was hired. Jones went on to enormous success as the composer of numerous film scores such as In the Heat of the Night in 1967 and The Color Purple in 1985 as well as the producer of successful pop rock recordings such as Michael Jackson’s bestselling albums and the 1985 global recording phenomenon, We Are The World. In 2013, Quincy Jones was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
After Grant returned from Asia and the baby was born, in private and public he insisted that Walk, Don’t Run was his last film. It proved to be true. Grant stated he would not make a film with his wife, Dyan Cannon, a talented actress whose career had just begun. Instead, Grant insisted Cannon should retire from acting and be a stay-at-home mother. Dyan Cannon did not welcome these stay home ideas. Even in 1966 Cannon began to wonder if—following an exciting courtship and a 33-year age difference they barely mentioned—her marriage to Cary Grant was on the rocks.
NOTES:
Best production— “Hollywood loses a legend”. Montreal Gazette. December 1, 1986. p. 1.
That’s what’s important— McCann, Graham (1997). Cary Grant: A Class Apart. Columbia University Press, 1998.
Fastest million-dollar earner of the year and record for highest gross earnings in an initial theatrical release – “Million-$ Gross In 5 Weeks; ‘Mink’ A Radio City Wow”. Variety, July 18, 1962. p.1. and “B’way as Spotty as Weather; ‘Town’ Big $41,000, ‘Guns’ Only Okay $20,000, ‘Grimm’ Giant 59G, ‘Mink’ 151G, 10th” Variety, August 22, 1962. p.9.
Betsy Drake settlement – Eliot, Marc, Cary Grant A Biography, Harmony Books, NY 2004, p 337.
Last film and would not make a film with his wife— Ibid., p. 352.
Might be in trouble—Cannon, Dyan, Dear Cary: My Life with Cary Grant, 2011, p. 217 ff.
PHOTO CREDITS:
FEATURE image-Cary Grant by classic film scans is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
2-Cary Grant by classic film scans is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
3-Fair use.
4-Cary Grant by twm1340 is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.
5-CHARADE by Laurel L. Russwurm is marked with CC0 1.0.
6-Public domain published in a collective work i.e. periodical in the US between 1925 and 1977 and no Copyright.
7-Bond Films Openings Montage (Amalgamation) by avhell is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.
8-Charade titles by Maurice Bender by Stewf is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.
9-Charade_1963_Audrey_Hepburn_and_Cary_Grant public domain because it was published in the United States between 1925 and 1963 and although there may or may not have been a copyright notice, the copyright was not renewed.
10- Cary Grant, in Charade 1963 by Movie-Fan is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.
11- Let’s continue this little Charade by Thiophene_Guy is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.
12-Radio City Music Hall (2008) by jpellgen (@1179_jp) is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
13-Cary Grant by classic film scans is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
14-MM008600-39 by Florida Keys–Public Libraries is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
15- Cary Grant and Doris Day by classic film scans is licensed under CC BY 2.0,
16-1947 Bristol-born Hollywood film star Cary Grant alighting from Bristol Freighter G-AGVC at Los Angeles, 13 Jan 1947. by Gary Danvers is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.
17- Walk, Don’t Run poster. Fair use.
18-Fair use.
CARY GRANT HOLLYWOOD FILMOGRAPHY (1962-1966):
1962:
That Touch of Mink Cary Grant as Philip Shayne Directed by Delbert Mann Released June 14, 1962 Universal Pictures
1963:
Charade Peter Joshua / Alexander Dyle / Adam Canfield / Brian Cruikshank Directed by Stanley Donen Released December 5,1963 Universal Pictures
1964:
Father Goose Walter Christopher Eckland Directed by Ralph Nelson Released December 10, 1964 Universal Pictures
1966:
Walk, Don’t Run Sir William Rutland Charles Walters Released June 29, 1966 Columbia Pictures
This explanatory article may be periodically updated.
*The photograph copyright may be believed to belong to the distributor of the film, Universal Pictures and Columbia Pictures, the publisher of the film or the graphic artist. The copy is of sufficient resolution for commentary and identification but lower resolution than the original photograph. Copies made from it will be of inferior quality, unsuitable as counterfeit artwork, pirate versions or for uses that would compete with the commercial purpose of the original artwork. The image is used for identification in the context of critical commentary of the work, product or service for which it serves as poster art. It makes a significant contribution to the user’s understanding of the article, which could not practically be conveyed by words alone. As this is a publicity photo (star headshot) taken to promote an actress, these have traditionally not been copyrighted. Since they are disseminated to the public, they are generally considered public domain, and therefore clearance by the studio that produced them is not necessary. (See- Eve Light Honthaner, film production expert, in The Complete Film Production Handbook, Focal Press, 2001 p. 211.) Gerald Mast, further, film industry author, in Film Study and the Copyright Law (1989) p. 87, writes: “According to the old copyright act, such production stills were not automatically copyrighted as part of the film and required separate copyrights as photographic stills. The new copyright act similarly excludes the production still from automatic copyright but gives the film’s copyright owner a five-year period in which to copyright the stills. Most studios have never bothered to copyright these stills because they were happy to see them pass into the public domain, to be used by as many people in as many publications as possible.” Kristin Thompson, committee chairperson of the Society for Cinema and Media Studies writes in the conclusion of a 1993 conference with cinema scholars and editors, that they “expressed the opinion that it is not necessary for authors to request permission to reproduce frame enlargements … [and] some trade presses that publish educational and scholarly film books also take the position that permission is not necessary for reproducing frame enlargements and publicity photographs.”(“Fair Usage Publication of Film Stills,” Kristin Thompson, Society for Cinema and Media Studies.)
FEATURE image: Hedy Lamarr, M-G-M, 1940. Photograph by László Willinger (1909-1989).
PHOTO credit: Fair use.*
Hedy Lamarr, M-G-M, 1940. Photograph by László Willinger (1909-1989).
Hedy Lamarr (1914-2000) posed for the glamour portrait (above) in 1940. The legendary Austrian beauty in Hollywood was 27 years old. Since her first American film in 1938, Algiers from United Artists, Lamarr was believed to be the most beautiful women in the movies, if not the world. Her beauty was so great that when she entered a room all activity in it stopped so to admire her.
The publicity photograph of Lamaar was for the 1940 American adventure film Boom Town from Metro-Godwyn-Mayer. It co-stars Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy and Claudette Colbert. Boom Town was the highest grossing film of 1940.
Hedy Lamarr, 1939, László Willinger.
PHOTO credit: Fair use.*
The beautiful color portrait of its co-star was taken by László Willinger (1909-1989). Willinger was a German-born emigré who made many glamour photographs of celebrities starting in the later 1930’s.
Sigrid Gurie, Charles Boyer and Hedy Lamarr, publicity still for Algiers. American 1938 film in Public Domain.
In Boom Town, Austrian-born Lamarr plays Karen VanMeer, a sophisticated and elegant corporate spy. She is recruited by Clark Gable who plays “Big John” McMasters, an oil speculator.
M-G-M splurged on its star power to turn a routine oil-well story into a four-time Academy Award-nominated money gusher called Boom Town. The field was crowded with new films in 1940 just from M-G-M studio, including 18 pictures in Technicolor. Escapism was still the most rewarding M-G-M product.
Producer Sam Zimbalist brought big names to the screen in Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy, Claudette Colbert, and Hedy Lamarr backed up by an “A” list screenplay and Jack Conway’s forceful direction. The movie was the first Gable made under a new seven-year contract with MGM.
Hedy Lamarr, 1938. Photograph by Clarence Sinclair Bull (1896-1979).
Lana Turner, Hedy Lamaar, Judy Garland. Publicity photo for M-G-M’s Zeigfield Girls, 1941. Public Domain**Hedy Lamarr, publicity photo for “The Heavenly Body,” M-G-M, 1944. Public Domain**
*The photograph copyright may be believed to belong to the distributor of the film, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the publisher of the film or the graphic artist. The copy is of sufficient resolution for commentary and identification but lower resolution than the original photograph. Copies made from it will be of inferior quality, unsuitable as counterfeit artwork, pirate versions or for uses that would compete with the commercial purpose of the original artwork. The image is used for identification in the context of critical commentary of the work, product or service for which it serves as poster art. It makes a significant contribution to the user’s understanding of the article, which could not practically be conveyed by words alone. As this is a publicity photo (star headshot) taken to promote an actress, these have traditionally not been copyrighted. Since they are disseminated to the public, they are generally considered public domain, and therefore clearance by the studio that produced them is not necessary. (See- Eve Light Honthaner, film production expert, in The Complete Film Production Handbook, Focal Press, 2001 p. 211.) Gerald Mast, further, film industry author, in Film Study and the Copyright Law (1989) p. 87, writes: “According to the old copyright act, such production stills were not automatically copyrighted as part of the film and required separate copyrights as photographic stills. The new copyright act similarly excludes the production still from automatic copyright but gives the film’s copyright owner a five-year period in which to copyright the stills. Most studios have never bothered to copyright these stills because they were happy to see them pass into the public domain, to be used by as many people in as many publications as possible.” Kristin Thompson, committee chairperson of the Society for Cinema and Media Studies writes in the conclusion of a 1993 conference with cinema scholars and editors, that they “expressed the opinion that it is not necessary for authors to request permission to reproduce frame enlargements … [and] some trade presses that publish educational and scholarly film books also take the position that permission is not necessary for reproducing frame enlargements and publicity photographs.”(“Fair Usage Publication of Film Stills,” Kristin Thompson, Society for Cinema and Media Studies.)
**This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published in the United States between 1927 and 1977, inclusive, without a copyright notice. Note that it may still be copyrighted in other countries.
FEATURE image: Madame Bovary (Jennifer Jones) and Rodolphe Boulanger (Louis Jourdan) waltz at the ball in a still from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s 1949 film Madame Bovary directed by Vincente Minnelli. Fair Use.
In the 1949 film Madame Bovary directed by Vincente Minnelli, a beautiful and charming Madame Bovary (Jennifer Jones) meets wealthy Rodolphe Boulanger (Louis Jourdan) at a ball where he literally sweeps her off her feet. Selfishly aggravated by her husband Charles Bovary (Van Heflin) for not fitting into high society, Madame Bovary begins a love affair with Rodolphe. Though the pair scheme to elope to Italy, Rodolphe does not love Madame Bovary.
Filming began at M-G-M’s Culver City studios in mid-December 1948. Though producers wanted Lana Turner for the role of Emma Bovary, Minnelli preferred Jennifer Jones. The Academy-Award-winning actress (for “Song of Bernadette”) was glamorous which was a necessary dimension to the role of a woman with a repressed passion, but likely not to raise further issues with the Production Code Office that would be busy assessing the film’s controversial story.
The Waltz Scene was Filmed to the Music
One of the film’s most carefully wrought and delightful scenes is this ballroom sequence. It was one of the last segments to be shot. The film footage was tailored to Miklós Rózsa’s music. Minnelli explained to the composer in advance the camera movements so he could write the music in an arrangement for two pianos. The scene was then filmed to match it. Their artistic collaboration produced one of cinema’s most original scenes uniting robust music with weaving and gliding images on film.
Madame Bovary (Jennifer Jones) and Rodolphe Boulanger (Louis Jourdan) waltz at the ball. It is one of the film’s most delightful scenes and one of the last to be shot. Director Vincente Minnelli made certain its choreography carefully matched the music of Miklós Rózsa. Madame Bovary was nominated for an Oscar for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White.
Beautiful and charming Emma Bovary (Jennifer Jones) is repulsed by her uncouth husband, Charles Bovary (Van Heflin), an undistinguished medical doctor, and begins an affair with Rodolphe Boulanger (Louis Jourdan). Their plans to elope, however, do not materialize as Emma hoped.
“Break the Windows” dramatizes a heroine’s transition into madness
As Rodolphe swirls her, Emma Bovary’s head spins until she becomes dizzy. The viewer sees her disorientation as the camera takes her viewpoint. She keeps dancing but asks for fresh air. Her request leads to an extraordinary and incredible reaction by the stewards. They start to smash the ballroom’s windows with chairs to help her cool down. This fantastically destructive action of broken glass aligns with the destruction of Emma’s romantic illusions throughout the film.
In reaction to Madame Bovary becoming dizzy while waltzing with a new lover, the stewards smash the ballroom windows to give her air. The extraordinary action ultimately becomes symbolic of the destruction of Madame Bovary’s romantic illusions with handsome, wealthy Rodolphe and her own descent into madness.
Night of Repressed Passion
Along with her husband’s boorish behavior at the ball and everywhere else, Madame Bovary’s romantic disappointment leaves her feeling publicly humiliated. Instead of love and excitement, Madame Bovary runs out of the ball in shame. Though she yearns for happiness and excitement, her pursuit of selfish pleasures ends in scandal and ruin.
Jennifer Jones as Madame Bovary offers a performance that is elegant and beautiful. It is equally insightful to the selfish and nervous personality of Flaubert’s fictional character.
A film poster for Vincente Minnelli’s Madame Bovary. Several different versions of the film poster were produced for the marketing of the 1949 film.
This publicity photo for Madame Bovary showed the love triangle of Madame Bovary (Jennifer Jones), her handsome lover Rodolphe Boulanger (Louis Jourdan), and her cuckolded husband Charles Bovary, a medical doctor (Van Heflin).
Thirty-year-old Jennifer Jones plays Gustave Flaubert’s doomed title character, Madame Bovary, from his 1856 serial novel.
Vincente Minnelli’s film of the same name offered two costume and wardrobe managers: Walter Plunkett for women and Valles for men.
Walter Plunkett (1902-1982) was a prolific costume designer who worked on more than 150 projects in his Hollywood career, including Gone With The Wind. In 1951, Plunkett shared an Oscar with Orry-Kelly and Irene Sharaff for An American in Paris.
Valles (1886-1970) specialized in men’s costumes at M-G-M. Valles received two Academy Award nominations, including Spartacus in 1960.
Van Heflin is Charles Bovary, whom Madame Bovary (Jennifer Jones) had loved and hoped to build a respectable life, but in whom she grew disillusioned.
In the role of Madame Bovary Jennifer Jones gives a performance beyond the superficiality of display or machination of melodrama and enters into the inner psychology of the character whose anxious egomania manifesting joy and elation is driven by disillusionment to deterioration and self-destruction. Director Vincente Minnelli worked closely with composer Miklós Rózsa to integrate the image, plot and characters with the musical score which the composer admired for its artistic cinematic outcome.
A unique example of the Valles’ costume design for Louis Jourdan and Walter Plunkett’s costume design for Jennifer Jones for the 1949 film Madame Bovary. The next year, in 1950, both Valles and Walter Plunkett were nominated for the Academy Award for Compton Bennett’s That Forsyte Woman/Saga.
Madame Bovary danced wildly with Rodolphe at the ball and loves him. The illicit couple plan to elope to Italy. But Rodolphe leaves for Italy without her and shatters Madame Bovary’s spirit and dreams.
Costumes were by award-winning Valles and Walter Plunkett, both award-winning Hollywood costume designers.
Madame Bovary (Jennifer Jones) is indulged by an unscrupulous shop-keeper as she lives beyond her means in the pursuit of happiness. She takes on a heavy debt that is impossible to pay back.
The film plot is told from the point of view of the author, Gustave Flaubert (James Mason). A legal proceedings takes place where Flaubert is accused of corrupting morals by writing Madame Bovary. It is an historical fact that, in 1858, Flaubert and his publisher had faced government charges of immorality for Madame Bovary. But the outcome of the trial was that Flaubert was completely acquitted.
Charles, who never stopped loving his wife, begs her to wait for a doctor to arrive. Madame Bovary sighs, “Oh, Charles, why are you always trying to save me?”
From the waltz scene through to her death scene Jennifer Jones as Madame Bovary offers a performance that is elegant and beautiful. It also provides insight into the contradictions offered by a selfish and nervous personality.
In the end Madame Bovary finds that her own death is more attractive to her than living with her shattered dreams.
A 1949 film poster for Madame Bovary that includes a publicity head shot of James Mason as Gustave Flaubert, the novel’s French author.
Minnelli’s film is told in flashback through the character of Flaubert who is on trial for charges of immorality for writing the novel. After Flaubert’s work was serialized in the Revue de Paris in 1856, the government charged and tried the author and his publisher for immorality. Both were acquitted in 1859. After Madame Bovary appeared in book form in France, it became an instant classic.
Vincente Minnelli directs Jennifer Jones and Louis Jourdan in a scene from Madame Bovary.
Reviews from film critics had been mixed and Madame Bovary lost money at the box office. Whether it is the fault of the film-makers or the unhappy story becomes a debatable point.
Reviews for Madame Bovary, released in late August 1949, were mixed with the film not recouping its full production costs.
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FEATURE image: A pas de deux on stage as a ballerina performs a poised extension en pointe while supported by a partner during a classical ballet performance. The partnership of dancer and ballerina lies at the heart of classical ballet, where technical virtuosity, musical expression, and elegant stagecraft combine to create enduring theatrical art. PHOTO: “Ballet en la Gala Lírica” by GonzalezNovo is marked with CC BY-SA 2.0.
Ballet’s enduring appeal can be understood through several landmark works that illustrate the art form’s evolution from Romantic-era storytelling to modern psychological drama, while also highlighting the dancers, choreographers, and traditions that shaped ballet history. The six featured ballets serve as representative milestones showing how ballet combines music, narrative, theatrical spectacle, and technical achievement across more than a century of development.
FAMOUS INSTRUCTOR: Marie Rambert (1888-1982), a prominent dance teacher in British ballet, works with with her students in the late 1940’s. Rambert founded the Rambert Dance Company which is active today.
Ballet developed mainly in Russia in the late 19th century. Its revival included (1) the resurgence revival of the male role and (2) the rise of the pas de deux.
Six Famous Modern & Classic Ballets.
# 1 The Dream (1964).
Choreographer: Frederick Ashton. Music: Felix Mendelssohn. Story: W. Shakespeare.
Oberon from The Dream (1964).
Adapted from William Shakespeare (English, 1564-1616) The Dream is a one-act ballet for the Royal Ballet created in 1964. Depicted is elegant Oberon, king of the forest fairies.
Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, interpreted by Frederick Ashton, is a classic of The Royal Ballet’s repertory. Akane Takada performs the role of Titania, Queen of the Fairies. The high-spirited misadventures of the two pairs of mortal lovers from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream combine with the humorous cavorting of Bottom, played by a male dancer who dances en pointe after his ludicrous transformation. The ballet culminates in a powerful pas de deux for Oberon and Titania, which moves through a stormy conflict of wills to a harmonious union. Felix Mendelssohn’s witty, gossamer-light music for the play provides a perfect partner to Frederick Ashton’s inventive choreography.
# 2 Onegin (1965).
Choreographer: John Cranko. Music: Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Story: A. Pushkin.
In Onegin, every gesture carries meaning. This iconic lift embodies the passion, yearning, and tragedy at the heart of one of ballet’s greatest dramas.
With music by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893), Onegin was first performed in 1965. Onegin is one of the most popular story ballets for both audiences and dancers.
Onegin was created by John Cranko (1927-1973) and is his ballet masterpiece. Its lead roles are Tatiana and Onegin, and Olga and Lensky. These are finely drawn characters who tell a story of love and tragedy through a series of intricate and diverse dance sequences.
With his full-length ballet Onegin, John Cranko secured his place in the pantheon of great 20th century choreographers. Based on Alexander Pushkin’s dramatic verse novel „Eugen Onegin“, he tells the story of the arrogant and world weary aristocrat Onegin who rejects the love of the naïve country girl Tatiana only to realize – upon meeting her again years later – that in her he threw away the only woman who ever truly loved him. On the occasion of its 50th anniversary the Stuttgarter Ballett has come up with a special cast featuring Alicia Amatriain as Tatjana, Friedemann Vogel as Onegin, Elisa Badenes as Olga, David Moore as Lenski, Jason Reilly as Prince Gremin, Melinda Witham as Madame Larina and no other than the wonderful Marcia Haydée as nurse.
#3 Mayerling (1978).
Choreographer: Kenneth MacMillan. Music: Franz Liszt. Story: G. Freeman.
A haunting moment from Kenneth MacMillan’s Mayerling, the powerful ballet inspired by the tragic final days of Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria.
Mayerling was created by principal choreographer and former artistic director Kenneth MacMillan (1929-1992) at The Royal Ballet. Since its premiere in 1978, it has been a popular staple on the ballet stage. The music is by Franz Liszt (1811-1886).
The male lead dancer appears in virtually every scene in the three-act ballet and performs with five different ballerinas. It is one of ballet’s most demanding roles.
Mayerling is a tragic story based on the true story of the murder-suicide of the crown prince of Austria-Hungary and his mistress.
Mayerling is the Imperial hunting lodge in the Vienna Woods where the bodies of the pair were discovered on January 30, 1889.
Mayara Magri as Mitzi, and Marcelino Sambé, Reece Clarke, Tomas Mock and Calvin Richardson as Four Hungarian Officers, and Steven McRae as Crown Prince Rudolf. Kenneth MacMillan’s Mayerling was filmed and screened live in cinemas on 15 October 2018.
FAMOUS BALLERINA: Pierina Legnani (1868-1930).
Pierina Legnani (1868-1930). Legnani is depicted in 1896 at the Imperial Marinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg, Russia in the lead role in La Perle, an original production created for her.
Pierina Legnani (1868-1930) is considered the greatest Italian ballerina of the late nineteenth century.
Legnani trained at La Scala Theatre Ballet School in Milan and danced famously in Europe, especially in Italy and Russia.
Pierina Legnani and Olga Preobrajenska (1871-1962) in 1899. In the late 19th century, the pair were considered the greatest ballerinas.
The Mariinsky Theater of ballet and opera in St. Petersburg, Russia, opened in 1860.
Pierina Legnani was reputed to have been the first ballerina to dance 32 fouettes. But as we find out, this wasn’t strictly the case.
#4 Giselle (1841).
Choreographer: Jean Coralli and Jules Perrot. Music: Adolphe Adam. Story: Théophile Gautier and Vernoy de Saint-Georges.
Natalya Bessmertnova and Mikhail Lavrovsky dance the roles of Giselle and Albrecht in Giselle.
With its premiere at the Paris Opera (Salle Le Peletier) in June 1841, the ballet Giselle was an immediate triumph and staged across Europe.
The story is about two lovers, Giselle and Albrecht. When Giselle discovers that Albrecht is betrothed to Bathilde she dies of a broken heart at the end of Act I. This leads to the appearance in Act II of a group of otherworldly and potentially mortally dangerous Wilis, a type of young female vampire. These creatures are intent on revenge for Giselle by arranging for Albrecht’s destruction.
The ballet music was composed by Adolphe Adam (1803-1856). It became the French composer’s most popular and enduring work. Musically, Adam introduced to ballet the leitmotif, that is, a specific theme for a character who appears on stage in the ballet.
The libretto was scored by Théophile Gautier (1811-1872) and Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges (1799-1875). The choreography was by Jean Coralli (1779-1854) and Jules Perrot (1810-1892).
Extrait de Giselle avec les Étoiles Myriam Ould-Braham et Mathieu Ganio dans les rôles de Giselle et d’Albrecht. Du 28 mai au 14 juin 2016 au Palais Garnier.Salle Le Peletier, A. Provost, 1844.
The print above depects the theatre at the time of Adolphe Adam’s triumphant ballet Giselle. The opera building, opened in 1820, was destroyed by fire in 1873 and replaced in a new location by the Palais Garnier.
Opera Le Peletier salle in 1858 by Gustave Janet (1829-1898).
#5 Coppélia (1870).
Choreographer: Arthur Saint-Léon. Music: Léo Delibes. Story: Charles-Louis-Étienne Nuitter.
Coppélia. Shioro Kase dances as Swanilda and Yonah Acosta dances as Franz. English National Ballet.
Coppélia is a comic ballet based on Der Sandmann by E.T.A. Hoffmann (1776-1822). It was choreographed by Arthur Saint-Léon (1821-1870) with music by Léo Delibes (1836-1891) and a libretto by Charles-Louis-Étienne Nuitter (1828-1899).
The comedy surrounding mischief-making village folk premiered in May 1870. Its production was immediately interrupted by the Franco-Prussian War and the siege of Paris. Following the hostilities, Coppélia went on to become one of the most popular works of the Paris Opera Ballet.
Italian ballerina Giuseppina Bozzacchi (1853-1870) first danced the part of Swanilda. Tragically, the 17-year-old ballerina died from malnutrition related to the Franco-Prussian War’s privations in November 1870.
FAMOUS BALLERINA: Marie Taglioni (1804-1884).
Marie Taglioni (1804-1884).
Marie Taglioni had many spectacular ballet accomplishments in her dancing career that spanned 25 years.
Marie’s parents were both dancers. Her Swedish mother was a ballet dancer and her Italian father was a dancer, choreographer, and ballet master in Vienna at the Court Opera.
Marie was rigorously trained by her father in Vienna, including six hours of ballet practice everyday for six days a week. The hard work paid off.
At 17 years old, Marie made her debut in Vienna in Rossini’s La reception d’une jeune nymphe à la cour de Terpischore, choreographed by her father. For the next five years Marie danced in cities in Austria and Germany until, in 1827, she made her Paris Opéra debut.
An introduction to ballerina Marie Taglioni, the most famous dancer of the Romantic era. Former ballet mistress Ursula Hageli explores her role in the creation of La Sylphide with Royal Ballet dancer Yasmine Naghdi and pianist Paul Stobart.
pointe shoes.
In 1832 Marie is credited with dancing en pointe (on tip toes), an innovation for ballet theater at that time. As a famous celebrity and the first famous ballerina, Marie Taglioni influenced fashion and hairstyles in the Romantic era of the 1830’s.
Marie Taglioni as Flore in Charles Didelot’s ballet Zephire et Flore. Hand-colored lithograph, c. 1831 by Alfred Chalon (1780-1860).
Marie married in 1832 but was separated in 1836. She bore a child with a lover in 1836 but he died soon after. In 1837 Marie accepted a dance contract to perform in Russia at the famed Imperial Ballet in St. Petersburg. Marie remained at the Imperial Ballet until 1842, the same year she gave birth to a second child. In 1843 she danced in Milan at La Scala in another of her father’s ballet creations, La Sylphide and in 1845 appeared in London at Her Majesty’s Theatre dancing in Pas de quatre choreographed by Jules Perrot (1810-1892). In London, Taglioni was one of the famous ballerinas to appear in this production dancing alongside Carlotta Grisi (1819-1899), Lucile Grahn (1819-1907) and Fanny Cerrito (1817-1909).
Marie Taglioni with ballerinas, Lithograph, Thomas Herbert Maguire, 1845.
Dominating the image (above) is Marie Taglioni, standing with her arms en couronne, surrounded by ballerinas Lucille Grahn, Fanny Cerrito, and Carlotta Grisi. The lithograph by English artist and engraver Thomas Herbert Maguire (1821-1895) depicts a scene for the 1845 London production of Pas de Quatre.
In 1847 Marie Taglioni retired from the stage following her appearance in The Judgment of Paris, a ballet that concludes an opera (1754) by Christoph Gluck.
Taglioni lived in Venice into the 1850’s and returned to Paris in 1857 to take up the position of dance examiner at the Paris Opéra. One day before her 80th birthday, she died in Marseilles.
To this day there is some mystery as to the exact location of her grave. It is not known into which Paris cemetery Marie Taglioni was exactly buried.
#6 Paquita (1846).
Choreographer: Joseph Mazilier. Music: Edouard Deldevez. Story: Joseph Mazilier and Paul Foucher.
Natalia Osipova dances as Paquita at the Royal Opera House, London.
The two-act ballet is set in Spain during the Napoleonic Wars. It tells the love story of a French military officer and a Spanish gypsy woman.
