Blanche Sweet
Acting
Biography
From Wikipedia Sarah Blanche Sweet (June 18, 1896 – September 6, 1986) was an American silent film actress who began her career in the earliest days of the Hollywood motion picture film industry. Sweet is renowned for her energetic, independent roles, at variance with the 'ideal' Griffith type of vulnerable, often fragile, femininity. After many starring roles, her first real landmark film was the 1911 Griffith thriller The Lonedale Operator. In 1913 she starred in Griffith's first feature-length movie, Judith of Bethulia. In 1914 Sweet was initially cast by Griffith in the part of Elsie Stoneman in his epic The Birth of a Nation but the role was eventually given to rival actress Lillian Gish, who was Sweet's senior by three years. That same year Sweet parted ways with Griffith and joined Paramount (then Famous Players-Lasky) for the much higher pay that studio was able to afford. Throughout the 1910s, Sweet continued her career appearing in a number of highly prominent roles in films and remained a publicly popular leading lady. She often starred in vehicles by Cecil B. DeMille and Marshall Neilan, and she was recognised by leading film critics of the time to be one of the foremost actresses of the entire silent era. It was during her time working with Neilan that the two began a publicized affair, which brought on his divorce from former actress Gertrude Bambrick. Sweet and Neilan married in 1922. The union ended in 1929 with Sweet charging that Neilan was a persistent adulterer. During the early 1920s Sweet's career continued to prosper, and she starred in the first film version of Anna Christie in 1923. The film is also notable as being the first Eugene O'Neill play to be made into a motion picture. In successive years, she starred in Tess of the D'Urbervilles and The Sporting Venus, both directed by Neilan. Sweet soon began a new career phase as one of the newly formed MGM studio's biggest stars. Sweet made just three talking pictures, including her critically lauded performance in 1930's Show Girl in Hollywood, before retiring from the screen that same year and marrying stage actor Raymond Hackett in 1935. The marriage lasted until Hackett's death in 1958. Sweet spent the remainder of her performing career in radio and in secondary Broadway stage roles. Eventually, her career in both of these fields petered out, and she began working in a Los Angeles department store. In the late 1960s, her acting legacy was resurrected when film scholars invited her to Europe to receive recognition for her work. On September 24, 1984, a tribute to Blanche Sweet was held at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Miss Sweet introduced her 1925 film, The Sporting Venus. Sweet died in New York City of a stroke, on September 6, 1986, just weeks after her 90th birthday.
Known For
The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis is an American sitcom that aired on CBS from 1959 to 1963. The series and several episode scripts were adapted from a 1951 collection of short stories of the same name, written by Max Shulman, who had also written a feature film adaptation of his short stories for MGM in 1953, The Affairs of Dobie Gillis. The series revolved around the life of teenager/young adult Dobie Gillis, who, along with his best friend, beatnik Maynard G. Krebs, struggles against the forces of his life - high school, the military, college, and his parents - as he aspires to attain both wealth and dates with girls. The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis was produced by Martin Manulis Productions in association with 20th Century Fox Television. Creator Shulman also wrote the theme song in collaboration with Lionel Newman.
The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis
Nick Charles was a private detective who married the wealthy Nora and decided to settle down and leave the good life. Unfortunately for the couple, Nick's past frequently caught up with him and got the couple involved in mystery after mystery. The series was based on the popular MGM series of movies of the 1930's starring William Powell and Myrna Loy. Peter Lawford and Phyllis Kirk starred as the televison versions of Nick and Nora which ran on NBC for two seasons from 1957-59.
The Thin Man
A 1980 documentary series exploring the establishment and development of the Hollywood studios and its impact on 1920s culture.
Hollywood
Bert Stafford, who is in love with Sylvia Randolph, his mother's ward, despises Duncan Irving, a poor boy who is the object of Sylvia's affections.
Classmates
Griffith adapts the story of the Apocryphal Book of Judith to the screen. During the siege of the Jewish city of Bethulia by the Assyrian tyrant Holofernes, a widow named Judith forms a plan to stop the war as her people suffer in starvation, nearly ready to surrender.
Judith of Bethulia
This short celebrates the 20th anniversary of MGM. Segments are shown from several early hits, then from a number of 1944 releases.
Twenty Years After
During a raid, a cop lets a pretty speakeasy employee escape and later begins dating her. Although she loves him, his salary and dull life leave her wanting.
The Woman Racket
The story of the massacre of an Indian village, and the ensuing retaliation.
The Massacre
This is the story of Gato, an Italian immigrant, who lives with his wife, Marie, and his younger brother, Giuseppe, on a small truck farm in the west. Gato becomes so intent on his work that he neglects to show his wife the little attentions she demands. A foppish wandering Italian, Sandro, sees in this an opportunity to work his ends, but is prevented by the timely interference of Giuseppe.
Near To Earth
Thwarted by his despotic uncle from continuing his love affair, a young man's thoughts turn dark as he dwells on ways to deal with his uncle. Becoming convinced that murder is merely a natural part of life, he kills his uncle and hides the body. However, the man's conscience awakens; paranoia sets in and nightmarish visions begin to haunt him.
The Avenging Conscience
A young woman hits Hollywood, determined to become a star.
Souls for Sale
A young woman who is engaged to a millionaire she doesn't love meets and falls in love with a rough sailor.
The Primal Call
On a whim, a greedy tycoon decides to corner the world market in wheat. This doubles the price of bread, forcing grain producers into charity lines and others further into poverty. The film contrasts the differences between the lives of those who work to grow the wheat and the life of the man who dabbles in its sale for profit.
A Corner in Wheat
Broadway actress leaves New York to become a star in Hollywood, and succeeds despite sleazy directors and her own ego.
Show Girl in Hollywood
During the Balkan Wars, Sonia is a young woman living in Montenegro and left to care for her younger brother Milos and the family farm while elder brother Marko goes off to battle. Unable to handle the daily tasks following her brother’s tragic death, help comes in the form of Mahmud Hassan, a captured Turk nobleman, now a prisoner of war. Tasked with helping Sonia, their initial frosty relationship soon melts into romance. As the war rages on Sonia, Mahmud and Milos will face near-insurmountable obstacles in their quest for a better life amidst the hell of war.
The Captive
A salmon fisherman has to choose between a bad girl and a society doll.
The Silver Horde
Griffith intercuts between the lives of two couples married on the same day. One couple is rich, the other poor. Time passes, and in desperation over joblessness, the poor husband attempts to burgle a home, only to be captured at gunpoint by the mistress of the house. It is the home of the rich couple. While holding the poor intruder at gunpoint, the rich wife accidentally discovers evidence implicating her own husband in a bribery scheme.
One Is Business, the Other Crime
John Howard Payne leaves home and begins a career in the theater. Despite encouragement from his mother and his sweetheart, Payne begins to lead a life of dissolute habits, and this soon leads to ruin and misery. In deep despair, he thinks of better days, and writes a song that later provides inspiration to several others in their own times of need.
Home, Sweet Home
In planning to break into the house of the wealthy Bob Van Dyke, Jenny's stepfather decides that his stepdaughter should do most of the dirty work, and Jenny, not wanting to disappoint him, grudgingly agrees. As soon as she enters the house, Bob catches her, but then goes back to his bedroom after making her give her word not to take anything. Jenny breaks her promise...
The Ragamuffin
Edith enters a convent after losing her fiancé to someone else. Years later, Edith finds him again, now poverty-stricken, and secretly helps his family.