Albert Conti
Acting
Biography
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Albert De Conti Cadassamare (29 January 1887 – 18 January 1967), professionally billed as Albert Conti, was an Austrian-Hungarian-born Italian-American film actor. Born in the village Gorizia (now part of Italy), Conti achieved moderate fame as an actor in American films, but first he specialized in law (high school and law college in Graz) and natural science, and married Patricia Cross. When World War I began, he became an officer. His father was Albert, Ritter Conti v. Cedassamare and his mother was Marie Bernhardine Anna (Countess Caboga) a member of an old Ragusan/Dubrovnik noble family. After his discharge from the Austrian army at the close of World War I, he came to America like many other now-impoverished postwar Europeans from both sides of the conflict. Conti emigrated to the United States via the Port of Philadelphia in 1919. After settling in the new country, Conti was obliged to take a series of manual labor jobs, his patrician background notwithstanding. While working in the California oil fields, he answered an open call placed by director Erich von Stroheim, who was in search of an Austrian military officer to act as technical advisor for his upcoming film Merry-Go-Round (1923). A better actor than most of his fellow Habsburg Empire expatriates, Conti was able to secure dignified character roles in several silent and sound films; his credits ranged from Josef von Sternberg's Morocco (1930) to the early Laurel and Hardy knockabout Slipping Wives (1927). He appeared in the 1928 silent film Dry Martini as a roué artist. Though he made his last film in 1942, Albert Conti remained in the industry as an employee of the MGM wardrobe department, where he worked until his retirement in 1962.
Known For
A circus' beautiful trapeze artist agrees to marry the leader of side-show performers, but his deformed friends discover she is only marrying him for his inheritance.
Freaks
Mogador, Morocco. Late 1920s. A complex romance develops between a womanizing Legionnaire and a disillusioned Parisian cabaret singer.
Morocco
Hollywood hopeful Peggy Pepper arrives at a major studio, from Georgia, to become a great dramatic star. Things don't go entirely according to plan.
Show People
In 15th century France, a gypsy girl is framed for murder by the infatuated Chief Justice, and only the deformed bellringer of Notre Dame Cathedral can save her.
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Lil works for the Legendre Company and causes Bill to divorce Irene and marry her. She has an affair with businessman Gaerste and uses him to force society to pay attention to her.
Red-Headed Woman
After a road accident in Hungary, the American honeymooners Joan and Peter and the enigmatic Dr. Werdegast find refuge in the house of the famed architect Hjalmar Poelzig, who shares a dark past with the doctor.
The Black Cat
With a full Hollywood background and settings but more an expose of scandal-and-gossip magazines of the era, has-been actor John Blakeford agrees to write his memoirs for magazine-publisher Jordan Winston. When Blakeford's daughter, Patricia, ask him to desist for the sake of his ex-wife, Carlotta Blakeford, he attempts to break his contract with Winston.
Hollywood Boulevard
Innocent Sally Brown thinks men are only attracted to experienced women, so she poses as the wife of an unmarried businessman on a trip to Paris.
Careless Lady
A socialite masquerades as a notorious femme fatale to win back her straying husband during a costume party aboard a doomed dirigible.
Madam Satan
King Richard the Lionhearted launches a crusade to preserve Christianity in Jerusalem.
The Crusades
Irish immigrant meets returning war correspondent on a liner bound for New York. When she resists the amours of another passenger, charges result in her being detained at Ellis Island.
Gateway
Ferdinand de Lesseps, disappointed in love, is sent as a junior diplomat to the Isthmus of Suez, and realizes it's just the place for a canal.
Suez
Prince Danilo falls in love with dancer Sally O'Hara. However, his uncle, King Nikita I of Monteblanco, forbids the marriage due to her being a commoner. Thinking she's been jilted by her prince, Sally marries lecherous old Baron Sadoja, whose wealth has kept the kingdom afloat. When he suddenly dies, Sally must be wooed all over again by Danilo.
The Merry Widow
An American posing as a Russian prince woos a visiting Ohio heiress.
Café Metropole
When a woman models for an artist they fall in love. Can the artist overcome the beauty's recent past as another man's mistress?
The Common Law
A murder trial reunites a former chorus girl and her son, a grandson of an English aristocrat.
The Secret of Madame Blanche
Chan, in Paris for a reunion with friends from World War I, becomes involved in investigating the murder of a munitions manufacturer who was supplying arms to the enemy, even as the rising clouds of World War II force the city into nightly blackout status..
City in Darkness
A loose biopic based on the life of Gilded Age tycoon "Diamond" Jim Brady.
Diamond Jim
A countess fleeing her husband mistakes a count for her hairdresser at a Monte Carlo casino.
Monte Carlo
When the Manhattan investment firm of Sherwood Nash goes broke, he joins forces with his partner Snap and fashion designer Lynn Mason to provide discount shops with cheap copies of Paris couture dresses.