Naomi Childers
Acting
Biography
From Wikipedia Naomi Childers (November 15, 1892 – May 9, 1964) was an American silent film actress whose career lasted until the mid-20th century. She was born of English parentage in Pottstown, Pennsylvania. Later in life she took pride in being descended from a long line of British ancestors. Her childhood was spent in St. Louis, Missouri where she was educated in the Maryville convent. Childers began acting at the age of three, reciting at a notable function. She played a Chopin number at an adult recital at the age of eight. When she was ten Childers performed the title roles, in both Red Riding Hood and Alice in Wonderland, at the Odeon Theater in St. Louis. In 1912 she played in The Great Name and Madame X. The theatrical presentations featured Henry Kolker and Dorothy Donnelly. On Broadway Childers appeared in Ready Money. Childers was in movies beginning in 1913. She appeared in The Turn of the Road (1915) and The Writing on the Wall (1916). She was associated with the Vitagraph company for four years. Her most popular role was in Womanhood, the Glory of the Nation. In this film she performed a most modern characterization of Joan of Arc. In 1917 she began working with the Commonwealth Company. Childers possessed a preference for comedy, yet she was in constant demand to play more serious roles. Her character work in motion pictures was a strong asset. In the 1919 Sam Goldwyn film Lord and Lady Algy, Childers was cast in the leading feminine role. She depicted the wife of the young Lord Algy, played by Tom Moore. As a titled Englishwoman she revealed a cold exterior, but retained a warm nature. When Louis B. Mayer discovered Childers had come into hard times in later years, he granted her a lifetime contract from MGM. She continued to play numerous, often uncredited, roles into the early 1950s. Childers died in Hollywood, California in 1964, age 71. She is buried at Valhalla Memorial Park Cemetery.
Known For
After a rapid engagement, a dowdy daughter of a chemist weds an industrialist, knowing little of his family or past. He transforms her into an elegant society wife, but becomes enraged whenever she asks about Michael, his mysterious long-lost brother.
Undercurrent
A deranged killer escapes from a mental institution. Intent on locating the psychiatrist whose testimony sent him to the asylum, he holds the patrons of a bar hostage.
Dial 1119
On America's frontier, a St. Louis woman marries a New Mexico cattleman who is seen as a tyrant by the locals.
The Sea of Grass
In this family saga, Mrs. Parkington recounts the story of her life, beginning as a hotel maid in frontier Nevada where she is swept off her feet by mine owner and financier Augustus Parkington. He moves them to New York, tries to remake her into a society woman, and establishes their home among the wealthiest of New York's high society. Family and social life is not always peaceful, however, and she guides us, in flashbacks, through the rises and falls of the Parkington family fortunes.
Mrs. Parkington
While in Shanghai reporting on the Sino-Japanese war, Chris Hunter, a shrewd news reporter, meets pilot Alma Harding. She does not trust him, but he manages to hire her as his assistant. During an adventurous expedition through the jungles of South America, her opinion of him begins to change.
Too Hot to Handle
Doc and Wishey run into some Nazi-agents, who want to smuggle bombs into the USA from a Mexican border hotel.
Rio Rita
When two bumbling barbers act as agents for a talented but unknown singer, they stage a phony murder in order to get him a plum role.
Bud Abbott and Lou Costello in Hollywood
Circumstance, an old flame and a mother-in-law drive a happily married couple to the verge of divorce and insanity.
Love Crazy
The Sloanes tie murder to the theft of a Shakespeare manuscript.
Fast and Loose
A mysterious Civil War veteran courts a Missouri farmer's daughter amid postwar unrest.
The Romance of Rosy Ridge
A Depression-downtrodden waif uses her brains instead of her body to rise from tyro con artist to crime boss.
Blondie Johnson
Rick Belrow Livingston, in love with Broadway star Lisa, is sentenced to 30 days in jail for speeding through a small town. He persuades the judge's daughter Cindy to let him leave for one night, so that he can visit Lisa on her birthday. After that he goes on the town with Cindy and she falls in love with him. But Dr. Schemmer wants his son to become her husband.
Small Town Girl
Shopgirl Mary Turner, sentenced to prison for someone else's theft, is released and takes revenge upon those who wronged her in powerful but lawful ways.
Within the Law
In this MGM Crime Does Not Pay series short, doctors scam patients with a fake cure for cancer.
Miracle Money
Alpha's been raised along scientific principles, and will make Mike Regan a great human interest story for his paper. But when his interview prompts Alpha to run away from the institute and ask him to show her some magic, Mike gets more responsibility than he bargained for. Especially since another story of his, one involving gangsters, has also come home to roost.
Lost Angel
Anything can happen during a weekend at New York's Waldorf-Astoria: a glamorous movie star meets a world-weary war correspondent and mistakes him for a jewel thief; a soldier learns that without an operation he'll die and so looks for one last romance with a beautiful but ambitious stenographer; a cub reporter tries to get the goods on a shady man's dealing with a foreign potentate.
Week-End at the Waldorf
In the Austrian manor of Baron and Baroness von Burgen, the relationship between the upstairs aristocracy and the downstairs staff is quite positive. The servants seem to enjoy their time together, and some even fall in love, as head butler Albert and maid Anna have done. But when lecherous new chauffeur Karl Schneider enters the house, affairs and blackmail follow, and the harmony of the home is slowly destroyed.
Downstairs
This Best Short Subject Academy Award winning film begins in the spring of 1940, just before the Nazi occupation of the Benelux countries, and ends immediately after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. It chronicles how the people of "Main Street America", the country's military forces, and its industrial base were completely transformed when the decision was made to gear up for war. Original footage is interspersed with contemporary newsreels and stock footage.
Main Street on the March!
This short promotes the premise that movies often create a demand for the fashions seen in them. It starts with a vignette in rural America. A mother and daughter go to town to buy a new dress. In the dress shop window is a designer dress worn by Joan Crawford in a recent movie. We then go to Hollywood and visit Adrian, MGM's chief of costume design, and see how multiple copies of a single clothing pattern are produced. The film ends with short segments of several MGM features.
Hollywood: Style Center of the World
Maisie becomes attached to a dirt-poor farmer and his family as they try to make ends meet joining hundreds of others digging for gold in a previously panned-out ghost town.