
Blanche Friderici
Acting
Biography
Blanche Friderici was a noted American stage and screen actress, her film career beginning in 1920. She is probably best remembered for her roles in Night Nurse (1931), A Farewell to Arms (1932), and Flying Down to Rio (1933). Although today typically indicated to have been born on 21 January 1878, Friderici's actual birth date was 12 September 1873, per multiple reliable records (including her Brooklyn, New York birth record) from throughout her lifetime.
Known For

A runaway heiress makes a deal with the rogue reporter trailing her but the mismatched pair end up stuck with each other when their bus leaves them behind.
It Happened One Night

A tale of the World War I love affair, begun in Italy, between American ambulance driver Lt. Frederic Henry and British nurse Catherine Barkley. Eventually separated by Frederic's transfer, tremendous challenges and difficult decisions face each as the war rages on.
A Farewell to Arms

Although Vivian Revere is seemingly the most successful of a trio of reunited schoolmates, she throws it away by descending into a life of debauchery and drugs.
Three on a Match

A stenographer who works for a lawyer falls in love with and marries a wealthy young man. His family has the marraige annulled, after which she gives birth to a child. Her former boss helps her out to ensure the child's welfare, which starts gossip that she is a "kept woman."
The Trespasser

A farmer's widow takes on the land and her late husband's tempestuous son.
So Big!

A Parisian tailor goes to a château to collect a bill, only to fall for an aloof young princess living there.
Love Me Tonight

A semi-fictionalized account of the life of Mata Hari, an exotic dancer who was accused of spying for Germany during World War I.
Mata Hari

An elderly business tycoon, believed to be dying, decides to give a million dollars each to eight strangers chosen at random from the phone directory.
If I Had a Million

A buffalo hunter tries to stop a thief and his minions from stealing hides.
Buffalo Stampede

An Arab prince masquerades as a tour guide for rich women in order to enrich himself.
The Barbarian

Lora Hart manages to land a job in a hospital as a trainee nurse. Upon completion of her training she goes to work as a night nurse for two small children who seem to be very sick, though something much more sinister is going on.
Night Nurse

A professor tires of the direction his life is going and wants to move west, but his girlfriend doesn't understand why he is so dissatisfied.
All of Me

An American bandleader woos a Brazilian beauty who is already engaged to his employer. His friends try to help him, while learning the local dance, The Carioca. The first pairing of Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers, and their only pre-Code film.
Flying Down to Rio

In the 1860s, Mary Marlowe defies her father's wishes to marry a British lord and runs away with clerk John Carlton as he heads West to make his fortune. Mary and John endure the difficult journey and settle into a small cabin, then face the hostilities of a cattle rustling gang, as well as the tragic loss of their only son. With Mary's help, John defeats the gang, which propels him to political power that, over the years, gradually erodes the once-happy marriage.
Secrets

Thirteen women who were schoolmates ask a swami to cast their horoscopes. The news they receive is not good for any of them.
Thirteen Women

Hajj, a rascally beggar on the periphery of the court of Baghdad, schemes to marry his daughter to royalty and to win the heart of the queen of the castle himself. This film is believed lost.
Kismet

A young, beautiful prostitute named Sadie Thompson arrives on the South Pacific island of Pago Pago looking for honest work and falls for Timothy O'Hara, an American sailor who is unfazed by her unsavory past. However, Mr. Davidson, a missionary who arrived on the island at the same time, aims to "save" Sadie from her sinful life and petitions to have her separated from her beau and deported back to San Francisco.
Sadie Thompson

Beasley, who is after Gayner's land, plans to kidnap his daughter. But Dale overhears their plan and kidnaps her himself. When Gayner arrives to retrieve his daughter, Beasley kills him and makes the Sheriff arrest Dale for the murder.
Man of the Forest

Ruby falls in love with small-time con man Eddie. During a botched blackmail scheme, Eddie accidentally kills the man they were setting up. Eddie takes off and Ruby is sent to a reformatory for two years.
Hold Your Man

This film, believed lost, was based on William Vaughn Moody's 1906 play The Great Divide. The story was filmed as a silent film by MGM as The Great Divide (1925) and as an early silent/sound hybrid by First National also called The Great Divide (1929). Judith Temple has come West to Arizona for some excitement. As she says goodbye to her brother and his wife, who are returning to the East, Dr. Neil Cranford, who is in love with her, is called away to tend the broken ribs of a man injured in a barroom brawl.