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By Allan R. Ellenberger
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She was a vamp. With Spanish mantillas and high combs, and dancing to the sounds of a strumming guitar, she endeared herself to those she entertained. She was born Beatriz Dominguez on September 6, 1896 in San Bernardino, California. Descended from an old California Spanish family, a race of dons, her lineage can be traced back to old Castile who had been Americans for generations. Like her three older sisters, Beatriz was educated at Sacred Heart Convent, and like her younger sister Inez, she appeared in a few short films, but unlike Inez, she liked the medium. Her family, however, wanted her to be a doctor or lawyer; there had been no theatrical people or dancers in their ancestry. But dancing was in her blood. Her mother Petra was born in Sevilla and never had a dancing lesson, yet she simply danced. Beatrice learned to dance from her. “You see,” Beatriz said, “Spanish dances are all symbolical.” And from her, too, she inherited the priceless mantillas, combs, jewelry and embroidered shawls that she wore.
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In 1915 and 1916, Beatriz danced her way into fame when she appeared at the Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Diego. Billed simply as “La Bella Sevilla,” she lent the old Castilian touch to the air of the place. To the click of castanets and a swirl of silken skirts, through an open archway she danced to the tune of the classic La Jota, black eyes snapping as the applause of the expositions throng bought in more crowds. When Theodore Roosevelt saw her dance, he called her “California’s sweetheart—fairest dancing daughter of the dons.”
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While performing in San Diego, she had an uncredited role in the Douglas Fairbanks film, The Americano (1916). After the exposition, Beatrice returned to dancing in vaudeville.
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“After I left San Diego,” Beatriz recalled, “and had danced at the Mission Inn in Riverside—I wished to act. I called at some of the studios and did not say that I was the premiere dancer at Balboa Park (San Diego). I simply registered as ‘La Bella Sevilla.’ Mr. O. H Davis, who was a vice-president of the Exposition, was appointed general manager of Universal. One day, when I called there, he suggested that I use my own name, because directors were rather afraid to employ a dancer because they reasoned that she could not act. I was baptized ‘Beatriz,’ but at the studios they have turned that into the American ‘Beatrice.’”
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The newly rechristened ‘Beatrice’ returned to films in 1919 in a small role in the Rex Ingram picture, The Day She Paid (1919) followed by another Ingram film, Under Crimson Skies (1920). Carl Laemmle saw her and considered her “an exceptional motion picture type” and gave her a part in The Fire Cat (1921) at Universal. Beatrice became one of the first Hispanic actresses to receive screen billing and to be mentioned in the press. Then the film that she would be remembered for today was offered to her. “Beatrice Dominguez, a Spanish dancer, has been engaged to play in the Metro production of The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, which Rex Ingram is directing,” the local trade papers announced. The film starred the relative newcomer, Rudolph Valentino and his dancing the Tango with Beatrice glamorized the dance and gave him instant celebrity.
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In December 1920 Beatrice appeared in the prologue to The Mark of Zorro starring Douglas Fairbanks during its seven week run at the Mission Theater. The following February she was filming The White Horseman (1921) with Art Acord when she collapsed with a ruptured appendix and was rushed to the Clara Barton Hospital at 447 South Olive Street. Doctors believed she would recover, but as with Valentino five years later, peritonitis set in; a second operation was necessary. She died from the complications of the operation on February 27, 1921. She was 24. One week later, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse opened in New York City to rave reviews and made Rudolph Valentino a star, in part because of the Tango scene with Beatrice.
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The home of Beatrice Dominguez at 2522 Elsinore Street in Los Angeles where her funeral was held. (PLEASE NOTE: This is a private home. Please do not disturb the residents)
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Beatrice’s funeral was held at her home at 2522 Elsinore Street, where she lived with her mother and sister Inez. The funeral mass was held at the Plaza Church in old Los Angeles with burial at Calvary Cemetery.
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At the time of her death, her role in The White Horseman was not yet completed, so they had to find a way to write her out of the remainder of the film. Her purpose in the film was to find a treasure. The director brought in a stand-in, of about the same height, dressed her in Beatrice’s costume and had her walk into the scene with her back to the camera and announce that she was called back to her home. She entrusted her mission to another, who was then responsible to find the treasure. Just before her death, she was signed to play the role of a Hindu girl in an adaptation of the Rudyard Kipling story, Without Benefit of Clergy at the Brunton Studios (now Paramount).
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Steve Forrest, a strapping actor known to television viewers as Lt. Dan Harrelson on the 1970s action series “S.W.A.T.,” died on Saturday in Thousand Oaks, Calif. He was 87. His family confirmed the death on Thursday.
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Mae Murray (1885–1965), popularly known as “the girl with the bee-stung lips,” was a fiery presence in silent-era Hollywood. Renowned for her classic beauty and charismatic presence, she rocketed to stardom as a dancer in the Ziegfeld Follies, moving across the country to star in her first film, To Have and to Hold, in 1916. An instant hit with audiences, Murray soon became one of the most famous names in Tinseltown.
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However, Murray’s moment in the spotlight was fleeting. The introduction of talkies, a string of failed marriages, a serious career blunder, and a number of bitter legal battles left the former star in a state of poverty and mental instability that she would never overcome.
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In this intriguing biography, Michael G. Ankerich traces Murray’s career from the footlights of Broadway to the klieg lights of Hollywood, recounting her impressive body of work on the stage and screen and charting her rapid ascent to fame and decline into obscurity. Featuring exclusive interviews with Murray’s only son, Daniel, and with actor George Hamilton, whom the actress closely befriended at the end of her life, Ankerich restores this important figure in early film to the limelight.
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“A most compelling, detailed chronicle of the meteoric rise and fall of stage/silent movie star Mae Murray, as to both her roller-coaster professional career and chaotic personal life. This book will certainly be the definitive biography of the legendary Mae Murray.” — James Robert Parish, author of Fiasco: A History of Hollywood’s Iconic Flops
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“Astounding. Mae Murray works on many levels. For those who know of her, it’s a revelation. At last, a reliable narrative of her life.” — Mel Neuhaus, film writer for Examiner.com
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“Her long life is a lesson about those heady days of early Hollywood and the transience of fame.”–Library Journal
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Former news reporter Michael G. Ankerich is author of The Sound of Silence: Conversations with 16 Film and Stage Personalities Who Bridged the Gap between Silents and Talkies and coauthor of The Real Joyce Compton: Behind the Dumb Blonde Movie Image.
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Ray Harryhausen, the stop-motion animation legend whose work on “The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms,” “Jason and the Argonauts” and other science fiction and fantasy film classics made him a cult figure who inspired later generations of filmmakers and special-effects artists, has died. He was 92.
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Laguna Art Museum presents George Hurrell: Laguna to Hollywood, on display through May 19, in the museum’s upper level gallery. George Hurrell was a famed Hollywood glamour photographer with roots in Laguna Beach. The exhibition traces his beginnings as a photographer and his leap to photographing Hollywood stars of the 1930s and 40s. The exhibition presents a selection of over sixty works from 1925-1944 (mostly from the museum’s permanent collection), curated by Laguna Art Museum’s Curator of Early California Art, Janet Blake.
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George Hurrell (1904–1992) was born in Covington, Kentucky, and studied painting at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Learning to photograph his paintings spurred an interest in photography as a medium. In 1924 he was befriended by Laguna Beach artist Edgar Payne and his wife, Elsie Palmer Payne, who were spending several months in Chicago after returning from a long European sojourn. The following spring, the Paynes motored back to California accompanied by Hurrell. After a short time in Los Angeles, Hurrell moved to Laguna Beach, living for a time in the vacant cottage of silent film director Malcolm St. Clair. He became part of the art community and developed close friendships with artists William Wendt and William Griffith. He began photographing the leading artists of the Laguna Beach Art Association, including, besides Griffith and Wendt, Anna Hills, Thomas Hunt, and Frank Cuprien. Laguna Art Museum traces its roots to the Laguna Beach Art Association.
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It was in Laguna Beach that Hurrell met Florence “Pancho” Barnes, who, in turn, introduced him to silent movie star Ramon Novarro. Hurrell’s photographs of Barnes and Novarro caught the attention of Hollywood, and he moved there in 1927. By 1930 he was the head of the MGM portrait gallery. He was soon dubbed the “Grand Seigneur of the Hollywood Portrait.” He established his own studio on the Sunset Strip and later worked for Warner Bros. The museum’s collection contains many Hurrell photographs, including those of the early artists and other prominent people of Laguna Beach, as well as a portfolio of ten portraits of important Hollywood stars, including John Barrymore, Gary Cooper, Bette Davis, Clark Gable, Greta Garbo, Jean Harlow, and Katharine Hepburn.
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ABOUT LAGUNA ART MUSEUM
Laguna Art Museum is a museum of California art. Its mission is to collect, care for, and exhibit works of art that were created by California artists or represent the life and history of the state. Through its permanent collection, its special loan exhibitions, its educational programs, and its library and archive, the museum enhances the public’s knowledge and appreciation of California art of all periods and styles, and encourages art-historical scholarship in this field.
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Laguna Art Museum stands just steps from the Pacific Ocean in the beautiful city of Laguna Beach. The museum is proud to continue the tradition of the Laguna Beach Art Association, founded in 1918 by the early California artists who had discovered the town and transformed it into a vibrant arts community. The gallery that the association built in 1929 is part of today’s Laguna Art Museum.
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MUSEUM INFORMATION
is located at
307 Cliff Drive in Laguna Beach,
on the corner of PCH and Cliff Drive,
next door to Las Brisas restaurant.
Hours:
Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Friday, Saturday: 11:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m.
Thursday: 11:00 a.m.-9:00 p.m.
Closed Wednesdays
Closed Fourth of July, Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and New Year’s Day
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Admission:
General admission: $7.00
Students, seniors, and active military: $5.00
Children under 12: FREE
Museum members: FREE
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Singer-actress Deanna Durbin, who was the highest-paid female star in Hollywood in 1947 but permanently exited the movie biz the next year at the age of 26, has died, her fan club announced Tuesday. The announcement did not give a date or cause of death. She was 91.
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Durbin initially landed at MGM after a successful audition for a part in a planned biopic of opera singer Ernestine Schumann-Heink. She actually made her film debut in the 1936 MGM short “Every Sunday,” with Judy Garland (the two were only six months apart in age), and the opera film was never made. Soon thereafter Universal signed Durbin to a contract.
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Her first film at U was “Three Smart Girls” (remade decades later as “The Parent Trap”). That big box office hit, in which she played the perfect teenage daughter, paved the way for many more of the same, and Durbin was credited with saving the studio from bankruptcy. The film was also Oscar nominated for best picture.
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During the production of “Three Smart Girls,” Durbin began a regular gig on Eddie Cantor’s radio show that would last for two years, until she became so busy at Universal that she was unable to continue on the radio; just before “Three Smart Girls” was released, the actress, just turning 15, began recording for Decca Records.
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Also in 1936, the very-busy Durbin was offered an audition with New York’s Metropolitan Opera, which she turned down because she felt she needed more training.
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Durbin’s next three films were all stunning successes: “One Hundred Men and a Girl,” “That Certain Age” and “Mad About Music.” In these first, highly profitable films, Durbin worked with director Henry Koster and producer Joe Pasternak.
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In a fashion that would seem all too familiar today, Durbin soon became a highly profitable property generating multiple revenue streams: There were Deanna Durbin dolls, Deanna Durbin dresses and Deanna Durbin novels in which a fictional Deanna solved mysteries in the manner of Nancy Drew.
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In the 21 films she made for Universal (including two sequels to “Three Smart Girls”), she would usually sing a few songs some new material plus some arias from operas. The era of the original soundtrack album had not quite arrived, so she would record the same material in the studio for Decca. (Interestingly, only one of her songs made the charts.)
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Durbin’s lyric soprano was said to be light, sweet and unaffected.
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In addition to Durbin’s talent, the key to maintaining this success was mountains of publicity, which the studio and the press happily provided, as when the latter fawned over Durbin’s first screen kiss in 1937’s “First Love.”
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In a reflection of her huge success and impact on showbiz, Durbin, along with Mickey Rooney, was presented with a special Academy Juvenile Award in 1938.
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Indeed, she was a success overseas as well as domestically. Anne Frank famously hung a picture of Durbin on the wall of the attic in which she and her family were hiding from the Nazis. She was also a favorite of both Winston Churchill and Benito Mussolini.
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A blogger on the Amazingdeanna site describes Durbin’s film career has dividable into three overlapping eras: “the adolescent years, from which comes the perky (and profitable) Durbin formula of youthful tenacity and pluck; the post-adolescence/struggle era, where the now-grownup star fights for mature material and sometimes wins; and the resignation years, when Universal’s movie veteran weary over the struggle for challenging scripts essentially gives in to whatever work is offered.”
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Her partnership with director Koster and producer Pasternak ended with 1941’s “It Started With Eve.” Pasternak left Universal for MGM, and U suspended Durbin for several months for refusing to appear in “The Lived Alone,” which Koster was to direct. Durbin ultimately won from Universal the right to approve her directors, stories and songs.
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In addition to her increasing dissatisfaction over her films, Durbin was essentially a private person never comfortable with her ultra-public role as a movie star.
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Durbin became disillusioned with Hollywood by the mid-’40s, particularly after the release of 1944 film noir “Christmas Holiday,” which disappointed at the box office. This adaptation of a W. Somerset Maugham novel was her attempt to become a serious actress. Another disappointment was the 1945 whodunit “Lady on a Train,” which did not draw the kind of reception her earlier musical comedies had generated.
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In 1950, she married her third husband, Charles David (who had directed “Lady on a Train”) and moved to Normandy, France, and thereafter remained out of the limelight.
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She was tempted to return just once, for “My Fair Lady” on Broadway in 1956, but she resisted in the end.
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Born in Winnipeg, Edna Mae Durbin moved with her British-born parents to Hollywood when she was just a year old. She began work with a singing teacher at age 10.
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After decades of refusing to speak to the press, Durbin granted an interview to David Shipman in 1983.
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“I did not hate show business,” she told him. Speaking in particular of her last four films, she added, “I was the highest-paid star with the poorest material today I consider my salary as damages for having to cope with such complete lack of quality.”
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She is survived by two children: Jessica (from her second marriage to Jackson) and Peter (from her union with David).
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Frank Bank, who as Clarence “Lumpy” Rutherford served as the dim-witted foil to “Beaver” Cleaver and brother Wally on the classic TV comedy “Leave It to Beaver,” died Saturday. He was 71.
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Jonathan Winters, whose talent for mimicry, sound effects and improvisation made him a comic original and creative godfather to later generations of comedians like Lily Tomlin and Robin Williams, died Thursday at his longtime home in Montecito. He was 87.
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