1919 - Theater, Film

Theater, Film

Theater: The Woman in Room 13 by Samuel Shipman and Max Marcin 1/14 at New York's Booth Theater, with Janet Beecher, Lowell Sherman, Charles Waldron, 175 perfs.; Up in Mabel's Room by Ohio-born playwright Wilson Collison, 26, and Otto Harbach 1/15 at New York's Eltinge Theater, with Hazel Dawn, Colorado-born ingénue Enid Markey, 22, 229 perfs.; King Nicholas, or Such Is Life (König Nicolo, oder so ist das Leben) by the late Frank Wedekind 1/15 at Leipzig's Schauspielhaus; The Poor Cousin (Der arme Vetter) by German playwright Ernst Barlach, 49, 3/3 at Hamburg's Kammerspiele; Augustus Does His Bit by George Bernard Shaw 3/12 at New York's Guild Theater, with Norma Trevor, 111 perfs.; Elius Erweckung by Wedekind 3/16 at Hamburg's Kammerspiele; Tête d'Or by Paul Claudel 3/30 at the Théâtre du Gymnase, Paris; 39 East by Rachel Crothers 3/31 at New York's Broadhurst Theater (to Maxine Elliott's Theater 7/14), with Barcelona-born actor Luis Alberni, 32, Henry Hull, Constance Binney, Alison Skipworth, 160 perfs.; The Fall and Rise of Susan Lenox by George V. Hobart (who has adapted a posthumously-published novel by the late David Graham Phillips) 6/9 at New York's 44th Street Theater, with New York-born actress Alma Tell, 22, Illinois-born actor Philip Lord, 40; Transfiguration (Die Wandlung) by German playwright Ernst Toller, 26, 8/30 at Berlin's Tribune Theater. Toller is sentenced to 5 years in prison for his political activities; Hercules (Herakles) by Wedekind 9/1 at Munich's Prinzregenztheater; Scandal by Cosmo Hamilton 9/12 at New York's 39th Street Theater, with London-born actor Charles Cherry, 46, Francine Larrimore, 316 perfs.; Adam and Eva by Guy Bolton and George Middleton 9/13 at New York's Longacre Theater, with Toledo, Ohio-born actor Otto Kruger, 34, Ruth Shepley, Berton Churchill, 312 perfs.; The Gold Diggers by Avery Hopwood 9/30 at New York's Lyceum Theater, with Ina Claire, Ruth Terry, 282 perfs.; Clarence by Booth Tarkington 9/20 at New York's Hudson Theater, with Alfred Lunt, Mary Boland, Helen Hayes, New York-born actor Glenn Hunter, 24, 300 perfs.; The Storm by Langdon McCormick 10/2 at New York's 48th Street Theater, with New York-born actor Edward Arnold, 29, Helen MacKellar, 282 perfs.; Declassée by Missouri-born playwright Zoë Akins, 33, 10/6 at New York's Empire Theater, with Ethel Barrymore, Hartford, Conn.-born actress Clare Eames, 23, 257 perfs.; Wedding Bells by Salisbury Field 11/10 at New York's Harris Theater, with Wallace Eddinger, 168 perfs.; The Son-Daughter by George Scarborough and David Belasco 11/19 at New York's Belasco Theater, with Lenore Ulric, John Willard, Marion Abbott, San Jose, Calif.-born actor Edmund Lowe, 29, 223 perfs.; The Dead Day (Der tote Tag) by Ernst Barlach 11/22 at Hamburg's Kammerspiele; Mr. Pim Passes By by English playwright A. A. (Alan Alexander) Milne, 37, 12/1 at Manchester's Gaiety Theatre. Punch contributor Milne wrote two comedies while fighting in France; One Night in Rome by J. Hartley Manners 12/2 at New York's Criterion Theater, with Philip Merivale, Laurette Taylor, H. Cooper Cliffe, 214 perfs.; My Lady Friends by Emil Nytray and Frank Mandel 12/3 at New York's Comedy Theater, with Chicago-born actress June Walker, 19, New York-born actor Frank Morgan (originally Francis Phillip Wupperman), 28, 214 perfs.; Aria Da Capo by Edna St. Vincent Millay 12/15 at New York's Provincetown Playhouse.

Actor-theater manager Sir Charles Wyndham dies at London January 12 at age 81, having remarried at age 79; actor Shelly Hull dies of influenza at New York January 14 at age 34.

Films: Robert Wiene's The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari with Werner Krauss, Conrad Veidt. Also: Lambert Hillyer's Branding Broadway with William S. Hart; D. W. Griffith's Broken Blossoms with Lillian Gish, Richard Barthelmess, photography by Billy Bitzer; Griffith's Fall of Babylon with Constance Talmadge, Elmer Layton; Griffith's Scarlet Days with Richard Barthelmess, Carol Dempster; Cecil B. DeMille's Male and Female with Gloria Swanson and Dallas-born actress Bebe (originally Phyllis) Daniels, 18, Thomas Meighan (film editor Anne Bauchens, 38, works 16 to 18 hours a day in the cutting room and will continue editing DeMille's work until his death in 1959); Paul Powell's Pollyanna with Mary Pickford, screenplay by Frances Marion based on the 1913 Eleanor Porter novel; Charles Chaplin's Sunnyside; Victor Fleming's Till the Clouds Roll By with Douglas Fairbanks, Kathleen Clifford.

Loews Corp. is founded by vaudeville theater owner Marcus Loew, now 44, and his Russian-born partners Joseph Schenck and Nicholas Schenck, 39, who will soon turn many of its theaters into movie houses (see Loew, 1904). Loew has purchased a film production company called Metro Pictures Corp. (see M-G-M, 1924).

United Artists is founded at Hollywood by director D. W. Griffith, comedian-director Charles Chaplin, romantic star Mary Pickford, and matinee idol Douglas Fairbanks, who have set up the production firm in competition with Biograph Studios, Carl Laemmle's Universal Pictures, and other studios in order to control distribution of their films and increase their share of the profits from those films. Now 36, Fairbanks will marry Pickford next year and both will continue making films selected, financed, and distributed (but not produced) by United Artists.

Paramount-Famous Players-Lasky Corp. opens the first studio of a six-acre Astoria, N.Y., complex on 35th Avenue between 34th and 37th streets. About 110 of its 440 films will be produced in the Astoria studios between now and 1927 (the rest will be made in Hollywood), using a stage 225 feet by 126 by 60 (see 1942).

Felix the Cat makes his debut in a cartoon short subject created by Union City, N.J.-born animator Otto Messmer, 27, who will continue turning out the cartoons until 1936 (see communications [comic strip], 1931).