In search of...Virginia Weidler

[ginnyfan]

TODAY IN GINNY is a four person mini-list and only a 50% photo success rate.

 

Emma Dunn (1874) played Mrs. Williams in BABES ON BROADWAY. She spent a long time on the stage prior to films, even working with David Belasco. According to IMDb, she also authored two books on diction and voice quality. She had a recurring role at MGM as Mrs. Martha Kildare in the DR. KILDARE series and also appeared in THE GREAT DICTATOR.

 

John Leipold (1888) was a composer/orchestrator at Paramount who worked on MRS. WIGGS, THE BIG BROADCAST OF 1936, GIRL OF THE OZARKS, TIMOTHY'S QUEST, and SOULS AT SEA. He did music for 288 films in his career, including STAGECOACH, UNION PACIFIC, and series such as BOSTON **** and HENRY ALDRICH. I've chosen a screen capture of the cute one from OZARKS to represent him.

 

Sandra Morgan (1898) played Woman in THE YOUNGEST PROFESSION. Since I found no photo I don't know which woman. She repeated this successful role in NOTORIOUS. A screen capture from YP will have to suffice.

 

Once again we have the birthday of someone who was in THE PINCH SINGER with the Weidler Brothers. This time it's child actor Billy Mindy (1931), sometimes billed as Billy Minderhout. He appeared in six films between 1936 and 1938.

 

[ginnyfan]

It's time for TODAY IN GINNY.

 

Anna Chandler (1887), longtime vaudeville singer, appeared in ten Hollywood films. One of those was as Mrs. Beecher in GOLD RUSH MAISIE. She was only officially credited twice; once in THE BIG BROADCAST (1932) and the other in the film REDHEAD (1941), a MONOGRAM picture.

 

Most folks today know William Demarest (1892) for his turn as Uncle Charlie O'Casey on MY THREE SONS. Film buffs probably remember him best for the various films he appeared in for Preston Sturges, where he was given imaginative character names like Sgt. Heppelfinger and Constable Edmund Kockenlocker. He had the much more bland name of Charles Dale in THE GREAT MAN VOTES.

 

Franchot Tone (1905) learned the hard way how hard it is to get noticed when you appear in a film with Weidler and Rooney. He and Gladys George were billed as the stars of LOVE IS A HEADACHE. Tone was in so many great films during his long career, including THE LIVES OF A BENGAL LANCER and MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY. I recently saw him try the Powell-Loy mystery-comedy formula with Ann Sothern in FAST AND FURIOUS.

 

Dick Rich (1909) had many small uncredited roles in films starting in 1936. One of these was a "bit role" in SOULS AT SEA. His roles were only slightly larger in the 1940s, but he did break though and get a decent number of heavy roles on TV westerns. He's shown here with Stan Laurel in GREAT GUNS.

 

I'm also citing one additional birthday because I can. Lynn Cartwright (1927) didn't start appearing in films and on television until Virginia was long retired. I've seen her in lots of things because I watch way too much television. After looking at her record, I especially remember a Roger Moore episode of MAVERICK in which she appeared. Her husband of fifty years, Leo Gordon, wrote the teleplay on that one. Most of you probably know her from having played Dottie as a senior citizen in A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN. Our good friend Tara Gordon knows her from something else, I believe.

 

[TopBilled]

Doing a great job as always, Pete!

[ginnyfan]

Thanks, TB. I put Lynn Cartwright in because her daughter, Tara Gordon, is a VWRS member. Tara runs a really nice FB page for her father, Leo Gordon.

 

We are almost to the end of TCM's Ginnyban, so I am in a lighter mood as we attack this lighter version of TODAY IN GINNY.

 

Ferdinand Gottschalk (1858) now holds the distinction of being the oldest subject of TIG. I'm hoping to discover a career connection between Ginny and Socrates, but that hasn't come up yet. He was a very respected stage actor before moving into the movies in 1917. He started doing films regularly in 1931. He is probably most known for his role as Pimenov in GRAND HOTEL. He played a lot of Kings, Barons and royal class types. He played "undetermined" in PETER IBBETSON.

 

Vincente Minnelli (1903) is, of course, an MGM director probably better known for one famous marriage. He was connected with several of MGM's biggest hits in its sad, easily predictable, post-Virginia decline as a studio of merit. He is also another example of someone reinventing himself for his career. Like Vina Delmar, who we discussed at VWRS earlier, Minnelli was born Lester Anthony Minnelli but adopted the more worldly Vincente when he first started working in New York. From MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS to BELLS ARE RINGING, Minnelli was still able to make successful musicals after many had given up on the genre. He directed some of the solo sequences in BABES ON BROADWAY.

 

Georgia Stark (1886) was a singer and apparently a professional whistler. She's credited as whistler in TORTILLA FLAT, SONGS OF THE OPEN ROAD (she was Jane Powell's whistling double in that one!), MAISIE GOES TO RENO and LILI among others. She even played "Whistler's Mother" in a short. She was listed as a Specialty in the "Ballad for Americans" number in BORN TO SING. I couldn't find a pic of her, so a lobby card from the film will have to do.

 

[ginnyfan]

I was an hour from YESTERDAY IN GINNY...

 

We begin the first day of Virginia Weidler's birthday month-it's the 21st in case you'd like to get those restaurant reservations in now- with TODAY IN GINNY.

 

Lionel Atwill (1885) was in everything from CAPTAIN BLOOD to TO BE OR NOT TO BE. Like many, I remember him now more for the heavies and mad doctors he played in movies and serials for PRC and other Poverty Row studios rather than the higher class roles of his earlier career. His career was destroyed by a scandal that one might recover from today. He played Herr Von Sturm in STAMBOUL QUEST (1934), Ginny's first short appearance at MGM four years before she signed there.

 

Roman Freulich (1898) was still photographer to the major studios. AMPAS has a collection of his papers and photographs. He took stills of the cast of THE UNDER-PUP during that Universal shoot, including the one you see to his right. You may recognize that photo as one that Ken Robichaux cleverly colorized for us a few months ago.

 

I've read the biographies of writer Tiffany Thayer (1902), and I still don't understand him (yes, him) very well. A former actor, he performed Screenplay Construction on PETER IBBETSON. He also was a founder, along with Theodore Dreiser of something called the Fortean Society. The Society existed to promote the work of author Charles Fort who wrote about theories such as Mars controlling events on Earth. I didn't really get why Fort received cult-like support from people like Thayer, but I don't have any urge to look into it deeper. I'm using the cover from one of Thayer's paperbacks to represent him.

 

Everyone knows Glenn Miller (1904) don't they? One of the most important figures of the Big Band era, he played trombone for Ray Noble before finding himself with his own band playing the music he wanted to make. Noble's Orchestra appeared in THE BIG BROADCAST OF 1936.

 

Finally, we talked about Teddy Powell (1905) some last fall when Marsha, trumpeter Dick Mains' daughter, joined the VWRS. Powell's Orchestra, featuring Mains, toured through vaudeville with Virginia in 1943.

 

[ginnyfan]

Saturday's TODAY IN GINNY was almost a shutout as there was only one birthday.

 

Alma Ross (1916) had a bit role in SCANDAL STREET (1938). Alma played Girl, Chorus Girl, and Maid in most of her fifteen pictures. Yes, we used this pic last month because Paula DeCardo was also both in this pic and in SCANDAL STREET. I'm hoping for a clean sweep. What are the odds that four starlets would have bit roles in two different films together? The photo is a promo for THE BIG BROADCAST OF 1938. Alma is number eight, BTW.

 

One more note: I missed mentioning that the LA release of THE YOUNGEST PROFESSION occurred on February 26, 1943. The New York release would not happened until the following June when Ginny was on that East Coast tour to oblivion.

 

[ginnyfan]

We almost lost TODAY IN GINNY because I didn't think I'd get to use the computer until today was over.

 

First, today is the day that MAID OF SALEM was released in 1937. Virginia didn't have to worry about being the "brat" in that film, Bonita Granville was in it. We honor that release with a poster from the film.

 

Actor Olaf Hytten (1888) had 255 credits from 1921 to 1955. His billing seems higher in the silent era than later. He played Liu-The Grain Merchant in THE GOOD EARTH and oddly, had small roles in both THE DARK ANGEL and THE WHITE ANGEL. He was in the "Great Caesar's Ghost" episode of THE ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN in the final year of his life. He's seen here as General Gage in ALLEGHENY UPRISING.

 

Willie Fung (1896) was a Chinese actor who appeared all the expected roles. Taylor, cooks, laundry men fill his resume. He was Chung Hi in the Davis-Marshall classic, THE LETTER. He was Willie in TOO HOT TO HANDLE.

 

Stanley Taylor (1900) had virtually no billed roles in the sound era. Everything was uncredited. His only really busy year in the business was 1925, when he made 16 movies. Most were shorts. He was one of many Newsreel Men in TOO HOT TO HANDLE.

 

Pat Lane (1901) was born Albert Daniel Leone and if you blinked you missed him in most of the movies in which he appeared. He played a telephone operator in BORN TO SING.

 

Designer Adrian (1903) made the gowns for over 230 movies. Since I didn't have photos for either of our last two birthday boys, I decided Adrian could have two. In the first he poses with Garbo modeling his pajama design. The second photo is Hepburn wearing Adrian in THE PHILADELPHIA STORY. He also designed the gowns for LOVE IS A HEADACHE.

 

Longtime Hollywood Art Director Feild Gray (1907) was the associate art director on THE OUTCASTS OF POKER FLAT. I don't know how good he was, but I do know that I notice his name every time I see it in the credits. I'm using posters from OOPF and one of his other memorable films to represent him.

 

Charlotte Henry (1914) was another of the many members of the Stanton clan in LADDIE. Laddie himself was a Stanton as was Virginia's character of Little Sister. She was a stage actress from age five, made her Broadway debut at age 13, and played Alice in the 1933 version of ALICE IN WONDERLAND. Interestingly, being Alice got her billed thirteenth on the cast list. She's seen here as Little Bo Peep in BABES IN TOYLAND.

 

Finally, child actor Geogie Billings (1924) played "boy" in many films. He was also in BABES IN TOYLAND as a schoolboy. Even in his final role at age 26, he was Page Boy in MY BLUE HEAVEN. He played Mike's friend in LOVE IS A HEADACHE. Mike was Mickey Rooney's role.

 

[ginnyfan]

TODAY IN GINNY features a trio of character actors, some more memorable than others.

 

Robert Emmett Keane (1883) is another member of The Virginia Weidler Players. He appeared in four different features with Virginia. He played the foreign editor in TOO HOT TO HANDLE, Police Commissioner Hugh Thomas, the guy who doesn't believe Ace the Wonder Dog can sniff out criminals in THE ROOKIE COP, Sam Fulton in OUTSIDE THESE WALLS, and Mr. Burt Reiner, a guy who just wants some fire insurance in THIS TIME FOR KEEPS.

 

Lee Shumway (1884) played a mate in SOULS AT SEA. Lee moved from the stage to films as early as 1909 and actually was in more than half of the films in which he would appear before talkies even came into existence. He played cops and G-men in films with modern settings and sheriffs and marshals in westerns. He was a deputy in THE GRAPES OF WRATH.

 

Cy Schindell (1907) belonged to another acting troupe, that of the Three Stooges. He was in at least 35 of their shorts. He played another fighter in GOLDEN BOY. His turn in a Weidler movie was as Butch, one of Joey's henchmen in THE ROOKIE COP. The photo is of Cy playing Chizzilini, a Mussolini substitute, in the Stooges' I'LL NEVER HEIL AGAIN.

 

[TopBilled]

Oh, to be a member of the Weidler Stock Company.

 

I don't think I have seen THE ROOKIE COP yet. Waiting patiently for TCM to air it.

[ginnyfan]

> {quote:title=TopBilled wrote:}{quote}Oh, to be a member of the Weidler Stock Company.

>

> I don't think I have seen THE ROOKIE COP yet. Waiting patiently for TCM to air it.

I like that name! May I steal it?

 

I haven't seen it either, but Child Starlets does have a bunch of screen shots.

[TopBilled]

>I like that name! May I steal it?

 

Sure...be my guest!

[ginnyfan]

I always create names for supposed "festivals" when TCM shows multiple Weidler films over a certain period of time. While my efforts to get a birthday salute failed for 2012, TCM is showing four Weidler films in the days leading up to her birthday as part of tributes to others and planned themes.

 

I decided to let the Virginia Weidler Remembrance Society Facebook members vote on the name of this month's features. One was the fairly lame MARCH OF GINNY and I knew that one wouldn't win. The other two names wound up in a flat tie

 

As a result, the VWRS had declared this month's TCM festival to be named...IT REALLY STINKS THAT TCM IS DOING A SALUTE TO DEAN STOCKWELL ON VIRGINIA WEIDLER'S BIRTHDAY, BUT GINNYFAN ISN'T BITTER!

 

As a working nickname, however, I've declared that for posting purposes we'll simply call it the IDES OF GINNY.

 

TCM's IDES OF GINNY begins tomorrow morning at 5:15 AM with THE YOUNGEST PROFESSION, a film MGM had wanted to make several years earlier with Judy Garland. This film is the forerunner of today's product placement features. In this case the product MGM was promoting was its own stable of stars, as they get chased around by Joan (Virginia Weidler) and Patsy (Jean Porter) in their endless pursuit of autographs. MGM received criticism from several reviewers for what they saw as rank commercialism.

 

If only those reviewers were around today...

 

[TopBilled]

I am planning to feature Dean Stockwell in the WANTED thread on March 9th, but I hope you will be able to forgive me...especially since I already featured Miss Weidler back in December! I try to include one significant child star per month. And yes, at some point I will get to Dakota Fanning. LOL

[ginnyfan]

> {quote:title=TopBilled wrote:}{quote}I am planning to feature Dean Stockwell in the WANTED thread on March 9th, but I hope you will be able to forgive me...especially since I already featured Miss Weidler back in December! I try to include one significant child star per month. And yes, at some point I will get to Dakota Fanning. LOL

Stockwell is extremely worthy of both your and TCM's attention. But why did TCM pick the 21st?

[ginnyfan]

Tuesday's TODAY IN GINNY starts, naturally, with the first film of TCM's IDES OF GINNY (IT REALLY STINKS THAT TCM IS DOING A SALUTE TO DEAN STOCKWELL ON VIRGINIA WEIDLER'S BIRTHDAY, BUT GINNYFAN ISN'T BITTER!), *THE YOUNGEST PROFESSION.*

 

I personally hadn't seen it in years, except for the clips on YouTube. I remembered it as having great chemistry between Weidler and Porter as their off screen friendship apparently carried over to the picture quite easily. The problem the script runs into is having a pointless subplot that gets in the way of the girls' antics. It's still a fun way to spend an hour and a half or so. I haven't watched it all yet, but the parts I saw this morning reinforced my original opinion.

 

We also have another movie to mention today. After having an earlier Los Angeles release, THE LONE WOLF SPY HUNT went into general release on this date in 1939.

 

Our first birthday boy isn't getting a photo. He didn't appear in any film with Weidler at all. Today is Dean Stockwell's birthday and today is the day that TCM should have set aside for the Stockwell fest. That would have left the 21st open so both W.S. VanDyke and Ginny would have fit instead of just one.

 

Now for the actual TIG recipients.

 

Born Travers John Heagerty in Berwick-Upon-Tweed, Henry Travers (1874) didn't even make a film until he was almost sixty. In a relatively brief Hollywood career he established himself as one of our most memorable character actors. He started in high gear, working with John Barrymore and Helen Hayes in his first two pictures. He would go on to play memorable characters in THE INVISIBLE MAN, HIGH SIERRA, BELLS OF ST.MARY'S, BALL OF FIRE, SHADOW OF A DOUBT and many others. We see him every Christmas as Clarence in IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE. He played Virginia pop, Mr. Miller, in I'LL WAIT FOR YOU. He's seen here just after he realizes that he spilled the beans about Ginny's pet rabbit.

 

If Travers was a Brit who easily played home spun Americans, William Stack (1882) was an American who came across so cultured that people thought the actor was British. He played doctors, ministers, and military figures. He is probably best known for playing Ruthven in MARY OF SCOTLAND. He was a judge in SOULS AT SEA.

 

Comedian Sam Hearn (1888) was more of a radio personality. He was a semi-regular on the Jack Benny Program playing Schlepperman, a Yiddish character. I saw him play the role once on TV, when Jack took a trip to Hawaii and ran into him. He played Schlepperman in THE BIG BROADCAST OF 1937.

 

It's fitting that Ann Codee's (1890) birthday is today. She played vaudeville with her husband Frank Orth, another TIG-er, then moved into films playing society types, maids, and governesses. Born in Belgium, she was usually called on to play French ladies. She played Tress-Greer Garson's maid in THE YOUNGEST PROFESSION.

 

William Tummel (1892) spent his entire career as an Assistant Director. He was number two on some very good pictures, including THE LITTLE FOXES, BALL OF FIRE, and TO BE OR NOT TO BE. He was the second on MAID OF SALEM. A poster from another of his successes, SHADOW OF A DOUBT, stands in for him.

 

Henry Daniell (1894), a London born actor, entered pictures at the start of the sound era and became a great villain. He was the villain Lord Wolfingham in THE SEA HAWK, Sir Robert Cecil in ESSEX AND ELIZABETH, and played schemers in many other films. As Sidney Kidd he was a little villainous to James Stewart in THE PHILADELPHIA STORY, sending him to cover the Tracy Lord wedding. He earlier had played Broussais in ALL THIS AND HEAVEN TOO.

 

Symona Boniface (1894) played snooty matrons in the Margaret Dumont tradition. Like Dumont, her characters often wound up deflated at the hands of comics, in her case the Three Stooges. She was a woman in the audience in BORN TO SING.

 

Aileen Carlyle (1906) played small usually uncredited roles in the movies and on television. She started out in the 1926 feature SWEET ADELINE and wound up her career receiving a credit for an episode of The Monkees in which her part wound up on the cutting room floor. She played Miss Hicks in THE WOMEN.

 

[TopBilled]

>Stockwell is extremely worthy of both your and TCM's attention. But why did TCM pick the 21st?

 

No idea. Maybe that is when some of those films became first available for TCM to broadcast. DOWN TO THE SEA IN SHIPS is one that looks like fun!

[ginnyfan]

People here probably assume that I've seen almost every Virginia Weidler movie available to be seen. Because I came so late to my interest-it was actually sort of a quick, intense thing brought about by my reaction to her career and personal story-I really haven't.

 

I was thrilled to be a first time viewer in January to both Barnacle Bill (1941) and Fixer Dugan (1939) when Turner Classic Movies ran them on back to back days. Having read about both films, I went in expecting a lot from the first film and not very much from the second. Barnacle Bill satisfied all expectations, although it took me a second viewing to confirm that. Fixer Dugan, on the other hand, was a delightful surprise as I had gone into it expecting virtually nothing and came away with a higher respect for Virginia's abilities as well as those of Lee Tracy. I'll talk about Dugan at another time.

 

Virginia Weidler's path to Barnacle Bill was a roundabout one. The film was originally slated to be Shirley Temple's, but we've alternately read that Temple's mother wanted to avoid her being in Wallace Beery's large shadow or that Shirley was in fact ill. In either case, Virginia was call in to team with Beery and Marjorie Main on Barnacle Bill and Temple was reassigned to Kathleen, a film Weidler was scheduled to start later in the year. In retrospect, Ginny got the better of that deal, but I'm guessing that she didn't feel that way at the time, giving up a more fashionable girl's role, something MGM up to then never let her do, to play another semi-orphaned tomboy.

 

As I stated at the beginning, I had to watch Barnacle Bill twice. The first time through I found Berry's scoundrel character so distasteful that I had trouble judging the film as a whole fairly. The second time through, however, Beery no longer irritated as I began to see Bill as the actual child in the relationship. He hadn't expected to ever see his daughter again, seemed to never want to, but she showed up in time to save him.

 

I'd love to know how much the script changed when Ginny replaced Shirley. Ginny's Ginny Johansen, I assume that name was changed when she showed up at least, is a lot softer than her usual clever tomboy characters. This Ginny actually cries and means it. To make a non-film analogy, it is almost like team MGM had to change quarterbacks on the day of the game so the backup (Weidler) had to use the starter's (Temple's) game plan. She executed the part wonderfully and gave one of the most real and understated performances of her career.

 

She goes from being a girl whose mental image of the father she never met is of a perfect man to one who sees he is all too flawed and has to decide whether to stick by him. Virginia captures the transition well; the scene in which she had to call her Aunt Letty to come pick her up is now my new favorite Ginny scene. It's just Virginia, a phone, and the camera and the viewer truly believes that she is crying because she can't stand the crushing Bill has done to that image. Loyal to the end, she hurries to defend him when the unseen and unheard aunt apparently criticizes Bill to Ginny. It's a near flawless solo scene made even better when Main arrives to comfort her in a gruff yet tender manner.

 

Our starring trio was given a wonderful supporting cast featuring Leo Carrillo as Bill's mate Pico, the always great and usually correctly named Donald Meek who is a little more feisty here, Charles Lane, and an unsung player in Connie Gilchrist as Bill's other woman. If there is a problem with the film it is in the editing. We really didn't need the long scenes of Bill and Pico out working on a fishing boat. The routines there (Bill gets hit by fish, Bill never gets to eat) just weren't funny enough to warrant the time given them.

 

Most reviewers give this film ** ?. Because the cast works so well together and Virginia's performance is both strong and different I'll give it the full *** out of four.

 

[TopBilled]

Good post about BARNACLE BILL. I will be eager to see your thoughts regarding FIXER DUGAN.

 

I just finished watching THE YOUNGEST PROFESSION. I suppose it will seem like heresy, but I think it's her least exciting film. I am going to feature my review of it in the Classic Film Criticism Vol. 2 thread on March 19th.

[ginnyfan]

> {quote:title=TopBilled wrote:}{quote}Good post about BARNACLE BILL. I will be eager to see your thoughts regarding FIXER DUGAN.

>

> I just finished watching THE YOUNGEST PROFESSION. I suppose it will seem like heresy, but I think it's her least exciting film. I am going to feature my review of it in the Classic Film Criticism Vol. 2 thread on March 19th.

It's by far her most over the top performance and, this is also heresy, it probably would have been a lot better without Agnes Moorhead and the silly subplot about Edward Arnold and the secretary. I assume that Buzzell wanted Joan played that broadly.

 

The pluses were that Virginia and Jean worked well together and might have made a successful team with a better script. I wonder if her failure as a bobbysoxer in this film led to this:

 

[TopBilled]

I wrote my review this morning after I finished viewing THE YOUNGEST PROFESSION. I do cover Agnes Moorhead's performance and I also suggest that Mr. Arnold, good as he may be, is a tad bit too old to play Weidler's father. There are a great many subplots in the movie and few of them, if any, work.

 

I write my reviews in advance and the 19th is next open slot I had without rearranging everything. I also want to give myself time to reflect more on the movie and make any necessary changes before I do post about it.

 

As you have suggested, she is not at her best in this film, and neither are her costars. Perhaps the director is to blame...?

[ginnyfan]

> {quote:title=TopBilled wrote:}{quote}I wrote my review this morning after I finished viewing THE YOUNGEST PROFESSION. I do cover Agnes Moorhead's performance and I also suggest that Mr. Arnold, good as he may be, is a tad bit too old to play Weidler's father. There are a great many subplots in the movie and few of them, if any, work.

>

> I write my reviews in advance and the 19th is next open slot I had without rearranging everything. I also want to give myself time to reflect more on the movie and make any necessary changes before I do post about it.

>

> As you have suggested, she is not at her best in this film, and neither are her costars. Perhaps the director is to blame...?

This was the first film of the "new Virginia", who would last exactly two films. There was about a six month break between releases featuring Ginny and she went from the pompadoured young teen of THE AFFAIRS OF MARTHA directly to this girl with lighter hair and more stylish clothes. She also seems like she's supposed to be a couple of years *older than her actual age of fifteen.* In MARTHA, she's fifteen playing thirteen and in YP it's fifteen playing seventeen, or so it seems to me.

 

This playing older than herself would continue in her final film, BEST FOOT FORWARD. When I spoke to Tommy Dix he couldn't believe it when I informed him that she was turning age sixteen as the shoot ended. He thought she was close to twenty, as he was.

 

Also, Ginny was constantly given fathers who appeared too old by MGM. Frank Morgan, Guy Kibbee, Henry Travers, and Henry O'Neill all come to mind. Truthfully, only Kibbee was actually too old. The others were all in their late thirties when Ginny was born in 1927, so they aren't out of the realm of possibility. They just look too old.

 

I await your review, although I suspect my admitted bias leads me to like the film more than you did. It doesn't zip like most of her films did, but I still found it an enjoyable diversion.

[ginnyfan]

We need some relief from the "snowquester" with TODAY IN GINNY.

 

In the oldest member of Ginnyworld category, there is a new leader in the clubhouse. George du Maurier (1834) wrote the novel PETER IBBETSON. He turned to writing after a career as a cartoonist. IBBETSON was a bigger success on stage and in the movies than it was as a novel.

 

Victor Kilian (1891) appeared with Virginia twice at two different studios, playing a gendarme in ALL THIS AND HEAVEN TOO at Warners and Mr. Dingle in YOUNG TOM EDISON at MGM. Kilian had a 50 year career in films and television, but also had a rough time in Hollywood. In 1942, he lost an eye during a fight scene with John Wayne during the filming of REAP THE WILD WIND. In the 1950s he was blacklisted from films, but was allowed to work on the stage. He also died a violent death at the hands of burglars who broke into his apartment in 1979.

 

Guy Kibbee (1882) was a charter member of what was called the Warner Brothers Stock Company. He appeared in many films as slightly dimwitted characters, businessmen and bureaucrats. He than moved on to MGM where he became a member of the Virginia Weidler Stock Company (h/t to TB). He got his chance at a lead turn in the six film Scattergood Baines series for Pyramid Productions.

 

Kibbee appeared in BAD LITTLE ANGEL as the mean, shortsighted businessman Luther Marvin whose heart is softened by Ginny's Patsy. He seen here being called a skinflint by Patsy after he called her a hypocrite. Their relationship improved by the end of the picture. Kibbee played Judge VonTreece in HENRY GOES ARIZONA. He also played Virginia's father, Harry Bryant, in THIS TIME FOR KEEPS. In that film, Ginny's Harriett says to him, "Gee, Pop, you're scrumptious!"

 

We have to agree.

 

[TopBilled]

Interesting comments from Tommy Dix. I am sure getting all glamorous in the last two movies was fun for her, but it was very inconsistent in terms of what the audience was used to seeing with her.

 

I just watched SOULS AT SEA this morning, and that is the real Ginny. Paramount understood her personality and let it be used to tell the story. MGM was trying to turn her into something she was not, and when it did not quite gel, they dropped her. After Jane Withers' contract at Fox, she would find new life at Republic. It's too bad Ginny didn't move to Republic or at least Warner Brothers, where she could get back to playing more salt-of-the-earth characters, which was her specialization.

 

As for the older men as fathers, it seems like a weird transference of the relationship some of these girls had behind the scenes with mogul Louis B. Mayer. He acted like he was their father on the lot, and he would usually cast men who represented his old world values to play their fathers on screen.

 

The only time I think MGM got it right in this regard was when Leon Ames was cast as Judy Garland's father in MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS or when he was tapped to play Elizabeth Taylor's dad in A DATE WITH JUDY. Ames was still a handsome-looking man, the correct age, and more importantly, he physically resembled Garland and Taylor enough so that the casting would be much more believable. In sharp contrast to this, I do not buy Edward Arnold as Ginny's father, even though he is a wonderful actor.

[ginnyfan]

TODAY IN GINNY I'm exercising my right to extend the definition of a "Ginny connection".

 

First up is someone a lot of us just saw on Tuesday. Jessica Grayson (1886) played the Lyons family's "loyal old family retainer" Lily-bud in THE YOUNGEST PROFESSION. She had a relatively brief film career that didn't even begin until she was in her fifties, but she did garner some plum assignments, although the opportunities were limited by the times. She is probably best known for playing Addie in THE LITTLE FOXES (1941).

 

Actor Jack Perry (1895) had a full career of uncredited roles. He played a gangster in BORN TO SING. He was also a referee in CHAMPION, so I chose a poster from that film to represent him.

 

Actor Phillip Terry (1909) joined the Virginia Weidler Stock company on two occasions. First he was a Club 44 radio man in LOVE IS A HEADACHE, then he was a SAN FRANCISCO airport official in TOO HOT TO HANDLE. Terry was the "MGM Crime Reporter" in several CRIME DOES NOT PAY shorts, and played Wick Birham in THE LOST WEEKEND. I know him because he appeared five Perry Mason episodes.

 

If you look along the right side of the collage, you'll see my additions. First, Dorothy Arville (1880) played a restaurant singer in TROUBLE FOR TWO, a film that Ginny shot and was cut from. The second one is even more of a stretch. Nancy Claster (1915) created ROMPER ROOM in 1953 in Baltimore along with her husband Bert. The show, like Bozo, was then franchised nationwide and ran somewhere until 1994.

 

Follow this tenuous thread of connection. Prior to their TV foray, the Clasters booked vaudeville variety acts for the Hippodrome Theatre in Baltimore. I don't know for sure that Virginia played the Hippodrome in the mid-1940s, but it was the most prestigious theatre in Baltimore. It has now been remodeled and hosts Broadway tryouts and touring productions.

 

[ginnyfan]

TODAY IN GINNY is once again graced by but a single birthday.

 

Walter Miller (1892) got his start in the movies in 1911 and would literally die on the set, suffering a heart attack in 1940 while filming GAUCHO SERENADE with Gene Autry. In his early days, he worked with D.W. Griffith; in later years, with Virginia Weidler.

 

He was the First Flyer in TOO HOT TO HANDLE and is seen in the photo here as Joe, The Detective (the only cop the Fixer ever liked) in FIXER DUGAN. Ginny is whittlin' in the background.