Today is the birthday of Gloria Stuart (1910-2010). To hell with Titanic, she had a great career 60 years before, in James Whale films like The Old Dark House (1932) and The Invisible Man (1933), and seminal musicals like Roman Scandals (1933) and Gold Diggers of 1935, and, oh, about 50 other movies through 1946. It was her casting in Roman Scandals that resulted in her estrangement from her then-husband Blair Newell, a sculptor, and her marriage to one of the film’s screenwriters Arthur Sheekman, friend to, and frequent writer for, Groucho Marx. The two remained together until his death in 1979.
Here she is in a scene with Eva Moore from The Old Dark House including the obligatory pre-code gratuitous stripping scene:
P.S. I’m just kidding when I say “to hell with Titanic.” I actually love that movie!
To find out more about the history of show business, consult No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous, available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and wherever nutty books are sold.
And check out my new book: Chain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickelodeons to Youtube, just released by Bear Manor Media, also available from amazon.com etc etc etc
(Travalanche) 