Tags
1932, Imogen Sara Smith, Joan Crawford, Lewis Milestone, Pre-Code, Rain, Scarface, The Chiseler, Walter Huston
While it is generally agreed that no actress surpassed Jeanne Eagels’ performance as Sadie Thompson in Rain, many have tried. Among them was none other than Joan Crawford, in a 1932 talkie which was widely panned on release (and later, by Crawford herself.) While at first her Sadie may seem close to parody, a more striking portrayal soon emerges, as Imogen Sara Smith writes in ‘Two-Faced Woman’, an article for The Chiseler. Continue reading
Samuel Henry Harris was born in New York City on February 3, 1872. His early jobs ranged from selling cough drops to keeping the Irish storyteller and vaudevillian, John W. Kelly, out of saloon bars during a troubled stint at Miner’s Bowery Theatre. He also worked as a boxing promoter, managing prize-fighter Terry McGovern. By the age of twenty-two, Harris owned six racehorses. 
Tallulah Brockman Bankhead was born in Huntsville, Alabama on January 31, 1902. Her mother, Adelaide, died of blood poisoning three weeks after Tallulah’s birth. Her father William, a prominent Democrat, suffered bouts of alcoholism and depression, and Tallulah was largely raised by her grandmother. 
William Somerset Maugham was born in Paris on January 25, 1874, the fourth of six children. His father was a lawyer for the British Embassy. His mother died of tuberculosis when he was eight, and when his father passed away two years later, Maugham was sent to live with his uncle in England. 
John Colton was born in Minneapolis on December 31, 1887. He spent his first fourteen years in Japan, where his English father was a diplomat. This early experience of colonial life in the Far East would inspire his writing. 
One of my favourite Hollywood stars, 