In 1931, she was in her first small film named “Art and Mrs. Bottle.”  Then, in 1932 she finally broke into stardom when she took the lead role of an Amazon princess in “A Warrior’s Husband,” following that, she was a cast member in “A Bill of Divorcement.” This film was a hit and after agreeing to her salary demands, RKO signed Katharine to a contract, and with that, she went on to make five films between 1932 and 1934.  Her third movie was Morning Glory, in 1933; she won her first Academy Award. Also in 1933, she made her fourth film, Little Women; it was the most successful picture of its day.

However, stories were beginning to leak out of her nasty behavior off screen and refusing to play the Hollywood Game, Katharine always wore slacks and no makeup she never posed for any pictures or involved herself in any interviews.

She made many more films over the years up until 1994 where she did her last feature film, which was “Love Affair” and her last TV film “One Christmas.” As her health declined she retired from the public life in the mid 90’s. Sadly she passed at the age of 96, from natural causes, in her home in Old Saybrook, Connecticut.

Before becoming a star in American films, she had already been a leading actress in Swedish, French, German, Italian, and British films. Her first introduction to American audiences came with her starring role in the English remake of Intermezzo in 1939. In America, she brought to the screen a “Nordic freshness and vitality,” along with extreme beauty and intelligence, and, according to the St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture, quickly became “the ideal of American womanhood” and one of Hollywood’s greatest leading actresses.

Her producer David O. Selznick, who called her “the most completely conscientious actress” he had ever worked with, gave her a seven-year acting contract, thereby assuring her continual stardom. A few of her other starring roles besides Casablanca included the films For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943), Gaslight (1944), The Bells of St. Mary’s (1945), Alfred Hitchcock’s Spellbound (1945), Notorious (1946), and Under Capricorn (1949), and the independent production, Joan of Arc (1948).

In 1950, after a decade of stardom in American films, she starred in the Italian film Stromboli and had a love affair with director Roberto Rossellini while they were both already married. The affair created a scandal that forced her to return to Europe until 1956, when she made a successful Hollywood comeback in Anastasia for which she won her second Academy Award as well as the forgiveness of her fans.

Clark Gable made it to Hollywood to pursue his career and met a woman names Josephine Dillon, which was to be his acting coach that would teach him everything that he needed to know in order to become successful in the acting business.  Josephine Dillon was some 17 years older than Gable, but they shared a lot of the same morals and principles and later ended up getting married to one another.

In 1930, Gable was finally signed by MGM, though only after many failed attempts to make it big.  He became the co-star in the 1931 film called “Dance, Fools, Dance.”  Later that year, he starred in another movie called “A Free Soul,” and this is where the public people really began to fall in love with Clark Gable.

Clark Gable was married 3 times and with each wife, he kept his acting career alive and well.  After his third wife died in a plane crash, Gable decided to join the U.S. Air Force which took him away from the big screen for about 3 years.  He was on missions in Europe.  When he returned, he never renewed his contracts for film making and freelanced his own work, which turned out to be unsuccessful in the end.  All of the sudden, he announced to the public that he was becoming a father though two months after the birth of his baby, he died from a heart attack.  We will always remember Clark Gable as one of the actors that pushed the big screed movies into the future.

The family had relocated to Los Angeles where Elizabeth’s mother’s own family had moved. Mr. Taylor followed to the U.S. not long after. Elizabeth’s first foray onto the big screen was when she was ten.  The movie was called “There’s one born every minute” in 1942.  Universal quickly dropped her contract after that film but she was soon picked up by MGM. Her first film with MGM was “Lassie Come Home” in 1943. In 1944, she played Velvet Brown in “National Velvet” the film became a huge success, grossing over $4 million. Elizabeth had a long term contact with MGM and was the company’s top child star.

Throughout the rest of the 40s and 50s she appeared in films with mostly good results. In 1955 she appeared in the hit “Giant” with James Dean.  In 1959, she appeared in “Suddenly, Last Summer” and was nominated for an Oscar; however, she lost to Simone Signoret for “Room at the Top.” In 1960 she received her first Oscar for her performance in “Butterfield 8” as Gloria Wandrous. She left MGM after her contract ran out but did projects for the studio later on down the road. In 1963, she starred in the movie “Cleopatra”, which was one of the most expensive productions at that time, as well as her salary; $1,000,000.00.

She won her second Oscar in 1966, in the movie “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”  Her films afterward didn’t approach the intensity of that one. In February 1997, Taylor was admitted to the hospital to remove a brain tumor. The operation was a success, and since then she has secured her role as one of the best leading actresses of all time.

Photo courtesy of Emage International/Art&Artifact and the Frank Worth Estate

Charlie Chaplin came to the United States in 1910, at the age of 21.  He was brought to New York, which was known to be a great place to start out for anyone trying to become a professional actor.  Two years later, in 1913, Chaplin signed his very first contract at Keystone and it was no time before he headed to Hollywood.  His first movie premiered in 1914, “Making a Living,” and went on to make over 35 movies total in that year alone.  His rise in popularity was like nothing that people had seen, though with parents of fame, it was nothing new to Charlie.

Charlie Chaplin grew to become one of the most popular and successful actors of all time.  The moment that really kicked off his long career was in 1921 when he starred in, and produced, his first full length film called “The Kid.”  From then on, most people all over the world knew Charlie Chaplin and loved his movies.  He had a great career and life, dying on December 25, 1977, in Vevey, Switzerland.  He had apparently died of natural causes in his sleep from old age.

He first set out to be a comedian as he was intrigued by some but ended up in plays and screenings of the English provinces and the music halls.  In 1920, he was selected to tour to the U.S. to debut on Broadway in the hit, “Good Times,” which helped to give Grant the time to adjust to the needed parts.  He would go on to remain in the U.S. to try his hand in picture films.

The biggest hit that many people remember Cary Grant in is the 1950’s film called “North by Northwest,” which was directed by the world pronounced Alfred Hitchcock.  He went on to make many other movies as well but none of the others were as big of a hit as the one directed by Hitchcock.  On November 29, 1986, in Davenport, Iowa, Cary Grant died from a cerebral hemorrhage, though he will never be forgotten in his role of the greatest classical movies of all times.