A Lady of Chance

Norma Shearer (Actor) .. Dolly

Born: August 11, 1902
Died: June 12, 1983
Birthplace: Westmount, Quebec, Canada

Trivia: The winner of a beauty contest at 14, she was born into a wealthy family that lost everything in the 1910s. Her mother brought her to New York in the hope that show business might provide the family with money. Shearer failed an audition with Florenze Ziegfeld but found some work as a model. She began appearing in bit roles in New York-shot films in 1920; in one of these, The Stealers (1920), she was spotted by talent scout Irving Thalberg, who couldn't track her down until 1923. Signed to a long-term screen contract in 1925, she began playing leads in numerous films. Meanwhile, Thalberg rose to a position of authority at MGM; she married him in 1927 and started getting the best roles the studio had to offer, leading her to stardom. Shearer got her pick of directors and scripts, and made sure to vary her work so she would avoid being typecast. She received five Oscar nominations, winning for The Divorcee (1930). Soon she was billed by MGM as "the First Lady of the Screen." Thalberg died at age 37 in 1936, after which Shearer showed bad judgment in her choice of films; she turned down the leads in Gone with the Wind and Mrs. Miniver and instead appeared in two consecutive flops, We Were Dancing and Her Cardboard Lover (both 1942). After that she retired from the screen, meanwhile marrying a ski instructor 20 years her junior.

Lowell Sherman (Actor) .. Bradley

Born: October 11, 1885
Died: December 28, 1934

Trivia: Descended from an old and venerated acting family, Lowell Sherman toted up several impressive Broadway credits in the years prior to 1920. Matinee-idol handsome, Sherman enjoyed playing rakish society types, the sort who loved 'em and left 'em, but always with a touch of class. His first film role, in D.W. Griffith's Way Down East, was an extension of Sherman's caddish stage persona. In 1930, Sherman became a director as well as an actor, turning out such sophisticated sex farces as Bachelor Apartment (1931) and The Greeks Had a Word for Them (1933), in which double entendres and knowing glances were the order of the day. His most famous directorial effort was Mae West's box-office triumph She Done Him Wrong (1932). The only post-1931 film in which Sherman acted but did not direct was George Cukor's What Price Hollywood (1932). It is said that Sherman based his portrayal of an alcoholic show business has-been in this film on his own brother-in-law, John Barrymore (at the time, Sherman was married to Helene Costello, the sister of Barrymore's then-wife Dolores Costello). Lowell Sherman died in the last week of 1934, while directing the first three-strip Technicolor feature, Becky Sharp; according to his friend James Cagney, it was Sherman's addiction to cigarettes that did him in.

Gwen Lee (Actor) .. Gwen

Born: January 01, 1904
Died: January 01, 1961

Johnny Mack Brown (Actor) .. Steve

Born: September 01, 1904
Died: November 14, 1974

Trivia: Former All-American halfback Johnny Mack Brown was a popular screen cowboy during the 1930s. Already in the public eye for his athletic prowess, Brown was persuaded by a friend to give Hollywood a try after graduating from the University of Alabama. In 1927, the muscular macho man was signed by MGM where he played in a number of leading roles opposite popular actresses such as Garbo, Pickford, and Crawford for several years. But Brown never really found his acting niche until he starred in King Vidor's Billy the Kid (1930). From then on he was happily typecast as a cowboy actor, and became a hero to millions of American boys, appearing in over 200 B-grade Westerns over the next two decades. From 1942-50 he was consistently among the screen's ten most popular Western actors. Brown formally retired from movies in 1953 but made occasional return appearances as a "nostalgia" act.

Eugenia Besserer (Actor) .. Mrs. Crandall

Buddie Messinger (Actor) .. Hank

Eugénie Besserer (Actor) .. Mrs. Crandall

Born: January 01, 1870
Died: May 10, 1934

Trivia: Aged character actress Eugenie Besserer portrayed Al Jolson's mother with such quiet self-assurance in The Jazz Singer (1927) that many viewers have assumed she really was of Russian-Jewish descent. In truth, Ms. Besserer was born in France and educated in Canada. She began her stage career in the late 1880s, making her film debut in 1911's The Profligate. Most of her movie appearances were in roles requiring matriarchal self-sacrifice; she worked extensively with D. W. Griffith, whose fidelity to the concept of Mother Love was one of his trademarks. When cast in the pioneering part-talkie The Jazz Singer, Besserer assumed her role would be silent, but in the celebrated Vitaphone "Blue Skies" sequence, Jolson's incessant adlibbing all but forced the actress to speak up -- and in so doing, she became the second actor ever to be heard in a major-studio talking picture. Eugenie Besserer remained in films until a few months before her death; her last appearance was in the outdoor western To the Last Man (1933).

Buddy Messinger (Actor) .. Hank

Born: January 01, 1906
Died: January 01, 1965

06:00 am - 07:30 am, Friday, January 9 on Turner Classic Movies ()