Conway Tearle
Encyclopedia
Conway Tearle was an Anglo-American
stage actor who went on to perform in silent
and early sound films.
and American actress, Mary “Minnie” Conway. Minnie Conway was a direct descendent of William Augustus Conway, a British Shakespearian actor who became popular in America during the 1820s. Her father, the proprietor of the Brooklyn Theatre, was said to have organized the first stock company in America. After Tearle’s parents divorced, his mother married Osmond Tearle, a British Shakespearian actor popular in “the provinces”. Conway Tearle was the step-brother of actor Malcolm Tearle and a half brother of actor Godfrey Tearle
. and jazz musician Jules Levy Jr.
Conway Tearle was educated in England and America and took to the stage at an early age. By the age of ten he could recite twelve Shakespearean plays from memory. His big break came at the age of twenty-one when in Manchester, England, without any preparation, he was called upon to play Hamlet
after the lead actor took ill just prior to the first act.
, He next toured Australia playing the title role in Ben Hur for some months before returning to London to star in the play, The Best of Friends at the Theatre Royal
. Tearle divided the following four seasons equally with companies headed by Ellen Terry
and Sir Charles Wyndham
.
In 1905 Tearle returned to America to play opposite Grace George
in the short lived play Abigail. Over the next eight years or so Tearle played in a number of Broadway productions that failed to excite New York audiences. He did at times though garner singular praise for his performances in such plays as The New York Idea, The Liars, Major Barbara and others.In 1908/09 Tearle reprised his title role in a lavish Klaw and Erlinger road production of Ben Hur.
Tearle turned to Hollywood in 1914 where he would find considerable success playing romantic leads. His first film was The Nightingale, a story by Augustus Thomas
about a slum girl (Ethel Barrymore
) who rose to be a great opera star. His last was in a 1936 film adaptation of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet
with John Barrymore
. Overall Tearle appeared in some 93 films over his career and at one point was thought to the highest paid actor in America.With the advent of sound Tearle’s career began to wane, possibly due to age rather than the new technology..
On December 16, 1931, Conway appeared with co-star Kay Francis
at the grand opening of the Paramount Theater
in Oakland, California
, which hosted the premiere of their film The False Madonna, released by Paramount Pictures
.
The following year Tearle scored a major hit on Broadway in the original 1932 production of Dinner at Eight
, creating the role of fading screen idol Larry Renault which would later be played on film by John Barrymore
. His last two Broadway appearances were in short productions of Living Dangerously in 1935 and Anthony and Cleopatra two years later.
His second wife, actress Josephine Park sued for divorce In March, 1912 after learning Tearle had set sail for Italy aboard the S.S. Amerika with actress Roberta Hill. Roberta’s name had earlier appeared in print as a co-respondent in a divorce suit filed by the wife of John Jacob Astor
.
Tearle’s third wife, Roberta Hill, filed for a divorce in 1917 after detectives she hired found him in a hotel room with Adele Rowland, a musical comedy actress and dancer. The two claimed they were just rehearsing a play as Rowland explained later, “As to the robe in which I was clad, it's the custom in the profession to read plays attired like that.”
The following February Tearle and Rowland wed; remaining together until his death some twenty years later. Adele Rowland was the former wife of actor Charles Ruggles
and was well known at the time for introducing to America the song “Pack Up Your Troubles In Your Old Kit Bag And Smile, Smile, Smile” which she sang in the 1915 musical Her Soldier Boy. Adele Rowland was born in Washington D.C. on July 10, 1883 and died in Los Angeles on August 8, 1971.
whose setting was a duplex apartment in Hollywood. The play premiered in Princeton, New Jersey on January 21, 1937, and also featured Lucille Ball
playing the part of Julie Tucker, "one of three roommates coping with neurotic directors, confused executives, and grasping stars who interfere with the girls' ability to get ahead." The play received good reviews, but there were problems, chiefly with its star, because Tearle was in poor health. Cormack wanted to replace him, but the producer, Anne Nichols
, said the fault lay with the character and insisted the part needed to be reshaped and rewritten. The two were unable to agree on a solution. The play was scheduled to open on Broadway at the Vanderbilt Theatre
, but closed after one week in Washington, D.C. due in part to Tearle's declining health.
Tearle died in Hollywood, California from a heart attack
, on October 1, 1938, aged 60.
Anglo-American
Anglo-Americanis often used in legal, economic and political writing to refer to those countries that have similar legal regimes that are generally based on the English common law...
stage actor who went on to perform in silent
Silent film
A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...
and early sound films.
Early life
Frederick Conway Tearle was born in New York City the son of the well-known British-born cornetist Jules LevyJules Levy
Jules Levy was a cornetist, teacher, and composer.Born in London, England, he reportedly began his study of the cornet with only its mouthpiece; his family could not afford the instrument itself. After immigrating to the United States, he began a significant musical career as a cornet soloist and...
and American actress, Mary “Minnie” Conway. Minnie Conway was a direct descendent of William Augustus Conway, a British Shakespearian actor who became popular in America during the 1820s. Her father, the proprietor of the Brooklyn Theatre, was said to have organized the first stock company in America. After Tearle’s parents divorced, his mother married Osmond Tearle, a British Shakespearian actor popular in “the provinces”. Conway Tearle was the step-brother of actor Malcolm Tearle and a half brother of actor Godfrey Tearle
Godfrey Tearle
Sir Godfrey Seymour Tearle was a British actor who portrayed the quintessential Englishman on stage and in both English and US films.-Biography:...
. and jazz musician Jules Levy Jr.
Conway Tearle was educated in England and America and took to the stage at an early age. By the age of ten he could recite twelve Shakespearean plays from memory. His big break came at the age of twenty-one when in Manchester, England, without any preparation, he was called upon to play Hamlet
Hamlet
The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, or more simply Hamlet, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601...
after the lead actor took ill just prior to the first act.
Career
Tearle’s performance that night led to his first appearance on the London stage playing the Viscomte de Chauvin, the lead role in "The Queen's Double” on April 27, 1901 at the Garrick TheatreGarrick Theatre
The Garrick Theatre is a West End theatre, located on Charing Cross Road, in the City of Westminster. It opened on 24 April 1889 with The Profligate, a play by Arthur Wing Pinero. In its early years, it appears to have specialised in the performance of melodrama, and today the theatre is a...
, He next toured Australia playing the title role in Ben Hur for some months before returning to London to star in the play, The Best of Friends at the Theatre Royal
Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane is a West End theatre in Covent Garden, in the City of Westminster, a borough of London. The building faces Catherine Street and backs onto Drury Lane. The building standing today is the most recent in a line of four theatres at the same location dating back to 1663,...
. Tearle divided the following four seasons equally with companies headed by Ellen Terry
Ellen Terry
Dame Ellen Terry, GBE was an English stage actress who became the leading Shakespearean actress in Britain. Among the members of her famous family is her great nephew, John Gielgud....
and Sir Charles Wyndham
Charles Wyndham
Sir Charles Wyndham was an English actor-manager, born as Charles Culverwell in Liverpool, the son of a doctor. He was educated abroad, at King's College London and at the College of Surgeons and the Peter Street Anatomical School, Dublin...
.
In 1905 Tearle returned to America to play opposite Grace George
Grace George
Grace George was a Broadway stage actress. She was married to producer William A. Brady and was stepmother to his daughter Alice Brady. George appeared in only two films, a silent called Tainted Money in 1915 and Johnny Come Lately in 1943 with James Cagney...
in the short lived play Abigail. Over the next eight years or so Tearle played in a number of Broadway productions that failed to excite New York audiences. He did at times though garner singular praise for his performances in such plays as The New York Idea, The Liars, Major Barbara and others.In 1908/09 Tearle reprised his title role in a lavish Klaw and Erlinger road production of Ben Hur.
Tearle turned to Hollywood in 1914 where he would find considerable success playing romantic leads. His first film was The Nightingale, a story by Augustus Thomas
Augustus Thomas
Augustus Thomas was an American playwright, born in St. Louis, Missouri. The son of a doctor, he worked a number of jobs including a page in the 41st Congress, studying law and gaining some practical railway work experience before he turned to journalism and became editor of the Kansas City Mirror...
about a slum girl (Ethel Barrymore
Ethel Barrymore
Ethel Barrymore was an American actress and a member of the Barrymore family of actors.-Early life:Ethel Barrymore was born Ethel Mae Blythe in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the second child of the actors Maurice Barrymore and Georgiana Drew...
) who rose to be a great opera star. His last was in a 1936 film adaptation of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy written early in the career of playwright William Shakespeare about two young star-crossed lovers whose deaths ultimately unite their feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular archetypal stories of young, teenage lovers.Romeo and Juliet belongs to a...
with John Barrymore
John Barrymore
John Sidney Blyth , better known as John Barrymore, was an acclaimed American actor. He first gained fame as a handsome stage actor in light comedy, then high drama and culminating in groundbreaking portrayals in Shakespearean plays Hamlet and Richard III...
. Overall Tearle appeared in some 93 films over his career and at one point was thought to the highest paid actor in America.With the advent of sound Tearle’s career began to wane, possibly due to age rather than the new technology..
On December 16, 1931, Conway appeared with co-star Kay Francis
Kay Francis
Kay Francis was an American stage and film actress. After a brief period on Broadway in the late 1920s, she moved to film and achieved her greatest success between 1930 and 1936, when she was the number one female star at the Warner Brothers studio, and the highest paid American film actress...
at the grand opening of the Paramount Theater
Paramount Theater (Oakland, California)
The Paramount Theatre is a massive Art Deco movie theater located in downtown Oakland, California, USA. When it was built in 1931, it was the largest multi-purpose theater on the West Coast, seating 3476 Today, the Paramount is the home of the Oakland East Bay Symphony and the Oakland Ballet, it...
in Oakland, California
Oakland, California
Oakland is a major West Coast port city on San Francisco Bay in the U.S. state of California. It is the eighth-largest city in the state with a 2010 population of 390,724...
, which hosted the premiere of their film The False Madonna, released by Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
.
The following year Tearle scored a major hit on Broadway in the original 1932 production of Dinner at Eight
Dinner at Eight (play)
Dinner at Eight is a play by George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber.-1932 Original Production:Dinner at Eight opened October 22, 1932 at the Music Box Theatre. It closed after 232 performances in May 1933. The play was produced by Sam H. Harris, staged by George S. Kaufman; Assistant Director: Robert B...
, creating the role of fading screen idol Larry Renault which would later be played on film by John Barrymore
John Barrymore
John Sidney Blyth , better known as John Barrymore, was an acclaimed American actor. He first gained fame as a handsome stage actor in light comedy, then high drama and culminating in groundbreaking portrayals in Shakespearean plays Hamlet and Richard III...
. His last two Broadway appearances were in short productions of Living Dangerously in 1935 and Anthony and Cleopatra two years later.
Marriages
Conway Tearle married for the first time in 1901 at Sunderland, England. In 1908 Tearle filed for a divorce at Reno, Nevada on grounds of desertion, stating his wife, Gertrude Tearle, had left him several years earlier.His second wife, actress Josephine Park sued for divorce In March, 1912 after learning Tearle had set sail for Italy aboard the S.S. Amerika with actress Roberta Hill. Roberta’s name had earlier appeared in print as a co-respondent in a divorce suit filed by the wife of John Jacob Astor
John Jacob Astor IV
John Jacob Astor IV was an American businessman, real estate builder, investor, inventor, writer, lieutenant colonel in the Spanish-American War and a member of the prominent Astor family...
.
Tearle’s third wife, Roberta Hill, filed for a divorce in 1917 after detectives she hired found him in a hotel room with Adele Rowland, a musical comedy actress and dancer. The two claimed they were just rehearsing a play as Rowland explained later, “As to the robe in which I was clad, it's the custom in the profession to read plays attired like that.”
The following February Tearle and Rowland wed; remaining together until his death some twenty years later. Adele Rowland was the former wife of actor Charles Ruggles
Charles Ruggles
Charles Sherman “Charlie” Ruggles was a comic American actor. In a career spanning six decades, Ruggles appeared in close to 100 feature films. He was also the brother of director, producer, and silent actor Wesley Ruggles .-Background:Charlie Ruggles was born in Los Angeles, California in 1886...
and was well known at the time for introducing to America the song “Pack Up Your Troubles In Your Old Kit Bag And Smile, Smile, Smile” which she sang in the 1915 musical Her Soldier Boy. Adele Rowland was born in Washington D.C. on July 10, 1883 and died in Los Angeles on August 8, 1971.
Death
One of Tearle's last starring roles was in Hey Diddle Diddle, a comedy play written by Bartlett CormackBartlett Cormack
Edward Bartlett Cormack was an American actor, playwright, screenwriter, and producer best known for his 1927 Broadway play The Racket, and for working with Howard Hughes and Cecil B. DeMille on several films....
whose setting was a duplex apartment in Hollywood. The play premiered in Princeton, New Jersey on January 21, 1937, and also featured Lucille Ball
Lucille Ball
Lucille Désirée Ball was an American comedian, film, television, stage and radio actress, model, film and television executive, and star of the sitcoms I Love Lucy, The Lucy–Desi Comedy Hour, The Lucy Show, Here's Lucy and Life With Lucy...
playing the part of Julie Tucker, "one of three roommates coping with neurotic directors, confused executives, and grasping stars who interfere with the girls' ability to get ahead." The play received good reviews, but there were problems, chiefly with its star, because Tearle was in poor health. Cormack wanted to replace him, but the producer, Anne Nichols
Anne Nichols
Anne Nichols was an American playwright.Born in Dales Mill, Georgia, Nichols penned a number of Broadway plays, several of which were made into motion pictures...
, said the fault lay with the character and insisted the part needed to be reshaped and rewritten. The two were unable to agree on a solution. The play was scheduled to open on Broadway at the Vanderbilt Theatre
Vanderbilt Theatre
The Vanderbilt Theatre was a New York City Broadway theatre, designed by architect Eugene De Rosa for producer Lyle Andrews. It opened in 1918, located at 148 West 48th Street. The theatre was demolished in 1954....
, but closed after one week in Washington, D.C. due in part to Tearle's declining health.
Tearle died in Hollywood, California from a heart attack
Myocardial infarction
Myocardial infarction or acute myocardial infarction , commonly known as a heart attack, results from the interruption of blood supply to a part of the heart, causing heart cells to die...
, on October 1, 1938, aged 60.
Selected filmography
- Stella MarisStella MarisStella Maris may refer to* Polaris * A title of the Blessed Virgin Mary, known in English as Our Lady, Star of the Seaplaces or organizations named for the Virgin Mary:...
(1918) - Black OxenBlack OxenBlack Oxen is an American silent film released in December 1923, starring Corinne Griffith, Conway Tearle and Clara Bow and based on the novel by Gertrude Atherton...
(1923) - The Next CornerThe Next Corner (1924 film)The Next Corner is a 1924 silent melodrama produced by Famous Players-Lasky and distributed by Paramount Pictures Corporation. It was directed by Sam Wood. It stars Dorothy Mackaill, Lon Chaney, Conway Tearle and Louise Dresser. The film has come down through the decades as a Chaney picture but...
(1924) - The MysticThe MysticThe Mystic is a 1925 silent drama film directed by Tod Browning, who later directed MGM's Freaks . Aileen Pringle's gowns in the film were by already famous Romain de Tirtoff .-Plot:...
(1925) - The Greater GloryThe Greater GloryThe Greater Glory is a 1926 silent drama film directed by Curt Rehfeld, starring Conway Tearle and featuring Boris Karloff. This film is sometimes listed as The Viennese Medley, the title of Edith O'Shaughnessy's novel of which the film is based. The film is lost.-Cast:* Conway Tearle - Count...
(1926) - Altars of DesireAltars of DesireAltars of Desire is a silent drama film directed by Christy Cabanne and starring silent movie star Mae Murray. A print may survive in the Turner/MGM vaults however silentera.com lists this film as being lost.-Plot:...
(1927) - The Isle of Forgotten WomenThe Isle of Forgotten WomenThe Isle of Forgotten Women is a 1927 silent drama film directed by George B. Seitz. It was released as Forgotten Women in the UK.-Cast:* Conway Tearle as Bruce Paine* Dorothy Sebastian as Marua* Gibson Gowland as John Stort...
(1927) - Gold Diggers of BroadwayGold Diggers of Broadway (film)Gold Diggers of Broadway is a 1929 Warner Bros. comedy/musical film which is historically important as the second two-strip Technicolor all-talking feature length movie . Gold Diggers of Broadway was also the third movie released by Warner Bros...
(1929) - The Hurricane ExpressThe Hurricane ExpressThe Hurricane Express is a 12-chapter Mascot Pictures film serial that stars John Wayne as airplane pilot Larry Baker, who goes after a mystery villain named "The Wrecker," the man responsible for a train crash that killed his father.-Cast:...
(1932) - Vanity FairVanity Fair (1932 film)Vanity Fair is a modernized adaptation of William Makepeace Thackeray's novel of the same name that was directed by Chester M. Franklin and starred Myrna Loy. The story is reset in the twentieth century.-Other information:...
(1932) - StingareeStingaree (1934 film)Stingaree is a musical western film directed by William A. Wellman released by RKO Radio Pictures in 1934. The film was based on a story by E. W. Hornung, which was published in 1905. Set in Australia, it starred Irene Dunne as Hilda Bouverie and Richard Dix as Stingaree.- Plot :Hilda Bouverie is...
(1934) - Romeo and JulietRomeo and Juliet (1936 film)Romeo and Juliet is a 1936 American film adapted from the play by Shakespeare, directed by George Cukor from a screenplay by Talbot Jennings...
(1936)