Mary Astor
Encyclopedia
Mary Astor was an American actress. Most remembered for her role as Brigid O'Shaughnessy in The Maltese Falcon
(1941) with Humphrey Bogart
, Astor began her long motion picture
career
as a teenager in the silent movie
s of the early 1920s
.
She eventually made a successful transition to talkies
, but almost saw her career destroyed due to public scandal in the mid-1930s. She was sued for support by her parents and was later branded an adulterous wife by her ex-husband during a custody fight over her daughter. Overcoming these stumbling blocks in her private life, Astor went on to even greater success on the screen, eventually winning the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
for her portrayal of Sandra Kovak in The Great Lie
(1941). She was an MGM contract player through most of the 1940s and continued to act in movies, on television
and on stage
until her retirement from the screen in 1964. Astor was the author
of five novel
s. Her autobiography
became a bestseller
, as did her later book, A Life on Film, which was specifically about her career.
Director Lindsay Anderson
wrote of her in 1990: "...that when two or three who love the cinema are gathered together, the name of Mary Astor always comes up, and everybody agrees that she was an actress of special attraction, whose qualities of depth and reality always seemed to illuminate the parts she played."
, the only child of Otto Ludwig Langhanke (October 2, 1871 – February 3, 1943) and Helen Marie de Vasconcellos (April 19, 1881 – January 18, 1947). Both of her parents were teachers.
Her Berlin
-born father immigrated to the United States from Germany
in 1891 and became a naturalized
citizen
; her mother was born in Jacksonville, Illinois
, of Portuguese
and Irish
extraction. Langhanke and de Vasconcellos married on August 3, 1904 in Lyons, Kansas
. Astor's father was a German
teacher at Quincy High School until the U.S. entered World War I
. Later on, he began doing light farming. Astor's mother, who had always wanted to be an actress, taught drama and elocution.
Astor was home-schooled in academics and taught to play the piano by her father, who insisted she practice daily. Her piano talents came in handy when she played piano in her films The Great Lie and Meet Me In St. Louis. In 1919, Astor sent sent a photograph of herself to a beauty contest
in Motion Picture Magazine, becoming a semifinalist. Her father then moved the family to Chicago, where he took a position teaching German in public schools. Lucile took drama lessons and appeared in various amateur stage
productions
.
The following year, she sent another photograph to Motion Picture Magazine, this time becoming a finalist and then runner-up in the national contest. Her father then moved the family to New York
, in order for his pretty daughter to become an actress in motion pictures
. He managed all her affairs from September 1920 to June 1930.
A Manhattan
photographer, Charles Albin, saw a photograph and asked the young girl with haunting eyes and long auburn hair, whose nickname
was "Rusty," to pose for him. The Albin photographs were seen by Harry Durant of Famous Players-Lasky and Lucile was signed to a six-month contract
with Paramount Pictures
. Her name was changed to Mary Astor during a conference between Paramount chief Jesse Lasky, gossip columnist
Louella Parsons
, and producer
Walter Wanger
.
. At age 14, she appeared in the 1921 film Sentimental Tommy
, but her small part in a dream sequence wound up on the cutting room floor
. Paramount let her contract lapse. She then appeared in some movie shorts with sequences based on famous paintings. She received critical recognition for the 1921 two-reeler The Beggar Maid. Her first feature-length movie was John Smith (1922), which was followed that same year by The Man Who Played God
. In 1923, she and her parents moved to Hollywood
.
After appearing in several larger roles at various studios, she was signed by Paramount again, this time to a one-year contract at $500 a week. She had appeared in several more movies when John Barrymore
saw a photograph of her in a magazine and wanted her cast in his upcoming movie. On loan-out to Warner Bros.
, she starred with him in Beau Brummel
(1924). The older actor wooed the young actress, but their relationship was severely constrained by Astor's parents' unwillingness to let the couple spend time alone together. It was only because Barrymore convinced the Langhankes that his acting lessons required privacy that the couple managed to be alone at all. Their secret engagement ended largely because of the Langhankes' interference and Astor's inability to escape their heavy-handed authority, but also because Barrymore became involved with Astor's fellow WAMPAS Baby Star Dolores Costello
, whom he later married.
In 1925, Astor's parents bought a Moorish style mansion with 1 acres (4,046.9 m²) of land known as "Moorcrest" in the hills above Hollywood
. The Langhankes not only lived lavishly off Astor's earnings, but kept her a virtual prisoner inside Moorcrest. Moorcrest is notable not only for its ornate style, but its place as the most lavish residence associated with the Krotona
Colony, a utopian society founded by the Theosophical Society in 1912. Built by Marie Russak Hotchener, a Theosophist with no formal architectural training, the house combines Moorish and Mission Revival styles and contains such Arts and Crafts features as art glass windows (whose red lotus design Astor called "unfortunate"), and Batchelder tiles. Moorcrest, which recently has undergone a multi-million-dollar renovation, is still standing. Before the Langhankes bought it, it was rented by Charlie Chaplin
, whose tenure is memorialized by an art glass window featuring the Little Tramp.
Astor's parents were not Theosophists, though the family was friendly with both Marie Hotchener and her husband Harry, both prominent TS members. Marie Hotchener was the person who negotiated Astor's right to a $5 a week allowance (at a time when she was making $2500 a week) and the right to go to work unchaperoned by her mother. The following year when she was 19, Astor, fed up with her father's constant physical and psychological abuse as well as his control of her money, climbed from her second floor bedroom window and escaped to a hotel in Hollywood, as recounted in her memoirs. Hotchener facilitated her return by persuading Otto Langhanke to give Astor a savings account with $500 and the ability to come and go as she pleased. Nevertheless, she did not gain control of her salary until she was 26 years old, at which point her parents sued her for financial support. Astor settled the case by agreeing to pay her parents $100 a month. Otto Langhanke put Moorcrest up for auction in the early 1930s, hoping to get more than the $80,000 he had been offered for it; it went for $25,000.
Astor went on appearing in movies at various studios. When her Paramount contract ended in 1925, she was signed at Warner Bros. Among her assignments was another role with John Barrymore, this time in Don Juan
(1926). She was named one of the WAMPAS Baby Stars
in 1926, along with Mary Brian
, Dolores Costello
, Joan Crawford
, Dolores del Río
, Janet Gaynor
, and Fay Wray
.
On loan to Fox Film Corporation, Astor starred in Dressed To Kill (1928), which received good reviews. That same year, she starred in the sophisticated comedy Dry Martini at Fox. She later said that, while working on the latter, she "absorbed and assumed something of the atmosphere and emotional climate of the picture." She said it offered "a new and exciting point of view; with its specious doctrine of self-indulgence, it rushed into the vacuum of my moral sense and captivated me completely." When her Warner Bros. contract ended, she signed a contract with Fox for $3,750 a week.
In 1928, she married director
Kenneth Hawks at her family home, Moorcrest. He gave her a Packard
automobile as a wedding present and the couple moved into a home high up on Lookout Mountain in Los Angeles
above Beverly Hills
.
As the movie industry made the transition to talkies
, Fox gave her a sound test, which she failed because the studio found her voice to be too deep. Though this was probably due to early sound equipment and the inexperience of technicians, the studio released her from her contract and she found herself out of work for eight months in 1929.
(wife of Fredric March
), in whom she confided. Eldridge, who was to star in the stage play Among the Married at the Majestic Theatre in Downtown Los Angeles
, recommended Astor for the second female lead. The play was a success and her voice was deemed suitable, being described as low and vibrant.
She was happy to be back at work, but her happiness soon ended. On January 2, 1930, while filming sequences for the Fox movie Such Men Are Dangerous, Kenneth Hawks was killed in a mid-air plane crash over the Pacific
. Astor had just finished a matinee performance at the Majestic when Florence Eldridge came to her with the news. She was rushed from the theatre and taken to Eldridge's apartment; a replacement, Doris Lloyd
, stepped in for the next show. Astor remained with her friend, Eldridge, at her apartment for some time, but she soon went back to work. Shortly after her husband's death, she debuted in her first "talkie", Ladies Love Brutes
(1930) at Paramount, which co-starred friend Fredric March
.
While her career picked up, her private life remained difficult. After working on several more movies, she suffered delayed shock over her husband's death and had a nervous breakdown. During the months of her illness, she was attended to by Dr. Franklyn Thorpe, whom she married on June 29, 1931.
In May 1932, the Thorpes purchased a yacht and sailed to Hawaii
. Astor was expecting a baby in August, but gave birth in June in Honolulu. The child, a daughter, was named Marylyn Hauoli Thorpe: her first name combined her parents' names and her middle name is Hawaiian.
When they returned to Southern California
, Astor freelanced and gained the pivotal role of Barbara Willis in MGM
's Red Dust
(1932) with Clark Gable
and Jean Harlow
. In late 1932 though, Astor signed a featured player contract with Warner Bros. Meanwhile, besides spending lavishly, her parents invested in the stock market
, which turned out in many instances to be unprofitable. They still lived in Moorcrest, Astor had dubbed it a "white elephant", and she refused to maintain the house. She had to turn to the Motion Picture Relief Fund
in 1933 to pay her bills.
In 1933, she appeared as the female lead, Hilda Lake, the niece of the murder victims, in The Kennel Murder Case
, co-starring with William Powell
playing detective Philo Vance
. Film critic William K. Everson
pronounced it a "masterpiece" in the August 1984 issue of Films in Review. Unhappy with her marriage, she took a break from movie making in 1933 and went to New York by herself. While there, enjoying a whirlwind social life, she met the playwright
George Kaufman and they had an affair, which she documented in her diary.
. The diary was never formally offered as evidence during the trial, but Thorpe and his lawyers constantly referred to it, and its notoriety grew. Astor admitted that the diary existed and that she had documented her affair with Kaufman, but maintained that many of the parts that had been referred to had been forgeries, following the theft of the diary from her desk. The diary was deemed inadmissible as a mutilated document, and a judge ordered it be sealed and impounded. Astor claimed it was then destroyed, with her permission.
Astor had just begun work on Dodsworth
as news of the diary became public. Producer Samuel Goldwyn
was urged to fire her, as her contract had a morality clause, but Goldwyn refused and the movie went on to be a hit.
, was released to rave reviews, and the public's acceptance assured the studios that she was still a viable commercial property.
In 1937, she returned to the stage in well-received productions of Noel Coward
's Tonight at 8:30
, The Astonished Heart, and Still Life. She also began performing regularly on radio
. Some of her best movies were still to come, including The Prisoner of Zenda
(1937), John Ford
's The Hurricane (1937), Midnight
(1939) and Brigham Young
(1940).
In John Huston
's The Maltese Falcon
(1941), Astor was cast in her best known role as scheming temptress Brigid O'Shaughnessy. The film also starred Humphrey Bogart
, with Peter Lorre
and Sydney Greenstreet
.
Another noteworthy performance was her Oscar
-winning role as Sandra Kovak, the selfish, self-centered concert pianist, who willingly gives up her child, in The Great Lie
(1941). George Brent
played her intermittent love interest, but the film's star was Bette Davis
. Davis wanted Astor cast in the role after watching her screen test
and seeing her play Tchaikovsky
's Piano Concerto No. 1
. She then recruited Astor to collaborate with her on rewriting the script, which Davis felt was mediocre and needed work to make it more interesting. Astor further followed Davis's advice and sported a brazenly bobbed hairdo for the role.
The soundtrack of the movie during the scenes where she plays the concerto, with violent hand movements on the piano keyboard, was actually dubbed by pianist Max Rabinovitch. Davis deliberately stepped back to allow Astor to shine in her key scenes. As a result of her performance, Astor won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
, thanking Bette Davis
and Tchaikovsky in her acceptance speech. Astor and Davis became good friends.
Astor was not propelled into the upper echelon of movie star
s by these successes, however. She always declined offers of starring in her own right. Not wanting the responsibility of top billing and having to "carry the picture," she preferred the security of being a featured player.
In 1942 she was reunited with Humphrey Bogart
and Sydney Greenstreet
in John Huston
's Across the Pacific
. Though usually cast in dramatic or melodramatic roles, Astor showed a flair for comedy as The Princess Centimillia in the Preston Sturges
film, The Palm Beach Story
(1942) for Paramount.
In February 1943, Astor's father, Otto Langhanke, died in Cedars of Lebanon Hospital
as a result of a heart attack
complicated by influenza
. His wife and daughter were both at his bedside.
That same year, Astor signed a seven-year contract with MGM
, which turned out to be a regrettable mistake. She was kept busy playing what she considered mediocre mother roles. After Meet Me In St. Louis
(1944), the studio allowed her to make her Broadway
debut in Many Happy Returns (1945). The play was a miserable failure, but Astor received good reviews.
On loan-out to 20th Century Fox
, she played a wealthy widow in Claudia and David
(1946). She was also loaned to Paramount
to play Fritzi Haller in Desert Fury
(1947) in which she played the tough owner of a saloon and casino in a small mining town.
Before Helen Langhanke died of a heart ailment in January 1947, Astor said she sat in the hospital room with her mother, who was delirious and did not know her, and listened quietly as Helen told her all about terrible, selfish Lucile. After her death, Astor said she spent countless hours copying her mother's diary so she could read it and was surprised to learn how much she was hated.
Back at MGM
, Astor went on being cast in undistinguished, colorless mother roles. One exception was when she played a prostitute in the film noir
Act of Violence
(1948). The last straw came when she was cast as Marmee March in Little Women
(1949). Astor found no redemption in playing what she considered another humdrum mother and became despondent. The studio wanted to renew her contract, promising to give her better roles, but she declined the offer.
as far back as the 1930s, but it had never interfered with her work schedule or performance. She hit bottom in 1949 and went into a sanitarium for alcoholics.
In 1951, she made a frantic call to her doctor and told him she had taken too many sleeping pills. She was taken to a hospital and the police reported that she had attempted suicide, this being her third overdose in two years, and the story made headline news. She maintained it had been an accident.
That same year, she joined Alcoholics Anonymous
and converted to Roman Catholicism. She credited her recovery to a priest, Peter Ciklic, also a practicing psychologist
, who encouraged her to write about her experiences as part of therapy. She also separated from her fourth husband, Thomas Wheelock (a stockbroker she had married on Christmas Day 1945), but did not actually divorce him until 1955.
In 1952, she was cast in the leading role of the stage play The Time of the Cuckoo
, which was later made into the movie Summertime (1955), and subsequently toured with it. After the tour, Astor lived in New York for four years and worked in the theatre and on television
.
Her TV debut was in The Missing Years (1954) for Kraft Television Theatre
. She acted frequently in TV during the ensuing years and appeared on most of the big shows of the time, including The United States Steel Hour
, Alfred Hitchcock Presents
, Rawhide
, Dr. Kildare
, Burke's Law
, and Ben Casey
. In 1954, she appeared in the episode "Fearful Hour" of the Gary Merrill
NBC
series Justice
in the role of a desperately poor and aging film star who attempts suicide to avoid being exposed as a thief.
She also starred on Broadway in The Starcross Story (1954), another failure.
She returned to Southern California in 1956. She then went on a successful theatre tour of Don Juan in Hell directed by Agnes Moorehead
and co-starring Ricardo Montalban
.
Astor's memoir
, My Story: An Autobiography, was published in 1959, becoming a sensation for its day and a bestseller
. It was the result of Father Ciklic urging her to write. Though she spoke of her troubled personal life, her parents, her marriages, the scandals, her battle with alcoholism
, and other things about her life, she did not mention the movie industry or her career in any detail. In 1971, another book was published, A Life on Film, where she discussed her career. It too became a bestseller. Astor also tried her hand at fiction
, writing the novel
s The Incredible Charley Carewe (1960), The Image of Kate (1962), The O'Conners (1964), Jahre und Tage (1964) (a German
translation of The Image of Kate), Goodbye, Darling, be Happy (1965), and A Place Called Saturday (1968).
She appeared in several movies during this time, including A Stranger in My Arms (1959). She made a comeback in Return to Peyton Place
(1961) playing Roberta Carter, the domineering mother who insists the "shocking" novel written by Allison Mackenzie should be banned from the school library, and received good reviews for her performance.
When she was offered the small role as a key figure in the murder mystery Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte, starring her friend Bette Davis
, Astor decided it would serve as her swan song
in the movie business. After 109 movies during a career spanning 45 years, she turned in her Screen Actors Guild
card and retired.
She later moved to Fountain Valley, California
, where she lived near her son, Tono del Campo (from her third marriage to Mexican-born film editor Manuel del Campo
) and his family, until 1971. That same year, suffering from a chronic heart condition, she then moved to a small cottage on the grounds of the Motion Picture & Television Country House
, the industry's retirement facility in Woodland Hills, where she had her own private table when she chose to eat in the resident dining room.
In 1980, she appeared in the television documentary series Hollywood: A Celebration of the American Silent Film
, produced by Kevin Brownlow
, in which she discussed her roles during the silent film period.
Astor died on September 25, 1987, at age 81, of respiratory failure
due to pulmonary emphysema
while a patient in the hospital in the Motion Picture House complex. She is interred in Holy Cross Cemetery
, Culver City
.
Mary Astor has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
at 6701 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood
.
She has been quoted as saying: "There are five stages in the life of an actor: Who's Mary Astor? Get me Mary Astor. Get me a Mary Astor type. Get me a young Mary Astor. Who's Mary Astor?"
The Maltese Falcon (1941 film)
The Maltese Falcon is a 1941 Warner Bros. film based on the novel of the same name by Dashiell Hammett and a remake of the 1931 film of the same name...
(1941) with Humphrey Bogart
Humphrey Bogart
Humphrey DeForest Bogart was an American actor. He is widely regarded as a cultural icon.The American Film Institute ranked Bogart as the greatest male star in the history of American cinema....
, Astor began her long motion picture
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
career
Career
Career is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as a person's "course or progress through life ". It is usually considered to pertain to remunerative work ....
as a teenager in the silent movie
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...
s of the early 1920s
1920 in film
The year 1920 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* November 27 - The Mark of Zorro, starring Douglas Fairbanks opens.-Top grossing films :-Films released in 1920:U.S.A. unless stated*The $1,000,000 Reward...
.
She eventually made a successful transition to talkies
Sound film
A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but decades would pass before sound motion pictures were made commercially...
, but almost saw her career destroyed due to public scandal in the mid-1930s. She was sued for support by her parents and was later branded an adulterous wife by her ex-husband during a custody fight over her daughter. Overcoming these stumbling blocks in her private life, Astor went on to even greater success on the screen, eventually winning the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry. Since its inception, however, the...
for her portrayal of Sandra Kovak in The Great Lie
The Great Lie
The Great Lie is a 1941 American drama film directed by Edmund Goulding and starring Bette Davis, George Brent, and Mary Astor. The screenplay by Lenore J...
(1941). She was an MGM contract player through most of the 1940s and continued to act in movies, on television
Television program
A television program , also called television show, is a segment of content which is intended to be broadcast on television. It may be a one-time production or part of a periodically recurring series...
and on stage
Theatre
Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...
until her retirement from the screen in 1964. Astor was the author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
of five novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
s. Her autobiography
Autobiography
An autobiography is a book about the life of a person, written by that person.-Origin of the term:...
became a bestseller
Bestseller
A bestseller is a book that is identified as extremely popular by its inclusion on lists of currently top selling titles that are based on publishing industry and book trade figures and published by newspapers, magazines, or bookstore chains. Some lists are broken down into classifications and...
, as did her later book, A Life on Film, which was specifically about her career.
Director Lindsay Anderson
Lindsay Anderson
Lindsay Gordon Anderson was an Indian-born, British feature film, theatre and documentary director, film critic, and leading light of the Free Cinema movement and the British New Wave...
wrote of her in 1990: "...that when two or three who love the cinema are gathered together, the name of Mary Astor always comes up, and everybody agrees that she was an actress of special attraction, whose qualities of depth and reality always seemed to illuminate the parts she played."
Early life
Mary Astor was born Lucile Vasconcellos Langhanke in Quincy, IllinoisQuincy, Illinois
Quincy, known as Illinois' "Gem City," is a river city along the Mississippi River and the county seat of Adams County. As of the 2010 census the city held a population of 40,633. The city anchors its own micropolitan area and is the economic and regional hub of West-central Illinois, catering a...
, the only child of Otto Ludwig Langhanke (October 2, 1871 – February 3, 1943) and Helen Marie de Vasconcellos (April 19, 1881 – January 18, 1947). Both of her parents were teachers.
Her Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
-born father immigrated to the United States from Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
in 1891 and became a naturalized
Naturalization
Naturalization is the acquisition of citizenship and nationality by somebody who was not a citizen of that country at the time of birth....
citizen
Citizenship
Citizenship is the state of being a citizen of a particular social, political, national, or human resource community. Citizenship status, under social contract theory, carries with it both rights and responsibilities...
; her mother was born in Jacksonville, Illinois
Jacksonville, Illinois
Jacksonville is a city in Morgan County, Illinois, United States. The population was 18,940 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Morgan County....
, of Portuguese
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
and Irish
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
extraction. Langhanke and de Vasconcellos married on August 3, 1904 in Lyons, Kansas
Lyons, Kansas
Lyons is a city in and the county seat of Rice County, Kansas, United States. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 3,739.-History:Although Coronado's exact route across the plains is uncertain and has been widely disputed, he and his men are thought to have camped near the present...
. Astor's father was a German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
teacher at Quincy High School until the U.S. entered World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
. Later on, he began doing light farming. Astor's mother, who had always wanted to be an actress, taught drama and elocution.
Astor was home-schooled in academics and taught to play the piano by her father, who insisted she practice daily. Her piano talents came in handy when she played piano in her films The Great Lie and Meet Me In St. Louis. In 1919, Astor sent sent a photograph of herself to a beauty contest
Beauty contest
A beauty pageant or beauty contest, is a competition that mainly focuses on the physical beauty of its contestants, although such contests often incorporate personality, talent, and answers to judges' questions as judged criteria...
in Motion Picture Magazine, becoming a semifinalist. Her father then moved the family to Chicago, where he took a position teaching German in public schools. Lucile took drama lessons and appeared in various amateur stage
Theatre
Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...
productions
Play (theatre)
A play is a form of literature written by a playwright, usually consisting of scripted dialogue between characters, intended for theatrical performance rather than just reading. There are rare dramatists, notably George Bernard Shaw, who have had little preference whether their plays were performed...
.
The following year, she sent another photograph to Motion Picture Magazine, this time becoming a finalist and then runner-up in the national contest. Her father then moved the family to New York
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, in order for his pretty daughter to become an actress in motion pictures
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
. He managed all her affairs from September 1920 to June 1930.
A Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
photographer, Charles Albin, saw a photograph and asked the young girl with haunting eyes and long auburn hair, whose nickname
Nickname
A nickname is "a usually familiar or humorous but sometimes pointed or cruel name given to a person or place, as a supposedly appropriate replacement for or addition to the proper name.", or a name similar in origin and pronunciation from the original name....
was "Rusty," to pose for him. The Albin photographs were seen by Harry Durant of Famous Players-Lasky and Lucile was signed to a six-month contract
Contract
A contract is an agreement entered into by two parties or more with the intention of creating a legal obligation, which may have elements in writing. Contracts can be made orally. The remedy for breach of contract can be "damages" or compensation of money. In equity, the remedy can be specific...
with 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...
. Her name was changed to Mary Astor during a conference between Paramount chief Jesse Lasky, gossip columnist
Gossip columnist
A gossip columnist is someone who writes a gossip column in a newspaper or magazine, especially a gossip magazine. Gossip columns are material written in a light, informal style, which relates the gossip columnist's opinions about the personal lives or conduct of celebrities from show business ,...
Louella Parsons
Louella Parsons
Louella Parsons was the first American news-writer movie columnist in the United States. She was a gossip columnist who, for many years, was an influential arbiter of Hollywood mores, often feared and hated by the individuals, mostly actors, whose careers she could negatively impact via her...
, and producer
Film producer
A film producer oversees and delivers a film project to all relevant parties while preserving the integrity, voice and vision of the film. They will also often take on some financial risk by using their own money, especially during the pre-production period, before a film is fully financed.The...
Walter Wanger
Walter Wanger
Walter Wanger was an American film producer. An intellectual and a socially conscious movie executive who produced provocative message movies and glittering romantic melodramas, Wanger's career began at Paramount Pictures in the 1920s and led him to work at virtually every major studio as either a...
.
Silent movie career
Astor made her debut in the 1920 film The ScarecrowThe Scarecrow (1920 film)
The Scarecrow is a 1920 short comedy film starring comedian Buster Keaton. It was written and directed by Keaton and Edward F. Cline. The runtime is 19 minutes...
. At age 14, she appeared in the 1921 film Sentimental Tommy
Sentimental Tommy (1921 film)
Sentimental Tommy is a silent film directed by John S. Robertson which has Mary Astor in one of her earliest roles, although her scenes were deleted before release. The film, which made a star of Gareth Hughes, is now considered a lost film.-Cast:...
, but her small part in a dream sequence wound up on the cutting room floor
Cutting room floor
The term cutting room floor is used in the film industry as a figure of speech referring to unused footage not included in the finished film. In fact offcuts of film are retained in a special cutting room bin and numbered during the editing process in case they are required later...
. Paramount let her contract lapse. She then appeared in some movie shorts with sequences based on famous paintings. She received critical recognition for the 1921 two-reeler The Beggar Maid. Her first feature-length movie was John Smith (1922), which was followed that same year by The Man Who Played God
The Man Who Played God
The Man Who Played God is a 1932 American drama film directed by John G. Adolfi. The screenplay by Julien Josephson and Maude T. Howell is based on the 1914 play The Silent Voice by Jules Eckert Goodman, who adapted it from a story by Gouverneur Morris....
. In 1923, she and her parents moved to Hollywood
Hollywood, Los Angeles, California
Hollywood is a famous district in Los Angeles, California, United States situated west-northwest of downtown Los Angeles. Due to its fame and cultural identity as the historical center of movie studios and movie stars, the word Hollywood is often used as a metonym of American cinema...
.
After appearing in several larger roles at various studios, she was signed by Paramount again, this time to a one-year contract at $500 a week. She had appeared in several more movies when 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...
saw a photograph of her in a magazine and wanted her cast in his upcoming movie. On loan-out to Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
, she starred with him in Beau Brummel
Beau Brummel (1924 film)
Beau Brummel is a 1924 American silent film historical drama. The film stars John Barrymore and was directed by Harry Beaumont. The film is based on Clyde Fitch's historical play which had been performed by Richard Mansfield....
(1924). The older actor wooed the young actress, but their relationship was severely constrained by Astor's parents' unwillingness to let the couple spend time alone together. It was only because Barrymore convinced the Langhankes that his acting lessons required privacy that the couple managed to be alone at all. Their secret engagement ended largely because of the Langhankes' interference and Astor's inability to escape their heavy-handed authority, but also because Barrymore became involved with Astor's fellow WAMPAS Baby Star Dolores Costello
Dolores Costello
Dolores Costello was an American film actress who achieved her greatest success during the era of silent movies. She was nicknamed "The Goddess of the Silent Screen"...
, whom he later married.
In 1925, Astor's parents bought a Moorish style mansion with 1 acres (4,046.9 m²) of land known as "Moorcrest" in the hills above Hollywood
Hollywood, Los Angeles, California
Hollywood is a famous district in Los Angeles, California, United States situated west-northwest of downtown Los Angeles. Due to its fame and cultural identity as the historical center of movie studios and movie stars, the word Hollywood is often used as a metonym of American cinema...
. The Langhankes not only lived lavishly off Astor's earnings, but kept her a virtual prisoner inside Moorcrest. Moorcrest is notable not only for its ornate style, but its place as the most lavish residence associated with the Krotona
Krotona
Krotona was one of three important Theosophical "colonies" in the U.S. during the early part of the 20th century. Originally built in Hollywood during 1912, the colony was eventually relocated to Ojai, California in 1926, where it operates today as the Krotona Institute of Theosophy.Located just...
Colony, a utopian society founded by the Theosophical Society in 1912. Built by Marie Russak Hotchener, a Theosophist with no formal architectural training, the house combines Moorish and Mission Revival styles and contains such Arts and Crafts features as art glass windows (whose red lotus design Astor called "unfortunate"), and Batchelder tiles. Moorcrest, which recently has undergone a multi-million-dollar renovation, is still standing. Before the Langhankes bought it, it was rented by Charlie Chaplin
Charlie Chaplin
Sir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin, KBE was an English comic actor, film director and composer best known for his work during the silent film era. He became the most famous film star in the world before the end of World War I...
, whose tenure is memorialized by an art glass window featuring the Little Tramp.
Astor's parents were not Theosophists, though the family was friendly with both Marie Hotchener and her husband Harry, both prominent TS members. Marie Hotchener was the person who negotiated Astor's right to a $5 a week allowance (at a time when she was making $2500 a week) and the right to go to work unchaperoned by her mother. The following year when she was 19, Astor, fed up with her father's constant physical and psychological abuse as well as his control of her money, climbed from her second floor bedroom window and escaped to a hotel in Hollywood, as recounted in her memoirs. Hotchener facilitated her return by persuading Otto Langhanke to give Astor a savings account with $500 and the ability to come and go as she pleased. Nevertheless, she did not gain control of her salary until she was 26 years old, at which point her parents sued her for financial support. Astor settled the case by agreeing to pay her parents $100 a month. Otto Langhanke put Moorcrest up for auction in the early 1930s, hoping to get more than the $80,000 he had been offered for it; it went for $25,000.
Astor went on appearing in movies at various studios. When her Paramount contract ended in 1925, she was signed at Warner Bros. Among her assignments was another role with John Barrymore, this time in Don Juan
Don Juan (1926 film)
Don Juan is a Warner Brothers film, directed by Alan Crosland. It was the first feature-length film with synchronized Vitaphone sound effects and musical soundtrack, though it has no spoken dialogue...
(1926). She was named one of the WAMPAS Baby Stars
WAMPAS Baby Stars
The WAMPAS Baby Stars was a promotional campaign sponsored by the Western Association of Motion Picture Advertisers in the United States which honored thirteen young women each year whom they believed to be on the threshold of movie stardom. They were selected from 1922 to 1934, and annual...
in 1926, along with Mary Brian
Mary Brian
Mary Brian was an American actress and movie star who made the transition from 'silents' to 'talkies'.-Early life:...
, Dolores Costello
Dolores Costello
Dolores Costello was an American film actress who achieved her greatest success during the era of silent movies. She was nicknamed "The Goddess of the Silent Screen"...
, Joan Crawford
Joan Crawford
Joan Crawford , born Lucille Fay LeSueur, was an American actress in film, television and theatre....
, Dolores del Río
Dolores del Río
Dolores del Río was a Mexican film actress. She was a star of Hollywood films during the silent era and in the Golden Age of Hollywood...
, Janet Gaynor
Janet Gaynor
Janet Gaynor was an American actress and painter.One of the most popular actresses of the silent film era, in 1928 Gaynor became the first winner of the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performances in three films: Seventh Heaven , Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans and Street Angel...
, and Fay Wray
Fay Wray
Fay Wray was a Canadian-American actress most noted for playing the female lead in King Kong...
.
On loan to Fox Film Corporation, Astor starred in Dressed To Kill (1928), which received good reviews. That same year, she starred in the sophisticated comedy Dry Martini at Fox. She later said that, while working on the latter, she "absorbed and assumed something of the atmosphere and emotional climate of the picture." She said it offered "a new and exciting point of view; with its specious doctrine of self-indulgence, it rushed into the vacuum of my moral sense and captivated me completely." When her Warner Bros. contract ended, she signed a contract with Fox for $3,750 a week.
In 1928, she married director
Film director
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...
Kenneth Hawks at her family home, Moorcrest. He gave her a Packard
Packard
Packard was an American luxury-type automobile marque built by the Packard Motor Car Company of Detroit, Michigan, and later by the Studebaker-Packard Corporation of South Bend, Indiana...
automobile as a wedding present and the couple moved into a home high up on Lookout Mountain in Los Angeles
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
above Beverly Hills
Beverly Hills, California
Beverly Hills is an affluent city located in Los Angeles County, California, United States. With a population of 34,109 at the 2010 census, up from 33,784 as of the 2000 census, it is home to numerous Hollywood celebrities. Beverly Hills and the neighboring city of West Hollywood are together...
.
As the movie industry made the transition to talkies
Sound film
A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but decades would pass before sound motion pictures were made commercially...
, Fox gave her a sound test, which she failed because the studio found her voice to be too deep. Though this was probably due to early sound equipment and the inexperience of technicians, the studio released her from her contract and she found herself out of work for eight months in 1929.
New beginnings
Astor took voice training and singing lessons during her time off, but no roles were offered. Her acting career was then given a boost by her friend, Florence EldridgeFlorence Eldridge
Florence Eldridge was an American actress.-Personal life:...
(wife of Fredric March
Fredric March
Fredric March was an American stage and film actor. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1932 for Dr. Jekyll and Mr...
), in whom she confided. Eldridge, who was to star in the stage play Among the Married at the Majestic Theatre in Downtown Los Angeles
Downtown Los Angeles
Downtown Los Angeles is the central business district of Los Angeles, California, United States, located close to the geographic center of the metropolitan area...
, recommended Astor for the second female lead. The play was a success and her voice was deemed suitable, being described as low and vibrant.
She was happy to be back at work, but her happiness soon ended. On January 2, 1930, while filming sequences for the Fox movie Such Men Are Dangerous, Kenneth Hawks was killed in a mid-air plane crash over the Pacific
Pacific Ocean
The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.At 165.2 million square kilometres in area, this largest division of the World...
. Astor had just finished a matinee performance at the Majestic when Florence Eldridge came to her with the news. She was rushed from the theatre and taken to Eldridge's apartment; a replacement, Doris Lloyd
Doris Lloyd
Hessy Doris Lloyd was an English actress.She appeared in over 150 films between 1920 and 1967, including the 1933 low-budget Monogram Pictures version of Oliver Twist, in which she played Nancy...
, stepped in for the next show. Astor remained with her friend, Eldridge, at her apartment for some time, but she soon went back to work. Shortly after her husband's death, she debuted in her first "talkie", Ladies Love Brutes
Ladies Love Brutes
Ladies Love Brutes is a 1930 American motion picture starring George Bancroft, Mary Astor, and Fredric March. The film was directed by Rowland V...
(1930) at Paramount, which co-starred friend Fredric March
Fredric March
Fredric March was an American stage and film actor. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1932 for Dr. Jekyll and Mr...
.
While her career picked up, her private life remained difficult. After working on several more movies, she suffered delayed shock over her husband's death and had a nervous breakdown. During the months of her illness, she was attended to by Dr. Franklyn Thorpe, whom she married on June 29, 1931.
In May 1932, the Thorpes purchased a yacht and sailed to Hawaii
Hawaii
Hawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...
. Astor was expecting a baby in August, but gave birth in June in Honolulu. The child, a daughter, was named Marylyn Hauoli Thorpe: her first name combined her parents' names and her middle name is Hawaiian.
When they returned to Southern California
Southern California
Southern California is a megaregion, or megapolitan area, in the southern area of the U.S. state of California. Large urban areas include Greater Los Angeles and Greater San Diego. The urban area stretches along the coast from Ventura through the Southland and Inland Empire to San Diego...
, Astor freelanced and gained the pivotal role of Barbara Willis in MGM
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films and television programs. MGM was founded in 1924 when the entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer...
's Red Dust
Red Dust
Red Dust is an American 1932 romantic drama film directed by Victor Fleming. The picture is the second of six movies Clark Gable and Jean Harlow made together and was produced during the Pre-Code era of Hollywood...
(1932) with Clark Gable
Clark Gable
William Clark Gable , known as Clark Gable, was an American film actor most famous for his role as Rhett Butler in the 1939 Civil War epic film Gone with the Wind, in which he starred with Vivien Leigh...
and Jean Harlow
Jean Harlow
Jean Harlow was an American film actress and sex symbol of the 1930s. Known as the "Blonde Bombshell" and the "Platinum Blonde" , Harlow was ranked as one of the greatest movie stars of all time by the American Film Institute...
. In late 1932 though, Astor signed a featured player contract with Warner Bros. Meanwhile, besides spending lavishly, her parents invested in the stock market
Stock market
A stock market or equity market is a public entity for the trading of company stock and derivatives at an agreed price; these are securities listed on a stock exchange as well as those only traded privately.The size of the world stock market was estimated at about $36.6 trillion...
, which turned out in many instances to be unprofitable. They still lived in Moorcrest, Astor had dubbed it a "white elephant", and she refused to maintain the house. She had to turn to the Motion Picture Relief Fund
Motion Picture & Television Fund
The Motion Picture & Television Fund is a charitable organization that offers assistance and care to those in the motion picture and television industries with limited or no resources...
in 1933 to pay her bills.
In 1933, she appeared as the female lead, Hilda Lake, the niece of the murder victims, in The Kennel Murder Case
The Kennel Murder Case
The Kennel Murder Case is a 1933 murder mystery novel written by S. S. Van Dine with fictional detective Philo Vance investigating a complex locked room mystery.-Plot summary:...
, co-starring with William Powell
William Powell
William Horatio Powell was an American actor.A major star at MGM, he was paired with Myrna Loy in 14 films, including the popular Thin Man series in which Powell and Loy played Nick and Nora Charles...
playing detective Philo Vance
Philo Vance
Philo Vance featured in 12 crime novels written by S. S. Van Dine , published in the 1920s and 1930s. During that time, Vance was immensely popular in books, movies, and on the radio. He was portrayed as a stylish, even foppish dandy, a New York bon vivant possessing a highly intellectual bent...
. Film critic William K. Everson
William K. Everson
William Keith "Bill" Everson was an English-American archivist, author, critic, educator, collector and film historian. He often discovered lost films.-Early life and career:...
pronounced it a "masterpiece" in the August 1984 issue of Films in Review. Unhappy with her marriage, she took a break from movie making in 1933 and went to New York by herself. While there, enjoying a whirlwind social life, she met the playwright
Playwright
A playwright, also called a dramatist, is a person who writes plays.The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder...
George Kaufman and they had an affair, which she documented in her diary.
Scandals
A legal battle drew press attention on Astor in 1936. Dr. Franklyn Thorpe divorced Astor in 1935 and a custody battle resulted over their four-year-old daughter, Marylyn. Thorpe threatened to use Astor's diary in the proceedings, which told of her affairs with many celebrities, including George S. KaufmanGeorge S. Kaufman
George Simon Kaufman was an American playwright, theatre director and producer, humorist, and drama critic. In addition to comedies and political satire, he wrote several musicals, notably for the Marx Brothers...
. The diary was never formally offered as evidence during the trial, but Thorpe and his lawyers constantly referred to it, and its notoriety grew. Astor admitted that the diary existed and that she had documented her affair with Kaufman, but maintained that many of the parts that had been referred to had been forgeries, following the theft of the diary from her desk. The diary was deemed inadmissible as a mutilated document, and a judge ordered it be sealed and impounded. Astor claimed it was then destroyed, with her permission.
Astor had just begun work on Dodsworth
Dodsworth (film)
Dodsworth is a 1936 American drama film directed by William Wyler. Sidney Howard based the screenplay on his 1934 stage adaptation of the 1929 novel of the same name by Sinclair Lewis...
as news of the diary became public. Producer Samuel Goldwyn
Samuel Goldwyn
Samuel Goldwyn was an American film producer, and founding contributor executive of several motion picture studios.-Biography:...
was urged to fire her, as her contract had a morality clause, but Goldwyn refused and the movie went on to be a hit.
Career continues
Ultimately, the scandals caused no harm to Astor's career, which was actually revitalized because of the custody fight and the huge amount of publicity it generated; Dodsworth (1936), with Walter HustonWalter Huston
Walter Thomas Huston was a Canadian-born American actor. He was the father of actor and director John Huston and the grandfather of actress Anjelica Huston and actor Danny Huston.-Life and career:...
, was released to rave reviews, and the public's acceptance assured the studios that she was still a viable commercial property.
In 1937, she returned to the stage in well-received productions of Noel Coward
Noël Coward
Sir Noël Peirce Coward was an English playwright, composer, director, actor and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what Time magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise".Born in Teddington, a suburb of London, Coward attended a dance academy...
's Tonight at 8:30
Tonight at 8:30
Tonight at 8.30 is a cycle of ten one-act plays by Noël Coward. In the introduction to a published edition of the plays, Coward wrote, "A short play, having a great advantage over a long one in that it can sustain a mood without technical creaking or over padding, deserves a better fate, and if,...
, The Astonished Heart, and Still Life. She also began performing regularly on radio
Radio programming
Radio programming is the Broadcast programming of a Radio format or content that is organized for Commercial broadcasting and Public broadcasting radio stations....
. Some of her best movies were still to come, including The Prisoner of Zenda
The Prisoner of Zenda (1937 film)
The Prisoner of Zenda is a 1937 black-and-white adventure film based on the Anthony Hope 1894 novel of the same name and the 1896 play. Of the many film adaptations, this is considered by many to be the definitive version....
(1937), John Ford
John Ford
John Ford was an American film director. He was famous for both his westerns such as Stagecoach, The Searchers, and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, and adaptations of such classic 20th-century American novels as The Grapes of Wrath...
's The Hurricane (1937), Midnight
Midnight (1939 film)
Midnight is a 1939 romantic comedy directed by Mitchell Leisen and written by Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder based on a story by Edwin Justus Mayer and Franz Schulz. It starred Claudette Colbert, Don Ameche and John Barrymore.-Plot:Eve Peabody is an out-of-work American showgirl...
(1939) and Brigham Young
Brigham Young (1940 film)
Brigham Young is an American film that was released in 1940. It describes Young's succession to the presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints after founder Joseph Smith, Jr. was assassinated in 1844.-Plot:The story begins in frontier-town Nauvoo, Illinois in 1844...
(1940).
In John Huston
John Huston
John Marcellus Huston was an American film director, screenwriter and actor. He wrote most of the 37 feature films he directed, many of which are today considered classics: The Maltese Falcon , The Treasure of the Sierra Madre , Key Largo , The Asphalt Jungle , The African Queen , Moulin Rouge...
's The Maltese Falcon
The Maltese Falcon (1941 film)
The Maltese Falcon is a 1941 Warner Bros. film based on the novel of the same name by Dashiell Hammett and a remake of the 1931 film of the same name...
(1941), Astor was cast in her best known role as scheming temptress Brigid O'Shaughnessy. The film also starred Humphrey Bogart
Humphrey Bogart
Humphrey DeForest Bogart was an American actor. He is widely regarded as a cultural icon.The American Film Institute ranked Bogart as the greatest male star in the history of American cinema....
, with Peter Lorre
Peter Lorre
Peter Lorre was an Austrian-American actor frequently typecast as a sinister foreigner.He caused an international sensation in 1931 with his portrayal of a serial killer who preys on little girls in the German film M...
and Sydney Greenstreet
Sydney Greenstreet
Sydney Hughes Greenstreet was an English actor. He is best known for his Warner Bros. films with Humphrey Bogart and Peter Lorre, which include The Maltese Falcon and Casablanca .-Biography:...
.
Another noteworthy performance was her Oscar
14th Academy Awards
The 14th Academy Awards honored American film achievements in 1941 and was held in the Biltmore Bowl at the Biltmore Hotel. The ceremony is now considered notable, in retrospect, as the year in which Citizen Kane failed to win Best Picture. Best Picture of the year was awarded to How Green Was My...
-winning role as Sandra Kovak, the selfish, self-centered concert pianist, who willingly gives up her child, in The Great Lie
The Great Lie
The Great Lie is a 1941 American drama film directed by Edmund Goulding and starring Bette Davis, George Brent, and Mary Astor. The screenplay by Lenore J...
(1941). George Brent
George Brent
George Brent was an Irish film and television actor in American cinema.-Early life:He was born George Brendan Nolan in Raharabeg, County Roscommon on the opposite bank of the River Shannon from the town of Shannonbridge, County Offaly, Ireland, the son of a British Army officer.During the Irish...
played her intermittent love interest, but the film's star was Bette Davis
Bette Davis
Ruth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis was an American actress of film, television and theater. Noted for her willingness to play unsympathetic characters, she was highly regarded for her performances in a range of film genres, from contemporary crime melodramas to historical and period films and occasional...
. Davis wanted Astor cast in the role after watching her screen test
Screen test
A screen test is a method of determining the suitability of an actor or actress for performing on film and/or in a particular role. The performer is generally given a scene, or selected lines and actions, and instructed to perform in front of a camera to see if they are suitable...
and seeing her play Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (Russian: Пётр Ильи́ч Чайко́вский ; often "Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky" in English. His names are also transliterated "Piotr" or "Petr"; "Ilitsch", "Il'ich" or "Illyich"; and "Tschaikowski", "Tschaikowsky", "Chajkovskij"...
's Piano Concerto No. 1
Piano Concerto No. 1 (Tchaikovsky)
The Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor, Op. 23 was composed by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky between November 1874 and February 1875. It was revised in the summer of 1879 and again in December 1888. The first version received heavy criticism from Nikolai Rubinstein, Tchaikovsky's desired pianist....
. She then recruited Astor to collaborate with her on rewriting the script, which Davis felt was mediocre and needed work to make it more interesting. Astor further followed Davis's advice and sported a brazenly bobbed hairdo for the role.
The soundtrack of the movie during the scenes where she plays the concerto, with violent hand movements on the piano keyboard, was actually dubbed by pianist Max Rabinovitch. Davis deliberately stepped back to allow Astor to shine in her key scenes. As a result of her performance, Astor won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry. Since its inception, however, the...
, thanking Bette Davis
Bette Davis
Ruth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis was an American actress of film, television and theater. Noted for her willingness to play unsympathetic characters, she was highly regarded for her performances in a range of film genres, from contemporary crime melodramas to historical and period films and occasional...
and Tchaikovsky in her acceptance speech. Astor and Davis became good friends.
Astor was not propelled into the upper echelon of movie star
Movie star
A movie star is a celebrity who is well-known, or famous, for his or her starring, or leading, roles in motion pictures. The term may also apply to an actor or actress who is recognized as a marketable commodity and whose name is used to promote a movie in trailers and posters...
s by these successes, however. She always declined offers of starring in her own right. Not wanting the responsibility of top billing and having to "carry the picture," she preferred the security of being a featured player.
In 1942 she was reunited with Humphrey Bogart
Humphrey Bogart
Humphrey DeForest Bogart was an American actor. He is widely regarded as a cultural icon.The American Film Institute ranked Bogart as the greatest male star in the history of American cinema....
and Sydney Greenstreet
Sydney Greenstreet
Sydney Hughes Greenstreet was an English actor. He is best known for his Warner Bros. films with Humphrey Bogart and Peter Lorre, which include The Maltese Falcon and Casablanca .-Biography:...
in John Huston
John Huston
John Marcellus Huston was an American film director, screenwriter and actor. He wrote most of the 37 feature films he directed, many of which are today considered classics: The Maltese Falcon , The Treasure of the Sierra Madre , Key Largo , The Asphalt Jungle , The African Queen , Moulin Rouge...
's Across the Pacific
Across the Pacific
Across the Pacific is a 1942 spy film set on the eve of the entry of the United States into World War II. The film was directed first by John Huston, then by Vincent Sherman after Huston joined the United States Army Signal Corps...
. Though usually cast in dramatic or melodramatic roles, Astor showed a flair for comedy as The Princess Centimillia in the Preston Sturges
Preston Sturges
Preston Sturges , originally Edmund Preston Biden, was a celebrated playwright, screenwriter and film director born in Chicago, Illinois...
film, The Palm Beach Story
The Palm Beach Story
The Palm Beach Story is a 1942 romantic screwball comedy film written and directed by Preston Sturges, and starring Claudette Colbert, Joel McCrea, Mary Astor and Rudy Vallée. Victor Young contributed the lively musical score, including a fast-paced variation of William Tell Overture for the...
(1942) for Paramount.
In February 1943, Astor's father, Otto Langhanke, died in Cedars of Lebanon Hospital
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center
Originally established as Kaspare Cohn Hospital in 1902, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center is a non-profit, tertiary 958-bed hospital and multi-specialty academic health science centre located in Los Angeles, California, US. Part of the Cedars-Sinai Health System, the hospital employs a staff of over...
as a result of 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...
complicated by influenza
Influenza
Influenza, commonly referred to as the flu, is an infectious disease caused by RNA viruses of the family Orthomyxoviridae , that affects birds and mammals...
. His wife and daughter were both at his bedside.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films and television programs. MGM was founded in 1924 when the entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer...
, which turned out to be a regrettable mistake. She was kept busy playing what she considered mediocre mother roles. After Meet Me In St. Louis
Meet Me in St. Louis
Meet Me in St. Louis is a 1944 musical film from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer which tells the story of an American family living in St. Louis at the time of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition World's Fair in 1904...
(1944), the studio allowed her to make her Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
debut in Many Happy Returns (1945). The play was a miserable failure, but Astor received good reviews.
On loan-out to 20th Century Fox
20th Century Fox
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation — also known as 20th Century Fox, or simply 20th or Fox — is one of the six major American film studios...
, she played a wealthy widow in Claudia and David
Claudia and David
Claudia and David is a 1946 film directed by Walter Lang. It stars Dorothy McGuire and Robert Young.-Cast:*Dorothy McGuire as Claudia Naughton*Robert Young as David Naughton*Mary Astor as Elizabeth Van Doren*John Sutton as Phil Dexter...
(1946). She was also loaned to Paramount
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...
to play Fritzi Haller in Desert Fury
Desert Fury
Desert Fury is a 1947 Paramount Pictures color film noir drama film starring Lizabeth Scott, John Hodiak and Burt Lancaster, with Mary Astor and Wendell Corey....
(1947) in which she played the tough owner of a saloon and casino in a small mining town.
Before Helen Langhanke died of a heart ailment in January 1947, Astor said she sat in the hospital room with her mother, who was delirious and did not know her, and listened quietly as Helen told her all about terrible, selfish Lucile. After her death, Astor said she spent countless hours copying her mother's diary so she could read it and was surprised to learn how much she was hated.
Back at MGM
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films and television programs. MGM was founded in 1924 when the entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer...
, Astor went on being cast in undistinguished, colorless mother roles. One exception was when she played a prostitute in the film noir
Film noir
Film noir is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. Hollywood's classic film noir period is generally regarded as extending from the early 1940s to the late 1950s...
Act of Violence
Act of Violence (1948 film)
Act of Violence is a 1948 film noir directed by Fred Zinnemann and adapted for the screen by Robert L. Richards from a story by Collier Young, featuring performances by Van Heflin, Robert Ryan, and Janet Leigh.-Plot:...
(1948). The last straw came when she was cast as Marmee March in Little Women
Little Women
Little Women is a novel by American author Louisa May Alcott . The book was written and set in the Alcott family home, Orchard House, in Concord, Massachusetts. It was published in two volumes in 1868 and 1869...
(1949). Astor found no redemption in playing what she considered another humdrum mother and became despondent. The studio wanted to renew her contract, promising to give her better roles, but she declined the offer.
Middle years
At the same time, Astor's drinking was getting much worse. She admitted to having a problem with alcoholAlcoholic beverage
An alcoholic beverage is a drink containing ethanol, commonly known as alcohol. Alcoholic beverages are divided into three general classes: beers, wines, and spirits. They are legally consumed in most countries, and over 100 countries have laws regulating their production, sale, and consumption...
as far back as the 1930s, but it had never interfered with her work schedule or performance. She hit bottom in 1949 and went into a sanitarium for alcoholics.
In 1951, she made a frantic call to her doctor and told him she had taken too many sleeping pills. She was taken to a hospital and the police reported that she had attempted suicide, this being her third overdose in two years, and the story made headline news. She maintained it had been an accident.
That same year, she joined Alcoholics Anonymous
Alcoholics Anonymous
Alcoholics Anonymous is an international mutual aid movement which says its "primary purpose is to stay sober and help other alcoholics achieve sobriety." Now claiming more than 2 million members, AA was founded in 1935 by Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith in Akron, Ohio...
and converted to Roman Catholicism. She credited her recovery to a priest, Peter Ciklic, also a practicing psychologist
Psychologist
Psychologist is a professional or academic title used by individuals who are either:* Clinical professionals who work with patients in a variety of therapeutic contexts .* Scientists conducting psychological research or teaching psychology in a college...
, who encouraged her to write about her experiences as part of therapy. She also separated from her fourth husband, Thomas Wheelock (a stockbroker she had married on Christmas Day 1945), but did not actually divorce him until 1955.
In 1952, she was cast in the leading role of the stage play The Time of the Cuckoo
The Time of the Cuckoo
The Time of the Cuckoo is a play by Arthur Laurents. It focuses on the bittersweet romance between Leona Samish, a single American executive secretary vacationing in Europe, and Renato Di Rossi, a shopkeeper she meets in Venice...
, which was later made into the movie Summertime (1955), and subsequently toured with it. After the tour, Astor lived in New York for four years and worked in the theatre and on television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
.
Her TV debut was in The Missing Years (1954) for Kraft Television Theatre
Kraft Television Theatre
Kraft Television Theatre is an American drama/anthology television series that began May 7, 1947 on NBC, airing at 7:30pm on Wednesday evenings until December of that year. In January 1948, it moved to 9pm on Wednesdays, continuing in that timeslot until 1958. Initially produced by the J...
. She acted frequently in TV during the ensuing years and appeared on most of the big shows of the time, including The United States Steel Hour
The United States Steel Hour
The United States Steel Hour is an anthology series which brought hour-long dramas to television from 1953 to 1963. The television series and the radio program that preceded it were both sponsored by the United States Steel Corporation....
, Alfred Hitchcock Presents
Alfred Hitchcock Presents
Alfred Hitchcock Presents is an American television anthology series hosted by Alfred Hitchcock. The series featured dramas, thrillers, and mysteries. By the premiere of the show on October 2, 1955, Hitchcock had been directing films for over three decades...
, Rawhide
Rawhide (TV series)
Rawhide is an American Western series that aired for eight seasons on the CBS network on Friday nights, from January 9, 1959 to September 3, 1965, before moving to Tuesday nights from September 14, 1965 until January 4, 1966, with a total of 217 black-and-white episodes...
, Dr. Kildare
Dr. Kildare
Dr. James Kildare is a fictional character, the primary character in a series of American theatrical films in the late 1930s and early 1940s, an early 1950s radio series, a 1960s television series of the same name and a comic book based on the TV show, and a short-lived 1970s television series...
, Burke's Law
Burke's Law
Burke's Law is a detective series that ran on ABC from 1963 to 1965 and was revived on CBS in the 1990s. The show starred Gene Barry as Amos Burke, millionaire captain of Los Angeles police homicide division, who was chauffeured around to solve crimes in his Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud...
, and Ben Casey
Ben Casey
Ben Casey is an American medical drama series which ran on ABC from 1961 to 1966. The show was known for its opening titles, which consisted of a hand drawing the symbols "♂, ♀, *, †, ∞" on a chalkboard, as cast member Sam Jaffe intoned, "Man, woman, birth, death, infinity." Neurosurgeon Joseph...
. In 1954, she appeared in the episode "Fearful Hour" of the Gary Merrill
Gary Merrill
Gary Fred Merrill was an American film and television character actor whose credits included more than fifty feature films, a half-dozen mostly short-lived TV series, and dozens of television guest appearances....
NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
series Justice
Justice (1954 TV series)
Justice is an NBC half-hour drama television series about attorneys of the Legal Aid Society of New York, which aired from April 8, 1954 to March 25, 1956. In the 1954-1955 season, Justice starred Dane Clark as Richard Adams and Gary Merrill as Jason Tyler. In the 1955-1956 season, William Prince...
in the role of a desperately poor and aging film star who attempts suicide to avoid being exposed as a thief.
She also starred on Broadway in The Starcross Story (1954), another failure.
She returned to Southern California in 1956. She then went on a successful theatre tour of Don Juan in Hell directed by Agnes Moorehead
Agnes Moorehead
Agnes Robertson Moorehead was an American actress. Although she began with the Mercury Theatre, appeared in more than seventy films beginning with Citizen Kane and on dozens of television shows during a career that spanned more than thirty years, Moorehead is most widely known to modern audiences...
and co-starring Ricardo Montalban
Ricardo Montalbán
Ricardo Gonzalo Pedro Montalbán y Merino, KSG was a Mexican radio, television, theatre and film actor. He had a career spanning six decades and many notable roles...
.
Astor's memoir
Memoir
A memoir , is a literary genre, forming a subclass of autobiography – although the terms 'memoir' and 'autobiography' are almost interchangeable. Memoir is autobiographical writing, but not all autobiographical writing follows the criteria for memoir set out below...
, My Story: An Autobiography, was published in 1959, becoming a sensation for its day and a bestseller
Bestseller
A bestseller is a book that is identified as extremely popular by its inclusion on lists of currently top selling titles that are based on publishing industry and book trade figures and published by newspapers, magazines, or bookstore chains. Some lists are broken down into classifications and...
. It was the result of Father Ciklic urging her to write. Though she spoke of her troubled personal life, her parents, her marriages, the scandals, her battle with alcoholism
Alcoholism
Alcoholism is a broad term for problems with alcohol, and is generally used to mean compulsive and uncontrolled consumption of alcoholic beverages, usually to the detriment of the drinker's health, personal relationships, and social standing...
, and other things about her life, she did not mention the movie industry or her career in any detail. In 1971, another book was published, A Life on Film, where she discussed her career. It too became a bestseller. Astor also tried her hand at fiction
Fiction
Fiction is the form of any narrative or informative work that deals, in part or in whole, with information or events that are not factual, but rather, imaginary—that is, invented by the author. Although fiction describes a major branch of literary work, it may also refer to theatrical,...
, writing the novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
s The Incredible Charley Carewe (1960), The Image of Kate (1962), The O'Conners (1964), Jahre und Tage (1964) (a German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
translation of The Image of Kate), Goodbye, Darling, be Happy (1965), and A Place Called Saturday (1968).
She appeared in several movies during this time, including A Stranger in My Arms (1959). She made a comeback in Return to Peyton Place
Return to Peyton Place (film)
Return to Peyton Place is a 1961 drama film produced by Jerry Wald and directed by José Ferrer. The screenplay by Ronald Alexander is based on the 1959 novel Return to Peyton Place by Grace Metalious...
(1961) playing Roberta Carter, the domineering mother who insists the "shocking" novel written by Allison Mackenzie should be banned from the school library, and received good reviews for her performance.
Later life
After taking a trip around the world in 1964, Astor was lured away from her Malibu home, where she was spending time gardening and working on her third novel, to make what she decided would be her final movie appearance.When she was offered the small role as a key figure in the murder mystery Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte, starring her friend Bette Davis
Bette Davis
Ruth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis was an American actress of film, television and theater. Noted for her willingness to play unsympathetic characters, she was highly regarded for her performances in a range of film genres, from contemporary crime melodramas to historical and period films and occasional...
, Astor decided it would serve as her swan song
Swan song
"Swan song" is a metaphorical phrase for a final gesture, effort, or performance given just before death or retirement. The phrase refers to an ancient belief that the Mute Swan is completely silent during its lifetime until the moment just before death, when it sings one beautiful song...
in the movie business. After 109 movies during a career spanning 45 years, she turned in her Screen Actors Guild
Screen Actors Guild
The Screen Actors Guild is an American labor union representing over 200,000 film and television principal performers and background performers worldwide...
card and retired.
She later moved to Fountain Valley, California
Fountain Valley, California
Fountain Valley is a city in Orange County, California. The population was 55,313 at the 2010 census. A classic bedroom community, Fountain Valley is a middle-class residential area.- History :...
, where she lived near her son, Tono del Campo (from her third marriage to Mexican-born film editor Manuel del Campo
Manuel del Campo
Manuel del Campo was a Mexican film editor working in Hollywood and British film. He was the third husband of Mary Astor from 1936 to 1941. He was born in Mexico City and died in England...
) and his family, until 1971. That same year, suffering from a chronic heart condition, she then moved to a small cottage on the grounds of the Motion Picture & Television Country House
Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital
The Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital is a retirement community, with individual cottages, and a fully licensed, acute-care hospital, located at 23388 Mulholland Drive in Woodland Hills, California...
, the industry's retirement facility in Woodland Hills, where she had her own private table when she chose to eat in the resident dining room.
In 1980, she appeared in the television documentary series Hollywood: A Celebration of the American Silent Film
Hollywood (documentary)
Hollywood is a 1980 documentary series produced by Thames Television which explored the establishment and development of the Hollywood studios and its impact on 1920s culture....
, produced by Kevin Brownlow
Kevin Brownlow
Kevin Brownlow is a filmmaker, film historian, television documentary-maker, author, and Academy Award recipient. Brownlow is best known for his work documenting the history of the silent era. Brownlow became interested in silent film at the age of eleven. This interest grew into a career spent...
, in which she discussed her roles during the silent film period.
Astor died on September 25, 1987, at age 81, of respiratory failure
Respiratory failure
The term respiratory failure, in medicine, is used to describe inadequate gas exchange by the respiratory system, with the result that arterial oxygen and/or carbon dioxide levels cannot be maintained within their normal ranges. A drop in blood oxygenation is known as hypoxemia; a rise in arterial...
due to pulmonary emphysema
Emphysema
Emphysema is a long-term, progressive disease of the lungs that primarily causes shortness of breath. In people with emphysema, the tissues necessary to support the physical shape and function of the lungs are destroyed. It is included in a group of diseases called chronic obstructive pulmonary...
while a patient in the hospital in the Motion Picture House complex. She is interred in Holy Cross Cemetery
Holy Cross Cemetery, Culver City
Holy Cross Cemetery is a Roman Catholic cemetery at 5835 West Slauson Avenue in Culver City, California, operated by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles....
, Culver City
Culver City, California
Culver City is a city in western Los Angeles County, California. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 38,883, up from 38,816 at the 2000 census. It is mostly surrounded by the city of Los Angeles, but also shares a border with unincorporated areas of Los Angeles County. Culver...
.
Mary Astor has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
Hollywood Walk of Fame
The Hollywood Walk of Fame consists of more than 2,400 five-pointed terrazzo and brass stars embedded in the sidewalks along fifteen blocks of Hollywood Boulevard and three blocks of Vine Street in Hollywood, California...
at 6701 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood
Hollywood, Los Angeles, California
Hollywood is a famous district in Los Angeles, California, United States situated west-northwest of downtown Los Angeles. Due to its fame and cultural identity as the historical center of movie studios and movie stars, the word Hollywood is often used as a metonym of American cinema...
.
She has been quoted as saying: "There are five stages in the life of an actor: Who's Mary Astor? Get me Mary Astor. Get me a Mary Astor type. Get me a young Mary Astor. Who's Mary Astor?"
Filmography
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1920 | Bit Part | ||
| 1921 | Wings of the Border | Bit Part | |
| 1921 | Peasant Girl / Beggar Maid | Extant | |
| 1921 | My Lady o' the Pines | Bit Part | |
| 1921 | Sentimental Tommy Sentimental Tommy (1921 film) Sentimental Tommy is a silent film directed by John S. Robertson which has Mary Astor in one of her earliest roles, although her scenes were deleted before release. The film, which made a star of Gareth Hughes, is now considered a lost film.-Cast:... |
Bit Part | Lost |
| 1921 | Brother of the Bear | Bit Part | |
| 1921 | Bit Part | ||
| 1921 | Bullets or Ballots | Bit Part | |
| 1922 | Elsie Worden | Extant | |
| 1922 | The Man Who Played God | Young Woman | Extant |
| 1922 | Hope | Hope | Extant |
| 1922 | John Smith | Irene Mason | Lost |
| 1922 | Bit Part | Lost | |
| 1922 | Bit Part | ||
| 1923 | To the Ladies | Bit Part | Lost |
| 1923 | Woman-Proof | Violet Lynwood | Lost |
| 1923 | Vivian Hope-Clarke | Lost | |
| 1923 | Puritan Passions Puritan Passions Puritan Passions is a 1923 silent film directed by Frank Tuttle, based on Percy MacKaye's 1908 play, The Scarecrow, which was itself based on Nathaniel Hawthorne's short story "Feathertop". The film stars Glenn Hunter, Mary Astor, and stage actor Osgood Perkins. It follows the play faithfully,... |
Rachel | Lost |
| 1923 | Narcissa Escobar | Extant (per silentera.com; at UCLA Film & Television) | |
| 1923 | Success | Rose Randolph | Lost |
| 1923 | Hollywood Hollywood (1923 film) Hollywood was a silent comedy film directed by James Cruze, co-written by Frank Condon and Thomas J. Geraghty, and released by Paramount Pictures.The film has become famous as having featured cameos of more than thirty famous Hollywood stars... |
Herself (cameo) | Lost |
| 1923 | Second Fiddle Second Fiddle (1923 film) Second Fiddle is a 1923 silent film comedy-drama directed by Frank Tuttle and distributed by W. W. Hodkinson. It stars Glenn Hunter and is an early appearance as a lead by actress Mary Astor. This film is in existence at the UCLA Film & TV archive in the Stanford Theatre Foundation collection... |
Polly Crawford | Extant |
| 1924 | Inez from Hollywood | Fay Bartholdi | Lost |
| 1924 | Alice Barrows | ||
| 1924 | Unguarded Women | Helen Castle | Lost |
| 1924 | Mary O'Mallory | Extant | |
| 1924 | Beau Brummel Beau Brummel (1924 film) Beau Brummel is a 1924 American silent film historical drama. The film stars John Barrymore and was directed by Harry Beaumont. The film is based on Clyde Fitch's historical play which had been performed by Richard Mansfield.... |
Lady Margery Alvanley | Extant |
| 1924 | Lucy | Extant | |
| 1925 | Scarlet Saint | Fidele Tridon | Extant |
| 1925 | Doris | Lost | |
| 1925 | Don Q Son of Zorro | Dolores de Muro | Extant |
| 1925 | Playing with Souls | Margo | Lost |
| 1925 | Enticement | Leonore Bewlay | Lost |
| 1925 | Oh, Doctor! | Dolores Hicks | Extant |
| 1926 | Forever After | Jennie Clayton | Lost |
| 1926 | Don Juan Don Juan (1926 film) Don Juan is a Warner Brothers film, directed by Alan Crosland. It was the first feature-length film with synchronized Vitaphone sound effects and musical soundtrack, though it has no spoken dialogue... |
Adriana della Varnese | Extant |
| 1926 | Mary | Lost(per Arne Andersin's Lost Film Files for First National) | |
| 1926 | High Steppers | Audrey Nye | Lost |
| 1927 | No Place to Go | Sally Montgomery | Lost |
| 1927 | Dolly | Extant | |
| 1927 | Rose of the Golden West | Elena | Lost |
| 1927 | Two Arabian Knights Two Arabian Knights Two Arabian Knights is an American comedy film, directed by Lewis Milestone and starring William Boyd and Mary Astor. A silent film, Two Arabian Knights was produced by Howard Hughes and was distributed by United Artists.-Plot:... |
Mirza | Extant |
| 1927 | Molly Gibson | Lost | |
| 1927 | Amy Cortissos | Lost | |
| 1928 | Romance of the Underworld Romance of the Underworld Romance of the Underworld is a 1928 silent film drama produced and distributed by Fox Film Corporation. Directed by Irving Cummings and starring Mary Astor. It is taken from a stage play called A Romance of the Underworld by Paul Armstrong. A previous version of the story was filmed in 1918 by... |
Judith Andrews | Extant |
| 1928 | Dry Martini | Elizabeth Quimby | Lost |
| 1928 | Heart to Heart | Princess Delatorre/Ellen Guthrie | Extant (* Library of Congress; per silentera.com) |
| 1928 | Three-Ring Marriage | Anna | Lost |
| 1928 | Dressed to Kill | Jeanne | Extant(per silent era; museum of modern art |
| 1928 | Sailors' Wives | Carol Trent | Lost |
| 1929 | Dee Renaud | Lost | |
| 1929 | New Year's Eve | Marjorie Ware | Lost |
| 1930 | Rosita Garcia | Extant | |
| 1930 | Holiday Holiday (1930 film) Holiday is a 1930 romantic comedy film which tells the story of a young man who is torn between his free-thinking lifestyle and the tradition of his wealthy fiancée's family. It stars Ann Harding, Mary Astor, Edward Everett Horton, Robert Ames and Hedda Hopper... |
Julia Seton | |
| 1930 | Ladies Love Brutes Ladies Love Brutes Ladies Love Brutes is a 1930 American motion picture starring George Bancroft, Mary Astor, and Fredric March. The film was directed by Rowland V... |
Mimi Howell | Extant |
| 1930 | Mary Gray, AKA Sally Fairchild | Extant | |
| 1931 | Men of Chance | Martha Silk | |
| 1931 | Smart Woman | Mrs. Nancy Gibson | |
| 1931 | White Shoulders | Norma Selbee | Lost film |
| 1931 | Frisco Kitty | ||
| 1931 | Behind Office Doors Behind Office Doors -Cast:*Mary Astor as Mary Linden*Robert Ames as James Duneen*Ricardo Cortez as Ronnie Wales*Catherine Dale Owen as Ellen May Robinson*Kitty Kelly as Delores Kogan*Edna Murphy as Daisy Presby*Charles Sellon as John Ritter*William Morris as Banker Charles H... |
Mary Linden | Extant |
| 1931 | Other Men's Women Other Men's Women Other Men's Women is a 1931 American film directed by William A. Wellman and written by Maude Fulton. The film is about Bill , a railroad engineer, who falls in love with Lily , the wife of his co-worker Jack . When the two men fight over Lily, Jack is blinded. He dies in a violent storm saving... |
Lily Kulper | Extant |
| 1931 | Princess Anne | Extant | |
| 1932 | Red Dust Red Dust Red Dust is an American 1932 romantic drama film directed by Victor Fleming. The picture is the second of six movies Clark Gable and Jean Harlow made together and was produced during the Pre-Code era of Hollywood... |
Barbara Willis | Extant |
| 1932 | Emmy 'Sweetie' Wilton | Extant | |
| 1932 | Those We Love | May Ballard | Extant |
| 1932 | Follette Marsh | Extant | |
| 1933 | Convention City Convention City Convention City is a 1933 pre-Code comedy film produced by First National Pictures and released by Warner Brothers, which has become notorious as a lost film. - Plot :... |
Arlene Dale | Lost |
| 1933 | Virginia 'Ginny' Clafflin Nordholm | ||
| 1933 | Hilda Lake | Extant | |
| 1933 | Jennie Gerhardt | Letty Pace | Extant |
| 1933 | Ruth Wayburn | Extant | |
| 1934 | I Am a Thief | Odette Mauclair | Extant |
| 1934 | Bessie Foley | Extant | |
| 1934 | Jessica Wells | Extant | |
| 1934 | Return of the Terror | Olga Morgan | Extant |
| 1934 | Upper World Upper World (film) Upper World is a 1934 drama film starring Warren William as a married railroad tycoon whose friendship with a showgirl, played by Ginger Rogers, leads to blackmail and murder.-Cast:*Warren William as Alexander Stream*Mary Astor as Mrs. Hettie Stream... |
Mrs. Hettie Stream | Extant |
| 1934 | Easy to Love | Charlotte Hopkins | Extant |
| 1935 | Man of Iron | Vida | Extant |
| 1935 | Red Hot Tires | Patricia Sanford | Extant |
| 1935 | Page Miss Glory | Gladys Russell | Extant |
| 1935 | Dinky | Mrs. Martha Daniels | Extant |
| 1935 | Straight from the Heart | Marian Henshaw | Extant |
| 1935 | Lady from Nowhere | Polly | Extant |
| 1936 | Dodsworth Dodsworth (film) Dodsworth is a 1936 American drama film directed by William Wyler. Sidney Howard based the screenplay on his 1934 stage adaptation of the 1929 novel of the same name by Sinclair Lewis... |
Mrs. Edith Cortright | Extant |
| 1936 | Trapped by Television Trapped by Television Trapped by Television is a 1936 American film directed by Del Lord.The film is also known as Caught by Television in the United Kingdom.- Cast :*Mary Astor as Barbara "Bobby" Blake*Lyle Talbot as Fred Dennis*Nat Pendleton as Rocky O'Neil... |
Barbara 'Bobby' Blake | Extant |
| 1936 | And So They Were Married | Edith Farnham | Extant |
| 1936 | Lillian Cooper | Extant | |
| 1937 | Madame Germaine De Laage | Extant | |
| 1937 | Antoinette de Mauban | Extant | |
| 1938 | Listen, Darling | Mrs. Dorothy 'Dottie' Wingate | Extant |
| 1938 | Woman Against Woman | Cynthia Holland | Extant |
| 1938 | There's Always a Woman There's Always a Woman There's Always a Woman is a 1938 comedy mystery film starring Joan Blondell and Melvyn Douglas as married detectives investigating a murder... |
Lola Fraser | Extant |
| 1938 | Paradise for Three Paradise for Three Paradise for Three, titled Romance for Three in the United Kingdom, is a 1938 romantic comedy film starring Frank Morgan as a wealthy industrialist who decides to find out about his German workers by temporarily living among them incognito... |
Mrs. Irene Mallebre | Extant |
| 1938 | No Time to Marry | Kay McGowan | Extant |
| 1939 | Midnight Midnight (1939 film) Midnight is a 1939 romantic comedy directed by Mitchell Leisen and written by Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder based on a story by Edwin Justus Mayer and Franz Schulz. It starred Claudette Colbert, Don Ameche and John Barrymore.-Plot:Eve Peabody is an out-of-work American showgirl... |
Helene Flammarion | Extant |
| 1940 | Brigham Young | Mary Ann Young | Extant |
| 1940 | Turnabout Turnabout (film) Turnabout is a 1940 comedy film directed by Hal Roach and starring Adolphe Menjou, Carole Landis and John Hubbard. Based on the 1931 novel of the same name by Thorne Smith, the screenplay was written by Mickell Novack, Bernie Giler and John McClain with additional dialogue by Rian James.-Plot:Tim... |
Marion Manning | Extant |
| 1941 | Brigid O'Shaughnessy | Extant | |
| 1941 | Sandra Kovak | Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry. Since its inception, however, the... ; Extant |
|
| 1942 | The Princess Centimillia | ||
| 1942 | Across the Pacific Across the Pacific Across the Pacific is a 1942 spy film set on the eve of the entry of the United States into World War II. The film was directed first by John Huston, then by Vincent Sherman after Huston joined the United States Army Signal Corps... |
Alberta Marlow | |
| 1943 | Thousands Cheer Thousands Cheer Thousands Cheer is a 1943 American comedy musical film released by MGM. Produced at the height of the Second World War, the film was intended as a morale booster for American troops and their families.-Plot:The film is essentially a two-part program... |
Hyllary Jones | |
| 1943 | Young Ideas Young Ideas Young Ideas is a 1943 American romantic comedy film directed by Jules Dassin and starring Susan Peters, Herbert Marshall, Mary Astor and Elliott Reid.-Plot:... |
Josephine 'Jo' Evans | |
| 1944 | Blonde Fever Blonde Fever -Plot:Peter Donay , a restauranteur, is happily married to Delilah , who has a pleasant but plain personality. Peter's head suddenly turns to curvaceous waitress Sally Murfin . At first, Sally is only somewhat amused by the flirtatious Donny. However, she soon realizes that he won a $40,000 lottery... |
Delilah Donay | |
| 1944 | Meet Me in St. Louis Meet Me in St. Louis Meet Me in St. Louis is a 1944 musical film from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer which tells the story of an American family living in St. Louis at the time of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition World's Fair in 1904... |
Mrs. Anna Smith | |
| 1946 | Claudia and David Claudia and David Claudia and David is a 1946 film directed by Walter Lang. It stars Dorothy McGuire and Robert Young.-Cast:*Dorothy McGuire as Claudia Naughton*Robert Young as David Naughton*Mary Astor as Elizabeth Van Doren*John Sutton as Phil Dexter... |
Elizabeth Van Doren | |
| 1947 | Cass Timberlane Cass Timberlane Cass Timberlane is a novel written by Sinclair Lewis, published in 1945. It is Sinclair Lewis' nineteenth novel and one of his last.It was made into a romantic drama film starring Spencer Tracy and Lana Turner, directed by George Sidney, and released in 1947.Timberlane is a minor character in... |
Queenie Havock | |
| 1947 | Cynthia | Louise Bishop | |
| 1947 | Desert Fury Desert Fury Desert Fury is a 1947 Paramount Pictures color film noir drama film starring Lizabeth Scott, John Hodiak and Burt Lancaster, with Mary Astor and Wendell Corey.... |
Fritzi Haller | |
| 1947 | Fiesta Fiesta (1947 film) Fiesta was an American Technicolor musical-drama film released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1947, starring Esther Williams, Ricardo Montalbán, Mary Astor and Cyd Charisse. The film was directed by Richard Thorpe and written by George Bruce and Lester Cole... |
Señora Morales | |
| 1948 | Act of Violence | Pat | |
| 1949 | Any Number Can Play Any Number Can Play Any Number Can Play is a 1949 drama film starring Clark Gable and Alexis Smith. It is based on the novel of the same name by Edward Harris Heth.-Cast:*Clark Gable as Charley Enley Kyng*Alexis Smith as Lon Kyng*Wendell Corey as Robbin Elcott... |
Ada | |
| 1949 | Little Women Little Women (1949 film) Little Women directed by Mervyn LeRoy is based on Louisa May Alcott's novel of the same name. The screenplay was written by Sally Benson, Victor Heerman, Sarah Y. Mason, and Andrew Solt... |
Marmee | |
| 1956 | Mrs. George Salt | ||
| 1956 | Mrs. Corliss | ||
| 1957 | Mrs. Jargin | ||
| 1958 | This Happy Feeling This Happy Feeling This Happy Feeling is a 1958 film by Blake Edwards adapted from the F. Hugh Herbert play For Love or Money. Edwards regretted Universal's eleventh hour decision of a name change, but the studio was hoping to trade off another pop hit by Debbie Reynolds as they had with Tammy and the Bachelor.... |
Mrs. Tremaine | |
| 1959 | Virgily Beasley | ||
| 1961 | Return to Peyton Place Return to Peyton Place (film) Return to Peyton Place is a 1961 drama film produced by Jerry Wald and directed by José Ferrer. The screenplay by Ronald Alexander is based on the 1959 novel Return to Peyton Place by Grace Metalious... |
Mrs. Roberta Carter | |
| 1964 | Youngblood Hawke | Irene Perry | |
| 1964 | Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte | Mrs. Jewel Mayhew |