| Film Firsts |
EasyNews, UseNet made Ea .. |
| ::darkshadows:: (blood@thirsty.net) |
2008/04/14 21:33 |
Film Firsts
In 1912, French actress Sarah Bernhardt became the first great actress
of the stage to appear in the new medium of films.
Silent film star Francis X. Bushman was the first film actor to be
called "King of the Movies." That label would later be affixed to
Clark Gable, where it has since remained.
Theda Bara was American cinema's first "vamp," and its first female
sex symbol. Born Theodosia Goodman, the exotic actress was born in
Cincinnati, Ohio.
Elmo Lincoln was filmdom's first Tarzan. Formerly an Arkansas
policeman, bit actor Elmo Linkenhelt's shirt was partially torn off
while filming a fight scene, revealing his muscular chest. Reportedly,
director D.W. Griffith called him over and told him, "That's quite a
chest you have there." Griffith modified his screen name to Elmo
Lincoln and featured him in several of his films, including The Birth
of a Nation. In 1918, Lincoln was given the title role in Tarzan of
the Apes a few days after film production began. World War I had just
begun, and the man first contracted to play the apeman -- Winslow
Wilson, a husky actor and ukelele player -- unexpectedly quit and
enlisted. Tarzan of the Apes was a box office hit, one of the first
movies to bring in more than $1 million dollars.
The first film star to commit suicide during the height of their
career was the lovely and popular actress Olive Thomas. The former
Ziegfeld showgirl was the main star at Selznick Studios by age 20, and
she was happily married to Jack Pickford, the successful actor-brother
of Mary Pickford. In 1920, Thomas was found dead from an overdose of
mercuric chloride in Paris. Her tragic death made headlines around the
world. An investigation revealed her lurid private life, including
drug addiction, which was far removed from the ingenue roles she
believably portrayed on the screen.
Sterling Holloway was the first Hollywood actor drafted into the U.S.
Army during World War II. Actor James Garner was the first man from
the state of Oklahoma drafted into the Korean War.
The first kiss in a Japanese film was finally allowed in
Twenty-Year-Old Youth in 1946.
James Dean was the first actor to be nominated for an Oscar
posthumously in 1956. Dean was killed in an auto accident six months
earlier, only a few days after he completed filming on Giant, the film
for which he received his nomination. Dean did not win; Yul Brynner
was the winner of the Best Actor Oscar for his performance in the
musical The King and I.
The 1987 Empire of the Sun was the first major Hollywood movie to be
made in the People's Republic of China. This required long
face-to-face negotiations that took about a year to complete.
Author: Vicki McClure Davidson
|
|
|