Marie Blake

Marie Blake (1895 - 1978) was a Bit Actress later known as Blossom Rock.  I didn't know her real name was Marie Blake until a short time ago.  And Blossom Rock is best known as Grandmama on "The Addams Family."

She was born Edith Marie Blossom MacDonald, right here in Philadelphia.  Her younger sister, Jeanette MacDonald (1903 - 1965) became a bit more famous, making eight films with Nelson Eddy (1901 - 1967).  Jeanette only made 29 films, but Blossom made 101 appearances in film and on TV.

She worked in vaudeville with her sister, and then married Clarence Rock in 1926.  They moved to New York and worked on Broadway until MGM spotted Marie, er, Blossom and signed her to a contract.  At MGM they changed her name to Marie Blake.

Her first feature film was Thoroughbreds Don't Cry (1937) which was also the first pairing of Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney.  She would make another film with Garland and Rooney together, and two more with Rooney.  Her next film, released the same year, was Mannequin starring Joan Crawford and Spencer Tracy.  Not a bad start.

In 1938 she starts work as a switchboard operator with Drs. Kildare and Gillespie.  She stays until the end of that popular series in 1947, making 12 films with either Lew Ayres or Lionel Barrymore (another Philadelphian), or both.  During this period she even finds herself working in a few of the later MGM Our Gang comedies.

In 1940 she has a small part as a waitress in They Drive by Night with Humphrey Bogart and George Raft.  That same year she plays Miss Lulubell in Li'l Abner, a movie that I happen to have on DVD.  I'm not sure why.

She takes uncredited roles well into her movie career, and we can find her in Christmas in Connecticut, a 1945 Barbara Stanwyck film that is well worth owning.  Next time I watch it, I will look for Mrs. Wright, played by Blossom or Edith or Marie...but she isn't credited anyway.

Blossom started working in television in "The Life of Riley" in 1949, with Jackie Gleason in the title role.  William Bendix took over that role in 1953.  My guess is that Blossom was only in a very few episodes, but back then not everyone who acted was recorded by episode.  Did they think that television was a throw away commodity?

Television must have paid the bills because we see her name attached to quite a list of shows.  But nothing regular came along until "The Addams Family" in 1964.  It was a shame that she never appeared in a Jeanette MacDonald film, even though they both worked at MGM.  Now that I think back to Grandmama's speaking voice, she might not have fit in with Jeanette and Nelson!

Her final work is her most famous, at least with today's audiences.  "The Addams Family" has always been one of my favorite shows.  It is right up there with "The Dick Van Dyke Show" for humour mixed with touching and sensible family values.  I can forgive her for making films like Snow White and the Three Stooges (1961), and will remember her for her antics with Morticia, Gomez and Fester.

Night Nurse

I just received a wonderful collector's set from Turner Classic Movies, called Forbidden Hollywood.  My first purchase in the series is Volume 2, because I wanted to see Night Nurse (1931).  The other movies in this set are The Divorcee (1930), A Free Soul (1931), Three on a Match (1932), and Female (1933). 

The Forbidden Hollywood series includes movies that were released before the Hayes Code was enacted, and these are particularly risque.  It is a chance to see the raw side of such stars as Clark Gable, Norma Shearer, Humphrey Bogart and Joan Blondell, among others.

I chose Night Nurse to see some early Barbara Stanwyck, and I was not disappointed.  Stanwyck plays a young woman who wants to become a nurse.  After convincing the hospital to allow her to study, despite being a high school dropout, she gets her cap and is assigned to a private home to watch over two children.  Lovely Joan Blondell is another nurse in the story, who befriends Stanwyck.

She eventually finds out that the children have a large trust fund and they are being starved to death by an unscrupulous doctor, so the family can get the inheritance.  She sets out to blow the whistle on them.

The bad guy in this one is played by Clark Gable.  Here is one kicker...the good guy is a bootlegger that Stanwyck met at the drug store, and at the end of the movie he has Nick the chauffeur (played by Gable) rubbed out, and they have a good laugh over it!

Throughout the movie, Stanwyck keeps undressing so she can change into or out of her nursing uniform.  She is never completely naked, but the thought of showing her undergarments in 1931 must have been simply shocking! 

We also see quite a bit of drunken debauchery at the home of the children, plus some implied sex.  Not to mention the very thought of killing off the innocent heirs as the topic of a movie.

Just to mention some Bit Actor names, look for Ralf Harolde (1899 - 1974) as the bad doctor, Charles Winninger (1884 - 1969) as the good doctor, Vera Lewis (1873 - 1956) as the nurse manager, and Blanche Friderici (1878 - 1933) as the housekeeper.

The actors in the small parts of these early talkies have loads of wonderful experience that they bring to their work.  Vera Lewis has over 180 titles listed in her filmography including great silents like Intolerance (1916).  Of course you will remember Winninger as Washington Dimsdale in Destry Rides Again (1939). 

The early talkies may not be the best movies ever made and they were churned out in huge numbers, but they are enjoyable, supply us with a history lesson, and many of them are true classics.

The Lady Eve (1941)

I was never a big fan of Barbara Stanwick (1907 - 1990), but in her 101 roles, the majority were made during the golden years of movies, from 1930 to the mid 1950s.  That is when the best Bit Actors and Actresses worked, giving me topics for my blog.

The Lady Eve (1941) starring Henry Fonda (1905 - 1982) and Stanwick, has a supporting cast that just doesn't stop!  Let's take a look.

Charles Coburn (1877 - 1961) has 95 titles to his credit.  He started making movies in the early 1930s and was cast in a Ginger Rogers (1911 - 1995) and James Stewart (1908 - 1997) film, Vivacious Lady in 1938.  He works in movies with some great stars, and in 1940 is in the Hope and Crosby film, Road to Singapore. 

Coburn's name always seems to be near the top of the cast list.  His persona probably kept it there.  In 1952 he works with Cary Grant (1904 - 1986), Ginger Rogers and Marilyn Monroe (1926 - 1962) in Monkey Business, and with Monroe again the next year in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.  He then starts another career on television in 1950.  His final movie is John Paul Jones (1959), where he played Benjamin Frankin (1706 - 1790 - Franklin made no movies).

William Demarest (1892 - 1983) has 168 titles starting in 1926.  Eric Blore (1887 - 1959) made 86 films, including six with Fred Astaire (1899 - 1987).  Melville Cooper (1896 - 1973) has 101 titles.  Robert Grieg (1879 - 1959) made his name starting with the Marx Brothers...plus 100 or so other titles.  And Dora Clement (1881 - 1979) who had bit parts in Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936), You Can't Cheat an Honest Man (1939), Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), Destry Rides Again (1939), and Buck Privates (1941).  Wow!

One last name we should look at is Eugene Pallette (1889 - 1954) who played in 250 movies starting in 1913.  He was in the 1918 Tarzan of the Apes with Elmo Lincoln (1889 - 1952).  Also look for him in My Man Godfrey (1936), he played Friar Tuck in 1938 in The Adventures of Robin Hood, and may be best known as Chick McGann in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.  He was a big guy with a bigger voice.

I will have to look for The Lady Eve, because I have never seen it!  Now that I know who is in it, I have no choice.