#44: Welcoming Greta Garbo Stone . . . and Her Eponym

                                 Greta Garbo Stone

Two weeks ago, this past Friday - September 19, 2025 - the Stone household welcomed its newest member: a rescue lass we named “Greta Garbo Stone.” For longtime family and friends, the fact that we named this 3+ year old Dachshund after a classic movie star should come as no surprise. Over the years, we have been parents to Buster Keaton (a massive Tri-Colored Collie who was both handsome and extremely agile); Ginger Rogers (a Chocolate Lab whose only flaw was that she wasn’t immortal); “Fwed” Astaire, a foundling who we referred to as a “cannardly,” because you could hardly tell what his breed makeup was); and Hedy Lamarr, Beagle extraordinaire, who was blessed with both beauty and brains. Hedy passed away last December, making the nearly 9 months we were without a pooch the longest canine draught we’ve had in almost 30 years. And now the newest rescue . . . Greta Garbo Stone. Why Garbo? Well, pretty much because, like the superstar we named her after (her eponym) she has soulful eyes and classic good looks that can be photographed from any side or angle.  And, to top it off, she fully moved into our home and hearts within a few hours after arriving.

              The Saga of Gösta Berling

This last statement – about G.G. Stone moving into our home and hearts in within a few hours after arriving – is equally true about the women born Greta Lovisa Gustafsson on September 18, 1905 in Stockholm, Sweden. Her father, a penniless laborer named Karl Alfred Gustafsson, died when Greta was 14; as a result, she was forced to leave school and go to work in a department store. The store used her as an uncredited model in short advertising films.  This led a comedy director, Erik Petschler, to give her a small role in a 1922 film called Luffar-Petter (“Peter the Tramp”), which led her to a scholarship at a Swedish Drama school.  After smallish roles in films now long lost, the famed Finnish-born director, Mauritz Stiller (born “Moshe” in Helsinki in 1883) pulled Greta from the drama school and took her under his wing.  In addition to giving her a personal, “graduate-level” education in all things thespian, he changed her last name from Gustafsson to Garbo . . . from the Italian musical term con garbo, meaning “with grace.”

When he thought his protégé was ready, he gave her the second lead in a 1924 drama called The Saga of Gōsta Berling,  starring Lars Hanson.  The film was a big hit.  (Garbo would team up with Hanson 2 years later in her 4th - and his 1st - Hollywood film, Flesh and the Devil, and again in 1928 in The Divine Woman). 

As a result of The Saga of Gosta Berling, MGM signed Stiller to a contract; Stiller refused to “go Hollywood” unless Garbo, his protégé, was part of the deal. Upon her arrival, Garbo was told that in order to be in a film, she would have to take off a significant amount of weight; at 5’ 5’ 61/4” (which was tall in those days), she photographed as too zaftig.  Going on a crash died, Garbo made her first Hollywood silent film – Torrent – in 1926.  She starred opposite Ricardo Cortez (Brooklyn-born Jacob Krantz) in a story written by the Spanish novelist/director Vicente Blasco Ibáñez. Although a somewhat mediocre film, the movie-going public was mesmerized by Garbo . . . especially her face, which as noted above, had the that rarest of cinematic traits: the ability to be photographed from both sides and any angle.  The film represents both a first and a last for the woman soon known as “The Face”: her first American American-made film and the last time someone else would be billed above her in the credits.   

In his New Times’ review of what was originally called "Ibáñez's Torrent." film critic Mordant Hall wrote of Garbo: “In this current effort Greta. Garbo, a Swedish actress, who is fairly well known in Germany, makes her screen bow to American audiences. As a result of her ability, her undeniable prepossessing appearance and her expensive taste in fur coats, she steals most of the thunder in this vehicle . . . . Miss Garbo is dark, with good eyes and fine features. In some scenes she is too much the actress and not enough the character, which may be pardoned on the ground that she is impersonating an opera singer, a girl with a tendency toward artificial gestures so long as she believes they are appealing.”

Garbo in “The Temptress” (1926)

In Garbo’s second film, The Torrent (also 1926) from a story by Ibáñez, her name was first in the credits . . . above that of Antonio Moreno, a huge star whose career lasted from 1912 to 1962. Stiller, Garbo’s mentor began directing this, his second film at MGM, but only lasted a couple of days.  His dictatorial demeanor on the set might have been expected in Europe; it was the diametric opposite of what MGM head Louis B. Mayer and producer Irving Thalberg (Hollywood’s "Boy Genius”) could put up with.  He was summarily fired, returned to Sweden in disgrace, and died of infective pleurisy and a host of other ailments by early summer 1928; he had just turned 45 . . .     

As with Garbo’s first film, the Times’ Hall was enrapt with her performance in The Torrent: There are moments when Miss Garbo reflects a characteristic mood by the slightest movement of one of her eyelids.... Miss Garbo is not only remarkably well suited for the role. But with a minimum of gestures and an unusual restraint in her expressions, she makes every scene in which she appears a telling one. She is attractive and svelte of figure.

Between 1926 and 1929, Greta Garbo starred in 9 more silent films for MGM – the only studio she ever worked at.  These included:

•  Flesh and the Devil, a steamy romance based on a novel by the German writer Hermann Sudermann,  costarring Lars Hanson and John Gilbert, the only man she even came close to marrying;

• Love, again, costarring John Gilbert. Based on the Tolstoy novel “Anna Karenina”, the original movie title was planned to be “Heat”; it was changed so that ads could read GRETA GARBO AND JOHN GILBERT IN LOVE (rather than IN HEAT);

• The Mysterious Lady, in which she played a super-sexy Russian spy sent out to seduce an Austrian office (Conrad Nagel) in order to get some important plans, but actually falls in love with him, and

• The Kiss, once again, costarring Conrad Nagel, Garbo plays an unhappily married woman who is caught up in scandal and murder. This would be Garbo’s - and MGM’s - last silent picture.

in 1929, MGM released its first talking film, an all-star revue featuring all its contract players . . . save one.  It was called The Hollywood Revue of 1929, and included everyone from Jack Benny, Joan Crawford and Norma Shearer to Buster Keaton, Marie Dressler and Lionel Barrymore.  The one star who did not appear in the film was - of course - Greta Garbo . . . and for 2 reasons.  First, her English was too heavily accented to be understandable; and second, the studio wanted her voice to be hidden from the public until they could eventually produce a film that could use the tag line “GARBO TALKS!” And, it had to be the perfect role; one that would fit her Swedish accent . . .

That perfect role turned out to be the character Anna Christie, created by America’s greatest playwright, Eugene O’Neill (the future father-in-law of Charles Chaplin) and Hollywood’s greatest screenwriter, Francis Marion.  In it, Garbo plays the daughter of a grizzled old father named Chris Christofferson who 15 years earlier, had palmed her off on another branch of the family,  Now 20, Anna is returning home, psychologically wounded by her past, which includes several years working in a brothel.  Garbo’s first line, meticulously delivered in her near baritone, heavily accented voice is priceless:  “Gimmee a viskey, ginger ale on the side, and don’t be stingy, baby . . .

The film turned out to be one of the biggest money-makers of t he year, was nominated for 3 Oscars (including Garbo for Best Actress in a Leading Role), and let the public know in no uncertain terms that as great as she had been in Silent film, she would be even greater in the talkies. (BTW: Garbo was actually nominated for 2 best actress Oscars in 1930, the other being for a long-forgotten picture called Romance.  She, along with the other nominees (Nancy Carroll, Ruth Chatterton, and Gloria Swanson, lost out to Irving Thalberg’s wife, Norma Shearer for The Divorcee.

In the ten years between 1931 and 1941, Garbo starred in an additional 12 talking pictures for MGM. During that decade, she played opposite some of the most popular and talented male stars in the business:

1931: Susan Lenox (Her Rise and Fall), opposite the up-and-coming Clark Gable;

1931: Mata Hari, with Ramon Navarro (one of the screen’s all-time best “Latin Lovers”) and Lionel Barrymore;

1932: Grand Hotel, one of MGM’s greatest “All Star” films costarring the likes of John and Lionel Barrymore, Lewis Stone, Wallace Berry and Joan Crawford. Portraying a Russian ballerina named “Grusinskaya,” Garbo uttered the immortal words “I vant to be alone” for the first and only time in her career. That phrase has outlived her . . .

        The Final Shot in “Queen Christina”

1933: Queen Christina: Garbo originally requested that MGM sign the very young Laurence Olivier to play the male lead, Don Antonio; she had been impressed by his performance in Westward Passage. When they started rehearsals, she quickly realized that she and Olivier had virtually no chemistry; she found she couldn’t relax with him. Olivier was released and Garbo then demanded that her old costar and lover, John Gilbert, play opposite her in an attempt to revive his flagging career. They played well together, but it did nothing for his future cinematic prospects; he would die 3 years later of heart failure caused by acute alcoholism. The final shot in the film is one of the truly legendary photographic miracles in Hollywood history:  Garbo is at the prow of her ship. Director Rouben Mamoulian devised a large, ruler-shaped, glass filter strip that was clear at one end, becoming increasingly more diffused along its length. As the camera dollies in, Garbo, who made her mind a blank, stares into the future . . . an impenetrable nothingness on her beautiful face.

1936: Camille, Garbo playing the tragic Marguerite Gautier opposite the 25-year old Robert Taylor in the role of Armand Duvall in the Alexandre Dumas fils classic novel/play.  The only question critics and public alike had was, between Garbo and Taylor, who was more beautiful?

1937: Conquest: Garbo as Countess Marie Walewska versus the “French lover,” Charles Boyer as Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. Garbo becomes the emperor’s mistress at the urging of Polish leaders who feel she could influence him to make Poland independent. Historically inaccurate, cinematically a triumph. Boyer was nominated for a best actor Oscar, but lost to Spencer Tracy for Captains Courageous, in which he played the Portuguese fisherman Manuel Fidello.

             Ninotchka: “Garbo Laughs!”

1939: Nonotchka: My personal favorite of Garbo’s 33 films, this one finds her playing opposite the elegant Melvin Douglas, with whom she had made the 1932 romance As You Desire Me. from a play by Luigi Pirandello. Ninotchka’s tag line is reminiscent of the one used in her first Talkie (Anna Christie): “Garbo Talks!” This time around it’s “Garbo Laughs!” In this film, a delightfully witty romp directed by Ernst Lubitsch with a script by future director Billy Wilder, Garbo plays a stern soviet agent who is sent to Paris to supervise the sale of jewels seized from Russian nobles. She finds herself attracted to a man (Douglas) who represents everything she is supposed to detest. For her efforts, Garbo was nominated for her 4th Best Actress Award (she, like just about everyone else that year lost to someone connected to Gone With the Wind. In this case, Vivien Leigh).

In an attempt to change her image - to make her “more American - MGM put her into a dog of a film in 1940: the ill-fated Two-Faced Woman, costarring, once again, Melvin Douglas. This, her final film, finds Garbo playing a woman named Karin Blake who, due to circumstances, decides to play her morally-depraved, urban-chic (fictional) twin sister Katherine Borg in order to keep an eye on her husband (Douglas) who has a roaming eye. The public hated it; the Catholic Legion of Decency condemned it for its “immoral” attitude towards marriage and its “suggestive scenes, dialogue, situations, and costumes.”

Greta Garbo retired right after Two-Faced Woman at age 35.  Many say that the cause was this last picture; that she was humiliated.  Actually, she retired because she never really, truly wanted to be a movie star.  Her passion was acting.  Fortunately, despite having quit school at age 14, she was one smart cookie; she took most of the money she made (upwards of $10,000 per week, 52 weeks a year for nearly a decade) and wisely invested in property and buildings . . . both in Southern California and Manhattan.  By the time of her death on April 15, 1990, she had built up an estate that, in 2025 dollars, would have equaled more than an $80 million.

                  Garbo as “Mata Hari”

What most people don’t realize about Garbo is just how much of a cinematic trailblazer she was.  True, she often appeared in less than stellar films . . . but they generally made a lot of money for MGM due to the fact that her name was above the title.  The public couldn’t get enough of this “Swedish Sphinx.”   By 1930, she was receiving upwards of 3,000 letters a day, compared to not quite 800 sent to the then-president Herbert Hoover.  Regrettably, hardly anyone watches her films today, in 2025.  About the only thing people seem to know is that line I vant to be alone.  Garbo was said to have given her name a syndrome: “ . . . a state where celebrated stars lose the meaning of life and shut themselves in.”  However, while she did withdraw in her later years, she should be celebrated for other things. 

           Gilbert and Garbo in “Flesh and the Devil” 

First, and likely foremost, she totally transformed Hollywood acting. She was a different type of actor, more naturalistic; that’s how Mauritz Stiller trained her.  Going back to her first silent films, she really resonated with women as a complex and layered person whom they could imagine having as a friend.  I know my maternal grandmother (who was 21 years Garbo’s senior) adored her.  By the mid-1920s women no longer had to be “Victorian pure.” Her female fans were fascinated by her romance with John Gilbert . . . the male love of her life.  (Yes, she had love affairs with women as well.)  When Garbo and Gilbert appeared in Flesh and the Devil in 1926, legend has it their love scenes were so intense they didn’t hear the director shout “CUT!”

One of her least-known legacies was her fight against censorship, which was at its height in America between the mid-Thirties and the late Fifties, when the content of films was rigidly enforced by the Hays Code. She got away with kissing a woman and disguising herself as a man in Queen Christina (1933), but Mata Hari (1931), her biggest hit, was censored on its rerelease in 1938 for featuring Garbo dancing erotically and wearing a see-through negligee.

Recently, Director/writer Lorna Tucker released a documentary film entitled Greta Garbo: Where Did You Go?  I urge you to watch it and learn about the latest classic movie star who has become the eponym for our latest pup. The film includes interviews and archival footage with/of Louis B. Mayer, Orson Welles, Katherine Hepburn, Marlene Dietrich, Melvin Douglas Frederic March and Dick Cavett.

May Greta Garbo Stone be just as beautiful and charming as she who was born Greta Gustafsson 120 years ago.  And may she bring as much love into our hearts as  La Divina . . . one of Garbo’s many nicknames.   

Copyright©2025 Kurt Franklin Stone

#43: "Hy-yo Silver!"

I was born 76 years ago on August 21, 1949 in Hollywood California. 24 days later, October 14, 1949, the first episode of The Lone Ranger aired in Los Angeles.  By the end of October, it was playing coast-to-coast. This long-running western starred Clayton Moore as the title character, and Jay Silverheels (born Harold J. Smith) as his trusted Indian companion Tonto, That first episode, entitled Enter the Lone Ranger, gave background to an ongoing saga of the old west that would air its last (and 221st) episode, entitled Outlaws in Greasepaint, on June 6, 1957.

In its time, The Lone Ranger was, next to the The Roy Rogers Show (which first aired on Sunday, December 30, 1951), the most popular western in America. Unlike Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, whose show was filmed largely on a sound stage at the Sam Goldwyn Studios (and occasionally the Corrigan Movie Ranch in Simi Valley), The Lone Ranger was filmed almost exclusively at the lower Iverson Movie Ranch in Chatsworth, California, and in Kanab, Utah (also known as “Little Hollywood” for its many western productions). The Iverson Movie Ranch, with its many unique natural rock formations, is now a large, upscale condominium community located off Valley Circle Blvd. in West Hills . . . within walking distance of my sister Erica’s home.  

Obviously, I wasn’t in any condition to watch the first season or two of The Lone Ranger.  But by the time I was 4 or 5, I, like most children in America had committed to heart the show’s opening lines expertly delivered by Fred Foy . . . all accompanied to the best-known of Gioachino Rossini’s major musical works, the overture of his 39th (and last) opera, William Tell.  What every kid in America (now in our late 70s and early 80s) remembers are the words: 

Announcer: A fiery horse with the speed of light, 
A cloud of dust and a hearty ‘Hi-yo, Silver!’

Announcer: “The Lone Ranger!”

The Lone Ranger: “Hi-yo, Silver, away!”

Announcer: With his faithful Indian companion Tonto,
”The daring and resourceful masked rider of the plains
led the fight for law and order in the early West.”

“Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear.
The Lone Ranger rides again!”

 Like most kidlets growing up in the 1950s, I wanted to grow up and become a cowboy, ride a huge white horse named “Silver” and have a best friend named “Tonto.”  Of course I had no way of knowing that t-o-n-t-o was the Spanish word for “silly” or ”fool”; perhaps that’s why the Lone Ranger’s steadfast companion was renamed called either “Ponto” or “Toro” (Spanish for “bull”) in Mexican airings of the show.  Despite his birth name (Harold Smith), Silverheels was, in fact, a full-blooded Mohawk, who was born on May 26, 1912 on Canada’s Six Nation’s Reserve.  In later years he would tell interviewers that he actually despised the show’s portrayal of an Indian; in retirement he became an outspoken activist for Indian rights and a much-respected teacher within the Indian acting community.  Not knowing any of this as a wee sprat, I still wanted to have a best friend named Tonto.

Of course, there were other youngsters who wanted to be Roy Rogers or Dale Evans, ride a Golden Palomino named “Trigger” or a buckskin Quarter Horse named “Buttermilk” and be chauffeured about in a Jeep called “Nellybelle”. . . a character in “her” own right.  For whatever reason, I preferred the Ranger and Tonto over Roy and Dale. Perhaps it was because people referred to the nameless ranger as “Mister” - what lots of people called my father.

I really admired the Lone Ranger and Tonto; they were brave, unafraid of danger, deeply honest and always doing their best to help those in trouble.  It of course never dawned on the much, much younger me that they were also quite nosey and unaccountably, always in the right place at the right time.  Although I did find it strange that they never shot to kill, never accepted a reward, and always rode out of town 2 minutes after bringing the bad guys to justice, it didn’t keep me up at night wondering; that was just their code. . . a code I deeply admired.

In matter of fact, there actually was a “Lone Ranger Creed” which I affixed to a cork board on the back of my bedroom door.  It read in part:

• That to have a friend, a man must be one.

• That all men are created equal and that everyone has within himself the power to make this a better world.

• That God put the firewood there but that every man must gather and light it himself.

• In being prepared physically, mentally, and morally to fight when necessary for that which is right.

• That a man should make the most of what equipment he has.

• That "This government, of the people, by the people and for the people" shall live always.

• That men should live by the rule of what is best for the greatest number.

• That sooner or later...somewhere...somehow...we must settle with the world and make payment for what we have taken.

• That all things change but truth, and that truth alone, lives on forever.

• In my Creator, my country, my fellow man.

  And it was actually “signed” by none other than the Lone Ranger himself.  Of course, I’d never heard of autopen  . . 

The Lone Ranger and Tonto could never succeed in today’s world of entertainment.  In our cynical, violence-enjoying viewing world, it would be found too "cheesy” or "naive.”  And when all was said and done, it could, at times, be overly sentimental and more than a bit hokey. We’ve lost a lot of our former need - and ability - to seek and find wonderment in characters who are just a bit too good to be true.  Then too, from a purely dramatic point of view, The Long Ranger did not have great acting; Clayton Moore, although having a great speaking voice, was too predictable; John Hart, who briefly (52 episodes in season 3 ) replaced the “real” Lone Ranger Moore was out due to a salary dispute, was nothing more than a good-looking stiff; and Jay Silverheels was hampered by playing a character who, though deeply loyal, was also a bit lame. Last but not least, today’s viewing audience rarely get turned on by Westerns. When it comes to heroes, Superman and X-Men are super; The Lone Ranger and Tonto are ho-hum.  Witness all the failures that remakes have met with ever since the weekly show went off the air in 1957:

• 1966-1967’s animated The Lone Ranger one the most obscure television shows of all time;   

• 1981’s The Legend of the Lone Ranger, starring the one-flop wonder, Klinton Spilsbury 

• 1980-1980’s bizarre The Tarzan/Lone Ranger/Zorro Adventure Hour starring Wm. Conrad, and

• 2013’s The Lone Ranger, starring Johnny Depp as Tonto, and wearing the weirdest makeup in cinematic history.

    Buck Jones and “Silver” c. 1931

Despite these cinematic misses, The Lone Ranger has had one of the longest runs in show business history. In the 1920s and 30s Buck Jones, one of the greatest of the “B” western stars made a series of cowboy films in which he played a Texas Ranger who rode a white horse named Silver. He even claimed he originated the yell "Hi-Yo Silver!" Titles include The Lone Rider (1930) and The Texas Ranger (1931). Jones sued Republic Pictures to stop production of their Lone Ranger movies. He lost the case.  During his career, Jones (1891-1942) made 167 movies, and at one point he was receiving more fan mail than any actor in the world.  He died shortly before his 51st birthday in one of the worst fire disasters in American history: the Coconut Grove (Boston) nightclub fire of November 28, 1942, which claimed nearly 500 lives.  

A couple of years after Jones’ The Lone Rider, The Lone Ranger began airing on nation-wide radio.  It was a huge success on radio, eventually running from 1933 to 1956. Brace Beemer (1902-1965) provided the voice of John Reid (The Lone Ranger) for much of its latter run, with voice actor John Todd (1877-1957) playing Tonto. (btw: Legend has it that Tonto was added to the radio show in order to give The Lone Ranger someone to talk too . . .) In 1938, while the radio show was in its glory, Republic Pictures released two serials starring the Lone Ranger. The first used several actors playing different Texas Rangers, one of whom was also the masked hero. The second serial, entitled The Lone Ranger Rides Again, had 15 chapters and starred Robert Livingston as The Lone Ranger and Chief Thundercloud (Victor Daniels) as Tonto. With the exception of the first episode (Hi-Yo Silver) which clocked in at a bit over 30 minutes, the rest of the chapters ran about 16 and a half minutes.  

For those who are lifelong fans of the 220+ Clayton Moore/Jay Silverheels half-hour Western dramas, I am happy to inform you that there is now a 24-hour a day Lone Ranger internet offering  by Pluto TV, The Roku Channel and Tubi.  The entire series runs in order, generally taking about 4 days to run through each and every episode.  It is a wonderful way to relive childhood innocence . . . a half-hour at a stretch.   

Hi-yo Silver . . . AWAY!

Copyright©2025, Kurt Franklin Stone

Baby Peggy: The Last Silent Star

Long before Shirley Temple, arguably Hollywood’s greatest and most talented child star; even before “The Jackies” - Cooper and Coogan, there was Peggy Jean Montgomery . . . known to the world as “Baby Peggy.” Born in San Diego, California on October 29, 1918, Baby Peggy’s father Jack worked as a cowboy before entering the movie business as a stunt man and stand-in for the great Tom Mix. At 19 months, Peggy was “discovered” while visiting her father at Century Studios, located in Hollywood at 6101 Sunset Blvd. A director named Fred Hibbard (neé Moishe Fishbach) cast her in a short (“Brownie’s Little Venus”) alongside “Brownie the Wonder Dog.” When it proved to be a success, she was signed to a long-term contract. From 1921 to 1924 Peggy appeared in nearly 150 comedy shorts for Century. These films, the vast majority of which are now lost, often parodied popular films of the day with Peggy satirizing popular stars of the day. In 1923, Peggy began to appear in dramatic features for Universal Studios. These films were “A” pictures, dubbed “Universal Jewels,” the studio’s designation for its top-flight productions. Baby Peggy became so popular that even before moving on to Universal, she was receiving more than 1.2 million fan letters a year. She had 5 full-time secretaries who did nothing but send autographed photos to her legions of fans.

In addition to her films - the most famous of which was 1924’s “Captain January” - remade a dozen years later starring Shirley Temple - she had a line of dolls, dresses, books, sheet music, stuffed animals and even milk. Universal sent her on national promotional tours. In 1924 she served as “mascot” for the Democratic National Convention and was photographed standing next to then-New York Gubernatorial candidate Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Before turning 5 she was earning more than $30,000 a week, 52 weeks a year.  Sadly, Baby Peggy’s parents - like those of Jackie Coogan, who had shot to international fame at age 6 starring opposite Charles Chaplin in the 1921 feature film The Kid - Peggy’s spent virtually every penny their daughter earned, putting virtually nothing away for the family’s breadwinner.  

Play Captain  January”

(When Jackie Coogan became old enough to control his own finances, he learned, to his horror, that his parents had, like Baby Peggy’s parents, spent almost every penny of the millions their children had earned during their time on the silver screen. Coogan learned, much to his astonished chagrin, that his parents had purchased mansions, jewels, employed a coterie of servants and invested in a Rolls Royce dealership, leaving their son with virtually nothing. Coogan fought back, hiring a lawyer and eventually having enacted into law The so-called “Coogan Law,” which forced parents of children who were actors to put aside a minimum of 15% of their gross earnings into sheltered accounts. Moreover, no child could be employed until the parent(s) had given certified proof of an account opened specifically for that purpose. That law is still on the books today . . .

In 1925, the 7 year old’s career came to a sudden and screeching halt when her father (who also served as her manager) cancelled her contract with Universal Pictures over a salary dispute.  As a result, Peggy was essentially blacklisted from the industry. Peggy was somewhat successful in vaudeville, which paid her but a fraction of what she had been earning in films.  After playing a couple of small uncredited parts in pictures made in the mid- to late-1930s, her performing career came to an end - much to her parent’s dismay and Peggy’s relief.  For like many child stars, it was not something she enjoyed . . . much less understood.  As Peggy explained to an interviewer many, many years later:

“I remember when I was 4, I was in bed at night and I was thinking how I was always aware that people who were my fans loved that little girl on the screen. But it wasn't me. That wasn't who I was. The real me was the little girl I went to bed with every night.  I remember reading something Jackie Coogan told a reporter about the days after his star had faded: ‘If I went into a restaurant and I was not surrounded by people asking for my autograph, I felt alone and unwanted.’  When I read (Coogan) saying that, it hit me like a ton of bricks. Anything that came as praise, he couldn't deal with it. He couldn't accept it. He was waiting for that child, Jackie, to come back. The real identity that he had, he suppressed.”

Fortunately for Baby Peggy, she chose that ‘second child’ - the identify of the real Peggy Jean Montgomery.  In another interview, Peggy (by then long known as “Diana Serra Cary”) said “Later, I made peace with her [Baby Peggy]. That's what every child actor should do. I'm so grateful I made that choice.

Cary would go on to become a well-respected freelance writer, the author of the memoir Whatever Happened to Baby Peggy? a fascinating look at the Hollywood her father knew (The Hollywood Posse: The Story of a Gallant Band of Horsemen Who Made Movie History), a well-received biography (Jackie Coogan: The World’s Boy King: A Biography of Hollywood's Legendary Child Star) and a seminal work about the “Hollywood Child Star Era” (Hollywood’s Children: An Inside Account of the Child Star Era.)  Unlike almost every child star whose career (and in many instances, their very lives) fell apart when they reached a certain age, Baby Peggy/Diana Serra Cary lived to be 101; she died less than a month ago in Gustine, California on February 24, 2020.  And, as a gift to herself, she celebrated her 99th birthday by publishing her first  - and only - novel, The Drowning of the Moon,  “a vast panoramic novel whose major characters are drawn from the aristocracy of 18th-century Mexico.”

For all the supposed glitz, glamour and fame that comes with being a successful actor, there is also a ton-and-a-half of heartache, insecurity and utter rejection.  If there is one thing I’ve learned growing up around actors, writers, musicians and the like, its that once the curtain goes down or the lights go  dim, you’re back to square one.  Talent, looks, intelligence and luck are certainly important.  The most telling ingredients, however, are sell-knowledge and the ability to accept rejection.  Baby Peggy certainly had these latter  qualities where so many, many other child  actors did not.  Perhaps that is why she succeeded so grandly at such an early age, had an enormously successful career which lasted only 5 or 6 years, and then went on to live an even more highly successful and gratifying life for an additional 95 years.  She is the last of the  silent  movie actors . . . she who at one time was one of the very best.

Copyright, ©2020 Kurt F. Stone

Ricardo Cortez: The First Sam Spade

“Ricardo Cortez” as the first Sam Spade

There likely isn’t a film buff on the planet who doesn’t know - and love - the 1941 classic detective drama The Maltese Falcon starring, among others, Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Sidney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre. It is the living, breathing definition of a film classic. It is also one of the very first movies both written and directed by the same person - in this case, the then 35-year old Huston who made a deal with studio owner Jack Warner that he would only charge his boss a measly ten bucks for the screenplay if only he were permitted to also direct as well. What a lot of film buffs do not know is that Jack Warner actually produced two other films based on Dashiell Hammett’s 1930 novel prior to the Huston classic:

• 1931’s The Maltese Falcon, starring Ricardo Cortez as detective Sam Spade and Bebe Daniels as Ruth Wonderly,

• The 1936 tongue-in-check send up entitled Satan Met a Lady, starring Warren William as Sam Spade (here called “Ted Shane”) and Bette Davis as Ruth, here called “Valerie Purvis.” Unlike the 1931 version, which was a box-office hit, Satan Met a Lady was so bad that Bette Davis spent a lifetime trying to get it expunged from her official filmography!

For decades, film historians believed that original version of The Maltese Falcon starring Cortez, Daniels, (as well as Una Merkel, Thelma Todd *(about whom we’;ll devote a blog piece in the near future and Dudley Diggs) was either destroyed or missing. Actually, it was neither; Warner Brothers buried the 1931 version on a back shelf for fear that moviegoers would mistake it for the 1941 Bogart/Astor/Greenstreet classic. What a pity! For although not quite as true-to-form as the Bogart/Astor version, Ricardo Cortez does make a compelling - though less nuanced version - of the iconic, hard-boiled Sam Spade. Unlike Bogie’s Spade, Cortez’s wears a perpetual smile and is far more sexually aggressive. Then too, Cortez was not nearly as good an actor as the stage-trained Bogart. Unlike Bogart, Cortez was first, last and always a movie star . . . not an actor. And believe me, there is a world of difference between the two.

Nonetheless, unlike Humphrey Bogart, Ricardo Cortez is little remembered. In his day, Cortez was a first-rate “Latin Lover” and great fan favorite. He was the only actor to ever receive top billing over Greta Garbo (1926’s Torrent, her first American film); during his heyday in the late silent and early sound era, he played opposite a majority of the greatest actresses of the silver screen (Mary Astor, Loretta Young, Bette Davis, Kay Francis, Barbara Stanwyck and Joan Blondell, to name but a few) with many of the most acclaimed directors and filmmakers in cinematic history. And yet, precious little is known about him.

Why?

Cortez and Garbo in Torrent (1926)

For two reasons: first, in the words of his biographer Dan Van Neste, “Cortez was an excessively private person.  He didn’t leave diaries, didn’t trust the press, granted very few interviews, and when he did, they were rarely substantive. Second, there never was a “Ricardo Cortez”; he, his life, background and family history were all the product of a slick Paramount (Famous Players-Lasky) publicity campaign. When, in the early 1920s, Paramount inexplicably lost the screen’s greatest “Latin Lover” Rudolf Valentino (Rodolfo Alfonso Raffaello Pierre Filibert Guglielmi di Valentina d'Antonguolla) to Metro (soon to become Metro-Goldwyn and eventually Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer), Paramount realized they needed a new, flashier, more sexually charged Latin. And so, they went to work and turned a Jewish kid from New York’s Lower East Side (Hester Street to be precise) born Jacob Krantz, the son of Morris and Sarah (Lefkowitz) Krantz, immigrants from Galacia, into Ricardo Cortez, whose original tagline was “The Man with the Bedroom Eyes.”

From the very beginning of his film career in 1917, when he started doing extra work in films shot in Ft. Lee, New Jersey at $2.00 a day, Krantz (who would legally change his name to “Ricardo Cortez” after becoming a major star and making in excess of $3,000.00 a week) was typecast as a either a Latin lover or exotic villain. Because of his dark olive complexion and heavy-lidded dark eyes, the deception was an easy one to pull off. Back in the 20’s and 30s, moviegoers were far more willing to believe what the fan magazines (fed largely by the various studios’ p.r. teams) told them about their favorite stars. Morever because movies were silent, there was no problem with the fact that stars like Ricardo Cortez didn’t sound anything like cultured, aristocratic Spaniards . . . or Mexicans or Italians; rather he spoke English like a Jewish kid from Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Interestingly, where many silent stars decided to retire with the coming of sound rather than have their loyal fans discover that they weren’t who they were supposed to be, “Ric” Cortez, decided to keep on chugging along . . . and if for other reason than he loved the money they paid him.

The Cortez/Daniels Falcon was made by Warner Brother Broptherss in 1931 - several years before the Movie Production Cod, which mandated a stiff jolt of morality - into the industry. As such, the Cortez Falcon had Spade obviously sleeping with Miss Wonderly. In one scene, Miss Wondely (payed by Bebe Daniels) Additionally, takes a bath in the nude and Spade forces her to get out of all her clothes in order to determine if she has taken a thousand dollar bill.” There are numerous references to the homosexual relationship between Gutman (the “Fat Man”) and Wilmer (here referred to as his “boyfriend,” and in the 1941 version as a “gunsel,” which is an inside term for gay lover); moreover, in the Cortez/Daniels version, Miss WonderlyIn 1931, this as all OK. By 1936’s Satan Met a Lady, such scenes or suggestions were absolutely verboten. By comparison, the 1941 Bogart incarnation of Sam Spade was a growling Boy Scout.

As a Hollywood Brat, I can attest to the fact that the “six degrees of separation” are always at work. Consider the following:

• Brown Holmes, the screenwriter for Cortez’ Maltese Falcon, served in the same capacity for the 1941 Bogart version.

• Both the 1931 and 1941 version had the same cinematographer, Robert Edeson.

• Warren William, who plays the Sam Spade character (Ted Shane) in 1936’s Satan Met a Lady, also played Perry Mason in a series of films beginning in 1934, but was replaced in 1936 by none other than . . . you guessed it, Ricardo Cortez.

• Speaking of Perry Mason, Bette Davis (who costarred in Satan Met a Lady, filled in for Raymond Burr when he had to have surgery in Perry Mason: The Case of Constant Doyle (1963).

Getting back to The Maltese Falcon, Ricardo was signed to play Sam Spade mainly because Jack Warner’s first choice, the legendary actor - and world-class drunk - John Barrymore, was unavailable, having been already signed to star in another Warner’s film, Svengali (based on George Du Maurier’s Trilby. To a great degree, The Maltese Falcon revived Cortez’s cinematic career. and caused his loyal fans to forgive and forget that he in no way sounded the way they assumed a Latin Lover might. Over the next decade, Ricardo made several dozen motion pictures, including 1932’s Symphony For Six Million, one of classic Hollywood’s most Jewishly significant films. Based on a Fanny Hurst short story, Symphony stars Ricardo Cortez as Dr. Felix “Felixer” Klauber, a brilliant young doctor who grows away from his Jewish family and community when his older brother convinces him to make his fortune as a Park Avenue doctor.  When tragedy strikes, he sees where his obligations lie, but will it be too late? This particular film hit home with Ricardo Cortez, who had long felt that he, Jacob Krantz, had abandoned not only his family, but his cultural and religious heritage heritage in exchange for the extraordinary riches which only Hollywood could afford a junior high school dropout. Interestingly, Symphony for Six Million costarred Jewish actors Anna Appel and Gregory Ratoff, who, prior to their Hollywood years had starred with, respectively, Maurice Schwartz’s Yiddish Art Theatre, and Chekhov’’s Moscow Art Theatre..

Cortez, realizing that he was losing his hold on the public, decided to start directing pictures. Between 1930 and 1940, he directed 7 films for Warner Brothers, all of them "program pictures made on a shoestring for the express purpose of filling the bottom half of the mandatory double bill ..." Between 1940 and 1958, he appeared in a mere 15 films and 1 television show (Bonanza). Forsaking Beverly Hills and returning to New York City, Cortez went back into the world of Wall Street, where he had begun his working life as a runner in the nineteen-teens. He succeeded admirably as a broker and continued selling stocks and bond - and doing an occasional commercial, until his death in 1977 at age 76/ The thrice married Cortez died childless. Over the course of a 43-year career, Ricardo Cortez made his way into 103 films, for which he was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. If you’re ever out in Hollywood, you can find it at 1500 Vine Street.

For those of you who live in South Florida, I will be showing the 1931 Maltese Falcon at Florida International University on Wednesday, October 3rd at 3:00. If you;’re interested in attending class, please contact me through this website and we’ll see what we can do.

Copyright©2018 Kurt F. Stone

I