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1-50 of 308
- Actress
- Writer
- Director
Once you saw her, you would not forget her. Despite her age and weight, she became one of the top box office draws of the sound era. She was 14 when she joined a theater group and she went on to work on stage and in light opera. By 1892, she was on Broadway and she later became a star comedienne on the vaudeville circuit. In 1910, she had a hit with 'Tillie's Nightmare' which Mack Sennett adapted to film as Tillie's Punctured Romance (1914) with Charles Chaplin. Marie took top billing over a young Chaplin, but her film career never took off and by 1918, she was out of films and out of work. Her role in the chorus girls' strike of 1917 had her blacklisted from the theaters. In 1927, MGM screenwriter Frances Marion got her a small part in The Joy Girl (1927) and then a co-starring lead with Polly Moran in The Callahans and the Murphys (1927) (which was abruptly withdrawn from circulation thanks to objections of Irish-American groups over its depiction of gin-guzzling Irish). Her career stalled and the 59-year old actress found herself no longer in demand. In the late 1920s she had been largely forgotten and reduced to near-poverty. Despite her last film being a financial disaster, Irving Thalberg, somewhat incredibly, sensed her potential was determined to re-build her into a star. It was a slow return in films but her popularity continued to grow. But it was sound that made her a star again. Anna Christie (1930) was the movie where Garbo talks, but everyone noticed Marie as Marthy. In an era of Harlow, Garbo and Crawford, it was homely old Marie Dressler that won the coveted exhibitor's poll as the most popular actress for three consecutive years. In another film from the same year, Min and Bill (1930) she received a best actress Oscar for her dramatic performance. She received another Academy Award nomination for Emma (1932). She had more success with Dinner at Eight (1933) and Tugboat Annie (1933). In 1934, cancer claimed her life.- Actor
- Writer
- Soundtrack
One of the oldest actors on the screen in the 1920s and 1930s, George Arliss starred on the London stage from an early age. He came to the United States and starred in several films, but it was his role as British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli in Disraeli (1929) that brought him his greatest success.- Czar Nicholas II of Russia was crowned in 1894, and was the last Emperor of Russia. He was born on 19 May, 1868, the first child of Tsarevitch Aleksandr III and his wife, Maria Fyodorovna. He was christened His Imperial Highness Nicholas Aleksandrovitch Romanov, Grand Duke of Russia. He was followed by three brothers and two sisters: Grand Duke Aleksandr (1869-1870), Grand Duke Georgy (1871-1899) Grand Duchess Ksenia (1875-1960), Grand Duke Michael (1878-19180 and Grand Duchess Olga (1882-1960). He was related to the Danish, British and German royal families. As a child, Nicholas wasn't quite as bright as his younger brothers, resulting in his father's belief that Nicholas, a somewhat shy and sensitive child, wasn't "man enough" to be Emperor of Russia, and he often derisively referred to his son as a girl. His father had already picked out a French princess to be Nicholas' wife, in order to cement relations with the French. Unfortunately for him, however, he further alienated his father when he fell in love with a German princess, Alix (aka Alexandra), and decided to marry her instead. Although dead set against this marriage, his father finally gave his reluctant blessing only on his deathbed, when he realized that if Nicholas were not allowed to marry Alix he would marry no one, thus placing the continuation of the Romanov dynasty in danger). In November of 1894, he married Her Ducal Highness Princess Alix Victoria Helena Louise Beatrice of Hesse-Darstadt and By Rhine. They had five children: Grand Duchess Olga (b. 1895-1918), Grand Duchess Tatiana (b. 1897-1918), Grand Duchess Maria (b. 1899-1918), Grand Duchess Anastasia (b. 1901-1918) and Tsarevitch Aleksey (1904-1918).
Upon his ascension as the emperor of Russsia in 1894, he was given the following title: His Highness the Tsar Nicholas Aleksandrovitch Romanov, Emperor and Autocrat of all the Russias, Tsar of Moscow, Kiev, Vladimir, Novgorod, Kazan, Astrakhan, of Poland, of Siberia, of Tauric Chersonese, of Georgia, Lord of Pskov, Grand Duke of Smolensk, of Lithuania, Volhynia, Podolia and Finland, Prince of Estonia, Livonia, Courland and Semigalia, Samogotia, Bialostock, Karelia, Tver, Yougouria, Perm, Viatka, Bulgaria, and other countries; Lord and Grand Duke of Lower Novgorod, of Tchernigov, Riazan, Polotsk, Rostov, Yaroslav, Belozero, Oudoria, Obdoria, Condia, Vitebsk, Mstislav and, all the region of the North, Lord and Sovereign of the countries of Iveria, Cartalinia, Kabardinia and the provinces of Armenia, Sovereign of the Circassian Princes and the Mountain Princes, Lord of Turkestan, Heir of Norway, Duke of Schleswig Holstein, of Storman, of the Ditmars, and of Oldenbourg.
After Nicholas became Czar, he determined to travel and see as much of the world outside of Russia as he could. However, in an ominous portent of things to come, during a tour of Japan an assassin rushed at him with a large sword, and Nicholas barely escaped with his life, although the would-be assassin managed to inflict a large gash on his forehead. In what can be seen as yet another bad omen, during his coronation a stampede occurred on a field near the scene when free food was being given out to the large crowds, and more than 1000 people died. In 1905 relations between Russia and Japan had deteriorated to a dangerous point, and there was talk of war. Nicholas was in fact in favor of a negotiated settlement and talks resulted in a compromise being offered by the Japanese, but Nicholas' advisers and generals persuaded him to reject the Japanese offer and declare war, which they were confident they would win handily. As it turned out, however, the ensuing Russo-Japanese War of 1905 was a devastating defeat for Russia, which lost much of its navy to the better trained, better equipped and better led Japanese forces, tens of thousands of its soldiers and large swaths of its territory.
The defeat caused even more discontent in the country, which had been building for quite some time among peasants, workers, students and an increasing number of members of the armed forces. In 1905 a crowd of demonstrators marched on the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg to present a petition to Nicholas asking for liberalization and reform. Although the demonstration was peaceful at first - Nicholas himself saw no danger in the situation and had in fact departed to his country estate for the weekend - things rapidly deteriorated, and before anyone could really figure out what happened, the troops surrounding the palace opened fire on the demonstrators (many of whom were carrying pictures and placards of Nicholas as proof of their devotion to him), killing many of them. Although it's believed now that Nicholas did not give orders for the soldiers to fire on the crowd, many Russians at the time believed that he had, and this began to solidify opposition to the monarchy's rule. The resulting political and domestic pressure forced Nicholas to convene the Duma, the Russian parliament, in August of 1905.
He then issued what was called the October Manifesto in which he promised to introduce basic civil liberties to the Russian populace, make the Duma more than just a rubber-stamp for the Czar--which many believed, rightly or wrongly, that it was--and give it legislative and oversight authority. Although relations between Nicholas and the Duma were at first good, they quickly deteriorated because Empress Alexandra did not like or trust its leadership. Nicholas wound up dissolving the Duma, adding fuel to the fires of revolution already building up in the country. As if Nicholas' political problems weren't enough, his son Alexei, who was born in 1904, turned out to have hemophilia, a disease which prevents blood from clotting properly. At that time it was tantamount to a death sentence, as no treatment for it existed. Alexandra, desperate for anything that might save her son's life, turned to a sinister mystic and "healer" from Siberia named Grigory Rasputin. Rasputin did seem to have a calming effect on the child, whose health appeared to improve, thus solidifying Rasputin's hold on the royal family (many at the time suspected that Rasputin was secretly hypnotizing the boy into believing that he was better, in order to strengthen his hold over the Empress). The Empress became totally dependent on Rasputin, and eventually came to believe that he and God were in direct contact about her son. Rasputin was assassinated in 1916 by a group of disgruntled Russian noblemen worried about his hold on the royal family (not to mention their own future at the court). In 1914 the Austro-Hungarian Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo by Gavrilo Princip, a member of "Young Bosnia", a fanatical Serbian nationalist secret society. It wasn't long before events snowballed and Europe was plunged into World War I. Russia entered the war on the side of the Allies against Germany and Austria-Hungary. At first Russian forces had considerable success against the German and Austrian armies and their Turkish allies on the Eastern front, but the fighting eventually turned into a combination of trench warfare and huge artillery barrages.
Through a combination of bad weather, poor logistics, low morale and staggeringly inept leadership, the Russian armies soon began incurring defeat after defeat and suffering huge losses (the Battle of Tannenberg alone cost them more than 100,000 dead). In 1915 Russia lost Poland to the Germans, and Nicholas himself decided to take over as commander-in-chief of the armed forces. Since he was now personally prosecuting the war, domestic policy was basically left up to Empress Alexandra, who was not popular with the Russian people, especially since she herself was German. Political opposition to the regime increased. Unfortunately, Nicholas' military leadership was almost as inept as his generals', resulting in more defeats and even larger casualties for the Russian armies. The country was now being convulsed by strikes and riots, and many military units were mutinying and joining with revolutionary forces to take over cities from Nicholas' government. By March of 1917 popular opposition to the monarchy was so strong that Nicholas was forced to abdicate. Three hundred years of the Romanov dynasty came to an end. Aleksandr Kerensky, a former schoolmate of Vladimir Lenin, became the leader of the provisional government, which detained the Romanov family under house arrest at the Alexander Palace in Tsarskoe Selo, a suburb of St. Petersburg. They were then transported to Siberia in August of 1917. By November of 1917, with the Russian military being torn apart by mutinies and revolts, the Bolsheviks ousted the provisional government to become the rulers of Russia. They took custody of the Romanov family and moved them to the city of Ekaterinburg. Lenin and his colleague Yakov Sverdlov urged the murder of the Czar and his family in order to shore up support for the Bolsheviks among the masses.
At 2:30 on the morning of July 17, 1918, a firing squad shot Czar Nicholas, his wife Empress Alexandra, their five children, their doctor and their personal assistants and royal secretaries. As proof of their death and to dispel stories that the royal family had managed to escape, parts of their bodies and some of the royal necklaces and jewelry were delivered to the Central Committee of the Communist Party in Moscow, although rumors persisted for years afterward that some of the family did in fact manage to bribe their would-be executioners and escape. - Actor
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
- Additional Crew
Henry Bergman was born on 23 February 1868 in San Francisco, California, USA. He was an actor and assistant director, known for Modern Times (1936), City Lights (1931) and The Gold Rush (1925). He died on 22 October 1946 in Hollywood, California, USA.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Edgar Norton was born on 11 August 1868 in London, England, UK. He was an actor, known for Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931), Son of Frankenstein (1939) and The Runaway Bride (1930). He was married to Lillian Mabel Hubbard. He died on 6 February 1953 in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA.- C.V. France was born on 30 June 1868 in Bradford, West Yorkshire, England, UK. He was an actor, known for The Skin Game (1931), If I Were King (1938) and Went the Day Well? (1942). He died on 13 April 1949 in Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire, England, UK.
- Eva Moore was born on 9 February 1868 in Brighton, East Sussex, England, UK. She was an actress, known for The Old Dark House (1932), A Cup of Kindness (1934) and Blind Justice (1934). She was married to H.V. Esmond. She died on 27 April 1955 in Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, UK.
- Actor
- Soundtrack
Cawthorn made his stage debut in 1872 at the age of four. At nine, he went to England and played in music halls for four years. In 1898, Cawthorn made his debut on Broadway and carried on a successful career for some twenty-five years. Moving to Hollywood in 1927, he began a career as a character actor. Married to stage and screen actress Queenie Vassar, Cawthorn passed away following a stroke in his Beverly Hills home.- Margaret Mann was born on 4 April 1868 in Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, UK. She was an actress, known for Four Sons (1928), Black Beauty (1921) and The Law Rides (1936). She was married to James F. Smythe. She died on 4 February 1941 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Hedwig Bleibtreu was born on 23 December 1868 in Linz, Upper Austria, Austria-Hungary [now Austria]. She was an actress, known for The Third Man (1949), Der Spieler (1938) and Pygmalion (1935). She was married to Alexander Roempler and Peter Petersen. She died on 24 January 1958 in Vienna, Austria.
- Snitz Edwards was born Edward Neumann in Hungary. Married first wife in 1889 and was divorced some time later. Although he was almost 20 years older than his wife, Edwards married Eleanor Taylor, an actress from Boston, in 1906. They had three children, Cricket (b. 1906), Evelyn (b. 1914) and Marian (b. 1917). The three girls were all put into films; in the late 1920s, Universal made a series of two reelers with the entire family based upon a theatrical family with three daughters. Edwards was earning $5,000 a week by then. Cricket became a secretary for the Jaffe Agency and married famous L.A. attorney Newt Kendall. She later became a movie producer and worked on films like The Guns of Navarone (1961) and The Victors (1963). Marian became an actress and later married writer Irwin Shaw (Rich Man, Poor Man (1976)). Evelyn was a writer who worked for RKO for years. Edwards' final film was the 1931 classic The Public Enemy (1931) but, by then, he was very sick with cirrhosis of the liver and rheumatoid arthritis. He is in a number of early scenes as "Putty Nose", but was unable to finish filming. He spent his final years bedridden, passing away in 1937 at home.
- Edmund Rostand was a prominent French playwright and poet.
Rostand, who was born in Marseille on 1 April, 1868, the son of the distinguished economist Eugene Rostand (1843-1915), first achieved success in Paris at the age of twenty with his vaudeville sketch 'Le Gant Rouge". A collection of poems in 1890 entitled "Les Musardises", would also be well received. Not before too long his works were being compared to that of Belgian poet and playwright Maurice Maeterlinck (1862-1949).
Some of Rostand's more successful plays were: "Les Romonesques" (1894), "La Princess Lomtain" (1895), "La Samaritaine" (1897), "Cyrano de Bergerac" (1897), "Aiglon" (1901) and "Chantecler" (1910). Many of Rostand's plays were popular on both sides of the Atlantic. The American rights to "Chantecler" alone would make him a small fortune.
Edmund Rostand was a member of L'Académie française and a commander of the Légion d'honneur. He had dined with King Edward IV at Biarritz and read "Cyrano de Bergerac" to an audience of Paris laborers. At the outbreak of World War One his offer to enlist was politely turned down by French officials. After the sinking of the Lusitania, he wrote a long poem condemning the German ambassador to America. Rostand passed away on 2 December, 1918 after a bout of influenza. Besides his son, Jean Rostand, he was survived by his wife, Rosemonde Gerard (1871-1953), a grand-daughter of Count Etienne Gerard (1773-1852), a veteran of the Napoleonic Wars. - Soundtrack
Patty S. Hill was born on 27 March 1868 in Anchorage, Kentucky, USA. Patty S. died on 25 May 1946 in New York City, New York, USA.- Eugenie Besserer was born in Watertown, New York on Christmas Day of 1868. She was largely a silent film actress who made her debut in 1910's silent version of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1910). She was 42 at the time. For the most part Eugenie was a character actress, much in demand for filling in roles. Because of her willingness to take just about any role, Eugenie was able to be a part of films such as Enemies of Children (1923), The Millionaire Policeman (1926), The Jazz Singer (1927) (the first "talkie"), and A Royal Romance (1930). Her final film was 1933's To the Last Man (1933). Eugenie died of natural causes on May 28, 1934 in Los Angeles, California.
- Florence Foster Jenkins (born July 19, 1868 in Pennsylvania, U.S.; died November 26, 1944) was an American soprano who became famous because she was considered to be a poor singer. She sang somewhat out of tune, had a poor sense of rhythm and she was considered quite unmusical.
She was born Narcissa Florence Foster in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, the daughter of Mary Jane (Hoagland) and Charles Dorrance Foster, an attorney. She had music lessons when she was a child. She wanted to go and study music abroad. Her father was very rich, but he refused to pay for her to travel, so she ran away with a man called Frank Thornton Jenkins who was a doctor. They married, although they divorced in 1902. Her husband did not want her to be a singer either.
In 1909, her father died so she inherited some money which she used to have singing lessons. Soon she started to give recitals. Her mother died in 1928 and this gave her even more freedom and money to sing.
From her recordings we can hear that Jenkins sang very out of tune and out of time. She even wobbled a lot on one note. Her piano accompanist can be heard trying to change the speed to fit in with her mistakes.
Her words were unclear, especially when singing in a foreign language. However, she became tremendously popular in her unusual way. Her audiences seemed to love her in spite of her non-musicality. She always thought she was a good singer and compared herself to the great sopranos. She knew the critics wrote bad things about her, but she said: "People may say I can't sing, but no one can ever say I didn't sing."
Jenkins sang music from famous operas as well as classical songs (Lieder). She wore fancy costumes which she designed herself. She threw flowers into the audience and was always fanning herself.
In 1943, she was in a taxi that crashed. After the crash she found she could sing "a higher F than ever before." Instead of a lawsuit against the taxicab company, she sent the driver a box of expensive cigars.
In 1944, when she was 76, Jenkins performed at Carnegie Hall. Many people had wanted her to perform there. Tickets sold out weeks before the concert. Jenkins suffered a heart attack and subsequently died in Manhattan a month later. She always seemed to have been quite certain that she was a great singer. - Writer
Maksim Gorky is a pseudonym of Aleksei Maksimovich Peshkov, who was born into a poor Russian family in Nizhnii Novgorod on Volga river. Gorky lost his father at an early age, he was beaten by his stepfather and became an orphan at age 9, when his mother died. He was brought up by his grandmother, who helped his development as a storyteller.
He was blessed with a brilliant memory, but failed to enter a University of Kazan. At age 19 he survived a suicide attempt, because the bullet missed his heart. After that Gorky traveled on foot for 5 years all over Central Russia, worked as a sailor on a Volga steamboat, then a salesperson, a railway worker, a salt miller, and a lawyer's clerk. At that time he was arrested for his public criticism of the Tsar and social injustices in Russia. He started writing for newspapers and published his first 'Sketches and Stories' in 1890s. Later he wrote an autobiographic book "My Universities" based on impressions from his travels and jobs. Gorky wrote with sympathy about the simple folks, the outcasts, the gypsies, the hobos and dreamers in the context of social decay in the Russian Empire. He became friends with Anton Chekhov and Lev Tolstoy. His play 'The Lower Depths' (1892) was praised by Chekhov and was successfully played in Europe and the United States. His political activism resulted in cancellation of his membership in the Russian Academy. Anton Chekhov and Vladimir Korolenko left the Academy in protest and solidarity with Gorky. He went to live in Europe and America in 1906-13. In America he started his classic novel, 'The Mother', about a Russian Christian woman and her imprisoned son, who both joined revolutionaries under the illusion that revolution follows Christ's messages.
After the Russian revolution in 1917, Gorky criticized Lenin and communists for their "bloody experiments on the Russian people". He wrote, 'Lenin and Trotsky are corrupted with the dirty poison of power. They are disrespectful of human rights, freedom of speech and all other civil liberties". Soon Gorky received a handwritten warning letter from Lenin. Later his friend Nikolai Gumilev, ex-husband of Anna Akhmatova was executed by communists. In 1921 Gorky emigrated to Europe and settled in Capri. He became careful in his critique of communism. In 1932 after a series of brief visits, he returned to Soviet Russia. He was placed in a rich Moscow mansion of the former railroad tycoon Ryabushinsky. His return from the fascist Italy was a victory for Soviet propaganda. He was made the Chairman of the Soviet Writer's Union, and a figurehead of "socialist realism" . After the murder of Kirov in 1934 Gorky was under a house arrest. His son died in 1935. The following year Gorki Gorky died suddenly at the Lenin's dacha in Moscow.- Director
- Writer
- Additional Crew
A former newspaper writer and cartoonist, George D. Baker joined Vitagraph in 1913 as a director, and was the main director for the films of the studio's popular comedian John Bunny--of Bunny's 43 comedies at Vitagraph, Baker made 39 of them. Bunny left Vitagraph to return to the stage, and Vitagraph put Baker to work with comedian Jay Dwiggins, hoping to strike gold with him as they did with Bunny. It didn't work. Baker subsequently left Vitagraph and went to Metro Pictures, where he became the main director for star Viola Dana. He left the industry in 1924.- Marcia Harris was born on 14 February 1868 in Providence, Rhode Island, USA. She was an actress, known for Susie Snowflake (1916), Anne of Green Gables (1919) and The Foundling (1916). She died on 18 June 1947 in Northampton, Massachusetts, USA.
- Actor
- Writer
- Soundtrack
Al Shean was born on 12 May 1868 in Dornum, Province of Hanover, Kingdom of Prussia [now Lower Saxony, Germany]. He was an actor and writer, known for The Blue Bird (1940), Ziegfeld Girl (1941) and Live, Love and Learn (1937). He was married to Johanna Davidson. He died on 12 August 1949 in New York City, New York, USA.- Flora Disney was born on 22 April 1868 in Steuben, Ohio, USA. She was married to Elias Disney. She died on 26 November 1938 in North Hollywood, California, USA.
- Quit acting career during World War I, to outfit & staff a barge as a floating hospital, to nurse wounded soldiers in France. Boyfriends as a young actress included Baseball Hall of Famer John Montgomery Ward & heavyweight champ/actor Gentleman James J. Corbett. Elliott was named as co-respondent in Ward's divorce from famed actress Helen Dauvray. For her beauty & unusual violet eyes, Maxine Elliott has been compared to Elizabeth Taylor. For many years, there was a Maxine Elliott Theatre on Broadway.
She met husband Nat C. Goodwin, the leading comic actor of his era, en route to Australia in 1896. Goodwin was a dedicated baseball fan/gambler, and the stage idol of George M. Cohan. - Actor
- Additional Crew
A noted stage actor at the turn of the 20th century, Robert Edeson began his film career working with Cecil B. DeMille on The Call of the North (1914), then moved on to Vitagraph where he remained for the rest of the teens. In the 1920s he returned to work for De Mille, playing the man-of-the-world type roles. Married to actress Mary Newcomb, Edeson died of heart failure.- Writer
- Additional Crew
A native of Paris, France, a poet, journalist and novelist, Gaston Leroux is known for his many creative horror stories, including "Rouilable", "The Haunted Chair" and "The Wax Mask", but is probably best known for his work "The Phantom of the Opera", which became Leroux's prize possession. He wrote the novel in 1908 about a disfigured man who dresses in masks and capes and terrorizes the Paris Opera House while falling in love with the leading lady. "The Phantom of the Opera" was based much upon Leroux's own experiences. During his early years as a journalist in the late 1800s, Leroux spent time going the Paris Opera House and watching performances, and was influenced by Charles Gounod's opera "Faust", about a man who sells his soul to the devil. On one occasion, the chandelier which featured in the opera fell into the audience by accident. Combining the singers, Faust and the chandelier together, Leroux created "The Phantom of the Opera".
In 1923, Carl Laemmle, head of the new Universal Pictures in Hollywood, produced a film of the novel, The Phantom of the Opera (1925), with Lon Chaney in the lead. Leroux was impressed by this, but two years later he died. Since that time, "The Phantom of the Opera" has become so popular it has inspired five feature remakes, one in 1943 Phantom of the Opera (1943)), another in 1962 (The Phantom of the Opera (1962) and again in 1989 (The Phantom of the Opera (1989)). A television version was also made (The Phantom of the Opera (1983)) and then a remake made in 1999 (The Phantom of the Opera (1998)). The most recent remake is Joel Schumacher's The Phantom of the Opera (2004), produced and cast by Andrew Lloyd Webber, with Gerard Butler, Emmy Rossum and Patrick Wilson, three quite unknown actors, rather than Michael Crawford and Sarah Brightman, the original actors of the Broadway show. The novel was also made into a major London and Broadway stage musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber. Gaston Leroux will forever be remembered for "The Phantom of the Opera".- Maude appeared in a number of Broadway productions from 1908 1925 including: "Glorious Betsy," "The American Maid," "A Full House" with Hugh Cameron and Ralph Morgan, "Elsie" and "Big Boy" with Al Jolson, Minnie Dupree and Colin Campbell. She also appeared on the stage with Marilyn Miller in her smash hit, "Sally." In addition, Maude appeared on stage in "Mrs. Holmes, Detective" which was produced by her own company. Maude's daughter Dorothy graduated from the Fauquier Institute of Warrenton, Virginia and later married to Lieut. Robert A. White of the U.S. Navy. Gordon died from pneumonia.
- Music Department
- Composer
- Writer
Scott Joplin was a black American composer and pianist known as the "King of Ragtime" at the turn of the 20th century. Studying piano with teachers near his childhood home, Joplin traveled through the Midwest from the mid-1880s, performing at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. Settling in Sedalia, MO, in 1895, he studied music at the George R. Smith College for Negroes and hoped for a career as a concert pianist and classical composer. His first published songs brought him fame, and in 1900 he moved to St. Louis to work more closely with the music publisher John Stark. Joplin published his first extended work, a ballet suite using the rhythmic devices of ragtime, with his own choreographic directions, in 1902. His first opera, "A Guest of Honor" (1903), was lost by the copyright office. Moving to New York City in 1907, Joplin wrote an instruction book, "The School Of Ragtime", outlining his complex bass patterns, sporadic syncopation, stop-time breaks and harmonic ideas that were being widely imitated and popularized. Joplin's contract with Stark ended in 1909, and though he made piano rolls in his final years, most of his efforts involved "Treemonisha", which synthesized his musical ideas into conventional, three-act opera. He also wrote the libretto, about a mythical black leader, and choreographed it. "Treemonisha" had only one semipublic performance during Joplin's lifetime; he became obsessed with its succeeding, suffered a nervous breakdown and collapse in 1911, and was institutionalized in 1916. His reputation as a composer rests on his classic rags for piano, including "Maple Leaf Rag" and "The Entertainer", published from 1899 through 1909, and "Treemonisha", published at his own expense in 1911. It was well received when produced by an Atlanta, GA, troupe on Broadway in 1972, and interest in Joplin and ragtime was stimulated in the 1970s by the use of his music in the Academy Award-winning score to the film The Sting (1973).