HAPPY BIRTHDAY
JOAN EVANS is 78 today
American film actress who appeared in three movies with actor Farley Granger. Her first film with him was as the title role in Roseanna McCoy, followed by Our Very Own and Edge of Doom, among other films.
She was named after actress Joan Crawford, her godmother. When Evans was seventeen years old, she announced that she would marry a car salesman named Kirby Weatherly. Her parents asked Crawford to dissuade her from marrying, since she was so young. But Crawford, not only gave the couple her blessing, but also had the wedding ceremony performed right in her own house without having the parents present. Evans's marriage to Weatherly lasted, but the friendship between Evans's parents and Crawford ended. She retired from the screen in 1961.
RED SKELTON (1913 - 1997)
American entertainer best known for being a national radio and television comedian between 1937 and 1971. Skelton, who has stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, began his show business career in his teens as a circus clown and continued on vaudeville and Broadway and in films, radio, TV, night clubs, and casinos, all while he pursued an entirely separate career as an artist.
His home life wasn't completely happy--two divorces and a son Richard who died of leukemia at age nine-- and he didn't hang around with other comedians. He continued performing live until illness, and he was a longtime supporter of children's charities.
Most of his zany films from MGM are shown on TCM.
HUME CRONYN (1911 - 2003)
Canadian actor of stage and screen, who enjoyed a long career, often appearing professionally alongside his second wife, Jessica Tandy.
His first Hollywood film was Alfred Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt (1943). He later appeared in Hitchcock's Lifeboat (1944) and worked on the screenplays of Rope (1948) and Under Capricorn (1949). He was nominated for an Academy Award for best supporting actor for his performance in The Seventh Cross (1944) and won a Tony Award for his performance as Polonius opposite Richard Burton's Hamlet (1964).
Cronyn married the actress Jessica Tandy in 1942, and appeared with her in many of their more memorable dramatic stage, film and TV outings, including The Green Years, The Seventh Cross, The Gin Game, Foxfire, *batteries not included, Cocoon and Cocoon: The Return.
LUPE VELEZ (1908 - 1944)
Lupe played dramatic roles for five years before she switched to comedy. In 1933 she played the lead role of Pepper in Hot Pepper (1933). This film showcased her comedic talents and helped her to show the world her vital personality. She was delightful. In 1934 Lupe appeared in three fine comedies: Strictly Dynamite (1934), Palooka (1934) and Laughing Boy (1934). By now her popularity was such that a series of "Mexican Spitfire" films were written around her. She portrayed Carmelita Lindsay in Mexican Spitfire (1940), Mexican Spitfire Out West (1940), Mexican Spitfire's Baby (1941) and Mexican Spitfire's Blessed Event (1943), among others. Audiences loved her in these madcap adventures but it seemed, at times, she was better known for her stormy love affairs.
She married one of her lovers, Johnny Weissmuller, but that only lasted five years and was filled with battles. Lupe certainly did live up to her nickname. She had a failed romance with Gary Cooper, who never wanted to wed her. By 1943 her career was waning. She went to Mexico in the hopes of giving herself a jump start. She gained the best reviews yet in the Mexican version of Nana (1944). Bolstered by that movie, Lupe returned to the US where she starred in her final film as Pepita Zorita in Ladies' Day (1943). There were to be no others. On December 13, 1944, tired of yet another failed romance, with a part-time actor named Harald Maresch, and pregnant with his child, Lupe committed suicide with an overdose of Seconal. She was only 36 years old.
CHILL WILLS (1902 - 1978)
Colorful character actor of American Westerns. Named "Chill" as an ironic comment on his birth date being the hottest day of 1902.
He formed a musical group, Chill Wills and His Avalon Boys. During an appearance at the Trocadero in Hollywood, they were spotted by an RKO executive, subsequently appearing as a group in several low-budget Westerns. After a prominent appearance with The Avalon Boys as both himself and the bass-singing voice of Stan Laurel in Way Out West (1937), Wills disbanded the group and began a solo career as a usually jovial (but occasionally sinister) character actor, primarily in Westerns. His delightful portrayal of Beekeeper in The Alamo (1960) won him an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor, but his blatant and embarrassing campaign for the Oscar cost him the award and subjected him to a great deal of humiliation -- and probably cost the film a number of awards as well.
While campaigning for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar in 1960, Wills took out a series of ads with the declaration "Win, lose or draw, you're all my cousins and I love you."It was signed "Your cousin, Chill Wills". One member of the Academy placed a response ad stating: "Dear Mr. Chill Wills, I am delighted to be your cousin but I voted for Sal Mineo. "It was signed, Groucho Marx.
RICHARD DIX (1893 - 1949)
Richard Dix was a major leading man at RKO Radio Pictures from 1929 through 1943.
In 1931 he was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar for his masterful performance in Cimarron (1931), winner of the Best Picture Oscar that year. Throughout the 1930s Dix would be a big box-office draw at RKO, appearing in mystery thrillers, potboilers, westerns and programmers. He appeared in the "Whistler" series of mystery films at Columbia in the mid-40s.
He retired from films in 1947. He first married Winifred Coe on October 20, 1931, had a daughter, Martha Mary Ellen, then divorced in 1933. He then married Virginia Webster on June 29, 1934. They had twin boys, Richard Jr. and Robert Dix and an adopted daughter, Sara Sue. Richard Dix the actor, died at age 56 on September 20, 1949.
GENE LOCKHART (1891 - 1957)
Lockhart appeared in over 125 films. Though he often played upright doctors, judges and businessmen, and was in real life described as an amiable and gentle soul, Lockhart is perhaps best remembered on film as a villain who usually ends up cowering in a corner whimpering pitifully before getting his just desserts, a scene he played to the hilt in such movies as Algiers (1938) (for which he was nominated for an Oscar), Blackmail (1939), Geronimo (1939), Northern Pursuit (1943), and Hangmen Also Die! (1943). He was outstanding as the soused doctor in "The Sea Wolf".
Late on Saturday, March 30, 1957, Lockhart suffered a heart attack while sleeping in his apartment at 10439 Ashton Avenue in West Los Angeles. He was taken to St. John's Hospital and died on Sunday afternoon, March 31. He is buried in Holy Cross Cemetery.
Father, with actress Kathleen Lockhart, of actress June Lockhart. The three appeared together in A Christmas Carol (1938).
