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- Franz Kafka was born into a German-speaking Jewish family in Prague, Austrian Empire, in 1883. His father, Hermann Kafka, was a business owner and a domestic tyrant, frequently abusing his son. Kafka later admitted to his father, "My writing was all about you...". He believed that his father broke his will and caused insecurity and guilt, that affected his whole life. Their tensions come out in "The Trial" and in "The Castle" in form of a hopeless conflict with an overwhelming force. His mother, Julie Lowy, came from an intellectual, spiritual family of the Jewish merchant and brewer Jakob Lowy. Although her influence was diminished by his dominating father, she shared her son's delicate nature. Kafka had a few relationships with women and was engaged, but never made a family.
He finished the German National Gymnasium in 1901, and graduated from the German University in Prague as Doctor of Law in 1906. He worked for insurance companies for the rest of his life. His profession shaped the formal, cold language of his writings which avoided any sentimental interpretations, leaving it to the reader. In 1908 Kafka published eight short stories compiled under the title "Meditation". In 1911 he became interested in Yiddish theater, that absorbed him more than abstract Judaism. In 1912 he began writing "The Judgment", which was more than an autobiography, providing a therapeutical outlet for his wrecked soul. The same year he started "Metamorphosis" about a traveling salesman, who transformed into a giant bug. In 1914 he wrote "In the Penal Colony" and "The Trial", which is regarded to be his best work. His style remains unique, though literary connections may be traced to Edgar Allan Poe, E.T.A. Hoffmann and Nikolay Gogol, as well as to Chinese parables, to the Bible and Talmud.
As a Jew Kafka experienced social tensions and isolation from the German community, so very few of his writings could find readers during his life. His three sisters later died in the Nazi concentration camps. He suffered from clinical depression, social anxiety, insomnia, and tuberculosis, complicated by laryngitis, that caused him the loss of his voice before his death in 1924. He was comforted by his girlfriend Dora Diamant, who had broken away from her Hasidic shtetl in Poland. She was 19 when they met in 1923 and Kafka wrote to her parents, asking for their permission to marry her. Their answer was negative, because Kafka presented himself as a non-religious Jew. He asked Dora to destroy his manuscripts after his death, but she kept about 20 notebooks of his writings and 35 private letters, that were reportedly confiscated by the Gestapo in 1933 and are not yet recovered. His university friend Max Brod became his editor, biographer and literary agent, who preserved and published most of Kafka's works posthumously, including the unfinished novels "The Trial", "The Castle", and "America". - Joseph Conrad was born in Berdichev, Kiev Province, now the Ukraine, to Polish parents Apollo Korzeniowski and Ewa Bobrowska. His father was a political activist and he and his family were exiled after he was suspected of involvement with revolutionary activities. Conrad had no friends as a child and rarely associated with boys or girls. His mother had always been a sickly person and died of tuberculosis in 1865. Conrad's father sent him to live with his uncle and pursue his education in France. Conrad's father died in 1869, also of tuberculosis. Conrad became an officer on British ships and spent two decades on various ships. Conrad was inspired to write "Heart of Darkness" after voyaging to Congo in 1890. In 1894, Conrad published his first novel and in 1896 he married Jessie George, an on-again off-again girlfriend. Conrad had few friends in adulthood, mainly fellow authors such as Stephen Crane and Henry James. Conrad died of a heart attack in 1924.
- Producer
- Additional Crew
- Director
Thomas H. Ince was born into a family of stage actors. He appeared on the stage at age six and worked with a number of stock companies, making his Broadway debut at 15. Vaudeville work was inconsistent, so he was a lifeguard, a promoter and part-time actor. His stage career was a failure but by 1910 he joined Biograph, and after one film, Carl Laemmle's Independent Motion Pictures hired Ince as a director. Ince went to Cuba to make films out of the reach of the Motion Pictures Patent Company -- the trust that attempted to crush all independent production companies and corner the market on film production -- but his output was small. In 1911 he joined the New York Motion Picture Corp. [NYMPC] and headed to California to make Westerns. Ince insisted that all scripts be thoroughly planned out before filming began, which would give him the opportunity to film several scenes at the same time with assistant directors. One of those directors was Francis Ford, the brother of John Ford.
In 1912, NYMPC and other independent studios merged to form Universal Pictures. Ince built a city of motion picture "sets" on a stretch of land in Santa Monica Mountains called "Inceville" where he shot many of the outdoor locales for his films. At the end of 1912, Ince hired William Desmond Taylor to act in his film Counterfeiters (1914). In 1913 Ince made over 150 films, mostly Westerns and Civil War dramas. He would also employ directors Frank Borzage, Fred Niblo, Jack Conway, and Henry King. In 1914 Ince hired William S. Hart as an actor who could also direct his own films. Ince made the epic The Battle of Gettysburg (1913) and thereafter concentrated on longer films as he moved from director to producer. He employed thousands of technicians and made movies on an assembly-line method. In 1915 he joined D.W. Griffith and Mack Sennett to form the Triangle Motion Picture Company built in Culver City on Washington Boulevard (now the site of Sony Pictures). Fortunately, Hart was a profitable star who kept the company afloat. In 1916 Ince produced and directed the anti-war film Civilization (1915), which cost $100,000 and returned $800.000. Always looking for new talent, Ince signed Olive Thomas, the rising young star of the Ziegfeld Midnight Frolic, to star in his films.
At the end of World War I, Ince broke with Triangle and joined his nemesis Adolph Zukor to form Paramount/Artcraft and built yet another studio in Culver City which had a southern mansion facade of Mount Vernon (and later was bought by David O. Selznick). Ince developed a series of comedies pairing Douglas MacLean and Doris May, and their first picture, 23 1/2 Hours' Leave (1919), was successful. When William S. Hart's contract ended, however, he left the company and Zukor forced Ince out of Paramount/Artcraft. In December 1919 Thomas Ince, Mack Sennett, Marshall Neilan, Maurice Tourneur, Allan Dwan and other directors joined to form Associated Producers, an independent film alliance. 'Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle' had been approached, but he had no desire to join the group. In 1922 Associated Producers merged with First National. On February 1, 1922, Paramount director William Desmond Taylor was shot to death in his bungalow and one of the suspects, although never a serious one, was Mack Sennett, who stated that he spent the night at the home of Ince.
In 1924 Ince was one of several Hollywood people aboard the yacht of newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst when he suddenly fell ill. Ince was rushed aboard a train bound for Del Mar where his wife, her son, and a physician met him and accompanied him home where he died. The Los Angeles Times supposedly released the headline "Movie producer Shot on Hearst yacht!" but other papers including the New York Times said that Ince died of heart failure. One of the stories that sensationalized Ince's sudden death said that Hearst shot Ince and that the bullet wasn't meant for Ince but for Charles Chaplin, whom Hearst had long suspected of carrying on a secret affair with his mistress, actress Marion Davies. Supposedly, Hearst inadvertently walked into Davies' cabin and caught her and Chaplin in bed together and fired several shots, missing Chaplin but hitting Ince. Another rumor circulated that columnist Louella Parsons was also on board that day and witnessed the shooting, although other sources say Parsons was in New York at the time. Supposedly, in exchange for keeping quiet, Hearst promised Parsons a lifetime job as the Hollywood reporter for his newspaper chain (she was already employed by Hearst in 1923 as a reporter). Ince biographers have disputed the Hearst conspiracy and argued that Ince had been ill for some time with ulcers and had suffered from angina with a previous heart attack.- Writer
- Additional Crew
Born in Manchester, England on November 24 1849, Frances Eliza Hodgson was the eldest daughter in a family of two boys and three girls. After her father's death when she was three years old, the Hodgsdons experienced severe financial difficulties. As a young girl, she would scrawl little stories on sheets of old notebooks, as she was unable to afford proper writing materials. In 1865 the family moved to Tennessee where they lived in a log cabin and the teenage Frances set up a little school. She began submitting stories to women's magazines and in a time when most women did not have careers, Frances Eliza Hodgsdon was a literary success. In 1873 she married Dr. Swan Burnett and they had two sons -- Lionel, born 1874, and Vivian, born 1876 -- but the marriage was not a happy one. Her younger son, Vivian, clamoured for something for little boys to read, so Frances wrote "Little Lord Fauntleroy" and modeled the main character after him. In 1890 tragedy struck when her eldest son, Lionel, died of influenza. Frances and Swan separated and finally divorced in 1898, and she went on to remarry Stephen Townshend. Frances moved to Long Island, New York in 1901 and there began to write her two most famous stories -- "A Little Princess" and "The Secret Garden", inspired by her poor childhood and her love for gardening. She became rather eccentric in her old age, but delighted in her grandchildren. Frances Hodgson Burnett died on 29 October 1924.- Additional Crew
- Writer
- Actor
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (22 April 1870 - 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin, was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1924 and of the Soviet Union from 1922 to 1924. Under his administration, Russia, and later the Soviet Union, became a one-party socialist state governed by the Communist Party. Ideologically a Marxist, his developments to the ideology are called Leninism.- Music Department
- Composer
- Soundtrack
Gabriel-Urbian Faure was born May 12, 1845, in Pamires, Mid-Pyrenees, France. He was the youngest of 6 children born to Toussaint and Marie Faure. From the age of 9 he studied piano and organ with Camille Saint-Saëns at the Ecole Niedermeyer. Saint-Saene encouraged young Faure to play piano music by Franz Liszt. In 1865 Faure was awarded first prize for composition, for his 'Cantique de Jean Racine', opus 11. In 1870 he served in the army during the Franco-Prussian war, and during the Paris Commune he was a music teacher in Switzerland, where his school Ecole Niedermeyer was relocated. Back in Paris he became organist at Saint-Sulpice.
Faure became a regular at the salon of Camille Saint-Saëns and the salon of Pauline Garcia-Viardot. There he met many prominent Parisian intellectuals: writers Gustave Flaubert and Ivan Turgenev, composers Hector Berlioz and Georges Bizet. With those contacts Faure initiated the formation of the 'Societe Nationale Musique' around the figure of Camille Saint-Saëns. Faure also took over the position of organist at the Eglise de la Madeleine in 1877, when Saint-Saens retired. At that time Faure became engaged to Marianne Viardot, the daughter of Pauline Viardot, but the engagement was broken off by Marianne.
Faure was sincerely in love, but heartbroken and so depressed, that he could not stay in the same salon. He canceled all social obligations and left Paris for a long journey. He went to Weimar, where he met Franz Liszt and expressed his gratitude by playing his own compositions to Liszt. Then Faure traveled to Cologne to listen to the operas of Richard Wagner, whom he admired. Faure's impressions from 'Der Ring des Nibelungen' were strong, but not enough to influence his own compositions.
Back in Paris he renewed his activity at 'Societe Nationale Musique'. He married Marie Frement in 1883, and the couple had two sons. He had to support his family. The lack of any musical success kept him working as the organist at the Eglise de la Madeleine, and also teaching piano and harmony, which took up all his time. His own compositions were sold to his publisher at 50 francs per piece with thw copyright. At that time Faure composed the exquisitely delicate 'Requiem' (1888), his most important choral work. He could not find a venue to perform his large-scale compositions. That made him even more depressed.
After ten years of hardship, Faure finally got promoted to the government position of the Inspector of Music Conservatoires in the French provinces. In 1896 he became chief organist at the Eglise de la Madeleine. He also replaced Jules Massenet as professor of composition at the Conservatoire de Paris. His students there included Maurice Ravel, Nadia Boulanger, George Enescu, and Charles Koechlin, who later orchestrated Faure's popular suite 'Pelleas et Melisande'. In 1890s Faure wrote piano duet 'Dolly Suite' and a vocal piece 'La bonne chanson' for Emma Bardac, the wife of Claude Debussy.
From 1905 to 1920 Faure was the powerful director of the Conservatoire de Paris. He made some reforms and dismissed unnecessary stuff for the purpose of rational spending of the funding from the government. His song opera 'Penelope' (1913) is noteworthy. His works of the late years were affected by his hearing loss, which inevitably caused his retirement. He was the music critic at Le Figaro from 1903-1921. Faure died from pneumonia on November 4, 1924, and was laid to rest in the Cemetiere de Passy in Paris.- Kate Lester was born on 12 June 1857 in Souldham Trope, England, UK. She was an actress, known for The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923), The Gay Lord Quex (1919) and His Royal Highness (1918). She died on 12 October 1924 in Hollywood, California, USA.
- Music Department
- Composer
- Writer
After initial music training in his hometown, he began further studies at the Milan Conservatory under A. Bazzini and A. Ponchielli. In 1884 Puccini celebrated the performance of his first opera "Le Villi" in Milan. The success of the romantic piece earned him a contract with the publisher Giulio Ricordi. In 1989, his second, also romantic opera, "Edgar," was a failure. In contrast, "Manon Lescaut" was enthusiastically received by the Turin audience in 1893. The opera revealed Puccini's artistic touch for the first time. After this first masterpiece, the composer created "La Bohème", which premiered in 1896, a highly acclaimed piece that was internationally received as a prototype of Italian opera at the end of the 19th century. "Madame Butterfly" also became a success, first in Turin in 1904 and then worldwide. "La fanciulla del West" was performed in New York in 1910. Thanks to their outstanding originality, Puccini's operas founded a musical theater that conquered its place in international opera culture alongside those of Giuseppe Verdi and Richard Wagner and has retained it to this day. The master's final work remained unfinished.
Giacomo Puccini died on November 29, 1924 in Brussels. Shortly before that, the composer had been appointed to the Italian Senate. The opera "Turandot" was completed posthumously by the composer Franco Alfano and was first performed in Milan in 1926.- E. Nesbit was born on 15 August 1858 in London, England, UK. E. was a writer, known for Masterpiece (1971), The Railway Children Return (2022) and The Phoenix and the Magic Carpet (1995). E. was married to Thomas Tucker and Hubert Bland. E. died on 4 May 1924 in New Romney, Kent, England, UK.
- Thomas Woodrow Wilson was an American politician and academic who served as the 28th president of the United States from 1913 to 1921. A member of the Democratic Party, Wilson served as the president of Princeton University and as the governor of New Jersey before winning the 1912 presidential election. As president, Wilson changed the nation's economic policies and led the United States into World War I in 1917. He was the leading architect of the League of Nations, and his progressive stance on foreign policy came to be known as Wilsonianism.
- Ben Deeley, also known as J. Bernard Deeley and N. Bernard Deeley, according to various sources, grew up in Folsom, California. As a teenager, he competed to sign up 100 subscribers to the Sacramento Bee, which would earn him a free bicycle. He entered vaudeville in the 1900s, appearing in several blackface acts. For sixteen years, he wore blackface as the title character in an act entitled "The New Bell Boy." He also wrote the lyrics to several songs, including "The Alamo Rag" and "We've Kept the Golden Rule." Deeley entered films in 1914, beginning with comedy shorts. In early 1924, he returned to vaudeville, again in a blackface act.
He met his first wife, Maria Wayne, while doing vaudeville in Los Angeles. But they separated, and Wayne entered films. Deeley divorced her in Chicago, citing abandonment. He had already met actress Barbara La Marr, and they had appeared in a vaudeville act together. He married La Marr in New Jersey in 1918. But this marriage was also doomed. La Marr had married Philip Ainsworth in 1916, but they soon sued each other for divorce. Ainsworth was then sent to San Quentin, after passing bad checks. Eight months later, La Marr married Deeley. La Marr then contended her marriage to Deeley was not legal since she had not lived a year in Illinois. They separated, and La Marr filed for divorce, but eventually dropped the suit. She then sought an annulment, which was granted in 1920. Things got worse for Deeley when an attorney, Herman Roth, was arrested on extortion charges. The lawyer had threatened La Marr, telling her he planned to amend a divorce complaint he had filed on behalf of Deeley so as to include seven names of prominent film personalities (including Roscoe Arbuckle) as correspondents. Before these issues could be straightened out, Deeley died of double pneumonia in Los Angeles, on September 23, 1924. He was 46. - Charles Pacific (Chick) Morrison was born on April 3, 1878 at Morrison, Colorado, USA, the son of Tom Morrison. Upon reaching adulthood Chick Morrison was a familiar figure throughout the western cattle country, being an expert cowboy as a trainer of animals, especially horses. Morrison often appeared in rodeos and riding contests, and at his Morrison home trained horses for trick and fancy riding as well as breaking wild horses.
In 1909 the Selig company came to Morrison to film some of their famous "Broncho Billy" series of two-reel thrillers. Chick Morrison gained director Gilbert M. "Broncho Billy" Anderson's attention with his daring and expert horsemanship and his control over the animals, and Morrison was hired to double for the leading man in some of the more dangerous scenes. From that time on Morrison rapidly grew in prominence in the movie industry, moving to California with the Selig company. Morrison was rapidly advanced to playing leads, and his expertise as an animal trainer brought him into great demand for training animals for some of the largest pictures yet made. Later Morrison went to the Universal company, and then the Hal Roach company. While under contract to Hal Roach in Los Angeles Morrison was killed in production on June 20, 1924 when his favorite horse, Young Steamboat, fell over backwards upon him while a riding sequence was being filmed, killing Morrison instantly. Young Steamboat had been trained with difficulty in Morrison and had been known to be especially wild.
Brother Pete Morrison was another prominent Hollywood actor, and brothers Carl and Bob, and father Tom, were also connected with the movie industry and lived in Los Angeles. - Director
- Cinematographer
William Matthew Tilghman served as a lawman for 35 years. In his career he rode with the Earps, was a lawman in Dodge City, Kansas, and battled the Dalton gang and the Wild Bunch. In the early 1900s he became fed up with the way Hollywood glamorized the outlaws of the west and, along with his friends E.D. Nix and Chris Madsen, set out to make a movie of how it really was back then. They starred in the film, Passing of the Oklahoma Outlaws (1915), as themselves and arranged to have a member of the Dalton gang named Arkansas Tom released from prison to act as a technical consultant. They met with some difficulty in getting the film shown--theater owners didn't want to show it because there were no name actors in it. Hollywood told them to put Tom Mix in it if they wanted it to sell, but Tilghman refused.
In 1924, some businessmen from the town of Cromwell, Oklahoma, contacted Tilghman, hoping to persuade him to accept the position of town sheriff. Cromwell was a virtual cesspool of crime: bootlegging, gambling and prostitution (many of the prostitutes being underage) were among the illegal activities going on, all under the protection of a corrupt federal Prohibition agent named Wiley Lynn. Cromwell was a booming oil town, and its citizens wanted Tilghman to run the "bad element" out of town in order to preserve its future; they didn't want the town to dry up when the oil did. Tilghman was reluctant at first, but finally took the job and promised to clean up the town. He made good on his promises, closing down gambling houses, arresting bootleggers and moonshiners and sending the prostitutes home to their families. This upset those in town who were running the various crime rings, including Wiley Lynn. One night as Tilghman was having dinner with friends at Ma Murphy's restaurant, Lynn showed up. He claimed he had a warrant, and was coming in to clear out the underage girls who worked there, dancing with lonely men. He was brandishing a pistol, and according to witnesses was either drunk or high on cocaine. As Tilghman and his deputy attempted to disarm Lynn, he pulled out a .22-caliber pistol and shot Tilghman in the mid-section. He escaped, while Tilghman lay dying on the boardwalk. A doctor was summoned, and a friend fetched Tilghman's young wife and children. The doctor was unable to save him, and Tilghman died on a table in Ma Murphy's, surrounded by his friends and family (in 1925 Wiley Lynn was tried for and acquitted of Tilghman's murder, but was dismissed from federal service. In 1932 he was shot and killed by an agent of the Oklahoma Bureau of Investigation).- Actress
- Writer
Eleonora Duse was born on 3 October 1858 in Vigevano, Lombardy, Italy. She was an actress and writer, known for Cenere (1917). She was married to Tebaldo Marchetti. She died on 21 April 1924 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA.- Director
- Writer
- Actor
Louis Delluc was born on 14 October 1890 in Le Buisson-de-Cadouin, Dordogne, France. He was a director and writer, known for Fumée noire (1920), L'inondation (1924) and The Woman from Nowhere (1922). He was married to Ève Francis. He died on 22 March 1924 in Paris, France.- Eva May was born Eva Maria Mandel on May 29, 1902 in Vienna, Austria. Her mother was actress Mia May and her father was producer and director Joe May. Eva made her film debut in her father's 1914 German film The Black Triangle. At the age of sixteen she married director Erik Lund. The couple worked together in numerous films including The Foolish Heart, Black Pearls, and The Bride Of The Incapacitated. She was directed by her father again in the 1920 drama The Legend Of Holly Simplicity,. The press called her "The German Mary Pickford". Unfortunately Eva developed a reputation for being difficult to work with. The young actress was also jealous of her mother's beauty and greater success. She divorced Erik in 1922 and married director Lothar Mendes. They split up a year later.
In 1923 she costarred with Lya De Putti in Die Fledermaus and with Conrad Veidt in Paganini. Her third marriage, to director Manfred Noa, only lasted a few months. Eva started dating producer Rudolf Sieber. When he left her for Marlene Dietrich she slashed her wrists. It was one of several suicide attempts she had made. Then she fell in love with director Fritz Mandl (who was also her second cousin). She was devastated when he refused to marry her. On September 10, 1924 the twenty-two year old committed suicide by shooting herself in the head. In her hand she clutched a photo of Fritz Mandl. Eva left a note that said "Fritz family object - always there is something to mar my happiness - Life is not worth living". Thousands of friends and fans attended her funeral in Vienna. She was cremated and her ashes were given to her parents. - Writer
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Born the daughter of a Methodist minister, Gene was the youngest of 12 children. Gene got her start when she sent bird and animal photographs to "Recreation" magazine. The magazine was so impressed, they asked her to write for them. She also wrote for "Outing" magazine. At this point, she turned to writing fiction.- Eugen Nilsson was born on 18 October 1885. He was an actor, known for Löjen och tårar (1924), Samhällets dom (1912) and Dan, tant och lilla fröken Söderlund (1924). He died on 5 September 1924 in Stockholm, Stockholms län, Sweden.
- Barney Bernard was born on 17 August 1876 in Rochester, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for Potash and Perlmutter (1923), Phantom Fortunes (1916) and A Prince in a Pawnshop (1916). He was married to Rose Francis. He died on 21 March 1924 in New York City, New York, USA.
- Lois Scott was born on 2 June 1900 in Cleveland, Ohio, USA. She was an actress, known for The Virgin (1924), The White Panther (1924) and Berlin Via America (1918). She was married to Mulford, Alfred A.. She died on 2 September 1924 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Actor
- Additional Crew
Arthur White was born on 11 September 1881 in England, UK. He was an actor, known for The Pickwick Papers (1913), The Pickwick Papers (Part Three) (1913) and Take Me Out to the Ball Game (1910). He was married to Delia J. McGrath. He died on 27 September 1924 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Actor
- Director
- Writer
Camillo De Riso was born on 20 November 1854 in Naples, Kingdom of the Two Sicilies [now Campania, Italy]. He was an actor and director, known for Nanà (1917), La principessa (1917) and Armiamoci e... partite! (1915). He died on 2 April 1924 in Rome, Lazio, Italy.- Music Department
- Writer
- Composer
Every professional recording artist today owes their livelihood to some degree to Victor Herbert. Working closely with John Philip Sousa, Irving Berlin and others, he was the driving force in founding the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) on February 13, 1914. He became its vice-president and director until his death in 1924. The organization has historically worked to protect the rights of creative musicians and continues to do this work today. In 1917, Herbert won a landmark lawsuit before the United States Supreme Court that gave composers, through ASCAP, a right to charge performance fees for the public performance of their music. Herbert was born in Dublin, Ireland to Protestants Edward Herbert (d. 1861) and Fanny Herbert (née Lover). At age three and a half, shortly after the death of his father, young Herbert and his mother moved to live with his maternal grandparents in London, England, where he received encouragement in his creative endeavours. His grandfather was the Irish novelist, playwright, poet and composer Samuel Lover. The Lovers welcomed a steady flow of musicians, writers and artists to their home. Herbert joined his mother in Stuttgart, Germany in 1867, a year after she had married a German physician, Carl Schmidt of Langenargen. In Stuttgart, he received a strong liberal education at the Eberhard-Ludwigs-Gymnasium, which included musical training. Herbert had ambitions to become a physician himself, but medical education in Germany was prohibitively expensive and he fell back on his first real interest as a child, music. Initially studying the piano, flute and piccolo, he ultimately settled on the cello, beginning studies on that instrument with Bernhard Cossmann from age 15 to 18. Herbert then attended the Stuttgart Conservatory. After studying cello, music theory and composition under Max Seifritz, Herbert graduated with a diploma in 1879. He was engaged professionally as a player in concerts in Stuttgart. His first orchestra position was as a flute and piccolo player, but he soon turned solely to the cello. By the time he was 19, Herbert had received engagements as a soloist with several major German orchestras. He played in the orchestra of the wealthy Russian Baron Paul von Derwies for a few years and, in 1880, was a soloist for a year in the orchestra of Eduard Strauss in Vienna. Herbert joined the court orchestra in Stuttgart in 1881, where he remained for the next five years. There he composed his first pieces of instrumental music, playing the solos in the premieres of his first two large-scale works, the Suite for cello and orchestra, Op. 3 (1893) and the Cello Concerto No. 1, Op. 8. In 1883, Herbert was selected by Johannes Brahms to play in a chamber orchestra for the celebration of the life of Franz Liszt, then 72 years old, near Zurich. In 1885 Herbert became romantically involved with Therese Förster (1861-1927), a soprano who had recently joined the court opera for which the court orchestra played. Förster sang several leading roles at the Stuttgart Opera in 1885 through the summer of 1886. After a year of courtship, the couple married on August 14, 1886. On October 24, 1886, they moved to the United States, as they both had been hired by Walter Damrosch and Anton Seidl to join the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. Herbert was engaged as the opera orchestra's principal cellist, and Förster was engaged to sing principal roles with the Met. During the voyage to America, Herbert and his wife became friends with their fellow passenger and future conductor at the Metropolitan Opera, Anton Seidl, and other singers joining the Met.
Herbert was a prolific composer, producing two operas, one cantata, 43 operettas, incidental music to 10 stage productions, 31 compositions for orchestra, nine band compositions, nine cello compositions, five violin compositions with piano or orchestra, 22 piano compositions, one flute and clarinet duet with orchestra, numerous songs, including many for the Ziegfeld Follies, and other works, 12 choral compositions, and numerous orchestrations of works by other composers, among other compositions. Some of his best-known works were created for Broadway working with the even more prolific librettist Harry B. Smith. Many of his Broadway productions, such as The Red Mill (1906), Sweethearts (1913), Sally (1920) and Orange Blossoms (1921) were major hits, while others, such as When Sweet Sixteen (1911) were financial disasters. Herbert also composed The Fall of a Nation (1916), one of the first original orchestral scores for a full-length film (a credit often erroneously given to Max Steiner while working for Radio Pictures in the 1930's). The score was thought to be lost, but it turned up in the film-music collection of the Library of Congress. It was given a recording in 1987. During the last years of his career, was frequently asked to compose ballet music for the elaborate production numbers in Broadway revues and the shows of Irving Berlin and Jerome Kern, among others. Throughout his career he was regarded as extremely unpretentious and supportive of his peers. He was also a contributor to the Ziegfeld Follies every year from 1917 to 1924 (see 'Other Works').
As a composer, Herbert is chiefly remembered for his operettas. Of his instrumental works, only a few remained consistently within the concert repertoire after Herbert's death in 1924. However, some of his forgotten works have enjoyed a resurgence of popularity within the last few decades. A statue of him commissioned by ASCAP, by sculptor Edmund Thomas Quinn (1868-1929) was dedicated in 1927 still stands in New York City's Central Park.- William J. Gross was born in August 1838 in Louisville, Kentucky, USA. He was an actor, known for The Blue Bird (1918), The Plunderer (1915) and To Hell with the Kaiser! (1918). He was married to Julia Parker. He died on 12 April 1924 in Brooklyn, New York, USA.
- Actor
- Director
William H. Brown was born on 16 August 1866 in Northampton, Massachusetts, USA. He was an actor and director, known for Hoodoo Ann (1916), Cheerful Givers (1917) and The Kinship of Courage (1915). He was married to Lucille Browne. He died on 3 February 1924 in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA.