If there’s one place that’s associated with glamour it’s Hollywood. Glamour, a Scottish word meaning magic or enchantment, coined in the 1700s. But Scotland didn’t only provide the descriptive noun it provided the early motion picture industry with some of its most abiding faces.
Recently I happened to see an online publication called Far Out claim Deborah Kerr was Scotland’s first and biggest Hollywood star – she most certainly was not the first as the author of this piece would have discovered had he researched his topic and it’s doubtful she has been the biggest.
Hollywood movie-making stretches back to 1912 when film makers moved west to escape the New York’s strangle-hold on their industry by the Thomas Edison’s Motion Picture Patents Company. Over in California it was Canadians who were behind the development of Hollywood, Tinseltown. Not just any Canadians but Canadians with Scotland running through their blood and in no time lots of Scots were arriving there fascinated by the idea of a career in film.
Aberdeen’s Margaret Mann was one of 10 children and put out to work as a child. Their poverty turned the family to become economic migrants in South Africa but after a few years Margaret migrated again, this time to the west coast of the USA. There Margaret found occasional work as an extra in the recently setup Universal and Triangle studios but by 1921 had secured the role of Mrs Blomefield in the silent version of Black Beauty. In 1928 she took a lead role in John Ford’s magnificent and hugely successful silent film drama set in Germany at the outbreak of the Great War, Four Sons. Margaret was cast in the star role of Mother Bernle because of her impressive performance as Mother Machree in the 1927 movie of that name. Four Sons provided her with her first proper paid employment as a movie actress at the age of 60,
“Fancy drawing a regular pay check, even when one isn’t working! It is the first time in my life I was ever paid without earning it,” she said.
https://youtu.be/eiZweY4aK_A?si=Ehl8QkoS6q6KnvFh
Four Sons top billing
The take-home pay of an extra was unpredictable – $5 or $7.50 per appearance and as she told reporters she worked as hard for that as she did in Four Sons. There were thousands like Margaret enrolled with the Central Casting Bureau looking for that breakthrough. Margaret’s lovely, kindly face and homely appearance tended to have her typecast in mother roles but it’s fair to say throughout her years in Hollywood she played a variety of characters for her filmography was vast. When Four Sons was released Margaret was showered with praise for the “masterpiece of naturalness” of her acting and she was described as Hollywood’s latest Cinderella. It was said she did not need a skilled makeup artist to create her old lady image as “Father Time was her makeup artist, etching in her face the lines of care, and the character and spirituality which can only come from an unembittered struggle of years.” At its premier on Broadway the audience rose to its feet, cheered and applauded the Scot who was presented with bouquets of flowers for her sterling performance. Described as a film masterpiece Margaret Mann earned international acclaim for her acting.
It’s an awful irony that while Margaret Mann epitomised the mother-type on the big screen none of her own children survived beyond birth. Her successes as an actress and the adulation that came to her must have been some little consolation. Her appearance plus that “delightful Scottish burr” led to directors noticing her. Four Sons won Photoplay’s Medal of Honor for best picture for 1928 but Hollywood’s love affair with elderly women was starting to decline and in that way older women struggled to retain their cinematic appeal (a plight that did not apply to men) roles grew scarcer.
Another Aberdonian and pioneer of Hollywood silent movies was William Gillespie. He was just 44 when he died in 1938 but had appeared in 180 films, many uncredited bit parts. He was a regular comic actor in Hal Roach films most notably alongside Laurel and Hardy in many of their pictures such as Do You Love Your Wife in which he played the unfaithful husband. He was also in 60 Harold Lloyd movies and turned up in supporting roles for Charlie Chaplin and was often cast as a stuffy official or manager.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=764G3tcR5HA Do You Love Your Wife as the faithless husband
Glasgow dressmaker Mary Gordon was a young widow in her thirties with a daughter and mother in tow when she emigrated to the States after the Great War. In California she found work as a waitress in the Robertson-Cole a studio but then she began to secure bit parts in movies which led to her friendship with the director John Ford. She made seven films with him starting with Hangman’s House in 1928, a step-up from the silent short of 1925 The Dome Doctor. Mary is best remembered for her later work in maternal roles, for example, as Mrs Hudson in Sherlock Holmes’ movies but the role that became significant to her career was a nanny in The Little Minister (a James Barrie story) along with Katharine Hepburn. From the crowd of hopefuls hanging around the casting office Katherine Hepburn noticed Mary and went over to speak to her. She was so taken with Mary’s rich Glasgow accent the star persuaded director Richard Wallace to give her a screen test and played opposite her to demonstrate how well they could work together. Wallace signed up Gordon there and then for the role of Babbie the nanny for the 1924 film. Other parts came her way as a result of the film but as she got older it got harder to find work. In 1935 she read one evening that director Lloyd Bacon was struggling to fill the role of the mother, Ma O’Hara, in his movie The Irish in Us with James Cagney and Olivia de Havilland. Mary wrote him there and then and went out and posted the letter by special delivery. In the morning she phoned him and was invited to the studio, auditioned and secured the role. Mary Gordon had a strong reputation in Hollywood circles. In all she appeared in some 300 films that included Frankenstein, The Power and the Glory, Bonnie Scotland, Mutiny on the Bounty, Mary of Scotland, Mr Smith goes to Washington and Fort Apache. Her benefactor Katharine Hepburn had a little part in Mary Gordon’s success. Hepburn was a real Scottophile; proud of her Scottish name the down-to-earth film star spent many holidays in Scotland and raved about the country so much she persuaded her mother and sisters to visit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgDl37dMB-0 The Irish In Us
The man who put the Doh! into Homer Simpson’s mouth was James Finlayson. Jimmy Finlayson or Fin as he was known to his friends was a prolific screen actor familiar to audiences with his bald head, big fake moustache, his characteristic squint and outraged double takes followed by a slow burn. He was the third man in a host of Laurel and Hardy movies; their foil known for his D’ooooooh! The long D’oooooooh! was shortened to Doh! in the Simpsons.
Jimmy as the Sgt Major in Bonnie Scotland https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yh7bxj92zU
Born in Larbert in Stirlingshire 1887 teenager Jimmy Finlayson began training as a tinsmith but abandoned that to go to Edinburgh University where he caught the acting bug. Still only 24 Jimmy crossed the Atlantic in 1911 and took to the Broadway stage, in The Great Game he played a teuchter detective but the developing California movie business called and by 1916 he was in Hollywood. He worked for a couple of small studios before transferring to the Max Sennett outfit becoming one of the original Keystone Cops, usually the comic villain being pursued by the police,before moving across to Hal Roach – director of Laurel and Hardy films where his reputation was made. Jimmy Finlayson had acted in several movies with young Stan Laurel before Laurel teamed up with Oliver Hardy and when he did Jimmy was there, too, appearing in 33 of their pictures as the duo’s comic foil – for instance he was Sgt. Major Finlayson in Bonnie Scotland (Mary Gordon was Mrs Bickerdike and David Torrence was Mr Miggs). In the earliest years it was Laurel, Hardy and Finlayson, a comedy trio, but Roach decided the duo pairing was slicker as an attraction. They three remained firm friends.
Finlayson’s film career stretched from 1920 to 1951, one of his last roles was as a cabby in Royal Wedding, a bit part that was uncredited, as so many of his later appearances were. All a bit sad for a man who really was an icon of early cinema. As with many of his fellow actors he died fairly young, at 66 in 1953. He was a proud Scot and a talented piper, playing for friends. There’s a nice wee story of how one time Jimmy was returning from a holiday in Scotland – he stepped off the train at Pasadena to be greeted by his good pals Stan and Ollie dressed in kilts. Behind them a band of bagpipers who played the three amigos out of the station, a scene that created wild excitement among travellers there. Jimmy Finlayson’s attracted the headline “‘Kop’ dies”. Among those attending his funeral service at Chapel of the Pines in Los Angeles was the old Keystone Kops gang, their director Mack Sennett and Jimmy’s long-time friend from home in Scotland, Andy Clyde.
It was Jimmy Finlayson who persuaded Andy Clyde to move to America. Clyde from Blairgowrie made his screen debut in 1921 as the surveyor’s helper in On a Summer Day and soon was a regular in a host of Mack Sennett films. His filmography over the next 40 years amounted to about 300 pictures plus much television; he was California Carlson, Hopalong Cassidy’s sidekick in the series as well as being in a host of other westerns and the Lassie films. On-screen he usually appeared with a scruffy beard and mismatched clothes that belied the suave star off-screen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bq72Rg7rWBE Hopalong Cassidy
Olaf Hytten from Glasgow started out in British silent movies before moving to the States where he acted in hundreds of silents and talkies – 27 in 1934 alone. A bit typecast as a butler Olaf but his roles took in all kinds of characters. He loved the movie industry despite the erratic nature of employment of actors who weren’t major names but he was prepared to plug away and take work where he could. He was on the set of Sir Walter Raleigh for 20th Century Fox when he died, in 1955. His huge filmography includes many small uncredited appearances but he worked in some of the best movies of his day: Casablanca, A Study in Scarlet, Jane Eyre, What Every Woman Knows, The Last of the Mohicans, A Christmas Carol among his appearances in the thirties.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjXII9gq3Nw&list=PLi5s3-YiYzffNtKp0enduNMFZulIky-0n Fu Manchu
One of the first of the Scots to break into Hollywood was Alfred Bardo from Troon in Ayrshire. Having become bored as a mariner Alfred joined the Klondike gold rush and when that didn’t turn out as he hoped he tried his hand as a trapper in America’s far northwest. Unsatisfied with that he took to the saddle as a cowboy for a time before heading to Los Angeles where he was persuaded by another Scot to try the movie business. Bardo was hardly in the first flush of youth by this time but with his distinctive bearded face the Scot secured roles from Highland crofter to Turkish admiral to Hindu priest and he loved it all. At long last having tried so many jobs he had found his forte. As with the others Alfred worked with the big stars of the day such as Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin, Rudolph Valentino and Lon Chaney with whom he remained friends. He played Dorothy Dalton’s gambler father in The Lady of Red Butte, a priest in Cecill B. DeMille’s epic story of Christ, King of Kings. His old life in the Klondike held him in good stead to play a prospector in the 1919 silent western Breed of Men for Paramount Pictures. A print of the film is preserved in the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Bardo arrived in Hollywood when it was rough countryside with only a few buildings serving as studios but when he retired to Scotland to his ‘ain folk’ in 1927 Hollywood was already expanding into the huge industry that would dominate film production.
https://www.primevideo.com/detail/The-King-of-Kings/0QHQ3S60CL8WO6WOWXRKM4UHPK King of Kings
Also in at the beginning of Hollywood’s pre-talkie era was Frank Spottiswoode Aitken from Edinburgh. It was 1914 when Spottiswoode Aitken as he was known found himself one of a growing group of actors and actresses settling into the newly fledged movie community in Los Angeles. Maybe because the life didn’t offer much security Aitken took to buying land and orange groves around Los Angeles. His first film role came in a D. W. D. Griffith movie The Battle; a tale of the American Civil War. Griffith also cast him in the shamefully racist The Birth of a Nation, as Dr Cameron. Rightly condemned for its heroic portrayal of white supremacism the movie was nonetheless acclaimed for its technical innovations including its use of colour. It was the first motion picture screened in the White House. Spottiswoode’s final film appearance was as a sports writer in Frank Capra’s 1928 film The Power of the Press with Douglas Fairbanks Jr.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeMUMvHgaOg The Power of the Press
Another Edinburgh man, David Torrence, was one of 11 children. Born in 1864 his Hollywood debut didn’t come until he was about 40 but he was straight into a leading role as Michael, Duke of Strelsau in The Prisoner of Zenda in 1913. Like so many of his fellow Scots his film appearances were numerous in roles that went uncredited and paid by the day for films completed in a matter of weeks. A big man Torrence was a favourite in the role of a heavy nevertheless over the years he enjoyed a huge variety of parts such as Lord Hood in Mutiny on the Bounty with Charles Laughton and Clark Gable in 1935. David’s younger brother Ernest Torrence set out in showbusiness as a singer with the D’Oyly Carte Opera Company before accompanying David to the States before the First World War. They both took to the New York stage for a few short years until lured west to Hollywood. Ernest Torrence’s films included The Night Boat (1920) and The Hunchback of Notre Dame with Lon Chaney three years later. In the Buster Keaton classic silent movie Steamboat Bill (1928) Ernest was Buster Keaton’s pipe-smoking father. Ernest Torrence died at 54, in 1933, of complications during surgery for gallstones shortly after playing Moriarty in the 1932 movie Sherlock Holmes. Brother David lived until he was 87 and died in Los Angeles in 1951.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJbYuFdMB3U Steamboat Bill, Jr
All things Scottish appealed to the Hollywood set. Los Angeles’ oldest restaurant the Tam o’ Shanter Inn and drive-in on Los Feliz Boulevard where waitresses dressed in tartan and Tam o’ Shanters was immensely popular with Hollywood’s elite who queued up in their fancy limousines for hamburgers (the Edinburgher) with the trimmings – onions and sauce – served in huge buns or for restaurant meals with a Scottish twist such as Scotch broth. It was at the Tam (opened in 1922) they turned out to celebrate Burns Nights to dine on haggis and drink toasts to the Immortal Memory while nibbling on shortbread flown in specially from Scotland.
Hogmanay was celebrated usually by driving from one star-filled mansion to another. Katherine Hepburn made a point of visiting her friend the Scottish actor Alec Craig whose wife’s ‘delicious’ scones were her favourites. As well as the Craig scone fame Mr Craig, Alexander, was a favourite with screen audiences, sometimes typecast as a Scotsman but not entirely. Craig was Mccoy in Mutiny on the Bounty (1935) and Donal in John Ford’s Mary of Scotland in which his friend Katharine Hepburn took the title role and Angus McBain in Northern Pursuit (1943). As a jobbing actor many of Alec Craig’s appearances went uncredited such as when he was Speaker in the great film Mr Smith goes to Washington. Much like Jimmy Finlayson he often adopted a wizened expression on screen and his bald head was instantly recognisable in movie after movie. Alec Craig was a pioneer of film noir playing a defence attorney in Stranger on the Third Floor. Born in Dunfermline in 1884 Alec Craig died in 1944 and was buried near his home at Grand View Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmveQVTNd8A Northern Pursuit trailer
Six years older than Alec Craig was Donald Meek a Glaswegian who died in Los Angeles two years after Alec. Meek was another Scot who did a lot of work for Frank Capra including You Can’t Take it With You (1938), Stagecoach (1939) where he appeared as the diminutive whisky salesman, Samuel Peacock, and the very early Broken Dishes that featured a young Bette Davis (1929). As well as through his film roles Donald Meek left his mark in Hollowood’s Walk of Fame. He ended up in California via Canada after his parents emigrated there from Scotland. Donald lost his hair as a consequence of contracting yellow fever. His final movie was Magic Town starring James Stewart and Jane Wyman and during its filming Donald Meek died from leukaemia. A splendid and talented character actor he entertained in more than 800 stage and film roles.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OE-VWDsdkwM Whisky salesman in Stagecoach
Of a similar age to Donald was Joseph Ninnian Yule, born in Glasgow his parents emigrated to America when he was three months old. Yule became a burlesque and vaudeville actor under the name Joe Yule. You may have heard of his son, Ninnian Joseph Yule, whose stage name was Mickey Rooney. Yule senior was another jobbing actor who appeared in a host of uncredited character roles – The Great Ziegfeld (1936), the Thin Man series, For Me and My Gal starring Judy Garland and as Milton in the 1941 movie Billy the Kid and many more.
Someone who was slap bang in the middle of Hollywood’s motion picture phenomenon was Nora Low from Strichen in Aberdeenshire better known by the name Lorna Moon. Nora’s messy and complex life found her in Hollywood at the invitation of director Cecil B. DeMille following her candid appraisal of his silent movie starring Gloria Swanson, a society romance called Male and Female. Instead of ignoring her DeMille challenged her to write a better script for a film. She duly arrived in 1921 and was taken on to learn the craft of scripting and screenwriting at the studio that would become Paramount Pictures. Lorna took to the life like a duck to water. She enjoyed great success with screenplays for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer during the 1920s that earned the studio big bucks for movies such as the adaption of Anna Karenina in the 1927 movie, Love, starring Greta Garbo.
Lorna, having abandoned her two children on her travels, had a third child with Cecil B. DeMille’s brother William, also a movie director. The child, a boy called Richard, was brought up by Cecil and his wife as their adopted son. Lorna was a talented writer and her screen credits include Gloria Swanson’s early silent movie The Affairs of Anatol (1921) and Norma Shearer’s Upstage (1926).
Often in poor health Lorna died of tuberculosis. Her ashes were brought to Scotland and scattered on Mormond Hill near the town whose inhabitants she drew from for her series of short stories Doorways in Drumorty – a work that was banned from its local library for its biting satire of the local community. The film rights to her book Dark Star earned Lorna a great deal of money for the stories that formed the basis of the hugely successful comedy drama series Min and Bill, an early talkie, that was pre-code (Hay’s censorship code) and so more explicit than later movies were allowed to be and earned MGM a staggering $2million ($38,000,000 today) when premiered in 1930, the year Lorna died at the age of 43.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWLeqAafUjk Min and Bill preview
There are many more stories about Scots in at the beginning of the age of Hollywood but for now – that’s all folks!
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Lenathehyena's Blog from Lorna Corall Dey 