German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 1171/1, 1927-1928. Photo: Paralta / Ifa / United Artists.
A dance-hall girl who wins Charlie's heart
Georgia Theodora Hale was born in 1900 in St. Joseph, Missouri. Her parents were George Washington Hale and Laura Imbrie, and she had two older sisters, Eugenia and Helen. Her father worked as a telephone company operations manager. The family moved to a suburb of Englewood, Illinois, in 1903, where Hale would graduate from high school. In 1918, her yearbook reports that Hale, in performing the role of Ralph Rackstraw in Gilbert and Sullivan’s light opera, 'H. M. S. Pinafore', had "made her justly famous" on campus.
An aspiring singer, Hale attended a Chicago musical college in 1920, appearing in the 'Chicago Winter Follies' - her first theatrical engagement. In 1922, she won a beauty contest in Chicago, and despite strong disapproval from her father, she used the award money to go to New York City to break into the film business. Hale performed uncredited supporting roles in a number of features over the next several months.
After a brief visit to her ailing mother in Chicago in 1923, Hale left for Hollywood, California. She immediately found work as a bit player and appeared as a 'bathing beauty' in such films as The Temple of Venus (1923). As a bit player, she also acted in By Divine Right (Roy William Neill, 1924), and she danced in the chorus of Vanity's Price (Roy William Neill, 1924) starring Ann Q. Nilsson.
Josef von Sternberg was an assistant director on both of these films, and he gave Georgia her first break when he cast her for the film that he directed, The Salvation Hunters (Josef von Sternberg, 1925), opposite George K. Arthur. Though not a box office success, The Salvation Hunters was ranked among the top 10 films for 1925 by trade paper Film Mercury.
Then Charles Chaplin hired her to play the dance-hall girl Georgia, who wins Charlie's heart, in The Gold Rush (Charles Chaplin, 1925). Hale was friends with Chaplin's wife at the time, 16-year-old Lita Grey, who was originally cast in the role. When Lita became pregnant and had to drop out, Hale was handed the lead of The Gold Rush. The very successful film won Georgia instant star status.
Vintage postcard. Georgia Hale and Charlie Chaplin in The Gold Rush (Charles Chaplin, 1925).
Italian postcard by G. Vettori, Bologna, no. 3085. Photo: United Artists.
Highly personal and professional insights into Hollywood directors Chaplin and von Sternberg
Georgia Hale was signed by Paramount Pictures. Her big film with Paramount was The Great Gatsby (Herbert Brenon, 1926), based on F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic novel, where she played the role of Myrtle Wilson alongside Warner Baxter as Jay Gatsby.
But her career never went anywhere, and her last silent picture would be the film The Last Moment (Pál Fejös, 1928). Deemed unsuitable for talkies, she was one of the first to be released in 1931. Her final film was The Lightning Warrior (Benjamin H. Kline, Armand Schaefer, 1931), a Mascot serial starring Rin Tin Tin, also in his last role.
She found solace in Christian Science. She never married and remained loyal to Chaplin, who had her on his payroll on and off until 1953. She ran a dance school for a while. She also wrote her two versions of her autobiography in the 1960s, but couldn't find a publisher at the time. Hale eventually went into real estate, which made her wealthy.
She also found a companion, who had no idea of her film career, until she gave an interview about Charlie Chaplin in Kevin Brownlow and David Gill's magnificent documentary series Unknown Chaplin (Kevin Brownlow, David Gill, 1983). The documentary revealed that Hale was hired by Chaplin to replace actress Virginia Cherrill as the female lead in the film City Lights (Charles Chaplin, 1931) during a brief period after he had fired Cherrill, and before he re-hired her. Approximately seven minutes of test footage of Hale in the role survives.
Georgia Hale died in 1985 in Hollywood, at the age of 85. Her companion received most of her estate. Ten years after she died, a second version of her autobiography, which she had written in the 1960s, was more detailed than her first and would finally be published: 'Charlie Chaplin: Intimate Closeups' (1995). According to Wikipedia, it "is one of the few accounts that provide highly personal and professional insights into Hollywood directors Chaplin and von Sternberg."
Italian postcard by G. Vettori, Bologna, no. 3080. Photo: Paralta L.A. / United Artists.
Italian postcard by G. Vettori, Bologna, no. 3089. Photo: Paralta L.A. / United Artists.
Sources: Tony Fontana (IMDb), Wikipedia (French, German and English), and IMDb.
No comments:
Post a Comment