Today would have been the 99th birthday of Ann Dvorak who was born in New York City on August 2, 1911.  Happy B-Day Ann-D!

Today marks the 30th anniversary of Ann Dvorak’s passing. The actress who had appeared in over fifty films, traveled the world, and risked her life contributing to the war effort in the UK, died in obscurity in Honolulu at the age of 68.

When I first became interested in Ann, over ten years ago, I was hard pressed to find others who had heard of her, let alone seen any of her films. While Ann is still unknown to many, as more and more of her movies become available on DVD, I have noticed a greater awareness of this amazing actress, which is encouraging. Ann was sensitive about her contributions to film being forgotten, and I think she would be pleased by the rediscovery of her talents, and appreciation of her pre-Code performances.

Take a break from the madness of the holidays today, pop on a Dvorak film, and pay tribute to this talented gal.

Today would have been the 98th birthday of Ann Dvorak who was born in New York City on August 2, 1911.  Happy B-Day Ann-D!

On December 10, 1979, Ann Dvorak passed away at age 68 from complications due to stomach cancer.

At the time of her death, Ann had lived on Oahu for twenty years, and been widowed for five (she actually outlived all three of her husbands).  She had been a successful film actress, starred on Broadway, traveled the world, and survived life in London during World War II. For all her achievements, she died in relative obscurity and on a very fixed income, having had all of her money squandered by her last husband. Her ashes were spread off Waikiki Beach.

Yes,  this was a crummy end to a rather extraordinary life, but at least she left behind a tangible legacy of great film performances. Instead of pondering the sad circumstances of her final days, pop Three on a Match, G Men, or Scarface in the DVD player and enjoy the enormous talents of Ann Dvorak.

On August 2, 1911, Ann Dvorak…was born!

It was a Wednesday in New York City when the only child of vaudevillians Anna Lehr and Edwin McKim was introduced to world under the name Anna McKim. Since Ann’s birth did not make headlines, I am including a snippet of the front page of the New York Times on August 2, which reveals that there was a runaway horse buggy on Fifth Avenue and that financing was found to begin construction on the Woolworth Building.

I am currently slogging my way through chapter one of the Ann Dvorak biography (feel free to write harsh emails berating me for extreme procrastination), and have been putting together the early careers of Anna Lehr and Edwin McKim. Last night, I realized that a mere two and a half months before Dvorak was born, her mom was still performing on stage in Washington D.C. in all her pregnant glory. It’s no wonder Ann would pursue a career in showbiz, since her prenatal care included a healthy dose of audience applause.

So, If you get a chance, pop an Ann Dvorak movie in the DVD or VHS player and pay tribute to Ann on what would have been her 97th birthday!

On Wednesday March 16, 1932, Ann Dvorak wrapped up shooting on Love is a Racket and was allowed to leave Warner Brothers early. The next morning she hopped a plane to Yuma, Arizona and by the afternoon had become Mrs. Leslie Fenton. The couple then traveled to Agua Caliente, a resort in Tijuana, Mexico for a brief celebration. When reports started surfacing that a small plane had crashed near El Centro, the worst was feared, but the happy couple finally arrived safe and sound back in Los Angeles by night’s end.

Dvorak had briefly met Leslie Fenton on New Years’s Eve and a month or so later was cast opposite him in The Strange Love of Molly Louvain. At the time of their nuptials, the couple had known each other less than three months. Fenton was ten years her senior and had walked out on a very promising film career in 1929 in order to travel abroad. Three months after their wedding day, he would convince his impressionable bride to do the same, irritating her bosses at Warner Bros who had just finalized the purchase of her contract from Howard Hughes.

Although Dvorak returned to Warner Bros in mid-1933 and would act in films through 1951, the momentum her film career had in 1932 would never be equaled. While a European honeymoon sounds dreadfully romantic, I sometimes cannot help but rail at Leslie Fenton and his influencing Ann to thumb her nose at the Brothers Warner. Who knows what film roles she would have gotten had she just played nice for a couple of years! As for the Fenton union, it would last until 1946 when the divorce was made final after a two year separation.

This concludes This Day in Ann Dvorak History.

Ann Dvorak is known to movie buffs as a leading lady of the 1930s/1940s, but she actually made her film debut on February 7, 1916, when Ramona premiered at Clune’s Auditorium in Downtown Los Angeles.

Based on the immensely popular novel by Helen Hunt Jackson, Ramona was a major production directed by Donald Crisp and filmed at various locations around Southern California. I am not sure how a four-year-old Ann Dvorak became involved, but since her mother was acting in westerns at the time, it must have been a family connection that got the youngster the role.

This heavily romanticized tale set in California after the Mexican-American War, period had previously been filmed in 1910 as a 17 minute short by D.W. Griffith. The 1916 version ran around 12 reels (about as long as The Birth of a Nation), and was highly anticipated, esp by Southern California residents who looked upon the story as almost local mythology. Despite being completely fictional, the movie was shot on locations described in the book, many which became draws for tourists wanting to witness where Ramona lived and breathed.

Credited as “Baby Anna Lehr,” Dvorak portrayed the title character as a child in the prologue. Despite a limited amount of screen time the youngster received rave reviews. The day after the premiere, the Los Angeles Evening Herald proclaimed:

“Of all the Ramonas, the most charming and heart luring is the child of four, played with rare childish artistry by little Miss Anna Lehr. Probably the most disappointing feature of the entire production is the fact that this sweet youth remains on the canvas only a few brief moments.”

A couple of weeks later, another local paper ran a feature on the actress, complete with a portrait and the headline “Anna Lehr Great Hit in Ramona.” Unfortunately, we will probably never get the chance to see if Ann’s film debut lived up to the hype, as only reel #5 is known to exist (I think at the Library of Congress).

On a side note, Clune’s Auditorium, located on the corner of 5th and Olive in Downtown Los Angeles, was originally the Temple Baptist Church. William Clune leased the 2,700 seat theatre from roughly 1915-1920 before it became home to the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Commonly known as the Auditorium Building, the location has been a parking lot since the mid-1980s and will soon feature an overpriced condominium complex.

This concludes This Day in Ann Dvorak History.

On January 15, 1932, the film going public was officially introduced to Ann Dvorak when Sky Devils debuted at the United Artists Theatre in Downtown Los Angeles, at Broadway & 9th.

She had appeared in three silent films as “Baby Anna Lehr” and could be found hoofing her way through twenty-five or so MGM features and shorts, but this was this first time the name Ann Dvorak appeared in a film credit (she initially worked at MGM under the name Anna Lehr). In actuality, Sky Devils was the second film Ann shot under her newly inked contract with Howard Hughes’ Caddo Company. The release of Ann’s first film, Scarface, would be delayed another two months while Hughes battled with censors. Dvorak’s role as “the inevitable girl”* in this aviation comedy pales in comparison to Cesca Comonte, her tragic character in the classic gangster flick, and it’s unfortunate that Scarface’s censorship issues prevented her career from beginning with a bang.

This concludes This Day in Ann Dvorak History.

*”United Artists Shows Hughes Sky Thriller.” Los Angeles Times, January 17, 1932