March 9: Granville Redmond (1871-1935)

[Image description: black-and-white photo of two men, facing each other; on the left, artist Granville Redmond; on the right, actor Charlie Chaplin in his trademark costume; Chaplin appears to be signing to Redmond. Redmond has a pen in one hand and a cigar in the other. Found here.]





Well, a Temple U. blog should certainly take note of a prominent deaf Philadelphian's birthday, no?

Granville Redmond was born on this date in 1871, in Philadelphia. He became deaf after surviving scarlet fever when he was a very small child. Perhaps in recognition of young Granville's educational needs, his parents moved the family to San Jose, California, so the boy could attend the Berkeley School for the Deaf.

Granville Redmond was a student at the Berkeley school for eleven years (1879-1890). He was found to be a gifted artist and encouraged to develop his talents at the school. After graduating, he attended the California School of Design in San Francisco, where he was an award-winning student. From 1893 to 1898, Redmond worked and studied in Paris. When he returned to the US, he went to paint beach scenes near Los Angeles, and married a deaf woman, Carrie Ann Jean. They had three children together. Redmond gained a solid reputation as California's first resident Impressionist painter.

So what's with the photo above? Well, Redmond and Charlie Chaplin became friends in Los Angeles (a much smaller town then, of course). Chaplin, being a silent film star, was always interested in visual communication, and wanted Redmond to help him learn how ASL worked--which seems to be what's happening in the photo above. Chaplin also supported Redmond's artistic career--he set up a studio for Redmond on the film set, he bought Redmond's paintings, and he invited Redmond to appear in a few silent films, including the 1931 Chaplin classic City Lights (Redmond plays a sculptor). The Redmond/Chaplin friendship is also mentioned in Martin F. Norden's The Cinema of Isolation: A History of Physical Disability in the Movies (Rutgers UP 1994): 70-71.

Interested readers can go see works by Redmond--mostly landscapes and seascapes--at the Irvine Museum, the Laguna Art Museum, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, among other collections.

June 11: Peter Dinklage (b. 1969)

[Image description: Very closeup photo of actor Peter Dinklage's face. Tousled hair, stubbly, half-smile, sorta.]

This is for Kay Olson at Gimp Parade... and for Lene Andersen at the Seated View, too. American actor Peter Dinklage is turning 39 today.

"I don't like people being cautious and tentative and choosing their words carefully around me because I'm a dwarf. There are a lot of people in a lot worse shape than me. I'm 4'5" and it's part of who I am, just not the whole part. I guess the word to call me is my name, Pete."

Well then, Happy Birthday, Pete!

January 6: Loretta Young (1913-2000)

I hated school . . . . One of the reasons was a learning disability, dyslexia, which no one understood at the time. I still can't spell . . .

-- Loretta Young

American actress Loretta Young (portrait at left) was born Gretchen Young 95 years ago today in Salt Lake City. She won an Oscar for Best Actress in 1947, for The Farmer's Daughter, and had a long-running anthology program on NBC in the 1950s.

She remembered complaining to her mother that she couldn't tell the b's and the d's apart in her school readings; so the family had her vision checked, but there was little more support available in the 1910s and 1920s. By her early teens, she was tutored on movie sets, and not expected to study much. She recognized herself as having dyslexia when she first heard the word, after a career in which she memorized whole scenes to avoid reading unfamiliar text in front of others. She was one of the early celebrity readers to volunteer her time and voice for making audiobooks produced by Recording for the Blind -- now named Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic.

November 19: Gene Tierney (1920-1991)

What did actresses Dorothy Dandridge (1922-1965) and Gene Tierney have in common, besides being considered among the great beauties of their generation? Both November birthdays. Both were directed by Otto Preminger in well-known roles (Carmen Jones, and Laura, respectively). Both women, in 1943, had daughters born with significant developmental disabilities. And both women's later lives were emotionally tumultuous. These latter two facts are often linked in brief biographies, whether or not they should be, just because that's the easy story. In fact, the pressures and temptations and health issues they faced were sure more a part of the general dysfunction of Hollywood life, with or without their daughters' disabilities.

I wonder if they ever knew each other--if they ever knew how much they had in common?

Gene Tierney (1920-1991) described her lifelong experience of bipolar disorder in her 1979 autobiography. She was institutionalized on and off through her thirties--not unlike yet another Hollywood beauty, Frances Farmer (1913-1970), had been a decade earlier. In her autobiography, she declared, "I have been subjected to electric shock treatments that deadened my brain, stole chunks of time from my memory, and left me feeling brutalized....Pieces of my life just disappeared." Tierney married her second husband in 1960, and more or less retired from making movies. She died in 1991, from emphysema (she had begun smoking at the beginning of her career, to lower her voice for film roles).

Symmetry is overrated...

Forest Whitaker took home the Oscar for Best Actor in a Leading Role last night, for his portrayal of Idi Amin in The Last King of Scotland. Whitaker is hardly a conventional-looking actor-director: a noticeable strabismus (turned-out eye) and ptosis (drooping eyelid) have made him recognizable in a wide range of roles, and he has said that he thinks his appearance gives his characters more depth. It could have been repaired in recent years; even now, there are commentators asking if it should be. Whitaker has said he'd consider the fairly routine surgery to improve his vision, but not for aesthetic reasons.

October 23: Sarah Bernhardt (1844-1923)

Today marks the 162nd anniversary of the birth of French actress Sarah Bernhardt, born Henriette Rosine Bernard in Paris on this date (or this week, anyway--sources disagree as to the precise date) in 1844.

In 1905, she injured her right knee during a performance in Rio de Janeiro. Ten years later, when Bernhardt was 71, she had the leg amputated, and began to use a wooden prosthetic leg. Bernhardt's fans, and there were many, waited anxiously for news of her recovery. The story goes that the manager of the Pan-American Expo in San Francisco sent a telegram, offering her $100,000 in exchange for the right to exhibit her leg. Bernhardt's reply message said only "Which leg?" (She did not accept the offer.)

Bernhardt appeared in several stage plays and in at least two films after her amputation. Theatre historians believe that the change may actually have improved her acting: without access to grander physical dramatics, she chose roles carefully, and concentrated on the use of her 'golden' voice, facial expressions, and subtler gestures to communicate character.

See also:

The Sarah Bernhardt Collection at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin