Two film star birthdays of September 30 figured in Lillian
Gish’s career.
Ralph Forbes was Lillian’s love interest in The Enemy produced at MGM in 1927 and French
actress Renee Adoree who impressed Lillian in 1925’s The Big Parade with John Gilbert. The Big
Parade was placed on the National Film Registry in 1992 for being "culturally, historically, or
aesthetically significant”. Adoree starred in director King Vidor’s La Boheme
with Miss Gish and John Gilbert in 1926. La Boheme is not currently on the National Film Registry. Adoree became a major star though died
young from TB.
Ralph Forbes (30 September 1904[1] – 31 March 1951[2]) was
an English film and stage actor in the UK and the United States. He started off
in films, and then went on stage. In the United States he appeared onstage
opposite actress Ruth Chatterton, who became his first wife in 1924; the couple
divorced in 1932. He later married actress Heather Angel in 1934; that marriage
also ended in divorce. His last wife, whom he married in 1946, was actress Dora
Say. His last years were given to working on the Broadway stage. One of his
last stage appearances was in a revival of Shaw's You Never Can Tell in 1948.
He died at Montefiore Hospital in The Bronx, New York in 1951, aged 46.
Films: The Fifth Form at St. Dominic's (1921),
A Lowland Cinderella (1921) , Comin' Thro the Rye (1923),
Reveille (1924),
Beau Geste (1926), Mr. Wu (1927),
The Enemy (1927), The Trail of
'98 (1928), The Actress (1928), Lilies of the Field (1930),
The Green Goddess (1930), Mamba (1930),
The Bachelor Father (1931), Beau Ideal (1931),
Smilin'Through (1932), Christopher Strong (1933) starring
Katherine Hepburn and directed by Dorothy Arzner, The Solitaire
Man (1933), Pleasure
Cruise (1933), The Mystery of Mr. X (1934), Riptide (1934),
Twentieth Century (1934) with John
Barrymore and Carole Lombard and directed by Howard Hawks, The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934)
with Norma Shearer,
Fredric March,
and Charles Laughton, Enchanted April (1935), Streamline Express (1935), The Goose and the Gander (1935), The Three Musketeers (1935),
La Fiesta de Santa Barbara (1935
short), I'll Name the Murderer (1936), Mary of Scotland (1936) with Katherine
Hepburn,, Fredric March and directed by John Ford, Romeo and Juliet (1936) with Norma
Shearer, Leslie Howard, John
Barrymore, Basil Rathbone, Andy Devine
and directed by George Cukor, Daniel Boone (1936), The Last of Mrs. Cheyney (1937),
Stage Door (1937),
Kidnapped (1938)with Warner
Baxter and Freddie Bartholomew,
If I Were
King (1938) with Ronald Colman, Basil
Rathbone and Frances Dee, The Hound of the Baskervilles (1939)
with Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes, The Private Lives of Elizabeth and
Essex (1939) with Bette Davis, Errol Flynn, Olivia de
Havilland, The Magnificent Fraud (1939), Tower of London (1939) with Boris
Karloff and Vincent Price, Calling Philo Vance (1940), Curtain Call (1940), Frenchman's Creek (1944) with Joan Fontaine, Arturo de
Córdova, Basil
Rathbone
Born September 30 1898 Renée Adorée, French actress (d.
1933) Star on the Hollywood Walk of Stars at 1601 Vine Street and dedicated February
8, 1960. Lillian’s star was added the same date at 1720 Vine Street.
Adoree had made about 20 films before she got her star making
role in King Vidor’s 1925 The Big Parade. She is most famous as Melisande in
the romance and war epic The Big Parade (1925)
opposite John Gilbert. It became one of MGM's all-time
biggest hits and a film that historians rank as one of the best of the silent film era.
In The Mating Call a 1928 film produced
by Howard Hughes, Adorée had a very brief nude swimming scene
that caused a significant commotion at the time.
With the advent of sound in film, Adorée was one of the
fortunate stars whose voices met the film industry's new needs. She would star
opposite Lon Chaney and her former brother-in-law Owen Moore,
make three more films with John Gilbert, and appear in four films with another
leading Hollywood actor Ramón Novarro.
She died virtually penniless in 1935.
About Jim Patterson
Jim Patterson was a longtime friend of Lillian Gish and he
travels to speak on her career, introduce her films, discuss their
correspondence and speak on her writing and legendary research and preparation for
her roles. Contact: JEPWriter@gmail.com for assignments and availability.
He has written over 200 articles on Lillian Gish and introduced her films at
the San Francisco Public Library (The Whales of August), Niles Essanay Silent
Film Museum (Way Down East) in Fremont, CA, and at US and UK film festivals. His
work has appeared in San Francisco Examiner, San Francisco Chronicle, Christian
Science Monitor, Auburn Magazine, Classic Images, and others.
