It was in the nature of classical Hollywood that an actor could appear in 25 feature films, work with actors like James Cagney, Fred Astaire and Barbara Stanwyck, and under directors including Michael Curtiz, Frank Capra, Jacques Tourneur, Max Ophuls and Douglas Sirk, yet almost never play a character with a name, let alone a credit.
Such was the career of Tom Costello (1892-1954), who appeared briefly in In Gay Madrid.
Canadian-born Nicholas Caruso Cosentino (1906-59) made appearances in three films between 1928 and 1932. The middle one was In Gay Madrid, as one of the students in the House of Troy.
It can be inferred that Bruce Coleman (1910-78) had issues with his weight from the fact proffered by IMDb that his nickname was Chubby. Moreover, in his debut film, In Gay Madrid, he played a character named Corpulento.
Coleman only appeared in one other picture, and apparently spent most of his life in California.
David Charles Scott (1911-83)was an actor who, aged 19, had a featured role as Ernesto in In Gay Madrid. He is known to have made two other features, released in 1935 and 1936.
What Scott did for the remaining forty-seven years of his life is unknown.
Herbert Clark (1904-63) was a Broadway actor who appeared in three films in 1929-30. One of these was In Gay Madrid, in which he played the student Octavio.
Clark had the misfortune to become engaged in 1926, only to be informed by his father that his fiancée was, in fact, his half-sister. The vital information was initially provided in a telegram: “Katherine Clark is your sister. Am mailing letter containing full explanation”.
Irma Margaret Kobiela (1917-2005) worked in New York, and later in Hollywood, as a child actor. Her career lasted from 1922 to 1933.
Price had the featured role of Jacinta, who is tied up and locked in a wardrobe (!) in In Gay Madrid.
In 1924, a newspaper said of former stage actor William V Mong (1875-1940): “That middle initial of William V. Mong’s name must indeed stand for versatility. For in his sixteen years upon the screen he has played hundreds of characters, ranging from heroes to villains of deepest dye, all nationalities.”
This does not tell half the story. As well as accumulating over 200 acting appearances on screen, Mong wrote and/or directed dozens of films in the 1910s and early 20s. In the early days, he established the first scenario department at the Selig Company (“a second-hand desk, two pencils and a pen”).
As a sideline, he had a ranch and bred pedigree pigs.
One of Mong’s many credits was as the father of the heroine in Metro’s In Gay Madrid.
Playing Auntie Em in the first screen adaptation of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1910) was the first of over 200 appearances by Eugenie Besserer (1868-1934).
Born in France, Besserer was raised in Canada. Left an orphan, she ran away and found an uncle who lived in New York, and who agreed to take her in.
Besserer worked on the legitimate stage for a number of years, and was 42 when she made her first film. Perhaps for that reason, she developed something of a specialism in playing mothers, culminating in the role of Mrs Rabinowitz, Al Jolson’s mother, in The Jazz Singer (1927).
In her one MGM musical, Besserer played Doña Generosa, matriarch of the House of Troy in In Gay Madrid.
Jack Dart Richards (1916-76) was a child actor who made a handful of appearances in Hollywood pictures in 1929-30.
One of these, now lost, was in The Rogue Song.
In old Hollywood, actors would sometimes show up in one or two pictures, then disappear, leaving behind no clue as to how they came to stand briefly in the spotlight. One such was Ruth Metzger (dates unknown).
IMDb states that she appeared in Honky Tonk (1929), a Sophie Tucker musical, and in The Rogue Song. No specific character is named in either case.
Presumably someone had a basis for inputting this information, but it is difficult to be certain that Ruth Metzger actually existed.
