Like Natalie Storm, Elvira Lucianti (dates unknown) is a mysterious figure who walked onto the zeppelin as one of Henry VIII’s wives in Madam Satan.
Tag: MGM musical
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Elvira Lucianti
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Mary McAllister
Mary McAlister [sic] (1908-91) was ‘Little Mary McAlister’, one of America’s first child stars.
She made her first appearance in 1915 for Essanay, and starred in Sadie Goes to Heaven (1917) two years later.
McAllister worked regularly up until 1928, when talking pictures slowed down her adult career. She retired following an uncredited appearance in Madam Satan.
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June Nash
June Nash (1911-79) had a very brief film career, comprising nine appearances.
The high point was playing the female lead in Strange Cargo (1929).
The low point may have been an uncredited appearance in Madam Satan.
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Natalie Storm
Someone called Natalie Storm (1905-??), apparently born in Durban, South Africa, may have been in Hollywood during 1930 and appeared as one of Henry VIII’s wives in Madam Satan.
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Henry Stockbridge
Henry Stockbridge (1871-1952) was an actor who made his screen debut, in his late fifties, as one of the wise fools in Cecil B DeMille’s Dynamite (1929). The following years he was the uncredited Butterfly Man in DeMille’s Madam Satan.
Stockbridge only appeared in half a dozen films culminating with Mr Deeds Goes to Town (1936), playing one of the unemployed farmers.
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Ella Hall
Ella August Hall (1897-1981) came from an acting family, and performed on the stage at an early age. She joined the Biograph Company in 1912, worked for Griffith and Sennett, then played the lead in Lois Weber’s Memories (1913). In total, Hall appeared in nearly 100 films.
Hall worked busily until early 1918, when she took a break following the birth of her first child. She made only a handful of films in the 1920s, and made an uncredited appearance in Madam Satan.
Hall’s final film, without credit, was Capra’s The Bitter Tea of General Yen (1932).
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Vera Gordon
Vera Pogorelsky (1886-1948) was a child actor in Russia before she and her parents emigrated to America with her husband and child in 1905.
Gordon performed in Yiddish theatre, and also worked in the UK for a while in around 1916.
She made her first film in 1920, but worked infrequently in Hollywood, preferring the theatre. Gordon’s best-remembered role is Mrs Cohen in The Cohens and the Kellys (1926) and the series of sequels that followed it. She was the archetypal Jewish mother and, fittingly, made her last appearance in Abie’s Irish Rose (1946).
Gordon only appeared in one MGM musical, a bit part in Madam Satan.
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Kenneth Gibson
Bit player Kenneth Koch Gibson (1898-1972) spent a lot of time being paid to party. He was in fourteen MGM musicals, and in at least eight of them was a party guest or nightclub patron.
In a career stretching from 1921 to 1969, Gibson notched up approaching 300 screen appearances. He was actually the male lead in his first film, Big Town Ideas (1921), but by 1929 was generally uncredited. He became a regular bit player for Cecil B DeMille and Preston Sturges, and can be found in some excellent pictures, including This Gun for Hire (1942), The Big Sleep (1946), Sunset Boulevard (1950) and A Star is Born (1954).
Gibson’s musicals at Metro were: Madam Satan, New Moon (1940), Yolanda and the Thief, Luxury Liner, The Barkeleys of Broadway, Duchess of Idaho, The Toast of New Orleans, Rich, Young and Pretty, Singin’ in the Rain, Small Town Girl, Interrupted Melody, It’s Always Fair Weather, I’ll Cry Tomorrow and Ten Thousand Bedrooms.
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Judith Arlen
Laurette Elizabeth Rutherford (1914-68) was the older sister of actor Ann Rutherford, who played one of the O’Hara sisters in Gone with the Wind (1939). Her parents were an opera singer and Lucille Mansfield, a silent film actor.
Arlen began her acting career with an appearance in MGM’s Madam Satan. She was in four more films, credited in the last two. Though chosen as a WAMPAS Baby Star, she had to watch her younger sister gain greater success. Arlen changed her name to Judith Rutherford and pursued a career in radio and as a recording artist. She also performed as a leading lady in local theatre.
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Margaret Swope
Margaret Swope (dates unknown) was a stage actor who worked in both regional theatres and on Broadway during the 1920s and 30s. She was in the original production of Eugene O’Neill’s Days Without End in 1934.
Swope appears to have made only two film appearances. She was uncredited in Madam Satan, then had a featured role in The Last Outpost (1935) for Paramount.
