John Gilbert (actor)
John Gilbert was an American actor, screenwriter and director. He rose to fame during the silent era and became a popular leading man known as "The Great Lover". His breakthrough came in 1925 with his starring roles in The Merry Widow and The Big Parade. At the height of his career, Gilbert rivaled Rudolph Valentino as a box office draw.
Gilbert's career declined precipitously when silent pictures gave way to talkies. Though Gilbert was often cited as one of the high-profile examples of an actor who was unsuccessful in making the transition to sound films, his decline as a star had far more to do with studio politics and money than with the sound of his screen voice, which was rich and distinctive.
Early life and stage work
Born John Cecil Pringle in Logan, Utah, to stock-company actor parents, John George Pringle and Ida Adair Apperly Gilbert, he struggled through a childhood of abuse and neglect, with his family moving frequently and young "Jack" having to attend assorted schools throughout the United States. When his family finally settled in California, he attended Hitchcock Military Academy in San Rafael. After he left school, Gilbert worked as a rubber goods salesman in San Francisco, then performed with the Baker Stock Company in Portland, Oregon, in 1914. He subsequently found work the following year as a stage manager in another stock company in Spokane, Washington, but he soon lost that job when the company went out of business.Film career
After losing his stage job in 1915, Gilbert decided to try screen acting, and quickly gained work as a film extra through Herschell Mayall. Gilbert first appeared in The Mother Instinct, a short directed by Wilfred Lucas. He then found work as an extra with the Thomas Ince Studios in productions such as The Coward, Aloha Oe, Civilization, The Last Act, and William Hart's Hell's Hinges.Kay-Bee Company
During his initial years in films, Gilbert also performed in releases by Kay-Bee Company such as Matrimony, The Corner, Eye of the Night, and Bullets and Brown Eyes. His first major costarring role was as Willie Hudson in The Apostle of Vengeance, also with William S. Hart. Viewed by studio executives as a promising but still "juvenile" actor at this stage of his career, Gilbert's contract salary was $40 a week, fairly ample pay for most American workers in the early 1900s. Gilbert continued to get more substantial parts at Kay-Bee, which billed him as "Jack Gilbert" in The Aryan, The Phantom, Shell 43, The Sin Ye Do, The Weaker Sex, and The Bride of Hate. His first true leading role was in Princess of the Dark with Enid Bennett, but the film was not a big success and he went back to supporting roles in The Dark Road, Happiness, The Millionaire Vagrant, and The Hater of Men.Triangle Films and other studios
Gilbert went over to Triangle Films where he was in The Mother Instinct, Golden Rule Kate, The Devil Dodger , Up or Down?, and Nancy Comes Home. For Paralta Plays, Gilbert did Shackled, One Dollar Bid, and Wedlock and More Trouble for Anderson, but the company went bankrupt. He also was cast in Doing Their Bit at Fox and then returned to Triangle for The Mask. Gilbert also did Three X Gordon for Jesse Hampton, The Dawn of Understanding, The White Heather for Maurice Tourneur, The Busher for Thomas Ince, The Man Beneath for Haworth, A Little Brother of the Rich for Universal, The Red Viper for Tyrad, For a Woman's Honor for Jess Hampton, Widow by Proxy for Paramount, Heart o' the Hills for Mary Pickford, and Should a Woman Tell? for Screen Classics.Actor, screenwriter and director for Tourneur
signed him to a contract to both write and act in films. Gilbert performed in and co-wrote The White Circle, The Great Redeemer, and Deep Waters. As a writer only, he worked on The Bait, which starred and was produced by Hope Hampton. For Hampton, Gilbert wrote and directed as well, but he did not appear in Love's Penalty.Fox and stardom
In 1921, Gilbert signed a three-year contract with Fox Film Corporation, which subsequently cast him in romantic leading roles and promoted him now as "John Gilbert". The actor's first starring part for the studio was in Shame. He followed it with leading roles in Arabian Love, Gleam O'Dawn, The Yellow Stain, Honor First, Monte Cristo, Calvert's Valley, The Love Gambler, and A California Romance. Many of the scenarios for these films were written by Jules Furthman.Gilbert returned temporarily to Tourneur to costar with Lon Chaney in While Paris Sleeps. Back at Fox, he starred in Truxton King, Madness of Youth, St. Elmo, and The Exiles. The same year he starred in Cameo Kirby, directed by John Ford, co starring Jean Arthur. He went into The Wolf Man with Norma Shearer, not a horror film, but the story of a man who believes he murdered his fiancée's brother while drunk. Gilbert also performed in his last films for Fox in 1924, including Just Off Broadway, A Man's Mate, The Lone Chance, and Romance Ranch.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Under the auspices of movie producer Irving Thalberg, Gilbert obtained a release from his Fox contract and moved to MGM, where he became a full-fledged star cast in major productions. First starring in His Hour directed by King Vidor and written by Elinor Glyn his film career entered its ascendancy. He followed this success with He Who Gets Slapped co-starring Chaney and Shearer and directed by Victor Sjöström; The Snob with Shearer; The Wife of the Centaur for Vidor.The next year, Gilbert would star in two of MGM's most critically acclaimed and popular film productions of the silent era: Erich von Stroheim's The Merry Widow and King Vidor's The Big Parade.
''The Merry Widow'' (1925)
Gilbert was assigned to star in Erich von Stroheim's The Merry Widow by Irving Thalberg, over the objections of the Austrian-American director. Von Stroheim expressed his displeasure bluntly to his leading man: "Gilbert, I am forced to use you in my picture. I do not want you, but the decision was not in my hands. I assure you I will do everything in my power to make you comfortable." Gilbert, mortified, soon stalked off the set in a rage, tearing off his costume. Von Stroheim followed him to his dressing room and apologized. The two agreed to share a drink. Then Gilbert apologized and they had another drink. The tempest subsided and was resolved amicably. According to Gilbert, the contretemps served to "cement a relationship which for my part will never end."The public adulation that Gilbert experienced with his growing celebrity astounded him: "Everywhere I hear whispers and gasps in acknowledgment of my presence...he whole thing became too fantastic for me to comprehend. Acting, the very thing I had been fighting and ridiculing for seven years, had brought me success, riches and renown. I was a great motion picture artist. Well, I'll be damned!"
''The Big Parade'' (1925)
Gilbert was next cast by Thalberg to star in King Vidor's war-romance The Big Parade, which became the second-highest grossing silent film and the most profitable film of the silent era. Gilbert's "inspired performance" as an American doughboy in France during World War I was the high point of his acting career. He fully immersed himself in the role of Jim Apperson, a Southern gentleman who, with two working class comrades, experiences the horrors of trench warfare. Gilbert declared: "No love has ever enthralled me as did the making of this picture...All that has followed is balderdash."The following year, Vidor reunited Gilbert with two of his co-stars from that picture, Renée Adorée and Karl Dane, for the film La Bohème which also starred Lillian Gish. He then did another with Vidor, Bardelys the Magnificent.
Greta Garbo
In 1926, Gilbert made Flesh and the Devil, his first film with Greta Garbo. Gilbert first encountered Garbo on the set during filming of the railway station scene, and the chemistry between the two was evidently instantaneous. Director Clarence Brown remarked approvingly that he "had a love affair going for me that you couldn't beat, any way you tried." Garbo and Gilbert soon began a highly publicized romance, much to the delight of their fans and to MGM.He made The Show with Adoree for Tod Browning then did Twelve Miles Out with Joan Crawford and Man, Woman and Sin with Jeanne Eagels.
Gilbert was reunited with Garbo in a modern adaptation of Tolstoy's 19th-century novel, Anna Karenina. The title was changed to Love to capitalize on the real life love affair of the stars and advertised by MGM as "Garbo and Gilbert in Love."
Though officially directed by Edmund Goulding, Gilbert, though uncredited, was responsible for directing the love scenes involving Garbo. He was perhaps the only person in the industry whose "artistic judgment" she fully respected. As such, MGM approved of this arrangement.
Gilbert made The Cossacks with Adoree; Four Walls with Crawford; Show People with Marion Davies for Vidor, in which Gilbert only had a cameo; and The Masks of the Devil for Victor Sjöström.
Gilbert and Garbo were teamed for a third time in A Woman of Affairs. His last silent film was Desert Nights.
Sound era
With the coming of sound, Gilbert's vocal talents made a good first impression, although the studio had failed to conduct a voice test. The conventional wisdom of the day dictated that actors in the new talkies should emulate "correct stage diction". Gilbert's strict adherence to that method produced an affected delivery that made audiences giggle, rather than any particularity in Gilbert's natural speech. Indeed, the "quality of his voice compared well with that of co-star Conrad Nagel, regarded as having one of the best voices for sound."Gilbert signed an immensely lucrative multi-picture contract with MGM in 1928 that totaled $1,500,000. The terms of the agreement positioned MGM executives Irving Thalberg and Nicholas Schenck, both sympathetic to the star, to supervise his career. Gilbert, however, frequently clashed with studio head Louis B. Mayer over creative, social and financial matters. A confrontation between the two men, which became physical, occurred at the planned double-wedding of Garbo and Gilbert and director King Vidor and actress Eleanor Boardman. Mayer reportedly made a crude remark to Gilbert about Garbo, and Gilbert reacted by knocking Mayer to the floor with his fist. While that story has been disputed or dismissed as hearsay by some historians, Vidor's bride, Eleanor Boardman, insisted that she personally witnessed the altercation.
In the all-star musical comedy The Hollywood Revue of 1929, Gilbert and Norma Shearer played the balcony scene from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, first as written, then followed with a slang rendition of the scene. The comic effect served to "dispell the bad impression" produced by Gilbert's original "mincing" delivery.