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THOMAS E. POWERS

THOMAS EDWARD POWERS (cartoonist)

{{short description|American cartoonist
{{other people||Thomas Powers (disambiguation)
{{Use mdy dates|date=April 2025

Thomas E. Powers
Born	Thomas Edward Powers (1870-07-04)July 4, 1870
Died	August 14, 1939(1939-08-14) (aged 69)
Occupation(s)	Editorial cartoonist, comic-strip and animation artist, landscape painter
Years active	1889–1937
Spouse(s)	Louise Hyde Powers (m.1895–1939; his death)

https://archive.org/details/movingpicturewor27newy/page/250/mode/2up

https://archive.org/details/motography151elec/page/106/mode/1up?view=theater&q=Powers

Thomas Edward Powers (most often credited as T. E. Powers, although also Tom Powers and TEP; July 4, 1870 – August 18, 1939) was an American editorial cartoonist, comic-strip artist, and caricaturist whose drawings were published in newspapers throughout the United States between 1889 and 1937. Powers, who was reported to be President Theodore Roosevelt‘s favorite “political cartoonist”, spent 41 years of his career employed by the vast newspaper chain of William Randolph Hearst.^[1][2] The Wisconsin native’s drawings were also widely used in commercial advertisements in the early 1900s, and between 1915 and the early 1920s, he supervised as well the production of animated shorts that were presented in both domestic and foreign cinemas as part of Hearst-Vitagraph newsreels and in other releases by Hearst’s International Film Service. Given the scope, popularity, and influence of Powers’ work on American journalism, politics, and popular culture, he ranks among the leading satirical artists of the early twentieth century.^[3]

https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84026749/1918-06-30/ed-1/seq-37/

Early life and initial jobs

Thomas Powers was born in 1870 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.^[1] In his youth he moved with his parents and siblings to Kansas City, Missouri, where he obtained the remainder of his public-school education as well as his first jobs. Tom demonstrated at an early age a natural talent for drawing cartoons, an ability that got him in trouble at school for decorating blackboards in his classrooms with unflattering portraits of his teachers.^[3] His playful artwork also cost him his first job as a clerk in a local grocery, where he was fired for sketching caricatures of his boss on sheets of the store’s wrapping paper.^[4] He was then employed by a lithographer in Kansas City. Over 50 years later, in its 1939 obituary for Powers, the New York Herald Tribune quotes the cartoonist’s comments about that job, recollections that he had shared originally during an interview with the news magazine Editor & Publisher in 1906:

“When I was about seventeen years of age, I went to work for a lithographer who estimated that I was well worth $2 a week. I also received a goodly supply of advice on the subject of saving money. But, in spite of all he said, I squandered my money, with carelessness, recklessness and negligence…My employer said that I would never be able to draw. I was offended and resigned….”^[3]

By 1889, however, after Powers obtained another position in Kansas City, the self-taught artist finally managed to save sufficient funds to leave Missouri and relocate to Chicago to enroll in formal art classes and to secure a better-paying job as an illustrator or cartoonist. While attending school at night, young “T. E.” worked days for the Chicago Daily News under the direction of Victor Lawson, who hired the cartoonist after seeing some of his pen-and-ink drawings.^[2] Powers then did additional work for the Chicago Herald before he accepted a “lucrative offer” in 1894 from newspaper editor Arthur Brisbane to move to New York City to join the staff of The World, which was owned by Joseph Pulitzer.^[4][5] Two years later, Brisbane joined the Hearst Corporation‘s newspaper chain and transferred to the New York Evening Journal. Powers soon followed Brisbane, a move that marked yet another successful recruitment of a popular journalist by newspaper magnate William Hearst, who at the time was waging an intense circulation war against Pulitzer.^[6][a]

Hearst newspaper chain

After T. E. Powers joined The Journal in 1896, Pulitzer enticed the cartoonist to return to The World with an improved contract. Hearst Newspapers countered again with an even more attractive offer for Powers. A court trial soon ensued over this employment contest, with Hearst ultimately prevailing. From that year onward, Powers spent the remainder of his long career working for Hearst’s newspaper empire.^[7]

Comic strips

• [Example of comic strips]

Powers quickly became one of William Heart’s favorite artists as he developed a series of assorted comic strips that through syndication were published in newspapers across the United States. His single-panel cartoons and strips regularly portrayed and lampooned the everyday challenges faced by New Yorkers and residents in other urban environments as they coped with the rigors of parenthood, confrontations with troublesome neighbors, transportation woes, with changing fashion trends in clothing, as well as with various other political, social, and economic issues in city halls. During the early 1900s, Powers also regularly depicted living in urban communities as well as the problems faced by the growing number of city workers living in rural locations, where they often struggled commuting to work and with other recurring problems such as swarms of mosquitoes^[8]. He began drawing “How’d You’d Like to be Charlie?” in 1900 and many other cartoon titles over the next two decades, such as Our Moving Pictures”, “Mike and Mike”, “Mr. Nobody Holme”, “Mrs. Trubble”, “Never Again,” “The Down-and-Out Club”, “Sam the Drummer”, “Married Life From the Inside”, “Charlie and George”, and “The League of Husbands”.^[9][10][b]

He also drew a comment on fellow artist George Herriman, speculating on how he invented the famous ‘Krazy Kat’ comic. T. E. Powers also did political illustrations for the Political Round-Up column in Hearst’s Magazine, July – Dec 1913. His political cartoons had a wide following and often contained two elf-like characters, “Joy” and “Gloom”, who were among the artistic trademarks of his work. Among his other cartoon series are

The two strips speak to both ends of America: the relatively normal and the relatively rebellious.

Powers’ distinction was the first American to draw a newspaper color comic strip.

Joy and Gloom

https://archive.org/details/movingpicturewor11newy/page/423/mode/1up

The popularity of Powers’ comic strips and political cartoons quickly spread among American newspaper customers during the early 1900s. To enhance the theme and establish the emotional tone for the intended messages of his pen-and-ink drawings, he began adding to them two elf-like characters: an ever-grinning, round-headed female figure he named “Joy”; the other, a male figure—he called “Gloom”—who sports a pointed black beard, black hat, and a glum expression.^[5][9] At times the pair appear together in Powers’ cartoons and sometimes separately, occupying spaces in the foreground of his comic panels or tucked into corners of scenes. Soon the small characters evolved into widely recognized trademarks of Powers’ work and were “generally employed”, as described by The New York Times, “as pictorial footnotes to his editorial cartoons.”^[2]. By 1912, the Chicago publishers Reilly and Britton decided to capitalize on the growing popularity of Powers’ little characters by releasing a 72-page compilation of his cartoons titled Joys and Glooms: A Book of Drawings by T. E. Powers. In the foreword, the publisher and artist greet readers with the following upbeat message:

“May this book cause the Joys to banish the Glooms from among those who turn these pages . . . Beat the drum; and troops of Joy will scatter the regiments of Misery, Anguish, Revenge, Worry, Jealousy and Envy. Optimism will pluck handfuls out of the beard of Old Grouch. . . Don’t be a Gloom. Be a Joy. It’s so easy.

Throughout Joys and Glooms, cartoon panels by Powers humorously portray marriage, health issues, superstitions, and even poetry, such as Ernest Thayer‘s “Casey at the Bat“, a mock-heroic poem about baseball originally published in the San Francisco Examiner in 1888. drawings with a marching troop off Glooms to

“The characters “Joy” and “Gloom” which he used so often, cavorted in the corners of his cartoon. If optimism was in order, “Joy” chased “Gloom,” and vice versa. “Gloom” was a mournful imp with a black beard, and “Joy” wore an eternal grin.”

“Preservation funded by The David and Lucile Packard Foundation
Joys and Glooms (1921) International Newsreel Corp.. Based on the comic strip by T.E. Powers. Animation: John C. Terry. 35mm, approx. 3 min.”
(https://www.cinema.ucla.edu/events/2004-07-22/ucla-festival-preservation-2004)

Political caricatures and editorial cartoons

Powers’ cartoons were admired by his contemporaries not only for their humor but also for their uncomplicated style.^[9] In its obituary for the artist in August 1939, The Sun newspaper in Baltimore alludes to the deceptive simplicity of his drawings and reveals the cartoon that was Powers’ personal favorite:

Using a relatively simple line-drawing technique, which looked easy to duplicate but was not, Mr. Powers had a gift for caricature. His own favorite cartoon was one he drew of President Calvin Coolidge sawing wood. Mr. Coolidge liked the drawing and his request for the original, on White House stationery, was one of the cartoonist’s most cherished mementos…While conceding that few caricatures were flattering, Mr. Powers once observed that he had encountered few men who objected to being caricatured. “In fact,” he said, “most of them seem to like it.”^[9]

Powers’ exaggerated, highy stylized depictions of people were also often applied to illustrate newspaper coverage of political events and presentations of human-interest stories. In 1901, for instance, in the New York World, his pen-and-ink work complemented press reports about Edward M. Shepard‘s unsuccessful second run for the mayorship of New York City. Powers’ drawing of Shepard (left) in October that year captured the Tammany Hall candidate as he sat “evading questions put to him by reporters” at a campaign gathering.^[11]

James Hazen Hyde
https://www.newyorkhistoryblog.com/2013/01/james-hazen-hyde-a-gilded-age-scandal.html

Support for Theodore Roosevelt

Despite William Hearst’s past and recurring political and personal disagreements with Theodore Roosevelt, T. E. Powers was reported to be Theodore Roosevelt‘s favorite newspaper cartoonist during the Republican president’s term of office from 1901 to 1909.^[5] During that period, Powers regularly produced editorial cartoons that championed Roosevelt’s efforts to enact and enforce anti-trust legislation, federal food and drug safety inspections, and to advance other progressive policies.^[12] His editorial drawings also frequently showcased the investigations of many reform-minded reporters or “muckrakers“, who sought to uncover both corporate and government corruption in the United States and to encourage their prosecution. Overall, Powers’ drawings actively promoted the political and economic interests of the Hearst newspaper chain and reflected the personal opinions of its owner, William Randolph Hearst, on matters affecting the direction of United States foreign and domestic policies.^[13]

The Hearst crusade technique, which advocated “moral and progressive thought in the community,” appeared daily. Editorials and pronouncements, coupled with political cartoons by such talented artists as Frederick Opper, Winsor McCay, and T. E. Powers, crusaded for such important local and national issues as municipal subways, public school reforms, a fair and judicial enforcement of laws by city and state officials, food safety and public health issues, women’s suffrage, child labor laws, an aggressive foreign policy by the United States, and the expansion and modernization of the nation’s naval fleet.^[14]

https://archive.org/details/williamrandolphh00benp/page/41/mode/2up?q=Powers

https://archive.org/details/williamrandolphh00benp/page/61/mode/2up?q=Powers

https://archive.org/details/williamrandolphh0000litt/page/180/mode/2up?q=Powers

economic interests and military power globally, establish tighter health and safety standards for food production and distribution in the United States.

https://strippersguide.blogspot.com/2006/09/ep-1939-te-powers-obituary.html

Mr. Powers first attracted the attention of Theodore Roosevelt when he pictured the President threatening tall, silk-hatted figures labeled “The Trusts” with the then famous “big stick.” His satirical thrusts at “grafting politicians” or others whose right to public office he challenged, however, usually were tempered with broad humor. Powers’ 1901 caricature of New York City’s police chief William Stephen Devery being “perfumed” at a beauty parlor to mask the stench of the official’s widespread reputation for bribery and extortion.

Sued for libel, 1907

For criticizing and graphically lampooning well-connected political officials and wealthy industrialists in the United States, Powers and publisher Arthur Brisbane were periodically threatened physically or targeted with legal actions. One example of the latter is the 1907 lawsuit filed by Chicago mayoral candidate Frederick Busse, who included the two journalists in his $150,000 libel case ($5,060,000 today) against the Hearst Corporation.^[15] In his action, Busse alleged that Hearst and his “cartoonist from New York” [Powers] not only maliciously damaged the Republican candidate’s reputation—depicting him during the political campaign as a “gunfighter” associated with intimidation and banditry—but also that Hearst and his employees outside the state of Illinois had “taken charge of the Democratic newspaper campaign” in Chicago.^[15]

Animated shorts, 1915—1921

Many of the cartoon characters and storylines in those shorts had been developed earlier by Powers for his newspaper comic strips.

In 1914, William Hearst expanded his International News Service wire syndicate into the International Picture Service, a syndicate formed to create newsreels, when newsreels were an entirely new idea. The success of the Hearst Newsreel led the media magnate to create International Film Service (IFS) in 1915. The purpose of this company was to translate Hearst’s top comic strip properties into “living comic strips”, to be added to the tail-end of the newsreels. For Hearst, the purpose of these cartoons was to be the same as the comics: to increase the circulation of his newspapers. The fact that former Hearst employees Winsor McCay, George McManus, and Bud Fisher were all doing very well with animated cartoons based on their Hearst comic strips (“Little Nemo“, The Newlyweds, and Mutt and Jeff) may have had something to do with it as well, since Hearst was a sore loser.

To lead this new studio, Hearst did what he usually did: lured the best talent away from his competitors with the promise of the kind of huge salary only a Hearst could afford. The supervisor was Gregory La Cava, who had animated for the Raoul Barré studio. La Cava was given director credit for all of the IFS cartoons. IFS cartoons were the first comic strip properties to give proper credit to the director and animators, as opposed to just the creator of the comic (their credit was in tiny print on the screen, but it was there). With him came William Nolan and Frank Moser, the fastest animators in the business. Hearst even hired Raoul Barré, head of another animation studio, to animate his first series and teach the new hires how animation was done.

IFS jumped into eight different series right from the start. This was possible only because of La Cava’s extraordinary organization skills. On the other hand, the quality suffered. IFS cartoons are indeed “living comic strips”, with little motion and many dialog balloons instead of the intertitles used by most other animation studios. As a result, they are not very interesting to look at today. The studio did give birth to one enduring series, however: Krazy Kat. IFS was also the first studio for a whole host of future animation talent: Vernon Stallings, Walter Lantz, Ben Sharpsteen, Jack King, John Foster, Grim Natwick, Burt Gillett and Isadore Klein.

World War I proved the death-knell for IFS. Hearst had been pursuing an aggressive pro-German position for decades under the assumption that German immigrants were the core of his newspaper consistency. As a result, International News Service lost its credibility. The spiraling debt this created forced Hearst to cut out his least-profitable business, and that was IFS. The entire staff was laid off on July 6, 1918, a date referred to in animation history as “Black Monday”. But Hearst still cared about his animated properties, so he licensed them to John C. Terry’s studio. When that studio folded a year later, he licensed his former competitor, Bray Productions, to make the IFS cartoons. The deal lasted from 1919 to 1921, when the IFS-Bray agreement broke off; with the final few cartoons released in early 1921.

By 1914, Barré and Nolan felt confident enough to start their own studio, totally independent of Edison and dedicated 100% to animation. This Barré-Nolan Studio was probably the first of its kind (although Bray Productions also had a good claim to the title). The main title produced by the new studio was a series of inserts for the mostly live-action Animated Grouch Chaser series, distributed by Edison.

International Film Service (IFS) was an American animation studio created to exploit the popularity of the comic strips controlled by William Randolph Hearst. In 1916, William Randolph Hearst, multi-millionaire and newspaper magnate, started a rival animation studio called International Film Service and hired most of Barré’s animators, including Bill Nolan, by paying them more money than Barré could provide. Barré was reduced to being a contractor for IFS, animating the series Phables. After seven cartoons, he quit.

Between 1915 and 1921, Powers is credited with drawing, writing, or supervising the production of at least 18 silent animated cartoons, which IFS also marketed in those years as “living comic strips”. “animated satires” based on his characters. In January 1916, the International Film Service released the silent animated cartoon Mr. Nobody Holme Buys a Jitney. Those shorts were regular features in Hearst-Vitagraph newsreels, which were distributed semi-weekly and presented in thousands of theaters across the United States.^[16]

https://archive.org/details/motography151elec/page/106/mode/1up?view=theater&q=Powers

Hearst-Vitagraph semi-weekly news film

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0694632/?ref_=fn_nm_nm_1

https://www.loc.gov/item/00694018/

Later, in the early 1920s, another series of cartoons based on T. E. Powers’ popular comic-strip characters Joy and Gloom were distributed to theaters. Drawn by John Coleman Terry in consultation with Powers, one example of those animated comedies is preserved in the UCLA Film and Television Archive and is available for viewing on the streaming service Youtube.^[17]

[?] International Newsreel Corporation or International News Reel Corporation? production. / From a comic strip by T.E. Powers. Animation by John C. Terry (John Coleman Terry). / Standard 35mm spherical 1.33:1 format.

Examples of Powers’ drawings used in advertising

Some of the characters that Powers developed for his comic strips and featured in his editorial cartoons were adopted for commercial advertising by an array of manufacturers in the United States. In 1910, for example, the Kinney Brothers Tobacco Company of New York included in Tobacco insert card, 1910, from the “Mutt and Jeff” series (T88), issued with Sweet Caporal Cigarettes by. The comic strip was created by Bud Fisher, and the backs of the cards state they were illustrated by Bud Fisher, T.E. Powers, R.L. Goldberg, Tad (Dorgan), and Gus Mager.
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/785127?sortBy=Relevance&ft=Thomas+E.+Powers&offset=0&rpp=40&pos=8

used in Carbons

Landscape artist

[[File:ArmoryShow poster.jpg|thumb|180px|Armory Show poster

Cartoons in various formats were not Powers only interests artistically. He was also an accomplished painter, particularly of landscapes, and over the years his works were displayed in prestigious national and international exhibitions. Two of his landscapes, for example, were included in the International Exhibition of Modern Art in New York City in 1913. Also known as the “Armory Show“, that event showcased the contemporary works of notable American painters and sculptors as well as European masters in those media.^[18]

Association of American Painters and Sculptors

Personal life

Powers married only once, in 1895, to Louise Hyde, a native of Stafford, Connecticut.^[19][c] Subsequent federal census records and the cartoonist’s obituaries indicate that the couple had no children, and that during their 44-year marriage the Powers resided at various locations in New York as well as in Connecticut. While they resided in New York City for many years, “Tom” and Louise by 1910 had moved to Norwalk, Connecticut, to a farm situated approximately 50 miles northeast of downtown Manhattan.^[20] There Powers continued to produce his drawings and send them to the city for printing and release.^[20] The rural atmosphere of Connecticut provided the popular cartoonist with welcomed distractions and relief from his relentless publication schedules. The New York Herald Tribune later quoted Powers’ comments about the personal enjoyment he derived from living in Norwalk, as well as the enjoyment veteran farmers in the area had watching him “work the soil”:

My favorite recreation is farming. It’s the best kind of sport in the world and is real fun, not only for myself but for the neighbors as well. They seem greatly amused. I don’t know why but that’s the status of the situation.^[3]

The couple maintained their farm for another two decades, even after they later purchased another house in New York to serve as their primary residence, a property located on Long Island at 323 West Pine Street in Long Beach.^[9] By the mid-1930s, however, after decades of producing thousands of drawings for publications, Powers began to curtail his work substantially due to failing health.^[9] He finally retired in 1937 to the Long Beach residence], also he continued to produce occasional cartoons for publication until September the following year.

Death

By early 1939, Powers had quit drawing entirely and spent his days confined to a wheelchair when not in bed.^[9] Then on the morning of August 14, 1939—after battling what Powers’ obituaries describe as a “two-year illness”—he died at home in his sleep.^[5][9] Obituaries also report that his butler and caretaker, Nicholas Russell, found the retired artist dead in bed.^[3] After a brief memorial service, Powers’ body was cremated at the New York and New Jersey Crematory in Union City, New Jersey.^[21] He was survived by his wife Louise, two brothers, and his sister. Louise remained in New York City until her death in the Bronx on December 27, 1944.^[19][22]

Fresh Pond Crematory and Columbarium Also known as Mount Olivet Crematory, US Columbarium
Middle Village, Queens County, New York, USA^[23]

Preservation of Powers’ work

Powers produced more than 15,000 drawings for publication during his long career.^[1] Many of those works survive in printed form in numerous archival copies of newspapers and journals that originally circulated between the late 1890s and 1930s.^[5]

Smithsonian American Art Museum

https://www.sil.si.edu/DigitalCollections/art-design/artandartistfiles/vf_details.cfm?id=94054

https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/785134

Some of his original pen-and-ink drawings also survive in public and private collections throughout the United States. For example, 14 of his India ink political cartoons are part of the Caroline and Erwin Swann Collection of Caricature & Cartoon that is preserved in the Prints and Photographs Division of the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. One of those drawings, titled “Banquet Scene”, depicts, as described in that collection, “Men and animals gather at banquet tables in a hall labeled ‘Down & Outs.’ They are political losers associated with incompetence, corruption, scandal, and electoral defeat, about to feast on crow.”

Other archived examples of Powers’ in either original or published works are held in repositories across the United States. In New York, at the Syracuse University, selections of his editorial cartoons and comic strips form part of the “General Cartoon Collection” preserved in the campus library.^[24] Full copies of Powers’ 1912 volume Joys & Glooms: A Book of Drawings are also readily available in both digitized formats and in hard-copy editions in library collections. ^[25] That 72-page publication features an array of the cartoonist’s most popular characters, showcasing foremost his little “mood” figures Joy and Gloom.^[26]

https://www.loc.gov/item/00694015/

Cartoons preserved at UCLA
https://www.cinema.ucla.edu/events/2004-07-22/ucla-festival-preservation-2004

Notes

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Powers, Thomas E.}

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[[:Category:20th-century American male artists]
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[[:Category:American comic strip cartoonists]
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Born to Kill

In addition to being barred by various review boards and prompting revisions to the Production Code, the film became a central issue in a highly publicized murder that occurred outside Chicago in October 1947. That homicide involved a 12-year-old boy, Howard Lang, who used a switchblade and a block of concrete to kill a seven-year-old playmate.^[1] During Lang’s trial, his lawyers argued that the boy had watched Born to Kill less than three weeks prior to the killing^[2] and that the film’s violence triggered in their young client a form of temporary insanity.^[3] Although the boy was found guilty and sentenced to 22 years confinement in the state penitentiary,^[4] the Illinois Supreme Court later overturned his conviction, ruling that he was too young to understand his actions.^[5] Lang was then retried and acquitted on those grounds.^[6] The presiding judge in that second trial recommended the establishment of laws to censor violent films like Born to Kill and to hold theater managers criminally liable for showing them.^[6]

—————

In 1948, 12-year-old Howard Lang was convicted for using a switchblade and a piece of concrete to kill a seven-year-old boy outside Chicago the previous year.^[1] Lang’s lawyers argued that he had watched Born to Kill less than three weeks prior to the homicide^[2] and that the film’s violence triggered a form of temporary insanity.^[3] The Illinois Supreme Court overturned Lang’s conviction, finding that he was too young to understand his actions.^[7] He was then acquitted following a retrial, but the judge recommended laws to censor violent films and hold theater managers liable for exhibiting them.^[8]

References

Notes

References

Early life

Born in 1899 in Providence, Rhode Island, George Macready was the elder of two children of Grace C. (née Clark) and George Peabody Macready Sr., who worked as a superintendent at a local cotton mill.^[1][2] Young George graduated from the Classical High School in Providence in 1917 and then enrolled at Brown University, where he majored in mathematics, was a member of Delta Phi fraternity, and earned a letter serving as the school’s football team manager.^[3] While attending Brown, Macready on September 12, 1918 registered for military service during World War I, although the conflict ended before he was inducted. Later, prior to his graduation from the university in 1921, Macready was seriously injured in an automobile accident when the Ford Model T in which he was riding skidded off an icy road and hit a telephone pole. In the collision he was hurled through the windshield of the car and sustained a long gash to his right cheek, which was stitched up by a nearby veterinarian.[source] The injury left Macready with a permanent scar that gave him a distinctive appearance, one that would later influence the types of acting roles he was offered by casting directors in film and television productions. The scar, coupled with Macready’s deep voice and his precise diction, often made him an ideal, if not stereotypical, choice to portray authoritarian or villainous characters.[source]

After graduating from Brown, Macready initially employed at a bank in Providence before moving to New York City to work as a newspaper reporter. There he soon became involved in stage acting, a career He claimed to have been descended from the 19th-century Shakespearean actor William Macready.

References

——— EXPANDED ANNE CORNWALL ENTRY ———

[Start]

Anne Cornwall (born Anna Mary Reardon; January 17, 1897 – March 2, 1980) was an American dancer, singer, and actress whose career on stage and in motion pictures spanned over four decades, from her work as a chorus girl prior to World War I to her film performances in starring roles, as supporting characters, and in bit parts from 1918 to 1959. Cornwall’s credited and uncredited screen appearances, as cross-referenced from current online filmographies and from available period newspapers and trade publications, total no less than 64 productions.^[1] Her most notable performances were in silent films and early talkies, including such theatrical releases as The Knife (1918), The World To Live In (1919), The Path She Chose (1920), The Girl in the Rain (1920), The Roughneck (1924), The Flaming Frontier (1926), College (1927) with Buster Keaton, Men O’ War (1929) with Laurel and Hardy, and The Baby Bandit (1930).^[2][3]

Early life and stage experience

Born Anna Reardon in Brooklyn, New York, in 1897, Cornwall was the daughter of Eleanor (née Thomson) and John Reardon.^[4][5] Little is known about Anna’s early life, including any details about her formal education or dance training. Later, during her years as a film actress under the stage name Anne Cornwall, some very basic biographical information about her was released by studio officials or published in period film reviews and magazine articles. The only information about her schooling from those sources is that she obtained at least her secondary education in “Catskill, N.Y.“^[6][7] Investigations of public schools in that town in the early 1900s do document that an “Anna Cornwall” graduated from Catskill High School in 1916.^[8] That record indicates that Anna Reardon by that time was already using the surname Cornwall, suggesting that she may have already been performing on stage and had adopted a stage name. In fact, Picture-Play Magazine in its April 1925 issue refers to her being a former “child dancer of the New York stage”.^[9] Later, before the start of her motion picture career and her first credited appearance on screen in 1918, she also changed “Anna” to “Anne”. Anne Cornwall was then the name she used for the rest of her life, both personally and professionally.^[10]

Some insight into Cornwall’s stage career prior to her transition to motion pictures is revealed in short biographical entries and articles about her published in film-industry periodicals between 1918 and 1930.^[6][7] The New York monthly Motion Picture Classic, for example, in its October 1920 issue recounts how the young actress had initially gained her experience in entertainment as a chorus girl and as a performer in musical theatre, mostly in comedic productions.^[11] The Classic article “How Young is Anne?” in the cited issue was written by staff writer Truman B. Handy, who provides some additional background on Cornwell’s motivation to act in films and about her move from stage to screen:

All her life she’s wanted to be an a tress. Finally the desire got so burning that she couldn’t stand it any longer. She simply announced that she was going to try her luck in the chorus, got herself a job and learnt to dance. Her first season [1916] was in the New York ensemble. Next season saw her doing a small singing and dancing bit in another musical comedy, Oh, Look! in which the Dolly Sisters and Harry Fox were featured. And then one day she surprised her sisters in the chorus by announcing her intention of “breaking into” pictures. She went to the World studios in the East and was cast in a very small part with Alice Brady. After that she went back to her show, danced some more, and got a call to be in another picture with Miss Brady….^[11]

Providing some further background about Cornwall’s pre-film career, Universal Pictures’ magazine The Moving Picture Weekly also identifies in 1920 at least one specific location where she had performed on stage as a dancer and singer. The studio periodical in its June 12 issue that year states that “Miss Cornwall formerly was one of the prettiest chorus girls who played in the series of intimate musical shows presented at the Princess Theatre” on West 39th Street in New York City.^[12]

in the years preceding her first credited appearance in motion pictures.^[13] Give a few examples of references to her past.

The fan magazine Photoplay in its 1924 compilation Stars of the Photoplay also states that “She appeared in many musical comedy productions before turning her efforts towards the screen.”^[7]

Film

Among the earliest references to Anne Cornwall in film-industry publications date from January 1918. Some examples of those references from that month can be found in issues of the widely read Chicago-based film journal Motography and its New York counterpart Motion Picture News. These periodicals and others cite Cornwall in their news updates about Universal Pictures developing a film adaptation of the highly successful 1917 Broadway play The Knife.^[14] Starring Alice Brady in this adaptation, Universal assigned the project’s production to Select Pictures Corporation, a company that Universal officially purchased and absorbed into its overall operations later that year.^[15] In its January 5 issue, Motion Picture News reports on the cast of The Knife, listing Cornwall as among its supporting players.^[16] The periodical then provides an update on the production a week later, announcing that she and rest of the company were preparing to leave Select Pictures’ studio facilities on Fifty-Sixth Street in Manhattan and travel to Jacksonville, Florida to film “Southern scenes” at nearby Emerson Plantation.^[17]

The Girl in the Rain

Following Cornwall’s initial work as an uncredited and credited player in films starring Alice Brady, including In the Hollow of Her Hand (1918) and The Indestructible Wife (1919), Anne began receiving more substantial parts. The next decade proved to be her most active and successful period of her motion picture career while performing in projects for a variety of studios. In addition to Select Pictures and Universal, she was cast in productions by Artcraft Pictures, First National Pictures, Warner Bros., Fox, Christie Film Company, Educational Pictures, Paramount, United Artists, Pathé, and in a few independent films arranged through and distributed to theaters by Associated Exhibitors^[6] Motion Picture Classic in 1920 identified two films that significantly elevated her status with studio executives and her popularity with audiences, leading to a starring role in one of those films that year, The Girl in the Rain:

Almost everything Anne has ever done on the screen has been with her [Alice Brady]—until she played the ingenue role in “The Copperhead” with Lionel Barrymore. That role, of course, established her. The Universal people saw her work and decided to “import” her to their West Coast studios. And there she was, working in one of those downtrodden-factory-girl parts in a story called “The Girl in the Rain”….^[11]

For her performance with co-star Lloyd Bacon in The Girl in the Rain, Cornwall received very positive reviews in film-industry publications^[18] “recent stellar find”^[18] and also drew widespread interest from newspapers throughout the United States, even extending into the territory of Alaska. The mystery drama finally arrived in faraway Juneau nearly a year after the film’s initial release in New York City and other major cities. The local newspaper in Juneau, The Alaska Daily Empire, in its June 25, 1921 issue, announces the presentation of the 50-minute film at the territorial capital for a two-day run at the local theater:

Beautiful scenes along the Sacramento River, which winds its sinuous way from San Francisco Bay to the foot of Mount Shasta will be seen in “The Girl in the Rain,” a Universal feature starring Anne Cornwall, which is to be seen at the Palace Theater tonight and Sunday matinee…the story takes on special interest because it introduced a new star in the person of Anne Cornwall, a former musical comedy favorite who is comparatively new to the screen.^[19]

After her success in The Girl in the Rain, Cornwall played the title character in La La Lucille, a film adaptation with a storyline based on another Broadway musical comedy. The expansive five-reeler, which was released in July 1920, is currently classified as lost.^[20]

1921 to 1929

In 1921, the year after the release of The Girl in the Rain, Cornwell stepped back from making films after marrying Charles Maigne in February. Her filmography appears to confirm a year-long hiatus from acting, showing no 1921 releases of productions in which she performed. Subsequently, the 1924 edition of Stars of the Photoplay stated that Cornwall’s absence from acting was longer than that, noting then that “She has been away from the screen for several years, but is steadily winning her way back into the hearts of the fans.”^[21] The actress, however, despite that publication’s notation, definitely returned to film work by early 1922. She played Betty Alden as a major supporting character for lead Richard Barthelmess in First National Pictures’ romantic drama The Seventh Day, released nationally on February 6.^[22] Cornwall is credited with performing in two other releases in 1922, bbb and vvv.

For the remainder of the 1920s, Cromwell continued to secure some prominent roles in both dramatic and comedic productions. 30 films. Christie Comedies
“dainty piece of femininity”: https://archive.org/details/universalweekly100movi_3/page/n699/mode/2up?q=Anne+Cornwall

“57 Inches of Talent”

“Of all the small-sized actresses in Hollywood”, observed the movie fan magazine Photoplay in 1925, “Anne Cornwall is about the tiniest.”^[23] Such comments about the “Baby Star’s” size are noted frequently in period trade publications.^[23] She was indeed unusually short in height for an adult, a physical characteristic that often proved both an advantage and disadvantage in her casting over the years. Her petite size brought her many screen roles playing little sisters, precocious teens, “‘half pint'” heroines, and 95-pound (43 kg) “baby Venus de Milos“;^[24][25] but, conversely, it also often precluded her from being cast opposite much taller performers.

Cornwall’s reported height varies from source to source over the years, ranging from one inch to three inches under five feet. The Moving Picture Weekly lists her in 1920 as being a mere 4 feet, 9 inches (145 cm). In an article published in its June issue, the news journal describes the 23-year-old actress as “57 Inches of Talent”, adding that she herself often joked about her height. The Weekly in the same article also recounts a story about Cornwall demonstrating how easily she could be mistaken publicly for a child:

Anne is so tiny that on a recent trip from Los Angeles to San Francisco, she wagered a friend she could ride for half fare. Curling her feet under her on the chair and letting down her dark-brown curls, she handed the conductor a child’s ticket, and it was punched without a word. After she had collected the amount of the wager (this seems to be necessary as a character episode), she explained the matter to the conductor and paid him the balance of the fare.^[26]

In another feature article published in June 1926, one titled “The Tiniest Girls in Pictures”, Picture-Play Magazine assessed and ranked the relative heights of 16 actresses who were deemed at that time the smallest performers in America cinema. The monthly magazine judged Cornwall once again to be the shortest among her colleagues, although by the magazine’s measuring tape she stood 4 feet, 10.5 inches (149 cm), followed by film star Mary Pickford at 4 feet, 11 inches (151 cm).^[27]

https://archive.org/details/motionpicturenew1930moti/page/52/mode/2up?q=Cornwall

Tiniest actress: https://archive.org/details/photoplay2829movi/page/50/mode/2up

Petite 4’11”: Photoplay. https://archive.org/details/starsofphotoplay00phot/page/n55/mode/2up?q=Anne+Cornwall

“Brunette silent screen actress with musical comedy experience. She alternated dramatic performances (most often in westerns) with turns as baby-faced, wide-eyed leading ladies in comedies” (IMDb}

WAMPAS Baby Star, 1925

In 1925 she was one of the WAMPAS Baby Stars.^[28] WAMPAS announcement: https://mediahistoryproject.org/reader.php?id=pho28chic

including such productions as The Path She Chose (1920), The Roughneck (1924), College (1927), and the Laurel and Hardy short Men O’ War (1929).^[3]

October 1920
https://archive.org/details/motionpicturecla1920broo/page/n881/mode/2up

La la Lucille
https://archive.org/details/movingpicturewe1014movi_1/page/n569/mode/2up?q=Anne+Cornwall

1930-1959

After 1929, either by personal choice or the casting decisions made by studio executives and directors, her presence on screen dropped markedly. Not only did the number of her film appearances drop but also the quality of her roles, devolving over time to small uncredited parts in assorted productions. Her final appearance, also uncredited, is in Universal International Pictures’ 1959 Western The Wild and the Innocent starring Audie Murphy and Joanne Dru.^[29]

• La La Lucille (1920)
• Her Gilden Cage (1922)
• Dulcy
• Under Western Skies Skies
• co-starring with Hoot Gibson in Carl Laemmle’s The Flaming Frontier (1924)
• The Flaming Frontier (1926)
• Buster Keaton in College (1927)

which was directed by her future husband, Charles Maigne.^[30]

A “petite, 4’10” brunette”, Anne arrived in Hollywood in 1918 and soon became a popular character actress in such films as “La, La, Lucille” (1920) but is probably best remembered as Buster Keaton’s love interest in “College” (1927). She went into semi-retirement shortly after her second marriage to Los Angeles Engineer Ellis Wing Taylor in 1930 and the birth of their son Peter (her first was to Director Charles Maigne) and seen on the screen only a few times thereafter. One such occurrence was as Mr. Blakely’s Secretary in “You Can’t Take It With You.” (1938). She came out of retirement briefly to make public relation tours with Keaton to promote “The Buster Keaton Story” (1957). Anne was chosen a WAMPUS BABY STAR in 1925” (http://www.classicvideostreams.com/BCVS/favs/Cornwall-A_idx.htm)

Personal life and death

Off-camera, Cornwall was a sports enthusiast, especially skilled in swimming and golf. She was also active in local and regional dog shows as reported by Photoplay in 1924:

THE motion picture industry was well represented in the recent California dog showheld in Hollywood. Mrs. Elliott Dexter’s two beautiful shepherd dogs, both champions, won everything in their class. Al Christie, producer of the Christie comedies, also came away with a number of blue ribbons tucked under his arm. Enid Bennett showed her beautiful Chow, “Buddha,” in the puppy class and captured honors, as did Anne Cornwall (Mrs. Charles Maigne) with her Scottish terrier.^[31]

Cornwall married twice, the first time to writer/director Charles Maigne in Babylon, New York, on February 12, 1921.^[5] By the autumn of 1929, their relationship had declined to the point that film-industry publications reported that the couple had been living apart for nearly a year.^[32] Then, on November 28, 1929, just before “their divorce suit was about to be settled in court”, 50-year-old Charles died from a “breakdown” in his health at Letterman Army Hospital in San Francisco.^[32][33] The actress remarried two years later. Contemporary newspapers reported that Cornwall eloped with Ellis Wing Taylor Sr, a prominent architect, renowned yachtsman, and resident of Los Angeles.^[34][35] The couple traveled to Yuma, Arizona, where they wed on September 16, 1931.^[34] Thirteen months later, they had their only child, Peter Tracy Taylor, who was born on October 12, 1932. Cornwall and Ellis Taylor subsequently divorced, but the federal census of 1950 documents that Peter, at age 17, was still living with his mother in Los Angeles.^[36][37] In that same 1950 census, Anne still identifies herself as divorced, head of household, and her employment status as “Acting” at “Movie Studio”.^[36]

Cornwall died frim an undisclosed condition in Van Nuys, California in March 1980.^[10] She was buried at Glen Haven Memorial Park in Sylmar, California, located just a short distance north of Van Nuys.^[38]

[END OF CORNWALL SECTION]

• Arizona Express (1924) : https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn82015313/1924-06-14/ed-1/?sp=7&q=anne+cornwall&r=-0.241,0.045,1.405,0.629,0
• Manhattan Madness (1925) https://archive.org/details/motionpicturenew00moti_10/page/2142/mode/2up?q=Anne+Cornwall
• The Splendid Crime (1925): https://archive.org/details/motionpicturenew00moti_10/page/2142/mode/2up?q=Anne+Cornwall https://archive.org/details/motionpicturenew00moti_10/page/3204/mode/2up?q=Anne+Cornwall
• The Indians are coming (1926?): https://archive.org/details/motionpicturenew00moti_10/page/2528/mode/2up?q=Anne+Cornwall
• The Big Eight (1927): https://archive.org/details/motionpicturenew00moti_10/page/2806/mode/2up?q=Anne+Cornwall
• Introduce Me (1925?)
• Keeping Smiling with Monty Banks (1925): https://archive.org/details/movpicwor76movi/page/n127/mode/2up?q=Anne+Cornwall
• The Wrongdoers with Lionel Barrymore (NY): https://archive.org/details/motionpicturenew00moti_8/page/n57/mode/2up?q=Anne+Cornwall https://archive.org/details/standardcastingd03unse/page/116/mode/2up?q=Anne+Cornwall. /Standard Casting Directory (Feb-Jul 1925)
• Rainbow Trail with Fox with Tom Mix
• On the Frontier : https://archive.org/details/photoplay2829movi/page/70/mode/2up?q=Anne+Cornwall
• French Pastry (Christie): https://archive.org/details/motionpicturemag28brew/page/44/mode/2up?q=Anne+Cornwall
• Sky High : https://archive.org/details/motionpicturemag28brew/page/74/mode/2up?q=Anne+Cornwall
• Water Shy (1925): https://archive.org/details/exhibitorsherald21unse/page/n179/mode/2up?q=Anne+Cornwall
• Racing Blood (1927): https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn87055779/1927-01-24/ed-1/?sp=2&q=anne+cornwall&r=-0.253,-0.094,1.448,0.648,0. https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn87055779/1926-07-31/ed-1/?sp=30&q=anne+cornwall&st=pdf&r=-0.224,-0.573,1.449,1.449,0
• Loves Young Scream (1928?) https://www.loc.gov/resource/2023271006/1929-07-19/ed-1/?sp=3&q=anne+cornwall+&r=0.125,1.064,1.073,0.48,0

References