Let's Connect an Author, Actress & Film Director to Alabama!

On a blog by author BV Lawson called In Reference to Murder, I recently read a review of Hugh Cosgro Weir's 1914 short story collection, Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective. I do such things on long winter evenings. The five stories describe cases of one of the early American female detectives in fiction and her pal, reporter Nora Noraker. At the end of the review Lawson notes that two silent films had been made from the stories and starred Alice Joyce as Madelyn Mack.

Well, as I often do in these situations, I wondered if there was an Alabama connection buried in here somewhere. Lawson says author Weir was born in Illinois and worked as a journalist in Ohio. He also wrote stories for the pulp magazines. The FictionMags Index lists a number of stories for Weir and gives his dates as 1884 to 1934. Some brief searching produced nothing more on Weir, so I moved along.

What about Alice Joyce? From her Wikipedia page we learn that she appeared in more than 200 films between 1910 and 1930; she died in 1955. Joyce was born in Kansas City, so no Alabama link there. But wait--what do I see? Her third husband, from 1942 until 1945, was none other than film director Clarence Brown. And there you have it--the Alabama connection.

Say what? It's like this. Born in Massachusetts, Brown developed an interest in films as a young man. He served in World War I and by 1920 he was directing and continued in that role into the early 1950's. Brown's films were nominated for some 38 Oscars; he was nominated for best director five times, but never won. He directed Joan Crawford in six films and Greta Garbo in seven. He also worked with Clark Gable and Jimmy Stewart and directed Intruder in the Dust based on the novel by William Faulkner. 

Brown died in 1987 at the age of 97. So where's the Alabama link? Brown's family moved to Tennessee when he was 11, and he graduated from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville at age 19 with two engineering degrees. He worked briefly for the Stevens-Duryea car manufacturer in Massachusetts, and then moved to Birmingham to set up an auto dealership, the Brown Motor Car Company. Brown later said after visiting a nearby nickelodeon on lunch break, he decided to enter the film business. In 1913 he went to work for Peerless Studios in Fort Lee, New Jersey, then a center of silent movie production.

Brown is one of three prominent film directors with Birmingham connections. I'll be doing a blog post on all of them one of these days. 
    

Alice Joyce [1890-1955] in Photoplay magazine in 1917

Source: Wikipedia 

Clarence Brown [1890-1987]

Source: Wikipedia 

Birmingham Photo of the Day (54): World Newspaper & Cotton Club

This photograph shows a block of businesses along 17th Street North and was taken by the Jefferson County Board of Equalization for purposes of property appraisal. A large number of these photographs are in the Board's collections covering 1938-1977 at the Birmingham Public Library. The block is between 4th Avenue North and the 3rd Avenue North Alley. 

Five African-American businesses are shown in this photograph taken sometime after 1936. On the far left, at 312 17th Street North, is the office of the Birmingham World. This newspaper began publication in 1930 and continued until at least early 1998. The Birmingham Public Library's "last issue received" was February 26 of that year. Whether the World remained at this location that entire time is currently unknown to me.

Next is the Poro School of Beauty and Culture. This business was probably a franchise of the Poro School founded by Annie Malone in St. Louis in 1917 and then moved to Chicago in 1930. The schools trained black women as sales agents for Malone's very successful line of beauty products. 

The next two businesses appear to be Kelley's Barber Shop and Ashjoy Bakery. I've so far been unable to locate any more information on these two shops. That may be the bakery's delivery truck parked out front. 

The last business on the right is the Cotton Club, presumably named after the famous Cotton Club in Harlem that operated during the 1920's and 1930's. On October 15, 1936, the club was registered as an Alabama Domestic Corporation. The three men named in the filing were James W. Aird, Brett George and Brett Martie. In the 1930 census we find James W. Aird to be a 25 year-old lawyer living with his parents and possibly an older sister. His father James. B. Aird was also an attorney. I've yet to research the other two men. 

Photographs like this one give us a snapshot in time of a block of African-American businesses in Birmingham decades ago. Follow the link below the photograph to a version which you can make larger to see more details.

Also below is an aerial view of the block today. Appropriately enough, the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame is located on the former site of the Cotton Club. 

Source: Birmingham Public Library Digital Collections

Here's the block today; the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame is on the upper corner where the Cotton Club was located. 

A Visit to Fort Payne (2)

In the fall of 2012 Dianne and I visited the Fort Payne area and stayed a few days in DeSoto State Park. The first blog post about that trip can be found here. In that post I discussed a bit about the history of Fort Payne and the surrounding area.  I've written earlier about our visit during this trip to the fascinating Sallie Howard Memorial Baptist Chapel just outside the state park.

When you visit this area of Alabama you can take a lot of spectacular photos, and I want to share a few more here. I also want to mention some specific places in downtown Fort Payne.  

The drive around Little River Canyon provides many spots for great views.

From various places on the drive you can spot several mansions close to the canyon's edge. 

Just like the big cities, rural America and small towns are full of the signs of past lives.

The hosiery industry in Fort Payne has it's own museum, which is fitting for a place known so long as the "sock capital of the world." 

Next door to the Hosiery Museum on Gault Street North is the Opera House, opened in 1890 during the area's brief industrial boom in the late 19th century. 

A downtown park has this monument to the "Confederate Soldiers". 

The Fort Payne Depot Museum is a gorgeous building constructed in 1891. The Depot was saved in 1985 when a group of citizens purchased it from the Norfolk-Southern Railway before the planned demolition. The Depot is one of the few surviving in Alabama from the 19th century.

What's Coming to the Blog in 2017?

On January 1, 2016, I posted an item under a similar title purporting to described what was coming to the blog in the coming year. I had done the same thing in 2015; both of those posts are copied below. 

So here I am wondering what's coming in 2017. Looking back at the predictions for 2015 and 2016, I realized I actually have posted some of the stuff I listed. 

I did explore the Alabama connections in Rock Hudson's 1953 film The Lawless Breed. I have started a series and completed several entries on actresses from Alabama who achieved fame in Hollywood before 1960. I did take a look at Augustus Thomas' 1891 play "Alabama" and some old Alabama postcards.

I will leave topics listed in 2015 and 2016 but not yet covered to discovery by discerning readers. They all remain on the "to do" list.

I also hope to get around to at least some of these topics in 2017:

-Dad and the USS Errol
-A Visit to Montgomery
-The Lady from Lipscomb Who's Buries in Austria
-More Early Alabama Songs
-Harriet Martineau Visits Alabama in 1835
-Alabama's Weird Tales Connections
-Anne Goldthwaite, Alabama Artist



Sometime fairly early in 2017 I will also be putting up the 300th post on this blog. Scary. I started the blog in March 2014 and have posted some 285 items so far. Scary. 

As I noted in closing the 2016 speculations, the various series such as "Alabama Book Covers", "Old Alabama Stuff", "Birmingham Photos of the Day" and so on will continue. And other topics will surely pop up that I don't even see coming at me yet. Isn't this fun?

And as granddad still used to say, "See you in the funny papers."

You do know what funny papers are, don't you?

See the post "Pondering Alabama Maps (7): October 2, 1866"

888888888888888888888

What's Coming to the Blog in 2016??

On January 1, 2015, I posted a document with a similar title. Here I am again one year later doing more or less the same thing.

First, let's take a look at last year's list, which you can also find below. I've actually posted blogs on a couple of the topics I intended to do. In February I covered the film The Lawless Breed and its connections to Alabama. Two more postings in that series followed during the year and more are in the pipeline.

I also started the series on film actresses from Alabama before 1960 and have posted on Lois Wilson and Gail Patrick. Dorothy Sebastian is next and others will follow.

And that's it. All the other topics I listed a year ago have yet to appear on this blog. What can I say? I'm easily distracted. Don't worry; they are all still in that mythical pipeline and some may even pop up in 2016. I also have many other topics "coming soon":


-What was America's first female detective doing in Montgomery before the Civil War?

-Some old Alabama postcards and the messages they send to us

-Some Alabama medical ads in 1911

-Augustus Thomas' 1891 play "Alabama"


Of course, the various series such as "Alabama Book Covers", "Old Alabama Stuff", "Birmingham Photos of the Day" and so on will continue. And other topics will surely pop up that I don't even see coming at me yet. Isn't this fun?

And as granddad still used to say, "See you in the funny papers." You do know what funny papers are, don't you?

What's Coming to the Blog in 2015??

People will be born, people will die. People will fall in love, get married, fall out of love, get divorced--wait, wrong list!

What's in store for THIS BLOG in 2015? Maybe I can get more specific with that one.

I began this blog in March 2014 and by the end of the year I'd put up 95 postings. Crazy. Topics ranged from old books to silent movies to old photos to abandoned drive-ins to a giant frog in Mobile. Oh, and Alabama Pizza Pasta in London. All of it related in some way to Alabama history. Mostly.

This year the onslaught of random quirkiness will continue:

-What's the Alabama connection in Rock Hudson's 1953 film The Lawless Breed?

-Who were some well-known movie actresses from Alabama--besides Tallulah Bankhead--long before Kate Jackson, Louise Fletcher, Courtney Cox and Kim Dickens?

-What three famous film directors have Birmingham connections?

-Who were all those photographers criss-crossing Alabama for the Farm Security Administration in the 1930s?

-Who were three female writers from Alabama whose first names began with Z?

-Who was Ambrose Bierce and why did he come to Alabama in the 1860's?

-What kind of career has train robber Railroad Bill had in blues and folk music?

-Will the madness ever end?

As my grandfather used to say, "See you in the funny papers."