Evelyn Brent Robert Ames Pre-Code Madonna of the Streets Vintage Lobby Card 1930

Description

ITEM: This is a vintage and original Columbia Pictures lobby card advertising the 1930 pre-Code drama film
Madonna of the Streets
. Directed by John S. Robertson, the film stars Evelyn Brent and Robert Ames. The film is a sound remake of the 1924 silent film of the same name starring Alla Nazimova.
Small posters on card stock (usually 11" x 14" in a horizontal format), lobby cards were generally produced in sets of eight, intended for display in a theatre's foyer or lobby. A lobby set typically consists of one Title Card (a lobby card of special design usually depicting all key stars, listing credits, and intended to represent the entire film rather than a single scene) and seven Scene Cards (each depicting a scene from the movie). Lobby cards are no longer used in theatres today.
This lobby card measures 14" x 11".
Guaranteed to be 100% vintage and original from Grapefruit Moon Gallery.
More about Evelyn Brent:
Petite, sultry leading lady of the 1920's and 30's, who was born and schooled in Tampa, Florida, until the age of ten when she lost her mother. She moved to New York with her dad and started modelling while still in her teens. Her original intention was to go into the teaching profession. Instead, she became enamored with acting during a school visit to the Popular Plays and Players Studio in Ft.Lee, New Jersey, a production cooperative for distributors World Film, Pathe and Metro. Before long, Evelyn had a job as an extra for a week, using her original name, Betty Riggs. Between 1914 and 1920, she appeared in featured film roles with stars like Olga Petrova and John Barrymore (who hand-picked her as his leading lady for 'Raffles' in 1917), then took a sabbatical for health reasons and went to England.
By making the acquaintance of American playwright Oliver Cromwell, she was able to land a good role in the George Bernard Shaw comedy 'The Ruined Lady' on the London stage. This, in turn, led to her being cast as leading lady in several British films and, in 1922, she even went to Spain as star of The Spanish Jade (1922), distributed in America by Paramount. Upon her return to the United States in 1924, she was briefly under contract to Fox, then joined Associated Authors, and, finally, Paramount-Famous Players-Lasky (1926-30). At the height of her career in silent films, the dark-haired, aquiline Evelyn became a matinee idol with performances as exotic temptresses and vamps, particularly in films by Austrian director Josef von Sternberg. She was notable as the gangster's moll, Feathers, in Underworld (1927) (the proverbial 'tough broad with the heart of gold'); and as a self-sacrificing Russian girl in love with an exiled Czarist general (Emil Jannings) in The Last Command (1928). She had another good part in Paramount's first all-talking picture, Interference (1928), as a blackmailer.
While Evelyn's voice proved no detriment to her success in talking pictures, the declining quality of her films did. Her Alaskan epic The Silver Horde (1930), in which she played another disreputable character named Cherry Malotte, was described in critical review as 'dull and trivial' (New York Times,October 25). Her performances as gang molls in Framed (1930) and The World Gone Mad (1933), and her unlikely mission worker in Madonna of the Streets (1930), engendered lukewarm write-ups like 'satisfactory' or 'competent', which did nothing to elevate Evelyn's post-Paramount career. By the end of the decade, she had moved down the cast list from second leads to supporting roles, finally appearing in westerns and 'quota quickies' for poverty row studios, such as Monogram and PRC. In the 'cheap and cheerful' category, she seemed to enjoy herself in the Columbia serial Holt of the Secret Service (1941), as Kay Drew, partner of tough agent Jack Holt. She was memorable, in one of her last roles, as a one-armed satanist in the eerie Val Lewtonhorror flic about devil-worshippers in Greenwich Village, The Seventh Victim (1943).
After making her last film in 1950, Evelyn found work as an actor's agent with the Thelma White Agency in Hollywood. After the death of her third husband, Harry Fox (who gave the Foxtrot its name) in 1959, Evelyn made a final screen appearance as a guest star on Wagon Train (1957). She left the limelight for good in 1960 and lived her remaining years in retirement in Westwood Village, California.
- IMDb Mini Biography By: I.S.Mowis
More about Robert Ames:
Robert Downing Ames (March 23, 1889 – November 27, 1931) was an American actor.
Ames was born in Hartford, Connecticut, where his father, Louis Mason Ames, was employed as an accountant for an insurance company and his mother, Mary Elma (née Downing) Ames, worked as a voice coach.
Ames's first big acting break came when a friend brought him to the attention of the actor Henry Miller, which led to a role in Miller's production of The Great Divide by William Vaughn Moody. Ames would spend eleven seasons with Miller's company before moving on to Jessie Bonstelle's stock company for eight seasons and the Municipal Stock Company for three. His first Broadway success came in 1916 playing Charles Daingerfield (alias Brindlebury) opposite Ruth Chatterton in Come Out of the Kitchen by A.E. Thomas. Ames played leading roles in The Hero (1921) by Gilbert Emery, Lights Out (1922) by Paul Dickey and Mann Page, Icebound (1923) by Owen Davis, We've Got to Have Money (1923) by Edward Laska, and The Desert Flower (1924) by Don Mullally.
After a brief stint in vaudeville, Ames moved to Hollywood in the mid 1920s to concentrate on film work, though on occasion he would return to perform on the New York stage. He co-starred in several early talkies, including The Trespasser (1929) with Gloria Swanson, A Lady to Love (1930) with Vilma Bánky and Edward G. Robinson, and the 1930 version of Holiday, in the role later played by Cary Grant in the better-remembered 1938 remake.
Ames married four times. His first marriage, to Alice Gerry, occurred around 1907 and produced a daughter and son before their divorce nine years later. His second wife was actress/writer Frances Goodrich. This union ended in 1923 after six years of marriage. Later that same year Ames married actress/singer Vivienne Segal and divorced her three years later. His last marriage, to socialite Muriel Oakes, also lasted three years before she filed for divorce in 1930. The day after his marriage to Oakes, Ames was slapped with a 0,000 breach-of-promise lawsuit by nightclub entertainer Helen Lambert, who claimed he had promised to marry her after his divorce from Segal. Over the last months of his life, Ames was linked romantically in the press with stage and film actress Ina Claire.
On November 27, 1931, Ames was found dead in his room at the Hotel Delmonico in New York City. Ames had traveled to New York from Hollywood to spend time with his family over the Thanksgiving holiday and to begin work on a film for Paramount Pictures. At the time of his death, Ames was taking a non-narcotic medication for alcohol withdrawal delirium. A later autopsy could find no trace of alcohol or other medications in his system, only that he was in the early stages of developing heart disease. The official cause of death was attributed to delirium tremens most likely brought on by his sudden abstinence from alcohol. He was interred at Cedar Hill Cemetery in Hartford, Connecticut.
Biography From Wikipedia