Vintage 1928 Silent Film Lobby Card Glorious Betsy Dolores Costello Conrad Nagel

Description

ITEM: This is a vintage and original Warner Bros. lobby card advertising the 1928 silent drama adaptation film
Glorious Betsy
. Based on the 1908 play of the same name by Rida Johnson Young, the romance between Jerome Bonaparte and Baltimore debutante Elizabeth Patterson was given the full treatment by Warner Bros., who starred their leading purveyors of cinematic passion, Conrad Nagel and Dolores Costello.
Glorious Betsy
was hauled back into the shop to be refurbished with a couple of talking sequences, a necessity after the apparently unanticipated success of the studio's groundbreaking
The Jazz Singer
(1927). Criticism of the still underdeveloped sound techniques was harsh, the long-suffering Costello once again the most obvious target. Costello's slight lisp was exacerbated by the studio's sound-on-disc system leaving the actress to face an uncertain future in "talkies."
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.
Lobby card measures 14" x 11".
Guaranteed to be 100% vintage and original from Grapefruit Moon Gallery.
More about Dolores Costello:
Dolores Costello was once known as the Goddess of the Silent Screen but is probably best remembered today as Drew Barrymore's grandmother. She was born in 1905 to actors Maurice Costello and Mae Costello. Her father began his film career in 1908. He would soon become the most popular matinée idol of his day. He gave Dolores and her sister Helene Costello their screen debuts in 1911. Dolores appeared in numerous pictures throughout the 1910s and the early 1920s, mostly with her father and sister. She later appeared on the New York stage with her sister in "George White Scandals of 1924". They were then signed by Warners Bros. where Dolores met future husband John Barrymore.
Barrymore soon made Dolores his costar in The Sea Beast (1926). During their lengthy kissing scene Dolores fainted in John's arms. They married in 1928 despite the misgivings of her mother, who would die the following year at the age of 45. They had two children, DeDe in 1931 and John Drew Barrymore in 1932. Dolores took time off from her movie career in the early 1930s to raise her young children. Her sister Helene and her new husband, actor Lowell Sherman, successfully convinced Dolores to divorce Barrymore in 1935, mainly because of his excessive drinking.
After the divorce Dolores returned to acting, appearing in several big-budget pictures, and her career seemed to be back on track. Her physical appearance, however, was greatly damaged due to the harsh studio make-up used in the early years. The skin on her cheeks was in the process of deteriorating, forcing her into early retirement. She lived in semi-seclusion on her Southern California avocado farm, Fallbrook Ranch, where much of the memorabilia and papers from both the Barrymore and Costello family were destroyed in a flood.
- IMDb Mini Biography By: Jarod Hitchings
More about Conrad Nagel:
John Conrad Nagel (March 16, 1897 – February 24, 1970) was an American film, stage, television and radio actor. He was considered a famous matinée idol and leading man of the 1920s and 1930s. He was given an Academy Honorary Award in 1940 and three stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960.
Born in Keokuk, Iowa, into an upper-middle-class family, he was the son of a musician father, Dr. Frank L. Nagel, who was of German descent, and a mother, Frances (née Murphy), who was a locally praised singer. Nagel's mother died early in his life, and he always attributed his artistic inclination to growing up in a family environment that encouraged self-expression. His father, Frank, became dean of the music conservatory at Highland Park College and when Nagel was three, the family moved to Des Moines.
After graduating from Highland Park College in Des Moines, Iowa, Nagel left for California to pursue a career in the relatively new medium of motion pictures where he garnered instant attention from the Hollywood studio executives. With his 6-foot-tall (1.8 m) frame, blue eyes, and wavy blond hair; the young, Midwestern Nagel was seen by studio executives as a potentially wholesome matinee idol whose unpretentious all-American charm would appeal to the nation's nascent film-goers.
Nagel was immediately cast in film roles that cemented his unspoiled lover image. His first film was the 1918 retelling of Little Women, which quickly captured the public's attention and set Nagel on a path to silent film stardom. His breakout role came in the 1920 film, The Fighting Chance, opposite Swedish starlet Anna Q. Nilsson. In 1918, Nagel joined The Lambs, the historical theater club.
In 1927, Nagel starred alongside Lon Chaney Sr., Marceline Day, Henry B. Walthall and Polly Moran in the now lost Tod Browning directed horror film, London After Midnight. Unlike many other silent films stars, Nagel had little difficulty transitioning to sound films. His baritone voice was judged to be perfect for sound, so he appeared in about thirty films in only two years. He described the time as a "great adventure." He was working so steadily that one night when he and his wife planned to go to the movies, he was in the movie playing at Grauman's, Loew's, and Paramount's theaters. "We couldn't find a theater where I wasn't playing. So we'd go back home. I was an epidemic." He spent the next several decades being very well received in high-profile films as a character actor. He was also frequently heard on radio and made many notable appearances on television.
On May 11, 1927, Nagel was among 35 other film industry insiders to found the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS); a professional honorary organization dedicated to the advancement of the arts and sciences of motion pictures. Fellow actors involved in the founding included: Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, Richard Barthelmess, Jack Holt, Milton Sills, and Harold Lloyd. He served as president of the organization from 1932 to 1933. He was also a founding member of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG). Nagel was elected to The Lambs, the New York-based theater organization, in 1918.
Nagel was the host of the 3rd Academy Awards ceremony held on November 5, 1930, the 5th Academy Awards on November 18, 1932, and a co-host with Bob Hope at the 25th Academy Awards ceremony on March 19, 1953. The 21-year gap between his appearances in 1932 and 1953 is a record for an Oscar ceremonies host.
Nagel was the announcer for Alec Templeton Time, a musical variety program on NBC Radio in the summer of 1939. He was the host on Silver Theatre, a summer replacement program that began June 8, 1937.
From 1937 to 1947, he hosted and directed the radio program Silver Theater. He then hosted the popular TV game show Celebrity Time from 1948 to 1952 and the DuMont Television Network program Broadway to Hollywood from 1953 to 1954.
Templeton later hosted his own TV show It's Alec Templeton Time on the DuMont Television Network from June 1955 to August 1955. From September 14, 1955 to June 1, 1956, Nagel hosted Hollywood Preview, a 30-minute show on the DuMont Television Network which featured Hollywood stars with clips of upcoming films.
In 1961, again on television but in an acting role, he made a guest appearance on the popular courtroom drama Perry Mason, portraying the character Nathan Claver, an art collector and murderer, in the episode "The Case of the Torrid Tapestry".
In 1962 he guest starred on the TV Western Gunsmoke as the vengeful Major Emerson Owen in S7E33’s “The Prisoner”.
Nagel married and divorced three times. His first wife, actress Ruth Helms, gave birth to a daughter, Ruth Margaret. His second wife was actress Lynn Merrick. His third wife was Michael Coulson Smith, who gave birth to a son Michael.
Nagel died in 1970 in New York City at the age of 72. A spokesman for the office of the Chief Medical Examiner said that Nagel's death was "due to natural causes", more specifically, a heart attack and emphysema. He added that no autopsy was planned. Nagel was cremated at Garden State Crematory in North Bergen, New Jersey. His remains are interred at the Lutheran Cemetery in Warsaw, Illinois.
In 1940, Nagel was given an Honorary Academy Award for his work with the Motion Picture Relief Fund. For his contributions to film, radio, and television, Nagel was given three stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1719 Vine Street (motion pictures), 1752 Vine Street (radio), and 1752 Vine Street (television).
Biography From Wikipedia