Ross Alexander
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Ross Alexander (born Alexander Ross Smith, Jr.; July 27, 1907 – January 2, 1937) was an American stage and film actor.
Early years
Alexander was born Alexander Ross Smith. Jr. in Brooklyn, New York,[1] the son of Maud Adelle (nee Cohen) and Alexander Ross Smith.[2]
Alexander attended Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn until he and his family moved to upstate Rochester, New York. He attended high school there, but dropped out before graduating.[3] Alexander claimed in interviews that the high-school principal recommended to his parents that the student should follow the acting profession.Script error: No such module "Unsubst".
When he was 17, he went to New York City and studied acting at the Packard Theatrical Agency.[4]
Stage
Alexander began his acting career with the Henry Jewett Players in Boston, debuting in Enter Madame.[5] By 1926, he was regarded as a promising leading man with good looks and an easy, charming style, and began appearing in more substantial roles.Script error: No such module "Unsubst".
His Broadway credits include Enter Madame (1920), The Ladder (1926), Let Us Be Gay (1928), That's Gratitude (1930), After Tomorrow (1931), The Stork Is Dead (1932), Honeymoon (1932), and The Party's Over (1932).[6] Alexander looked back at The Ladder with bemusement because its oilman backer, who had declared that the play would have a record-breaking run, kept his word by keeping the show open -- despite audiences of perhaps a dozen people at each performance. Ross Alexander stayed with the ailing show for almost two years.[7]
Film
Script error: No such module "Unsubst". Alexander was signed to a film contract by Paramount Pictures, and made his film debut in The Wiser Sex[8] (1932). Paramount dropped his option and he returned to Broadway. In 1934, casting director Max Arnow signed him with Warner Bros. His bigger successes from this period were Flirtation Walk (1934), A Midsummer Night's Dream and Captain Blood (both 1935).
In 1936, he starred in Hot Money. It was a defining role in his persona as a glamorous, well-dressed and dapper leading man, not in the usual Warner gangster mold of rough-hewn stars such as Edward G. Robinson or Paul Muni.Script error: No such module "Unsubst".
His final film Ready, Willing and Able, a Ruby Keeler musical, was released posthumously. Alexander was the male lead, but he was now billed sixth. According to a commentator on the history of American cinema, Kenneth Anger, supposedly Ronald Reagan was signed by Warner Bros. as a replacement for Alexander due to similarities in their radio voices and mannerisms.[9]
Personal life
Alexander married actress Aleta Freel on February 28, 1934, in East Orange, New Jersey.[4] Freel committed suicide on December 7, 1935, shooting herself in the head with a .22 rifle.[10] On September 17, 1936, Alexander married actress Anne Nagel,[11] with whom he had appeared in the films China Clipper and Here Comes Carter (both 1936).[12]
Death
Alexander always had problems with money. According to a studio biography, "He ruefully says that he doesn't know how to save money, and guesses that he'll have to get a business manager. And the only thing he collects is -- not first editions or etchings -- but debts!"[13] By the end of 1936, despite his movie employment, he was deeply in debt. On January 2, 1937, three months after marrying Nagel, with his professional and personal life in disarray, Alexander shot himself in the head with a .22 pistol in the barn behind his home.[14] That was not the same weapon his first wife had used. He is buried in lot 292 of the Sunrise Slope section of Forest Lawn Cemetery in Glendale, California.[15]
Filmography
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1932 | The Wiser Sex | Jimmy O'Neill | |
| 1934 | Social Register | Lester Trout | |
| Gentlemen Are Born | Tom Martin | ||
| Flirtation Walk | Oskie | ||
| 1935 | Maybe It's Love | Rims O'Neil | (starring role) |
| Going Highbrow | Harley Marsh | ||
| We're in the Money | C. Richard Courtney, aka Carter | ||
| A Midsummer Night's Dream | Demetrius | ||
| Shipmates Forever | Lafayette "Sparks" Brown | ||
| Captain Blood | Jeremy Pitt | ||
| 1936 | Boulder Dam | Rusty Noonan | (starring role) |
| Brides Are Like That | Bill McAllister | (starring role) | |
| I Married a Doctor | Erik Valborg | ||
| Hot Money | Chick Randall | (starring role) | |
| China Clipper | Tom Collins | ||
| Here Comes Carter (working title: The Voice of Scandal) | Kent Carter | (starring role) | |
| 1937 | Ready, Willing, and Able | Barry Granville | (starring role, released posthumously) |
References
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- ↑ Ross Alexander: The Life and Death of a Contract Player (2020) by John Franceschina.
- ↑ a b Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
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- ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
- ↑ Ross Alexander in Warner Bros. publicity for Maybe It's Love, 1936.
- ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
- ↑ Anger, Kenneth (1984). Hollywood Babylon II, Plume, New York, p. 215.
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- ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1". Template:Open access
- ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
- ↑ Ross Alexander, publicity for Maybe It's Love.
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External links
- Template:PAGENAMEBASE at Find a GraveTemplate:EditAtWikidata
- Template:First word Template:PAGENAMEBASE at the Internet Broadway DatabaseTemplate:EditAtWikidataTemplate:WikidataCheck
- Template:Trim/ Template:PAGENAMEBASE at IMDbTemplate:EditAtWikidataScript error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
- Pages with script errors
- IBDB name template using Wikidata
- 1907 births
- 1937 suicides
- 20th-century American male actors
- American male film actors
- American male stage actors
- American people of Polish-Jewish descent
- Burials at Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Glendale)
- Male actors from Los Angeles
- Suicides by firearm in California
- Male actors from Brooklyn
- Paramount Pictures contract players
- Warner Bros. contract players
- 1937 deaths
- Jewish American male actors
- Erasmus Hall High School alumni