Harry Carey Sr.

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Harry Carey, 1919

Harry Carey (born January 16, 1878 in New York City , New York , † September 21, 1947 in Brentwood , California ; actually Henry DeWitt Carey II ) was an American actor, film director, screenwriter and writer. He was a major western silent film actor and was able to successfully continue his sound film career.

Life

Carey grew up the son of a well-known judge and attorney on the New York Supreme Court in the Bronx . After studying at New York University, he was engaged in numerous short-term jobs. As an author of melodramas , he also tried to pursue a career in writing.

In 1909 he received the first offer to participate in a film production. From 1912 he appeared in many early films by David Wark Griffith . Carey starred in several early John Ford western films from 1917 to 1921 . He remained closely connected to this personally and professionally throughout his life. He was involved in a total of 26 of Ford's silent film wests, worked on the script and directing and was cast by Ford in numerous supporting roles until 1939. Carey was also temporarily under contract with FBO . Like his alter ego John Ford, Harry Carey was an "Easterner" who had ended up in the West, who fell in love with the landscape, adapted its ethos and at the same time (re) shaped it according to his own ideas. Like Ford, who had settled in the San Fernando Valley , Carey lived privately away from the big cities on the Harry Carey Ranch in the small town of Saugus in Los Angeles County . According to his ideas, he led a western-style way of life that was fundamentally different from what he had once got to know as the son of a New York judge. Carey and Ford combined truth and myth in their early films into a legend of the West that had more in common with their own morals and beliefs than with reality . Nevertheless, as Baxter points out, many Americans were only too happy to accept the image of the West shown by Carey, especially in the Cheyenne Harry films made from 1917 on, as the "pure truth".

From 1928 he took a break from the film business to train his voice for the emerging sound film . Carey made the transition from silent film to sound film better than many other former silent film stars, although he had to move to supporting roles because of his increasing age. Soon after his return to the film business, Carey had roles that are often counted among his best acting achievements in biographies, for example in the African film Trader Horn (1931) by WS Van Dyke and in the western Law and Order (1932) by Edward L. Cahn . He received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his appearance as the sympathetic Senate President in Frank Capra's film Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) . Carey was in front of the camera until shortly before the end of his life, often impersonating figures of authority. In the last years of his life he was able to act as a supporting actor in two classics of the western genre (and Hollywood in general), the western Duel in the Sun (1946) by King Vidor and Red River (1948) by Howard Hawks . In Red River , which was filmed in 1946, he stood in front of the camera with his son of the same name.

Carey was married twice. After his marriage to Alma Fern Foster, which ended in divorce, he married fellow actor Olive Fuller Golden . From this marriage the children Ellen and Harry Carey junior were born. Olive Carey is said to have introduced the acquaintance of John Ford. Immediately after Carey's death, John Ford dedicated the film Footprints in the Sand to his friend, the “bright star of the early Western sky” . Harry Carey junior took on one of the leading roles here, alongside John Wayne , who played the lead role as Ethan Edwards in the 1956 Ford film The Black Hawk and reminisced on Harry Carey senior with gestures and facial expressions . Olive Carey, which, like Harry Carey Jr. participated in this film, presented Wayne finally Cowboy - relics of her late husband and told him to Carey's legitimate successor. In 1976 he was inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame by the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City , Oklahoma . He also has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame .

Filmography (selection)

  • 1912: Friends
  • 1912: The Painted Lady
  • 1912: To Unseen Enemy
  • 1913: The orphans of the settlement ( The Battle at Elder Bush Gulch )
  • 1913: An Adventure in the Autumn Woods
  • 1913: Judith of Bethulien (Judith of Bethulia)
  • 1914: Her Father's Silent Partner
  • 1914: The Master Cracksman
  • 1915: Judge Not; or The Woman of Mona Diggings
  • 1915: Just Jim
  • 1916: A Knight of the Range
  • 1916: Secret Love
  • 1916: Three Godfathers
  • 1917: Straight shooting
  • 1919: Blind Husbands ( Blind Husbands )
  • 1919: Ace of the Saddle
  • 1919: Riders of Vengeance
  • 1919: The Outcasts of Poker Flat
  • 1920: Human Stuff
  • 1920: Overland Red
  • 1921: If Only Jim
  • 1921: The Wallop
  • 1922: Man to Man
  • 1922: The Kick Back
  • 1923: Crashin 'Thru
  • 1924: Roaring Rails
  • 1924: The Lightning Rider
  • 1925: Bad Lands
  • 1926: In the Shadow of Crime ( Driftin 'Thru )
  • 1927: A Little Journey
  • 1927: Slide, Kelly, Slide
  • 1928: The Golden Hell ( The Trail of '98 )
  • 1928: Good Men and True
  • 1931: Trader Horn
  • 1932: Law and Order ( Law and Order )
  • 1932: Devil Horse ( The Devil Horse )
  • 1935: San Francisco in gold fever ( Barbary Coast )
  • 1935: Wagon Trail
  • 1936: The Prisoner of Shark Island (The Prisoner of Shark Iceland)
  • 1936: General Sutter (Sutter's Gold)
  • 1936: The Last Outlaw
  • 1936: The Second Mother (Valiant Is the Word for Carrie)
  • 1937: A penchant for horses (The Racing Lady)
  • 1937: Kid Galahad - With hard fists (Kid Galahad)
  • 1937: Souls at Sea (Souls at Sea)
  • 1938: You and me (You and Me)
  • 1938: Gateway
  • 1938: King of Alcatraz
  • 1939: Mr. Smith Goes to Washington ( Mr. Smith Goes to Washington )
  • 1940: They Knew What They Wanted
  • 1940: A Wonderful Christmas (Beyond Tomorrow)
  • 1941: Gun smugglers from Kenya ( Sundown )
  • 1941: The Shepherd of the Hills ( The Shepherd of the Hills )
  • 1941: Doomed to Live ( Among the Living )
  • 1942: The Spoilers ( The Spoilers )
  • 1944: The Great Moment
  • 1946: Duel in the Sun ( Duel in the Sun )
  • 1947: The Black Rider ( Angel and the Badman )
  • 1947: Endless is the prairie ( The Sea of ​​Grass )
  • 1948: A champion to fall in love ( So Dear To My Heart )
  • 1948: Red River ( Red River )

literature

  • John Baxter: Art. "Carey, Harry" . In: Nicholas Thomas (ed.), Actors and Actresses, 2nd ed., Detroit; London 1992 (International Dictionary of Films and Film makers; 3), pp. 173ff.
  • Kay Less : The film's great personal dictionary . The actors, directors, cameramen, producers, composers, screenwriters, film architects, outfitters, costume designers, editors, sound engineers, make-up artists and special effects designers of the 20th century. Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-89602-340-3 .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Carey, Harry Sr.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Carey, Henry DeWitt; Carey, Henry DeWitt II .; Carey, Harry D .; Carey, HD
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American actor, screenwriter and director
DATE OF BIRTH January 16, 1878
PLACE OF BIRTH Bronx , New York City, New York, United States
DATE OF DEATH September 21, 1947
Place of death Brentwood , California, United States