James Cruze

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James Cruze

James Cruze (actually: Jens Vera Cruz Bosen ) (born March 27, 1884 in Odgen , Utah , † August 3, 1942 in Los Angeles ) was an American actor and film director .

Career

James Cruze, who had Danish ancestry as the son of a Mormon family, first worked as a fisherman to earn his degree at an acting academy. At the age of 16 he was already playing his first roles on stage and in 1906 became a member of the then very famous Belasco troupe, with whom he regularly appeared on Broadway . In 1908 he changed his profession and worked in countless films for the Thanhouser Filmgesellschaft. He moved to Hollywood in the mid-1910s and began his career as a director in 1918.

James Cruze was known as a high-profile worker who was at home in every genre. He was first known through a number of comedies starring Fatty Arbuckle , but most of the films were withdrawn from circulation and destroyed after 1921, at the height of the scandal surrounding the silent film actor . His best-known film is the western The Covered Wagon , made in 1923 , which depicts the train of German emigrants to western North America and their clashes with one another and with Indians. The film was carefully researched and staged in great detail. He was one of the most commercially successful representatives of his genre from the early days of film and received a Photoplay Award and a Kinema Junpo Award in 1923 . James Cruze's film Hollywood , also released in 1923, was the first film to take a critical look behind the facade of the dream factory and to relentlessly uncovered the manipulation of the audience through partly fictitious stories about the stars of the big screen. At the same time, the film was an homage to Fatty Arbuckle and did not spare criticism of the behavior of the producers towards the actor. In 1925 Cruze took over the technique of German Expressionism for the work on Beggar on a Horseback , based on the play of the same name from 1924, and was able to convince the critics with a dense dramaturgy and for the time exciting new camera positions. Its decline began the following year, when the highly financially produced Western Old Ironside flopped at the box office . It was not until 1930 and King Vidor's Billy the Kid before another lavishly produced western hit national cinemas.

In subsequent years Cruze turned mainly routine films for numerous companies, including William Haines - Joan Crawford Romance The Duke Steps Out from 1929. In the same year he made with The Great Gabbo his first sound film , which, starring Erich von Stroheim and Cruzes then Wife Betty Compson . In the 1930s, Cruze's career waned and he retired after a few B-movies in 1938. He died completely impoverished and largely forgotten.

After ten years of marriage to actress Marguerite Snow, James Cruze was married to actress Betty Compson and the tumultuous clashes between the two filled the gossip press. Their divorce in 1930 turned into a mud fight, with widespread media attention.

Cruze was often involved in legal disputes, and in 1929 he faced a lawsuit accused of being responsible for the deaths of some actors while filming one of his films.

A star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame today commemorates James Cruze.

Filmography

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