Olga Gray

Olga Gray (also: Olga Gray , Anna Zacsek , Anushka Zacsek and others, * 1896 or 1897 in New York City or Budapest ; † April 25, 1973 in Los Angeles ) was an American theater and film actress and lawyer with Hungarian roots.

Life

Olga Gray was born as Anna or Anushka Zacsek. She was the daughter of Stefan and Teresa or Theresa Zacsek, who had emigrated from Hungary in 1892 , and had a brother, Stefan Zacsek junior. Stefan Zacsek the Elder was still working as a caretaker in 1900. The family moved to Los Angeles when Anna Zacsek was five or six years old; In 1903 she still lived on Casco Street, the following year she moved to House No. 2231 (now 2233 1/2) on Sunset Boulevard , which Stefan Zacsek probably had built. The family lived there for about eight years before moving to house number 2237 for about three years. Anna Zacsek's parents lived in house No. 1488 after they moved out. No. 2233 1/2 is considered the actress' childhood home, and around 2011 there was a dispute about its recognition as a cultural heritage worthy of protection.

Anna Zacsek attended the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music in her youth and played at the Majestic Theater in Los Angeles. As an eleven-year-old, then still called Annie Zacsek, she appeared publicly with a piano solo at a final concert, and in 1910 also as an actress, together with her brother, in the play If I Were King . During Anna Zacsek's youth, the first silent film studios established themselves near her parents' house in Edendale . She got a small role in His Lesson from 1915, and DW Griffith gave her the role of Laura Keene in Birth of a Nation and cast her as Mary Magdalene in Intolerance in 1916 . That year she starred in six other films, including Lady Agnes in Macbeth . Around this time she changed her name to "Olga Gray" or "Olga Gray", allegedly because her maiden name was not suitable for the roles she was aiming for, but predestined her to be a "Vamp with a Goulash name".

In 1917 she had a minor role as the Aztec in The Woman Got Forgot ; eleven other rather insignificant film roles followed until 1920, before she turned back more to stage art and appeared in Ibsen plays in Frank Egan's Little Theater. Among them were Rosmersholm and Hedda Gabler . She got the lead role in Maurice Maeterlinck's Monna Vanna , directed by Hedwiga Reicher . She received excellent reviews for it and was also portrayed in this role by Max Wieczorek .

Anna Zacsek established numerous contacts, including with the photographer Edward Weston , who portrayed her in 1919, and with the architect Rudolph Schindler , who later designed her beach house. In December 1920, she married the actor Arnold R. Samberg , which ended in divorce.

In 1921 she had the lead role in The Jest in San Francisco and worked in Detroit . Egan planned to bring her back to Los Angeles, where she directed Africanus in 1922 . This was the first play in Los Angeles theatrical history to focus on African Americans. In the theater season 1922/23 she played in Europe, including Vienna , Paris and Budapest. Again Ibsen pieces were on the program, but also Anna Karenina and Judith of Bethulia . Then she went to New York on Broadway, where she worked with Frank Reicher , among others . In 1926 Egan brought her back to Los Angeles; but his sudden death the following year threw her theater plans upside down. She went to the Belmont Theater with Reginald Pole in 1928, where The Idiot was to be performed. Schindler worked out the sets for this. In the spring of 1928 she played alongside Boris Karloff in Monna Vanna in the Trinity Auditorium and again received excellent reviews. This was followed by a leading role in For the Soul of Rafael , then a leading role in Hotel Imperial . The reviews were very good again, but the play didn't make as much money as expected. As a result, Sydney Sprague owed the actress $ 450 and she had to file a lawsuit. This may have contributed to her change of profession.

After she got tired of the acting profession, she completed a law degree at Loyola University , which she graduated in 1932. The work as a lawyer was obviously profitable. In 1935 she commissioned Schindler to design her beach house in Playa del Rey . While the house was being completed, Zacsek played her final theatrical role in The Trial of Sally Rand .

As a lawyer, she mainly devoted herself to the defense of minorities. In 1934 she defended Pedro Gonzalez, in 1942 she represented Henry Leyvas, the alleged leader of the gang charged with the Sleepy Lagoon murders . She was intermittently president of the Southern California Woman Lawyers Association. She hosted the National Association of Woman Lawyers in their Schindler-built beach house and on their estate in Hancock Park, 211 Muirfield Road, where Howard Hughes had once lived.

Web links

Commons : Olga Gray - Collection of Images

Olga Gray in the Internet Movie Database (English)

Individual evidence

↑ According to the Los Angeles Department of City Planning RECOMMENDATION REPORT, CULTURAL HERITAGE COMMISSION, CASE NO .: CHC-2011-2619-HCM. ENV-2011-2620-CE, October 20, 2011, online at cityplanning.lacity.org , the actress was born in New York in 1897. The US Census also adopted New York as the place of birth, cf. www.ancestry.com , but could only guess the year of birth. See also the top three entries on www.libertyellisfoundation.org , which apparently relate to the actress. Other sources, such as IMDb, give November 10th 1896 as the birthday and Budapest as the place of birth . The year of birth 1897, but the place of birth Budapest is named by Anthony Slide: Silent Players. University Press of Kentucky, 2010, ISBN 978-0-813-12708-8 ( limited preview in Google Book Search) and Eugene Michael Vazzana: Silent Film Necrology . McFarland, 2001, ISBN 978-0-786-41059-0 , p. 212 ( limited preview in Google book search).

^ ^A ^b John Crosse, RM Schindler, Edward Weston, Anna Zacsek, Lloyd Wright, Lawrence Tibbett, Reginald Pole, Beatrice Wood and Their Dramatic Circles , October 4, 2016 at socalarchhistory.blogspot.com

↑ ^a ^b Los Angeles Department of City Planning RECOMMENDATION REPORT, CULTURAL HERITAGE COMMISSION, CASE NO .: CHC-2011-2619-HCM. ENV-2011-2620-CE, October 20, 2011, online at cityplanning.lacity.org

personal data
SURNAME	Gray, Olga
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Gray, Olga; Zacsek, Anna; Zacsek, Anushka; Samberg, Anna; Samberg Gray, Olga
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	US-american actress
DATE OF BIRTH	1896 or 1897
PLACE OF BIRTH	New York City or Budapest
DATE OF DEATH	April 25, 1973
Place of death	los Angeles

[1] According to the Los Angeles Department of City Planning RECOMMENDATION REPORT, CULTURAL HERITAGE COMMISSION, CASE NO .: CHC-2011-2619-HCM. ENV-2011-2620-CE, October 20, 2011, online at cityplanning.lacity.org , the actress was born in New York in 1897. The US Census also adopted New York as the place of birth, cf. www.ancestry.com , but could only guess the year of birth. See also the top three entries on www.libertyellisfoundation.org , which apparently relate to the actress. Other sources, such as IMDb, give November 10th 1896 as the birthday and Budapest as the place of birth . The year of birth 1897, but the place of birth Budapest is named by Anthony Slide: Silent Players. University Press of Kentucky, 2010, ISBN 978-0-813-12708-8 ( limited preview in Google Book Search) and Eugene Michael Vazzana: Silent Film Necrology . McFarland, 2001, ISBN 978-0-786-41059-0 , p. 212 ( limited preview in Google book search).

[cali-2] A ^b John Crosse, RM Schindler, Edward Weston, Anna Zacsek, Lloyd Wright, Lawrence Tibbett, Reginald Pole, Beatrice Wood and Their Dramatic Circles , October 4, 2016 at socalarchhistory.blogspot.com

[archi-3] Los Angeles Department of City Planning RECOMMENDATION REPORT, CULTURAL HERITAGE COMMISSION, CASE NO .: CHC-2011-2619-HCM. ENV-2011-2620-CE, October 20, 2011, online at cityplanning.lacity.org