Robert Emmett Tansey

Robert Emmett Tansey (born June 28, 1897 in Brooklyn , New York ; died June 17, 1951 in Glendale , California ) was an American actor , screenwriter , producer, and director . Between 1911 and 1951 he starred in more than 20 films, wrote the scripts for more than 80 films and was also active as a producer and director.

Career

Robert Emmett Tansey was born in Brooklyn as the first son of the actor couple Harry Tansey and Emma Purcell Tansey , the father died on March 12, 1910 at home of pneumonia. Robert's younger brother, John Tansey, was also an actor and was best known as the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company's third child star around 1908-1910 . John's acting career was largely over in 1918. From 1924 to 1932 he played a few minor roles and was involved in five films as a director, screenwriter and producer, mostly with Robert. The youngest brother James Sheridan Tansey was also an actor, he was almost exclusively in supporting roles in westerns, mostly directed by Robert.

Like his younger brother John Tansey, Robert Emmett also appeared in various theaters on New York's Broadway between 1908 and 1910 . His film career began in 1911 with the lead role in the melodrama Mike, the Miser by Bannister Merwin . After 1914 Tansey only took on small roles in a few films, most recently in 1951, the year he died, as a sleeping juror in Cattle Queen . After a few years of interruption, he was proven in 1926 as director and screenwriter of the short film Daily Dozens . In 1930 he went back into the film business and was director and screenwriter of the Western Romance of the West and Riders of the Rio (also production).

The founding of the Congress Pictures Corporation in Hollywood, with his brother John and other business partners, was unsuccessful in early 1932. In connection with the first production, Barbara Bedford and other actors were suing the company for unpaid wages. By the time he died, he directed more than fifty times, produced more than forty films, and wrote more than eighty screenplays. He occasionally performed several functions and his brothers John and James Sheridan were often involved as actors or in other ways.

Tanseys worked almost exclusively in the western genre. Most of his work did not even reach the level of B movies . This was not only due to the low budget, but above all to Tansey's lack of quality awareness. In Westward Bound, for example, the main actor Hoot Gibson tries to keep attacking bandits away with dynamite. The dynamite sticks land in the picture, remain visible, and the loads of the trick specialists go up several meters away.

Robert Emmett Tansey was married to Katherine Marie Stiehn (1901–1963). The couple had two children, Robert Emmett (1918–1962) and Jeanne Helen Tansey (1925–1986). Robert Emmett Tansey suffered a fatal heart attack on June 17, 1951 in Glendale, California .

Filmography (selection)

• 1911: Mike, the Miser (actor)
• 1911: The Declaration of Independence (actor)
• 1911: For the Queen (actor)
• 1912: Hazel Kirke (actor)
• 1912: The Little Artist of the Market (Actor)
• 1912: Ludwig from Germany (actor)
• 1912: The Passing of JB Randall and Company (actor)
• 1912: The Street Beautiful (Actor)
• 1912: A Western Prince Charming (Actor)
• 1913: Kentucky Foes (actor)
• 1920: The Girl with the Jazz Heart (Actor)
• 1922: Are Children to Blame? (Actor)
• 1926: Daily Dozens (director, screenplay)
• 1930: Romance of the West (director, screenplay, with brother John Tansey)
• 1930: Riders of the Rio (Director, Writer, Producer)
• 1932: The Gallopping Kid (actor (as Al Lane), director, screenplay, producer)
• 1935: Firewater and Fresh Flowers (Paradise Canyon) (screenplay)
• 1935: Timber Terrors (director, screenwriter, producer)
• 1937: Carmen in Texas (Trouble in Texas) (screenplay)
• 1944: Westward Bound (Director, Screenplay)
• 1944: Storm Over Arizona (Arizona Whirlwind) (Director, Screenplay, Producer)
• 1946: God's Country (Director)
• 1951: Cattle Queen (actor, director, screenplay, producer)
• 1951: Badman's Gold (Director, Writer, Producer)

Theater roles (Broadway)

• Genesee of the Hills by Hugh Ford based on the melodrama Told in the Hills by Marah Ellis Ryan ( Astor Theater , Broadway , February to March 1907, 26 performances)
• The Second Mrs. Tanqueray by Arthur Wing Pinero ( Daly's Theater , Broadway, February to March 1908)
• Camille by Olga Nethersole after The Lady of the Camellias by Alexandre Dumas the Younger (Daly's Theater, Broadway, February to March 1908)
• I Pagliacci by Olga Nethersole based on the opera Pagliacci by Ruggero Leoncavallo (Daly's Theater, Broadway, February to March 1908)
• Magda Olga Nethersole to home of Hermann Sudermann (Daly's Theater, Broadway, February-March 1908)
• Sapho by Olga Nethersole based on the eponymous drama by Clyde Fitch (Daly's Theater, Broadway, February to March 1908)
• The Enigma by Olga Nethersole based on the drama L'Énigme by Paul Hervieu (Daly's Theater, Broadway, February to March 1908)
• Adrienne Lecouvreur by Olga Nethersole based on the eponymous drama by Ernest Legouvé and Eugène Scribe (Daly's Theater, Broadway, February to March 1908)
• The Awakening by Olga Nethersole based on the drama Le Reveil by Paul Hervieu (Daly's Theater, Broadway, February to March 1908)
• Carmen by Olga Nethersole based on the novel of the same name by Prosper Mérimée , edited by Henry Hamilton (Daly's Theater, Broadway, February to March 1908)
• Lincoln by Benjamin Chapin ( Garden Theater , Broadway, February 1909, 17 performances)

Web links

• Robert Emmett Tansey in the Internet Broadway Database (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d} Chuck Anderson: Bob, Sherry, John and Emma ... The Tansey Family in Hollywood . The Old Corral website , accessed January 23, 2019.
2. ↑ Robert Emmett Tansey in the Internet Movie Database (English) , accessed on 23 January of 2019.
3. ↑ Michael R. Pitts: Western Films Series of the Sound Era , McFarland & Company, Jefferson, North Carolina and London 2009, ISBN 978-0-7864-3529-6 , pp. 384-391.