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Q #28: Dear Picture Show Man:

When did people start using the term "movie" for a motion picture?

A: By 1910 the motion picture industry had run through a series of experimental terms and words starting with Cinematograph and Kinetoscope in the early vaudeville days of the screen, to nickelodeon, nickelette, theatorium and nickelshow in the early days of the screen theater. However, all those names turned out to be awkward misfits, and simpler terms like "moving picture" and "picture show" had crept into common usage. England and Europe had rather settled on “Cinema” in some form of spelling, except Germany which, with characteristic Teutonic explicitness, arrived at “Wandelbilder” (wandering pictures) “Lichtbild” and “Lichtspiel” (light play).

In America the slang expression “movie” began to get circulation in newspaper comic strips in 1909, and within a year it was well on its way to nationwide usage. But the motion picture industry in the U.S. made a serious effort to kill the rise of the word “movie” because, as one theater management team stated in their local newspaper, “It is unpardonable slang, emanating from the gutter, and its use is deplored by everyone who wishes to see the photoplay occupy the dignified position which it deserves.”

In 1910, by which time many people had begun to use the term "motion picture" instead of "moving picture", the Essanay Film Company offered 25 dollars for a new name for the motion picture. The winner of the contest was Edgar Strakosch, a musician and exhibitor in Sacramento, CA, who coined the term “Photoplay”. The following year, in 1911, a new motion picture fan magazine was launched called Photoplay, and in 1912 movie tie–in editions of novels began to be referred to as "Photoplay Editions". Although movie studios and production companies still use the word "Photoplay" for various purposes, by 1915 the word “movie” had become so recognized and accepted that in that year Louella Parsons published her manual for scenario writing under the title How to Write for the “Movies". During the next decade widespread use of such motion picture synonyms as "Photoplay", "Pictograph", "Photodrama", "Picture Show", and "Flickers" faded from day–to–day use, and people throughout America were going to the "movies".

Q #29: Dear Picture Show Man:

Who was the first actor to be nominated posthumously for an Academy Award?

A: When Heath Ledger was nominated for an Academy Award after his untimely death in 2008, he became the 7th actor to receive a nomination for a specific performance posthumously (James Dean was nominated posthumously twice). However, it was Jeanne Eagels who was the first actor to receive an Academy Award nomination posthumously, and that happened in 1930.

Jeanne Eagels (née Amelia Jean Eagles) was born in Kansas City, MO, on June 26, 1890. Even as a young girl she wanted to become an actress, and after playing bit parts in local theaters she joined the Dubinsky Brother's traveling theater company as a dancer. She eventually made it to New York City where she decided to reverse two letters in her last name and change "Eagles" to "Eagels" because, it was said, she felt "Eagels" would look better on a marquee. In New York City she danced in chorus lines and eventually became a Ziegfeld girl, but she wanted to become a serious actress. By 1915 she had begun performing dramatic roles on stage and acting in movies, and in 1918 she was in the hit Broadway play "Daddies". By 1920 she was one of Broadway's leading ladies. When she originated the role of Sadie Thompson in the 1922 Broadway play "Rain", the New York Times said that Eagels displayed "an emotional power as fiery and unbridled in effect as it is artistically restrained."

In 1929 Eagels starred in her first sound film, "The Letter", which was adapted from a successful W. Somerset Maugham short story and play. After screening the movie in 1977, the New York Times critic Vincent Canby wrote, "Jeanne Eagels is absolutely stunning, with a face that recalls both the tough Jean Harlow and the ladylike Anne Todd, and a slightly husky voice that must have sent shivers up and down the spines in the third balcony." Although "The Letter" was a Paramount production, it is said that Louis B. Mayer was so impressed by the naturalness and power of Eagels' acting style in the new medium of talking pictures that he made "The Letter" required viewing for all M–G–M stars.

On October 3, 1929, at the age of 39, Jeanne Eagels became ill and was taken to a private hospital in New York City where she suddenly had a convulsion and died. The following year she was nominated posthumously for an Academy Award for her performance in "The Letter", but that year Mary Pickford won for her role in "Coquette". (In 1977 Peter Finch became the first actor to actually win an Academy Award after being nominated posthumously.)

The 1933 Broadway play "Shooting Star" was based on Eagels life, and in 1957 Kim Novak played the title role in the Columbia Pictures' biopic "Jeanne Eagels".

(If you would like to read more about Jeanne Eagels, go to the Jeanne Eagels website located at: http://www.jeanneeagels.com/ )

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