Timelines for year 1924

Virginia Pearson

She went out of style after WWI and by 1924 had to declare bankruptcy. Thereafter she was reduced to extra parts and was forced to live with her husband, former actor Sheldon Lewis, in a small Hollywood Hotel room.

Mary Pickford

Ernst Lubitsch came to America at Mary's invitation to direct Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall (1924), but when he arrived he had changed his mind and wouldn't do it (it was eventually directed by Marshall Neilan). Instead, he and Mary made Rosita (1923) together.

Cliff Robertson

Son of Clifford Parker Robertson II and the former Audrey Winningham Robertson. His parents divorced in 1924. His mother died in 1925. He was raised by his maternal grandmother and an aunt.

J. Edgar Hoover

Was the director of the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation from May 19, 1924 until his death on May 2, 1972. Kept files on many political leaders and public figures that contained sensitive and potentially damaging information which he used for blackmail purposes. Ironically, there is strong evidence now that organized crime knew, and had evidence to prove, that Hoover was a secretly active homosexual transvestite and threatened him with exposure unless he took the heat off of their organization and onto some other person or organization. It was then that Hoover decided to focus his efforts at destroying the careers of liberal political and public figures such as Charles Chaplin and political reformers and civil rights leaders such as Martin Luther King. If true, that may explain why Hoover for decades kept denying that there was any form of national organized crime syndicate in America, and he was forced to admit it only because of the testimony of Mafia killer Joe Valachi before Congress in the early 1960s--which Hoover, as it turned out, had unsuccessfully tried to prevent.

Jane Winton

In 1924, she was a member of the Ziegfeld Follies.

Mary Brian

When she was cast as Wendy in 1924's Peter Pan (1924), Paramount cut two years off her age because 18 sounded too old for the part.

Harry Rapf

One of the original top executives of the newly formed Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer super studio in 1924, where he would remain for the remainder of his life. Rapf held the title of Production Supervisor in addition to acting as a line producer as well as one of Irving Thalberg's inner circle of supervisors. At the end of the reign of Louis B. Mayer, Rapf remained a Mayer loyalist and an enemy of MGM head Dore Schary.

Al Jolson

A staunch supporter of the Republican Party, he wrote the theme song for the 1924 presidential campaign, "Keep Cool with Coolidge".

Irna Phillips

She began her teaching career as a junior college speech and drama instructor in Fulton, Missouri in 1924. She was a teacher in Dayton, Ohio from 1924 until 1929. She was hired by WGN Radio Station in Chicago, Illinois as a writer.

Elmer Clifton

He was filming The Warrens of Virginia (1924)in Texas when his leading lady, Martha Mansfield, died from burns suffered in an accident on the set. Although Clifton himself was not at fault, he was fired by Fox and his career lost momentum.

Duke Kahanamoku

Won silver medal 100 Meter Swimming Freestyle (to Johnny Weissmuller) at the 1924 Summer Olympics.

Buster Keaton

Fractured his neck while filming Sherlock Jr. (1924) and did not learn about it until a doctor saw X-rays of his neck during a routine physical examination many years later.

The Navigator (1924) was his most successful movie according to the gross.

In one scene in the film Sherlock Jr. (1924) at a train station, he was hanging off of a tube connected to a water basin. The water poured out and washed him on to the track, fracturing his neck. This footage appears in the released film.