Born July 10, 1899(?), in Logan, UT
Died January 9, 1936, in Los Angeles, CA
If Rudolph Valentino had not died in 1926, would John Gilbert still have attained the phenomenal adoration and fame he enjoyed at the height of his career? The answer is a resounding "yes"!!! John Gilbert is mostly remembered for his costarring roles with the great Greta Garbo. They made three silent films together: Flesh and the Devil (M-G-M, 1926), Love (M-G-M, 1927) and A Woman of Affairs (M-G-M, 1928). [Always worth mentioning, his thankless comeback in Garbo's Queen Christina (M-G-M, 1933).] The fact is, this is only one shining facet of a body of work by a silent screen artist who, in his prime, captured women's hearts around the world. Men admired his dash and he frequently portrayed the quintessential "Man's man" in films like The Big Parade (M-G-M, 1925) or Flesh and the Devil. (This is when he wasn't passionately romancing his leading ladies.) He set a leading man standard that was constantly imitated by other screen idols.
Like many fabulously famous performers, John Gilbert was a "10-year overnight success." He churned out a prolific number of films - from Westerns, to character parts (often playing the "heavy"), to supporting roles - while learning his craft. He began making movies in earnest in 1915 as an extra (a very noticeable extra) in Matrimony (Ince-Triangle, 1915). He was a very skinny young man, but his magnetic eyes, electric energy and the germination of his unforgettable charisma were clearly apparent. An example of his early work at Triangle exists and can be found on video. Golden Rule Kate (1917) was originally a five-reel Western. Unfortunately, only about one reel of fragments of this film survive.
Over time, Gilbert worked his way up from extra to supporting player. He played opposite the luminous likes of Colleen Moore, Marguerite Clark, Alice Lake, Louise Glaum and the immortal Mary Pickford. Gilbert and Pickford played flirting sweethearts in Heart O' The Hills (First National, 1919). He also has the distinction of costarring in the first production for the newly minted M-G-M studio, He Who Gets Slapped (1924), with the great Lon Chaney. I also maintain that, although historically Gilbert was a greater star than Garbo when he first worked with her in Flesh and the Devil, (sometimes it is erroneously believed that she was the greater star at that meeting), I will always contend that without Gilbert's magic guiding light, Garbo, in her first deeply impacting role, and on her subsequent journey through stardom, would not have glowed so brightly or afterglowed to this day. He was the most charismatic and complementary of all her leading men.
John Gilbert was a multitalented individual. Besides his acting, he possessed a well of creativity that also included writing. His screenplays and articles had depth and grit. He wrote several film scenarios that were produced in the early 1920's. He wrote an excellent four-part memoir called Jack Gilbert Writes His Own Story for Photoplay Magazine (June through September, 1928). His screenplay and acting role in the movie Downstairs (M-G-M, 1932), frequently aired on TCM, was a special production for him. It was a story he wrote and lobbied to do for a long time. He originally submitted his proposal in 1928 with Erich von Stroheim as his intended lead as the blackmailing chauffeur Karl. In 1932, his employer and good friend, Irving Thalberg, finally allowed him to realize his dream. Gilbert would play the lead. Downstairs has the impact today of a darkly cynical comedy (and has more than a passing resemblance to the popular 1970's British television production Upstairs, Downstairs). In fact, the ending was supposed to be even more cynical, for Gilbert wanted Karl the blackmailer to die an ironic and gruesome death - by drowning in a barrel of fine wine! Gilbert also had the desire and the expertise to direct films. [He did direct one film officially, Love's Penalty (Hope Hampton Productions, 1921), and was always suggesting bits for sequences that were occasionally adapted.] He was credited by Greta Garbo who was grateful for his ability to skillfully direct her emotions in their scenes together. "John Gilbert is one of the finest men I have ever met. He is so fine an artist that he lifts me up and carries me on with him. It is not just scenes I am doing. I am living," she said. Had he lived, it is highly probable that he would have achieved success as a film autuer.
Contrary to popular belief, John Gilbert did not want to be known only as "The Great Lover." He was a serious actor who sometimes had to work his way through insipid scripts. He especially delighted in the opportunity to play against type. He could be very intensely convincing in his "bad boyness" in such films as The Snob (M-G-M, 1924), The Show (M-G-M, 1927), Downstairs (M-G-M, 1932) and Fast Workers (M-G-M, 1933).
John Gilbert is sadly in need of more extensive revival in terms of his entire body of work - which has been locked up for too long! It is a great legacy of Gilbert's career and films itself that The Big Parade is still a perennial (and beautifully restored) favorite. His films with Garbo will always be the definition of silent movie romance. But I long to see his other artistic offerings, such as His Hour (M-G-M, 1924), directed by his favorite director (and one of mine) King Vidor; The Snob (M-G-M, 1924), with Norma Shearer; The Show (M-G-M, 1927) with Renée Adorée (from The Big Parade), Lionel Barrymore and directed by the fascinating Tod Browning; and Twelve Miles Out (M-G-M, 1927), with Joan Crawford and directed by Jack Conway. Frances Marion, one of the finest screenwriters of the silent (and sound) era wrote three scripts for Gilbert's films: Love (M-G-M, 1927), with Greta Garbo; The Cossacks (M-G-M, 1928), directed by George Hill; and The Masks of the Devil (M-G-M, 1928), directed by Victor Seastrom and which unfortunately may be a lost film.
According to Dark Star [(St. Martin's Press, 1985), the superlative biography of John Gilbert by his daughter, Leatrice Gilbert Fountain], in the mid-to-late 1920s, Jack, as he preferred to be called by his many friends, was considered a very hard-working and fun-loving man. He devoured life and enjoyed all the excitement, fame and luxury that life afforded him. He did, however, have a darkness in him. We learn that Jack had a torturous and troubled childhood. As an adult, he may have become his own worst enemy by ignoring events going on around him and being deeply driven by his own pride. For instance, Gilbert hung on to his multimillion dollar, but fateful, M-G-M contract to the bitter end when he had the choice, at a key moment, to make films more independently, and much more to his liking, elsewhere. M-G-M, in the form of Louis B. Mayer, broke his spirit. Gilbert would not yield to studio tactics plaguing him (and other stars), namely, the attempt to get an expensive star to challenge and therefore forfeit a lucrative contract by refusing to do films not worthy of their star power. Gilbert was determined to avenge himself against the powers that were, even if it meant professional destruction to prove his point. This resulted in a career that required rebuilding from the first frame. When he realized his mistake, his only recourse, he felt, was to self-medicate the emotional pain. This was part of Gilbert's long, painful decline. Even his closest friends were now considered suspect in his feelings of unjust persecution.
Jack had a deep romantic streak. In her memoir, Marlene Dietrich (Alfred A. Knopf, 1993), Maria Riva remembers meeting him in 1934, when he was romantically involved with her famous mother:
I did not have much [of a] relationship with the silent-screen actors. My mother never admitted, even to herself, ever having been one of them. [Dietrich appeared in at least 17 silent films in Europe, beginning in 1922, before she came to the U.S. in 1930] But John Gilbert, like Valentino and Chaplin, he was Hollywood. I just had time to run upstairs and get my autograph book before the front door chimes announced his arrival. Talk about "burning coals"! You could get scorched being looked at by him! He [also had] a sweet, half-sad smile that could break your heart. He took my hand. I made my best curtsey, looked up, and got the full treatment - coals, tender smile, the lot!
Unfortunately, a romantic nature has its down side. His frequent director, close friend and romantic rival King Vidor, opined in his memoirs A Tree is a Tree (Samuel French, 1953):
John Gilbert was an impressionable fellow, not too well established in a role of his own in life. The paths he followed in his daily life were greatly influenced by the parts that some script-writer had written for him. When he began to read the publicity emanating from his studio, which had dubbed him "The Great Lover," his behavior in real life began to change accordingly. It was a difficult assignment to live up to.
Many remember John Gilbert as the most notable of the sacrificial lambs to the talkie era. We know now, through his often revived sound films on Turner Classic Movies, that his proud voice was more than adequate for the silver screen. In fact, he totally embraced the change to sound. He fought hard to have his last silent film, Desert Nights (M-G-M, 1929), made into a talkie. He was bitterly disappointed when his request was denied. Chaplin softened Gilbert's resolve temporarily when he advised him to stay away from the talkies because they were too risky. Gilbert never anticipated what was to come.
In 1997, one of the Library of Congress's priority projects was the restoration of John Gilbert controversial first talkie, His Glorious Night. From all accounts since Gilbert's death (save the biography Dark Star by Gilbert's daughter, Leatrice Gilbert Fountain), this was the film that was supposed to have sent his career into a rapid downward spiral. M-G-M wanted this film to be successful. John Gilbert was the studio's hottest male star and this film needed all the drawing power to put the film over for risky sound craze (M-G-M was the last big studio to acquiesce). They employed the great stage star Lionel Barrymore to produce and direct (as well as compose the music for) this film. The studio hoped that his stage experience could help them facilitate and overcome the limitations of the new medium. In addition, publicity for this film was given preferential treatment. However, after its initial release and spectacular failure, the property was sold immediately to Paramount and shelved.
For years, a myth has been propagated that the career of John Gilbert was ended because his voice was inadequate for sound. It was also speculated that his voice was sabotaged in his first talkie, His Glorious Night. Seeing this film was a golden opportunity to directly confront the rumor we have heard all these years. There is an ongoing movement to lay these myths to rest. All one has to do is see and hear Gilbert's films.
The president and the publisher of The Silents Majority had the unique opportunity to attend the first public screening of this much-maligned film since 1929 [at Cinecon 33]. In this beautiful print, Gilbert looked great, had his usual sparkling screen presence and did the best he could with the material. The quality of Gilbert's voice was fine, period. This lays to rest the myth that there was tampering in the sound editing of this film to give his voice a higher register. This is certainly a falsehood that must have been started after the movie was pulled from distribution. And indeed, who could check? Many contemporary reviews dismissed both the story and the dialogue (which was taken from Ferenc Molnar's satirical play Olympia (1928) and did not translate well to an American sense of humor) as being treacly. They also complained that the action was stiff. Thanks to M-G-M's crude sound technology, the players were forced to stand around flower vases with concealed microphones, looking like an overdressed barbershop quartet. Gilbert's voice was simply not an issue to the critics' dismissal of this film.
His Glorious Night is a new restoration by the Library of Congress which returned over three minutes of material missing from earlier prints. This film had been previously restored in 1970. This latest effort was partially sponsored by The Society for Cinephiles/Cinecon, Inc. It should be noted that this production was not sound on film, but rather, the sound was recorded separately on disks. In its current condition, reel two was missing its sound disk. Fortunately, the disk has been located at the UCLA film and television archive. Plans to restore this disk to the current print are forthcoming. Once that work is completed, His Glorious Night deserves to be transferred to video.
After seeing His Glorious Night and the nine subsequent sound films that Gilbert starred in [all lower budget except Downstairs (1932) and Queen Christina (1933)], we are convinced that John Gilbert's career did not end because he voice was inadequate, nor his style of acting dated (do see his performance in Downstairs, which holds up to anything today) - his career ended because he died.
For four glittering years, beginning with The Big Parade (M-G-M, 1925), John Gilbert stood atop the highest pinnacle of world success, fame and fortune, with nary a slip in the public eye. Like the mythological Icarus, he flew too close to the sun of white hot fame. By 1935, he was ill from the effects of severe depression and alcohol, but he was hard at work on his "comeback." Back then, if you were gone for more than three months from the screen, you qualified for a Hollywood comeback and Jack had not made a film since The Captain Hates the Sea (Columbia, 1934). By late 1935, he was preparing to appear in a film for Paramount, Desire (1936), with his paramour Marlene Dietrich. The strains of his life undermined his mortality. His overtaxed heart simply gave out on January 9, 1936. Jack Gilbert died a very old 37.
Many of John Gilbert's films are available on video, or can be seen on the big screen in revivals.
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John Gilbert
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