Gertrude Michael
Also Known As: Lillian Gertrude Michael, Beck Michael
Biography: Gertrude Michael (June 1, 1911, Talladega, Alabama – December 31, 1964, Beverly Hills, California) was an American film, stage and television actress. Born as Lillian Gertrude Michael in Talladega, Alabama, she reportedly graduated from high school at the age of 14. She became a radio singer on the radio. She attended the University of Alabama and Converse College, Cincinnati. Her childhood home in Talladega, Alabama was destroyed by fire in 2007. In 1929 in Cincinnati she made her stage debut in a stock company. She subsequently appeared on Broadway in Rachel Crothers' Caught Wet (1931). She entered the movies playing Richard Arlen's finaceé in Wayward (1932), but her best-remembered role is probably as Rita Ross in Murder at the Vanities (1934), one of the last pre-Code films, in which she sang an ode to marijuana (Sweet Marijuana). She had an affair with writer Paul Cain (aka Peter Ruric).After they broke up, Cain wrote the role of the alcoholic lover (based on Michael) in his only novel published during his lifetime, Fast One. Gertrude Michael died, aged 53, from undisclosed causes, in Beverly Hills, California. Description above from the Wikipedia article Gertrude Michael,licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Department: Acting
Place of Birth: Talladega, Alabama, USA
Adult: No
Birthday: June 01, 1911
Age: 113 years old
Gender: Female
Deathday: December 31, 1964
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Known For:
Women's Prison
Overview: A crusading psychiatrist battles a sadistic female warden to improve conditions at a women's prison.
Genres: Drama Crime
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1955-02-01
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Flamingo Road
Overview: A stranded carnival dancer takes on a corrupt political boss when she marries into small-town society.
Genres: Drama Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1949-04-30
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I'm No Angel
Overview: The bold Tira works as dancing beauty and lion tamer at a fair. Out of an urgent need of money, she agrees to a risky new number: she'll put her head into the lion's mouth! With this attraction, the circus makes it to New York and Tira can pursue her dearest occupation— flirting with rich men and accepting expensive presents.
Genres: Comedy Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1933-10-06
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Hidden Power
Overview: Dr. Garfield gets so involved in his research for an antitoxin for severe burns that he completely neglects his wife, Virginian, and their young son, Steve. Virginia divorces him and takes the son with her. Their paths cross again in a life-or-death situation.
Genres: Action Crime Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1939-09-07
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Caged
Overview: A single mistake puts a 19-year old girl behind bars, where she experiences the terrors and torments of women in prison.
Genres: Crime Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1950-05-19
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Second Wife
Overview: Kenneth discovers that his son by his first wife is ill in a remote Swiss village, and is forced to leave Wife Number Two alone during childbirth.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1936-08-21
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Allotment Wives
Overview: Unscrupulous women marry servicemen for their pay.
Genres: Drama Crime
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1945-11-08
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Ann Vickers
Overview: After a love affair ending in an abortion, a young prison reformer submerges herself in her work. She then falls for a controversial and married judge and scandal looms again.
Genres: Drama Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1933-09-26
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Cleopatra
Overview: The queen of Egypt barges the Nile and flirts with Mark Antony and Julius Caesar.
Genres: History Drama Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1934-10-05
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No Escape
Overview: When the available evidence in a murder case points to a young woman as the main suspect, her boyfriend, a police detective, arranges for a struggling songwriter who is playing piano in a bar to be blamed for the crime. The girl, knowing that neither she nor the piano player committed the murder, helps him to escape from the police dragnet and try to find the real killer.
Genres: Crime Drama Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1953-07-31
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The Continental Twist
Overview: Sam Butera and the Witnesses perform several Twist numbers to save a small New Orleans nightclub and raise the bail to get Louis Prima out of jail.
Genres: Music Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1961-12-12
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Murder at the Vanities
Overview: Shortly before the curtain goes up the first time at the latest performance of Earl Carroll's Vanities, someone is attempting to injure the leading lady Ann Ware, who wants to marry leading man Eric Lander. Stage manager Jack Ellery calls in his friend, policeman Bill Murdock, to help him investigate. Bill thinks Jack is offering to let him see the show from an unusual viewpoint after he forgot to get him tickets for the performance, but then they find the corpse of a murdered woman and Bill immediately suspects Eric of the crime.
Genres: Music Mystery Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1934-05-18
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The Last Outpost
Overview: During WW1, the destinies of British officers Michael Andrews and John Stevenson seem intertwined on the battle front as much as on a more personal level.
Genres: Romance Adventure War
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1935-10-11
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Bugles in the Afternoon
Overview: Old enemies stationed together at an Army post vie for the same woman.
Genres: Western
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1952-03-04
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Four Hours to Kill!
Overview: A detective who has "four hours to kill" before delivering his prisoner, an escaped killer, spends the time in the lobby of a Broadway theater where a musical is playing. The film focuses on the relationship between the two men, and also between various characters in the theater audience, staff and cast.
Genres: Drama Crime
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1935-04-11
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Three's a Crowd
Overview: What would you do in this house of fear... if you knew that your husband killed your former flame?
Genres: Mystery
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1945-05-23
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Make Way for a Lady
Overview: An imaginative teenager decides to play matchmaker for her widowed father. Director David Burton's 1936 comedy stars Herbert Marshall, Anne Shirley, Gertrude Michael, Margot Grahame, Clara Blandick, Frank Coghlan Jr., Willie Best and Maxine Jennings.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1936-11-13
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Sophie Lang Goes West
Overview: Reformed jewel-thief Sophie Lang, tired of being questioned by the New York City police every time a jewel disappears, decides to head for California only to get into more trouble.
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1937-09-10
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Night of Terror
Overview: The heirs to a family fortune are required to attend a seance at the spooky old family mansion. However, throughout the night members of the family are being killed off one by one.
Genres: Mystery Horror
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1933-04-23
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Women in Bondage
Overview: Women in Bondage is a 1943 World War II film about conditions for women under Hitler's regime. The plot involves two women imprisoned for speaking out against the government. It was directed by Steve Sekely and starred Gail Patrick and Nancy Kelly.
Genres: War Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1943-12-16
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Murder on the Blackboard
Overview: There are plenty of guilty secrets at the school where Hildegarde Withers teaches. When she finds the body of the pretty music teacher, she calls in her old friend Inspector Piper, who promptly arrests the obvious suspect. Clues multiply and everyone looks suspicious as Piper and Miss Withers continue their battle of the sexes.
Genres: Comedy Mystery Thriller
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1934-06-15
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Cradle Song
Overview: In a deeply cloistered convent, nun Dorothea Wieck (Mädchen in Uniform) raises a foundling to be Evelyn Venable. But at 17, what if, guided by a kindly doctor, she sees the world and finds love?
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1933-11-19
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Bolero
Overview: The complicated relationship between an ambitious, ruthless nightclub dancer and the woman he loves.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1934-02-23
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Where Are Your Children?
Overview: Judy Wilson (Gale Storm), feeling neglected because both of her parents are working in defense plants, meets and falls in love with Danny Chester (Jackie Cooper), who enlists in the Navy and is sent to San Diego for training. She accepts an invitation to go on a ride to San Diego with her friends Herb (Neyle Morrow), Opal (Evelyn Eaton)and Jerry (Jimmy Zahner) but doesn't know the car has been stolen.
Genres: Crime Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1943-11-26
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Mr. Dodd Takes the Air
Overview: A country bumpkin becomes a singing sensation on the radio.
Genres: Comedy Music
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1937-08-11
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Till We Meet Again
Overview: In London, August 1914, Austrian star Elsa Duranyi (Gertrude Michael) and English matinee idol Alan Barclay (Herbert Marshall) are in love and plan an immediate marriage. But the War comes and Elsa mysteriously disappears. Alan's ease in speaking German results in his appointment to the British Intelligence and, to aid his use as a spy, they announce he was killed in action. He takes the name and personality of "shell-shocked" Hans Teller, a German prisoner, and is sent into Germany on an exchange of prisoners.
Genres: War Drama Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1936-04-04
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The Witching Hour
Overview: Jack Brookfield, a gambler with clairvoyant and hypnotic powers, is able to win at cards through his unique gift. But when he inadvertently hypnotizes young Clay Thorne, Thorne kills an enemy of Brookfield's while under a trance. No one believes Brookfield's protestations that Thorne is innocent of any murderous intent, so Brookfield teams up with retired lawyer Martin Prentice in hopes of saving the young man from the gallows.
Genres: Mystery Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1934-04-26
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The Return of Sophie Lang
Overview: In order to give up her life of crime and go straight, renowned jewel thief Sophie Lang fakes her own death and retires to London. She soon finds a job as a companion to a wealthy old lady who is also a jewel collector. One day her employer decides to take an ocean trip to the US, taking Sophie with her. She also takes along a $200,000 diamond, which she locks up in the ship's safe. Of course, the diamond is soon stolen from the safe. A reporter also happens to be aboard the ship, and he has had his suspicions about who Sophie really is. Sophie has to find the real thief and recover the jewel before the ship docks in New York, because an investigation could reveal her true identity.
Genres: Crime Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1936-06-18
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Unashamed
Overview: A debutante's (Helen Twelvetrees) brother (Robert Young) stands trial for killing her no-good lover.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1932-07-02
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Father Brown, Detective
Overview: After notorious jewel thief Flambeau meets Evelyn Fischer during a raid on a casino, he falls deeply in love with her. Later Flambeau sends notes to both Leopold Fischer, who unknown to him is Evelyn's uncle, and Father Brown, in which he vows he will steal from them the ten diamonds that comprise the "Flying Star." Flambeau intends to give these diamonds to Evelyn. Father Brown, whose gold cross contains some of the Flying Star diamonds, is determined to meet Flambeau before he is arrested, to reform and redeem his soul.
Genres: Crime Mystery
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1934-12-14
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Search for Beauty
Overview: Three con artists dupe two Olympians into serving as editors of a new health and beauty magazine which is only a front for salacious stories and pictures.
Genres: Comedy Crime
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1934-02-02
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A Bedtime Story
Overview: Parisian playboy plays father to an abandoned baby who interferes with his womanising.
Genres: Romance Comedy Music
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1933-04-22
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It Happened in New York
Overview: A New York City cab driver in need of $200 picks up a movie star in his cab, and schemes to get the money from her.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1935-03-29
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Slightly Tempted
Overview: A con man tries to sell phony stocks to unwary investors.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1940-10-18
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Menace
Overview: A psychotic man stalks three innocent people whom he believes are responsible for his brother's death.
Genres: Mystery
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1934-11-22
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George White's Scandals
Overview: Reporter Miss Lee is looking for a story and approaches George White as he's assembling the latest edition of his famous revue. As it turns out, she has lots of backstage gossip to choose from
Genres: Music
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1934-03-15
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Parole Fixer
Overview: This expose of the U.S. parole system, as seen through the eyes of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, takes dead aim on lawyers who manipulate the justice system in order to get undeserving convicts parole from prisons. The point is made when FBI agents are assigned to track down "Big Boy" Bradmore, who after getting an undeserved parole, via the efforts of a shyster lawyer, promptly murders an FBI agent.
Genres: Action Crime Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1940-02-02
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Prisoner of Japan
Overview: An American astronomer living on a Pacific island attempts to thwart the Japanese during WWII.
Genres: War
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1942-07-22
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The Farmer's Daughter
Overview: Broadway producer Nickie North and press agent Scoop Trimble find an investor for their next show who insists that they cast his ex-girlfriend, Clarice Sheldon, in the lead role and rehearse out of town. The crew set up on a family farm, and all is well until the leading man falls for the farmer's daughter, Patience Bingham. When flighty starlet Sheldon finds out he has a new girlfriend, she takes off, leaving North and Trimble to find a new leading lady.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1940-03-29
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Faces in the Fog
Overview: Tom and Cora Elliott love their active social life so much that they neglect their daughter Mary and son Les. Fred Mason, Tom's neighbor and the doctor at the defense plant employing Tom, worries about the effect that Tom and Cora's drinking and socializing have on the children....
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1944-11-30
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I Can't Give You Anything But Love, Baby
Overview: In I Can't Give You Anything But Love, Baby, Broderick Crawford plays a sentimental gangster who abducts songwriter Johnny Downs and forces him to write a love ballad. It is Crawford's hope that the song will reach out and touch his long-lost childhood sweetheart. I Can't Give You Anything But Love, Baby was based on James Edward Grant's short story Trouble in B Flat; echoes of the basic premise later resurfaced in the 1957 "A" picture The Girl Can't Help It.
Genres: Comedy Music
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1940-05-01
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Woman Trap
Overview: A gangland murder is the motivating factor of this fast-moving crime drama. George Murphy stars as reporter Kent Shevlin, whose investigation of the murder leads to a tenure as a temporary FBI agent.
Genres: Drama Crime
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1936-03-06
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Hold That Girl
Overview: "That girl" is newspaper sob-sister Tony Bellamy (Claire Trevor), whose nose for news gets her into one jam after another, especially when she poses as an exotic dancer to get the goods on a gangster.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1934-03-23
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Behind Prison Walls
Overview: A reworking of a familiar theme, the story finds scheming steel tycoon James J. MacGlennon (Tully Marshall) and his high-minded lawyer son Jonathan (Alan Baxter) simultaneously ending up behind bars. While incarcerated, Jonathan tries to mend his larcenous father's ways, thereby drawing closer to his not-so-bad dad.
Genres: Drama Crime
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1943-03-22
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Just like a Woman
Overview: A group of private detectives working for a jeweler pursue a gang of thieves in Argentina.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1939-11-16
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Darling, How Could You!
Overview: Two absentee American parents get to know their three children again after spending five years in Panama.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1951-08-08
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Wayward
Overview: Story of a mother's antagonism to her son's wife. Based on the novel "Wild Beauty" by Mateel Howe Farnham.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1932-02-19
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Pound Foolish
Overview: An expose of attempts by wealthy people to avoid payment of customs duties. Part of the MGM "Crime Does Not Pay" series.
Genres: Crime
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1940-01-27
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The Notorious Sophie Lang
Overview: After an extended stay in England, Sophie Lang returns to America. She is beautiful, sophisticated--and a notorious jewel thief. A New York police detective who's been trying to nail her finally comes up with what seems a foolproof scheme--to catch her off guard by having her fall for a handsome and suave jewel thief who happens to be in the U.S. traveling under an assumed name.
Genres: Comedy Crime Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1934-07-20
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I Believed in You
Overview: An aspiring writer and her boyfriend, a professional agitator head off to the Big Apple in search of good fortune. Unfortunately, the agitator soon finds himself in trouble with the cops. Meanwhile the writer attempts to become a Greenwich Village Bohemian type. She and her new friends are all starving for their art until a kindly gent offers them financial assistant. They refuse on principle. Tragedy pays a call when the writer learns that her boyfriend has been untrue.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1934-04-09
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Sailor Be Good
Overview: A Navy boxer (Jack Oakie) meets a dance-hall hostess (Vivienne Osborne) who tries to sober him up for a fight.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1933-03-07
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Club Havana
Overview: A number of different characters unfolding love, hate, and death problems during an evening in a fashionable Latin nightclub.
Genres: Drama Mystery
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1945-11-23
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Star of the Circus
Overview: English-language version or remake of the German film, TRUXA (1937).
Genres: Romance Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1938-01-01
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Forgotten Faces
Overview: Harry Ashton is a superstitious gambling house owner, who relies on sprigs of heliotrope as his good luck charm. One day, Harry catches his wife, Cleo with another man. Harry shoots him and takes his 18 month old daughter, Sally to best friend, Sgt. Donovan to find her a good home. Harry turns himself in and gets life in prison. 17 years pass, Cleo is on the brinks of losing her job as a burlesque dancer. Cleo decides to blackmail the McBrides (Sally's devoted adoptive parents). Harry discovers this and promises his warden that while on parole he will protect Sally. Harry trades places with the McBride's butler. While working, Harry discovers a letter addressed to the McBrides from Cleo asking to meet with her. Harry meets with Cleo instead and they begin to fight...
Genres: Crime Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1936-05-15
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