Ann Gillis
Also Known As: Anne Gillis, Alma Mabel Conner
Biography: Ann Gillis was born Alma Mabel Conner on February 12, 1927, in Little Rock, Arkansas. At age seven, she appeared in her first film, Men in White (1934), as an extra. During the next two years, she had uncredited appearances in six more films until she received her first major role in King of Hockey (1936). Warner Brothers Studios gave significant screen time to Gillis in this movie, in hopes that she would become another Shirley Temple. Although (like all child stars of the 1930s) she never achieved Temple's level of fame, for the next several years Gillis starred in many films, almost always playing a spoiled, bratty character. She had two rare sympathetic roles as Becky Thatcher in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1938) and as the title character in Little Orphan Annie (1938). One scene in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer called for her to go into screaming hysterics when her character was trapped in a cave of bats, and Gillis delivered in a powerful performance that is probably the most memorable scene of her film career. As Gillis grew older, however, her career slowed down, and she left Hollywood in 1947. When she left Hollywood she married Paul Ziebold and had 2 sons. She then divorced, relocated to New York City and married Richard Fraser, a Scottish-born actor (they had a son born in 1958). During the 1950s and '60s, Gillis made sporadic television appearances, and in 1959, she hosted a national telecast presentation of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Gillis and her husband moved to England in 1961, and they were living in London when they heard of a casting call for 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) that called for an American actress living in the city. Gillis auditioned and got the role; it remains her final film to date. Ann moved to Belgium in 1972 where she met and married Belgian René Van Hulst (deceased 1999). She lived in Belgium from 1972 to 2014 and became a Belgian citizen, devoting much of her time to painting and music, she was an accomplished pianist and harpist. She moved to England, UK in December 2014 and passed away peacefully on 31/1/2018.
Department: Acting
Place of Birth: Little Rock, Arkansas, USA
Adult: No
Deathday: January 31, 2018
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Known For:
2001: A Space Odyssey
Overview: Humanity finds a mysterious object buried beneath the lunar surface and sets off to find its origins with the help of HAL 9000, the world's most advanced super computer.
Genres: Science Fiction Mystery Adventure
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1968-04-02
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Bambi
Overview: Bambi's tale unfolds from season to season as the young prince of the forest learns about life, love, and friends.
Genres: Animation Drama Family
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1942-08-14
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Overview: Tom Sawyer and his pal Huckleberry Finn have great adventures on the Mississippi River, pretending to be pirates, attending their own funeral and witnessing a murder.
Genres: Family Adventure
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1938-02-11
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Off to the Races
Overview: The Jones family's uncle George enters his trotting horse in the fair grounds race. The family helps raise the entrance fee and care for the horse.
Genres: Comedy Drama Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1937-02-05
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Janie Gets Married
Overview: Newlywed Janie's (Joan Leslie) World War II-veteran husband (Robert Hutton) goes to work at her father's (Edward Arnold) newspaper.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1946-06-22
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In Society
Overview: Two bumbling plumbers are hired by a socialite to fix a leak. A case of mistaken identity gets the pair an invitation to a fancy party and an entree into high society. As expected, things don't go too smoothly.
Genres: Comedy Action Crime Music
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1944-08-16
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Mr. Dynamite
Overview: A ball player takes his girlfriend to a carnival, only to discover a ring of saboteurs.
Genres: Crime
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1941-03-01
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Sweetheart of Sigma Chi
Overview: A couple of gamblers pressure the local night club owner to rig things so the local college rowing crew will lose their upcoming race.
Genres: Comedy Music
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1946-11-16
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Meet the Stewarts
Overview: A young, newlywed couple learns to make their marriage work—on a budget.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1942-05-21
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The Great Ziegfeld
Overview: At the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, sideshow barker Florenz Ziegfeld turns the tables on his more-successful neighbor Billings, and also steals his girlfriend. This pattern repeats throughout their lives, as Ziegfeld makes and loses many fortunes putting on ever-bigger, more spectacular shows
Genres: Music Drama Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1936-04-08
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Under Your Spell
Overview: A famous singer, bored with music and fans, goes to live in Mexico. His manager sends a woman to bring him back. They fall in love.
Genres: Comedy Music Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1936-11-06
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The Singing Cowboy
Overview: A rodeo singer funds a little girl's operation with a show, on television.
Genres: Western
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1936-05-11
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Big Town After Dark
Overview: A crusading newspaper reporter battles big-city gambling interests.
Genres: Crime Drama Thriller
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1947-12-12
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Peck's Bad Boy with the Circus
Overview: Trouble-prone Billy Peck and his gang descend on a traveling circus that has just hit town, and before long their antics are causing the circus owner all kinds of problems.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1938-12-02
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My Love Came Back
Overview: Amelia is a gifted violinist who is in danger of quitting the Brissac Academy of Music. Julius arranges to have a scholarship given to her through his employee Tony so that Julius can escort Amelia to every musical event in the city. The trouble begins when he cannot meet her one night and Tony goes in his place. Tony believes that Julius and Amelia are a couple and then son Paul thinks that Tony and Amelia are a couple as he is sending her the money. The worst part is that Amelia might leave classical music for swing music with classmates Dusty, Joy and the band.
Genres: Comedy Drama Music
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1940-07-13
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King of Hockey
Overview: Gamblers try to pressure a star hockey player into throwing a game.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1936-12-19
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'Neath Brooklyn Bridge
Overview: The East Side Kids find a young girl in the apartment of a man who has just been murdered. Believing her to be innocent, they hide her in their clubhouse while they try to find the real killer. The killer, however, used a baseball bat as his murder weapon, and the bat has the fingerprints of one of the gang on it.
Genres: Comedy Drama Romance War
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1942-11-20
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Man from Music Mountain
Overview: Roy returns home to fine a range feud between the cattlemen and the sheepmen. When his friend is killed he finds the rifle had a defective pin. He learns the rifle belongs to a ranch hand named Barker and that a third party has caused the feud. When he captures outlaws trying to blow up a dam, he claims Barker was the killer. But Barker has switched rifles and the outlaws now accuse Roy and Roy finds himself in trouble.
Genres: Music Western
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1943-10-30
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Glamour Boy
Overview: Former child star Jackie Cooper headlines this sentimental behind-the-scenes comedy drama. He plays an ex-child star who now jerks sodas for a living in Hollywood. He gets back into the movie business when he overhears a conversation between producers discussing their newest prodigy. Cooper butts in and suggests the producers remake Skippy (a real-life 1931 film that made young Cooper a star). The bigwigs like the idea and then hire Cooper to become the boy's acting coach. Once back on the backlot, Cooper finds both trouble and romance while helping the young boy adjust to life as a movie star.
Genres: Drama Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1941-12-05
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Beau Geste
Overview: When three brothers join the Foreign Legion to escape a troubled past, they find themselves trapped under the command of a sadistic sergeant deep in the scorching Sahara. Now the brothers must fight for their lives as they plot mutiny against tyranny and defend a desert fortress against a brutal enemy.
Genres: Adventure Drama War
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1939-07-24
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Little Men
Overview: Jo March and her husband Professor Bhaer operate the Plumfield School for poor boys. When Dan, a tough street kid, comes to the school, he wins Jo's heart despite his hard edge, and she defends him when he is falsely accused. Dan's foster father, Major Burdle, is a swindler in cahoots with another crook called Willie the Fox. When the Plumfield School becomes in danger of foreclosure, the two con men cook up a scheme to save the home.
Genres: Drama Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1940-11-29
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The Under-Pup
Overview: A young city girl from a poor family is invited to spend the summer at a camp for girls from wealthy families. At first made fun of and ridiculed because of her background, she determines to show the snooty rich girls she's just as good as they are.
Genres: Comedy Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1939-08-31
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You Can't Buy Luck
Overview: When a gambler is accused of murder, the pretty orphanage employee he loves sets out to prove him innocent of the crime.
Genres: Crime Drama Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1937-04-30
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Postal Inspector
Overview: Postal inspectors track down money stolen from a railroad car.
Genres: Thriller Action Crime Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1936-08-16
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All This, and Heaven Too
Overview: When lovely and virtuous governess Henriette Deluzy comes to educate the children of the debonair Duc de Praslin, a royal subject to King Louis-Philippe and the husband of the volatile and obsessive Duchesse de Praslin, she instantly incurs the wrath of her mistress, who is insanely jealous of anyone who comes near her estranged husband. Though she saves the duchess's little son from a near-death illness and warms herself to all the children, she is nevertheless dismissed by the vengeful duchess. Meanwhile, the attraction between the duke and Henriette continues to grow, eventually leading to tragedy.
Genres: Drama Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1940-07-05
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Edison, the Man
Overview: In flashback, fifty years after inventing the light bulb, an 82-year-old Edison tells his story starting at age twenty-two with his arrival in New York. He's on his way with the invention of an early form of the stock market ticker.
Genres: History Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1940-05-10
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Stage Door Canteen
Overview: A young soldier on a pass in New York City visits the famed Stage Door Canteen, where famous stars of the theater and films appear and host a recreational center for servicemen during the war. The soldier meets a pretty young hostess and they enjoy the many entertainers and a growing romance
Genres: Comedy Music Romance War
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1943-06-24
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Little Orphan Annie
Overview: Annie (Ann Gillis), an orphan, (based on Harold Gray's comic strip but who is at no point in the film called 'Little Orphan Annie), is befriended by a fight manager, 'Pop' Corrigan (J. Farrell MacDonald). She brings him Johnny Adams (Robert Kent), a promising prizefighter. Annie gets the people of the neighborhood to finance his training. But on the night of Johnny's big fight, a gambling syndicate locks him in a gymnasium and it appears the neighborhood folks will lose their investment.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1938-12-02
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A Wave, a WAC and a Marine
Overview: Henny Brown, talent scout for the Margaret Ames Film Agency in Hollywood, mistakes Broadway show understudies Judy and Marian, for stars Betty and Eileen, and signs them up for movies. Margaret, furious with Henny for the blunder, fires him---but only temporarily. Another agent, Marty Allen, once married to and still in love with Margaret, signs Betty and Eileen. Henny arrives with Judy and Marian, and the nightclub manager asks Henny to emcee the show. Though he is not sure himself what they can do, Henny introduces the girls and they make a hit in a dramatic sketch. Big-time movie producer R. J. signs them to a film contract. Judy joins the WAVES, Marian the WACS and Marty the Marines and all have two weeks before induction, and that is more than long enough to shoot a Monogram musical-within-a-Monogram musical and have a few days to spare.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1944-10-07
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The Californian
Overview: Native son returns from school in Spain to California in 1855 and finds corrupt politicians stealing land from old California families. He becomes a sort of Robin Hood in order to fight them.
Genres: Western
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1937-07-18
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Since You Went Away
Overview: In 1943, several people enter, re-enter, and exit the difficult life of a Midwestern family whose patriarch has been called up to war, leaving behind his wife and two teen daughters.
Genres: Drama Romance War
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1944-06-30
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The Cheaters
Overview: An eccentric wealthy family facing bankruptcy schemes to steal an inheritance, but an alcoholic ex-actor they take in for Christmas charity complicates their plan.
Genres: Comedy Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1945-07-15
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Nice Girl?
Overview: Jane is a nice girl and has had her eyes on a young man who seems more interested in his hand-built car than in Jane. She decides to shed her "nice girl" image when an associate of her father comes to town on his way to study Australian Aboriginal tribes.
Genres: Comedy Drama Music
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1941-02-21
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Gay Blades
Overview: New York hockey player Andy Buell is approached by Hollywood talent scout Nancy Davis to play the hunk lead in "The Behemoth" but he would prefer she quit her job and become his wife.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1946-01-25
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Tough as They Come
Overview: The 'Dead End Kids & Little Tough Guys' are working as collectors for a finance company, when they discover the company's illegal activities and try to stop them.
Genres: Drama Crime
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1942-06-05
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Janie
Overview: Teenage Janie falls in love with a private from an Army base opposed by her editor father.
Genres: Comedy Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1944-09-02
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The Time of Their Lives
Overview: Two ghosts, who were mistakenly branded as traitors during the Revolutionary War, return to 20th century New England to retrieve a letter from George Washington which would prove their innocence.
Genres: Comedy Fantasy Horror
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1946-08-13
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