Elsie Janis Movies, TV Shows, and Filmography
Elsie Janis
Writing
Biography
From Wikipedia Elsie Janis (March 16, 1889 – February 26, 1956) was an American singer, songwriter, actress, and screenwriter. Entertaining the troops during World War I immortalized her as "the sweetheart of the AEF" (American Expeditionary Force). Janis was a tireless advocate for British and American soldiers fighting in World War I. She raised funds for Liberty Bonds. Janis also took her act on the road, entertaining troops stationed near the front lines - one of the first popular American artists to do so in a war fought on foreign soil. Ten days after the armistice she recorded for HMV several numbers from her revue Hullo, America, including Give Me the Moonlight, Give Me the Girl. She wrote about her wartime experiences in The Big Show: My Six Months with the American Expeditionary Forces (published in 1919), and recreated them in a 1926 Vitaphone musical short, Behind the Lines. A new musical about this period of her life called "Elsie Janis and the Boys", written by Carol J. Crittenden and composer John T. Prestianni, premiered as part of the Rotunda Theatre Series in the Wortley-Peabody Theater in Dallas, TX on August 15, 2014. Her final film was the 1940 Women in War co-starring Wendy Barrie and Peter Cushing. Elsie Janis died in 1956 at her home in Beverly Hills, California, aged 66, and was interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California. For her contribution to the motion picture industry, Elsie Janis has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6776 Hollywood Blvd.
Filmography Movies
Acting
Hedda Hopper's Hollywood No. 4
Fourth film in the Hedda Hopper series.
Women in War
A "good-time girl", raised by her somewhat lax divorced father, finds herself involved in an accidental death, and the only way she's able to get out of it is to volunteer--albeit reluctantly--to be a nurse in the war effort. She travels to England and is assigned to a hospital under a very strict matron. What the girl doesn't know is that the matron is the mother she has never seen.
The Caprices of Kitty
Orphaned heiress Katherine Bradley, known as "Kit," is an orphan and heiress is attending a fashionable and select seminary for young women. A favorite of the dean, she is allowed to take her automobile for a spin every evening with the proviso that she takes a chaperone with her. Willful Kit manages to slip out alone one day and has a blowout by the roadside. Young and handsome Gerald Cameron is passing by and offers a hand. Kit and he are instantly attracted and after many complications they are finally happily united.
Betty in Search of a Thrill
After graduating from a convent school, Betty travels to New York to visit her relatives, the Hastings. She quickly catches the eye of Jim Denning, a wealthy neighbor who proposes to her, but Betty decides to experience city life before settling down and finds work as a salesclerk. When the floorwalker becomes too familiar, Betty quits and her showgirl friend Maizie Follette helps her get a job as a cabaret dancer, but Betty finds that’s a tough racket too and decides city life on the loose isn’t for her.
Nearly a Lady
Young Frederica Calhoun, naïve to the ways of the world, having grown up on her father’s Montana ranch, is swept off her feet by the arrival of Lord Cecil Grosvenor, a prospective buyer. He opens her eyes to a hitherto undreamed-of world of refinement and he by her unfailing sweet disposition and sunny bubbling good spirits. They are soon engaged, but during a trip to New York to visit his sister Frederica begins to let her doubts get the better of her and disguising herself as a man follows him to the French Ball, but all turns out well in the end.
The Imp
Behind the Lines
Elsie Janis entertains the troops from the back of a truck. She calls a French soldier up to sing with her, then dances to an American song while everyone sings, and finally shares the stage with an English soldier.
Photoplay Magazine Screen Supplement #6
Shows brief glimpses into the lives of movie stars of the time. Included is shots of Elsie Janis in her garden in Tarrytown, where she gives an impersonation of Mary Pickford. The film also shows the parts of the marriage ceremony between James Cruze and Marquerite Snow on January 28, 1913. The film claims this to be the first marriage to be captured on film. The film then moves on to some shots of Louise Glaum and her mother. This in turn is followed with a behind the scenes filming of a stunt involving a bathtub. The film then ends with some shots of Clara Kimball Young, Teddy (Mack Sennett's dog) and finally Marie Prevost.
A Regular Girl
A wealthy young woman, unfulfilled in life, volunteers to work in the overseas war effort. But when she returns from the war, she finds her old life still holds little meaning for her. She rounds up all young soldiers she knew in the war and with them sets out to make a better world for them and for others less fortunate.
Production
Reaching for the Moon
Wall Street wizard, Larry Day, new to the ways of love, is coached by his valet. He follows Vivian Benton on an ocean liner, where cocktails, laced with a "love potion," work their magic. He then loses his fortune in the market crash and feels he has also lost his girl.
Madam Satan
A socialite masquerades as a notorious femme fatale to win back her straying husband during a costume party aboard a doomed dirigible.
The Squaw Man
Jim Wyngate, an English aristocrat, comes to the American West under a cloud of suspicion for embezzlement actually committed by his cousin Lord Henry. In Wyoming, Wyngate runs afoul of cattle rustler Cash Hawkins by rescuing the Indian girl Naturich from Hawkins. Wyngate marries Naturich, but then learns that his cousin Lord Henry has been killed and has cleared his name before dying. As Wyngate has long loved Lady Diana, Lord Henry's wife, he is perplexed at his situation. But fate takes a hand and resolves matters as Wyngate could not have predicted.
Close Harmony
Marjorie, a song-and-dance girl in the stage show of a palatial movie theater, becomes interested in Al West, a warehouse clerk who has put together an unusual jazz band, and uses her influence to get him a place on one of the programs. Max Mindel, the house manager, has a yen for Marjorie and, discovering that she is in love with Al, gives the band notice and hires harmony singers Barney & Bey as a replacement. Marjorie makes up to both men and soon breaks up the team. Al learns of her scheme, however, and makes her confess to the singers. Barney and Bey make up, and Max gives Al and his band one more chance. Al is a sensation, and Max offers him a contract for $1,000 a week.
The Caprices of Kitty
Orphaned heiress Katherine Bradley, known as "Kit," is an orphan and heiress is attending a fashionable and select seminary for young women. A favorite of the dean, she is allowed to take her automobile for a spin every evening with the proviso that she takes a chaperone with her. Willful Kit manages to slip out alone one day and has a blowout by the roadside. Young and handsome Gerald Cameron is passing by and offers a hand. Kit and he are instantly attracted and after many complications they are finally happily united.
Betty in Search of a Thrill
After graduating from a convent school, Betty travels to New York to visit her relatives, the Hastings. She quickly catches the eye of Jim Denning, a wealthy neighbor who proposes to her, but Betty decides to experience city life before settling down and finds work as a salesclerk. When the floorwalker becomes too familiar, Betty quits and her showgirl friend Maizie Follette helps her get a job as a cabaret dancer, but Betty finds that’s a tough racket too and decides city life on the loose isn’t for her.
Nearly a Lady
Young Frederica Calhoun, naïve to the ways of the world, having grown up on her father’s Montana ranch, is swept off her feet by the arrival of Lord Cecil Grosvenor, a prospective buyer. He opens her eyes to a hitherto undreamed-of world of refinement and he by her unfailing sweet disposition and sunny bubbling good spirits. They are soon engaged, but during a trip to New York to visit his sister Frederica begins to let her doubts get the better of her and disguising herself as a man follows him to the French Ball, but all turns out well in the end.
The Imp
Reaching for the Moon
Wall Street wizard, Larry Day, new to the ways of love, is coached by his valet. He follows Vivian Benton on an ocean liner, where cocktails, laced with a "love potion," work their magic. He then loses his fortune in the market crash and feels he has also lost his girl.
Madam Satan
A socialite masquerades as a notorious femme fatale to win back her straying husband during a costume party aboard a doomed dirigible.
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