
Ben Lyon
Actor · 1901 – 1979 · Atlanta, Georgia, USA
From Wikipedia Ben Lyon (February 6, 1901 – March 22, 1979) was an American actor and a studio executive at 20th Century Fox. Born in Atlanta, Georgia, Lyon entered films in 1918 after a successful appearance on Broadway opposite Jeanne Eagels. He attracted attention in the highly successful film Flaming Youth (1923), and steadily developed into a leading man. He was most successfully paired with some of the leading actresses of the silent era including Pola Negri, Gloria Swanson, Colleen Moore, Barbara La Marr, Viola Dana, Anna Q. Nilsson, Mary Astor and Blanche Sweet. He had success as an actor in the 1930 film Hell's Angels. The film was a major success and brought Jean Harlow to prominence, but Lyon's performance as an heroic World War I aviator was also highly regarded. For the next decade he was constantly in demand, but his popularity began to wane by the early 1940s. By the mid-1940s he was working for 20th Century Fox. On July 17, 1946 he met a young aspiring actress named Norma Jeane Dougherty.[2] After his first meeting with her he stated that she was "Jean Harlow all over again!". He organized a color screen test for the actress, renamed her, and finally signed her as Marilyn Monroe to her first studio contract. During World War II, Lyons and his wife, actress Bebe Daniels, settled in London. The couple, along with the comedian Vic Oliver, starred in the radio series Hi, Gang!, which ran from 1940 to 1949. Hi Gang was succeeded in 1950 by Life with the Lyons, which also featured their real life son Richard and daughter Barbara, and had a run on BBC and independent television from 1954 until 1960. Lyon married actress Bebe Daniels in June 1930. They had two children: daughter Barbara in 1932 and a son Richard whom they adopted. Daniels suffered a severe stroke in 1963 and withdrew from public life. She suffered a second stroke in late 1970. She died at the couple's London home in March 1971. In 1974, Lyon married the actress Marian Nixon whom he had known since the 1920s. On March 22, 1979, Lyon and his second wife Marian Nixon were vacationing together on the Queen Elizabeth 2 cruise ship near Honolulu, Hawaii, when Lyon suffered a fatal heart attack. He is interred in the Chapel Columbarium at Hollywood Forever Cemetery next to his first wife, Bebe. For his contribution to the motion picture industry, Ben Lyon has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1724 Vine Street.
Movies24
Movie6.6DramaWarWhen the Great War breaks out, brothers Roy and Monte Rutledge, each attending Oxford University, enlist with the Royal Flying Corps.
Hell's Angels
1930 · 111 votes
Movie6.8CrimeDramaLora Hart manages to land a job in a hospital as a trainee nurse. Upon completion of her training she goes to work as a night nurse for two small children who seem to be very sick, though something much more sinister is going on.
Night Nurse
1931 · 91 votes
Movie5.6ComedyFamous actress Norma Shearer's jewels are stolen… (Star-packed promotional short film intended to raise funds for the National Variety Artists Tuberculosis Sanatorium.)
The Stolen Jools
1931 · 34 votes
Movie6.2ComedyDramaA wealthy girl hires a male escort to make one of her male friends jealous. She spreads rumours about her character that makes her popular amongst all bachelors in the city including her friend.
Lady with a Past
1932 · 10 votes
Movie6.7ComedyThe wealthy von Wellingens are shocked when the father of their son Fred's fiancée Lia juggles desserts at a formal dinner. They encourage Fred to break the engagement. Lia goes to Berlin to marry a Baron von Schwarzdorf, and Fred goes to stop the marriage.
Her Majesty, Love
1931 · 3 votes
Movie3.3DramaRomanceA playboy's mistress falls in love with another man. Her younger sister arrives in town. Complications ensue.
What Men Want
1930 · 3 votes
Movie4.3CrimeRomanceAn immensely successful criminal lawyer is blindsided when he learns that his new case involves his ex-wife, who left him.
The Women in His Life
1933 · 7 votes
Movie5.1DramaRomanceAn investigative reporter romances a suspected smuggler's daughter.
I Cover the Waterfront
1933 · 15 votes
Movie7.0DramaRomanceThree men join forces to raise an adopted son. A lost film.
For the Love of Mike
1927 · 2 votes
Movie10.0ComedyEllie Byrne and Don Lane, chums, living in the poor section of a factory town, go away to make their fortunes. Ellie wishes to become a lady so that she can marry Preston Dutton, a society chap, and Don becoming infatuated with Stephanie Parrish, daughter of a wealthy man. Ellie becomes a leading actress and Don the author of her first play. Ellie refuses Dutton’s suit when she learns he is after her money, and Stephanie returns Don’s engagement ring. Ellie and Don go back to the factory town disillusioned. They realize that they love each other and in reality had not bettered themselves for someone else but for each other. A lost film.
Painted People
1924 · 1 votes
Movie6.2DramaThrillerWhile working at a circus, a man hypnotizes a trapezist to kill her partner.
The Dark Tower
1943 · 16 votes
Movie10.0ComedyEddie Kane wanders round the studio back-lot, opening various doors to see which stars pop out.
Hollywood on Parade No. A-3
1932 · 1 votes
Movie8.0DramaRomanceA carnival strongman and his girlfriend flee to Algiers to escape a murder charge but there they are caught again in a web of jealousy, deceit and murder.
Wages of Virtue
1924 · 1 votes
Movie4.0ComedyMusicIn the first entry of this series, the show open with a troupe of dancing chorus girls getting a salute from crossed-eyed Ben Turpin. Then the master of ceremonies, Fredric March, brings on the various acts, starting with a pre-teen Mitzi Green), dressed as an adult and singing "Was That the Human Thing to Do?" , followed by Ginger Rogers and Jack Oakie singing-and-dancing to "The Girl Who Used to be You." Then the Three Brox Sisters do a triple imitation of Marlene Dietrich singing 'Falling in Love Again." 'Jack Duffy' does a drunken hillbilly bit involving a lamp post, the the finale has Eddie Peabody, playing a banjo for some chorus girls on a pedestal.
Hollywood on Parade No. A-1
1932 · 4 votes
Movie6.0MusicComedyPeyton Wells (Ben Lyon) rescues Judy Jones (Joan Marsh) from a very dull young man, at a sedate party given for her by her multi-millionaire grandfather Silas P. Jones (Purnell Pratt.) Judy refuses to accompany Peyton on a slumming trip to a cheap dance hall, and Peyton dances with several of the dowagers and tells them that Silas is practically dying of scarlet fever. The guests hastily depart and Joan joins Peyton at the Dreamland Dance Hall. She is mistaken by Jimmy Cassidy (Edward J. Nugent) as one of the hostesses and decides to dance with him as a lark. One thing follows another and Judy gets disinherited and takes a job at the dance hall through Jimmy and his friend Mabel(Isabel Jewell.) Jimmy confides to Judy his ambition to become a dance instructor over the radio and Judy decides to help him but can't get the needed financial backing. She gets Peyton to front the money, promising him she will reconsider his offer of marriage if Jimmy's plan fails.
Dancing Feet
1936 · 5 votes
Movie9.0DramaBobby Austin is sent to Madrid on a diplomatic mission. He is followed by Lady Sylvia Hutton, a society adventuress who is infatuated with him. She takes him on a yachting trip to Monte Carlo where he meets Kathleen Lawrence, a notorious "kept" woman, who tries to save him from the ruin that Lady Sylvia bears in her wake.
One Way Street
1925 · 1 votes
- Movie5.3Drama
Greek sponge divers in Tarpon Springs, Florida duel over diving methods and fight over the same girl, and only one will survive.
Down to the Sea
1936 · 3 votes
Movie5.5WarActionAfter Fred von Bergen, a German immigrant in America, is forced from his job by anti-German hysteria before the first world war, he and his friend Bob Wilson leave America and join the German air force. There, both men fall in love with ambulance driver Alida Hoffman. When America enters the war, Bob is caught between loyalty to his home country and the threat of execution for desertion and treason to Germany. It remains for his friend Fred to extricate him from the dilemma - but at what cost?
Crimson Romance
1934 · 4 votes
Movie6.0DramaRomanceA Hawaiian naval nurse weds a widowed officer partly because he has a crippled daughter.
Navy Wife
1935 · 2 votes
Movie10.0DramaMrs. Penfield, better known as Penzie, is one of the inhabitants of a tenement neighborhood known as "the Custard Cup" because of its oval shape. Penzie is a widow who lost both her husband and son in the influenza epidemic of 1918 and 1919. She has found fulfillment by taking in three orphans. One of the Custard Cup's other residents is a counterfeiter, and when the police are too hot on his trail, he leaves a package with Penzie and sets a boat aflame when he tries to destroy some phony bills. When the gang is rounded up, Penzie -- who has been looking for one of her adopted children -- is found at the hideout and arrested.
The Custard Cup
1923 · 1 votes
- MovieDocumentary
Part of the Screen Snapshots series.
Movie8.0RomanceDramaIn the South Seas, a half-caste island girl refuses to follow tradition and marry a fellow islander, instead falling in love with a white man and heir to an American fortune.
Aloha
1931 · 1 votes
Movie6.6MysteryCrimeOn the night express train from Los Angeles to San Francisco everyone’s a suspect when a jewelry magnate is found stabbed to death and an escaped killer is feared on board. It’s up to newspaper reporter Jimmy Hawley (Ben Lyon) to unravel the secrets of the motley group of passengers and find the killer before he strikes again in this tense and atmospheric whodunit.
By Whose Hand?
1932 · 5 votes
Movie9.0WesternOutlaw trio joins wagon train, planning to rob it.
All Faces West
1929 · 1 votes
Series1
TV7.5Talk ShowThe Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson is a talk show hosted by Johnny Carson under The Tonight Show franchise from 1962 to 1992. It originally aired during late-night. For its first ten years, Carson's Tonight Show was based in New York City with occasional trips to Burbank, California; in May 1972, the show moved permanently to Burbank, California. In 2002, The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson was ranked #12 on TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time.
The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson
1962 · 96 votes