AILEEN PRINGLE , AMERICAN STAGE /FILM ACTRESS DIED DECEMBER 16 ,1989

AILEEN PRINGLE ,

AMERICAN STAGE /FILM ACTRESS 

DIED DECEMBER 16 ,1989

Aileen Pringle (July 23, 1895 – December 16, 1989) was an American stage and film actress during the silent film era.
Biography[edit source]
Early life[edit source]
Born Aileen Bisbee into a prominent and wealthy San Francisco, California, family and educated in Europe, Pringle began her acting career shortly after her 1916 marriage to Charles McKenzie Pringle, the son of a wealthy titled British Jamaican landowner and a member of the Privy and Legislative Councils of Jamaica.[1]

Career rise[edit source]
One of Pringle's first high-profile roles was in the Rudolph Valentino film Stolen Moments (1920). Many of Pringle's early roles were only modestly successful, and she continued to build her career until the early 1920s when she was selected by her friend, the romance novelist Elinor Glyn to star in the 1924 film adaptation of her novel Three Weeks opposite matinee idol Conrad Nagel.[2] The role catapulted Pringle into leading-lady status and her career began to build momentum.

Scandal[edit source]

A picture of Aileen Pringle taken for Argentinean Magazine in 1928
One small set-back occurred on November 15, 1924, when Aileen Pringle was among a select group of Hollywood elites who boarded a yacht in San Pedro, California, called the Oneida, owned by newspaper scion and billionaire William Randolph Hearst.[3] The event was to be a birthday party organized by Hearst for film producer and director Thomas Ince.

Other prominent guests aboard The Oneida included columnist Louella Parsons, actor Charlie Chaplin, actress Marion Davies (who was also Hearst's lover) and actresses Seena Owen, Jacqueline Logan and Julanne Johnston.

At dinner that Sunday night, the group celebrated Ince's 42nd birthday. Early Monday morning, Ince was taken from the yacht by water taxi and brought ashore, accompanied by Dr. Goodman a licensed, though non-practicing, physician. By Tuesday night, Thomas Ince was dead.

Although the mysterious death of Thomas Ince was ruled to have been caused by a gastro-intestinal illness, the press frenzy that followed turned the event into a Hollywood legend; with various enigmatic and lurid stories being proffered by gossips. Among these, was a story of Hearst accidentally shooting Ince while aiming for Chaplin, who he believed to be having an affair with Marion Davies. Pringle's career weathered the controversy.

Later career[edit source]
Pringle's acting career continued throughout the early 1920s, however, she was allegedly disliked by many of her co-workers for her allegedly haughty and dismissive behavior. She was prone to make witty, sometimes caustic, comments on Hollywood and her fellow actors. During a romantic scene in Three Weeks, in which actor Conrad Nagel carried her in his arms to the bedroom, lip readers saw her say: "If you drop me, you bastard, I'll break your neck".[4] Pringle's apparent disdain for her profession began to hurt her career, and by the late 1920s her roles became fewer.

Although disliked by some Hollywood insiders, Aileen Pringle was often dubbed by the press as the "Darling of the Intelligentsia" because of her close friendship with such literary figures as Carl Van Vechten, Joseph Hergesheimer, Rupert Hughes, and H. L. Mencken who became a lifelong friend of the actress.[5] She brokered the meeting of Mencken and Valentino,[6] of which Mencken wrote an account, some weeks after Valentino had died. Mencken does not name her but describes her as "discreet as she is charming." Ralph Barton, American artist, was also a devoted friend and used her as the model for Dorothy in his illustrations for Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by Anita Loos.[7] Another admirer was George Gershwin who met her in Hollywood and wrote much of the Second Rhapsody at her Santa Monica, California, home.[8] Her wit, keen intellect and sparkling personality made her a sought-after companion.[5]

After her 1926 divorce from Charles Pringle, Aileen Pringle further focused on her acting career, including Dream of Love (1928) with Joan Crawford and Wall Street (1929) co-starring Ralph Ince, brother of Thomas Ince. However, with the advent of talkies, the studios began heavily promoting a new crop of starlets and Pringle's career faded.

During the sound era, she continued to take small parts in major films and even uncredited roles. In 1944 Pringle married the author, James M. Cain, but the union lasted only two years and ended in divorce. By the late 1940s, Pringle retired from the screen and lived a wealthy retirement in New York City, where she died in 1989 at the age of 94.

For her contribution to the motion picture industry, Aileen Pringle was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6723 Hollywood Blvd., in Los Angeles, California.




Born July 23, 1895 in San Francisco, California, USA
Died December 16, 1989 in New York City, New York, USA
Birth Name Aileen Bisbee
Height 5' 4" (1.63 m)
Mini Bio (1)

Aileen Pringle's favorite film was a mid-1920s silent based on a book by Elinor Glyn: The Romance of a Queen (1924), sort of a "Lady Chatterly's Lover". She recalled in a 1980 telephone conversation: "The film was in good taste; some people thought the book was trashy". Anita Loos wrote in "A Girl Like I", the first volume of her autobiography, vaudeville comic Joe Frisco telling Glynn: "Leave me get this straight. You want to find some tramp that don't look like a tramp, to play that English tramp in your picture. But take it from me, that kind of tramp don't hang out in Hollywood". Aileen had spent her 20s married to Charles McKenzie Pringle, the son of Sir John Pringle, a Jamaica landowner and a member of the Privy and Legislative Councils of Jamaica. Aileen lived in Jamaica until she went on stage with George Arliss. When she began divorce proceedings against Pringle in 1926, Hollywood gossip columnists speculated she would marry H.L. Mencken. She did not remarry until 1944 when she became the bride of James M. Cain, author of "The Postman Always Rings Twice". I opened my 1980 telephone conversation with Aileen by mentioning that the day before I had been reading her correspondence with Mencken at the New York Public Library. "But all the letters were destroyed", she said. I knew that Mencken had asked for all of his letters to her back at the time he became engaged to Sara Haardt. Aileen was the only woman who received such a request from Mencken at that time. "It was your letters from the late '30s and '40s I was reading", I told Aileen. "In one of them Mencken was urging you to write a book. Did you ever finish it?" "No. I got married instead." In a 1946 letter she wrote to Mencken. "If I had remained married to that psychotic Cain, I would be wearing a straitjacket instead of the New Look."
- IMDb Mini Biography By: Dale O'Connor <daleoc@worldnet.att.net> (qv's & corrections by A. Nonymous)

Spouse (2)
James M. Cain (12 August 1944 - 4 September 1946) (divorced)
Charles Benjamin Moses Mckenzie Pringle (1916 - 13 September 1933) (divorced)
Trivia (9)
Interviewed in "Talking to the Piano Player: Silent Film Stars, Writers and Directors Remember" by Stuart Oderman (BearManor Media).
Romantically involved with H.L. Mencken before his 1930 marriage to Sara Powell Haardt.
Announced in 1933 that she was "through with love" and planned not to remarry after her divorce from Charles McKenzie Pringle (who became Lt. Governor of Jamaica) finalized. She eventually did marry and divorce James M. Cain.
Louella Parsons reported that Pringle had lightened her hair color due to a growing preference for blond leading ladies (November 15, 1929). One of Pringle's trademarks during the zenith of her career was her dark hair.
The house she shared with Howard Dietz was looted, with the equivalent of $20,000 in property stolen, in late July of 1935.
Was a member of the Algonquin Round Table.

She claimed that Louis B. Mayer spitefully burned the prints of her films in 1952 because television had no interest in silent films.
Greta Garbo was her tennis partner.
She was offered Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925) but rejected it because she "did not want to be subjected to all that heat and dust".
Personal Quotes (3)
[her brief eulogy on the death of Mary Pickford in "Films in Review"] So, she was human after all!
[on the passing of one of her contemporaries] I avoided having lunch with her sixty years ago. I'm running out of people to hate.

[In a 1985 interview on the secret of her longevity] If you think it's because I behaved myself when I was young, you're dead wrong.

Filmography[edit source]

Year	Film	Role	Notes
1920	The Cost	Olivia	as Aileen Savage
	The Sport of Kings		as Aileen Savage
	Earthbound		as Aileen Savage
	Stolen Moments	Inez Salles	as Aileen Savage Short film; Extant
1922	Oath-Bound	Alice
	The Strangers' Banquet	Mrs. Schuyler-Peabody
	My American Wife	Hortensia deVereta	Lost film
1923	The Christian	Lady Robert Ure
	The Tiger's Claw	Chameli Brentwood
	Souls for Sale	Lady Jane	Extant (Turner/Warner Brothers)
	Don't Marry for Money	Edith Martin
	In the Palace of the King	Princess Eboli	Lost film
1924	Name the Man	Isabelle
	Three Weeks	The Queen	Extant
	True As Steel	Mrs. Eva Boutelle	fragment
	His Hour	Tamara Loraine	Extant
	The Wife of the Centaur	Inez Martin	Lost film
1925	A Thief in Paradise	Rosa Carmino	Lost film
	One Year to Live	Elsa Duchanier
	A Kiss in the Dark	Janet Livingstone
	Wildfire	Claire Barrington	Extant (Library of Congress)
	The Mystic	Zara	Extant (Turner/Warner Brothers)(Trailer-Library of Congress)
	Soul Mates	Velma	Extant
1926	Camille	Estelle	Short film
	The Wilderness Woman	Juneau MacLean	Lost
	The Great Deception	Lois	Lost
	Tin Gods	Janet Stone	Lost
1927	Adam and Evil	Evelyn Trevelyan	Lost
	Body and Soul	Hilda
	Tea for Three	Doris Langford	Lost
1928	Wickedness Preferred	Kitty Dare	Lost
	Beau Broadway	Yvonne	Lost
	The Baby Cyclone	Lydia	Lost
	Show People	Herself	Cameo appearance; Extant (Turner/Warner Brothers)
	Dream of Love	The Duchess	Lost film
1929	A Single Man	Mary Hazeltine	Lost film
	Night Parade	Paula Vernoff	Incomplete (Library of Congress)
	Wall Street	Ann Tabor
1930	Puttin' on the Ritz	Mrs. Teddy Von Rennsler
	Prince of Diamonds	Eve Marley
	Soldiers and Women	Brenda Ritchie
1931	Subway Express	Dale Tracy
	Murder at Midnight	Esme Kennedy
	Convicted	Claire Norville
1932	Police Court	Diana McCormick
	The Age of Consent	Barbara
	The Phantom of Crestwood	Mrs. Herbert Walcott
1933	By Appointment Only	Diane Manners
1934	Love Past Thirty	Caroline Burt
	Jane Eyre	Lady Blanche Ingram
	Once to Every Bachelor	Judy Bryant
	Sons of Steel	Enid Chadburne
1935	Vanessa: Her Love Story	Herries Servant	Uncredited
1936	Wife vs. Secretary	Mrs. Anne Barker	Uncredited
	The Unguarded Hour	Diana Roggers
	Piccadilly Jim	Paducah Pomeroy
	Wanted: Jane Turner	Norris' Secretary	Uncredited
1937	Criminal Lawyer	Mrs. Manning	Uncredited
	The Last of Mrs. Cheyney	Maria
	John Meade's Woman	Mrs. Melton
	Thanks for Listening	Lulu, Blackmailer Leader
	She's No Lady	Mrs. Douglas
	Nothing Sacred	Mrs. Bullock	Uncredited
1938	Man-Proof	Second Gossipy Woman	Uncredited
	Too Hot to Handle	Mrs. Arthur MacArthur	Uncredited
1939	The Hardys Ride High	Miss Booth, Dress Saleslady
	Calling Dr. Kildare	Mrs. Thatcher	Uncredited
	Should a Girl Marry?	Mrs. White
	The Women	Miss Carter (saleslady)	Uncredited
	The Night of Nights	Dress Saleslady	Uncredited
1941	Appointment for Love	Nurse Gibbons	Uncredited
	They Died with Their Boots On	Mrs. Sharp	Uncredited
1942	Between Us Girls	Guest	Uncredited
1943	The Youngest Profession	Miss Farwood	Uncredited
	Dr. Gillespie's Criminal Case	Chaperon	Uncredited
	Happy Land	Mrs. Prentiss	Uncredited
1944	Since You Went Away	Woman at Cocktail Lounge	Uncredited
	A Wave, a WAC and a Marine	Newswoman
	Laura	Woman	Uncredited