Last Tuesday, October 20th, FM hosted a very special event to honor a very special person. The occasion: Carla Laemmle’s 100th birthday.
Carla, the niece of Universal Pictures founder Carl Laemmle, was a phenomenal dancer even as a young girl. In 1925, at age fifteen, she snagged a role in the silent film version of The Phantom of the Opera, starring Lon Chaney and Mary Philbin (84 years later, she is the last surviving member of the film’s cast). Six years later, Carla had the first spoken line ever heard in a horror film, with a part in Dracula, starring Bela Lugosi. Her history is intertwined with the early history of Universal, and with the studio’s legacy of golden-age horror films, which makes her something of a hero to us here at FM.
As the sun set over Hollywood on Tuesday, a crowd gathered at the Egyptian Theater to celebrate Ms.
Carla, the niece of Universal Pictures founder Carl Laemmle, was a phenomenal dancer even as a young girl. In 1925, at age fifteen, she snagged a role in the silent film version of The Phantom of the Opera, starring Lon Chaney and Mary Philbin (84 years later, she is the last surviving member of the film’s cast). Six years later, Carla had the first spoken line ever heard in a horror film, with a part in Dracula, starring Bela Lugosi. Her history is intertwined with the early history of Universal, and with the studio’s legacy of golden-age horror films, which makes her something of a hero to us here at FM.
As the sun set over Hollywood on Tuesday, a crowd gathered at the Egyptian Theater to celebrate Ms.
- 10/24/2009
- by sean
- FamousMonsters of Filmland
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