Gerald Montgomery Blue was an American motion picture actor. He began his career in the silent films, and later progressed to character roles.
Background
Gerald Blue was born on January 11, 1887, in Indianapolis, Indiana, United States, the son of Lousetta and William Blue, a Civil War veteran. Many sources give Blue's date of birth as Jan. 11, 1890; but records at the Indiana children's home where he lived indicate that he was born on that date in 1887. He was part Cherokee Indian. After his father's death in 1895 Blue went to the Indiana Soldiers' and Sailors' Children's Home in Knightstown, Indiana. In January 1903 he was discharged from the home to his mother, who was living in Indianapolis.
Education
Gerald Blue studied at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana.
Career
Gerald Blue worked as a newspaper reporter, miner, seaman, cowhand, and circus bareback performer before going to California. There he got his start in motion pictures as a ditchdigger for $1. 50 a day on the D. W. Griffith lot. In 1914 Griffith hired him as an actor, scriptwriter, and stunt man. Blue appeared as an extra in Birth of a Nation (1915) and played a strike leader in Griffith's Intolerance, which was released the following year. After supporting such stars as Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks in a variety of pictures, Blue attracted attention in Cecil B. DeMille's The Affairs of Anatol (1921). Director Robert Z. Leonard cast him as Mae Murray's leading man in both Peacock Alley (1921) and Broadway Rose (1922). In 1922 Blue appeared as Danton in Griffith's Orphans of the Storm, a role many critics consider his best.
During the early 1920's Blue was placed under contract by Warner Brothers, where he remained a popular player for the remainder of the decade. He became a top silent star in three of Ernst Lubitsch's most popular comedies: The Marriage Circle (1924), with Adolphe Menjou and Florence Vidor; Kiss Me Again (1925), with Clara Bow and Marie Prevost; and So This Is Paris (1926), with Patsy Ruth Miller. Among the many other films Blue appeared in during the 1920's are Main Street (1923), The Lover of Camille (1924), Hogan's Alley (1925), Other Women's Husbands (1926), Wolf's Clothing (1927), Across the Atlantic (1928), and Conquest (1929).
Blue was in Tahiti making White Shadows of the South Seas (1928) when sound was introduced to the movie industry. The picture was released with music and a voice dubbed in for Blue's. The sound quality was so poor that Blue subsequently found it increasingly difficult to get parts; many believed that his voice was unsuitable for sound films. Ironically, his role as Dr. Matthew Lloyd in White Shadows is perhaps his best known. Taking a world cruise in the early 1930's, Blue returned to find that the savings he had invested were gone.
After a short stint in the theater, Blue began a comeback in Hollywood as a bit player. During the 1930's, it was not uncommon for "Poverty Row" producers to hire silent film stars who had not made it in the talkies, give them bit parts, and then advertise them as the stars. Blue's appearance in such films as Trails of the Wild (1935) and Social Error (1937) were the results of such practices. He played small roles, frequently as a villain, in such serials as The Undersea Kingdom (1936), Secret Agent X-9 (1937), and The Great Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok (1938). By 1940, Blue had established himself in what amounted to a new career as one of Hollywood's more capable character actors, and as such appeared in a wide variety of films, many of them westerns. He had sizable roles in Law of the Timber (1941), Silver River (1948), The Iroquois Trail (1950), Three Desperate Men (1951), and Hangman's Knot (1952). During the same period, Blue also appeared in The Road to Morocco (1942), Mission to Moscow (1943), The Adventures of Mark Twain (1944), San Antonio (1945), Cinderella Jones (1946), Life with Father (1947), Key Largo (1948), Johnny Belinda (1948), The Younger Brothers (1949), Dallas (1950), Warpath (1951), Rose of Cimarron (1952), The Last Posse (1953), and Apache (1954).
In the 1950's, Blue appeared in supporting roles in a number of filmed television series, playing Indian chiefs, sheriffs, and small-town shopkeepers. He was in one or more episodes of "The Adventures of Rin-Tin-Tin, " "Jim Bowie, " "The Lone Ranger, " "Mark Saber, " "Racket Squad, " "Rawhide, " "Sky King, " "Wagon Train, " and "Wild Bill Hickok. " At the time of his death in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, he was a publicity agent for the Hamid-Morton Circus. In spite of the suave parts he played in the 1920's, Blue was primarily associated with outdoor roles.
Achievements
Gerald Blue was well known to many moviegoers - especially western fans - as one of Hollywood's top character actors. His better-known films include Lives of a Bengal Lancer (1935), G-Men (1935), The Outcasts of Poker Flat (1937), Dodge City (1939), and Juarez (1939). Blue received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on February 8, 1960.
Views
Quotations:
"I decided to build my new magic on rock instead of sand. So I started out at the bottom as an extra. I was in the awkward stage between stardom and character parts. "
Personality
Blue was six feet, three inches tall.
Connections
On November 1, 1924, Blue married Tove Janson, a former Ziegfeld Follies girl; they had two children. Tove Blue died in 1956; and on October 4, 1959, Blue married Betty Munson Mess.
