Sue Gilbert Acquires A Publisher For Alice Calhoun Book

Sue sent us an e mail recently saying she's made the next big step in the publication of her book about her cousin Silent Screen Actress Alice Calhoun: Alice in Hollywoodland The Life and Times of a Silent Screen Star

Sue was also featured in an article in her local newspaper recently:




"What if you could watch a 1920s video of your grandmother or other relative and see the way she was, but at 25?
Susann Gilbert can, almost. One of her relatives lives on in silent films, and her voice is in some clips.
Tracing her family roots, Gilbert found some interesting sparks in hunks of tedious research. But a member of her family tree who especially caught her attention was a first cousin of her grandfather: actress Alice Calhoun. Naturally, Gilbert, a former performer, was interested in learning more about the silent star born in 1900. But she couldn't find much. "In Hollywood, people come and go. People get very forgotten," Gilbert said.
When the Mount Pleasant resident searched for information on the Web, she kept finding the same biography repeated on different sites and with mistakes, including eight different birth dates.
To set the story straight, Gilbert launched her own Web site to tell her relative's story.
The site is part of a larger movement to preserve America's 20th-century film and theater history here in the Lowcountry. Gilbert and three other Mount Pleasant residents maintain Web sites dedicated to the history of motion pictures and the state's single-screen theaters.
If our family trees tell us who we are, then maybe films tell us what America was. You can see how people dressed, how they lived and what they thought was funny, Gilbert said. "

My Original Alice Calhoun Article

We’re planning on attending the Charleston, SC games the weekend of September 15th. The Colquhoun tent at this festival is very aptly manned by Steve and Mary Hudson. We are also hoping to meet Susann Disbro Gilbert who is working on a biography about her relative who was a Silent Film star named…
Alice Calhoun.
Postcard 1922
Alice started her film career in 1919 (possibly as early as 1918 in a role not credited) and made her last film in 1934. Susann writes:
“Alice Beatrice Calhoun (nicknamed "ABC") was born on November 24, 1900 in Cleveland, Ohio, the daughter of Florence F. Payne and Joseph Chester Calhoun. She had one brother, Joseph Jr., who was not only a practicing attorney in Cleveland, but also a Danish and Norwegian consul.”
We’ve searched the “Glendex” (the index written by Glen Ethier and eight volunteers of the 4 volumes of Orval Calhoun’s Our Calhoun Family) and haven’t found an exact match for Alice’s ancestry there yet. If anyone recognizes Alice’s parents names, please let us know.
Original pictures acquired off of E Bay.
Alice was regarded among her peers as a professional. She was able to portray a personality over the Silent Screen that exuded a charm that warmed her audience to her. Letters sent to her active fan club were always personally answered. In the 49 films she made, Alice often played strong, successful characters. Some of the other professionals our members may recognize that Alice worked with are Oliver Hardy (“in two rare dramatic roles in Little Wildcat and One Stolen Night”), Rin Tin Tin, and the great character actor Alan Hale, Sr. who looks very similar to his son who played the Skipper on Gilligan’s Island. Alice had a savvy indication of how the city of Los Angeles would grow and built a movie theatre in 1925. Her Star is on Hollywood’s Walk Of Fame and a plaque is outside the Alice Calhoun Chotiner Wing of the Los Angeles City of Hope biomedical research, treatment and educational institution that her husband financed in her honor. Alice died June 3, 1966 and rests at the Little Garden of Faithfulness at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California. Thanks to Susann Disbro Gilbert for this information and photos. Her website is:

http://www.alicecalhoun.net/welcome.html

Alice Calhoun: Silent Screen Star

Last September at the Charleston Scottish Festival we had the pleasure of meeting Sue Gilbert who is writing a book on her relative, Alice Calhoun. This is a brochure Sue produced to pass out at events like the Scottish Festival.





The Alice Calhoun website is here.

Alice made movies during my favorite time period in history. For some reason I became enamored with The Roaring Twenties when I was a preteen, then enjoyed learning more about the time periods before (like WWI) and after the '20's (finding out what happened to the people who lived in this era). This may explain why I initially became so interested in Sir Iain Colquhoun.
I fixed up a way to watch an Alice Calhoun movie at the clan tent. I use a portable DVD player connected to a marine battery with aligator clips and an auto cigarette lighter connection available at Radio Shack.
The deep cycle marine battery will last all weekend. I also have a DVD of the Colquhoun history sold at Friends of Loch Lomond.
I found an original photo signed by Alice on e bay.
The silent movie and the FofLL history were on VHS tapes, so I did have to copy them onto a DVD disc using a recorder. Something else I have on DVD are two silent newsreels



of Sir Iain downloaded from British Pathe and transferred to a disc. These newsreels were almost surely originally produced with a narration.
I also keep on hand some general histories of Scotland recorded off The History Channel, but these usually don't get played too much. The tent pictures were taken just this past weekend at the Savannah Scottish Games.