Virginia Bruce
Birthday: 1910-09-29 Place of Birth: Minneapolis - Minnesota - USA
Synopsis
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Virginia Bruce (September 29, 1910 – February 24, 1982) was an American actress and singer. Born Helen Virginia Briggs in Minneapolis, Minnesota. In 1928, she moved with her family to Los Angeles intending to enroll in the University of California, Los Angeles when a friendly wager sent her seeking film work. She got it as an extra in Why Bring That Up?. In 1930 she appeared on Broadway in the musical Smiles, followed by America's Sweetheart in 1931. She returned to Hollywood in 1932, where on August 10, 1932, she married John Gilbert, her co-star in the film Downstairs. She retired briefly after the birth of their daughter Susan Ann Gilbert. The couple divorced in 1934, and Virginia returned to a hectic schedule of film appearances. Gilbert died two years later in 1936. Bruce introduced the Cole Porter standard "I've Got You Under My Skin" in the film Born to Dance and co-starred in the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer musical The Great Ziegfeld. One of her final film appearances was in Strangers When We Meet. In 1949, Bruce starred in a daily 30-minute radio drama. Make Believe Town was an afternoon program on CBS. Bruce married her second husband, film director J. Walter Ruben, in 1937, making the Wallace Beery western The Bad Man of Brimstone with him that year. Together they had a son named Christopher (b. 1941), before Ruben's death in 1942. In 1946, Bruce married Ali Ipar. They divorced in 1951 in order for him to receive a commission in the Turkish Military (which forbade promotions of men married to foreigners), but remarried in 1952 before divorcing again in 1964. Bruce died of cancer on February 24, 1982, at the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, California. She was 71.
Acting
Strangers When We Meet
A suburban architect loves his wife but is bored with his marriage and with his work, so he takes up with the neglected, married beauty who lives down the street.
Night Has a Thousand Eyes
When heiress Jean Courtland attempts suicide, her fiancée Elliott Carson probes her relationship with John Triton. In flashback, we see how stage mentalist Triton starts having terrifying flashes of true precognition. Now years later, he desperately tries to prevent tragedies in the Courtland family.
Love, Honor and Goodbye
A lawyer's wife walks out on him, then poses as a French nurse to spy on him.
Brazil
Brazil is perhaps the best of the handful of US films made by Brazilian singing sensation Tito Guizar. In typical screwball-comedy fashion, the plot is set in motion by authoress Nicky Henderson, who has hit the best-seller charts with her latest tome, Why Marry a Latin? While researching her next book in Rio De Janeiro, she finds out "why" when she meets handsome songwriter Miguel Soares. Upon learning about Nicky's book, Miguel decides to teach her a few lessons in the affairs of the heart. Edward Everett Horton is also on hand, twittering his way through the role of a well-meaning buttinsky. Thanks to the "Good Neighbor" policy of the 1940s, South American musicals were a glut on the market, but Brazil was good enough on its own merits to pay its way at the box office.
Action in Arabia
Reporter Michael Gordon uncovers intrigue in Damascus, where the Allies and Nazis struggle for control of Arab sympathies.
Careful, Soft Shoulders
In this espionage movie, set in Washington during WW II, the daughter of an ex-senator has become a dress model. She is approached by an American counter-espionage agent who offers her a chance to serve her country. The carefree son of a naval official receives a similar offer. He is asked to secure secret Naval plans. Unbeknownst to them, the man they work for is actually a Nazi spy. The two dupes finally figure it out, and the spy kidnaps them. Somehow they escape and break up the spy ring.
Pardon My Sarong
A pair of bus drivers accidentally steal their own bus. With the company issuing a warrant for their arrest, they tag along with a playboy on a boat trip that finds them on a tropical island, where a jewel thief has sinister plans for them.
The Invisible Woman
Kitty Carroll, an attractive store model, volunteers to become a test subject for a machine that will make her invisible so that she can use her invisibility to exact revenge on her ex-boss.
Flight Angels
Federal Airlines ace pilot Chick Faber is grounded by Flight Superintendent Bill Graves when a doctor says his eyesight is failing. Aided by Mary Norvell and Nan Hudson, Graves persuades Chick to take a job as teacher in the school for airline hostesses, and Chick and Mary get married. He learns that the Army is going to test a stratosphere plane that he and Artie Dixon designed and feels that he should make the first flight but permission is refused.
Hollywood Hobbies
In this short film, two starstruck movie fans hire a tour guide and see a plethora of Hollywood stars.
Let Freedom Ring
A Harvard man fights a railroad baron with a disguise and the power of the press.
There Goes My Heart
An heiress takes a job as a department store clerk.
Arsène Lupin Returns
A woman and a man vying for a woman's affection: the usual love trio? Not quite so since the belle in question is Lorraine de Grissac, a very wealthy and alluring society woman, while one of the two rivals is none other than Arsène Lupin, the notorious jewel thief everybody thought dead, now living under the assumed name of René Farrand. As for the other suitor he is an American, a former F.B.I. sleuth turned private eye by the name of Steve Emerson. Steve not only suspects Farrand of being Lupin but when someone attempts to steal a precious emerald necklace from Lorraine's uncle, Count de Brissac, he is persuaded Lupin is the culprit. Is Emerson right or wrong? Which of the two men will win over Lorraine's heart?
Woman Against Woman
A newlywed unhappily discovers that her husband's scheming ex-wife still has a controlling influence in his life and home.
The Great Ziegfeld
Lavish biography of Flo Ziegfeld, the producer who became Broadway's biggest starmaker.
The Garden Murder Case
Detective Philo Vance is in charge of the investigation of several mysterious murders. Things take a turn when he gathers evidence against Major Fenwicke-Ralston.
Metropolitan
Opera prima donna leaves the Metropolitan to form her own company with Tibbett as leading man. She leaves this company too which means Tibbett and company must carry on without her.
Let 'em Have It
Let 'Em Have It is a 1935 gangster film. It was also known as The Legion of Valour and False Faces. An FBI agent tracks down a gang leader.
Escapade
A romantic comedy-drama-musical of mistaken identity, infidelity and farce, set in Vienna at the turn of the 20th century.
A Dream Comes True
A promotional short to hype the production of A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935).
Here Comes the Band
In this musical, a songwriter goes to court to claim the rights to his song that was stolen by an unscrupulous music publisher. He brings his girlfriend with him. Also going to court are the Jubilee singers, hillbillies, and some cowboys and Indians who demonstrate that the composer wrote his song by rearranging four folk tunes. He wins his song back and $50,000 in damages. Songs include: "Heading Home," "Roll Along Prairie Moon," "Tender Is the Night," "You're My Thrill," "I'm Bound for Heaven," and "The Army Band."
The Murder Man
Steve Grey, reporter for the Daily Star, has a habit of scooping all the other papers in town. When Henry Mander is investigated for the murder of his shady business partner, Grey is one step ahead of the police to the extent that he often dictates his story in advance of its actual occurrence. He leads the police through an 'open and shut' case resulting in Mander being tried, convicted and sentenced to death. Columnist Mary Shannon is in love with Steve but she sees him struggle greatly with his last story before Mander's execution. When she starts typing out the story from his recorded dictation, she realizes why.
Times Square Lady
A young Iowa woman inherits her late estranged father's New York business, but the dead man's crooked associates think they can outwit the naive heir and seize control.
Shadow of Doubt
When a Hollywood producer is murdered, the most likely suspect is a man who is smitten with the victim's fiancee.
Dangerous Corner
Friends uncover a dark secret when they compare notes about a theft and suicide.
The Mighty Barnum
20th Century Fox's highly fabricated film biography of circus showman P. T. Barnum stars Wallace Beery (as Barnum), Virginia Bruce (as Jenny Lind), Janet Beecher and Adolphe Menjou. Released in 1934.
Raffles
A distinguished English gentleman has a secret life--he is the notorious jewel thief the press has dubbed "The Amateur Cracksman". When he meets a woman and falls in love he decides to "retire" from that life, but an old friend comes to him with a predicament that entails him committing one last job.
The Love Parade
The queen of mythical Sylvania marries a courtier, who finds his new life unsatisfying.
Pointed Heels
Fay Wray plays a beautiful showgirl who falls for a rich Park Avenue guy played by Phillips Holmes. William Powell is a producer in love with Miss Wray, but he won't use his influences to take any advantages.... as usual, he's a perfect gentleman.
Pointed Heels was supposed to have been a vehicle for "boop-boop-a-doop" girl Helen Kane, but by the time the film was released, Kane's role was reduced to a supporting part.
