fbpx
Wikipedia

Aline MacMahon

August 23, 2023

Aline Laveen MacMahon[1] (May 3, 1899 – October 12, 1991)[2] was an American actress. Her Broadway stage career began under producer Edgar Selwyn in The Mirage during 1920. She made her screen debut in 1931 and worked extensively in film, theater and television until her retirement in 1975. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Dragon Seed (1944).[3]

Aline MacMahon
MacMahon in the 1940s
Born
Aline Laveen MacMahon

(1899-05-03)May 3, 1899
McKeesport, Pennsylvania, U.S.
DiedOctober 12, 1991(1991-10-12) (aged 92)
New York City, U.S.
Alma materBarnard College
OccupationActress
Years active1920–1975
Spouse
​
​
(m. 1928; died 1975)​

Early life

MacMahon was born in McKeesport, Pennsylvania, the only child of William Marcus MacMahon and Jennie (née Simon) MacMahon. Her father was a telegraph operator, arbitrage broker and writer/editor in the Munsey publishing company, including their flagship title, Munsey's Magazine.[4]

Aline's parents married on July 14, 1898, in Columbus, Ohio. Her father died on September 6, 1931.[4] Her mother, an avid bell collector, died in 1984, just weeks before her 107th birthday.[5]

MacMahon first appeared on stage as early as 1905. That year the family moved to Brooklyn from McKeesport, and Aline's mother began training her in the art of elocution. Soon, Aline was performing at local churches and festivals where she recited poems and played the violin. By 1908 she was well known enough to attract the attention of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, who reported "a series of songs and dances by Aline MacMahon" to be performed at St. Jude's Church in Brooklyn.[6]

Although she had been earning handsome wages for many years on New York's so-called Strawberry Circuit, MacMahon made her true professional debut with a program of readings, recitations and music at New York's McAlpin Hotel in 1914.[7]

Education

MacMahon was raised first in the Pittsburgh suburb of McKeesport, then in Brooklyn, New York.[1] She attended New York's public school 103,[8] then entered Erasmus Hall High School (Brooklyn) in 1912. In 1916 the MacMahon family moved to the upper west side of Manhattan and Aline enrolled in nearby Barnard College.[9] It was there that MacMahon received a more serious education in acting, enrolling in "Wigs and Cues", the theater program run by the woman who became MacMahon's first great mentor, Minor Latham. By graduation she had appeared in nearly every program the school had mounted during those four years, and found multiple suitors for her talents, including offers from the Provincetown Players, producer / actor Walter Hampden, and the Neighborhood Playhouse.[citation needed]

Career

Aline made her (uncredited) Broadway debut in 1920 as a craps-playing debutante in The Mirage. Her Broadway credits include 24 shows, with many other off-Broadway and regional stage appearances during her career.[10] After traveling to Los Angeles to star in the road company of the Broadway smash Once in a Lifetime, she was noticed by Warner Brothers director Mervyn LeRoy, and made her film debut in the Pre-Code drama Five Star Final (1931).[11] After signing a long-term contract with Warners, Aline spent the rest of her career splitting time between New York and Hollywood in order to be with her husband, the Manhattan-based architect and city planner, Clarence Stein. In the1930s and 40s she was a critical darling, often cast as the acerbic comedienne with a heart of gold, or the long-suffering woman who was unlucky in love. She momentarily achieved above-the-title stardom, but her career diminished after a series of health issues endured by her husband. Screen World Presents the Encyclopedia of Hollywood Film Actors states of MacMahon: "She proved to be a fine, sympathetic actress with a quick wit and tart tongue who then moved into character roles with ease as she became plumper and more motherly looking."[2]

The Birth of Method Acting

In 1922 MacMahon was a member of the Neighborhood Playhouse company in Manhattan, just as Konstantin Stanislavski's Moscow Art Theatre visited New York for a legendary tour. Stanislavski was the originator of what became known as Method acting, popularized much later by Marlon Brando and his successors. Accolades poured in for the MAT's performances, and the executives of the Neighborhood Playhouse made arrangements to charter the first teaching class of the Method in America, which Aline attended with nine others. Aline MacMahon took the tenets of the Method very seriously, and was the only member of that inaugural class to achieve popular success on stage or screen, having debuted the technique on stage in the fall of 1923, and as the first practitioner of it on film in 1931. "I was the first," she said in 1959, "so to speak, in the first group to be exposed to what has become the Method. Out of that summer [1923] has developed everything that the Method actors are doing." She is the original, pioneering Method actor in the western world.[12]

Personal life

On March 28, 1928, MacMahon and Clarence Stein were married after a long courtship.[9] The pair were devoted to each other, but Stein was sometimes depressed as Aline spent six months a year working in Los Angeles, while he lived and worked in New York City.[13] Stein died in 1975 at the age of 92. The couple had no children, apparently something of a disappointment to her. MacMahon was chairwoman of the Equity Library Theater in 1950. She organized productions for community theaters and was active in relief charities.[14] During the late 1940s and 1950s she was blacklisted as a Communist sympathizer and appeared on the notorious Communist watchlist pamphlet, Red Channels. The FBI began covert investigations of her and Clarence Stein that lasted decades before being quietly dropped in the mid-1960s. Throughout their lives the Steins were inveterate travelers, having sailed around the world in 1935–36, including stops in Bali, China and Siam (Thailand), as well as visits across Scandinavia, Europe, South America, Israel and the Middle East.[12]

Death

MacMahon died in 1991, aged 92, of pneumonia in New York City.[11]

Papers

The New York Public Library has a collection of MacMahon's papers that document various aspects of her life. They are housed in the library's Billy Rose Theatre Division.[15]

The biography Aline MacMahon: Hollywood, the Blacklist, and the Birth of Method Acting was published in 2022 by University Press of Kentucky.[16][17][18][19][20]

Partial filmography

 
Dorothy McGuire (left) and Aline MacMahon in Reward Unlimited (1944)

References

  1. ^ a b "Glad Mr. Pease Resigned". The Brooklyn Daily Eagle. New York, Brooklyn. April 20, 1911. p. 3. Retrieved August 11, 2016 – via Newspapers.com.  
  2. ^ a b Monush, Barry (2003). Screen World Presents the Encyclopedia of Hollywood Film Actors: From the silent era to 1965. Hal Leonard Corporation. p. 454. ISBN 9781557835512. Retrieved August 12, 2016.
  3. ^ "(Aline MacMahon search)". The Official Academy Awards Database. Retrieved August 12, 2016.[permanent dead link]
  4. ^ a b "Former Editor of Munsey's Expires". Montana Butte Standard. Montana, Butte. Associated Press. September 8, 1931. p. 1. Retrieved August 11, 2016 – via Newspapers.com.  
  5. ^ "Aline L. MacMahon, 92, Actress Over 50 Years and in 43 Movies". The New York Times. October 13, 1991.
  6. ^ "For St. Jude's Church". The Brooklyn Daily Eagle. New York, Brooklyn. July 31, 1908. p. 8. Retrieved August 11, 2016 – via Newspapers.com.  
  7. ^ "Miss Aline MacMahon Makes Her Professional Debut". Brooklyn Life. Brooklyn, NY. April 25, 1914. p. 6. Retrieved August 11, 2016 – via Newspapers.com.  
  8. ^ "These Schools Are to Follow". The Brooklyn Daily Eagle. New York, Brooklyn. May 19, 1912. p. 61. Retrieved August 11, 2016 – via Newspapers.com.  
  9. ^ a b "Weds Housing Chairman". The Brooklyn Daily Eagle. New York, Brooklyn. March 29, 1928. p. 3. Retrieved August 11, 2016 – via Newspapers.com.  
  10. ^ "(Aline MacMahon search)". Playbill Vault. Retrieved August 12, 2016.
  11. ^ a b "Deaths Elsewhere: Aline MacMahon". Toledo Blade. Associated Press. October 15, 1991. p. 10. Retrieved August 11, 2016.
  12. ^ a b Stangeland, John (2022). Aline MacMahon: Hollywood, the Blacklist and the Birth of Method Acting. University Press of Kentucky. pp. 99, 106–7, 229–35, 268–74, 288–9. ISBN 978-0-8131-9606-0.
  13. ^ Kaufman, Jerome L. Review of "The Writings of Clarence S. Stein: Architect of the Planned Community" by Kermit Carlyle Parsons (ed.). The Town Planning Review; Liverpool Vol. 71, Iss. 4, (Oct 1, 2000): 90.
  14. ^ University of Wisconsin Library, Women's Studies archives 2006-04-04 at the Wayback Machine, library.wisc.edu; accessed August 12, 2015.
  15. ^ "Aline MacMahon papers 1899-1989". The New York Public Library Archives & Manuscripts. Retrieved August 12, 2016.
  16. ^ Stangeland, John (November 8, 2022). Aline MacMahon: Hollywood, the Blacklist, and the Birth of Method Acting. University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 978-0-8131-9607-7.
  17. ^ Stangeland, John. "Aline MacMahon". University Press of Kentucky.
  18. ^ "Episode 118- Author John Stangeland & His book Aline Macmahon: Hollywood the Blacklist & the Birth of Method Acting". audacy.com. Retrieved May 14, 2023.
  19. ^ a b Mount Prospect Public Library. "Aline MacMahon: Hollywood, the Blacklist, and the Birth of Method Acting". youtube. Retrieved May 14, 2023.
  20. ^ Stecher, Raquel. "Interview with John Stangeland, author of Aline MacMahon: Hollywood, the Blacklist, and the Birth of Method Acting". outofthepastblog. Retrieved May 14, 2023.

Census and other data

  • The 1910 United States Federal Census for Brooklyn, New York, April 16, 1910, Enumeration District 1409, Sheet 5.
  • The 1920 United States Federal Census for Manhattan Assembly District 13, January 25, 1920, Enumeration District 943, Sheet 9A.
  • U.S. Passport Applications 1795–1925, Roll 1533-6376-6749, March 19–21, 1921 (Ancestry.com)

External links

 
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Aline MacMahon.

August 23, 2023
aline, macmahon, aline, laveen, macmahon, 1899, october, 1991, american, actress, broadway, stage, career, began, under, producer, edgar, selwyn, mirage, during, 1920, made, screen, debut, 1931, worked, extensively, film, theater, television, until, retirement. Aline Laveen MacMahon 1 May 3 1899 October 12 1991 2 was an American actress Her Broadway stage career began under producer Edgar Selwyn in The Mirage during 1920 She made her screen debut in 1931 and worked extensively in film theater and television until her retirement in 1975 She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Dragon Seed 1944 3 Aline MacMahonMacMahon in the 1940sBornAline Laveen MacMahon 1899 05 03 May 3 1899McKeesport Pennsylvania U S DiedOctober 12 1991 1991 10 12 aged 92 New York City U S Alma materBarnard CollegeOccupationActressYears active1920 1975SpouseClarence Stein m 1928 died 1975 wbr Contents 1 Early life 2 Education 3 Career 4 The Birth of Method Acting 5 Personal life 6 Death 7 Papers 8 Partial filmography 9 References 10 Census and other data 11 External linksEarly life EditMacMahon was born in McKeesport Pennsylvania the only child of William Marcus MacMahon and Jennie nee Simon MacMahon Her father was a telegraph operator arbitrage broker and writer editor in the Munsey publishing company including their flagship title Munsey s Magazine 4 Aline s parents married on July 14 1898 in Columbus Ohio Her father died on September 6 1931 4 Her mother an avid bell collector died in 1984 just weeks before her 107th birthday 5 MacMahon first appeared on stage as early as 1905 That year the family moved to Brooklyn from McKeesport and Aline s mother began training her in the art of elocution Soon Aline was performing at local churches and festivals where she recited poems and played the violin By 1908 she was well known enough to attract the attention of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle who reported a series of songs and dances by Aline MacMahon to be performed at St Jude s Church in Brooklyn 6 Although she had been earning handsome wages for many years on New York s so called Strawberry Circuit MacMahon made her true professional debut with a program of readings recitations and music at New York s McAlpin Hotel in 1914 7 Education EditMacMahon was raised first in the Pittsburgh suburb of McKeesport then in Brooklyn New York 1 She attended New York s public school 103 8 then entered Erasmus Hall High School Brooklyn in 1912 In 1916 the MacMahon family moved to the upper west side of Manhattan and Aline enrolled in nearby Barnard College 9 It was there that MacMahon received a more serious education in acting enrolling in Wigs and Cues the theater program run by the woman who became MacMahon s first great mentor Minor Latham By graduation she had appeared in nearly every program the school had mounted during those four years and found multiple suitors for her talents including offers from the Provincetown Players producer actor Walter Hampden and the Neighborhood Playhouse citation needed Career EditAline made her uncredited Broadway debut in 1920 as a craps playing debutante in The Mirage Her Broadway credits include 24 shows with many other off Broadway and regional stage appearances during her career 10 After traveling to Los Angeles to star in the road company of the Broadway smash Once in a Lifetime she was noticed by Warner Brothers director Mervyn LeRoy and made her film debut in the Pre Code drama Five Star Final 1931 11 After signing a long term contract with Warners Aline spent the rest of her career splitting time between New York and Hollywood in order to be with her husband the Manhattan based architect and city planner Clarence Stein In the1930s and 40s she was a critical darling often cast as the acerbic comedienne with a heart of gold or the long suffering woman who was unlucky in love She momentarily achieved above the title stardom but her career diminished after a series of health issues endured by her husband Screen World Presents the Encyclopedia of Hollywood Film Actors states of MacMahon She proved to be a fine sympathetic actress with a quick wit and tart tongue who then moved into character roles with ease as she became plumper and more motherly looking 2 The Birth of Method Acting EditIn 1922 MacMahon was a member of the Neighborhood Playhouse company in Manhattan just as Konstantin Stanislavski s Moscow Art Theatre visited New York for a legendary tour Stanislavski was the originator of what became known as Method acting popularized much later by Marlon Brando and his successors Accolades poured in for the MAT s performances and the executives of the Neighborhood Playhouse made arrangements to charter the first teaching class of the Method in America which Aline attended with nine others Aline MacMahon took the tenets of the Method very seriously and was the only member of that inaugural class to achieve popular success on stage or screen having debuted the technique on stage in the fall of 1923 and as the first practitioner of it on film in 1931 I was the first she said in 1959 so to speak in the first group to be exposed to what has become the Method Out of that summer 1923 has developed everything that the Method actors are doing She is the original pioneering Method actor in the western world 12 Personal life EditOn March 28 1928 MacMahon and Clarence Stein were married after a long courtship 9 The pair were devoted to each other but Stein was sometimes depressed as Aline spent six months a year working in Los Angeles while he lived and worked in New York City 13 Stein died in 1975 at the age of 92 The couple had no children apparently something of a disappointment to her MacMahon was chairwoman of the Equity Library Theater in 1950 She organized productions for community theaters and was active in relief charities 14 During the late 1940s and 1950s she was blacklisted as a Communist sympathizer and appeared on the notorious Communist watchlist pamphlet Red Channels The FBI began covert investigations of her and Clarence Stein that lasted decades before being quietly dropped in the mid 1960s Throughout their lives the Steins were inveterate travelers having sailed around the world in 1935 36 including stops in Bali China and Siam Thailand as well as visits across Scandinavia Europe South America Israel and the Middle East 12 Death EditMacMahon died in 1991 aged 92 of pneumonia in New York City 11 Papers EditThe New York Public Library has a collection of MacMahon s papers that document various aspects of her life They are housed in the library s Billy Rose Theatre Division 15 The biography Aline MacMahon Hollywood the Blacklist and the Birth of Method Acting was published in 2022 by University Press of Kentucky 16 17 18 19 20 Partial filmography Edit Dorothy McGuire left and Aline MacMahon in Reward Unlimited 1944 Five Star Final 1931 Miss Taylor The Heart of New York 1932 Bessie the Neighbor The Mouthpiece 1932 Miss Hickey Day s Secretary Week End Marriage 1932 Agnes Davis Life Begins 1932 Miss Bowers Once in a Lifetime 1932 May Daniels One Way Passage 1932 Betty Silver Dollar 1932 Sarah Martin Gold Diggers of 1933 1933 Trixie Lorraine The Life of Jimmy Dolan 1933 Mrs Moore aka Auntie Heroes for Sale 1933 Mary The World Changes 1933 Anna Nordholm Heat Lightning 1934 Olga first leading role 19 The Merry Frinks 1934 Hattie Mom Frink Side Streets 1934 Bertha Krasnoff Big Hearted Herbert 1934 Elizabeth Babbitt 1934 Myra Babbitt While the Patient Slept 1935 Sarah Keate Mary Jane s Pa 1935 Ellen Preston I Live My Life 1935 Betty Collins Kind Lady 1935 Mary Herries Ah Wilderness 1935 Aunt Lily When You re in Love 1937 Marianne Woods Back Door to Heaven 1939 Miss Williams Out of the Fog 1941 Florence Goodwin The Lady is Willing 1942 Buddy Tish 1942 Lizzie Wilkins Stage Door Canteen 1943 Aline MacMahon Seeds of Freedom 1943 Odessa Citizen Reward Unlimited 1944 short Mrs Scott Dragon Seed 1944 Ling Tan s Wife Guest in the House 1944 Aunt Martha The Mighty McGurk 1947 Mamie Steeple The Search 1948 Mrs Deborah R Murray Roseanna McCoy 1949 Sarie McCoy The Flame and the Arrow 1950 Nonna Bartoli The Eddie Cantor Story 1953 Grandma Esther The Man from Laramie 1955 Kate Canaday Cimarron 1960 Mrs Mavis Pegler The Young Doctors 1961 Dr Lucy Grainger Diamond Head 1963 Kapiolani Kahana I Could Go On Singing 1963 Ida All the Way Home 1963 Aunt Hannah For the Use of the Hall 1975 TV BessReferences Edit a b Glad Mr Pease Resigned The Brooklyn Daily Eagle New York Brooklyn April 20 1911 p 3 Retrieved August 11 2016 via Newspapers com a b Monush Barry 2003 Screen World Presents the Encyclopedia of Hollywood Film Actors From the silent era to 1965 Hal Leonard Corporation p 454 ISBN 9781557835512 Retrieved August 12 2016 Aline MacMahon search The Official Academy Awards Database Retrieved August 12 2016 permanent dead link a b Former Editor of Munsey s Expires Montana Butte Standard Montana Butte Associated Press September 8 1931 p 1 Retrieved August 11 2016 via Newspapers com Aline L MacMahon 92 Actress Over 50 Years and in 43 Movies The New York Times October 13 1991 For St Jude s Church The Brooklyn Daily Eagle New York Brooklyn July 31 1908 p 8 Retrieved August 11 2016 via Newspapers com Miss Aline MacMahon Makes Her Professional Debut Brooklyn Life Brooklyn NY April 25 1914 p 6 Retrieved August 11 2016 via Newspapers com These Schools Are to Follow The Brooklyn Daily Eagle New York Brooklyn May 19 1912 p 61 Retrieved August 11 2016 via Newspapers com a b Weds Housing Chairman The Brooklyn Daily Eagle New York Brooklyn March 29 1928 p 3 Retrieved August 11 2016 via Newspapers com Aline MacMahon search Playbill Vault Retrieved August 12 2016 a b Deaths Elsewhere Aline MacMahon Toledo Blade Associated Press October 15 1991 p 10 Retrieved August 11 2016 a b Stangeland John 2022 Aline MacMahon Hollywood the Blacklist and the Birth of Method Acting University Press of Kentucky pp 99 106 7 229 35 268 74 288 9 ISBN 978 0 8131 9606 0 Kaufman Jerome L Review of The Writings of Clarence S Stein Architect of the Planned Community by Kermit Carlyle Parsons ed The Town Planning Review Liverpool Vol 71 Iss 4 Oct 1 2000 90 University of Wisconsin Library Women s Studies archives Archived 2006 04 04 at the Wayback Machine library wisc edu accessed August 12 2015 Aline MacMahon papers 1899 1989 The New York Public Library Archives amp Manuscripts Retrieved August 12 2016 Stangeland John November 8 2022 Aline MacMahon Hollywood the Blacklist and the Birth of Method Acting University Press of Kentucky ISBN 978 0 8131 9607 7 Stangeland John Aline MacMahon University Press of Kentucky Episode 118 Author John Stangeland amp His book Aline Macmahon Hollywood the Blacklist amp the Birth of Method Acting audacy com Retrieved May 14 2023 a b Mount Prospect Public Library Aline MacMahon Hollywood the Blacklist and the Birth of Method Acting youtube Retrieved May 14 2023 Stecher Raquel Interview with John Stangeland author of Aline MacMahon Hollywood the Blacklist and the Birth of Method Acting outofthepastblog Retrieved May 14 2023 Census and other data EditThe 1910 United States Federal Census for Brooklyn New York April 16 1910 Enumeration District 1409 Sheet 5 The 1920 United States Federal Census for Manhattan Assembly District 13 January 25 1920 Enumeration District 943 Sheet 9A U S Passport Applications 1795 1925 Roll 1533 6376 6749 March 19 21 1921 Ancestry com External links Edit Biography portal Pennsylvania portal Film portal Television portal Wikimedia Commons has media related to Aline MacMahon Aline MacMahon at IMDb Aline MacMahon at AllMovie Aline MacMahon at the TCM Movie Database Aline MacMahon discography at Discogs Aline MacMahon at the Internet Broadway Database Aline MacMahon at the Internet Off Broadway Database Aline MacMahon at Find a Grave Literature on Aline MacMahon Aline MacMahon papers 1899 1989 held by the Billy Rose Theatre Division New York Public Library for the Performing Arts Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Aline MacMahon amp oldid 1171252342, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

article

, read, download, free, free download, mp3, video, mp4, 3gp, jpg, jpeg, gif, png, picture, music, song, movie, book, game, games.