Alyce Canfield
Alyce Canfield | |
---|---|
Born | Alyce M. Castile February 19, 1909 Los Angeles, California |
Died | December 28, 1963 (aged 54) Encino, California |
Occupation(s) | Writer, journalist |
Alyce Castile Canfield (February 19, 1909 – December 28, 1963), born Alyce M. Castile, was an American writer and journalist. She wrote short fiction and covered film stars for magazines, and co-wrote celebrity autobiographies.
Early life and education
Alyce Castile was born in Los Angeles, the daughter of Andrew Blaine Castile and Mabel E. Castile. Her father was a landscape architect born in Nebraska,[1] and her mother was a restaurant manager, born in Mexico. The Castile family lived in Manhattan Beach in the 1910s,[2][3] and in Glendale in the 1920s. She attended Glendale High School, at the same time as John Wayne.[4] In childhood she worked as an extra in silent films.[5] She attended the University of California, Los Angeles,[6] where she was a columnist for the Daily Bruin.[7]
Career
Canfield was "considered one of the most prolific free-lance writers in Hollywood today," according to a 1947 profile,[5] Her byline was frequently seen in celebrity magazines in the 1940s and 1950s, including Motion Picture Magazine, Screenland,[8][9][10] Liberty, Screen Stars,[11][12] Screen Guide, TV Revue,[13] Coronet,[14] and Movieland. She co-wrote autobiographical books with director Mervyn LeRoy[15] and cosmetic surgeon Robert Alan Franklyn.[16] Her final book was God in Hollywood (1961) which was an attempt "to document the religious lives of movie stars."[17]
Canfield also wrote for radio and television.[5] She promoted the career of actor Keefe Brasselle, who had been her assistant on a publicity job.[18] In her last years, she was a writer and executive producer for a television program, Underground USA.[19] Films based on works by Canfield included Models Inc. (1952) and Death Over My Shoulder (1958).
Books
- It Takes More Than Talent (1953, with Mervyn LeRoy)[20]
- Beauty Surgeon (1960, with Robert Alan Franklyn)[16]
- God in Hollywood (1961)[17]
Personal life
Castile married columnist Homer Cisne Canfield in 1931. Her second husband was William Randall "Jerry" Jerome;[21] they married in 1948.[22] "Despondent over a lengthy illness,"[23] she died by suicide in 1963, at the age of 54, on the Ventura Freeway in Encino, California.[19] Geraldine Russell, mother of actress Jane Russell, conducted Canfield's funeral service in Hollywood.[23]
References
- ^ "Andrew B. Castile". The Los Angeles Times. 1951-03-30. p. 24. Retrieved 2023-07-17 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ "Manhattan Beach". The Los Angeles Times. 1916-09-24. p. 35. Retrieved 2023-07-17 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ "Manhattan Beach Happenings". The Redondo Reflex. 1916-04-07. p. 9. Retrieved 2023-07-17 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ Glendale High School, Stylus (1924 yearbook): 36. via Ancestry.com
- ^ a b c Ross, Jerry (1947-03-18). "Words! Words! Words! She Makes a Tidy Fortune Out of them". St. Louis Globe-Democrat. p. 11. Retrieved 2023-07-17 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ Whitaker, Alma (1930-04-27). "Sugar and Spice". The Los Angeles Times. p. 47. Retrieved 2023-07-17 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ "Miss Weir Chosen in Co-Ed Fashion Show Models Group". The San Bernardino County Sun. 1930-05-07. p. 9. Retrieved 2023-07-17 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ Canfield, Alyce (December 1945). "This Week: Clark Gable". Screenland – via Internet Archive.
- ^ Canfield, Alyce (May 1947). "'Thorobred Mongrel' and 'Things You Don't Know about Cary Grant'". Screenland. 51 (7): 39–41, 83 – via Internet Archive.
- ^ Canfield, Alyce (June 1947). "'Mr. Exhibitor Has His Fling' and 'I'm the Luckiest Man in the World'". Screenland. 51 (8): 34–35, 40–41 – via Internet Archive.
- ^ Griffin, Sean (2011). What Dreams Were Made of: Movie Stars of the 1940s. Rutgers University Press. p. 153. ISBN 978-0-8135-4963-7.
- ^ Kaminski, Theresa (2022-04-15). Queen of the West: The Life and Times of Dale Evans. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 160. ISBN 978-1-4930-4523-5.
- ^ Becker, Christine (2008). It's the Pictures That Got Small: Hollywood Film Stars on 1950s Television. Wesleyan University Press. p. 33. ISBN 978-0-8195-6894-6.
- ^ Canfield, Alyce (August 1950). "What Keeps Gable Clicking?". Coronet. 28 (4): 55–60 – via Internet Archive.
- ^ Davis, Fitzroy (1953-05-24). "Hacking One's Way to the Top in High Voltage Hollywood". Chicago Tribune. p. 212. Retrieved 2023-07-17 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ a b Franklyn, Robert Alan.; Canfield, Alyce. (1960). Beauty surgeon. Long Beach, Calif.: Whitehorn Pub. Co.
- ^ a b Smith, Jeffery A. (July 2001). "Hollywood Theology: The Commodification of Religion in Twentieth-Century Films". Religion and American Culture. 11 (2): 191–231. doi:10.1525/rac.2001.11.2.191. ISSN 1052-1151. S2CID 145770030.
- ^ Hopper, Hedda (1951-04-22). "This Rising Young Actor Known as 'Little Sir Ego'". The Baltimore Sun. p. 72. Retrieved 2023-07-17 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ a b "Woman Writer Drops onto Freeway to Kill Self". San Bernardino Sun. December 30, 1963. Retrieved July 16, 2023 – via California Digital Newspaper Collection.
- ^ LeRoy, Mervyn (1953). It Takes More Than Talent, as Told to Alyce Canfield. Knopf.
- ^ "Farewell Event Staged for Jerry Jerome". Los Angeles Evening Citizen News. 1950-06-12. p. 6. Retrieved 2023-07-17 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ "Anniversaries". Daily News. 1950-07-19. p. 23. Retrieved 2023-07-17 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ a b "Alyce Jerome". The San Francisco Examiner. 1964-01-01. p. 50. Retrieved 2023-07-17 – via Newspapers.com.