Guy Madison: Film History Series

Guy Madison (Sailor Harold E. Smith), “Since You Went Away”, 1944, Selznick International Pictures

Born in Pumpkin Center, California in January of 1922, Robert Ozell Moseley was an American film, television and radio actor. He was one of five children born to a machinist father and raised in Bakersfield, California. Moseley attended the city’s junior college where he majored in animal husbandry, he worked briefly as a telephone linesman in California before joining the Coast Guard in 1942.

In Hollywood on a liberty pass in 1944, Moseley attended a Lux Radio Theater broadcast where he was noticed by a talent scout and brought to the offices of Selznick International Pictures. David Selznick signed Moseley to a contract and gave him several screen tests and his first film role. Moseley appeared as a lonely sailor in a three-minute bowling alley sequence with film stars Jennifer Jones and Robert Walker in the 1944 “Since You Went Away”. He filmed his screen time on a weekend pass under the name Guy Madison, a screen name composed by David Selznick and his assistant Henry Wilson.

“Since You Went Away” was set in an American town where families dealt with loved ones fighting in the Second World War and the effects of that war at home. The cinematography was produced by Stanley Cortez, who would film Charles Laughton’s “Night of the Hunter”, Lee Garmes, an Academy Award winner for “Shanghai Express”, and George Barnes, Academy Award winner for “Rebecca”, and documentary producer Robert Bruce, the last two being in uncredited roles. The film was a success and generated thousands of fan letters for Guy Madison in his role as a lonely sailor.

Guy Madison, after his discharge from military service, was cast in several roles by Selznick. He appeared in leading roles in the 1946 drama film “Till the End of Time”, co-starring with Dorothy McGuire, Bill Williams and Robert Mitchum, and the 1947 comedy film “Honeymoon”, co-starring with Shirley Temple and Franchot Tone. Madison’s early acting roles in these films was judged by critics to be amateurish and, by the end of the 1940s, he was no longer getting roles. Along with most of the Selznick International’s contract-players during this period, Madison was eventually released from his contract.

Despite the bad reviews, Madison studied and started perfecting his art in the theater.His fortune changed when he was given the role of James Butler Hickok in the television series “The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok”, which ran from 1951 to 1958 and on the radio from 1951 to 1956. His co-star in the series was Andy Devine, a character actor well known for his distinctive raspy voice, who played the role of the trusty sidekick Jingles. This popular series was nominated for an Emmy Award in 1956 for Best Western or Adventure Series.

Guy Madison’s popularity as Hickok led to a starring role in the 1953 western film “The Charge at Feather River”, a role which gave him a new start as an action hero, albeit mostly in western films. Films which followed include the 1954 Western calvary film “The Command”; the 1955 robbery film “Five Against the House”; “The Beast of Hollow Mountain”, a 1956 horror western with a prehistoric beast; the 1956 science fiction drama “On the Threshold of Space”; the 1957 western drama“The Hard Man”; and “Bullwhip”, a 1958 western film in which Madison co-starred with Rhonda Fleming.

In the 1960s, Madison traveled through Europe and made several costume dramas, German adventure films and Italian westerns. Among his many European films are such films as the 1965 film “Das Vermächtnis des Inka (The Legacy of the Incas)”, the 1966 “I Cinque della Vndette (Five for Revenge)”, and the 1968 “I Lunghi Giorni dell’Odio (Long Days of Hate)”. In the 1970s, Madison returned to the United States and appeared in mainly cameo roles in film and television. In 1988, he appeared in a television remake of the western classic “Red River” along with western stars James Arness, Robert Horton and John Lupton. Madison’s role as rancher Bill Meeker became his final film role.

In his later years, Guy Madison’s work was greatly limited by physical aliments and the onset of emphysema. He eventually retired to a large ranch home he designed in Morongo Valley, California. Madison died at the age of seventy-four in February of 1996 at the Desert Hospital Hospice in Palm Springs, California. He was buried at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Cathedral City, California.

Guy Madison, in addition to all his appearances on many television shows, appeared in over fifty films in his career. In 1954, he was awarded a special Golden Globe Award for Best Western Star and, in 1986, was awarded a Golden Boot Award given in recognition of his contributions to the genre of westerns in television and film. Madison has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, one for his work in radio and one for his television contributions. He also has a Golden Palm Star on the Palm Springs Walk of Stars in California.

Note: Character actor Andy Devine acted in many western films. One of his most notable roles was as Cookie, the sidekick in ten Roy Rogers feature films. He also appeared in several films with John Wayne, including “Stagecoach” in 1939, the 1953 “Island in the Sky”, and “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance” released in 1962. Devine appeared extensively in radio including seventy-five appearances on Jack Benny’s radio show between 1936 and 1942. He was also the host for “Andy’s Gang”, a children’s television show hosted on NBC during the later half of the 1950s. Devine has a star of honor on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Second Insert Image: Photographer Unknown, “Guy Madison”, Studio Photo for “The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok”, circa 1951-1958

Third Insert Image: Photographer Unknown, “Guy Madison and Andy Devine”, Studio Photo for “The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok”, circa 1951-1958

Fourth Insert Image: Photographer Unknown, “Guy Madison and Robert Mitchum”, Publicity Photo for “Till the End of Time”, 1945-1946

Charles Dean Cornwell

The Artwork of Dean Cornwell

Born in Louisville, Kentucky in March of 1892, Charles Dean Cornwell was an illustrator and muralist who was a dominant presence in American illustration during the first half of the twentieth- century. He began his professional career at the age of eighteen as a cartoonist for the Louisville Herald. In 1911, Cornwell found employment with the art department of the Chicago Tribune and began studies at the Chicago Art Institute where he studied under educator and painter Harvey Dunn, a prominent student of illustrator Howard Pyle and a member of the Brandywine School collective.

In 1915, Dean Cornwell traveled to New Rochelle, New York, well known for its established art colony, and studied under Dunn at the Art Students League in New York City where he eventually developed his own light-imbued style. In 1918 in Chicago, Cornwell married artist Mildred Montrose Kirkham, who also studied at the Chicago Art Institute. They had two children; however, due to Cornwell’s constant extramarital affairs, they separated after a few years but never divorced.

Possessing a strong work ethic, Cornwell often worked seventeen hours a day and through the entire week. His illustrations appeared in nearly every major publication in the United States including Redbook, Harper’s Bazaar, Cosmopolitan and Good Housekeeping. In 1926, Cornwell signed a long-term contract with Cosmopolitan for an annual salary of one-hundred thousand dollars, equivalent to over a million dollars today.

Dean Cornwell illustrated the novels of authors such as Ernest Hemingway, Pearl S. Buck, W. Somerset Maugham, and short story writer Edna Ferber. He also illustrated posters to support the United States war efforts in three major conflicts, the Korean War effort and both the first and second World Wars. Through his career, Cornwell did advertising for hundreds of companies including General Motors, the Pennsylvania Railroad, Goodyear, and New York Life; he also illustrated ads for such products as Coca-Cola, Seagram’s Gin, and Palmolive Soap.

Deciding to dedicate the rest of his career to mural painting, Cornwell traveled to London in 1927, where he apprenticed to the painter Sir Frank William Brangwyn for a three-year study of mural painting. He assisted Brangwyn in a series of murals, including the British Empire Panels designed for the House of Lords. These panels, begun in 1925 and completed in 1932, were not hung in the Royal Gallery of the House of Lords as intended. Considered too lively and colorful, the panels were housed in a specially built hall in Swansea.

The most renowned of Dean Cornwell’s murals is the Los Angeles Public Library’s twelve-panel “History of California” which encircles the Grand Rotunda. Painted on linen canvases and finished in 1933, the forty-foot tall panels took five years to complete. Cornwell, having used all the funding after two years, took on illustrative work to finance the project to its completion. His other murals include, among others, those for the General Motors exhibition at the 1939 World’s Fair, New York’s Hotel Warwick’s Raleigh Room, the Easter Airlines building (now 10 Rockefeller Plaza), Boston’s New England Telephone headquarters building, and the William Rappard Center in Geneva, Switzerland.

Cornwell lectured and taught at New York’s Art Students League. From 1922 to 1926, he served as the president of the Society of Illustrators and was elected into its Hall of Fame in 1959. Cornwall was elected in `923 into the National Academy of Design as an Associate Academician and achieved full status in 1940. He served as President of the National Society of Mural Painters for four years beginning in 1953. Charles Dean Cornwell died at the age of sixty-eight in New York City on December 4th of 1960. A collection of his papers, correspondence, sketches, scrapbooks and photographs are housed in the Archives of American Art located in the Victor Building in Washington, DC.

Note: A very extensive article on Dean Cornwell, complete with family history, can be found at the PulpArtists website: https://www.pulpartists.com/Cornwell.html

Top Insert Image: Photographer Unknown, “Dean Cornwell in Studio”, Date Unknown, Gelatin Silver Print

Second Inset Image: Dean Cornwell, “Study of a Boy, for Water Mural”, 1927-33, Pastel and Charcoal Pencil on Paper, 58.4 x 38.1 cm, Private Collection

Third Insert Image: Photographer Unknown, “Dean Cornwell, Los Angeles Public Library”, 1933, Gelatin Silver Print

Bottom Insert Image: Dean Cornwell, “Study of a Boy, for Water Mural”, 1927-33, Pastel and Charcoal Pencil on Paper, Dimensions and Location Unknown

Benoit Prévot

The Artwork of Benoit Prévot

Born in the Ardennes region between France and Belgium in 1968, Benoit Prévot is a French illustrator and comic artist. A graduate of EMSAT, he has worked at various design and advertising studios. Prévot received formal training at the CFT Gobelins, a Paris school for visual communication and the arts, after which he worked on several animated television series. Throughout his career, he has created artwork for comic books and fanzines, as well as illustrated book covers and promotional posters.

Prévot’s more current and personal work, reminiscent of illustrations produced in the 1920s, often displays a stylish homoerotic atmosphere. Although his favorite medium is ink and graphite on paper, Prévot has also produced works with watercolors and oil paints.

Benoit Prévot is the writer and illustrator for Class Comics’s “Angelface”, a graphic novel series set in the 1920’s era of prohibition, which was epitomized by that era’s illicit liquor bars, swing music, and loose morals. The illustrated series combines the elegance of that era with Prévot’s stylish homoeroticism. The story of Alan, known as Angelface, and his lover Red conjures up the glamour of upper-class wealth and Trans-Atlantic ocean liner travel as well as the grime of the working class world which Alan and Red want to escape.

Prévot’s work has been shown at the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art in New York City and has been shown regularly at the Tom of Finland Art and Culture Festivals. Issues of the graphic novel “Angelface” were donated in 2011 to the Tom of Finland Foundation. Benoit Prévot currently lives and works in Paris.

Bottom Insert Image: Benoit Prévot, “Décolleté”, Date Unknown

Igor Sychev

The Paintings of Igor Sychev

Born in February of 1987 in the northern city of Nadym, Igor Sychev is a Russian artist known for his Magic-Realistic figurative paintings. At the age of five years having shown an inclination towards the arts, his parents enrolled him in the city’s art school where he studied until the age of sixteen. Sychev left Nadym upon graduation and relocated to Novosibirsk, the capital of Siberia, where he entered the Faculty of Industrial Design at the State Academy of Architecture, Design and Fine Arts.

After graduating from the Academy in 2010, Sychev moved to Moscow, which as Russia’s capital offered wider prospects for a career and self-expression. He soon obtained employment as an industrial designer and created designs for furniture and interior spaces. In 2011 while working in the design field , Sychev began a personal study of oil painting techniques. Over the next ten years, Igor Sychev gradually redirected his energies into pursuing a career as a painter.

In addition to the primary medium of oil paints, Igor Sychev also produces works in the mediums of watercolor, pencil, sepia and charcoal. His work is inspired by the works of the recognized Master artists , such as Michelangelo’s “David”, who viewed the nude male body as a source of beauty, Other influences on Sychev’s work include the paintings of Lucian Freud and Egon Schiele, the large-scale expressive paintings of Paolo Troilo, painter Gregory Little’s boldly colored figures in everyday scenes, and Portuguese painter Carlos Barahona Possollo’s male nude paintings.

As the present politics and attitudes in Russia are predominantly homophobic, Igor Sychev has not been able to exhibit in galleries or museums. He holds his private exhibitions in establishments offered by friends. Sychev’s work is held in many private collections throughout the world, including the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Denmark, and South Africa, among others.

Images of Igor Sychev’s paintings, watercolors and drawings, as well as contact information, can be found at the artist’s website located at: https://www.igorsychev.com

Bottom Insert Image: Igor Sychev, “Concrete Colours” Sketch, Date Unknnown, White/Black Pencil and Pen on Paper, Artist Collection (Available)