Bess Flowers, and all those extras

[Phillyrich]

I recently read that Bess Flowers appeared in over 350 Hollywood films, including 23 nominated for best picture. She had almost as many film appearances as Lon Chaney had faces!

She rarely had a talking part, though. I guess she was called a "dress extra" for that reason.

I wonder how many film buffs here are fans of the "extras," who appear again and again in films but rarely have a
substantial part. Do you have any favorite extras who have interesting back stories themselves?

[bradleyem]

Larry Steers. Distinguished-looking, mustached, silver-haired gentleman. Worked constantly. Was more likely to have small speaking roles early on (meaning early sound days).

[R Michael Pyle]

I recently read that Bess Flowers appeared in over 350 Hollywood films, including 23 nominated for best picture. She had almost as many film appearances as Lon Chaney had faces!

She rarely had a talking part, though. I guess she was called a "dress extra" for that reason.

I wonder how many film buffs here are fans of the "extras," who appear again and again in films but rarely have a
substantial part. Do you have any favorite extras who have interesting back stories themselves?

Actually, Bess Flowers has 810 film appearances credited at IMDb alone, and that's just feature films! She has 41 credits in short films, too. Plus, TV, etc. She's fun to spot. It seems to me that if I watch a film from the 40's or 50's I can't miss her; she seems to be in nearly all of them.

As for extras I look for, it's mainly with "B" Westerns. I'm always amazed at how many of these films Lafe McKee appeared in. As for other films, again mainly Westerns, one man who seems to show up so many times is Earl Dwire, although he appears in countless Westerns as the main bad guy, too.

[Wm. Charles Morrow]

I always enjoy spotting Leo White, former Chaplin colleague at Essanay and Mutual, who appears in scores of movies of the '30s and '40s. He plays waiters, hotel managers, floorwalkers, small time crooks, etc. He's practically the male Bess Flowers.

A couple of years ago I revisited the Bette Davis vehicle Marked Woman (1937). There's a scene where the assembled staff of a nightclub is listening to an impromptu speech delivered by the new owner, and the camera slowly pans across their faces. I thought to myself: "I bet Leo is going to turn up in that crowd," and presto -- he did!

[Brooksie]

There's an insightful section in David Niven's The Moon's A Balloon about the hierarchy of the extras. He claimed that some were offered larger roles but declined, preferring the predictability of work as a background player. Looking at the filmography of someone like Stuart Hall (more than 150 roles over four-odd decades, most of them uncredited), you can actually believe him.

Almost as interesting to me is the phenomenon of stand-ins. I can't imagine it being a very fulfilling career path, though you do sometimes come across stories of stars who became long-time friends of their regular stand-in or stuntperson.

[FrankFay]

There's an insightful section in David Niven's The Moon's A Balloon about the hierarchy of the extras. He claimed that some were offered larger roles but declined, preferring the predictability of work as a background player. .

Bess Flowers actually had a crack at being a featured player. She gets a credited role in IRENE and a substantial part in LINDA- and particularly in the later you can see that while she looks fabulous she just doesn't have "it"

I read an early 30's article on extras, and it said that the top earners had to put effort and quite a bit of money into their job- you were more likely to be hired ad a dress extra if you showed up on set already costumed, and to be featured if you were very well dressed.

[Wm. Charles Morrow]

There's an insightful section in David Niven's The Moon's A Balloon about the hierarchy of the extras. He claimed that some were offered larger roles but declined, preferring the predictability of work as a background player. .

Bess Flowers actually had a crack at being a featured player. She gets a credited role in IRENE and a substantial part in LINDA- and particularly in the latter you can see that while she looks fabulous she just doesn't have "it"

I saw Linda a couple of years ago and liked it a lot -- and I enjoyed seeing Bess Flowers in an actual role -- but I think her real problem was her height. In Linda I noticed that she towered over Helen Foster. That worked for their roles, as Foster was supposed to be a teenager and Flowers was her teacher, but how could she play opposite the leading men of the day? With a few obvious exceptions (Gary Cooper, Joel McCrea, etc.) most of the guys were on the short side. And it would've been a challenge to play the leading lady's sidekick when she's a head taller, or more, than most of the ladies.

[Dean Thompson]

This performer may not count since she played several leading roles early on, but—Margaret Mann. Some fifty years ago I bawled my eyes out when she was threatened with being sent to the poor farm in Helping Grandma, and the sight of her sweet, suffering face in countless thirties films has made me well up ever since. The last time I saw Gone With the Wind and recognized her as the hospital nurse weepily taking down a letter--oh brother, that was it.

However!—when she turned up on the Late Late Show as a nun cheering at the top of her lungs(!) in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, my eyebrows hit my hairline. Doubtless there are other Happy Margaret cameos waiting to be discovered, but I’m not sure if my heart will stand the shock.

[FrankFay]

I saw Linda a couple of years ago and liked it a lot -- and I enjoyed seeing Bess Flowers in an actual role -- but I think her real problem was her height. In Linda I noticed that she towered over Helen Foster. That worked for their roles, as Foster was supposed to be a teenager and Flowers was her teacher, but how could she play opposite the leading men of the day? With a few obvious exceptions (Gary Cooper, Joel McCrea, etc.) most of the guys were on the short side. And it would've been a challenge to play the leading lady's sidekick when she's a head taller, or more, than most of the ladies.

Definitely true- she'd have had to be a character actress to pull that off- like Charlotte Greenwood. Bess's height did help her in crowd scenes though

[Ray Faiola]

Here are some of my favorite extras:

MAJOR SAM HARRIS. Ubitquitous in tails.
BROOKS BENEDICT. Former name player became party regular, occasionally with lines.
JEFFREY SAYRE Croupier par excellence!
JIM THORPE All-American Extra!
FRANK MILLS - Could double for W.C. Fields but with black hair
CHARLES SULLIVAN - Henchman or cabbie, a reliable Irishman
BUD GEARY - bit player became a serial baddie
SPEC O'DONNELL - a silent comedy kid but went to the background in talkies (notable exceptions Angels with Dirty Faces and Rhapsody in Blue)
CYRIL RING - He had "parts" in Coconuts and Barber Shop but soon was relegated to the party circuit.
and, of course, ELINOR VANDERVEER. As delightful was Bess, Elinor was pained. But we loved her.

[Harlowgold]

I was delighted to see Constance Purdy had a couple of lines in RINGS ON HER FINGERS (1942) which I saw this weekend, she is almost always unbilled and usually a wordless extra. She always reminds me of the Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland.

[Robert Moulton]

Here are some of my favorite extras:

FRANK MILLS - Could double for W.C. Fields but with black hair

Wow, spot on about Frank Mills. That hadn't registered with me before.

[earlytalkiebuffRob]

I saw Linda a couple of years ago and liked it a lot -- and I enjoyed seeing Bess Flowers in an actual role -- but I think her real problem was her height. In Linda I noticed that she towered over Helen Foster. That worked for their roles, as Foster was supposed to be a teenager and Flowers was her teacher, but how could she play opposite the leading men of the day? With a few obvious exceptions (Gary Cooper, Joel McCrea, etc.) most of the guys were on the short side. And it would've been a challenge to play the leading lady's sidekick when she's a head taller, or more, than most of the ladies.

Definitely true- she'd have had to be a character actress to pull that off- like Charlotte Greenwood. Bess's height did help her in crowd scenes though

And she is credited in the opening titles...

[earlytalkiebuffRob]

Mildred Dixon, the Louise Brooks lookalike...

[Ray Faiola]

By the way, I remember seeing one Andy Griffith Show episode with Bess Flowers, Major Sam Harris, and Spec O'Donnell.

[silentfilm]

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/race/ ... zJHUuz1RO8

20 Feet From Movie Stardom: The Overlooked Story of Hollywood's Greatest Extra
Bess Flowers, who died in 1984 at the age of 85, appeared in over 350 films, including 23 that were nominated for the best picture Oscar and five that won it.
Courtesy Everett Collection
Bess Flowers, left, in a scene from the classic 1950 film "All About Eve."

Who has appeared in more films that were nominated for, and which then won, the best picture Oscar than anyone else? Katharine Hepburn? Jack Nicholson? Meryl Streep? Good guesses, but no.

Try Bess Flowers.

Flowers, who died in 1984 at the age of 85, was never noticed by most moviegoers, but hers was a household name and face for people in Hollywood from the time she arrived in town in 1922 until she made her final film appearance in 1964. Known as “the Queen of the Hollywood Extras,” she appeared in over 350 films, including 23 that were nominated for the best picture Oscar, such as Double Indemnity (1944), Mildred Pierce (1945) and A Place in the Sun (1951), and five that won it, namely It Happened One Night (1934), You Can't Take It with You (1938), All About Eve (1950), The Greatest Show on Earth (1952) and Around the World in Eighty Days (1956). Both are records that stand to this day.

(For point of reference, Hepburn appeared in 7 and 0, Nicholson has appeared in “just” 10 and 3 and Streep has under her belt 5 and 3, respectively.)

Flowers, who was born in Sherman, Texas, ran away from home to get away from her overbearing father. Using some savings that she pilfered from her mother, she intended to buy a train ticket to New York to try to become a Broadway actress, but, at the station, saw an advertisement that made her change her mind: “I’ll go to California and get in pictures,” she decided. “So I did. I got a job the first day I ever went on an interview."

Being tall and stylish, Flowers had no trouble finding work—initially supporting parts, such as a nearly-nude model in Charlie Chaplin’s A Woman in Paris (1923), and then even a few leads. “[The studios] liked tall women because [leading men] didn't have to bend down to kiss them and ruin their profile,” she recalled later in life. But, around the time of the transition from silent movie to talkies, she began taking on bit parts and extra work, and never really went back.

At the time, extras had no union, and most found gigs through independent services that consulted with the studios or, after 1925, Central Casting, a wing, at that time, of the studios. Most were paid three dollars plus a boxed lunch for a full day’s work. (Years later, in 1945, Flowers helped to found the Screen Extras Guild, which fought for better pay and working conditions for extras, and served as one of its first vice presidents and recording secretaries.)

One of the best decisions that Flowers ever made was to buy from the studios many of the outfits that she wore in movies. Consequently, when casting directors needed someone to appear as “the stunning woman in the party scene, the dressed-to-the-teeth elegante at the gala premiere [or] the bejeweled peacock in the box at the opera,” as New York Magazine described some of the roles she played in 1971 article, they knew that they could call on her to come with her own clothes, as opposed to having to make or rent clothes for her. This type of person was known as a “dress extra.” (In the last years of her life, Flowers lived at the Motion Picture County House—where she required a special storage room to house her immense wardrobe.)

Directors began to notice and even ask for Flowers. She became a regular in the films of James Cruze, Frank Capra, John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock and Gregory La Cava, among others, and a frequent collaborator of everyone from Joan Crawford (appearing in 12 of her films) to The Three Stooges. Her parts rarely had dialogue or received screen credit, but some are easier to spot than others. For instance, in the final scene of All About Eve, she can be seen telling Anne Baxter’s title character, “I’m so happy for you, Eve,” and in Imitation of Life (1959) she plays the star of the play in which Lana Turner’s character first garners acclaim.

As time passed, some hardcore film buffs began to make a sport of spotting her in films. “Her not appearing in a movie would cause considerable worry to her even more considerable fans, who would then deluge M-G-M and [gossip columnists] with inquiries about her health,” New York Magazine reported, and by the 1970s, when film societies began screening classics and she came across the screen, her appearances were greeted with “an ovation even Garbo would envy.”

That must have pleased Flowers immensely, for though she was an extra, she never wanted to be just another face in the crowd. As she told historian Anthony Slide late in life, “I wanted to be an individual always, never one of the horde.”

Twitter: @ScottFeinberg

[William D. Ferry]

I always enjoy spotting Leo White, former Chaplin colleague at Essanay and Mutual, who appears in scores of movies of the '30s and '40s. He plays waiters, hotel managers, floorwalkers, small time crooks, etc. He's practically the male Bess Flowers.

A couple of years ago I revisited the Bette Davis vehicle Marked Woman (1937). There's a scene where the assembled staff of a nightclub is listening to an impromptu speech delivered by the new owner, and the camera slowly pans across their faces. I thought to myself: "I bet Leo is going to turn up in that crowd," and presto -- he did!

Good catch! Leo appears in oodles of Warners films, especially in two-reelers. It's fun to see him often playing variations on his Frenchman character from the Chaplins. He's even in the live-action wraparound of a Looney Tunes (EATIN' ON THE CUFF, if I recall correctly).