Silent Film Star Monte Blue

I lived in Hollywood through most of the 1980's. While I was in LA for a conference last week, I visited my old neighborhood. One of the things I most wanted to see again was my Uncle Monte Blue's (1887-1963) star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He married Betty Jean Munson, my father's oldest sister in 1959. My parents said I was introduced to him while I was a baby, although I don't remember. I took a few cell snaps of his star at 6286 Hollywood Blvd (Hollywood & Vine), where he was enshrined on February 8, 1960.

1920's era postcard found at Paradise Leased.

Uncle Monte had an all American rags-to-riches story.  Half French, half Cherokee, his birthname was Gerard Montgomery Bluefeather.  Born in Indianapolis, he was placed in an orphanage as a child, yet he persevered, making it through Purdue University and excelling at all sports and physical activities. According to a story in the Blue Book of the Screen (1923), Blue was discovered by director D.W. Griffith while working as a day labor on the set of The Birth of a Nation (1915). Griffith observed him one day, up on a soapbox giving a heated speech about capital and labor.  Later, when another actor playing the part of a stump speaker wasn't sufficiently inspiring, Griffith remembered Blue and gave him a chance.  He continued on in supporting roles until his breakthrough role as the hero Danton in Griffith's French Revolution era epic Orphans of the Storm (1921) opposite the Gish sisters, Lillian and Dorothy. He was the romantic lead in a long string of silent films through the 1920's.  He successfully made the transition into "talkies" and continued to work as a character actor for film and television. One of his best remembered roles was as the sheriff in Key Largo, the 1948 film noir film directed by John Huston starring Humphrey Bogart, Edward G. Robinson, Lauren Bacall and Lionel Barrymore. He retired from acting in 1954. He suffered a fatal heart attack while visiting Wisconsin on business in 1963 (Filmography).

My Aunt Betty Munson Blue, his widow, taught oil painting, and owned an art school in Beverly Hills on Wilshire near Doheny, a block from the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences building at 8949 Wilshire. She relocated to Florida in her later years.

I have recently discovered that the house he lived in on N. Roxbury in Beverly Hills was sold to George Gershwin, who lived there for a year, during which he composed Rhapsody in Blue. It was later sold to the singer Rosemary Clooney, she kept it for 50 years and was demolished. Story/photos at this link http://www.georgegershwinhouse.com/

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