Rose Hobart

Rose Hobart

Born: May 1, 1906
Died: August 29, 2000
in New York City, New York, USA
Rose Hobart (born Rose Kefer) was an American actress and Screen Actors Guild official. When Hobart was 15, she debuted professionally in Cappy Ricks, a Chautauqua production. She was accepted for the 18-week tour because she told officials that she was 18. At that same age, she was cast in Ferenc Molnár's Liliom, which opened in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Hobart's Broadway stage debut was on September 17, 1923 at the Knickerbocker Theater, playing a young girl in Lullaby. In 1925, she played Charmian in Caesar and Cleopatra.

Hobart was an original member of Eva Le Gallienne's Civic Repertory Theatre. In 1928, she made her London debut, playing Nona Rolf in The Comic Artist. During her career in theater, she toured with Noël Coward in The Vortex and was cast opposite Helen Hayes in What Every Woman Knows.

Her performance as Grazia in Death Takes a Holiday won her a Hollywood contract. Hobart appeared in more than 40 motion pictures over a 20-year period. Her first film role was the part of Julie in the first talking picture version of Liliom, made by Fox Film Corporation in 1930, starring Charles Farrell in the title role, and directed by Frank Borzage. Under contract to Universal, Hobart starred in A Lady Surrenders, East of Borneo, and Scandal for Sale. On loan to other studios, she appeared in Chances and Compromised. In 1931, she co-starred with Fredric March and Miriam Hopkins in Rouben Mamoulian's original film version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. She played the role of Muriel, Jekyll's fiancée. In 1936, Surrealist artist Joseph Cornell, who bought a print of East of Borneo to screen at home, became smitten with the actress, and cut out nearly all the parts that did not include her. He also showed the film at silent film speed and projected it through a blue-tinted lens. He named the resulting work Rose Hobart. Hobart often played the "other woman" in movies during the 1940s, with her last major film role in Bride of Vengeance.

The House Un-American Activities Committee investigated Hobart in 1949, effectively ending her career. She believed that she first came to the attention of anti-Communist activists because of her commitment to improving working conditions for actors in Hollywood.

Movies for Rose Hobart...

Universal Horror
Title: Universal Horror
Character: Self - Interviewee
Released: October 8, 1998
Type: Movie
A documentary about the era of classic monster movies that were made at Universal Studios during the 1930s and 1940s.
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Bogart: The Untold Story
Title: Bogart: The Untold Story
Character: Self
Released: January 5, 1997
Type: Movie
Stephen H. Bogart narrates the rise to fame of his father, Humphrey Bogart through the use of film clips, written material and interviews of friends and co-workers.
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Bogart: Here's Looking at You, Kid
Title: Bogart: Here's Looking at You, Kid
Character: Self
Released: January 5, 1997
Type: Movie
This documentary, originally presented on the television series The South Bank Show, covers actor Humphrey Bogart's life and career, including archival footage and interviews with Lauren Bacall and his son Stephen Bogart.
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Title: Cannon
Released: September 14, 1971
Type: TV
Cannon is a CBS detective television series produced by Quinn Martin which aired from March 26, 1971 to March 3, 1976. The primary protagonist is the title character, private detective Frank Cannon, played by William Conrad. He also appeared on two episodes of Barnaby Jones. Cannon is the first Quinn Martin-produced series to be aired on a network other than ABC. A "revival" television film, The Return of Frank Cannon, was aired on November 1, 1980. In total, there were 124 episodes.
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Title: Night Gallery
Character: Mrs. Hugo (segment "The Dear Departed")
Released: December 16, 1970
Type: TV
Rod Serling narrates an anthology of fantasy, horror and sci-fi stories from a set resembling a macabre museum. A chilling work of art serves as the connective link between the stories.
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Title: The Invaders
Character: Housekeeper - Irma
Released: January 10, 1967
Type: TV
The Invaders, alien beings from a dying planet. Their destination: the Earth. Their purpose: to make it their world. David Vincent has seen them, for him it began one lost night on a lonely country road, looking for a shortcut that he never found. It began with a closed deserted diner, and a man too long without sleep to continue his journey. It began with the landing of a craft from another galaxy. Now, David Vincent knows that the Invaders are here, that they have taken human form. Somehow he must convince a disbelieving world that the nightmare has already begun.
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Title: The F.B.I.
Character: Maid
Released: September 19, 1965
Type: TV
The F.B.I. is an American television series that was broadcast on ABC from 1965 to 1974. It was sponsored by the Ford Motor Company, and the characters almost always drove Ford vehicles in the series. Alcoa was co-sponsor of Season One only.
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Title: The F.B.I.
Character: Molly Ferguson
Released: September 19, 1965
Type: TV
The F.B.I. is an American television series that was broadcast on ABC from 1965 to 1974. It was sponsored by the Ford Motor Company, and the characters almost always drove Ford vehicles in the series. Alcoa was co-sponsor of Season One only.
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Title: Gunsmoke
Character: Melanie Karcher
Released: September 10, 1955
Type: TV
Gunsmoke is an American radio and television Western drama series created by director Norman MacDonnell and writer John Meston. The stories take place in and around Dodge City, Kansas, during the settlement of the American West. The central character is lawman Marshal Matt Dillon, played by William Conrad on radio and James Arness on television.
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Bride of Vengeance
Title: Bride of Vengeance
Character: Lady Eleanora
Released: April 7, 1949
Type: Movie
The tiny independent duchy of Ferrara is located between Casare Borgia's Rome and Venice, and Borgia has plans to conquer Venice via Ferrara. He murders his sister's husband and makes it appear that Alfonso D'Este of Ferrara was behind the killing. To avenge herself against Ferrara and D'Este, Lucretia Borgia marries D'Este and intends to poison him. But...she falls in love with him.
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Mickey
Title: Mickey
Character: Lydia Matthews
Released: June 23, 1948
Type: Movie
A pretty, tomboyish teenager comes of age in an American small town.
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Cass Timberlane
Title: Cass Timberlane
Character: Diantha Marl
Released: November 6, 1947
Type: Movie
Judge Cass Timberlane marries a girl from the wrong side of the tracks, Virginia Marshland. A baby is stillborn and she turns more and more to attorney friend of of Cass' Brad Criley. While quarreling the Judge tells Virginia to stay with Brad, but when she becomes sick he brings her home.
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The Trouble with Women
Title: The Trouble with Women
Character: Agnes Meeler
Released: June 25, 1947
Type: Movie
A psychology professor comes up with a theory that women have a desire to be subjugated. A newswoman, using a pseudonym, accuses him of advocating wife-beating. There is trouble, when he falls in love with her, unaware of who she is.
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The Farmer's Daughter
Title: The Farmer's Daughter
Character: Virginia Thatcher
Released: March 26, 1947
Type: Movie
After leaving her family's farm to study nursing in the city, a young woman finds herself on an unexpected path towards politics.
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Canyon Passage
Title: Canyon Passage
Character: Marta Lestrade
Released: July 17, 1946
Type: Movie
In 1850s Oregon, a businessman is torn between his love of two very different women and his loyalty to a compulsive gambler friend who goes over the line.
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The Cat Creeps
Title: The Cat Creeps
Character: Connie Palmer
Released: May 17, 1946
Type: Movie
A black cat is suspected of being possessed by the spirit of a elderly murdered woman.
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Claudia and David
Title: Claudia and David
Character: Edith Dexter
Released: February 25, 1946
Type: Movie
The follow-up film to "Claudia", with Dorothy McGuire and Robert Young reprising their earlier roles as a young married couple living in a small Connecticut town.
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Isle of the Dead
Title: Isle of the Dead
Character: Mary St. Aubyn (in long shot; uncredited)
Released: September 1, 1945
Type: Movie
On a Greek island during the 1912 war, several people are trapped by quarantine for the plague. If that isn't enough worry, one of the people—a superstitious old peasant—suspects a young woman of being a vampiric demon.
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Conflict
Title: Conflict
Character: Kathryn Mason
Released: June 15, 1945
Type: Movie
Unhappily married Richard Mason concocts a meticulous scheme to kill his shrewish wife so that he'll be free to marry her sister.
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The Brighton Strangler
Title: The Brighton Strangler
Character: Dorothy Kent
Released: May 10, 1945
Type: Movie
After suffering a head injury during the Blitz, John Loder, a theatre actor comes to believe himself to be the Brighton Strangler, the murderer he was playing onstage.
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The Soul of a Monster
Title: The Soul of a Monster
Character: Lilyan Gregg
Released: August 17, 1944
Type: Movie
A man recovers on his death bed after his wife makes a mysterious pact with a strange woman. But is he really alive?
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Song of the Open Road
Title: Song of the Open Road
Character: Mrs. Powell
Released: June 21, 1944
Type: Movie
A beautiful child star tires of life in the spotlight and so disguises herself and sneaks off to join a Civilian Conservation Corps camp to work with normal kids. It doesn't take her long to discover that being "normal" isn't easy as it looks. When a crop is in danger of being ruined because there are not enough people to harvest it, the girl employs some of her famous colleagues to lend a hand. Songs include: "Too Much in Love," "Here It Is Monday," "Delightfully Dangerous," "Hawaiian War Chant" and "Notre Dame."
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The Crime Doctor’s Strangest Case
Title: The Crime Doctor’s Strangest Case
Character: Mrs. Diana Burns
Released: December 9, 1943
Type: Movie
The Crime Doctor gets involved in the case of the poisoning of a wealthy industrialist.
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The Mad Ghoul
Title: The Mad Ghoul
Character: Della Elliott, reporter
Released: November 12, 1943
Type: Movie
A university chemistry professor experiments with an ancient Mayan gas on a medical student, turning the would-be surgeon into a murdering ghoul as part of a plan to steal his lover.
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Swing Shift Maisie
Title: Swing Shift Maisie
Character: Lead Woman (Uncredited)
Released: October 1, 1943
Type: Movie
Street-smart Maisie from Brooklyn lands a job at an airplane assembly plant during WWII and falls in love with handsome pilot "Breezy" McLaughlin. Breezy, however, falling in love with and getting engaged to Maisie's conniving roommate Iris, doesn't realize she's using him and it's up to Maisie to convince him.
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Salute to the Marines
Title: Salute to the Marines
Character: Mrs. Carson
Released: September 2, 1943
Type: Movie
It is a comic book propaganda film which has Beery as a retired USMC NCO who, when the Japanese invade the Philippines, leads a heroic defense, first by strangling a Nazi agent, and then dying in his dress blues uniform while blowing up a bridge.
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The Adventures of Smilin' Jack
Title: The Adventures of Smilin' Jack
Character: Trudy Muller, aka Fraulein von Teufel
Released: January 5, 1943
Type: Movie
A movie serial in 12 chapters: The famous comic strip character is on a mission to protect a secret tunnel passage between China and India.
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Dr. Gillespie's New Assistant
Title: Dr. Gillespie's New Assistant
Character: Mrs. Black
Released: November 1, 1942
Type: Movie
The doctor (Lionel Barrymore) has a Kansan (Van Johnson), an Australian and an Asian from Brooklyn to choose from.
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Gallant Lady
Title: Gallant Lady
Character: Rosemary Walsh
Released: May 29, 1942
Type: Movie
A female doctor is sent to prison for a mercy killing. She manages to escape, get married and lead a model life, but one day her secret is exposed.
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Who Is Hope Schuyler?
Title: Who Is Hope Schuyler?
Character: Alma Pearce
Released: April 17, 1942
Type: Movie
A girl reporter is trying to tack down the lady-in-the-title, as a key witness in a graft trial, which involves three murder and that many failed attempts. A prosecuting attorney in the district attorneys office is aiding her in solving the mystery of the missing lady.
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Mr. and Mrs. North
Title: Mr. and Mrs. North
Character: Carol Brent
Released: January 23, 1942
Type: Movie
Married sleuths (Gracie Allen, William Post Jr.) find a corpse in their closet and round up suspects.
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A Gentleman at Heart
Title: A Gentleman at Heart
Character: Claire Barrington
Released: January 16, 1942
Type: Movie
After inheriting a New York City art gallery, bookie Milton Berle and his partner Cesar Romero decide to go into the art forgery business. Director Ray McCarey's 1942 comedy also stars Carole Landis, J. Carrol Naish, Steven Geray, Richard Derr, Rose Hobart, Elisha Cook Jr., Chick Chandler, Francis Pierlot and Jerome Cowan.
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No Hands on the Clock
Title: No Hands on the Clock
Character: Mrs. Marion West
Released: December 1, 1941
Type: Movie
A wise-cracking private detective's honeymoon is interrupted by a kidnapping case.
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Nothing But the Truth
Title: Nothing But the Truth
Character: Mrs. Harriet Donnelly
Released: October 10, 1941
Type: Movie
Gwen Saunders teams up with her uncle's employee, Steve Bennett, in an attempt to double her $10,000 investment in the family firm. If she can reach the $20,000 mark, her uncle, T.T. Ralston, will match the figure. Steve bets that if he can spend an entire day without telling a lie, Ralston and his business partners must double Gwen's money. Bennett then earns the enmity of everyone involved in his attempt to win the bet.
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Lady Be Good
Title: Lady Be Good
Character: Mrs. Carter Wardley
Released: September 18, 1941
Type: Movie
Married songwriters almost split up while putting on a big show.
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I'll Sell My Life
Title: I'll Sell My Life
Character: Dale Layden
Released: September 12, 1941
Type: Movie
A woman hoping to raise cash to pay for an operation to restore her blind brother's eyesight finds herself implicated in a nightclub murder.
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Singapore Woman
Title: Singapore Woman
Character: Alice North
Released: May 17, 1941
Type: Movie
A fallen woman seeks redemption at a Singapore rubber plantation. Melodrama.
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Ziegfeld Girl
Title: Ziegfeld Girl
Character: Mrs. Merton
Released: April 25, 1941
Type: Movie
Discovery by Flo Ziegfeld changes a girl's life but not necessarily for the better, as three beautiful women find out when they join the spectacle on Broadway: Susan, the singer who must leave behind her ageing vaudevillian father; vulnerable Sheila, the working girl pursued both by a millionaire and by her loyal boyfriend from Flatbush; and the mysterious European beauty Sandra, whose concert violinist husband cannot endure the thought of their escaping from poverty by promenading her glamor in skimpy costumes.
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A Night at Earl Carroll's
Title: A Night at Earl Carroll's
Character: Ramona Lisa
Released: December 6, 1940
Type: Movie
Newly-elected reform Mayor Jones celebrates his victory over the crooked political machine with a party at Earl Carroll's night club. Steve Kalkus, the defeated racketeer-politician, has Earl Carroll and several of his acts kidnapped, figuring the kidnapping coup will cause Jones to be laughed out of office. In Carroll's absence his assistant, Ramona Lisa, and his press agent, Barney Nelson put on the show themselves with the remaining talent, the chorus girls and also pressing into the entertainment cigarette girls, cloakroom girls, the doorman and others including oil heiresses Brenda Gusher and Cobina Gusher. Carroll and the other prisoners make their escape when a kidnapped juggling act sends their captors down in a barrage of beer bottles.
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Susan and God
Title: Susan and God
Character: Irene
Released: June 7, 1940
Type: Movie
A flighty socialite neglects her family to promote a new religious group.
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Wolf of New York
Title: Wolf of New York
Character: Peggy Nolan
Released: January 23, 1940
Type: Movie
A New York attorney defends a young man with a criminal past who has been accused of murdering a police inspector.
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Tower of London
Title: Tower of London
Character: Anne Neville
Released: November 17, 1939
Type: Movie
In the 15th century Richard Duke of Gloucester, aided by his club-footed executioner Mord, eliminates those ahead of him in succession to the throne, then occupied by his brother King Edward IV of England. As each murder is accomplished he takes particular delight in removing small figurines, each resembling one of the successors, from a throne-room dollhouse, until he alone remains. After the death of Edward he becomes Richard III, King of England, and need only defeat the exiled Henry Tudor to retain power.
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Rose Hobart
Title: Rose Hobart
Character: Woman (archive footage) (uncredited)
Released: December 9, 1936
Type: Movie
Cornell employs clips from 1931's jungle melodrama East of Borneo – more specifically, clips of its lead actress, Rose Hobart – to disquieting effect. Through Cornell's collage editing, Hobart becomes a singular object of desire and dread, trapped in an exotic paradise.
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Convention Girl
Title: Convention Girl
Character: Cynthia 'Babe' LaVal
Released: October 30, 1935
Type: Movie
Wily hotel 'hostess' Babe LaVal navigates booming business, cabaret calls and shady deals in Atlantic City. She meets a soup magnate, and begins to feel it might be 'the real thing'.
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The Shadow Laughs
Title: The Shadow Laughs
Character: Ruth Hackett
Released: March 26, 1933
Type: Movie
The police investigate a bank robbery, and when they don't seem to be making much headway, a newspaper reporter decides to investigate it on his own.
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Scandal for Sale
Title: Scandal for Sale
Character: Claire Strong
Released: April 1, 1932
Type: Movie
A man is promised $25,000 if he can bring the circulation of a newspaper up to one million.
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Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Title: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Character: Muriel Carew
Released: December 24, 1931
Type: Movie
Dr. Henry Jekyll believes that there are two distinct sides to men - a good and an evil side. He believes that by separating the two, man can become liberated. He succeeds in his experiments with chemicals to accomplish this and transforms into Hyde to commit horrendous crimes. When he discontinues use of the drug, it is already too late.
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Compromised
Title: Compromised
Character: Ann Brock
Released: November 19, 1931
Type: Movie
Poor working-class girl Stella marries wealthy Sidney Brock, recently jilted by his fiancée and social equal Connie. The two go through contentious times with the Brock patriarch, but when Stella becomes a mother, she seems to becomes accepted, although it's used as a way to shift Sidney's and the child's affections from her. Connie comes back into their lives, now seeking to reclaim Sidney, and manipulates the situation to convince Stella that he's been seeing her. So Stella decides to get a divorce, but fortunately, Sidney becomes aware of the deception in time.
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East of Borneo
Title: East of Borneo
Character: Linda Rudolph
Released: August 1, 1931
Type: Movie
Mrs. Linda Randolph treks through darkened jungles to the land of Maradu to find her missing husband Allan, who'd left her years before when he believed she was in love with another. She finds Allan the drunken court physician to a devious prince-- Whose designs on the pair don't include a happy ending.
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Chances
Title: Chances
Character: Molly Prescott
Released: July 18, 1931
Type: Movie
Two brothers, Jack and Tom, are in love with the same woman, Molly. While the two brothers go off to war and Molly does her part in the effort, Tom believes that Rose is waiting for him, while in fact, she loves Jack and only turned to Tom on the rebound. Jack and Molly meet while he is on leave, and when he returns to battle, he doesn't know how to handle the situation with his brother.
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A Lady Surrenders
Title: A Lady Surrenders
Character: Isabel Beauvel
Released: October 6, 1930
Type: Movie
A wealthy industrialist's wife gets into a big argument with him; to cool off, she goes on an ocean trip. He thinks she's left him for good, so he marries another woman. When his first wife returns, complications ensue.
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Liliom
Title: Liliom
Character: Julie
Released: September 27, 1930
Type: Movie
A carousel barker falls in love with a young woman. Both are fired from their jobs, and when the young woman becomes pregnant, the carousel barker tries to help pull off a robbery, which goes wrong. Because of the robbery, he dies, and after spending time in hell, is sent back to earth for one day to try to make amends.
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Rose Hobart 2
Title: Rose Hobart 2
Character: Herself
Released: December 31, 1969
Type: Movie
An ongoing exploration of the films of Rose Hobart and a re-duplication of Joseph Cornell's infamous found footage masterpiece