Acting
Aileen Pringle
Aileen Pringle's favorite film was a mid-1920s silent based on a book by Elinor Glyn: Three Weeks (1924), sort of a "Lady Chatterly's Lover". She recalled in a 1980 telephone conversation: "The film was in good taste; some people thought the book was trashy". Anita Loos wrote in "A Girl Like I", the first volume of her autobiography, vaudeville comic Joe Frisco telling Glynn: "Leave me get this straight. You want to find some tramp that don't look like a tramp, to play that English tramp in your picture. But take it from me, that kind of tramp don't hang out in Hollywood". Aileen had spent her 20s married to Charles McKenzie Pringle, the son of Sir John Pringle, a Jamaica landowner and a member of the Privy and Legislative Councils of Jamaica. Aileen lived in Jamaica until she went on stage with George Arliss. When she began divorce proceedings against Pringle in 1926, Hollywood gossip columnists speculated she would marry H.L. Mencken. She did not remarry until 1944 when she became the bride of James M. Cain, author of "The Postman Always Rings Twice". I opened my 1980 telephone conversation with Aileen by mentioning that the day before I had been reading her correspondence with Mencken at the New York Public Library. "But all the letters were destroyed", she said. I knew that Mencken had asked for all of his letters to her back at the time he became engaged to Sara Haardt. Aileen was the only woman who received such a request from Mencken at that time. "It was your letters from the late '30s and '40s I was reading", I told Aileen. "In one of them Mencken was urging you to write a book. Did you ever finish it?" "No. I got married instead." In a 1946 letter she wrote to Mencken. "If I had remained married to that psychotic Cain, I would be wearing a straitjacket instead of the New Look." Date of Death 16 December 1989, New York City, New York
Filmography
Laura
Film · 1944
Since You Went Away
Film · 1944
Happy Land
Film · 1943
Dr. Gillespie's Criminal Case
Film · 1943
Between Us Girls
Film · 1942
They Died with Their Boots On
Film · 1941
Appointment for Love
Film · 1941
The Night of Nights
Film · 1939
Calling Dr. Kildare
Film · 1939
The Hardys Ride High
Film · 1939
The Women
Film · 1939
Should a Girl Marry?
Film · 1939
Too Hot to Handle
Film · 1938
Criminal Lawyer
Film · 1937
Thanks for Listening
Film · 1937
John Meade's Woman
Film · 1937
She's No Lady
Film · 1937
Nothing Sacred
Film · 1937
The Last of Mrs. Cheyney
Film · 1937
Piccadilly Jim
Film · 1936
The Unguarded Hour
Film · 1936
Wanted: Jane Turner
Film · 1936
Wife vs. Secretary
Film · 1936
Vanessa: Her Love Story
Film · 1935
Love Past Thirty
Film · 1934
Jane Eyre
Film · 1934
Sons of Steel
Film · 1934
Once to Every Bachelor
Film · 1934
By Appointment Only
Film · 1933
The Phantom of Crestwood
Film · 1932
The Age of Consent
Film · 1932
Police Court
Film · 1932
Subway Express
Film · 1931
Convicted
Film · 1931
Murder at Midnight
Film · 1931
Soldiers and Women
Film · 1930
Puttin' on the Ritz
Film · 1930
Prince of Diamonds
Film · 1930
A Single Man
Film · 1929
Night Parade
Film · 1929
Wall Street
Film · 1929
Dream of Love
Film · 1928
The Baby Cyclone
Film · 1928
Wickedness Preferred
Film · 1928
Beau Broadway
Film · 1928
Body and Soul
Film · 1927
Life in Hollywood No. 7
Film · 1927
Adam and Evil
Film · 1927
Tea For Three
Film · 1927
The Great Deception
Film · 1926
Tin Gods
Film · 1926
Camille: The Fate of a Coquette
Film · 1926
A Kiss in the Dark
Film · 1925
A Thief in Paradise
Film · 1925
One Year to Live
Film · 1925
The Mystic
Film · 1925
1925 Studio Tour
Film · 1925
Soul Mates
Film · 1925
Wildfire
Film · 1925
The Wife of the Centaur
Film · 1924
Name the Man
Film · 1924
Three Weeks
Film · 1924
True As Steel
Film · 1924
His Hour
Film · 1924
Don't Marry for Money
Film · 1923
The Christian
Film · 1923
Souls for Sale
Film · 1923
The Tiger's Claw
Film · 1923
In the Palace of the King
Film · 1923
The Strangers' Banquet
Film · 1922
My American Wife
Film · 1922
Oath-Bound
Film · 1922
Stolen Moments
Film · 1920
Earthbound
Film · 1920
The Cost
Film · 1920
The Wilderness Woman
Film