Richard Boleslawski

Ryszard Srzednicki Boleslawski acted in theater as a teenager, and studied with Stanislavsky at the Moscow Art Theater in the early teens. He was acting in Russian films by 1914 and began directing the following year. His 1918 feature Bread, co-directed with Boris Sushkevich, was a Bolshevik propaganada tale, but the following year Boleslawski was fighting the Bolsheviks as a member of the Polish cavalry. Assigned to document the Army's efforts on film, he shot the semi-documentary The Miracle Of The Vistula. In 1921 Boleslawski acted in Carl Dreyer's German-made Die Gezeichneten (aka Love One Another), and soon after came to the States. After directing plays on Broadway in the late '20s, he went out to Hollywood where he began directing in 1930 with the short Treasure Girl and the musical sequences of The Grand Parade. His notable features of the 1930s include Rasputin and the Empress, the only film teaming of siblings Ethel, John, and Lionel Barrymore; Les Miserables with Fredric March and Charles Laughton; the celebrated farce Theodora Goes Wild with Irene Dunne; and the exotic drama The Garden of Allah with Marlene Dietrich. Boleslawski died while making The Last of Mrs. Cheyney; George Fitzmaurice completed the film.