
Irene Rich
1891 - 1988Irene Rich (October 13, 1891 - April 22, 1988) was an American actress who worked in both silent films and talkies, as well as radio.
Rich worked for Will Rogers, who used her in eight pictures, including Water Water Everywhere (1920), The Strange Boarder (1920), Jes' Call Me Jim (1920), Boys Will Be Boys (1921), and The Ropin' Fool (1921). She often portrayed society women, such as in the 1925 adaptation of Lady Windermere's Fan and also in Queen of the Yukon (1940).
In two of her last films she played a frontier wife and mother: She was the mother of Gail Russell's character in John Wayne's Angel and the Badman (1947); in John Ford's cavalry story Fort Apache (1948) she portrayed Mrs. O'Rourke, the wife of Sergeant O'Rourke (Ward Bond).
In the 1930s, Rich did much work in radio. From 1933 to 1944, she hosted a nationwide anthology program of serialized mini-dramas, Dear John (aka The Irene Rich Show). Her leading man was actor Gale Gordon (who later played Lucille Ball's apoplectic boss "Mr. Mooney" on TV).
Rich appeared in stage productions, including Seven Keys to Baldpate (1935) which starred George M. Cohan, the creator of the play, and later As the Girls Go in 1948.
Rich has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, one for her contribution to the motion picture industry at 6225 Hollywood Boulevard and one for her contributions to the radio industry at 6150 Hollywood Boulevard.
Boy of Mine
William Beaudine
Ben Alexander, Rockliffe Fellowes
A wealthy banker is a strict disciplinarian with his nine-year-old son Bill. Finally the day comes when neither Bill nor his mother can put up any more with the father's relentlessness and heavy-handed treatment; she leaves and takes Bill with her. The father must decide what's more important--maintaining his iron discipline over his family, or his family itself.
Boy of Mine
The Man Without a Conscience
James Flood
Willard Louis, Irene Rich
Ruthlessly determined to succeed at any cost, Amos Mason ( Willard Louis ) comes to New York with his fiancee, Ann Sherman ( June Marlowe ). By unscrupulous dealings and with the use of Ann's savings, Amos meets with considerable success and casts aside Ann, who is forced to take a job as maid in the Graves mansion. Amos begins to court Shirley Graves ( Irene Rich ) and causes Ann's dismissal. Mrs. Graves ( Helen Dunbar ) persuades Shirley to marry Amos, despite her love for the penniless Douglas White ( John Patrick ). Ann marries James Warren ( Robert Agnew ), an architect, whom Amos hires to build a mansion, and Ann tells Shirley of Amos' previous perfidy. Shirley has an affair with Douglas White but becomes disgusted with illicit sex when she believes him to be unfaithful to her. Amos' schemes fall flat, and he is arrested for swindling. In prison he repents, Shirley's attitude toward him softens, and they are reconciled when he is freed.
The Man Without a Conscience
Boys Will Be Boys
Clarence G. Badger
Will Rogers, Irene Rich
Peep O'Day, an orphan in a small Kentucky town, falls heir to a small fortune and begins to make up for all the lost pleasure of childhood, but Sublette, a crooked attorney, arranges for an eastern belle to show up as Peep's "niece" to steal his fortune.
Boys Will Be Boys
The Mortal Storm
Frank Borzage
Margaret Sullavan, James Stewart
The Roth family leads a quiet life in a small village in the German Alps during the early 1930s. When the Nazis come to power, the family is divided and Martin Brietner, a family friend is caught up in the turmoil.
The Mortal Storm
Fort Apache
John Ford
John Wayne, Henry Fonda
Owen Thursday sees his new posting to the desolate Fort Apache as a chance to claim the military honour which he believes is rightfully his. Arrogant, obsessed with military form and ultimately self-destructive, he attempts to destroy the Apache chief Cochise after luring him across the border from Mexico, against the advice of his subordinates.
Fort Apache
Captain January
Edward F. Cline
Hobart Bosworth, Baby Peggy
During a tempestuous storm, a lighthouse keeper finds an infant girl who washes ashore tied to some wreckage. He adopts her and they become inseparable. Eventually her real family finds her and wants her to live with them.
Captain January
Angel and the Badman
James Edward Grant
John Wayne, Gail Russell
Notorious shootist and womanizer Quirt Evans' horse collapses as he passes a Quaker family's home. Quirt has been wounded, and the kindly family takes him in to nurse him back to health against the advice of others. The handsome Evans quickly attracts the affections of their beautiful daughter, Penelope. He develops an affection for the family and their faith, but his troubled past follows him.
Angel and the Badman
Cytherea
George Fitzmaurice
Irene Rich, Lewis Stone
Lee Randon, weary of business duties and a conventional home life, acquires a long-lost sense of excitement and romance with young flapper Claire Morris. When he meets her married aunt, Savina Grove, she appears to be the woman he imagines whenever he gazes at a doll he has christened Cytherea, goddess of love -----Cytherea features two dream sequences filmed in an early version of the Technicolor color film process.
Cytherea
Father's Son
William Beaudine
Leon Janney, Lewis Stone
Young Bill Emory is a typical mischievous, rambunctious boy, but his father William is a strict disciplinarian, and Bill is constantly being punished for simple childhood transgressions. Finally Bill can take no more of his father's excessive punishments and runs away. Complications ensue.
Father's Son