Remember when Troy was all excited because Winona Ryder had come to town? Remember when Troy was all excited when stars of “The Gilded Age” came to town? Well, Troy got just as excited when Kay Gordon came to town, in 1929.
While researching the stories of the airports in Albany and Troy, we ran across the story of Kay Gordon, “Our American Girl,” whose arrival at the Troy Airport on Sept. 15, 1929, was celebrated in the local newspapers, including the Troy Times. On her arrival, she was greeted by Mayor Burns and some other local dignitaries.
”Miss Gordon is the young film star who, with a local girl, will play the lead in a film portraying the spots of interest in Troy and vicinity. This film will be produced at local theatres under the auspices of the Stanley Mark Strand Corporation and The Troy Times. Miss Gordon will be in Troy several days and will be taken on a motor trip, which will include the chief industrial and civic points of interest.”
She was arriving from Buffalo, where she had made a similar picture. In fact, it appears that, at least in 1929, the career of Miss Kay Gordon, Our American Girl, was pretty exclusively devoted to whatever these local films were.
We know that she did the same for Buffalo and Jamestown, and perhaps other cities as well. The Tonawanda Evening News, reporting on a local girl making good, wrote:
“Miss Kay Gordon, daughter of Mrs. Francis M. Gordon of Christina street is making an extended tour of the principal cities of the United States as super-star in the moving picture production, ‘Our American Girl.’ Miss Gordon left here on August 8, and since that time has appeared in Binghamton, Albany, Utica, Troy and New York City. . .” traveling mostly by plane.
“In each city Miss Gordon visits the city buildings, business and residential sections, and the scenic and historic spots, and is filmed with various prominent citizens . . . In the various cities the picture is shown in a local theater with the idea of stimulating civic pride, and will be preserved for future generations as a picture record of the year 1929.”
It appears the scheme was this: Miss Kay Gordon, gaining some attention for arriving by plane, would be filmed during a traipse about town, visiting various business establishments (who paid for the attention, at least through advertising in the Troy Times, and perhaps more). Whether there was any semblance of a plot was not revealed. The Times made a big splash about it, enticing Trojans to buy tickets to showings at the Stanley Mark Strand theatres, where they would see local businesses, residences and even residents up on the screen. That may have been thrill enough in 1929, and even today many of us gawk at the screen looking for hints of our hometown when films are shot locally.
Just a few weeks after filming, on October 12, the film was being shown in the Stanley Mark Strand Theatres in Troy.
“Miss Kay Gordon, ‘Our American Girl,’ has the leading role in this picture, which was filmed by the Guellette Film Co. the picture will show business places and those of historic interest visited by Miss Gordon in Troy and places and scenes of our own city will be vividly brought to Trojans on the screen. Some of the people in the audience of the theatres where the picture is to be shown will be surprised to find themselves having a position in the picture. They did not know it when the cameraman was making the ‘shots.’”
The Stanley Mark Strand theatres in Troy were the Troy Theatre, the Lincoln Theatre, and the American Theatre. “Cooperating with The Troy Times and the Stanley Mark Strand Theatres in Troy in the production of this picture of Troy’s historic and scenic places were Manufacturers’ National Bank, Charles Freihofer Baking Co., Gumble Furniture Co., North End Auto Supply, Dunn’s Tire Shop, Troy Business College, Lenox Restaurant, DeLee & Ryan, W.H. Bumstead, Trojan Ice Cream and Schrager’s Dry Cleaners. McClure & Boyd of Fifth Avenue and 123rd Street, Lansingburgh, furnished a Graham-Paige automobile, for which they are local agents, for use by Miss Gordon during her trips in filming the picture. A Chevrolet car was loaned by W.H. Bumstead, local agent for the Chevrolet, and used in a stunt shown in the picture.”
Kay Gordon’s career was nicely described in an obituary from the L.A. Times dated Nov. 29, 1985.
“Kay Gordon, who as a young girl migrated West with her sister where the two became mainstays of the Busby Berkeley chorus when Hollywood first produced musicals, died of a heart ailment at her home in Encino. She was 72 and had been retired for several years.
She and her late sister, Betty, were seen in most of the Berkeley “Gold Diggers” revues of the 1930s and Kay Gordon also was a regular in the Pete Smith and Three Stooges comedies. Her other featured films included ‘Top Hat,’ ‘The Gang’s All here,’ ‘Babes on Broadway,’ ‘Big Brown Eyes’ and ‘Yankee Doodle Dandy.’ Additionally she worked with the Andrews Sisters, helping them master the choreography for their films and later was a double for Hedy Lamarr. Her sister performed a similar function for Marilyn Monroe and Joanne Woodward.”
The newspaper gives her date of death as Nov. 17; IMDB lists her place of death as Greenbelt, MD, not Encino.
Indeed, on IMDB.com, she has 15 appearances, all but one uncredited. The earliest credit is 1929, the same year she was making whatever “Our American Girl” was. There’s no evidence any of her local films survived, and they’re not listed on IMDB.
We found not another single mention of The Guellette Film Company. And I’ve found no indication this film survived beyond 1929, but I would dearly love to see it.
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