Aliperti - Freddie Bartholomew An Informal Biography

Freddie Bartholomew

An Informal Biography

Cliff Aliperti

Freddie Bartholomew: An Informal Biography

Copyright 2015 Cliff Aliperti

All Rights Reserved

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Introduction

This biography of Freddie Bartholomew is a work in progress.

Its more conversational in tone than traditional biographies and even speculative in spots because there is still a lot to learn about Freddie. But the conversation comes with footnotes and a bibliography and any speculation is on the tame side.

That said, this is the third major revision Ive made since first writing about Freddie Bartholomew in 2011.

For the same reason I first pressed publish on that blog post, I publish this latest edition: to spread the word about Freddie Bartholomew.

Theres an entire chapter about Freddie in a book by Guy LeBow, a television personality who worked with him in the 1950s. LeBow wrote:

The details of Freddie Bartholomews life, which read like a series of Charles Dickens stories, are left to his autobiography.

But Freddie never wrote one.

Back in late 2010 I thought Id research Freddie for a few hours one night and write a short blog post about him. Unlike most child stars I really got a kick out of Freddie so I wanted to add a brief biographical profile to my blog, Immortal Ephemera. Those few hours got out of hand in a hurry.

My intrigue grew after spotting errors in Freddies 1992 New York Times obituary. It took awhile to convince myself that I could be right and the Times wrong. This was the Times after all, and most people took what they reported at face value. That was a problem in this case. In the years following publication of Freddies obituary, the errors from the Times filtered across the Internet and even into print books. They continued to spread from there.

But largely thanks to that same Internet, especially various print archives and genealogical sites, it didnt take a ton of elbow grease to correct the most glaring inaccuracies. Some mysteries remain. But isnt that always the case?

Before the biographical puzzle came the films. As one who normally accepts the presence of child stars as a necessary evil, just what was it that drew me to the work of Freddie Bartholomew?

After extensive viewing of Freddies films over the past few years, what Ive most appreciated about Freddie Bartholomew is that he never made a spectacle of himself like many child stars. Child star seems inaccurate as Freddie Bartholomew was a star who just happened to be a child. Rather than wishing he was your kid, you wish that you were that kid again. The best of Freddie Bartholomews characters provoke a nostalgia of ones own youth.

I think Freddie best accomplished this through the sense of wonder he brought to his characters. Rather than sing, dance, or simply act cute, Freddie Bartholomew is always discovering.

Several themes repeat themselves throughout Freddies films. Given his meteoric rise and the short overall span of his career it is not surprising the studios tried to capitalize on what had already worked in his earlier films.

Freddies quest towards adulthood and responsibility often begins with a physical journey setting him loose on rugged paths in films such as David Copperfield , Lloyds of London , and Kidnapped . Whether hes set in England surrounded by compatriot character actors or a little fish out of water on American sea or soil, Freddies characters have to work to fit into new and unfamiliar surroundings. This is true of Little Lord Fauntleroy , The Devil Is a Sissy , certainly Captains Courageous , and Lord Jeff . The idea is reversed in A Yank at Eton , where Freddie is part of the established order encountered by newcomer Mickey Rooney, by that time a bigger star than Freddie and focal point of the film. Another common element in Freddies films is a sense of honor that he must either abide or uphold. In several of his movies, including Captains Courageous , Lord Jeff , and Tom Browns School Days , the worst imaginable infraction is squealing. It is usually punished by a strong dose of the silent treatment from ones peers.

All of this implies a boy moving forward, a young man with goals and challenges to overcome including situations that would cause a lesser boy to feel alone, even alienated.

I dont think the charm of Freddie in his classics such as David Copperfield , Little Lord Fauntleroy , or even the brattier Freddie of Captains Courageous , comes just from his characters or the stories, but Freddies performance. I find that more than any other child star Freddie puts us in his shoes and allows us to experience the world as he experiences it.

The first version of this biography was posted to Immortal Ephemera in three parts in early 2011. At the time I was pleased to discover that I was not alone in my curiosity about Freddies inconsistent biographical record. Since the time of my post others have taken the time and effort to update Freddies pages on Wikipedia and the Internet Movie Database (IMDb). That was important work because those two sites filter across the Internet.

After Turner Classic Movies selected Freddie as one of 31 movie stars spotlighted during their 2012 Summer Under the Stars programming feature, I decided it was time to give my Freddie biography a tune-up. With 24 hours of Freddie Bartholomew movies set to play that day, I rewrote my Freddie biography, combining the three parts into a single, lengthy entry on my website. When Freddies big day arrived on August 18, 2012, my site received more visitors than it ever had before.

The basics of this latest edition remain the same as my 2012 post ( which can still be read online free of charge ), but this version has a fresh coat of polish, a somewhat heavy one, along with additional film notes.

I publish this with every hope Ill someday have reason to undertake a fourth major revision of Freddies biography. Id love to hear from you if you can fill in any remaining gaps or confirm the few less certain points. My contact information is included in the back of the book.

For now I hope this satisfies any basic curiosities you may have about Freddie Bartholomew and give you reason to pursue more of his films to become an even bigger Freddie fan.

Enjoy!

Above: Freddie Bartholomew, 1930s Real Photo Postcard.

Freddie Bartholomew

With only a handful of British film credits to his name ten-year-old Freddie Bartholomew exploded to stardom in his first Hollywood film, David O. Selznicks production of David Copperfield for MGM in 1935. It began a two-and-a-half-year peak for Freddie that culminated with his best loved film, Captains Courageous , in 1937. There were good films for a few years after that, but none as important or as classic as those Freddie appeared in during 1935-37.

Freddie was 13 when Captains Courageous was released. The career of a child star is by definition a brief period. The window hadnt shut on the teenager yet, but then contract and court battles complicated Freddies life and kept him from movie work for almost one full year. This lost time shortened the period before a growth spurt inevitably made him a less appealing screen property. Adulthood and World War II service pushed what was left of his career off a cliff.