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Frances Drake
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Beautiful Yvonne Orlac (Frances Drake) is the star of a Grand Guignol theatrical production; creepy Dr. Gogol (Peter Lorre) is infatuated with her, going into a swoon during her onstage torture scenes and sending mash notes to her dressing room. The doctor is devastated when she plans to leave the stage and go on tour with her husband, Stephen Orlac (Colin Clive), a concert pianist. Gogol buys Yvonne's wax figure and keeps it in his house, feeding his preoccupation with her as he slips further into madness. Disaster strikes... when Orlac's hands are ruined in a train accident; seeing his chance, Gogol locates Rollo, a knife-throwing murderer who has an upcoming appointment with the guillotine. The murderer's hands are affixed to the pianist's stumps, and soon Orlac discovers a newfound penchant for flinging knives with deadly accuracy. He quarrels with his father over money for his medical bills, and when the father turns up dead, Orlac is arrested for his murder.
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Sir Frances Drake was a British sea captain who traded with the Spanish. In 1582 his ship was sunk in a port in Spanish America. Most of Drake's crew was killed. Drake got away and returned to England. He gathered a new crew and a powerful ship. He returned to America.
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Sir Frances Drake liberated hundreds of slaves in the Caribbean while plundering Spanish settlements. Drake brought material help to the Roanoke Colony and left the Turks and Moors and some European slaves at Roanoke. These liberated slaves far outnumbered the English Colonists; some left with Drake and were returned to Turkey. The Turkish slaves were captured in sea battles in the Mediterranean. Almost all Turkish admirals in the 1500รข€™s were Croatian-Dalmatians. Bosnia-Hercegovina, one half of Croatia and parts of the Dalmatian coast, all part of the Croatian kingdom, were conquered by Turkey.
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Sir Frances Drake then sailed northward and claimed the California coast in the name of his queen. To avoid meeting the angered Spaniards by returning the way he came, he determined to return home by sailing around the world, as Ferdinand Magellan had done (see Magellan, Ferdinand). He crossed the Pacific and Indian oceans and reached the Atlantic by sailing around the southern tip of Africa. He reached England in September 1580, nearly three years after he set out. He was warmly acclaimed. Elizabeth shared the treasure he brought on his ship, which was "literally ballasted with silver." She honored him by dining on board his ship and by raising him to knighthood, though she knew this would infuriate the Spaniards.
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Dark-eyed, dark-haired leading lady Frances Drake was born in New York and educated in England and Canada. While appearing in musical comedy in England in 1933, Drake made her first film appearances, using her given name of Dean. Back in America in 1934, Drake enjoyed a flurry of film activity, frequently playing imperiled heroines in such melodramas as Mad Love (1935), The Invisible Ray (1936) and Florida Special (1936). Frances Drake curtailed her movie activities when she married a titled Englishman in 1939; thanks to her film appearances with the likes of Peter Lorre and Boris Karloff, she became a favorite interview subject of cinema historians in the 1970s and 1980s. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
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The Sophia Smith Collection owns copyright to unpublished works created by Frances Drake. Copyright to materials created by others may be owned by those individuals or their heirs or assigns. It is the responsibility of the researcher to identify and satisfy the holders of all copyrights. Permission must be obtained from the Sophia Smith Collection to publish reproductions or quotations beyond "fair use."
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Frances Drake