(Courtesy of Dave Smith) (Courtesy of Dave Smith) (From Old Corral collection)

Carmelita
Gerald
Maurice
Tom

The Geraghty's of Hollywood


The four Hollywood Geraghty's were born in Rushville, Indiana.

Gerald Geraghty, along with his brother Maurice, did quite a bit of script writing and story development in Hollywood during the 1930s - early 1950s. Both worked at Nat Levine's Mascot cliffhanger factory in the 1930s and because of that, the brothers experienced the formation of Republic Pictures in 1935 (which was a merger of Mascot, Monogram, Consolidated Film Laboratories and a few other pieces).

Gerald (Gerry) had a longer association with Republic, doing scripts and story authoring, primarily for their low-budget B westerns.

As mentioned, Maurice Geraghty (1908-1987) began his screen writing in the mid 1930s in serials such as THE PHANTOM EMPIRE and THE MIRACLE RIDER chapterplays for Mascot.  In the 1940s, he was at RKO producing the Falcon mysteries which starred George Sanders and Tom Conway.  In the 1950s, he worked on the script for Elvis Presley's first starrer, LOVE ME TENDER (1956).

Gerald 'Gerry' Geraghty (1906-1954) began his authoring work around the tail end of the silent era.  He also worked for Levine at Mascot on THE PHANTOM EMPIRE, THE MIRACLE RIDER , more.  With his brother supervising and producing at RKO, Gerald wound up doing some of the Falcon series screenplays.  Before and after his stint at RKO, he worked on Roy Rogers and Rex Allen oaters for Republic as well as the later Gene Autry features which were released through Columbia Pictures.  As noted above, Gerald was there when Republic Pictures was formed.

Almost 20 years later, he authored the script and screenplay for that company's last series western, THE PHANTOM STALLION (1954), which starred Rex Allen.  Shortly after working on that Rex Allen oater, Gerry Geraghty passed away.  Click HERE for the title lobby card from THE PHANTOM STALLION, and you'll see 'Written by Gerald Geraghty' at the bottom center.

Filmographies on Gerald and Maurice are included because of their involvement with B-westerns and serials.

Their sister was actress Carmelita Geraghty (1901-1966), who did films from about 1922 through the early 1930s.

She was born March 22, 1901 in Rushville, Indiana, raised in New York, and after moving to California, attended Hollywood High.  She was a script girl at Paramount in the early 1920s when she got her break as an actress.  Carmelita was one of the 1924 WAMPAS Baby Stars - the annual selection of promising starlets sponsored by the Western Association of Motion Picture Advertisers.

In a career that spanned about ten years, Carmelita did starring and supporting roles in 50+ films for various studios and production companies.  Her credits include THE PLEASURE GARDEN (1925), an Alfred Hitchcock silent, as well as a few silent and sound westerns starring Tom Mix, Ken Maynard, and Buck Jones.  She often portrayed - or wound up being typecast - as an exotic Latin. For example, she was 'Juanita Del Ray' to Buck Jones in MEN WITHOUT LAW (Columbia, 1930), and you'll find a lobby card below. Then came her role as 'Lolita' in THE HAWK (Multi-Color Prod., 1931) which had a very limited release and then was shelved. About five years later, HAWK was resurrected and released as THE PHANTOM OF SANTA FE (Burroughs-Tarzan Productions, 1936). Carmelita also had a support role in the serial, JUNGLE MYSTERY (Universal, 1932) which featured Tom Tyler and Cecilia Parker as the leads.

Carmelita retired from the screen soon after her May, 1934 marriage to Carey Wilson, a film writer and producer at MGM. Wilson's credits include MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY (MGM, 1935) and several of the Mickey Rooney/Andy Hardy series. When Wilson passed away in 1962, Carmelita turned her painting hobby into a profession, and passed away from a heart attack in New York City in 1966 while on route to or from a Paris art show which was featuring her paintings.

Carmelita, Maurice and Gerald were the children of screenwriter Thomas Jefferson 'Tom' Geraghty (1882-1945), whose Hollywood career ran from about 1915-1935.

You may want to check the In Search Of ... page on the Old Corral, and do a search at the California Death Index.  There are records for:
Gerald Geraghty - born 8/10/1906 in Indiana and passed away on 7/8/1954
Maurice Jean Geraghty - born 9/29/1908 in Indiana and passed away on 6/29/1987
Thomas Jefferson Geraghty - born 4/10/1882 in Indiana and passed away on 6/5/1945

Les Adams adds some tidbits and footnotes on the Geraghty's:

Released by Burroughs-Tarzan Enterprises, THE PHANTOM OF SANTA FE was originally lensed in 1931 and titled THE HAWK and starred Norman Kerry as the titled hero. It had a trade showing, but that is about all, and was shelved until released as a Burroughs-Tarzan production in 1937.

With a couple exceptions, nearly every credit for Maurice also involves another writer as co-story or co-screenplay, and the same for Gerald until the late 1940s and most of the 1950s, when he was usually the only writer credited, especially on most of the Autry's at Columbia and the later Rex Allen's at Republic.

THE FLAMING SIGNAL (Imperial, 1933) had a supporting role for Carmelita, and was the first film involving one or more of the Geraghty's and William Berke, who happened to produce this film. Berke and the Geraghtys were together on a lot of films - they wrote many when he was an Associate Producer at Republic; Gerald wrote a couple of the Charles Starrett's which were produced by Berke at Columbia; and then Berke directed some of the Falcon films that Maurice produced and Gerald wrote. I don't know if they were close friends or not, but Berke and the Geraghty's threw a lot of work at each other over a ten year period.

Hans Wollstein adds:

Could be true or could be press agent creativity, but according to Carmelita's publicity, it was an appearance in a home movie made by Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks that persuaded a reluctant Thomas Geraghty to allow his young daughter to enter acting.

(Courtesy of Ed Phillips) Above are Carmelita Geraghty and Tom Mix in a scene from Mix's THE LAST TRAIL (Fox, 1927). (Courtesy of Dave Smith) Above - Carmelita Geraghty shares a tender moment with Buck Jones in this lobby card from MEN WITHOUT LAW (Columbia, 1930), one of the Sol Lesser produced oaters which were released by Columbia. (Courtesy of Dave Smith) Above are Carmelita and Buck Jones in a publicity still for THE TEXAS RANGER (Columbia, 1931), another of producer Sol Lesser's westerns starring Buck.  Below is a blowup of the strange gun that Carmelita is aiming at Jones - has the Columbia logo near the grip and "Buck Jones Texas Ranger Repeating Gun" on the side. A cardboard giveaway? Thanks to Texan Jim Bryan for details on this strange weapon: "... is actually a wooden rubber band gun rather than a cardboard giveaway. The rubber bands were stretched from the front of the barrel to the toothed gear-like wheel at the rear. Several rubber bands could be loaded at once making the gun a repeater. I bought two similar six-guns for my two grandsons last year in Colorado, and they have great fun shooting empty soft drink cans with them."

Maurice and Gerald Geraghty Filmographies
		Sound films only Black = Westerns Green = other films Red = Serials Special thanks to Les Adams for providing this filmography

In the Heroines/Leading Ladies section on the Old Corral, there's a page on the WAMPAS Baby Stars - the annual selection of promising starlets sponsored by the Western Association of Motion Picture Advertisers.  Or you can click HERE for WAMPAS (and use your Browser's 'Back' button to return to this page).  There you'll find Carmelita listed, along with some other familiar and unfamiliar names.

  Although some of the data is incomplete or inaccurate, the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) has information on the Geraghty's.  Click below:
     Carmelita Geraghty: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0313867/
     Maurice Geraghty: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0313884/
     Gerald Geraghty: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0313876/
     Thomas Jefferson 'Tom' Geraghty: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0313888/
     Carey Wilson (Carmelita's husband): https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0933133/

Find A Grave website has a photo of the marker for Carmelita Geraghty Wilson and her husband Carey Wilson. Both are interred at Hollywood Forever, Hollywood, California:
     Carmelita Geraghty: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/6657775/carmelita-geraghty
     Carey Wilson: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/17711224/carey-wilson

Dave Smith had a website on 'Hoosiers' (Carmelita and other actors and actresses born in Indiana), but the site was not working as of June, 2021: http://www.whenmoviesweremovies.com/
The Internet Archive "Wayback Machine" has saved versions of this website: https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.whenmoviesweremovies.com

The Library of Congress has a pdf document on the Thomas J. Geraghty archive which consists of material when he was a screenwriter/scriptwriter and journalist; a friend of Douglas Fairbanks; the former head of production, Famous Players-Lasky studios in New York, N.Y., and London, England; more: https://findingaids.loc.gov/exist_collections/ead3pdf/mss/2007/ms007064.pdf