Sadly buried in an unmarked grave at R80/S385 at Congressional Cemetery is
Russian born actor, writer, and director Nicholas Alexander Dunaev, who
appeared in no less than thirty-four Hollywood films in the 1910s and
1920s. Long since forgotten, perhaps his
most eccentric trait was his unusual ability to bend a dime in half, using only
his fingertips. He was obviously a hit
at many a Hollywood party in the roaring twenties.
And speaking of parties, Dunaev made news one night
in 1924 when he joined Charlie Chaplin and other actors for dinner at the
exclusive Café Petroushka in Hollywood when oil magnate Julian Pete reportedly bumped
- on purpose - Chaplin’s controversial date, actress Mary Miles Minter. An accomplished actress, she was black listed
two years prior when she had been implicated in the mysterious death of
director William Desmond Taylor. A fight
ensued, Chaplin received a punch to the eye, but our Dunaev came to the rescue
during a free-for-all. He punched Julian
Pete twice, and was quoted as saying “If Julian had been a dime, I’d have bent
him in two.”[1]
Dunaev was born on May 26, 1884 in Moscow, Russia as
Nicholas Dunay. He was the son of a
Czarist nobleman, former Lord Mayor of Moscow, and a graduate of the University
of Moscow Law School. Active in the Russian revolution in 1917, he
was an associate of Alexander Kerensky, head of the provisional government
which was toppled by the Bolshevik revolution.
He was arrested and sent to Siberia in exile, from where he
escaped. He made his way to France, where
he married novelist Edith Donnerburg; she died just two years later. He once penned “The act of killing the spirit
in a man, of obliterating all sense of honor, faith, and a desire for better
things, is as surely homicide as through the man's soul were taken from his
body.”
Dunaev came to the United States in 1919 to work as
a writer, actor, and director at the Vitagraph Corporation, one of the first
motion film companies. To his new American
friends, he was known as “Kolya,” short for his Russian accent pronounced
‘Nicholas.’ With the advent of “talkies,”
Dunaev moved to Hollywood to work for the World Film Corporation where he
earned another nickname “the strongman from Moscow.” He starred with Otis Skinner in the original “Kismet.” His self-written play “The Spider” starred
himself, and played on Broadway in the 1920s.
He married a Ziegfeld Follies danced named Ina Byron
that ended in divorce after just two years.
He apparently garnered 100,000 votes for Roosevelt, earning a special
commendation from the President. He
moved to Washington, DC in 1937, and eventually wrote the President in 1947 for
a job, which he was denied due to his Civil Service status. He was broke and destitute, he said, renting the
modest apartment C at 1417 Belmont Street, NW (left, since razed).
He authored a novel entitled “Seven Doors to Sin” that was published by
Vantage Press in 1954. He eventually
moved in with a couple at 931 New Hampshire Avenue, NW, when he fell ill and
died in 1963.
Dunaev once wrote “There can never be a happy ending
to a poet’s life, for the ending is its essential tragedy.”
Copyright Paul K. Williams
A list of movies and other works from the IMBd
website at
- Two Arabian Knights (1927) (as Nicholas Dunaev) .... Mirza's Man Servant
- The Palace of Darkened Windows (1920) .... The Snake Charmer
- Kismet (1920) .... Nasir
- The Devil's Riddle (1920) .... Paul Evers
- Cheating Cheaters (1919) .... Antonio Verdi
- The Velvet Hand (1918) .... Secretary
- The Yellow Ticket (1918)
- The Firebrand (1918) .... Dmitri
- The Flower of Doom (1917) .... Paul Rasnov
- The Pulse of Life (1917) .... Domenic
- The Scarlet Crystal (1917)
- The Reward of the Faithless (1917) .... Feodor Strogoff
- The World Against Him (1916) .... Peblo
- Who Killed Simon Baird? (1916) .... Kimba... aka "By Whose Hand?" - (alternative title)
- The Yellow Passport (1916) .... Music Master... aka "The Badge of Shame"
