Alfred Goodman
Alfred Goodman (August 12, 1890 – January 10, 1972) was a conductor, songwriter, stage composer, musical director, arranger, and pianist. Early years Goodman was born in Nikopol, Ukraine, (another source says that he was born in Odessa, Russia). His father, Tobias Goodman, was a cantor in a synagogue in Odessa. Goodman sang in a choir when he was 5 years old and had become fluent in reading music by age 6. When he was about 7, the family left Russia to escape a pogrom. Disguised as farmers, they made their way to Romania. There they lost their money but escaped to the United States and settled in Baltimore. Goodman graduated from Baltimore City College and the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore. He earned money by playing piano for films at the Pickwick Theatre in Baltimore. Career Goodman worked as a musician in a nickelodeon and chorus boy in one of the Milton Aborn's operettas. Before he was 20, Goodman began working in Chicago as orchestrator for M. Witmark & Sons, a ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Nikopol, Ukraine
Nikopol ( uk, Ні́кополь ; from grc, Νικόπολις, lit=City of Victory) is a city and municipality ( hromada) in Nikopol District in the south of Ukraine, on the right bank of the Dnipro River, about 63 km south-east of Kryvyi Rih and 48 km south-west of Zaporizhzhia. Population: In terms of population, Nikopol is the fourth biggest city in the Dniopropetrovsk Oblast as well as among the top 50 nationwide. Located on a cape by the Kakhovka reservoir, Nikopol is a powerful industrial city which has several pipe producing factories (known for the Interpipe corporation), steel rolling mills (such as the factory of ferroalloys) and others. Renamed by the Russian Empire into Slaviansk and later Nikopol, the city has a rich preceding history being in 1638–1652 the settlement of Mykytyn Rih ( en, "Nikita Bend"), the capital of Zaporizhian Sich. It was one of the main crossings over the Dnipro river. Encyclopedia Britannica description The 1911 editi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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The Student Prince
''The Student Prince'' is an operetta in four acts with music by Sigmund Romberg and book and lyrics by Dorothy Donnelly. It is based on Wilhelm Meyer-Förster's play '' Old Heidelberg''. The piece has a score with some of Romberg's most enduring and beautiful tunes, including "Golden Days", "Drinking Song", "Deep in My Heart, Dear", "Just We Two" and "Serenade" ("Overhead the moon is beaming"). The plot has elements of melodrama but lacks the swashbuckling style common to Romberg's other works. It opened on December 2, 1924, at Jolson's 59th Street Theatre on Broadway and became the most successful of Romberg's works, running for 608 performances. It was staged by J. C. Huffman and was the longest-running Broadway show of the 1920s. Even the classic ''Show Boat'', the most enduring musical of the 1920s, did not play as long – it ran for 572 performances. "Drinking Song", with its rousing chorus of "Drink! Drink! Drink!" was especially popular with theatergoers in 1924, a ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Good News (musical)
''Good News'' is a musical with a book by Laurence Schwab and B.G. DeSylva, lyrics by DeSylva and Lew Brown, and music by Ray Henderson. The story is set in the Roaring Twenties at Tait College, where football star Tom Marlowe falls in love with studious Connie Lane, who is tutoring him so he can pass astronomy and be eligible to play in the big game. The show opened on Broadway in 1927, the same year as ''Show Boat'', but though its plot was decidedly old-fashioned in comparison to ''Show Boats daring storyline, it was also a hit. ''Good News'' spawned two films, one in 1930, starring Bessie Love and one in 1947 starring June Allyson; an unsuccessful 1974 Broadway revival, and a 1993 updated production by Music Theatre of Wichita, which created a largely new libretto and made changes to the score. It proved to be DeSylva, Brown, and Henderson's biggest hit out of a string of topical musicals. Productions The original Broadway production, directed by Edgar MacGregor and ch ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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The Band Wagon
''The Band Wagon'' is a 1953 American musical romantic comedy film directed by Vincente Minnelli, starring Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse. It tells the story of an aging musical star who hopes a Broadway show will restart his career. However, the play's director wants to make it a pretentious retelling of the ''Faust'' legend and brings in a ''prima ballerina'' who clashes with the star. Along with ''Singin' in the Rain'' (1952), it is regarded as one of the finest Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer musicals, although it was a modest box-office success on first release. The songs were written by the team of composer Arthur Schwartz and lyricist Howard Dietz. Schwartz was a prolific Hollywood composer who teamed with numerous lyricists over the years, while Dietz, a studio publicist, generally collaborated with Schwartz. Some of the songs in the film had been created for the original 1931 Broadway musical by Schwartz and Dietz, also titled ''The Band Wagon,'' with a book by George S. Kaufman a ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Fireball Fun For All
''Fireball Fun for All'' is an American television comedy-variety program that was broadcast on NBC from June 28, 1949 to October 27, 1949. Hooper Ratings for July 1949 showed the program leading all TV shows with a rating of 46.2. Format and personnel Debuting as a summer replacement for ''Texaco Star Theater'', the program was hosted by the comedy team of Olsen and Johnson and featured slapstick comedy and sight gags. Viewers saw sights that included baboons, beautiful girls, collapsing stages, explosions, leopard men, midgets, and wild costumes. The show was based on the duo's "extravaganza that made them world-famous", '' Hellzapoppin.'' Regulars on the program were Ole Olsen, Chick Johnson, Bill Hayes, Marty May, June Johnson June Rozelle Johnson (May 28, 1918 – July 14, 1987) was an American film actress from 1936 to 1941 who appeared in Western films and serials. She made 14 films including three in which she was the female lead alongside The Three Mesquiteers. ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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The Donald O'Connor Show
''The Donald O'Connor Show'' (also known as ''Here Comes Donald'') is an American musical situation comedy television series starring singer/dancer Donald O'Connor. It appeared on NBC from October 9, 1954, to September 10, 1955, alternating on the Saturday evening schedule with ''The Jimmy Durante Show''; both were sponsored by Texaco. Synopsis O'Connor, the son of circus performers and formerly an alternating host on ''The Colgate Comedy Hour'', and his co-director and co-star Sidney Miller portray young struggling songwriters trying to find buyers for their musical compositions. This scenario allows the two to break out in song and dance throughout the program. In the segment which aired on December 4, 1954, three daughters of a theater owner have a dream about O'Connor the dancer: he is viewed as a marshal in the American West, as a knight in the Middle Ages, or as a famous composer such as Beethoven, Chopin, or Arthur Sullivan. Joyce Cunning, also known also as Joyce Smigh ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Colgate Comedy Hour
''The Colgate Comedy Hour'' was an American comedy-musical variety series that aired live on the NBC network from 1950 to 1955. The show featured many notable comedians and entertainers of the era as guest stars. Many of the scripts of the series are archived at the UCLA Library in their Special Collections. Synopsis The program evolved from NBC's first TV variety showcase, ''Four Star Revue,'' sponsored by Motorola. The "running gag" sketches were dropped in favor of more performing acts. The weekly show was proposed to be hosted by four comedians in a four-week rotation to provide competition for Ed Sullivan's ''Toast of the Town'' on CBS. The first episode, starring Hans Conried, Rosemary DeCamp and Dick Foran, was written and produced by the then 22-year-old Peggy Webber, who appeared in over 100 episodes of '' Dragnet'' with Jack Webb. The new format was heavily backed by its sponsor, Colgate-Palmolive, to the tune of $3 million in the first year, and the 8:00 p.m. E ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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The Ziegfeld Follies Of The Air
''The Ziegfeld Follies of the Air'' was a program broadcast on CBS Radio during the 1930s which attempted to bring the success of Florenz Ziegfeld's stage shows to the new medium of radio. Eddie Dowling hosted the musical variety format. Sponsored by Chrysler Motors, the half-hour series aired Sunday evenings from April 3 to June 26, 1932, moving April 24 from 8:30 pm ET to 10:30 pm ET. With Al Goodman leading the orchestra, the line-up of guests included Fanny Brice, Helen Morgan, Jack Pearl, Will Rogers, and Ziegfeld himself. Pearl introduced his "Baron Munchausen" character. Ziegfeld died on July 22, 1932, but the series returned from February 22 to June 6, 1936, serving as a tribute to the showman. Goodman returned as orchestra leader, and Brice appeared in the sketch series that eventually expanded into ''The Baby Snooks Show''. Other guests included Patty Chapin, James Melton, and Benny Fields Benny Fields, occasionally billed as "Bennie Fields" (born Benjamin ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Your Hit Parade
''Your Hit Parade'' was an American radio and television music program that was broadcast from 1935 to 1953 on radio, and seen from 1950 to 1959 on television. It was sponsored by American Tobacco's Lucky Strike cigarettes. During its 24-year run, the show had 19 orchestra leaders and 52 singers or groups. Many fans inaccurately referred to the show as ''The Hit Parade''. When the show debuted, there was no agreement on its title. The press referred to it by several names, with the most common being "Hit Parade", "The Hit Parade", and even "The Lucky Strike Hit Parade", also "The Lucky Strike Parade". The program title officially became "Your Hit Parade" on November 9, 1935. Every Saturday evening, the program offered the most popular and bestselling songs of the week. The earliest format involved a presentation of the top 15 songs. Later, a countdown with fanfares led to the top three finalists, with the number one song for the finale. Occasional performances of standards and ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Texaco Star Theater
''Texaco Star Theater'' was an American comedy-variety show, broadcast on radio from 1938 to 1949 and telecast from 1948 to 1956. It was one of the first successful examples of American television broadcasting, remembered as the show that gave Milton Berle the nickname "Mr. Television". The classic 1940–1944 version of the program, hosted by radio's Fred Allen, was followed by a radio series on ABC (the former NBC Blue) in the spring of 1948. When Texaco (now Chevron Corporation) first took it to television on NBC on June 8, 1948, the show had a huge cultural impact. Once Texaco ended its sponsorship in 1953, the show became known as ''The Milton Berle Show'' for its final few seasons. Radio The roots of ''Texaco Star Theater'' were in a 1930s radio hit, ''Ed Wynn, the Fire Chief'', featuring the manic "Perfect Fool" in a half-hour of vaudevillian routines interspersed with music. Wynn's ratings began to slide and the comedian lapsed amidst personal and professional crises, and ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Palmolive Beauty Box Theater
''Palmolive Beauty Box Theater'' was an American radio program that featured an operetta or other musical each week from April 24, 1934, to October 6, 1937. It was sponsored by Palmolive soap and produced by Bill Bacher.Dunning, John''On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio'' Oxford University Press, New York, 1998, p. 532. Hickerson, Jay, ''The New, Revised Ultimate History of Network Radio Programming and Guide to All Circulating Shows'', Third Edition, Jay Hickerson, 1996.Shilkret, Nathaniel, ed. Shell, Niel and Barbara Shilkret, ''Nathaniel Shilkret: Sixty Years in the Music Business'', Scarecrow Press, Lanham, Maryland, 2005. Shilkret, Nathaniel, Barbara Shilkret, and Niel Shell, ''Feast or Famine: Sixty Years in the Music Business'', archival edition of Shilkret autobiography, 2001 (copies deposited in the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, The City College of New York Archival Library, The New York Philharmonic Archives, The Victor Archives (SONY)). ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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The Fred Allen Show
''The Fred Allen Show'' is a long-running American radio comedy program starring comedian Fred Allen and his wife Portland Hoffa. Over the course of the program's 17-year run, it was sponsored by Linit Bath Soaps, Hellmann's, Ipana, Sal Hepatica, Texaco and Tenderleaf Tea. The program ended in 1949 under the sponsorship of the Ford Motor Company. The most popular period of the program was the few years of sponsorship under The Texas Company. During this time, the program was known as ''Texaco Star Theatre with Fred Allen''. On the December 6, 1942 episode of the program, Allen premiered his first in a series of segments known as "Allen's Alley". The segments would have Allen strolling through an imaginary neighborhood, knocking on the "doors" of various neighbors, including average-American John Doe (played by John Brown), Mrs. Nussbaum (Minerva Pious), pompous poet Falstaff Openshaw (Alan Reed), Titus Moody (Parker Fennelly), and boisterous Southern senator Beauregard Claghorn ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |