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Caesar (Mercury Theatre)
''Caesar'' is the title of Orson Welles's innovative 1937 adaptation of William Shakespeare's ''Julius Caesar'', a modern-dress bare-stage production that evoked comparison to contemporary Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. Considered Welles's highest achievement in the theatre, it premiered November 11, 1937, as the first production of the Mercury Theatre, an independent repertory theatre company that presented an acclaimed series of productions on Broadway through 1941. Production Breaking with the Federal Theatre Project in 1937, Orson Welles and John Houseman founded their own repertory company, which they called the Mercury Theatre. The name was inspired by the title of the iconoclastic magazine, ''The American Mercury''. The original company included such actors as Joseph Cotten, George Coulouris, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Ruth Ford, Arlene Francis, Martin Gabel, John Hoysradt, Whitford Kane, Norman Lloyd, Vincent Price, Erskine Sanford, Stefan Schnabel and Hiram Sherma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Orson Welles
George Orson Welles (May 6, 1915 – October 10, 1985) was an American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter, known for his innovative work in film, radio and theatre. He is considered to be among the greatest and most influential filmmakers of all time. While in his 20s, Welles directed high-profile stage productions for the Federal Theatre Project, including an adaptation of ''Macbeth'' with an entirely African-American cast and the political musical '' The Cradle Will Rock''. In 1937, he and John Houseman founded the Mercury Theatre, an independent repertory theatre company that presented a series of productions on Broadway through 1941, including ''Caesar'' (1937), an adaptation of William Shakespeare's ''Julius Caesar''. In 1938, his radio anthology series ''The Mercury Theatre on the Air'' gave Welles the platform to find international fame as the director and narrator of a radio adaptation of H. G. Wells's novel ''The War of the Worlds'', which caused s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The American Mercury
''The American Mercury'' was an American magazine published from 1924Staff (Dec. 31, 1923)"Bichloride of Mercury."''Time''. to 1981. It was founded as the brainchild of H. L. Mencken and drama critic George Jean Nathan. The magazine featured writing by some of the most important writers in the United States through the 1920s and 1930s. After a change in ownership in the 1940s, the magazine attracted conservative writers, including William F. Buckley. A second change in ownership in the 1950s turned the magazine into a far-right and virulently anti-Semitic publication. It was published monthly in New York City. The magazine went out of business in 1981, having spent the last 25 years of its existence in decline and controversy. History H. L. Mencken and George Jean Nathan had previously edited ''The Smart Set'' literary magazine, when not producing their own books and, in Mencken's case, regular journalism for ''The Baltimore Sun''. With their mutual book publisher Alfred A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stefan Schnabel
Stefan Artur Schnabel (February 2, 1912 – March 11, 1999) was a German-born American actor who worked in theatre, radio, films and television. After moving to the United States in 1937 he became one of the original members of Orson Welles's Mercury Theatre repertory company. He portrayed Dr. Stephen Jackson on the CBS Soap opera, daytime TV series, ''The Guiding Light'', for 17 years. Biography Stefan Artur Schnabel was born February 2, 1912, in Berlin, Germany.Ancestry.com. ''New York, Naturalization Records, 1882–1944'' [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2012. The National Archives and Records Administration; Washington, D.C.; ''Petitions for Naturalization from the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, 1897-1944; Series: M1972; Roll: 1293'' He was the younger son of the classical pianist Artur Schnabel and contralto Therese Schnabel, Therese Behr Schnabel. His older brother was the pianist Karl Ulrich Schnabel. "My fat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Erskine Sanford
Erskine Sanford (November 19, 1885 – July 7, 1969) was an American actor on the stage, radio and motion pictures. Long associated with the Theatre Guild, he later joined Orson Welles's Mercury Theatre company and appeared in several of Welles's films, including ''Citizen Kane'' (1941), in which he played Herbert Carter, the bumbling, perspiring newspaper editor. Biography Erskine Sanford was born in Trinidad, Colorado, and was educated at the Horace Mann School in New York City. Beginning his acting career with Minnie Maddern Fiske's company, he made his professional debut in ''Leah Kleschna''. He appeared in ''The Blue Bird'' and ''The Piper'' (1910–11) at the New Theatre in New York City, and in Shakespearean repertory with Ben Greet. For some 15 years he was associated with the Theatre Guild, playing roles on Broadway and on tour, including performances of '' Porgy'' and ''Strange Interlude'' on the London stage. In Kenosha, Wisconsin, Sanford first met Orson Welles in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vincent Price
Vincent Leonard Price Jr. (May 27, 1911 – October 25, 1993) was an American actor, art historian, art collector and gourmet cook. He appeared on stage, television, and radio, and in more than 100 films. Price has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, one for motion pictures and one for television. Price's first film role was as leading man in the 1938 comedy '' Service de Luxe''. He became well known as a character actor, appearing in films such as '' The Song of Bernadette'' (1943), '' Laura'' (1944), ''The Keys of the Kingdom'' (1944), ''Leave Her to Heaven'' (1945), '' Dragonwyck'' (1946), and ''The Ten Commandments'' (1956). He established himself as a recognizable horror-movie star after his leading role in '' House of Wax'' (1953). He subsequently starred in other horror films, including '' The Fly'' (1958), ''House on Haunted Hill'' (1959), ''Return of the Fly'' (1959), ''The Tingler'' (1959), '' The Last Man on Earth'' (1964), ''Witchfinder General'' (1968), '' The A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Norman Lloyd
Norman Nathan Lloyd (' Perlmutter; November 8, 1914 – May 11, 2021) was an American actor, producer, director, and centenarian with a career in entertainment spanning nearly a century. He worked in every major facet of the industry, including theatre, radio, television, and film, with a career that started in 1923. Lloyd's final film, '' Trainwreck'', was released in 2015, after he turned 100. In the 1930s, he apprenticed with Eva Le Gallienne's Civic Repertory Theatre and worked with such influential groups as the Federal Theatre Project's Living Newspaper unit, the Mercury Theatre, and the Group Theatre. Lloyd's long professional association with Alfred Hitchcock began with his performance portraying a Nazi agent in the film ''Saboteur'' (1942). He also appeared in '' Spellbound'' (1945), and was a producer of Hitchcock's anthology television series '' Alfred Hitchcock Presents''. Lloyd directed and produced episodic television throughout the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. As a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Whitford Kane
Whitford Kane (born Thomas Wheeler Kane, January 30, 1881 – December 17, 1956) was a noted Irish-born American stage and screen character actor remembered for playing the First Gravedigger in numerous productions of Shakespeare's ''Hamlet'' and by the students that attended his drama classes over a career that spanned nearly six decades. By the end of his long career, Whitford Kane's theatre credits had grown to fill three columns in John Parker's ''Who's Who in the Theatre''.Actor for Five Decades, Marks 75th Birthday and 56th Production; ''New York Times''; January 30, 1956; pg. 24; Whitford Kane, Actor, 75, Dead ''New York Times''; December 18, 1956; pg. 31 Biography Kane was born on January 30, 1881 in Larne, a seaport on the east coast of County Antrim, Ireland, to Dr. John Kane and the former Isabella Whiteford. He first took to the stage in Belfast while in his early 20s, and by 1910 was performing on the London stage. Kane's first known Broadway performance, the idle in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Hoyt
John Hoyt (born John McArthur Hoysradt; October 5, 1905 – September 15, 1991) was an American actor. He began his acting career on Broadway, later appearing in numerous films and television series. He is perhaps best known for his film and TV roles in ''The Lawless'' (1950), ''When Worlds Collide'' (1951), ''Julius Caesar'' (1953), ''Blackboard Jungle'' (1955), ''Spartacus'' (1960), ''Cleopatra'' (1963), ''Flesh Gordon'' (1974), and ''Gimme a Break!'' Early life Hoyt was born John McArthur Hoysradt in Bronxville, New York, the son of Warren J. Hoysradt, an investment banker, and his wife, Ethel Hoysradt, née Wolf. He attended the Hotchkiss School and Yale University, where he served on the editorial board of campus humor magazine ''The Yale Record''. He received a bachelor's and a master's degree from Yale. He worked as a history instructor at the Groton School for two years. Stage Hoyt made his Broadway debut in 1931 in William Bolitho's play ''Overture''. Some of his ot ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Martin Gabel
Martin Gabel (June 19, 1911 – May 22, 1986) was an American actor, film director and film producer. Life and career Gabel was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Rebecca and Isaac Gabel, a jeweler, both Jewish immigrants. He married Arlene Francis on May 14, 1946, and they had a son named Peter Gabel. One of Gabel's earliest noted roles was as Neil Williams, a newspaper reporter, on the radio serial comedy ''Easy Aces'' in the mid-to-late 1930s. Gabel's most noted work was as narrator and host of the May 8, 1945, CBS Radio broadcast of Norman Corwin's epic dramatic poem ''On a Note of Triumph'', a commemoration of the fall of the Nazi regime in Germany and the end of World War II in Europe. The broadcast was so popular that the CBS, NBC, Blue and Mutual networks broadcast a second live production of the program on May 13. The Columbia Masterworks record label subsequently published an album of the May 13 production. The production became the title focus of the Academy Aw ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arlene Francis
Arlene Francis (born Arline Francis Kazanjian; October 20, 1907 – May 31, 2001) was an American actress, radio and television talk show host, and game show panelist. She is known for her long-running role as a panelist on the television game show '' What's My Line?'', on which she regularly appeared for 25 years, from 1950 to 1975, on both the network and syndicated versions of the show. Early life Francis was born on October 20, 1907, in Boston, Massachusetts, the daughter of Leah (née Davis) and Aram Kazanjian. Her Armenian father was studying art in Paris at the age of 16 when he learned that both his parents had died in one of the massacres perpetrated by the Ottoman government in Turkey between 1894 and 1896, known as the Hamidian Massacres. He emigrated to the United States and became a portrait photographer, opening his own studio in Boston in the early 20th century. Later in life, Kazanjian painted canvases of dogwoods, "rabbits in flight", and other nature scenes, s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ruth Ford (actress)
Ruth Ford (July 7, 1911 – August 12, 2009) was an American actress and model. Her brother was the bohemian surrealist Charles Henri Ford. Their parents owned or managed hotels in the American South, and the family regularly moved. Life and career Born in Brookhaven, Mississippi, Ford was the daughter of Charles and Gertrude Cato Ford, who owned hotels in four towns in the South. She was a graduate of the University of Mississippi. Writer and artist Charles Henri Ford was her brother. As a model, Ford posed for photographers Cecil Beaton, Man Ray, and Carl Van Vechten, among others. She married actor Peter Van Eyck in 1940, but the marriage was unsuccessful. Van Eyck was the father of her daughter, Shelley, who was born in 1941. Before Ford's trip to Hollywood, she was a member of Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre, and appeared in his film ''Too Much Johnson'' (1938), which was considered lost until the rediscovery of footage in 2013. Welles's assistance helped her to land con ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Geraldine Fitzgerald
Geraldine Mary Fitzgerald (November 24, 1913 – July 17, 2005) was an Irish actress and a member of the American Theater Hall of Fame. In 2020, she was listed at number 30 on ''The Irish Times'' list of Ireland's greatest film actors. Early life Fitzgerald was born in Greystones, County Wicklow, south of Dublin, the daughter of Edith Catherine ( née Richards) and Edward Martin FitzGerald, who was a lawyer. Her father was Roman Catholic and her mother was Protestant, but converted to Catholicism. She studied painting at the Dublin School of Art. Inspired by her aunt, actress Shelah Richards, Fitzgerald began her acting career in 1932 at Dublin's Gate Theatre. After two seasons in Dublin, she moved to London, where she found success in British films including ''The Mill on the Floss'', ''Turn of the Tide'', and ''Cafe Mascot''. Career Fitzgerald's success led her to New York and the Broadway stage in 1938. She made her American debut opposite Orson Welles in the Mercury The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
