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Clarence Muse
Clarence Muse (October 14, 1889 – October 13, 1979) was an American actor, screenwriter, director, singer, and composer. He was the first African American to appear in a starring role in a film, 1929's ''Hearts in Dixie''. He acted for 50 years, and appeared in more than 150 films. He was inducted into the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame in 1973. Life and career Born in Baltimore, Maryland, the son of Alexander and Mary Muse, he studied at Dickinson School of Law in Carlisle, Pennsylvania for one year in 1908. He left because he believed he could not make a living in law as an African American. He later received an honorary doctorate of laws from Dickinson School of Law in 1978. By the 1920s Muse was acting in New York during the Harlem Renaissance with two Harlem theatres, Lincoln Players and Lafayette Players. While with the Lafayette Players, Muse worked under the management of producer Robert Levy on productions that helped black actors to gain prominence and resp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Baltimore, Maryland
Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic, and the 30th most populous city in the United States with a population of 585,708 in 2020. Baltimore was designated an independent city by the Constitution of Maryland in 1851, and today is the most populous independent city in the United States. As of 2021, the population of the Baltimore metropolitan area was estimated to be 2,838,327, making it the 20th largest metropolitan area in the country. Baltimore is located about north northeast of Washington, D.C., making it a principal city in the Washington–Baltimore combined statistical area (CSA), the third-largest CSA in the nation, with a 2021 estimated population of 9,946,526. Prior to European colonization, the Baltimore region was used as hunting grounds by the Susquehannock Native Americans, who were primarily settled further northwest than where the city was later built. Colonis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Louis Armstrong
Louis Daniel Armstrong (August 4, 1901 – July 6, 1971), nicknamed "Satchmo", "Satch", and "Pops", was an American trumpeter and vocalist. He was among the most influential figures in jazz. His career spanned five decades and several eras in the history of jazz. Armstrong was born and raised in New Orleans. Coming to prominence in the 1920s as an inventive trumpet and cornet player, Armstrong was a foundational influence in jazz, shifting the focus of the music from collective improvisation to solo performance. Around 1922, he followed his mentor, Joe "King" Oliver, to Chicago to play in the . In Chicago, he spent time with other popular jazz musicians, reconnecting with his friend Bix Beiderbecke and spending time with Hoagy Carmichael and Lil Hardin. He earned a reputation at "cutting contests", and his fame reached band leader Fletcher Henderson. Henderson persuaded Armstrong to come to New York City, where he became a featured and musically influential band soloist ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Car Wash (film)
''Car Wash'' is a 1976 American comedy film released by Universal Pictures. Directed by Michael Schultz from a screenplay by Joel Schumacher, the film stars Franklyn Ajaye, Bill Duke, George Carlin, Irwin Corey, Ivan Dixon, Antonio Fargas, Jack Kehoe, Clarence Muse, Lorraine Gary, The Pointer Sisters, Richard Pryor, and Garrett Morris. Originally conceived as a musical, ''Car Wash'' is an episodic comedy about a day in the lives of a close-knit, multiracial group of employees at a Los Angeles, California car wash (filmed at a Westlake car wash at the corner of Rampart Boulevard and 6th Street) and their boss, Leon "Mr. B" Barrow (Sully Boyar). Plot Over a single Friday in July, the Dee-Luxe Car Wash hosts all manner of strange visitors, including a hysterical wealthy woman from Beverly Hills dealing with a carsick son. Money-hungry evangelist "Daddy Rich", who preaches a pseudo-gospel of prosperity theology, appears with his loyal (and singing) entourage, The Wilson Sisters. On ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The World's Greatest Athlete
''The World's Greatest Athlete'' is a 1973 American sports comedy film directed by Robert Scheerer and starring John Amos, Roscoe Lee Browne, Tim Conway, Dayle Haddon, and Jan-Michael Vincent. Released by Walt Disney Productions, it is one of the few wide-release Hollywood sports films to look at the world of track and field. In the film, two coaches (portrayed by Amos and Conway) make use of a jungle boy (played by Vincent) and have him make history by winning every event at the NCAA Track & Field Championship. The screenplay was by Dee Caruso and Gerald Gardner who also did a novelisation of the film. This film was also one of Billy De Wolfe's final roles before he passed away the following year. Plot Sam Archer (Amos) and his assistant Milo Jackson (Conway) are coaches at Merrivale College. They have lost every game in every sport which they have coached, raising the concerns of the head of the Alumni Association. With only one year left on his contract, Archer decides that he ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Buck And The Preacher
''Buck and the Preacher'' is a 1972 American Western film released by Columbia Pictures, written by Ernest Kinoy and directed by Sidney Poitier. Poitier also stars in the film alongside Harry Belafonte and Ruby Dee. This is the first film Sidney Poitier directed. Vincent Canby of ''The New York Times'' said Poitier "showed a talent for easy, unguarded, rambunctious humor missing from his more stately movies". This film broke Hollywood Western traditions by casting black actors as central characters and portraying both tension and solidarity between African Americans and Native Americans in the late 19th century. The notable blues musicians Sonny Terry, Brownie McGhee, and Don Frank Brooks performed in the film's soundtrack, composed by jazz great Benny Carter. Plot Set in the late 1860s in the Kansas Territory shortly after the American Civil War, a former soldier named Buck leads wagon trains of African Americans from Louisiana west to the unsettled territories of Kansas. In o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Swamp Fox (TV Series)
''The Swamp Fox'' is a television miniseries produced by Walt Disney Studios and starring Leslie Nielsen as American Revolutionary War hero Francis Marion. The theme song ("Swamp Fox, Swamp Fox, tail on his hat...") was sung by Nielsen as well. Myron Healey played Marion's top aide, Maj./Col. Peter Horry. One of the Swamp Fox's adversaries was Colonel Banastre Tarleton, played by John Sutton. Patrick Macnee played a British captain, Tim Considine played Marion's nephew Gabe Marion and Slim Pickens played Plunkett, one of the Swamp Fox's men. Hal Stalmaster appeared in three of the eight episodes as "Gwynn." ''The Swamp Fox'' did not bring to Disney the commercial success that had been achieved by ''Davy Crockett''. The series encompassed eight intermittent episodes running from 1959 to 1961 as part of ''Walt Disney Presents''. Episodes were presented on Sundays on ABC from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. and were also broadcast by CBC Television. The Disney Channel reran ''Swamp Fox'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Porgy And Bess (film)
''Porgy and Bess'' is a 1959 American musical drama film directed by Otto Preminger, and starring Sidney Poitier and Dorothy Dandridge in the titular roles. It is based on the 1935 opera ''Porgy and Bess'' by George Gershwin, DuBose Heyward and Ira Gershwin, in turn based on Heyward's 1925 novel '' Porgy'', as well as Heyward's subsequent 1927 non-musical stage adaptation, co-written with his wife Dorothy. The film's screenplay, which turned the operatic recitatives into spoken dialogue, was very closely based on the opera and was written by N. Richard Nash. The project was the last for Samuel Goldwyn. Due to its controversial subject matter, the film was shown only briefly following its initial reserved seat engagements in major cities, where it drew mixed reviews from critics. Two months after its release, Goldwyn grudgingly conceded "No one is waiting breathlessly for my next picture." The film is unavailable on home video, and it is unknown if a quality print still exists, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Warner Brothers
Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Warner Bros. or abbreviated as WB) is an American Film studio, film and entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios, Burbank, Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California, Burbank, California, and a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery. Founded in 1923 by four brothers, Harry Warner, Harry, Albert Warner, Albert, Sam Warner, Sam, and Jack L. Warner, Jack Warner, the company established itself as a leader in the American Warner Bros. Pictures, film industry before diversifying into Warner Bros. Animation, animation, Warner Bros. Television Studios, television, and Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, video games and is one of the Major film studio, "Big Five" major American film studios, as well as a member of the Motion Picture Association (MPA). The company is known for its film studio division the Warner Bros. Pictures Group, which includes Warner Bros. Pictures, New Line Cinema, the Warner Animat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Riverside, California
Riverside is a city in and the county seat of Riverside County, California, United States, in the Inland Empire metropolitan area. It is named for its location beside the Santa Ana River. It is the most populous city in the Inland Empire and in Riverside County, and is about southeast of downtown Los Angeles. It is also part of the Greater Los Angeles area. Riverside is the 61st-most-populous city in the United States and 12th-most-populous city in California. As of the 2020 census, it had a population of 314,998. Along with San Bernardino, Riverside is a principal city in the nation's 13th-largest Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA); the Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario MSA (pop. 4,599,839) ranks in population just below San Francisco (4,749,008) and above Detroit (4,392,041). Riverside was founded in the early 1870s. It is the birthplace of the California citrus industry and home of the Mission Inn, the nation's largest Mission Revival Style building. It is also home ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Broken Strings (film)
''Broken Strings'' is a 1940 American film directed by Bernard B. Ray and produced by L.C. Borden. Plot summary Concert violinist Arthur Williams and his manager Earl Wells are involved in a car accident in which Arthur's fingers are paralyzed. Instead of playing at concerts he becomes a music teacher. He favors his student Dickie Morley's classical musical preferences over his own son John's, which tends towards modern swing. Williams' daughter Grace is romantically interested in a man named Gus, and they both work for the same company that makes hair products, which is owned by a James Stilton. Stilton's son, Sam, is attracted to Grace and is jealous of the attention she gives Gus. As a result, Sam refuses to give Grace an advance when she needs to pay for her father's appointment at a doctor that specializes in neurology, Dr. Charles Matson. The doctor promises Grace that she can pay the fee of $1,000 later, when her brother John has raised the money. Sam goes on to frame Gu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Way Down South (film)
''Way Down South'' is a 1939 American musical film directed by Leslie Goodwins and Bernard Vorhaus, and produced by Sol Lesser. It was written by Clarence Muse, who also acted in the film, and Langston Hughes. Victor Young was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Music, Scoring. Plot In antebellum Louisiana in 1854, young orphan Timothy Reid Jr. inherits a plantation and its slaves. However, lawyer Martin Dill is made the executor of the estate. Dill plots to sell the slaves and flee to Paris with the proceeds. Timothy is befriended by Jacques Bouton, who persuades Judge Louis Ravenal to look into the matter and save the day. Cast *Bobby Breen as Timothy Reid Jr. *Alan Mowbray as Jacques Bouton *Ralph Morgan as Timothy Reid Sr. *Steffi Duna as Pauline Dubini *Clarence Muse as Uncle Caton *Sally Blane as Claire Bouton * Edwin Maxwell as Martin Dill * Charles Middleton as Cass *Robert Greig as Judge Louis Ravenal *Lillian Yarbo as Janie * Matthew Beard as Gumbo * Hall Johnson ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Langston Hughes
James Mercer Langston Hughes (February 1, 1901 – May 22, 1967) was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist from Joplin, Missouri. One of the earliest innovators of the literary art form called jazz poetry, Hughes is best known as a leader of the Harlem Renaissance. He famously wrote about the period that "the Negro was in vogue", which was later paraphrased as "when Harlem was in vogue." Growing up in a series of Midwestern towns, Hughes became a prolific writer at an early age. He moved to New York City as a young man, where he made his career. He graduated from high school in Cleveland, Ohio, and soon began studies at Columbia University in New York City. Although he dropped out, he gained notice from New York publishers, first in ''The Crisis'' magazine and then from book publishers, and became known in the creative community in Harlem. He eventually graduated from Lincoln University. In addition to poetry, Hughes wrote plays and short sto ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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