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Dudley Murphy
Dudley Bowles Murphy (July 10, 1897 – February 22, 1968) was an American film director. Early life Murphy was born on July 10, 1897 in Winchester, Massachusetts, to the artists Caroline Hutchinson (Bowles) Murphy (1868-1923) and Hermann Dudley Murphy (1867-1945), both accomplished Modernist landscape painters. After first finding work as a journalist, Dudley Murphy began making films in the early 1920s.The Film Encyclopedia, First Edition, Thomas Y. Crowell, Pub., 1979 Career In his first short film, '' Soul of the Cypress'' (1921), a variation on the Orpheus myth, the film's protagonist falls in love with a dryad (a wood nymph whose soul dwells in an ancient tree) and throws himself into the sea to become immortal and spend eternity with her. Murphy's then-wife Chase Harringdine played the dryad. Murphy followed this with ''Danse Macabre'' (1922) featuring Adolph Bolm, Olin Howland, and Ruth Page. Both of these early films are in the DVD collection '' Unseen Cinema'' i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hermann Dudley Murphy
Hermann Dudley Murphy (25 August 1867, Marlborough, Massachusetts - 1945, Lexington, Massachusetts) was an American painter, known mostly for still-lifes and landscapes. He also worked as an illustrator, art teacher and frame designer. Biography His father was an Irish-born shoe manufacturer and his mother was from an old New Hampshire family. He had his primary education at the Chauncy Hall school in Boston then, in 1886, enrolled at the Boston Museum School, where he studied with Emil Otto Grundmann, Joseph DeCamp and Edmund C. Tarbell, who had the most influence on his style. In the following years he would, in fact, be counted among the "Tarbellites".Biography @ the Pierce galleries, For a time, he worked as an illustrator. This included a commission to accompany the [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Winchester, Massachusetts
Winchester is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, located 8.2 miles (13.2 km) north of downtown Boston as part of the Greater Boston metropolitan area. It is also one of the List of Massachusetts locations by per capita income, wealthiest municipalities in Massachusetts. The population was 22,970 at the 2020 United States Census. History Native Americans in the United States, Native Americans inhabited the area that would become Winchester for thousands of years prior to European colonization of the Americas. At the time of contact, the area was inhabited by the Naumkeag people, from whom the land that would become Winchester was purchased for the settlement of Charlestown in 1639. From the 17th century until the middle of the 19th century, parts of Arlington, Massachusetts, Arlington, Medford, Massachusetts, Medford, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Cambridge, and Woburn, Massachusetts, Woburn comprised what is now Winchester. In the early years of the settlement, the area ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fernand Léger
Joseph Fernand Henri Léger (; February 4, 1881 – August 17, 1955) was a French painting, painter, sculpture, sculptor, and film director, filmmaker. In his early works he created a personal form of cubism (known as "tubism") which he gradually modified into a more Figurative art, figurative, populism, populist style. His boldly simplified treatment of modern subject matter has caused him to be regarded as a forerunner of pop art. Biography Léger was born in Argentan, Orne, Lower Normandy, where his father raised cattle. Fernand Léger initially trained as an architect from 1897 to 1899, before moving in 1900 to Paris, where he supported himself as an architectural draftsman. After military service in Versailles, Yvelines, Versailles, Yvelines, in 1902–1903, he enrolled at the School of Decorative Arts after his application to the École des Beaux-Arts was rejected. He nevertheless attended the Beaux-Arts as a non-enrolled student, spending what he described as "three empty an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David Alfaro Siqueiros
David Alfaro Siqueiros (born José de Jesús Alfaro Siqueiros; December 29, 1896 – January 6, 1974) was a Mexican social realist painter, best known for his large public murals using the latest in equipment, materials and technique. Along with Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco, he was one of the most famous of the " Mexican muralists". He was a member of the Mexican Communist Party, and a Stalinist and supporter of the Soviet Union who led an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate Leon Trotsky in May 1940. By accordance with Spanish naming customs, his surname would normally have been ''Alfaro''; however, like Picasso (Pablo Ruiz y Picasso) and Lorca (Federico García Lorca), Siqueiros used his mother's surname. It was long believed that he was born in Camargo in Chihuahua state, but in 2003 it was proven that he had actually been born in the city of Chihuahua, but grew up in Irapuato, Guanajuato, at least from the age of six. The discovery of his birth certificate in 2 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paul Robeson
Paul Leroy Robeson ( ; April 9, 1898 – January 23, 1976) was an American bass-baritone concert artist, stage and film actor, professional football player, and activist who became famous both for his cultural accomplishments and for his political stances. In 1915, Robeson won an academic scholarship to Rutgers College. While at Rutgers, he was twice named a consensus All-American in football and was the class valedictorian. He received his LL.B. from Columbia Law School while playing in the National Football League (NFL). After graduation, he became a figure in the Harlem Renaissance with performances in ''The Emperor Jones'' and '' All God's Chillun Got Wings''. Robeson performed in Britain in a touring melodrama, ''Voodoo'', in 1922, and in ''Emperor Jones'' in 1925. In 1928, he scored a major success in the London premiere of ''Show Boat''. Living in London for several years with his wife Eslanda, Robeson continued to establish himself as a concert artist and starred ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Emperor Jones (1933 Film)
''The Emperor Jones'' is a 1933 American pre-Code film adaptation of Eugene O'Neill's 1920 play of the same title, directed by iconoclast Dudley Murphy, written for the screen by playwright DuBose Heyward and starring Paul Robeson in the title role (a role he played onstage, both in the US and UK), and co-starring Dudley Digges, Frank H. Wilson, Fredi Washington and Ruby Elzy. The film was made outside of the Hollywood studio system, financed with private money from neophyte wealthy producers. It was filmed at Kaufman Astoria Studios with the beach scene shot at Jones Beach Long Beach, New York. Background The film is based rather loosely on O'Neil's play, but adds an entire backstory before O'Neill's actual play begins, and includes several new characters that do not appear in it (such as Jones' girlfriend, and a friendly priest who advises him to give up his evil ways). The film does provide what may be Robeson's greatest dramatic performance in a movie. In the film ver ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joel McCrea
Joel Albert McCrea (November 5, 1905 – October 20, 1990) was an American actor whose career spanned a wide variety of genres over almost five decades, including comedy, drama, romance, thrillers, adventures, and Westerns, for which he became best known. He appeared in over one hundred films, starring in over eighty, among them Alfred Hitchcock's espionage thriller ''Foreign Correspondent'' (1940), Preston Sturges' comedy classics ''Sullivan's Travels'' (1941), and ''The Palm Beach Story'' (1942), the romance film '' Bird of Paradise'' (1932), the adventure classic ''The Most Dangerous Game'' (1932), Gregory La Cava's bawdy comedy ''Bed of Roses'' (1933), George Stevens' six-time Academy Award nominated romantic comedy ''The More the Merrier'' (1943), William Wyler's ''These Three'', '' Come and Get It'' (both 1936) and ''Dead End'' (1937), Howard Hawks' '' Barbary Coast'' (1935), and a number of western films, including '' Wichita'' (1955) as Wyatt Earp and Sam Peckinpah's ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Sport Parade
''The Sport Parade'' is a 1932 American pre-Code film directed by Dudley Murphy and starring Joel McCrea, Marian Marsh, William Gargan, Robert Benchley, and Richard "Skeets" Gallagher. It was released by RKO Radio Pictures. Benchley also co-wrote the screenplay. The film includes location shots of New York City in 1932. Plot The characters played by McCrea and Gargan are friends from Dartmouth College, who play together on the college football team, and whose lives take different paths. Later, they move to New York, argue over a woman Irene (Marsh), and get involved with pro wrestling, which turns out to be run by local racketeers. Cast * Joel McCrea as Sandy Brown * William Gargan as Johnny Baker * Marian Marsh as Irene Stewart * Robert Benchley as the Radio Announcer * Walter Catlett as "Shifty" Morrison * Richard "Skeets" Gallagher Richard "Skeets" Gallagher (July 28, 1891 – May 22, 1955) was an American actor. He had blue eyes and his naturally blond hair was ting ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Duke Ellington
Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington (April 29, 1899 – May 24, 1974) was an American jazz pianist, composer, and leader of his eponymous jazz orchestra from 1923 through the rest of his life. Born and raised in Washington, D.C., Ellington was based in New York City from the mid-1920s and gained a national profile through his orchestra's appearances at the Cotton Club in Harlem. A master at writing miniatures for the three-minute 78 rpm recording format, Ellington wrote or collaborated on more than one thousand compositions; his extensive body of work is the largest recorded personal jazz legacy, and many of his pieces have become standards. He also recorded songs written by his bandsmen, such as Juan Tizol's " Caravan", which brought a Spanish tinge to big band jazz. At the end of the 1930s, Ellington began a nearly thirty-year collaboration with composer-arranger-pianist Billy Strayhorn, whom he called his writing and arranging companion. With Strayhorn, he composed multipl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Black And Tan (film)
''Black and Tan'' (1929) is a musical short film written and directed by Dudley Murphy. The plot is about a couple in the performing arts; it is set during the contemporary Harlem Renaissance in New York City. It is the first film to feature Duke Ellington and His Orchestra performing as a jazz band, and was also the film debut of actress Fredi Washington. The film is thought to express the emergence of African-American artists in New York City during the Harlem Renaissance. In 2015, the United States Library of Congress selected the film for preservation in the National Film Registry, finding it "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". Plot The film begins with a scene showing Duke Ellington struggling to get bookings for his band. His finances are so tight that he can't make payments on his piano and apartment. Two men arrive to take possession of Duke's piano. Ellington’s wife (played by Fredi Washington) is a dancer. She has achieved acclaim beyond th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jimmy Mordecai
Jimmy Mordecai (July 11, 1905 - May 7, 1966) also known as James Mordecai was a Harlem-based jazz tap dancer in the 1920s and 1930s. He featured in the 1929 short film ''St. Louis Blues (1929 film)'' starred in the 1930 Vitaphone Varieties musical short film '' Yarmekraw'' based on James P. Johnson's song of the same name. Career Mordecai was born in New York City on July 11, 1905. His father was Samuel Mordecai and his mother Edith Wilhelm. His parents immigrated to the United States from British West Indies in 1901 through Cuba. He was in the cast of a 1924 touring show called "Cotton Land," with music by James P. Johnson. He was a member of a popular dance trio, Wells, Mordecai and Taylor – Dickie Wells ''(né'' Richard Wells; 1907–1949) and Ernest Taylor (died 1934) – the trio also was known as the Hot Feet Boys and the Three Klassy Kids, with whom he performed at the Cotton Club in 1930 with a Duke Ellington revue called ''Brown Sugar (Sweet But Unrefined)''. In tha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bessie Smith
Bessie Smith (April 15, 1894 – September 26, 1937) was an American blues singer widely renowned during the Jazz Age. Nicknamed the " Empress of the Blues", she was the most popular female blues singer of the 1930s. Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1989, she is often regarded as one of the greatest singers of her era and was a major influence on fellow blues singers, as well as jazz vocalists. Born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, Smith was young when her parents died, and she and her six siblings survived by performing on street corners. She began touring and performed in a group that included Ma Rainey, and then went out on her own. Her successful recording career with Columbia Records began in 1923, but her performing career was cut short by a car crash that killed her at the age of 43. Biography Early life The 1900 census indicates that her family reported that Bessie Smith was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, in July 1892. The 1910 census gives her age as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
