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Frances Taylor Davis
Frances Taylor Davis (September 28, 1929 – November 17, 2018) was an American dancer and actress who was a member of the Katherine Dunham Company, and the first African American ballerina to perform with the Paris Opera Ballet. Credited as Elizabeth Taylor, she had roles in the Broadway musicals ''Mr. Wonderful'', '' Shinbone Alley'', and was an original cast member of ''West Side Story''. Taylor also appeared in the Off-Broadway productions of ''Carmen Jones'' and ''Porgy and Bess''. At the peak of her career, she left Broadway to marry jazz musician Miles Davis. Life and career Early life Taylor was born on September 28, 1929 in Chicago, Illinois. Taylor grew up in the Rosenwald Courts in Chicago. Her father worked at the post office. She began dancing classical ballet at the age of 8, and by the age of 16 she was performing '' Swan Lake''. Her instructor encouraged her to audition for the Edna McRae School of the Dance where she became the only African American stud ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paris Opera Ballet
The Paris Opera Ballet () is a French ballet company that is an integral part of the Paris Opera. It is the oldest national ballet company, and many European and international ballet companies can trace their origins to it. It is still regarded as one of the four most prominent ballet companies in the world, together with the Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow, the Mariinsky Ballet in Saint Petersburg and the Royal Ballet in London.Pourquoi les ballets de l'Opéra de Paris font partie des spectacles favoris des fêtes article by Martine Robert, 27 December 2013, Les Echos. The position of director of dance is currently vacant, but [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Leslie Caron
Leslie Claire Margaret Caron (; born 1 July 1931) is a French-American actress and dancer. She is the recipient of a Golden Globe Award, two BAFTA Awards and a Primetime Emmy Award, in addition to nominations for two Academy Awards. She is one of the last surviving stars from the Golden Age of Hollywood cinema. Caron began her career as a ballerina. She made her film debut in the musical ''An American in Paris'' (1951), followed by roles in ''The Man with a Cloak'' (1951), ''Glory Alley'' (1952) and ''The Story of Three Loves'' (1953), before her role of an orphan in ''Lili'' (also 1953), which earned her the BAFTA Award for Best Foreign Actress and garnered nominations for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award. As a leading lady, Caron starred in films such as '' The Glass Slipper'' (1955), '' Daddy Long Legs'' (1955), '' Gigi'' (1958), '' Fanny'' (1961), both of which earned her Golden Globe nominations, ''Guns of Darkness'' (1962), ''The L-Shaped Room'' (1962), '' Fathe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
West Side Story (Original Broadway Cast)
''West Side Story (Original Broadway Cast)'' is the 1957 recording of a Broadway production of the musical ''West Side Story''. Recorded 3 days after the show opened at the Winter Garden Theatre, the recording was released in October 1957 in both mono and stereo formats. In 1962, the album reached #5 on Billboard's Pop Album chart. It certified gold by the RIAA on January 12, 1962. The album was reissued in 1973 and made its first appearance on CD in 1986. A 1997 remastered edition is coupled with an orchestral suite named “Symphonic Dances from West Side Story” recomposed and conducted by its original composer Leonard Bernstein and performed by the New York Philharmonic recorded at the Manhattan Center on March 6, 1961. The Stephen Sondheim Reference Guide. Accessed September 24, 2007. It was recorded at the |
New York City Center
New York City Center (previously known as the Mecca Temple, City Center of Music and Drama,. The name "City Center for Music and Drama Inc." is the organizational parent of the New York City Ballet and, until 2011, the New York City Opera. and the New York City Center 55th Street Theater) is a 2,257-seat Moorish Revival theater at 131 West 55th Street between Sixth and Seventh Avenues in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, one block south of Carnegie Hall. City Center is a performing home for several major dance companies as well as the Encores! musical theater series and the Fall for Dance Festival. The center is currently headed by Arlene Shuler, a former ballet dancer who has been president since 2003. The facility houses the 2,257 seat main stage, two smaller theaters, four studios and a 12-story office tower.New York Times, March 17, 2010, pg C1, "City Center Is to Start Renovations", by Robin Pogrebin Architecture The building's design is Neo-Moorish and features elaborate ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
American Negro Theater
The American Negro Theatre (ANT) was co-founded on June 5, 1940 by playwright Abram Hill and actor Frederick O'Neal. Determined to build a "people's theatre", they were inspired by the Federal Theatre Project's Negro Unit in Harlem and by W. E. B. Du Bois' "four fundamental principles" of Black drama: that it should be by, about, for, and near African Americans. The ANT produced 12 original Black plays and seven adaptations of non-Black work for tens of thousands of primarily Black audiences in its first nine years. The Black playwrights whose work the company produced included Countee Cullen (''One Way To Heaven''), Theodore Browne (''Go Down Moses'' and ''Natural Man''), Owen Dodson (''Garden of Time''), Alvin Hill (''Walk Hard'') and Curtis Cooksey (''Starlight''). In addition to their theatre productions, the ANT also produced a weekly radio program in 1945, with a repertoire that spanned Shakespeare, Dickens and opera. It also ran the Studio Theatre school of drama under the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frederick O'Neal
Frederick O'Neal (August 27, 1905 – August 25, 1992) was an American actor, theater producer and television director. He founded the American Negro Theater, the British Negro Theatre, and was the first African-American president of the Actors' Equity Association. He was also known for his work behind the scenes as a revolutionary trade unionist. Early life and acting career Born Frederick Douglas O'Neal in Brooksville, Mississippi, he was named after abolitionist Frederick Douglass. His father was a teacher and merchant. He had seven brothers and sisters. In 1919, when his father died, the family moved to St. Louis where he started acting professionally in 1927. O'Neal moved to New York in 1936 and worked as a laboratory assistant while studying acting at night. He made his New York debut with the Civic Repertory Theatre. Unsatisfied with the state of black theater, he helped establish the American Negro Theater in 1940 and appeared in a number of its productions. In 1944, h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jane White
Jane White (October 30, 1922 – July 24, 2011) was an African-American actress. Born in New York City, she attended Smith College and The New School. In 1945, she made her Broadway debut in '' Strange Fruit''. This performance was followed by roles in ''Razzle Dazzle'', ''The Insect Comedy'', ''The Climate of Eden'', ''Take a Giant Step'', ''Jane Eyre'', and ''The Power and The Glory''. In 1959, she opened the acclaimed musical ''Once Upon a Mattress'', originating the role of Queen Aggravain alongside Carol Burnett and Joseph Bova. She won an Obie Award in 1971 for sustained achievement. Early life White was born to Walter Francis White, a notable civil-rights leader and national secretary of the NAACP from 1931 to 1955, and Gladys Leah Powell. She grew up in the fashionable Sugar Hill neighborhood of Harlem at 409 Edgecombe Avenue. The house was nicknamed "The White House of Harlem" because of the prominent and important figures who were part of her parents' circle, such as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ruth Attaway
Ruth Attaway (June 28, 1910 – September 21, 1987) was an American film and stage actress. Among the films she appeared in are '' Raintree County'' (1957), ''Porgy and Bess'' (1959) and ''Being There'' (1979). Early life Attaway was born on June 28, 1910, in Greenville, Mississippi. She was the daughter of physician W.A. Attaway, PhD. Her siblings included a sister, Florence, and a brother, novelist and writer William. She graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, where she majored in sociology. Career Theatre work Attaway made her Broadway debut in 1936 in the Pulitzer Prize winning play, '' You Can't Take It with You''. Attaway was the first director of the New York Players Guild, a black repertory theater company formed in New York in 1945. From 1954 to 1955, Attaway portrayed Anna Hicks in the play ''Mrs. Patterson'' at the National Theater. From 1964 to 1967, Attaway was with the Repertory Society of Lincoln Center. Film work Attaway made her ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ciro's
Ciro's (later known as Ciro's Le Disc) was a nightclub on Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood, California owned by William Wilkerson. Opened in 1940, Ciro's became a popular nightspot for celebrities. The nightclub closed in 1957 and was reopened as a rock club in 1965. After a few name changes, it eventually became The Comedy Store in 1972. History Club Seville opened New Year’s Eve 1935. It featured a "crystal dance floor with subsurface fish, fountains and colored lights in its Crystal Marine Room." The building was remodeled and Ciro's was opened in January 1940 by entrepreneur William Wilkerson at 8433 Sunset Boulevard. Wilkerson had also opened Cafe Trocadero, in 1934, and the restaurant La Rue, both on the Strip, and would later originate The Flamingo in Las Vegas, only to have control of the resort wrested from him by mobster Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel. Wilkerson sold Ciro’s to his longtime right-hand man Herman Hover, who would make sure Ciro’s was an important Holl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Will Mastin Trio
The Will Mastin Trio (also Will Maston Trio on some bills) was a troupe of dancers and singers formed by Will Mastin, Sammy Davis Sr., and Sammy Davis Jr. The original members were Sammy Davis Sr., Howard M. Colbert Jr., and Will Mastin, although Sammy Davis Jr. would join them on stage when he was a little boy. Howard M. Colbert Jr. was the tap-dance teacher of Sammy Davis Jr., who treated him much as an uncle. Colbert left the Trio in December 1941 to join the United States Army when the United States declared war on Germany during World War II. Sammy Davis Jr. was 16 years old at this time and became part of the main vaudeville act, replacing Colbert. They performed from the 1920s through the 1960s. The trio stopped performing when Sammy Davis Jr. was called to serve in the Army in 1943, but resumed their activity after the end of the war in Portland, Oregon. Even when Sammy Davis Jr.'s solo career was successful, during the 1950s and 1960s, he still performed occasionally wit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company (ABC) is an American commercial broadcast television network. It is the flagship property of the ABC Entertainment Group division of The Walt Disney Company. The network is headquartered in Burbank, California, on Riverside Drive, directly across the street from Walt Disney Studios and adjacent to the Roy E. Disney Animation Building. The network's secondary offices, and headquarters of its news division, are in New York City, at its broadcast center at 77 West 66th Street on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Since 2007, when ABC Radio (also known as Cumulus Media Networks) was sold to Citadel Broadcasting, ABC has reduced its broadcasting operations almost exclusively to television. It is the fifth-oldest major broadcasting network in the world and the youngest of the American Big Three television networks. The network is sometimes referred to as the Alphabet Network, as its initialism also represents the first three letters of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sammy Davis Jr
Samuel George Davis Jr. (December 8, 1925 – May 16, 1990) was an American singer, dancer, actor, comedian, film producer and television director. At age three, Davis began his career in vaudeville with his father Sammy Davis Sr. and the Will Mastin Trio, which toured nationally, and his film career began in 1933. After military service, Davis returned to the trio and became an overnight sensation following a nightclub performance at Ciro's (in West Hollywood) after the 1951 Academy Awards. With the trio, he became a recording artist. In 1954, at the age of 29, he lost his left eye in a car accident. Several years later, he converted to Judaism, finding commonalities between the oppression experienced by African-American and Jewish communities.Sammy Davis Jr. Biography Biography.com. Retrieved June 6, 2013.< ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
