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Frank Lawton (I)
Frank Lawton (? – 1914) was an American vaudevillian entertainer whose popularity extended far beyond his country's borders. Early life Like so many 19th- and early 20th-century actors who made their living traveling from town to town often under assumed stage names, Frank Lawton's past is difficult to trace. What evidence does exist tells us he was an American born in the late 1850s probably at Hartford, Connecticut. Some sources state his birth name was Frank Mokeley, a claim that seems to date back to a 1933 ''New York Times'' article about his son, film actor Frank Lawton. This may be true, though it has proven difficult to locate any public record or contemporary newspaper article that supports this assertion. In later editions of ''"Whose Who in the Theatre"'' his full name is listed as Frank Mokeley Lawton. Career Lawton's professional debut was in 1874 with the Eureka Minstrels as one half of a song and dance duo with Lew Dockstader. He would go on to team up at one ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frank Lawton
Frank Lawton Mokeley (30 September 1904 – 10 June 1969) was an English actor. His parents were stage players Daisy May Collier and Frank Lawton (I). His first major screen credit was ''Young Woodley'' (1930). In the mid-1930s, Lawton appeared in some Hollywood films, most significantly as the adult David Copperfield in MGM's classic literature adaptation of ''David Copperfield'' (1935). However, Lawton never made his big breakthrough in Hollywood and returned to British film and theatre. He was married to actress Evelyn Laye from 1934 until his death in 1969 aged 64. They acted together several times, including in the TV series '' My Husband and I''. During World War II, he joined the British Army in the Kings Royal Rifle Corps and rose to the rank of major. He was assigned as a liaison officer to the U.S. Army and ultimately was awarded the Legion of Merit, Degree of Legionnaire for his service. In the West End, he appeared in Alex Atkinson Alex Atkinson (1916–1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lew Dockstader
Lew Dockstader (born George Alfred Clapp; August 7, 1856 – October 26, 1924) was an American singer, comedian, and vaudeville star, best known as a blackface minstrel show performer. Dockstader performed as a solo act and in his own popular minstrel troupe. Biography He was born George Alfred Clapp on August 7, 1856, in Hartford, Connecticut, to Chester Clapp and Sarah Reed. He married Lucin Brown on December 20, 1883, in Hartford and had a daughter, Mildred Havlin Clapp, who married Warren Palmer. He legally changed his name to Lew Dockstader in 1887. In 1898 he teamed up with George Primrose to form Primrose and Dockstader's Minstrel Men, which toured the vaudeville circuit till 1904. He appeared on film in a number of comedy shorts from 1904 to 1907. On May 20, 1904 Dockstader was detained by the New York City Police Department for attempting to distribute a film "intended to caricature President Theodore Roosevelt and the office you hold." The film was "in the poss ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Hale Hoyt
Charles Hale Hoyt (July 26, 1859 – November 20, 1900) was an American dramatist and playwright. He was married twice, to stage actresses Flora Walsh and Caroline Miskel Hoyt, both of whom died young. The shock of the death of his second wife contributed towards his own behavior and alcohol consumption which culminated in his own death. Early life Hoyt was born in Concord, New Hampshire. He had a difficult childhood, as his mother died when he was ten years old. He graduated at the Boston Latin School and, after being engaged in the cattle business in Colorado for a time, took up newspaper work, first with the Saint Albans, Vermont, ''Advertiser'', and later becoming musical and dramatic critic of ''The Boston Post''. Career Beginning in 1883, Hoyt turned playwright and wrote a series of 20 farcical comedies (roughly one per year until his death) and a comic opera. Hoyt's plays emphasized individualized characters drawn from the everyday experiences of ordinary people. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pa (play)
''Pa'' is a farce-musical comedy in three acts by playwright Cal Wallace that was originally performed by the Sol Smith Russell Company. The play made its New York premier at the Manhattan Theatre, Standard Theatre on February 14, 1887. Synopsis ''Boston Daily Globe'', December 28, 1886 “Pa” is a widower and wears a wig. He has three daughters, the eldest of whom has reached the rather advanced age, for a marriageable daughter, of 35. The next in line is 30. The youngest, still in short clothing is 17. “Pa” is possessed of the laudable ambition of providing his daughters with wealthy husbands. In order to scale down the age of the eldest to a marketable tenderness, the youngest is forced to remain a baby and confine herself to dolls and the “Chatterbox.” Pa’s only income seems to be the interest on the $20,000 left to a dog, of which he is the administrator. Consequently, when the millionaire father of Sydney Bumps expresses a wish that his son should unite himself ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sol Smith Russell
Solomon Smith Russell (1848–1902) was a 19th-century American comedic stage actor who began performing as a boy during the American Civil War. Early life Russell was born at Brunswick, Missouri, the eldest of two sons and a daughter raised by Charles and Louise (née Mathews) Russell. While a young boy Russell's family moved to St. Louis where his father manufactured and sold tinware. Russell's mother was from Ohio, the daughter of a Cincinnati music teacher. It soon became apparent that Russell did not share his father's talent as a tin maker and that his best option would be to prepare for a college education. Both his parents were very religious and had a prejudice against the theater, even though Russell's uncle, Sol Smith (1801–1869), was a well-known actor and theater manager in St. Louis. This family connection enabled Russell easy access to area theaters watching plays, sometimes from backstage, without his parents' knowledge.Wingate, Charles Edgar Lewis, ''Famous Am ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fred Gaisberg
Frederick William Gaisberg (1 January 1873 – 2 September 1951) was an American musician, recording engineer and one of the earliest classical music producers for the phonograph, gramophone. He himself did not use the term 'producer', and was not an impresario like his protégé Walter Legge of EMI or an innovator like John Culshaw of Decca Records, Decca. Gaisberg concentrated on talent-scouting and persuading performers to make recordings for the newly invented Gramophone. Gaisberg began working in the recording industry in America as a young man, becoming a pioneer of early recording, and also worked as piano accompanist for the Berliner Gram-O-Phone Company, the inventors of the practical lateral-groove disc and associated playback apparatus, the Berliner Gramophone. In 1898, he joined the Gramophone Company in England as its first recording engineer. In 1902, he recorded music sung by the tenor Enrico Caruso and the recordings became a sensation. By 1921, Gaisberg was artis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Side (recording)
The A-side and B-side are the two sides of phonograph records and Compact cassette, cassettes; these terms have often been printed on the labels of two-sided music recordings. The A-side usually features a recording that its artist, producer, or record company intends to be the initial focus of promotional efforts and radio airplay and hopefully become a hit record. The B-side (or "flip-side") is a secondary recording that typically receives less attention, although some B-sides have been as successful as, or more so than, their A-sides. Use of this language has largely declined in the 21st century as the music industry has transitioned away from analog recordings towards Digital audio, digital formats without physical sides, such as Compact Disc single, CDs, music download, downloads and Music streaming, streaming. Nevertheless, some artists and labels continue to employ the terms ''A-side'' and ''B-side'' metaphorically to describe the type of content a particular release fea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Berliner Gramophone
Berliner Gramophone – its discs identified with an etched-in "E. Berliner's Gramophone" as the logo – was the first (and for nearly ten years the only) disc record label in the world. Its records were played on Emile Berliner's invention, the Gramophone, which competed with the wax cylinder–playing phonographs that were more common in the 1890s and could record. History Emile Berliner received U.S. patents 372,786 and 382,790 on the Gramophone on November 8, 1887, and May 15, 1888, respectively. This was before the organization of the North American Phonograph Company, which first produced cylinder recordings for public use, and thus Berliner's flat disc record is roughly contemporary with the exploitation of the cylinder medium, though it took longer for Berliner to commence production of his discs in America. Although based in Washington, D.C., Berliner's first joint venture was undertaken in Germany in 1889 with the manufacturer , a maker of toys. The Kämmer & Reinhardt ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gramophone Company
The Gramophone Company Limited (The Gramophone Co. Ltd.), based in the United Kingdom and founded by Emil Berliner, was one of the early recording companies, the parent organisation for the ''His Master's Voice (HMV)'' label, and the European affiliate of the American Victor Talking Machine Company. Although the company merged with the Columbia Graphophone Company in 1931 to form Electric and Musical Industries Limited (EMI), its name "The Gramophone Company Limited" continued in the UK into the 1970s. History The Gramophone Company was founded in April 1898 by William Barry Owen and Edmund Trevor Lloyd Wynne Williams, commissioned by Emil Berliner, in London, England. Owen was acting as agent for Emile Berliner, inventor of the gramophone record, whilst Williams provided the finances. Most of the company's early discs were made in Hanover, Germany at a plant operated by members of Berliner's family, though it had operations around the world. In 1898, Fred Gaisberg mov ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Belle Of New York (musical)
''The Belle of New York'' is a musical comedy in two acts, with book and lyrics by Hugh Morton and music by Gustave Kerker, about a Salvation Army girl who reforms a spendthrift, makes a great sacrifice and finds true love. Opening on Broadway at the Casino Theatre on 28 September 1897, it ran for only 64 performances. It subsequently transferred to London in 1898, where it was a major success, running for an almost unprecedented 674 performances, and became the first American musical to run for over a year in the West End.Gillan, DonLongest running plays in London and New York ''Stage Beauty'', 2007, accessed 31 March 2011 '' The Standard'' stated that the entire Broadway cast "numbering sixty-three persons" was brought over to London, "the largest stage troupe from the other side of the Atlantic that has ever professionally visited this country."''The Standard'', 13 April 1989, p. 3 The show starred Edna May, whose performance as Violet made her a star in New York and London ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Virginia Earle
Virginia Earle (née Earl; August 6, 1873 – September 21, 1937) was an American stage actress remembered for her work in light operas, Edwardian musical comedies and vaudeville over the decades surrounding the turn of the 20th century. Early life and career Born Virginia Earl on August 6, 1873, in Cincinnati, Ohio, she was the daughter of Irish immigrants Sara and Nathan Wheeler Earl.1880 US Census Records Earle's family later moved to Chicago where her father found employment as a machinist. Her mother and father were both said to have done some theater work, as did her younger brother, Wheeler Earl, who performed for a number of years on stage before becoming a salesman for the Hupp Motor Company. Earle made her stage debut in 1887 playing Nanki-Poo in Gilbert and Sullivan's ''The Mikado'' with the Home Juvenile Opera Company. During her time with the Home Juvenile Opera she also played principal roles in ''The Pirates of Penzance'', ''H.M.S. Pinafore'' and ''Patience''. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
