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George Black (producer)
George Black (20 April 1890 – 4 March 1945) was a British theatrical impresario who controlled many entertainment venues during the 1930s and 1940s and was a pioneer of the motion picture business. Biography Early Years Black was born on 20 April 1890, at 3 Court, 7 Sutton Street, in Small Heath, Birmingham. He left school at the age of eleven to work for his father who had previously been a travelling showman and now worked in the film industry."George Black, Producer, Passes" ''The Evening Independent'', 6 March 1945. Aged twelve, he was looking after his father's Flea Circus.A short George Black biography on BBC Genome mentions Black looking after his father's Flea Circus:http://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/search ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Small Heath
Small Heath is an area in south-east Birmingham, West Midlands, England situated on and around the Coventry Road about from the city centre. History Small Heath, which has been settled and used since Roman times, sits on top of a small hill. The slightly elevated site offers poor agricultural land, lying on a glacial drift of sand, gravel, and clay, resulting in a heathland that provides adequate grazing for livestock. The land, therefore, seems to have developed as a pasture or common land, on which locals could graze their animals. However, the site lies directly on the route between Birmingham and Coventry, and so was probably used by drovers transporting animals to and from the two cities, and the livestock markets within each. The Coventry Road itself was first recorded in 1226, leading from the Digbeth crossing of the River Rea. At this time Birmingham was a medieval market town whilst Coventry was a major city of national importance. In 1745, the Coventry Turnpike was cr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vic Oliver
Victor Oliver von Samek (8 July 1898 – 15 August 1964) was an Austrian-born British actor and radio comedian. Early life He was born in Vienna into a Jewish family, the son of Baron Viktor von Samek. He studied medicine at Vienna University but abandoned it for his first love, music. For a time he studied under Mahler. During the First World War he served in the Austrian Cavalry. After the war he worked as a banker and a textile manufacturer before returning to music. In 1926 he visited the United States as a conductor and violinist. Acting career He discovered his gift for comedy by chance when he had to apologise to his audience for something. A new career as a comedian took him all over the United States. He reached the Palace Theatre (New York City), Palace Theatre, New York City, New York, in 1929 and the London Palladium two years later. This established him in the United Kingdom and, with his deferential, modest humour, he became very popular. He was kept busy in musical ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Crazy Gang (comedy Group)
The Crazy Gang were a group of British entertainers, formed in the early 1930s. In the mature form the group's six men were Bud Flanagan, Chesney Allen, Nervo and Knox, Jimmy Nervo, Nervo and Knox, Teddy Knox, Charlie Naughton and Jimmy Gold. The group achieved considerable domestic popularity and were a favourite of the British Royal Family, Royal Family, especially King George VI of the United Kingdom, George VI. Formation Although George Black (Producer), George Black is often credited with the formation of the Crazy Gang, the start was more complicated. In 1931, three double acts (Nervo and Knox, Naughton and Gold and Billy Caryll and Hilda Mundy) were tentatively booked at the London Palladium. This caused Black to consider cancelling one of the couples. Nervo and Knox had a technique of entering other acts and Black was persuaded to overcome the difficulty by letting this happen. The show, which was called ''Crazy Week'' opened on 30 November 1931. Other Crazy Weeks ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peter Pan
Peter Pan is a fictional character created by List of Scottish novelists, Scottish novelist and playwright J. M. Barrie. A free-spirited and mischievous young boy who can fly and Puer aeternus, never grows up, Peter Pan spends his never-ending childhood having adventures on the mythical island of Neverland as the leader of the Lost Boys (Peter Pan), Lost Boys, interacting with Fairy, fairies, Piracy, pirates, mermaids, Native Americans in the United States, Native Americans, and occasionally ordinary children from the world outside Neverland. Peter Pan has become a cultural icon symbolizing youthful innocence and escapism. In addition to two distinct works by Barrie, ''The Little White Bird'' (1902, with chapters 13–18 published in ''Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens'' in 1906), and the West End theatre, West End stage play ''Peter and Wendy, Peter Pan; or, the Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up'' (1904, which expanded into the 1911 novel ''Peter and Wendy''), the character has been featu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mary Of Teck
Mary of Teck (Victoria Mary Augusta Louise Olga Pauline Claudine Agnes; 26 May 186724 March 1953) was List of British royal consorts, Queen of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Empress of India, from 6 May 1910 until 20 January 1936 as the wife of King-Emperor George V. Born and raised in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, United Kingdom, Mary was the daughter of Francis, Duke of Teck, a German nobleman, and Princess Mary Adelaide of Cambridge, a granddaughter of King George III and a minor member of the British royal family. She was informally known as "May", after the month of her birth. At the age of 24, she was betrothed to her second cousin once removed Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and Avondale, the eldest son of the Edward VII, Prince of Wales and second in line to the throne. Six weeks after the announcement of the engagement, he died unexpectedly during an 1889–1890 pandemic, influenza pandemic. The following year, she became ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
King George V
George V (George Frederick Ernest Albert; 3 June 1865 – 20 January 1936) was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 6 May 1910 until his death in 1936. Born during the reign of his grandmother Queen Victoria, George was the second son of Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, and was third in the line of succession to the British throne behind his father and his elder brother, Prince Albert Victor. From 1877 to 1892, George served in the Royal Navy, until the unexpected death of his elder brother in early 1892 put him directly in line for the throne. On Victoria's death in 1901, George's father ascended the throne as Edward VII, and George was created Prince of Wales. He became king-emperor on his father's death in 1910. George's reign saw the rise of socialism, communism, fascism, Irish republicanism, and the Indian independence movement, all of which radically changed the political landscape of the British Empire, which itself reached ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
London Coliseum
The London Coliseum (also known as the Coliseum Theatre) is a theatre in St Martin's Lane, Westminster, built as one of London's largest and most luxurious "family" variety theatres. Opened on 24 December 1904 as the London Coliseum Theatre of Varieties, it was designed by the theatrical architect Frank Matcham for the impresario Oswald Stoll. Their ambition was to build the largest and finest music hall, described as the "people's palace of entertainment" of its age. At the time of construction, the Coliseum was one of the few theatres in Europe to provide lifts for taking patrons to the upper levels of the house, and was the first theatre in England to have a triple revolve installed on its stage. The theatre has 2,359 seats making it the largest theatre in London. After being used for variety shows, musical comedies, and stage plays for many years, then as a cinema screening films in the Cinerama format between 1963 and 1968, the Sadler's Wells Opera Company moved into t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Royal Variety Performance
The ''Royal Variety Performance'' is a televised variety show held annually in the United Kingdom to raise money for the Royal Variety Charity (of which King Charles III is life-patron). It is attended by senior members of the British royal family. The evening's performance is presented as a live variety show, usually from a theatre in London and consists of family entertainment that includes comedy, music, dance, magic and other speciality acts. The ''Royal Variety Performance'' traditionally begins with the entrance of the members of the royal family followed by singing of the national anthem, God Save the King, which was also performed by the participating acts as a traditional end to Royal Variety Performances; with the exception of 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic, as a result of which, As If We Never Said Goodbye opened that year's show instead, sung by that year's host, Jason Manford. Background and founding The first performance, on 1 July 1912, was called the Roy ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Kid (1921 Film)
''The Kid '' is a 1921 American silent comedy-drama film written, produced, directed by and starring Charlie Chaplin, and features Jackie Coogan as his foundling baby, adopted son and sidekick. This was Chaplin's first full-length film as a director (he had been a co-star in 1914's '' Tillie's Punctured Romance''). It was a huge success, and was the second-highest-grossing film in 1921, behind '' The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse''. In 2011, ''The Kid'' was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." Plot With much anguish, an unwed Mother abandons her child, placing him in an expensive automobile with a handwritten note: "Please love and care for this orphan child". Two thieves steal the car and leave the baby in an alley, where he is found by The Tramp. After some attempts to hand off the child on to various passers-by, he finds the note and his heart melt ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charlie Chaplin
Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin Jr. (16 April 188925 December 1977) was an English comic actor, filmmaker, and composer who rose to fame in the era of silent film. He became a worldwide icon through his screen persona, the Tramp, and is considered one of the film industry's most important figures. His career spanned more than 75 years, from childhood in the Victorian era until a year before his death in 1977, and encompassed both adulation and controversy. Chaplin's childhood in London was one of poverty and hardship. His father was absent and his mother struggled financially — he was sent to a workhouse twice before age nine. When he was 14, his mother was committed to a mental asylum. Chaplin began performing at an early age, touring music halls and later working as a stage actor and comedian. At 19, he was signed to the Fred Karno company, which took him to the United States. He was scouted for the film industry and began appearing in 1914 for Keystone Studios. He soon de ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jackie Coogan
John Leslie Coogan (October 26, 1914 – March 1, 1984) was an American actor and comedian who began his film career as a child actor in silent films. Charlie Chaplin's film classic ''The Kid'' (1921) made him one of the first child stars in the history of Hollywood. He later sued his mother and stepfather over his squandered film earnings and provoked California to enact the first known legal protection for the earnings of child performers, the California Child Actors Bill, widely known as the Coogan Act. Coogan continued to act throughout his life, later earning renewed fame in middle age portraying Uncle Fester in the 1960s television series ''The Addams Family''. Early life and early career Coogan was born John Leslie Coogan in Los Angeles, California in 1914 to John Henry Coogan Jr. and Lillian Rita (Dolliver) Coogan. He began performing as an infant in both vaudeville and film, with an uncredited role in the 1917 film ''Skinner's Baby''. Charlie Chaplin discovered him in t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Moss Empires
Moss Empires was a company formed in Edinburgh in 1899, from the merger of the theatre companies owned by Sir Edward Moss, Richard Thornton and Sir Oswald Stoll. This created the largest chain of variety theatres and music halls in the United Kingdom. The business was successful, with major variety theatres in almost every city in Britain and Ireland, and was advertised as the largest group in the world. History The group had grown to over 50 theatres when Stoll withdrew his in 1910 to run them as a separate business. The first Royal Command Variety Performance was planned for Sir Edward Moss's Edinburgh Empire in the Coronation year 1911 but it burned down and instead was held at the London Palace Theatre in 1912, owned then by Sir Alfred Butt, a competitor of Moss, who later joined its alliance; with many subsequent performances being given at the London Palladium. In 1932, impresario and producer George Black oversaw the merging of GTC (General Theatre Corporation) wit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
