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London Calling! (musical)
''London Calling!'' was a musical revue, produced by André Charlot with music and lyrics by Noël Coward, which opened at London's Duke of York's Theatre on 4 September 1923. It is famous for being Noël Coward's first publicly produced musical work and for the use of a 3-D stereoscopic shadowgraph as part of its opening act. The revue's song "Parisian Pierrot", sung by Gertrude Lawrence, was Coward's first big hit and became one of his signature tunes. Background and productions The basis of ''London Calling!'' began at the Swiss resort of Davos in Christmas 1922, when Coward presented a musical outline of a new revue project involving himself and Gertrude Lawrence to benefactor Lord Lathom, who was also a friend of André Charlot. Lathom had liked the outline, and approached Charlot to produce it. Charlot's West End musical production ''Rats'', which premiered on 21 February 1923 at the Vaudeville Theatre, also starred Lawrence. At first, Charlot did not have Coward in min ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Noël Coward
Sir Noël Peirce Coward (16 December 189926 March 1973) was an English playwright, composer, director, actor, and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what ''Time'' magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise"."Noel Coward at 70" ''Time'', 26 December 1969, p. 46 Coward attended a dance academy in London as a child, making his professional stage début at the age of eleven. As a teenager he was introduced into the high society in which most of his plays would be set. Coward achieved enduring success as a playwright, publishing more than 50 plays from his teens onwards. Many of his works, such as '' |
Guildhall School Of Music
The Guildhall School of Music and Drama is a conservatoire and drama school located in the City of London, United Kingdom. Established in 1880, the school offers undergraduate and postgraduate training in all aspects of classical music and jazz along with drama and production arts. The school has students from over seventy countries. Widely regarded as one of the leading performing arts institutions in the world, it was ranked first in both the Guardian’s 2022 League Table for Music and the Complete University Guide's 2023 Arts, Drama and Music league table. It is also ranked the sixth university in the world for performing arts in the 2022 QS World University Rankings. Based within the Barbican Centre in the City of London, the school currently numbers just over 1,000 students, approximately 800 of whom are music students and 200 on the drama and technical theatre programmes. The school is a member of Conservatoires UK, the European Association of Conservatoires and the Fede ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Laurens Hammond
Laurens Hammond (January 11, 1895 – July 1, 1973), was an American engineer and inventor. His inventions include the Hammond organ, the Hammond clock, and the world's first polyphonic musical synthesizer, the Novachord. Youth Laurens Hammond was born in Evanston, Illinois, on January 11, 1895 to William Andrew and Idea Louise Strong Hammond. Laurens showed his great technical prowess from an early age. His father, William, took his own life in January 1897, ostensibly due to failure of the First National Bank of Illinois, which he had founded. Upon her husband's death, Idea, who was an artist, relocated to France with Laurens to further her studies, and the family spent the next eleven years in France and Germany. Early inventions When the family returned to Evanston in 1909, Laurens, then 14, was fluent in French and German. While in Europe, he had already designed a system for automatic transmission for automobiles. At his mother's suggestion, he submitted his des ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Noble Sissle
Noble Lee Sissle (July 10, 1889 – December 17, 1975) was an American jazz composer, lyricist, bandleader, singer, and playwright, best known for the Broadway musical ''Shuffle Along'' (1921), and its hit song "I'm Just Wild About Harry". Early life Sissle was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, United States, around the time his father Rev. George A. Sissle was pastor of the city's Simpson M. E. Chapel.Reef (2010) His mother, Martha Angeline (née Scott) Sissle, was a school teacher and juvenile probation officer. As a youth, Sissle sang in church choirs and as a soloist with his high school's glee club in Cleveland, Ohio. Sissle attended De Pauw University in Greencastle, Indiana on scholarship and later transferred to Butler University in Indianapolis before turning to music full-time. Career In early 1916, Sissle joined one of the society orchestras organized by James Reese Europe in New York. He persuaded Europe to also hire his friend, pianist and composer Eubie Blake, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eubie Blake
James Hubert "Eubie" Blake (February 7, 1887 – February 12, 1983) was an American pianist and composer of ragtime, jazz, and popular music. In 1921, he and his long-time collaborator Noble Sissle wrote ''Shuffle Along'', one of the first Broadway musicals written and directed by African Americans. Blake's compositions included such hits as "Bandana Days", "Charleston Rag", "Love Will Find a Way", "Memories of You" and "I'm Just Wild About Harry". The 1978 Broadway musical ''Eubie!'' showcased his works. Early years Blake was born at 319 Forrest Street in Baltimore, Maryland. Of the many children born to former slaves Emily "Emma" Johnstone and John Sumner Blake, he was the only one to survive childhood. John Sumner Blake was a stevedore on the Baltimore Docks. Blake claimed in later life to have been born in 1883, but records published beginning in 2003— U.S. Census, military, and Social Security records and Blake's passport application and passport—uniformly give his b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jessie Matthews
Jessie Margaret Matthews (11 March 1907 – 19 August 1981) was an English actress, dancer and singer of the 1920s and 1930s, whose career continued into the post-war period. After a string of hit stage musicals and films in the mid-1930s, Matthews developed a following in the USA, where she was dubbed "The Dancing Divinity". Her British studio was reluctant to let go of its biggest name, however, which resulted in offers for her to work in Hollywood being repeatedly rejected. After the decline of her film career, Matthews achieved a comeback in her native Britain when she took over the role of Mary Dale in the popular BBC Radio serial ''The Dales'' (previously known as ''Mrs Dale's Diary''). Early life Jessie Margaret Matthews was born on 11 March 1907 to Jane Matthews (née Townshend) in a flat above a butcher's shop at 94 Berwick Street, Soho, London, in relative poverty, the seventh of sixteen children (of whom eleven survived). Jessie's father, George Ernest Matthews ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maisie Gay
Maisie Ravier is a fictional character, the leading character of ten films (1939–1947) and the radio show ''The Adventures of Maisie'' (broadcast 1945–1947, 1949–1953). She was played by actress Ann Sothern (1909–2001). Eight of the ten Maisie films were written by Mary C. McCall Jr. Unusually, there was no continuity from one picture to the next. For example, the first film ends with her marrying the leading man and inheriting a ranch, but in the next one she is single and footloose again. The concept for the ''Maisie'' series came from the story ''Dark Dame'' by Wilson Collison. Sothern said in an interview that the series was originally planned with Jean Harlow as the star. After a string of other films failed to attract audiences, Sothern left RKO Radio Pictures and signed with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, making her first film for MGM in 1939. She was cast in ''Maisie'' as Mary Anastasia O'Connor, a brassy but kindhearted Brooklyn burlesque dancer who went by the stage name ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
London Calling! (Noel Coward Revue)
''London Calling!'' was a musical revue, produced by André Charlot with music and lyrics by Noël Coward, which opened at London's Duke of York's Theatre on 4 September 1923. It is famous for being Noël Coward's first publicly produced musical work and for the use of a 3-D stereoscopic shadowgraph as part of its opening act. The revue's song "Parisian Pierrot", sung by Gertrude Lawrence, was Coward's first big hit and became one of his signature tunes. Background and productions The basis of ''London Calling!'' began at the Swiss resort of Davos in Christmas 1922, when Coward presented a musical outline of a new revue project involving himself and Gertrude Lawrence to benefactor Lord Lathom, who was also a friend of André Charlot. Lathom had liked the outline, and approached Charlot to produce it. Charlot's West End musical production ''Rats'', which premiered on 21 February 1923 at the Vaudeville Theatre, also starred Lawrence. At first, Charlot did not have Coward in min ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joyce Barbour
Joyce Barbour (1901–1977) was an English actress. She was the wife of the actor Richard Bird (actor), Richard Bird. Barbour was born in Birmingham on 27 March 1901 the daughter of Horace and Miriam Barbour, her father was an assurance clerk and later a hotel manager. She made her first stage appearance in Birmingham as a pantomime fairy in 1914. She first appeared on the London stage in 1925 at the Gaiety Theatre, London, Gaiety Theatre in the chorus. Her theatre work included the original productions of Rodgers and Hart's ''Present Arms (musical), Present Arms'' (1928), and ''Spring is Here'' (1929) on Broadway theatre, Broadway; and the musical ''Ever Green'' (1930) in London's West End theatre, West End. She also played in the original production of Noël Coward's ''Words and Music (musical), Words and Music'' at the Adelphi Theatre, London, in 1932. In 1950 she appeared in Esther McCracken's ''Cry Liberty''. Barbour married actor Richard Bird (actor), Richard Bird in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sheridan Morley
Sheridan Morley (5 December 1941 − 16 February 2007) was an English author, biographer, critic and broadcaster. He was the official biographer of Sir John Gielgud and wrote biographies of many other theatrical figures he had known, including Noël Coward. Nicholas Kenyon called him a "cultural omnivore" who was "genuinely popular with people". Early life Sheridan Morley was born in Ascot, Berkshire, in a nursing home opposite Ascot Racecourse, the eldest son of actor Robert Morley and grandson, via his mother Joan Buckmaster, of the actress Dame Gladys Cooper.Obituary: Sheridan Morley ''Daily Telegraph'', 17 February 2007 He was named after Sheridan Whiteside, the title role his father was playing in a long-running production of '' |
Herbert Mason
Samuel George Herbert Mason (1891 – 20 May 1960) was a British film director, producer, stage actor, army officer, presenter of some revues, stage manager, theatre director, stage director, choreographer, Production manager (theatre), production manager and playwright.McFarlane, 2005, p. 462Daniel Snowman]Obituary: Michael Mason''The Guardian'' 13 July 2014 He was a recipient of the Military Cross the prestigious award for "gallantry during active operations against the enemy." He received the gallantry award for his part in the Battle of Guillemont where British troops defeated the Germans to take the German stronghold of Guillemont. Mason began his theatrical career at the age of 16 and appeared in several productions at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre including Barry Jackson (director), Barry Jackson's ''The Christmas Party''. During the 1920s he stage managed some of the largest shows in London (including many of André Charlot's musical revues) and began his film career ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Sitwells
The Sitwells (Edith Sitwell, Osbert Sitwell, Sacheverell Sitwell), from Scarborough, North Yorkshire, were three siblings who formed an identifiable literary and artistic clique around themselves in London in the period roughly 1916 to 1930. This was marked by some well-publicised events, notably Edith's ''Façade'' with music by William Walton, with its public debut in 1923. All three Sitwells wrote; for a while their circle was considered by some to rival Bloomsbury, though others dismissed them as attention-seekers rather than serious artists. ''Wheels'' anthologies The first Sitwell venture was the series of ''Wheels'' anthologies produced from 1916. These were seen either as a counterweight to the contemporary Edward Marsh ''Georgian Poetry'' anthologies, or as light 'society verse' collections. They did not really match the Imagist anthologies of the same years, or the modernist wing, in terms of finding poets with important careers ahead of them, but included both Nancy ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
