Mortimer Halpern
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Mortimer Halpern
Mortimer V. Halpern (May 12, 1909 – January 3, 2006) was an actor and long-time production stage manager who worked on over 45 Broadway plays in a theatre career that spanned some 60 years. Life and career Mortimer "Morty" Halpern was born in the Bronx, New York, to Jewish immigrants, Harry and Rose Halpern. His father came from Russia and was employed in New York as a garment cutter. Halpern’s mother was born in Austria and would later work as a sewing machine operator at a dress factory after the death of her husband. Over his early years Halpern lived with his mother in the Bronx working as a salesman for a pharmaceutical house. He first appeared on Broadway as Murray Codner in ''Kith and Kin'', a three-act play by Wallace A. Manheimer that disappeared after its May 13, 1930, debut at the Waldorf Theatre. Halpern’s return to Broadway came fourteen years later as a performer (chorus) and assistant stage manager with Walter Kerr's 1944–1945 musical revue ''Sing Out, ...
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Bronx
The Bronx () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; north and east of the New York City borough of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of the New York City borough of Queens, across the East River. The Bronx has a land area of and a population of 1,472,654 in the 2020 census. If each borough were ranked as a city, the Bronx would rank as the ninth-most-populous in the U.S. Of the five boroughs, it has the fourth-largest area, fourth-highest population, and third-highest population density.New York State Department of Health''Population, Land Area, and Population Density by County, New York State – 2010'' retrieved on August 8, 2015. It is the only borough of New York City not primarily on an island. With a population that is 54.8% Hispanic as of 2020, it is the only majority-Hispanic county in the Northeastern United States and the fourth-most-populous nationwide. The Bronx ...
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New Faces Of 1952
''New Faces of 1952'' is a musical revue with songs and comedy skits. It ran on Broadway for nearly a year in 1952 and was then made into a motion picture in 1954. It helped launch the careers of several young performers including Paul Lynde, Alice Ghostley, Eartha Kitt, Robert Clary, Carol Lawrence, Ronny Graham, performer/writer Mel Brooks (as Melvin Brooks), and lyricist Sheldon Harnick. Broadway production The revue opened on Broadway at the Royale Theatre on May 16, 1952, and ran for 365 performances. It was produced by Leonard Sillman, directed by John Murray Anderson and John Beal with choreography by Richard Barstow. The sketches were written by Graham and Brooks. The songs were composed by, among others, Harnick, Graham, Murray Grand and Arthur Siegel. The cast featured Graham, Kitt, Clary, Virginia Bosler, June Carroll, Virginia De Luce, Ghostley, Patricia Hammerlee, Lawrence, Lynde and Bill Milliken. De Luce and Graham won the 1952 Theatre World Award. The revue marke ...
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Sherman Hemsley
Sherman Alexander Hemsley (February 1, 1938 – July 24, 2012) was an American actor. He was known for his roles as George Jefferson on the CBS television series ''All in the Family'' (1973–1975; 1978) and ''The Jeffersons'' (1975–1985), Deacon Ernest Frye on the NBC series ''Amen'' (1986–1991), and B. P. Richfield on the ABC series ''Dinosaurs''. Hemsley also played Judge Carl Robertson on the NBC series ''The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air''. For his work on ''The Jeffersons'', Hemsley was nominated for a Golden Globe Award and an Emmy Award. Hemsley also won an NAACP Image Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Comedy Series or Special ("The Jeffersons") in 1982. Biography Early life, education and service Hemsley was born and raised in South Philadelphia by his mother, who worked in a lamp factory. Hemsley did not meet his father until he was 14. Hemsley graduated from Barrat Middle School. For high school, Hemsley attended Central High School for ninth grade and Bok Tech ...
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Cleavon Little
Cleavon Jake Little (June 1, 1939 – October 22, 1992) was an American stage, film, and television actor. He began his career in the late 1960s on the stage. In 1970, he starred in the Broadway production of ''Purlie'', for which he earned both a Tony Award and a Drama Desk Award. His first leading television role was that of the irreverent Dr. Jerry Noland on the ABC sitcom ''Temperatures Rising'' (1972–1974). While starring in the sitcom, Little appeared in what has become his signature performance, portraying Sheriff Bart in the 1974 Mel Brooks comedy film ''Blazing Saddles''. In the 1980s, Little continued to appear in stage productions, films, and in guest spots on television series. In 1989, he won a Primetime Emmy Award for his appearance on the NBC sitcom '' Dear John''. He later starred on the Fox sitcom '' True Colors'' (1991–1992). Early life Little was born in Chickasha, Oklahoma, the son of Malchi Little and DeEtta Jones Little. He was the brother of singer DeEt ...
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Purlie
''Purlie'' is a musical with a book by Ossie Davis, Philip Rose, and Peter Udell, lyrics by Udell and music by Gary Geld. It is based on Davis's 1961 play ''Purlie Victorious'', which was later made into the 1963 film ''Gone Are the Days!'' and which included many of the original Broadway cast, including Davis, Ruby Dee, Alan Alda, Beah Richards, Godfrey Cambridge, and Sorrell Booke. Plot ''Purlie'' is set in an era when Jim Crow laws still were in effect in the American South. Its focus is on the dynamic traveling preacher Purlie Victorious Judson, who returns to his small Georgia town hoping to save Big Bethel, the community's church, and emancipate the cotton pickers who work on oppressive Ol' Cap'n Cotchipee's plantation. With the assistance of Lutiebelle Gussie Mae Jenkins, Purlie hopes to pry loose from Cotchipee an inheritance due his long-lost cousin and use the money to achieve his goals. Also playing a part in Purlie's plans is Cotchipee's son Charlie, who ultimately p ...
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Richard Kiley
Richard Paul Kiley (March 31, 1922 – March 5, 1999) was an American stage, film and television actor and singer. He is best known for his distinguished theatrical career in which he twice won the Tony Award for Best Actor In A Musical. Kiley created the role of Don Quixote in the original 1965 production of the Broadway musical '' Man of La Mancha'' and was the first to sing and record " The Impossible Dream", the hit song from the show. In the 1953 hit musical '' Kismet'', he played the Caliph in the original Broadway cast and, as such, was one of the quartet who sang " And This Is My Beloved". Additionally, he won three Emmy Awards and two Golden Globe Awards during his 50-year career and his "sonorous baritone" was also featured in the narration of a number of documentaries and other films. At the time of his death, Kiley was described as "one of theater's most distinguished and versatile actors" and as "an indispensable actor, the kind of performer who could be called on t ...
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Buddy Hackett
Buddy Hackett (born Leonard Hacker; August 31, 1924 – June 30, 2003) was an American actor, comedian and singer. His best remembered roles include Marcellus Washburn in ''The Music Man'' (1962), Benjy Benjamin in ''It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World'' (1963), Tennessee Steinmetz in ''The Love Bug'' (1968), and the voice of Scuttle in ''The Little Mermaid'' (1989). Early life Hackett was one of two children born into a Jewish family living in Brooklyn, New York. His mother Anna (née Geller) worked in the garment trades while his father Philip Hacker was a furniture upholsterer and part-time inventor. Hackett grew up across from Public School 103 on 54th Street and 14th Avenue in Borough Park, Brooklyn, and was active in varsity football and drama club at New Utrecht High School.Hackett, Buddy. ''I've Got A Secret'', October 3, 1966. Hackett suffered from Bell's palsy as a child, the lingering effects of which contributed to his distinctive slurred speech and facial expression. Wh ...
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I Had A Ball
''I Had a Ball'' is a musical with a book by Jerome Chodorov and music and lyrics by Jack Lawrence and Stan Freeman. It starred Buddy Hackett, and featured Richard Kiley and Karen Morrow. Plot overview Set on the Coney Island Boardwalk, it focuses on matchmaking grifter turned fortune teller Garside, who tries to set up his friend, fellow grifter and recent parolee Stan, with Wonder Wheel owner/operator Jeannie. Garside finds his crystal ball is real, as it foretells Stan falling in love with former Coney Island hawker and man-eater Addie (who's returned to the alley while on the prowl for rich husband number four), and Jeannie falling in love with Brooks, a loan shark to whom Garside owes a hundred bucks (even though he only borrowed four). Garside watches the mismatched couples meet while getting dragged off to prison by Officer Millhauser (for running a fortune telling scam) ending the first act. Other characters include Ma Maloney, who heads the Alley Gang: Joe the Muzzler, ...
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Zero Mostel
Samuel Joel "Zero" Mostel (February 28, 1915 – September 8, 1977) was an American actor, comedian, and singer. He is best known for his portrayal of comic characters such as Tevye on stage in ''Fiddler on the Roof'', Pseudolus on stage and on screen in ''A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum'', and Max Bialystock in the original film version of Mel Brooks' '' The Producers'' (1967). Mostel was a student of Don Richardson, and he used an acting technique based on muscle memory. He was blacklisted during the 1950s; his testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee was well publicized. Mostel later starred in the Hollywood Blacklist drama film ''The Front'' (1976) alongside Woody Allen, for which Mostel was nominated for the British Academy Film Award for Best Supporting Actor. Mostel was an Obie Award and three-time Tony Award winner. He is also a member of the American Theater Hall of Fame, inducted posthumously in 1979. Early life Mostel was born in ...
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Rhinoceros (play)
''Rhinoceros'' (french: Rhinocéros) is a play by Eugène Ionesco, written in 1959. The play was included in Martin Esslin's study of post-war avant-garde drama '' The Theatre of the Absurd'', although scholars have also rejected this label as too interpretatively narrow. Over the course of three acts, the inhabitants of a small, provincial French town turn into rhinoceroses; ultimately the only human who does not succumb to this mass metamorphosis is the central character, Bérenger, a flustered everyman figure who is initially criticized in the play for his drinking, tardiness, and slovenly lifestyle and then, later, for his increasing paranoia and obsession with the rhinoceroses. The play is often read as a response and criticism to the sudden upsurge of Fascism and Nazism during the events preceding World War II, and explores the themes of conformity, culture, fascism, responsibility, logic, mass movements, mob mentality, philosophy and morality. Plot Act I The play starts ...
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George C
George may refer to: People * George (given name) * George (surname) * George (singer), American-Canadian singer George Nozuka, known by the mononym George * George Washington, First President of the United States * George W. Bush, 43rd President of the United States * George H. W. Bush, 41st President of the United States * George V, King of Great Britain, Ireland, the British Dominions and Emperor of India from 1910-1936 * George VI, King of Great Britain, Ireland, the British Dominions and Emperor of India from 1936-1952 * Prince George of Wales * George Papagheorghe also known as Jorge / GEØRGE * George, stage name of Giorgio Moroder * George Harrison, an English musician and singer-songwriter Places South Africa * George, Western Cape ** George Airport United States * George, Iowa * George, Missouri * George, Washington * George County, Mississippi * George Air Force Base, a former U.S. Air Force base located in California Characters * George (Peppa Pig), a 2-year-old pig ...
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George Grizzard
George Cooper Grizzard Jr. (April 1, 1928 – October 2, 2007) was an American stage, television, and film actor. He was the recipient of a Grammy Award, a Primetime Emmy Award and a Tony Award, among other accolades. Life and career Grizzard was born in Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina, the son of Mary Winifred (née Albritton) and George Cooper Grizzard, an accountant. Grizzard was raised in Washington, DC, and attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, returning to Washington after graduation to work in advertising. He began his acting career at Washington's Arena Stage. Grizzard memorably appeared as an unscrupulous United States Senator in the film ''Advise and Consent'' in 1962. His other theatrical films included the drama ''From the Terrace'' with Paul Newman (1960), the Western story ''Comes a Horseman'' with Jane Fonda (1978), and a Neil Simon comedy, '' Seems Like Old Times'' (1980). Grizzard made his Broadway debut in '' The Desperate Hours'' in 1955 ...
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