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Noel Francis
Noel Francis (born Noel Frances Sweeney, August 31, 1906 – October 30, 1959) was an American actress of the stage and screen during the 1920s and 1930s. Born in Texas, she began her acting career on the Broadway stage in the mid-1920s, before moving to Hollywood at the beginning of the sound film era. Originally cast in films for her song and dance abilities, when musicals began to fall out of favor, she became better known for her tough girl characters. However, by the mid-1930s, she was being typecast into smaller roles, and made an attempt at a comeback on Broadway. When that failed, she returned briefly to Hollywood to make several B films, before retiring in 1937. Early life Francis was born on August 31, 1906, in Temple, Texas, and grew up in Dallas. After high school, Francis attended Southern Methodist University and moved to New York City, where she attended Columbia University. Career Her break came when she was 19 years old, when she was cast as a Ziegfeld g ...
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Temple, Texas
Temple is a city in Bell County, Texas, United States. As of 2020, the city has a population of 82,073 according to the U.S. census, and is one of the two principal cities in Bell County. Located near the county seat of Belton, Temple lies in the region referred to as Central Texas and is a principal city in the Killeen–Temple–Fort Hood metropolitan area, which as of 2015 had a population of 450,051. Located off Interstate 35, Temple is 65 miles north of Austin, 34 miles south of Waco and 27 miles east of Killeen. The primary economic drivers are the extensive medical community (mostly due to Baylor Scott & White Medical Center – Temple) and goods distribution based on its central location between the Dallas-Fort Worth, San Antonio, and Houston metropolitan areas, and proximity to larger neighbors Austin and Waco. History Temple was founded as a railroad town in 1881 by the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railroad. It was incorporated in 1882. The town was named after a San ...
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Ruby Keeler
Ethel Ruby Keeler (August 25, 1909 – February 28, 1993) was an American actress, dancer, and singer who was paired on-screen with Dick Powell in a string of successful early musicals at Warner Bros., particularly ''42nd Street (film), 42nd Street'' (1933). From 1928 to 1940, she was married to actor and singer Al Jolson. She retired from show business in the 1940s, but made a widely publicized comeback on Broadway (theatre), Broadway in 1971. Early life Keeler was born in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada, in 1909 to Ralph Hector and Nellie (''née'' Lahey) Keeler, one of six siblings in an Irish Catholic family. Two sisters, Helen and Gertrude, had brief performing careers. Her father was a truck driver. When Ruby was three years old, her family moved to New York City, where her father could get better pay. Although Keeler was interested in taking dance lessons, the family could not afford to send her. Keeler attended St. Catherine of Siena on New York's East Side, and one perio ...
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Buck Jones
Buck Jones (born Charles Frederick Gebhart; December 12, 1891 – November 30, 1942) was an American actor, known for his work in many popular Western movies. In his early film appearances, he was credited as Charles Jones. Early life, military service Jones was born Charles Frederick Gebhart on the outskirts of Vincennes, Indiana, on December 12, 1891—some sources indicate December 4, 1889, but his marriage license and military records confirm the 1891 date. In 1907 he joined the United States Army a month after his 16th birthday: his mother had signed a consent form that gave his age as 18. He was assigned to Troop G, 6th Cavalry Regiment, and was deployed to the Philippines in October 1907, where he served in combat and was wounded during the Moro Rebellion. Upon his return to the US in December 1909, he was honorably discharged at Fort McDowell, California. Jones had an affection for race cars and the racing industry and became close friends with early driver Harry St ...
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Academy Award
The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment industry worldwide. Given annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), the awards are an international recognition of excellence in cinematic achievements, as assessed by the Academy's voting membership. The various category winners are awarded a copy of a golden statuette as a trophy, officially called the "Academy Award of Merit", although more commonly referred to by its nickname, the "Oscar". The statuette, depicting a knight rendered in the Art Deco style, was originally sculpted by Los Angeles artist George Stanley from a design sketch by art director Cedric Gibbons. The 1st Academy Awards were held in 1929 at a private dinner hosted by Douglas Fairbanks in The Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. The Academy Awards cerem ...
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Paul Muni
Paul Muni (born Frederich Meshilem Meier Weisenfreund; September 22, 1895– August 25, 1967) was an American stage and film actor who grew up in Chicago. Muni was a five-time Academy Award nominee, with one win. He started his acting career in the Yiddish theater. During the 1930s, he was considered one of the most prestigious actors at the Warner Bros. studio and was given the rare privilege of choosing which parts he wanted. His acting quality, usually playing a powerful character, such as the lead in '' Scarface'' (1932), was partly a result of his intense preparation for his parts, often immersing himself in the study of the real character's traits and mannerisms. He was also highly skilled in using makeup techniques, a talent he learned from his parents, who were also actors, and from his early years on stage with the Yiddish theater in Chicago. At the age of 12, he played the stage role of an 80-year-old man; in one of his films, ''Seven Faces,'' he played seven different ...
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I Am A Fugitive From A Chain Gang
''I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang'' is a 1932 American pre-Code crime-drama film directed by Mervyn LeRoy and starring Paul Muni as a wrongfully convicted man on a chain gang who escapes to Chicago. It was released on November 10, 1932. The film received positive reviews and three Academy Award nominations. The film was written by Howard J. Green and Brown Holmes from Robert Elliott Burns's 1932 autobiography of a similar name '' I Am a Fugitive from a Georgia Chain Gang!'' originally serialized in the ''True Detective'' magazine. The true life story was later the basis for the television movie ''The Man Who Broke 1,000 Chains'' (1987) starring Val Kilmer. In 1991, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". Plot American sergeant James Allen returns to civilian life after World War I. He has served with distinction, earning a medal from Alli ...
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Blonde Crazy
''Blonde Crazy'' is a 1931 American pre-Code romantic comedy-drama film directed by Roy Del Ruth and starring James Cagney, Joan Blondell, Noel Francis, Louis Calhern, Ray Milland, and Guy Kibbee. The film is notable for one of Cagney's lines, a phrase often repeated by celebrity impersonators: "That dirty, double-crossin' rat!" Plot Bert Harris works for a hotel as a bellboy. One day, he meets Anne Roberts, who signs up as a chambermaid. He takes a fancy to her and lets her in on his racket, conning people out of money. They arrange for married hotel guest A. Rupert Johnson Jr. to be caught in a compromising position with Anne and get $5000 to keep a (fake) policeman from taking him to jail. From there, they leave town and embark on ever grander crooked schemes. Anne falls in love with Bert, but he does not realize it until it is too late. By the time he proposes to her, she has transferred her affections to the respectable Joe Reynolds and marries him. Bert travels around ...
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Smart Money (1931 Film)
''Smart Money'' is a 1931 American pre-Code drama film produced and distributed by Warner Bros., directed by Alfred E. Green, and starring Edward G. Robinson and James Cagney. It is the only occasion Robinson and Cagney appeared in a film together, despite being the two leading actors, mainly portraying gangsters, at Warner Bros. studios throughout the 1930s. ''Smart Money'' was shot after Robinson's signature film '' Little Caesar'' had been released and during the filming of Cagney's breakthrough masterpiece ''The Public Enemy'', which is how Cagney came to play a supporting role. The supporting cast includes Evalyn Knapp, Margaret Livingston (the "Woman from the City" in F. W. Murnau's 1927 '' Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans''), and an unbilled but prominently featured Boris Karloff, who portrayed the monster in ''Frankenstein'' later the same year. The writing team of Lucien Hubbard and Joseph Jackson were nominated at the 4th Academy Awards in the now defunct Best Story c ...
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James Cagney
James Francis Cagney Jr. (; July 17, 1899March 30, 1986) was an American actor, dancer and film director. On stage and in film, Cagney was known for his consistently energetic performances, distinctive vocal style, and deadpan comic timing. He won acclaim and major awards for a wide variety of performances. He is remembered for playing multifaceted tough guys in films such as ''The Public Enemy'' (1931), ''Taxi!'' (1932), ''Angels with Dirty Faces'' (1938), ''The Roaring Twenties'' (1939), ''City for Conquest'' (1940) and ''White Heat'' (1949), finding himself typecasting (acting), typecast or limited by this reputation earlier in his career. He was able to negotiate dancing opportunities in his films and ended up winning the Academy Award for his role in the musical ''Yankee Doodle Dandy'' (1942). In 1999 the American Film Institute ranked him eighth among its list of AFI's 100 Years...100 Stars, greatest male stars of the Golden Age of Hollywood. Orson Welles described Cagney a ...
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Warner Bros
Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Warner Bros. or abbreviated as WB) is an American film and entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California, and a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery. Founded in 1923 by four brothers, Harry, Albert, Sam, and Jack Warner, the company established itself as a leader in the American film industry before diversifying into animation, television, and video games and is one of the "Big Five" major American film studios, as well as a member of the Motion Picture Association (MPA). The company is known for its film studio division the Warner Bros. Pictures Group, which includes Warner Bros. Pictures, New Line Cinema, the Warner Animation Group, Castle Rock Entertainment, and DC Studios. Among its other assets, stands the television production company Warner Bros. Television Studios. Bugs Bunny, a cartoon character created by Tex Avery, Ben Hardaway, Chuck Jones, Bob Givens and ...
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Up The River
''Up the River'' is a 1930 American pre-Code comedy film directed by John Ford, and starring Claire Luce, Spencer Tracy and Humphrey Bogart. The plot concerns escaped convicts, as well as a female convict. It was the feature film debut role of both Tracy and Bogart. Despite Bogart being billed fourth (under top-billed Tracy, Claire Luce and Warren Hymer), Tracy's and Bogart's roles were almost equally large, and this is the only film in which they appeared together. ''Up the River'' is also Bogart's only film directed by John Ford. Bogart's image is featured with Luce on some of the film's posters rather than Tracy's since Bogart was the romantic lead with Luce. Fox remade the film in 1938 starring Preston Foster and Tony Martin playing their roles. Plot Two convicts, St. Louis and Dannemora Dan, befriend another convict named Steve, who is in love with woman's-prison inmate Judy. Steve is paroled, promising Judy that he will wait for her release five months later. He returns ...
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John Ford
John Martin Feeney (February 1, 1894 – August 31, 1973), known professionally as John Ford, was an American film director and naval officer. He is widely regarded as one of the most important and influential filmmakers of his generation. He was the recipient of six Academy Awards including a record four wins for Best Director. Ford made frequent use of location shooting and wide shots, in which his characters were framed against a vast, harsh, and rugged natural terrain. In a career of more than 50 years, Ford directed more than 140 films (although most of his silent films are now lost). He is renowned both for Westerns such as '' Stagecoach'' (1939), '' The Searchers'' (1956), and ''The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance'' (1962) and adaptations of classic 20th century American novels such as '' The Grapes of Wrath'' (1940). Ford's work was held in high regard by his colleagues, with Akira Kurosawa, Orson Welles and Ingmar Bergman among those who named him one of the greate ...
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