|
Pay The Two Dollars
''Pay the Two Dollars'' is a vaudeville sketch in which a man is subject to increasingly draconian and unnecessary legal jeopardy because of his lawyer's unwillingness to pay a two-dollar fine. The catchphrase of the sketch has entered the popular lexicon to refer to a penalty that, even if the penalized party regards it as unjust, is too trivial to be worth contesting. Original sketch ''Pay the Two Dollars'' was created by Howard Brothers, Willie and Eugene Howard for ''George White's Scandals, George White's Scandals of 1931'' on Broadway (Manhattan), Broadway. In the sketch, Willie Howard plays a humble city-dweller riding the subway with a lawyer friend, played by Eugene; when he is told by a conductor that he will be assessed a two-dollar fine for spitting on the floor of the train car, he seeks to pay it immediately and end the matter, but the lawyer insists on contesting it. Willie's character is then arrested, whereupon the lawyer mounts a series of preposterous legal challe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vaudeville
Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment born in France at the end of the 19th century. A vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a dramatic composition or light poetry, interspersed with songs or ballets. It became popular in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s, but the idea of vaudeville's theatre changed radically from its French antecedent. In some ways analogous to music hall from Victorian Britain, a typical North American vaudeville performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill. Types of acts have included popular and classical musicians, singers, dancers, comedians, trained animals, magicians, ventriloquists, strongmen, female and male impersonators, acrobats, clowns, illustrated songs, jugglers, one-act plays or scenes from plays, athletes, lecturing celebrities, minstrels, and movies. A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Howard Brothers
Willie Howard (April 13, 1883 – January 14, 1949) and Eugene Howard (July 7, 1880 – August 1, 1965), billed as the Howard Brothers, were Silesian-born American vaudeville performers of the first half of the 20th century. They were two of the earliest openly Jewish performers on the American stage. After performing in amateur night competitions, the brothers began separate professional theatre careers. Soon they were appearing together in burlesque and vaudeville, where, over the course of a decade, they established their reputation. The brothers were hired by the Shubert family in 1912 to perform in a series of successful revues on Broadway over the next decade called ''The Passing Show''. These were followed by another popular series of Broadway revues in the 1920s and 1930s called ''George White's Scandals''. They appeared in a few additional Broadway musicals, notably ''Girl Crazy''. In between these Broadway seasons, the brothers continued to be in great demand on the va ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George White's Scandals
''George White's Scandals'' were a long-running string of Broadway revues produced by George White that ran from 1919–1939, modeled after the ''Ziegfeld Follies''. The "Scandals" launched the careers of many entertainers, including W. C. Fields, the Three Stooges, Ray Bolger, Helen Morgan, Ethel Merman, Ann Miller, Eleanor Powell, Bert Lahr and Rudy Vallée. Louise Brooks, Dolores Costello, Barbara Pepper, and Alice Faye got their show business start as lavishly dressed (or underdressed) chorus girls strutting to the "Scandal Walk". Much of George Gershwin's early work appeared in the 1920–24 editions of ''Scandals.'' The Black Bottom, danced by ''Ziegfeld Follies'' star Ann Pennington and Tom Patricola, touched off a national dance craze. ''George White's Scandals'' is also the name of several movies set within the ''Scandals'', all of which focus primarily on the show's acts, with a thin backstage plot stringing them all together. The best known of these was 1934's ' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Broadway (Manhattan)
Broadway () is a road in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. Broadway runs from State Street (Manhattan), State Street at Bowling Green (New York City), Bowling Green for through the Boroughs of New York City, borough of Manhattan and through the Bronx, exiting north from New York City to run an additional through the Westchester County, New York, Westchester County municipalities of Yonkers, New York, Yonkers, Hastings-on-Hudson, New York, Hastings-On-Hudson, Dobbs Ferry, New York, Dobbs Ferry, Irvington, New York, Irvington, and Tarrytown, New York, Tarrytown, and terminating north of Sleepy Hollow, New York, Sleepy Hollow.There are four other streets named "Broadway" in New York City's remaining three boroughs: one each in Brooklyn (Broadway (Brooklyn), see main article) and Staten Island, and two in Queens (one running from Astoria, Queens, Astoria to Elmhurst, Queens, Elmhurst, and the other in Hamilton Beach, Queens, Hamilton Beach). Each borough therefore has ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ziegfeld Follies (film)
''Ziegfeld Follies'' is a 1945 American musical comedy film released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, primarily directed by Vincente Minnelli, with segments directed by Lemuel Ayers, Roy Del Ruth, Robert Lewis, and George Sidney, the film's original director before Minnelli took over. Other directors that are claimed to have made uncredited contributions to the film are Merrill Pye, Norman Taurog, and Charles Walters. It stars many MGM leading talents, including Fred Astaire, Lucille Ball, Lucille Bremer, Fanny Brice (the only member of the ensemble who was a star of the original Follies), Judy Garland, Kathryn Grayson, Lena Horne, Gene Kelly, James Melton, Victor Moore, William Powell, Red Skelton, and Esther Williams. Producer Arthur Freed wanted to create a film along the lines of the Ziegfeld Follies Broadway shows, and so, the film is composed of a sequence of unrelated lavish musical numbers and comedy sketches. Some of them, such as '' Pay the Two Dollars'', originated in ''Geor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Victor Moore
Victor Fred Moore (February 24, 1876 – July 23, 1962) was an American actor of stage and screen, a major Broadway star from the late 1920s through the 1930s. He was also a writer and director, but is best remembered today as a comedian, playing timid, mild-mannered roles. Today's audiences know him as the star of a Christmas-themed movie that has become a perennial: '' It Happened on 5th Avenue'' (1947). Moore plays a vagrant who occupies a millionaire's mansion—without the millionaire's knowledge—while the owner is vacationing. Career Victor Moore appeared in 21 Broadway shows and more than 50 films. His first appearance on Broadway was in ''Rosemary'' (1896). He also appeared in George M. Cohan's ''Forty-five Minutes from Broadway'', which opened January 1, 1906, and its sequel, ''The Talk of New York'' (1907). He went on to star in shows such as '' Oh, Kay!'' (1926) as Shorty McGee, ''Hold Everything!'' (1928) as Nosey Bartlett, Gershwin's ''Of Thee I Sing'' (1931) as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edward Arnold (actor)
Günther Edward Arnold Schneider (February 18, 1890 – April 26, 1956) was an American actor of the stage and screen. Early life Arnold was born on February 18, 1890, in Lower East Side of New York City, the son of German immigrants Elizabeth (Ohse) and Carl Schneider. His schooling came at the East Side Settlement House. Acting career Stage Arnold was interested in acting ever since he appeared on stage as Lorenzo in The Merchant of Venice at age 12. He made his professional stage debut in 1907 and had important roles in several plays on Broadway in the 1920s and 1930s. Among them is the 1927 revival of ''The Jazz Singer'', with Arnold as the second lead to the star, George Jessel. Film He found work as an extra for Essanay Studios and World Studios, before landing his first significant role in 1916's '' The Misleading Lady''. He returned to the stage in 1919, and did not appear in movies again until his talkie debut in ''Okay America!'' (1932). He recreated one o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bosley Crowther
Francis Bosley Crowther Jr. (July 13, 1905 – March 7, 1981) was an American journalist, writer, and film critic for ''The New York Times'' for 27 years. His work helped shape the careers of many actors, directors and screenwriters, though his reviews, at times, were perceived as unnecessarily mean. Crowther was an advocate of foreign-language films in the 1950s and 1960s, particularly those of Roberto Rossellini, Vittorio De Sica, Ingmar Bergman, and Federico Fellini. Life and career Crowther was born Francis Bosley Crowther Jr. in Lutherville, Maryland, the son of Eliza Hay (née Leisenring, 1877–1960) and Francis Bosley Crowther (1874–1950). As a child, Crowther moved to Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where he published a neighborhood newspaper, ''The Evening Star''. His family moved to Washington, D.C., and Crowther graduated from Western High School in 1922. After two years of prep school at Woodberry Forest School, he entered Princeton University, where he majored in h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Franz Kafka
Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was a German-speaking Bohemian novelist and short-story writer, widely regarded as one of the major figures of 20th-century literature. His work fuses elements of realism and the fantastic. It typically features isolated protagonists facing bizarre or surrealistic predicaments and incomprehensible socio-bureaucratic powers. It has been interpreted as exploring themes of alienation, existential anxiety, guilt, and absurdity. His best known works include the short story "The Metamorphosis" and novels ''The Trial'' and '' The Castle''. The term ''Kafkaesque'' has entered English to describe absurd situations, like those depicted in his writing. Kafka was born into a middle-class German-speaking Czech Jewish family in Prague, the capital of the Kingdom of Bohemia, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, today the capital of the Czech Republic. He trained as a lawyer and after completing his legal education was employed full-ti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arthur Goldberg
Arthur Joseph Goldberg (August 8, 1908January 19, 1990) was an American statesman and jurist who served as the 9th U.S. Secretary of Labor, an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, and the 6th United States Ambassador to the United Nations. Born in Chicago, Illinois, Goldberg graduated from the Northwestern University School of Law in 1930. He became a prominent labor attorney and helped arrange the merger of the American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations. During World War II, he served in the Office of Strategic Services, organizing European resistance to Nazi Germany. In 1961, President John F. Kennedy appointed Goldberg as the Secretary of Labor. In 1962, Kennedy successfully nominated Goldberg to the Supreme Court to fill a vacancy created by the retirement of Felix Frankfurter. Goldberg aligned with the liberal bloc of justices and wrote the majority opinion in ''Escobedo v. Illinois''. In 1965, Goldberg resigned from t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mel Brooks
Mel Brooks (born Melvin James Kaminsky; June 28, 1926) is an American actor, comedian and filmmaker. With a career spanning over seven decades, he is known as a writer and director of a variety of successful broad farces and parodies. He began his career as a comic and a writer for Sid Caesar's variety show ''Your Show of Shows'' (1950–1954) alongside Woody Allen, Neil Simon and Larry Gelbart. With Carl Reiner, he created the comic character The 2000 Year Old Man. He wrote, with Buck Henry, the hit television comedy series ''Get Smart'' (1965–1970). In middle age, Brooks became one of the most successful film directors of the 1970s, with many of his films being among the top 10 moneymakers of their respective years of release. His best-known films include '' The Producers'' (1967), ''The Twelve Chairs'' (1970), '' Blazing Saddles'' (1974), ''Young Frankenstein'' (1974), '' Silent Movie'' (1976), ''High Anxiety'' (1977), ''History of the World, Part I'' (1981), '' Spaceballs'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ocean Beach, New York
Ocean Beach is a village in the southern part of the Town of Islip, on Fire Island, within Suffolk County, New York, United States. As of the 2010 census, the population was 79. Known for its strict local ordinances, the village is nicknamed "The Land of No". The Incorporated Village of Ocean Beach is a popular tourist destination, due to its beachfront location accompanied by a commercial district featuring nightlife, hotels, waterfront restaurants, and a variety of stores. History Ocean Beach was incorporated as a village in 1921. It formed with the merger between the tract of land owned by John A. Wilbur and Stay-A-While Estates. It is the location of Fire Island's only elementary school, which first opened in 1918. The community was once a favorite of celebrities including Fanny Brice, Carl Reiner, and Mel Brooks. Demographics 2010 census As of the census of 2010, there were 79 people residing in the village. The racial makeup of the village was 100% White, 0% Afri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
.jpg "Click for more on -> George White's Scandals")
