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Strike Up The Band (film)
''Strike Up the Band'' is a 1940 American musical film produced by the Arthur Freed unit at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The film was directed by Busby Berkeley and stars Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland, in the second of a series of musicals they co-starred in, after ''Babes in Arms'', all directed by Berkeley. The story written for the 1927 stage musical '' Strike Up the Band'', and its successful 1930 Broadway revision, bear no resemblance to this film, aside from the title song. Plot Jimmy Connors (Mickey Rooney), a student at Riverwood High School, plays the drums in the school band but dreams of playing in a dance band. He and his “gal” Mary Holden (Judy Garland) sell the school principal on the idea of forming a dance orchestra and putting on a dance to raise money. The principal is initially doubtful but then agrees to buy the first ticket. The event is a success, and the school's debt for the instruments is paid off. Famous band leader Paul Whiteman (played by himself) spons ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Busby Berkeley
Busby Berkeley (born Berkeley William Enos; November 29, 1895 – March 14, 1976) was an American film director and musical choreographer. Berkeley devised elaborate musical production numbers that often involved complex geometric patterns. Berkeley's works used large numbers of showgirls and props as fantasy elements in kaleidoscopic on-screen performances. Early life Berkeley was born in Los Angeles, California, to Francis Enos (who died when Busby was eight) and stage actress Gertrude Berkeley (1864–1946). Among Gertrude's friends, and a performer in Tim Frawly's Stock company run by Busby Berkeley's father, were actress Amy Busby from whom Berkeley gained the appellation "Buzz" or "Busby" and actor William Gillette, then only four years away from playing Sherlock Holmes. Whether he was actually christened Busby Berkeley William Enos,Spivak, Jeffrey, ''Buzz, The Life and Art of Busby Berkeley'' (University Press of Kentucky, 2010), pp. 6–7. or Berkeley William Enos, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Tracy
William Tracy (December 1, 1917 – June 18, 1967) was an American character actor. Early life and career Tracy was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He is perhaps best known for the role of Pepi Katona, the delivery boy, in ''The Shop Around the Corner'' (1940). He starred in the John Ford film '' Tobacco Road'' (1941), and appeared in ''Brother Rat'' (1938) and Alfred Hitchcock's '' Mr. and Mrs. Smith'' (1941). In 1940, Tracy began a recurring role as Sgt. Dorian "Dodo" Doubleday in eight films teamed with Joe Sawyer as Sgt. Ames, the first six for Hal Roach's Streamliners service comedies, beginning with '' Tanks a Million'' (1941). This B-movie comedy was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Musical Score. In 1942, he starred alongside Randolph Scott, John Payne and Alan Hale Jr in ''To the shores of Tripoli.'' Then back again as Sgt Doubleday for two more at Hal Roach studios and the last two were for Lippert turesPic, concluding with '' Mr. Walkie Talkie'' (1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vondell Darr
Vondell Darr Wilson (April 18, 1919 – September 10, 2012) was an American actress. She achieved success in the late 1920s as a child actor and later played bit parts in her adult years. Her last role was in ''The Chocolate Soldier'' in 1941. Darr died on September 10, 2012. Partial filmography *'' The City That Never Sleeps'' (1924) - Baby Molly *''One Glorious Night'' (1924) - Mary *''Border Vengeance'' (1925) - Bumps Jackson *''The Pony Express'' (1925) - Baby *''The Golden Cocoon'' (1925) *'' The Blind Goddess'' (1926) *''Silence'' (1926) - Flower girl *'' On Trial'' (1928) - Doris Strickland *''The Dummy'' (1929) - Peggy Meredith *''That Certain Age'' (1938) - Friend *''Andy Hardy Gets Spring Fever'' (1939) - Prompter (uncredited) *'' Scouts to the Rescue'' (1939) - Mary Scanlon *'' Strike Up the Band'' (1940) - Indian Love Lyrics Student (uncredited) *''Little Nellie Kelly'' (1940) - Girl Dancing with Boy at Dance (uncredited) *'' More Trifles of Importance'' (1941) (sho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Margaret Marquis
Margaret Alice Marquis (August 19, 1919 – January 19, 1993) was a Canadian-American film actress. Marquis was the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Leon Marquis. Personal life On November 1, 1937, Marquis married Universal Studios publicist David c. McCoig. She wed Robert F. Stump, a Hollywood chiropractor, in 1946; he had been one of the judges a few years earlier in a "perfect back" contest she had won; they divorced in 1947. Selected filmography * '' Penrod and Sam'' (1931) * '' Brand of the Outlaws'' (1936) * '' Last of the Warrens'' (1936) * '' A Family Affair'' (1937) * ''My Old Kentucky Home "My Old Kentucky Home, Good-Night!" is a sentimental ballad written by Stephen Foster, probably composed in 1852. It was published in January 1853 by Firth, Pond, & Co. of New York. Foster was likely inspired by Harriet Beecher Stowe's anti-sla ...'' (1938) * '' Cassidy of Bar 20'' (1938) *'' Strike Up the Band'' (1940) * '' Escort Girl'' (1941) References Bibliography * Pitts, Mic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Virginia Sale
Virginia Sale (May 20, 1899 – August 23, 1992) was an American character actress whose career spanned six decades, during most of which she played older women, even when she was in her twenties. Over the 46 years she was active as an actress, she worked in films, stage, radio and television. She was famous for her one-woman stage show, ''Americana Sketches'', which she did for more than 1,000 performances during a 15-year span. Married to actor and studio executive Sam Wren, she co-starred with him in one of the first television family comedies, ''Wren's Nest'', in the late 1940s and early 1950s. She gave birth to fraternal twins, Virginia and Christopher, in 1936. Later in her career she worked on television, and in commercials. She died from heart failure at the age of 93 at the Motion Picture and Television Hospital in 1992. Early life Born on May 20, 1899, in Urbana, Illinois to Frank Orville and Lillie Belle (Partlow) Sale, she attended the University of Illinois for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Helen Jerome Eddy
Helen Jerome Eddy (February 25, 1897 – January 27, 1990) was a motion picture actress from New York City. She was noted as a character actress who played genteel heroines in films such as ''Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm'' (1917). Early years Eddy was born in New York City on February 25, 1897, and was raised in Los Angeles, California. As a youth, she acted in productions put on by the Pasadena Playhouse. She became interested in films through the studio of Siegmund Lubin, which was based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In her youth they opened a backlot in her Los Angeles neighborhood. Career Lubin's studio rejected a scenario that Eddy wrote at age 17, "but decided to capitalize on her face", using her in vamp roles in "lurid melodramas". Eddy's first movie was ''The Discontented Man'' (1915). Soon after, she left Lubin and joined Paramount Pictures. At this time she began to play the roles for which she is best remembered. Other films in which the actress participated inclu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Milton Kibbee
Milton Kibbee (January 27, 1896 – April 17, 1970) was an American film actor. He appeared in more than 360 films between 1933 and 1953. He was the brother of actor Guy Kibbee and his daughter was actress Lois Kibbee. He died in Simi Valley, California. His remains are interred at Oakwood Memorial Park Cemetery in Chatsworth, California.Resting Places: The Burial Sites of More Than 14000 Famous Persons by Scott Wilson Partial filmography *'' Central Airport'' (1933) *'' College Coach'' (1933) *'' Little Big Shot'' (1935) unbilled *'' Moonlight on the Prairie'' (1935) *''Fugitive in the Sky'' (Unbilled) (1936) *''Bengal Tiger'' (1936) *'' Murder by an Aristocrat'' (1936) *'' Times Square Playboy'' (1936) *''Back in Circulation'' (1937) * ''The Lady Escapes'' (1937) *''Smart Blonde'' (1937) *'' The Gladiator'' (1938) *''Overland Stage Raiders'' (1938) *''The Roaring Twenties'' (1939) as a Cab Driver (uncredited) *'' Mr. Smith Goes to Washington'' (1939) as a Reporter (uncre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sarah Edwards (actress)
Sarah Edwards (October 11, 1881 – January 7, 1965) was a Welsh-born American film and stage actress. She often played dowagers or spinsters in numerous Hollywood movies of the 1930s and 1940s, mostly in minor roles. Life and career Edwards started her acting career as a stage actress, she was described in 1916 by a newspaper article as a leading actress "very popular with West End theatre-goers". She eventually settled in the United States and appeared in six Broadway plays between 1919 and 1931, primarily in comedies like ''The Merry Malones'' by George M. Cohan. Among her first movies was the New York-filmed 1929 musical ''Glorifying the American Girl'' (1929), where she portrayed the mercenary mother of leading actress Mary Eaton. She came to Hollywood in the mid-1930s where she appeared in about 190 films until her retirement 1951, mostly in uncredited, small character roles. Sarah Edwards died in Hollywood in 1965, aged 83. Edwards seemed older than she was and oft ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Howard Hickman
Howard Charles Hickman (February 9, 1880 – December 31, 1949) was an American actor, director and writer. He was an accomplished stage leading man, who entered films through the auspices of producer Thomas H. Ince. Career In 1900, Hickman debuted on stage as an extra in a production in San Francisco. He went on to act in stock theater with the Alacazar, Morosco, and Melborne MacDowell companies, among others. On Broadway, Hickman wrote, and portrayed Gabby in, ''The Skirt'' (1921). Hickman's initial work in films was with the Lasky Pictures Company, after which he acted with the Triangle Company and later the Ince company. In 1918, Hickman debuted as a director, with ''The Rainbow'' (for Paralta studios) as his first film. He directed 19 films. With the rise of the sound film, Hickman returned to the film business but received mostly small roles, often as an authoritarian figure. Hickman made a brief appearance as plantation owner John Wilkes, father of Ashley Wilkes ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Enid Bennett
Enid Eulalie Bennett (15 July 1893 – 14 May 1969) was an Australian silent film actress, mostly active in American film. Early life Bennett was born on 15 July 1893 in York, Western Australia, the daughter of Nellie Mary Louise (''née'' Walker) and Frank Bennett. She had an older brother, Francis Reginald "Reg" Bennett (born 1891), and a younger sister, actress Marjorie Bennett (born 1896). After an unsuccessful attempt to start his own school, Frank took up the role of headmaster at the newly established Guildford Grammar School in 1896. He died in 1898, when he drowned in a river while suffering from depression. Nellie later married the new headmaster, Alexander Gillespie, in 1899. With him, she had a daughter named Catherine (born 1901) and a son named Alexander (born 1903). [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Lessey
George Lessey (June 8, 1879 – June 3, 1947) was an American actor and director of the silent era. He appeared in more than 120 films between 1910 and 1946. He also directed more than 70 films between 1913 and 1922. Lessey was born in Amherst, Massachusetts, and as a boy he acted in theatrical productions there. He graduated from Amherst College. For a year, Lessey was a leading man for Edison Studios, after which he directed films for the company for two years. In 1914, he joined Universal Studios as a director. He portrayed Romeo in the initial film version of ''Romeo and Juliet'', directed the first serial, ''What Happened to Mary'', and played the first dual role in film as twins in ''The Corsican Brothers.'' On stage, Lessey appeared in the original Broadway production of ''Porgy and Bess'' (1935) in one of the few white roles, that of the lawyer Mr. Archdale. In the 1930s, Lessey worked as a model for men's clothes. Lessey was married to the former May Abbey. O ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Virginia Brissac
Virginia Brissac (June 11, 1883 – July 26, 1979) was a popular American stage actress who headlined theatre companies from Vancouver to San Diego during the heyday of West Coast Stock in the early 1900s. An ingénue and leading lady known for her natural style and charm on stage, Brissac played with equal success in both comedies and dramas and went on to have a long second career as a character actress in film and television. In addition to playing mothers, grandmothers, and confidants to film stars such as Bette Davis (in ''The Little Foxes'' and ''Dark Victory''), Tyrone Power (in ''Captain from Castile''), and John Wayne (in ''Operation Pacific''), Brissac was cast as farm women and rancher's wives (''Jesse James'', '' The Daltons Ride Again'', ''State Fair''), aristocrats and society women (''The Phantom of the Rue Morgue'', '' Old Los Angeles'', ''Executive Suite''), and various nurses, seamstresses, and landladies. She is probably best remembered for her role as the gra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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