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Swing, Teacher, Swing
''College Swing'', also known as ''Swing, Teacher, Swing'' in the U.K., is a 1938 comedy film directed by Raoul Walsh and starring George Burns, Gracie Allen, Martha Raye, and Bob Hope. The supporting cast features Edward Everett Horton, Ben Blue, Betty Grable, Jackie Coogan, John Payne, Robert Cummings, and Jerry Colonna. Plot It's 1738, and Gracie Alden ( Gracie Allen) of the powerful Alden family fails to graduate from the college founded by her grandfather for the ninth year in a row, so he leaves institution in his will to the first female of the family to graduate within 200 years. At the deadline, in 1938, another Gracie Alden, the last girl of the line, is having trouble with her studies, so she hires fast-talking Bud Brady (Bob Hope) to help her. Her efforts are opposed by woman-hating professor Hubert Dash (Edward Everett Horton) and his secretary George Jones ( George Burns), who don't want to see their beloved college fall into the hands of an empty-headed nit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Raoul Walsh
Raoul Walsh (born Albert Edward Walsh; March 11, 1887December 31, 1980) was an American film director, actor, founding member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), and the brother of silent screen actor George Walsh. He was known for portraying John Wilkes Booth in the silent film ''The Birth of a Nation'' (1915) and for directing such films as the widescreen epic ''The Big Trail'' (1930) starring John Wayne in his first leading role, ''The Roaring Twenties'' starring James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart, '' High Sierra'' (1941) starring Ida Lupino and Humphrey Bogart, and ''White Heat'' (1949) starring James Cagney and Edmond O'Brien. He directed his last film in 1964. His work has been noted as influences on director such as Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Jack Hill, and Martin Scorsese. Biography Walsh was born in New York as Albert Edward Walsh to Elizabeth T. Bruff, the daughter of Irish Catholic immigrants, and Thomas W. Walsh, an Englishman. Walsh was part o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film and television production company, production and Distribution (marketing), distribution company and the main namesake division of Paramount Global (formerly ViacomCBS). It is the fifth-oldest film studio in the world, the second-oldest film studio in the United States (behind Universal Pictures), and the sole member of the Major film studio, "Big Five" film studios located within the city limits of Los Angeles. In 1916, film producer Adolph Zukor put 24 actors and actresses under contract and honored each with a star on the logo. In 1967, the number of stars was reduced to 22 and their hidden meaning was dropped. In 2014, Paramount Pictures became the first major Hollywood studio to distribute all of its films in digital form only. The company's headquarters and studios are located at 5555 Melrose Avenue, Hollywood, California. Paramount Pictures is a member of the Motion Picture Association of America, Motion Picture Associ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ernst Fegté
Ernst Fegté (28 September 1900 – 15 December 1976) was a German art director. He was active in the American cinema from the 1920s to the 1970s, he was the art director or production designer on more than 75 feature films. He worked at Paramount Studios at the height of his career and won an Academy Award for Best Art Direction for '' Frenchman's Creek'' (1944). He was also nominated in the same category for three other films: ''Five Graves to Cairo'' (1943), ''The Princess and the Pirate'' (1944), and '' Destination Moon'' (1950). He also worked in television in the 1950s and was nominated for an Emmy Award in 1956 for his work on the series, ''Medic''. Early years Born in Hamburg, Germany, Fegté studied art at Hamburg University. He worked in the German cinema and created set murals for Ernst Lubitsch. Fetgé moved to the United States in the 1920s and initially worked in New York, creating backgrounds for various motion pictures produced in that city. Paramount yea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hans Dreier
Hans Dreier (August 21, 1885 – October 24, 1966) was a German motion picture art director. He was Paramount Pictures' supervising art director from 1927 until his retirement in 1950, when he was succeeded by Hal Pereira. Hans Dreier was born in Bremen, Germany in 1885. After studying architecture in Munich, Germany, Dreier worked as imperial supervising architect of the German Cameroon. During World War I, he served in the German Lancers. He began his career in German films in 1919 as an assistant designer at UFA Studios. At the urging of German director Ernst Lubitsch, Dreier relocated to Hollywood in 1923 to work for Paramount. His first Hollywood film was '' Forbidden Paradise'', directed by Lubitsch and starring Pola Negri. Dreier worked as Paramount's supervising art director from 1927 until his retirement in 1950. He made contributions to nearly 500 films during his career, including many films directed by Josef von Sternberg and Ernst Lubitsch, as well as the film ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jack Benny
Jack Benny (born Benjamin Kubelsky, February 14, 1894 – December 26, 1974) was an American entertainer who evolved from a modest success playing violin on the vaudeville circuit to one of the leading entertainers of the twentieth century with a highly popular comedic career in radio, television, and film. He was known for his comic timing and the ability to cause laughter with a long pause or a single expression, such as his signature exasperated summation "''Well!''" His radio and television programs, popular from 1932 until his death in 1974, were a major influence on the sitcom genre. Benny portrayed himself as a miser who obliviously played his violin badly and claimed perpetually to be 39 years of age. Early life Benny was born Benjamin Kubelsky in Chicago, Illinois, on February 14, 1894, and grew up in nearby Waukegan. He was the son of Jewish immigrants Meyer Kubelsky (1864–1946) and Emma Sachs Kubelsky (1869–1917), sometimes called "Naomi". Meyer was a saloon ow ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mary Livingstone
Mary Livingstone (born Sadya Marcowitz, later known as Sadie Marks; June 25, 1905–June 30, 1983) was an American radio comedienne and actress. She was the wife and radio partner of comedian Jack Benny. Enlisted casually to perform on her husband's program, she proved a talented comedian. But she also proved one of the rare performers to experience severe stage fright years after her career was established, so much so that she retired from show business completely, after two decades in the public eye, almost three decades before her death and at the height of her husband and partner's fame. Early life Livingstone was born Sadya Marcowitz in Seattle, Washington, but raised in Vancouver, British Columbia. Her father, David Marcowitz (or Markowitz), was a prosperous Jewish scrap metal dealer from Romania. Her mother was Esther Wagner Marcowitz. They changed their surname to Marks several years after Sadya was born. Livingstone's brother, Hilliard Marks, was a radio and televi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Skinnay Ennis
Edgar Clyde "Skinnay" Ennis Jr. (August 13, 1907 – June 3, 1963) was an American jazz and pop music bandleader and singer. Early years The son of Mr. and Mrs. E.C. Ennis, he was born Edgar Clyde Ennis Jr. in Salisbury, North Carolina, United States, and had a brother, James W. Ennis. He met Hal Kemp while attending the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill. The two were members of Delta Sigma Phi fraternity there. Orchestras An obituary reported about Ennis and his orchestra, "His band had performed in every major dance palace in the nation." Ennis joined Kemp's orchestra as a drummer and vocalist in the late 1920s, playing with him through 1938, including one tour of Europe in 1930. In 1938, Ennis put together his own band, which became a popular ensemble in Hollywood films. "Got a Date With an Angel" was his theme song. During this time Gil Evans was one of his arrangers. Toward the end of the 1950s Ennis's career had faded, and he worked mostly in hotels in the Lo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cecil Cunningham
Edna Cecil Cunningham (August 2, 1888 – April 17, 1959) was an American film and stage actress, singer, and comedienne. Early years Cunningham started her working life as a switchboard operator in a commerce bank and did some sittings as a photographer's model. Her early experience in music came as a member of the choir in the Fifth Baptist Church in St. Louis. Career Cunningham's first show business job was in the chorus line of ''Mlle. Modiste'' at the age of 18. She trained as a singer and appeared in opera. She worked as a vaudeville comedian at the Palace Theatre in New York City until the commencement of her movie career in 1929. A. L. Erlanger selected her for the title role in the original production of '' The Pink Lady''. Cunningham's Broadway credits include ''Somewhere Else'' (1913), ''Iolanthe'' (1913), ''Oh, I Say!'' (1913), ''Maids of Athens'' (1914), ''Dancing Around'' (1914), ''Greenwich Village Follies'' (1919), ''The Rose of China'' (1919), and ''Danc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jerry Colonna (entertainer)
Gerardo Luigi Colonna (September 17, 1904 – November 21, 1986), better known as Jerry Colonna, was an American musician, actor, comedian, singer, songwriter and trombonist who played the zaniest of Bob Hope's sidekicks in Hope's popular radio shows and films of the 1940s and 1950s. He also voiced the March Hare in Disney's 1951 animated film '' Alice in Wonderland.'' With his pop-eyed facial expressions and large handlebar moustache, Colonna was known for singing loudly in what Gerald Nachman called a "comic caterwaul", and for his catchphrase, " Who's Yehudi?", uttered after many an old joke, though it usually had nothing to do with the joke itself. The line was believed to be named for violin virtuoso Yehudi Menuhin, and "the search for Yehudi" became a running gag on Hope's show. Colonna played a range of nitwitted characters, the best-remembered of which was a moronic professor, of which Nachman wrote: :Colonna brought a whacked-out touch to Hope's show. In a typica ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Cummings
Charles Clarence Robert Orville Cummings (June 9, 1910 – December 2, 1990) was an American film and television actor who appeared in roles in comedy films such as ''The Devil and Miss Jones'' (1941) and ''Princess O'Rourke'' (1943), and in dramatic films, especially two of Alfred Hitchcock's thrillers, ''Saboteur'' (1942) and ''Dial M for Murder'' (1954).Wise and Wilderson 2000, p. 189. He received five Primetime Emmy Award nominations, and won the Primetime Emmy Award for Best Actor in a Single Performance in 1955. On February 8, 1960, he received two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his contributions to the motion picture and television industries, at 6816 Hollywood Boulevard and 1718 Vine Street. He used the stage name Robert Cummings from mid-1935 until the end of 1954 and was credited as Bob Cummings from 1955 until his death. Early life Cummings was born in Joplin, Missouri, a son of Dr. Charles Clarence Cummings and the former Ruth Annabelle Kraft.FilmReference ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Payne (actor)
John Howard Payne (May 23, 1912 – December 6, 1989) was an American film actor who is mainly remembered from film noir crime stories and 20th Century Fox musical films, and for his leading roles in ''Miracle on 34th Street'' and the NBC Western television series ''The Restless Gun''. Early life Payne was born in Roanoke, Virginia. His mother, Ida Hope (''née'' Schaeffer), a singer, graduated from the Virginia Seminary in Roanoke and married George Washington Payne, a developer in Roanoke. They lived at Fort Lewis, an antebellum mansion that became a state historic property, but was destroyed by fire in the late 1940s. Payne attended prep school at Mercersburg Academy in Mercersburg, Pennsylvania, and then went to Roanoke College in Salem, Virginia. He then transferred to Columbia University in New York City in the fall of 1930. He studied drama at Columbia and voice at the Juilliard School. To support himself, he took on a variety of odd jobs, including wrestling as "Alex ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jackie Coogan
John Leslie Coogan (October 26, 1914 – March 1, 1984) was an American actor and comedian who began his film career as a child actor in silent films. Charlie Chaplin's film classic ''The Kid'' (1921) made him one of the first child stars in the history of Hollywood. He later sued his mother and stepfather over his squandered film earnings and provoked California to enact the first known legal protection for the earnings of child performers, the California Child Actors Bill, widely known as the Coogan Act. Coogan continued to act throughout his life, later earning renewed fame in middle age portraying Uncle Fester in the 1960s television series ''The Addams Family''. Early life and early career Coogan was born John Leslie Coogan in Los Angeles, California in 1914 to John Henry Coogan Jr. and Lillian Rita (Dolliver) Coogan. He began performing as an infant in both vaudeville and film, with an uncredited role in the 1917 film ''Skinner's Baby''. Charlie Chaplin discovered him in t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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