|
The Hit Parade (film)
''The Hit Parade'' is a 1937 American musical film directed by Gus Meins and written by Bradford Ropes, Samuel Ornitz and Harry Ruskin. The film stars Frances Langford, Phil Regan, Max Terhune, Edward Brophy, Louise Henry and Pert Kelton. The film was released on April 26, 1937, by Republic Pictures. Republic later reissued the film in 67 minute length as ''I'll Reach for a Star''. Plot The plot follows Pete Garland as he gets fired by singer Monica Barrett, and out of spite finds Ruth Allison and decides to make her a star, he succeeds, but Ruth has some dark secrets. Cast *Frances Langford as Ruth Allison * Phil Regan as Pete Garland *Max Terhune as Rusty Callahan *Edward Brophy as Mulrooney * Louise Henry as Monica Barrett *Pert Kelton as Eadie White *Pierre Watkin as J. B. Hawley *J. Farrell MacDonald as Sgt. O'Hara *Monroe Owsley as Teddy Leeds *Inez Courtney as Tillie *William Demarest as Parole Officer *George Givot as Herman * Sammy White as Dancer *Paul Garner as Mem ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gus Meins
Gus Meins (March 6, 1893 – August 1, 1940), born Gustave Peter Ludwig Luley, was an American film director. He was born in Frankfurt, Germany. Career Meins started out in the 'teens as a cartoonist for the Los Angeles Evening Herald before becoming a comedy writer for Fox in 1919. In the 1920s, Meins directed a number of silent short subjects film series for Universal Pictures, including the '' Buster Brown'' comedies. He is best known as senior director of Hal Roach's ''Our Gang'' comedies from 1934 to 1936, and also as director of Laurel and Hardy's '' Babes in Toyland'' (1934). His assistant director was a young Gordon Douglas, who became senior director in 1936 when Meins left ''Our Gang'' for other directing jobs at Roach. Meins left Roach in 1937 over creative differences. Death In the summer of 1940, Meins faced prosecution of "morals charges", having been accused of sex offenses against six youths. The director swore his innocence but stated that the case would r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Monroe Owsley
Monroe Righter Owsley (August 11, 1900 – June 7, 1937) was an American stage and film actor. Early years The son of Mr. and Mrs. Henry Owsley, he was born in Atlanta, Georgia. His father was a manufacturing executive, and his mother was a concert singer. Owsley was educated at Loomis Institute in Windsor, Connecticut; Bristol High School in Bristol, Connecticut; and Philadelphia High School. He started taking acting classes when he was a teenager. Before Owsley became an actor, he worked as a reporter and a drama critic for the '' Public Ledger'' newspaper in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Career Owsley gained acting experience with stock theater troupes in Chicago, Cincinnati, and Dayton, and in a road company that presented ''The Meanest Man in the World'' in a tent in one-night stands. He made his Broadway debut in ''Young Blood'' (1925). His film debut was 1928's '' The First Kiss'', starring Fay Wray. This was followed by the Philip Barry film ''Holiday'' in 1930, in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Milton Ager
Milton Ager (October 6, 1893 – May 6, 1979) was an American composer, regarded as one of the top songwriters of the 1920s and 1930s. His most lasting compositions include "Ain't She Sweet?” and “Happy Days Are Here Again”. Biography Ager was born to Jewish couple Fannie Nathan and Simon Ager, who worked as a livestock dealer. in Chicago, Illinois, the sixth of nine children. He taught himself to play the piano, and attended McKinley High School, but left after only three years and embarked on a career in music. Jack Burton, "The Honor Roll of Popular Songwriters: Milton Ager", ''Billboard'', November 18, 1950, p.37 Retrieved 8 January 2021 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Happy Days Are Here Again
"Happy Days Are Here Again" is a 1929 song with music by Milton Ager and lyrics by Jack Yellen. The song is a standard that has been interpreted by various artists. It appeared in the 1930 film '' Chasing Rainbows'' and was the campaign song for Franklin D. Roosevelt's 1932 presidential campaign. It is the unofficial anthem of Roosevelt’s Democratic Party. The song is number 47 on the Recording Industry Association of America's list of "Songs of the Century". In 1986 it received an ASCAP Award for 'Most Performed Feature Film Standards on TV'. In ''Chasing Rainbows'' The song was recorded by Leo Reisman and His Orchestra, with vocals by Lou Levin in November 1929 and was featured in the 1930 film '' Chasing Rainbows''. The song concluded the picture, in what film historian Edwin Bradley described as a "pull-out-all-the-stops Technicolor finale, against a Great War Armistice show-within-a-show backdrop". In popular culture Closely associated with Franklin D. Roosevelt's s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stanley Fields (actor)
Stanley Fields (born Walter L. Agnew; May 20, 1883April 23, 1941) was an American actor. Biography On Broadway, Fields performed in ''Fifty Miles from Boston'' (1908) and ''The Red Widow'' (1911). After that, for eight years, Fields performed in vaudeville with Frank Fay. he started on a film career with a screen debut as a gunman in her talkie '' New York Nights''. In 1930, he signed a long-term contract with Paramount Pictures. He died on April 23, 1941, of a heart attack. Selected filmography *'' New York Nights'' (1929) - Hood (uncredited) *'' Street of Chance'' (1930) - Dorgan *'' Dangerous Paradise'' (1930) - Steamer Captain (uncredited) *'' Mammy'' (1930) - Pig Eyes (uncredited) *'' Captain of the Guard'' (1930) - Hangman (uncredited) *'' Ladies Love Brutes'' (1930) - Mike Mendino *'' The Border Legion'' (1930) - Hack Gulden *'' Manslaughter'' (1930) - Peters *'' Her Man'' (1930) - Al *'' The Lottery Bride'' (1930) - Bartender (uncredited) *'' See America Thirst'' ( ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arlene Harris
Arlene Harris (July 7, 1896 – June 12, 1976) was a Canadian-born American radio, film, and television actress. (Another source gives her date of birth as July 7, 1898.) She was best known for her role as "the human chatterbox" on Al Pearce's radio program. Early years Harris was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and was educated primarily in England. During the first three years of Harris's life, she was unable to hear. At age 5, she was entertaining her family with comedy sketches. When she was older, she "branched out into the art of impersonating." Vaudeville Harris toured in vaudeville as Arlene Francis in the 1920s.DeLong, Thomas A. (1996). ''Radio Stars: An Illustrated Biographical Dictionary of 953 Performers, 1920 through 1960''. McFarland & Company, Inc. . P. 121. She had to retire after being injured in an automobile accident, but the Great Depression in the United States caused her to return to entertaining—this time in radio. Radio Before her career in film, H ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Al Pearce
Albert Pearce (July 25, 1898 – June 2, 1961) was an American comedian, singer and List of banjo players, banjo player who was a popular personality on several radio networks from 1928 to 1947. Biography After selling insurance door-to-door during the 1920s, Pearce began selling real estate. With his brother Cal, he sang on the air in 1928 as part of the San Francisco Real Estate Glee Club. He moved from music to comedy on KFRC (defunct), KFRC, San Francisco, after the writer Jack Hasty gave him a comedy sketch about a nervous door-to-door salesman named Elmer Blurt. As Pearce rose to fame, Blurt's running gag, "Nobody home, I hope, I hope, I hope", became a national catch phrase. Radio When Pearce's ''The Happy Go Lucky Hour'' (sometimes titled ''Al Pearce and His Gang'') began on KFRC in 1928, his gang consisted of his brother Cal, Abe Bloom, Charles Carter, Jean Clarimoux, Edna Fisher, Harry K. McClintock, Tommy Harris, Norman Nielsen, Monroe Upton (as Lord Bilgewater), Ha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eddy Duchin
Edwin Frank Duchin (April 1, 1909 – February 9, 1951), commonly known as Eddy Duchin or alternatively Eddie Duchin, was an American jazz pianist and bandleader during the 1930s and 1940s. Early career Duchin was born on April 1, 1909 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, to Bessarabian Jewish immigrants Tillie (née Baron; 1885 – March 21, 1962) and Frank Duchin (June 2, 1885 – May 15, 1957). After graduating from Beverly High School, he attended the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and was originally a pharmacist before turning full-time to music and beginning his new career with Leo Reisman's orchestra at the Central Park Casino in New York, an elegant nightclub where he became popular in his own right, causing strife between him and Reisman. By 1932, Reisman's contract with the Central Park Casino was being terminated, leaving violinist Leo Kahn as the interim leader of the orchestra. After 6 weeks, Duchin had assumed Kahn's place as the orchestra's leader. He b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Duke Ellington
Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington (April 29, 1899 – May 24, 1974) was an American jazz pianist, composer, and leader of his eponymous jazz orchestra from 1923 through the rest of his life. Born and raised in Washington, D.C., Ellington was based in New York City from the mid-1920s and gained a national profile through his orchestra's appearances at the Cotton Club in Harlem. A master at writing miniatures for the three-minute 78 rpm recording format, Ellington wrote or collaborated on more than one thousand compositions; his extensive body of work is the largest recorded personal jazz legacy, and many of his pieces have become standards. He also recorded songs written by his bandsmen, such as Juan Tizol's " Caravan", which brought a Spanish tinge to big band jazz. At the end of the 1930s, Ellington began a nearly thirty-year collaboration with composer-arranger-pianist Billy Strayhorn, whom he called his writing and arranging companion. With Strayhorn, he composed multipl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ivie Anderson
Ivie Anderson (sometimes Ivy) (January 16, 1904 – December 28, 1949) was an American jazz singer. Anderson was a member of the Duke Ellington Orchestra for more than a decade. Personal life Anderson was born on January 16, 1904, in Gilroy, California. Although her mother's name is unknown, her father was Jobe Smith. From 1914 to 1918 (age 9 to 13), Anderson attended St. Mary's Convent and studied voice. At Gilroy grammar school and Gilroy High School, she joined glee club and choral society. She also studied voice under Sara Ritt while in Nannie H. Burroughs Institution in Washington, D.C. From 1930 to 1945, Anderson lived at 724 East 52nd Place in Los Angeles, part of the 52nd Place Historic District. Career Anderson's singing career began around 1921 with performances in Los Angeles. In 1924, she toured with the musical ''Shuffle Along''. By 1925, she had performed in Cuba, the Cotton Club in New York City, and Los Angeles with the bands of Paul Howard, Curtis Mosby, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paul Garner
Paul Albert "Mousie" Garner (July 31, 1909 – August 8, 2004) was an American actor. Garner earned his nickname by assuming the role of a shy, simpering jokester. He was one of the last actors still doing shtick from vaudeville, and has been referred to as "The Grand Old Man Of Vaudeville." Biography He was born on July 31, 1909 in Washington, D.C. In addition to big-time vaudeville, Mousie Garner appeared on Broadway and in major national touring companies; in short subjects, feature films and documentaries; on network television, cable and radio shows; and in nightclubs, auditoriums and concert halls. Mousie Garner made his stage debut as a child in 1913, singing, dancing and imitating Al Jolson in a family musical-comedy act developed by his father. While still a child, Garner entertained soldiers during World War I. By the time he was a teenager in the 1920s, he had already decided upon a career on the vaudeville stage. Mousie Garner and the Three Stooges Stage st ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sammy White (actor)
Sammy White ''(né'' Samuel Kwait; 28 May 1894 Providence, Rhode Island – 3 March 1960 Beverly Hills, California) was an American vaudeville song-and-dance comedian who appeared in a few films. He appeared with Lew Clayton, as Clayton and White, in the Broadway show ''Schubert Gaieties of 1919''. Career With his first wife, Eva Puck, White appeared in vaudeville as Puck and White. They starred in the original Broadway stage version of the classic musical ''Show Boat'' (1927). In ''Show Boat'', he played the role of comic dancer Frank Schultz, and Puck played the role of Ellie May Chipley, who eventually marries Frank. In 1932, they reprised their roles in the first Broadway revival of the show. However, by the time the Universal Pictures film version was made in 1936, White and Puck had divorced, so the role of Ellie went to Queenie Smith, with White repeating his performance as Frank in the film. White later married Broadway actress Beatrice Curtis (1906–1963), the daug ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
