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Tommy Rall
Thomas Edward Rall (December 27, 1929 – October 6, 2020) was an American actor, ballet dancer, tap dancer, and acrobatic dancer who was a prominent featured player in 1950s musical comedies. He later became a successful operatic tenor in the 1960s, making appearances with the Opera Company of Boston, the New York City Opera, and the American National Opera Company. Life and career Rall was born in Kansas City, Missouri to Edward and Margaret Rall, but raised in Seattle, Washington. An only child, he had a crossed eye which made it hard for him to read books, so his mother enrolled him in dancing classes. In his early years he performed a dance and acrobatic vaudeville act in Seattle theaters and attempted small acting roles. His family moved to Los Angeles in the 1940s, and Rall began to appear in small movie roles. His first film appearance was a short MGM film called ''Vendetta''. He began taking tap dancing lessons and became a member of the jitterbugging Jivin' Jacks and J ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kansas City, Missouri
Kansas City (abbreviated KC or KCMO) is the largest city in Missouri by population and area. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 508,090 in 2020, making it the 36th most-populous city in the United States. It is the central city of the Kansas City metropolitan area, which straddles the Missouri–Kansas state line and has a population of 2,392,035. Most of the city lies within Jackson County, with portions spilling into Clay, Cass, and Platte counties. Kansas City was founded in the 1830s as a port on the Missouri River at its confluence with the Kansas River coming in from the west. On June 1, 1850, the town of Kansas was incorporated; shortly after came the establishment of the Kansas Territory. Confusion between the two ensued, and the name Kansas City was assigned to distinguish them soon after. Sitting on Missouri's western boundary with Kansas, with Downtown near the confluence of the Kansas and Missouri Rivers, the city encompasses about , making ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Donald O'Connor
Donald David Dixon Ronald O'Connor (August 28, 1925 – September 27, 2003) was an American dancer, singer and actor. He came to fame in a series of films in which he co-starred with Gloria Jean, Peggy Ryan, and Francis the Talking Mule. His best-known works came in the film ''Singin' in the Rain'' (1952), for which O'Connor was awarded a Golden Globe. He also won a Primetime Emmy Award from four nominations and received two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Early years Though he considered Danville, Illinois, to be his hometown, O'Connor was the 200th child born in St. Elizabeth Hospital in Chicago. Often, both of his parents struggled to remember where and when exactly O'Connor was born, due to the family's extensive travel as a Vaudeville team. Indeed, his parents, Effie Irene (née Crane) and John Edward "Chuck" O'Connor, were vaudeville entertainers; she was a bareback rider and he was a circus strongman and acrobat. His father's family was from Ireland. O'Connor later s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kiss Me, Kate (film)
''Kiss Me Kate'' is a 1953 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film adaptation of the 1948 Broadway musical of the same name.The title of the play has a comma after "Me", the film's title does not. Inspired by William Shakespeare's play ''The Taming of the Shrew'', it tells the tale of formerly married musical theater actors Fred Graham and Lilli Vanessi brought together to star opposite one another in the roles of Petruchio and Katherine in a Broadway musical version of Shakespeare's play. Already on poor terms, the pair skirmish from the start then break into an all-out emotional war mid-performance that threatens the production's success. The only thing keeping the show together are threats from a pair of gangsters who have come to collect a gambling debt. Dorothy Kingsley's screenplay, which was nominated for a Writers Guild of America Award, was adapted from the musical's book by Bella and Samuel Spewack. The songs were by Cole Porter, with musical underscoring by Saul Chaplin and Andr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jerry Herman
Gerald Sheldon Herman (July 10, 1931December 26, 2019) was an American composer and lyricist, known for his work in Broadway theatre. One of the most commercially successful Broadway songwriters of his time, Herman was the composer and lyricist for a number of hit musicals, starting in the 1960s, that were characterized by an upbeat and optimistic outlook and what Herman called "the simple, hummable showtune". His shows include '' Hello, Dolly!'' (1964), at one time the longest-running musical in Broadway history, which also produced the hit title song for Louis Armstrong; ''Mame'' (1966), a vehicle for Angela Lansbury; and '' La Cage aux Folles'' (1984), the first hit Broadway musical about a gay couple. In 2009, Herman received the Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre. He was a recipient of the 2010 Kennedy Center Honors. Early life Herman was born in Manhattan and raised in Jersey City, New Jersey, the only child of musically inclined, middle-class Jewish ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Call Me Madam
''Call Me Madam'' is a musical written by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse, with music and lyrics by Irving Berlin. The musical is a satire on politics and foreign policy that spoofs postwar America's penchant for lending billions of dollars to needy countries. It centers on Sally Adams, a well-meaning but ill-informed socialite widow, who is appointed United States Ambassador to the fictional European country of "Lichtenburg". Signs in Lichtenburg are written in German, and inhabitants wear traditional Bavarian costume. While there, she charms the local gentry, especially Cosmo Constantine, while her press attaché Kenneth Gibson falls in love with Princess Maria of Lichtenburg. Background The lead character is based on Washington, D.C. hostess and Democratic Party fundraiser Perle Mesta, who was appointed Ambassador to Luxembourg in 1949. The ''Playbill'' distributed at each performance humorously noted that "neither the character of Mrs. Sally Adams nor Miss Ethel Merman resem ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Milk And Honey (musical)
''Milk and Honey'' is a musical with a book by Don Appell and music and lyrics by Jerry Herman. The story centers on a busload of lonely American widows hoping to catch husbands while touring Israel and is set against the backdrop of the country's struggle for recognition as an independent nation. It was Herman's first Broadway book musical following a succession of off-Broadway revues. Production history Herman was playing the piano for ''Parade'', his most recent revue following ''I Feel Wonderful'' and ''Nitecap'', when he was approached by theatre producer Gerard Oestreicher, who was seeking a composer for a project about Israel he hoped to mount on Broadway. He sent Herman and Appell there to absorb the culture and hopefully find inspiration. Herman was determined that the musical not be a patriotic love letter. Herman said: “We were there to soak up the atmosphere...Once we saw this group of little old lady tourists rummaging about, we knew that they had to be in our show ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Broadway Theatre
Broadway theatre,Although ''theater'' is generally the spelling for this common noun in the United States (see American and British English spelling differences), 130 of the 144 extant and extinct Broadway venues use (used) the spelling ''Theatre'' as the proper noun in their names (12 others used neither), with many performers and trade groups for live dramatic presentations also using the spelling ''theatre''. or Broadway, are the theatrical performances presented in the 41 professional theatres, each with 500 or more seats, located in the Theater District and the Lincoln Center along Broadway, in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Broadway and London's West End together represent the highest commercial level of live theater in the English-speaking world. While the thoroughfare is eponymous with the district and its collection of 41 theaters, and it is also closely identified with Times Square, only three of the theaters are located on Broadway itself (namely the Broadwa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Song Of Russia
''Song of Russia'' is a 1944 American war film made and distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The picture was credited as being directed by Gregory Ratoff, though Ratoff collapsed near the end of the five-month production, and was replaced by László Benedek, who completed principal photography; the credited screenwriters were Paul Jarrico and Richard J. Collins. The film stars Robert Taylor, Susan Peters, and Robert Benchley. Plot American conductor John Meredith (Robert Taylor) and his manager, Hank Higgins (Robert Benchley), go to the Soviet Union shortly before the country is invaded by Germany. Meredith falls in love with beautiful Soviet pianist Nadya Stepanova (Susan Peters) while they travel throughout the country on a 40-city tour. Their bliss is destroyed by the German invasion. Cast Production MGM Pictures rapidly greenlit a war film set in the Soviet Union in 1942 after the United States Office of War Information encouraged films positively portraying the Alli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The North Star (1943 Film)
''The North Star'' (also known as ''Armored Attack'' in the US) is a 1943 pro- resistance war film starring Anne Baxter, Dana Andrews, Walter Huston, Walter Brennan and Erich von Stroheim It was produced by Samuel Goldwyn Productions and distributed by RKO Radio Pictures. It was directed by Lewis Milestone, written by Lillian Hellman and featured production design by William Cameron Menzies. The music was written by Aaron Copland, the lyrics by Ira Gershwin, and the cinematography was by James Wong Howe. The film also marked the debut of Farley Granger. The film is about the resistance of Ukrainian villagers, through guerrilla tactics, against the German invaders of the Ukrainian SSR. The film was unashamed pro- Soviet propaganda at the height of the war. In the 1950s, it was criticized for this reason and it was re-cut to remove the idealized portrayal of Soviet collective farms at the beginning and to include references to the Hungarian Uprising of 1956. The film was then ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mister Big 1943 Film
''Mister Big'' is a 1943 musical directed by Charles Lamont, starring Donald O'Connor, Gloria Jean and Peggy Ryan. The film features the song "Rude, Crude, and Unattractive". This was the final of seven, successive B movie musicals that Universal Pictures cast with Donald O’Connor after he signed in 1941. When his popularity soared prior to release, the studio added $50,000 in musical numbers and distributed it as an A. His subsequent films were all A's. Plot In a school for the dramatic arts called the Davis School of the Theatre, run by Jeremy Taswell, Donald (Donald O'Connor) has written a musical comedy for the school play. But the owner of the school, Mrs. Davis (Florence Bates) (whose niece, played by Gloria Jean, secretly has a crush on Donald), disapproves and insists that they do a play by Sophocles instead. The students manage to change the play into a musical while Mrs. Davis is traveling to New York. Their triumph is short lived, however, for Mrs. Davis comes ba ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Get Hep To Love
''Get Hep to Love'' is a 1942 musical film starring Gloria Jean, Donald O'Connor, Jane Frazee, Robert Paige and Peggy Ryan. The film was directed by Charles Lamont. Plot Doris Stanley is an adolescent singer ("14 going on 15") billed as an 11-year-old "child prodigy" by her money-hungry aunt. When Doris finds that her Aunt Addie has reneged on her promise to give her a break from her singing tour, she runs away, and finds herself in a small town. Doris presents herself as a potential adoptee to a young married couple (Ann and Steve Winters). Unbeknownst to Doris, Ann was on the verge of breaking up with Steve due to his preoccupation with golf and refusal to find a real job. Her arrival gives the couple a reason to stay together. Ann makes both friends and enemies at her new high school, as she vies for the affections of Jimmy, who is stuck on a girl (Elaine) who is toying with him. The school's music teacher, Miss Roberts, takes an interest in Doris when she realizes what a good ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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