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Tom Fadden
Tom Fadden (January 6, 1895 – April 14, 1980) was an American actor. He performed on the legitimate stage, vaudeville, in films and on television during his long career. Early life Fadden was born in Bayard, Iowa, on January 6, 1895; his father was a mining engineer. Early in life the family moved farther west, moving from state to state, including the Dakotas, Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, Oregon, and Nebraska. In Nebraska Fadden graduated from Creighton University. Career After graduating from college, Fadden joined a theater company in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1915. He acted in stock companies and vaudeville during the 1910s and 1920s. In 1924 he made his Broadway debut, starring as Peter Jekyll in ''The Wonderful Visit''. Over the next fifteen years he appeared in almost two dozen productions on the Great White Way, including ''Nocturne'' (1925), ''The Butter and Egg Man'' (1925–26), ''Elmer Gantry'' (1928), ''The Petrified Forest'' (1935) and ''Our Town'' (1938). During a revival ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kansas Pacific (film)
''Kansas Pacific'' is a 1953 American Cinecolor Western film released by Allied Artists Pictures and directed by Ray Nazarro. It stars Sterling Hayden and Eve Miller. While the film was released in 1953, the title screen clearly states "Copyright MCMLII" (1952). The film offers a fictionalized account of the struggle to build the Kansas Pacific Railway in the early 1860s just prior to the American Civil War. In the film the building of the railroad in Kansas is opposed by sympathizers of the South before it forms the Confederacy. General-in-Chief of the United States Army Winfield Scott sends a Corps of Engineers captain (Hayden) incognito to complete the railroad in order to supply western Union outposts when the anticipated war starts. Opposing the railway is Confederate William Quantrill (Reed Hadley), whose mission is to stop or delay the railway from being completed. The rights to the film are currently in the public domain. Production The movie was filmed at the Iver ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bob Hope
Leslie Townes "Bob" Hope (May 29, 1903 – July 27, 2003) was a British-American comedian, vaudevillian, actor, singer and dancer. With a career that spanned nearly 80 years, Hope appeared in more than 70 short and feature films, with 54 feature films with Hope as star, including a series of seven '' Road to ...'' musical comedy films with Bing Crosby as Hope's top-billed partner. In addition to hosting the Academy Awards show 19 times, more than any other host, Hope appeared in many stage productions and television roles and wrote 14 books. The song "Thanks for the Memory" was his signature tune. Hope was born in the Eltham district of southeast London, he arrived in the United States with his family at the age of four, and grew up near Cleveland, Ohio. After a brief career as a boxer in the late 1910s, Hope began his career in show business in the early 1920s, initially as a comedian and dancer on the vaudeville circuit, before acting on Broadway. Hope began appeari ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dallas (film)
''Dallas'' is a 1950 American Western Technicolor film directed by Stuart Heisler, and starring Gary Cooper, Ruth Roman, Barbara Payton, and Raymond Massey. The film is set in the title city during the Reconstruction Era of the United States. Plot Blayde Hollister is a former Confederate out to revenge himself on a group of carpetbaggers who murdered his family and destroyed their home in Georgia. With the help of his friend Wild Bill Hickok, Hollister's death is faked and he accompanies and swaps identities with Federal Marshal Martin Weatherby. Martin is an inexperienced dude from the East using the position of Marshal to impress his fiancée Tonia, whose Mexican family is being terrorized by the same gang that murdered Reb's family and terrorized Georgia. Hollister, posing as the dude Martin, protects both men and lets them get closer to the carpetbaggers. Cast * Gary Cooper as Blayde Hollister * Ruth Roman as Tonia Robles * Steve Cochran as Bryant Marlow * Raymond Massey a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Irving Bacon
Irving Bacon (born Irving Von Peters; September 6, 1893 – February 5, 1965) was an American character actor who appeared in almost 500 films. Early years Bacon was the son of entertainers Millar Bacon and Myrtle Vane. He was born in St. Joseph, Missouri, and grew up in San Diego, California. Career Bacon played on the stage for a number of years before getting into films in 1912 in Mack Sennett productions. The actor returned to the Sennett studio in 1924, and appeared frequently in Sennett's silent and sound comedies as a supporting actor. By 1933 Bacon was so well established as a utility player that he was pressed into service to replace Andy Clyde -- wearing Clyde's "old man" costume and makeup -- in a Sennett comedy. Irving Bacon was sometimes cast in films directed by Lloyd Bacon (incorrectly named as his brother in several sources) such as ''The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse'' (1938). He often played comical "average guys" in scores of feature films; in 1939 alone he app ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pocketful Of Miracles
''Pocketful of Miracles'' is a 1961 American comedy film starring Glenn Ford and Bette Davis, produced and directed by Frank Capra, filmed in Panavision. The screenplay by Hal Kanter and Harry Tugend was based on Robert Riskin's screenplay for the 1933 film ''Lady for a Day'', which was adapted from the 1929 Damon Runyon short story "Madame La Gimp". That original 1933 film was also directed by Capra—one of two films that he originally directed and later remade, the other being '' Broadway Bill'' (1934) and its remake '' Riding High'' (1950). The film proved to be the final project for both Capra and veteran actor Thomas Mitchell, while also marking the film debut of Ann-Margret. Peter Falk was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Plot Dave the Dude (Glenn Ford), a very successful New York City gangster, has one superstition: he believes that the apples he buys from alcoholic street peddler Apple Annie (Bette Davis) bring him luck. Annie assures the Dude ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Damon Runyon
Alfred Damon Runyon (October 4, 1880 – December 10, 1946) was an American newspaperman and short-story writer. He was best known for his short stories celebrating the world of Broadway in New York City that grew out of the Prohibition era. To New Yorkers of his generation, a "Damon Runyon character" evoked a distinctive social type from Brooklyn or Midtown Manhattan. The adjective "Runyonesque" refers to this type of character and the type of situations and dialog that Runyon depicts. He spun humorous and sentimental tales of gamblers, hustlers, actors, and gangsters, few of whom go by "square" names, preferring instead colorful monikers such as "Nathan Detroit", "Benny Southstreet", "Big Jule", "Harry the Horse", "Good Time Charley", "Dave the Dude", or "The Seldom Seen Kid". His distinctive vernacular style is known as "Runyonese": a mixture of formal speech and colorful slang, almost always in the present tense, and always devoid of contractions. He is credited with co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
It's A Wonderful Life
''It's a Wonderful Life'' is a 1946 American Christmas by medium#Films, Christmas Fantasy film, fantasy drama film produced and directed by Frank Capra, based on the short story and booklet ''The Greatest Gift'', which Philip Van Doren Stern self-published in 1943 and is in turn loosely based on the 1843 Charles Dickens novella ''A Christmas Carol''. The film stars James Stewart as George Bailey (It's a Wonderful Life), George Bailey, a man who has given up his personal dreams in order to help others in his community and whose thoughts of suicide on Christmas Eve bring about the intervention of his guardian angel, Clarence Odbody (Henry Travers). Clarence shows George all the lives he touched and what the world would be like if he did not exist. Theatrically, the film's break-even point was $6.3 million, about twice the production cost, a figure it did not come close to achieving on its initial release. Because of the film's disappointing sales, Capra was seen by some stud ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frank Capra
Frank Russell Capra (born Francesco Rosario Capra; May 18, 1897 – September 3, 1991) was an Italian-born American film director, producer and writer who became the creative force behind some of the major award-winning films of the 1930s and 1940s. Born in Italy and raised in Los Angeles from the age of five, his rags-to-riches story has led film historians such as Ian Freer to consider him the " American Dream personified".Freer 2009, pp. 40–41. Capra became one of America's most influential directors during the 1930s, winning three Academy Awards for Best Director from six nominations, along with three other Oscar wins from nine nominations in other categories. Among his leading films were ''It Happened One Night'' (1934), ''Mr. Deeds Goes to Town'' (1936), '' You Can't Take It with You'' (1938), and '' Mr. Smith Goes to Washington'' (1939). During World War II, Capra served in the U.S. Army Signal Corps and produced propaganda films, such as the ''Why We Fight'' seri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lauren Bacall
Lauren Bacall (; born Betty Joan Perske; September 16, 1924 – August 12, 2014) was an American actress. She was named the 20th-greatest female star of classic Hollywood cinema by the American Film Institute and received an Academy Honorary Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 2009 in recognition of her contribution to the Golden Age of motion pictures. She was known for her alluring, sultry presence and her distinctive, husky voice. Bacall was one of the last surviving major stars from the Golden Age of Hollywood cinema. Bacall began a career as a model for the Walter Thornton Model Agency before making her film debut at the age of 19 as the leading lady opposite her future husband Humphrey Bogart in ''To Have and Have Not'' (1944). She continued in the film noir genre with appearances alongside her new husband in ''The Big Sleep'' (1946), ''Dark Passage'' (1947), and ''Key Largo'' (1948), and she starred in the romantic comedies ''How to Marry a Mill ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Humphrey Bogart
Humphrey DeForest Bogart (; December 25, 1899 – January 14, 1957), nicknamed Bogie, was an American film and stage actor. His performances in Classical Hollywood cinema films made him an American cultural icon. In 1999, the American Film Institute selected Bogart as the greatest male star of classic American cinema. Bogart began acting in Broadway shows, beginning his career in motion pictures with ''Up the River'' (1930) for Fox and appeared in supporting roles for the next decade, regularly portraying gangsters. He was praised for his work as Duke Mantee in ''The Petrified Forest'' (1936), but remained cast secondary to other actors at Warner Bros. who received leading roles. Bogart also received positive reviews for his performance as gangster Hugh "Baby Face" Martin, in ''Dead End'' (1937), directed by William Wyler. His breakthrough from supporting roles to stardom was set in motion with '' High Sierra'' (1941) and catapulted in '' The Maltese Falcon'' (1941), conside ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Big Sleep (1946 Film)
''The Big Sleep'' is a 1946 American film noir directed by Howard Hawks, the first film version of the 1939 novel of the same name by Raymond Chandler. The film stars Humphrey Bogart as private detective Philip Marlowe and Lauren Bacall as Vivian Rutledge in a story about the "process of a criminal investigation, not its results". William Faulkner, Leigh Brackett and Jules Furthman co-wrote the screenplay. Initially produced in late 1944, the film's release was delayed by over a year due to the studio wanting to release war films in anticipation of the end of World War II. A cut was released to servicemen overseas in 1945 shortly after its completion. During its delay, Bogart and Bacall married and Bacall was cast in '' Confidential Agent''. When the movie failed, reshoots were done in early 1946 meant to take advantage of the public's fascination with "Bogie and Bacall". The film was finally released by Warner Bros. on August 31, 1946. The film was a critical and commercial su ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Naughty Nineties
''The Naughty Nineties'' is a 1945 American film starring the comedy team of Abbott and Costello. The film is noteworthy for containing a filmed version of the duo's famous "Who's on First?" routine. This version is shown at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York. Plot The time is the 1890s. Captain Sam, owner of the showboat ''River Queen'', travels along the Mississippi River bringing honest entertainment to each town. At a stop in Ironville, he meets Crawford, Bonita, and Bailey, who are wanted by the local sheriff. Against the advice of his daughter Caroline, his lead actor Dexter Broadhurst, and his chief roustabout Sebastian Dinwiddle, the Captain joins them for a card game at a local gambling house. The Captain is plied with alcohol until he is intoxicated and gets involved in a crooked card game where he loses controlling interest in the show boat to Bonita and Crawford. They turn the showboat into a floating gambling casino with every g ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
