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Winchell Smith
Winchell Smith (5 April 1871 – 10 June 1933) was an American playwright, known for big hit works such as '' Brewster's Millions'' (1906) and '' Lightnin' '' (1918). Many of his plays were made into movies. He spent freely but left a large fortune at his death. Early years Winchell Smith was born in Hartford, Connecticut, on 5 April 1871. He graduated from Hartford Public High School. He began his career in the theater company of William Gillette, his uncle. He became an assistant property man when he was eighteen, and then stage director. Three years later he played his first small role in ''The Prodigal Daughter''. Broadway After twelve years as an actor, in 1906 Smith began a career as a dramatist with a play based on the novel '' Brewster's Millions''. Smith was an assistant to Frederic Thompson, owner of the New York Hippodrome, who had a stage version of ''Brewster's Millions'' in rehearsal. Thompson was advised by the successful dramatists George Howells Broadhurst, A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hartford, Connecticut
Hartford is the capital city of the U.S. state of Connecticut. It was the seat of Hartford County until Connecticut disbanded county government in 1960. It is the core city in the Greater Hartford metropolitan area. Census estimates since the 2010 United States census have indicated that Hartford is the fourth-largest city in Connecticut with a 2020 population of 121,054, behind the coastal cities of Bridgeport, New Haven, and Stamford. Hartford was founded in 1635 and is among the oldest cities in the United States. It is home to the country's oldest public art museum (Wadsworth Atheneum), the oldest publicly funded park (Bushnell Park), the oldest continuously published newspaper (the ''Hartford Courant''), and the second-oldest secondary school (Hartford Public High School). It is also home to the Mark Twain House, where the author wrote his most famous works and raised his family, among other historically significant sites. Mark Twain wrote in 1868, "Of all the beautifu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Douglas Fairbanks
Douglas Elton Fairbanks Sr. (born Douglas Elton Thomas Ullman; May 23, 1883 – December 12, 1939) was an American actor, screenwriter, director, and producer. He was best known for his swashbuckling roles in silent films including '' The Thief of Bagdad'', ''Robin Hood'', and '' The Mark of Zorro'', but spent the early part of his career making comedies. Fairbanks was a founding member of United Artists. He was also a founding member of The Motion Picture Academy and hosted the 1st Academy Awards in 1929. With his marriage to actress and film producer Mary Pickford in 1920, the couple became 'Hollywood royalty', and Fairbanks was referred to as "The King of Hollywood", a nickname later passed on to actor Clark Gable. Though he was considered one of the biggest stars in Hollywood during the 1910s and 1920s, Fairbanks's career rapidly declined with the advent of the "talkies". His final film was ''The Private Life of Don Juan'' (1934). Early life Fairbanks was born Douglas ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shaftesbury Theatre
The Shaftesbury Theatre is a West End theatre, located on Shaftesbury Avenue, in the London Borough of Camden. Opened in 1911 as the New Prince's Theatre, it was the last theatre to be built in Shaftesbury Avenue. History The theatre was designed for the Melville Brothers by Bertie Crewe and opened on 26 December 1911 with a production of ''The Three Musketeers''. It was originally named the New Prince's Theatre, becoming the Prince's Theatre in 1914. The original capacity of the auditorium is unknown, but with standing room in the Stalls it is possible that over 3000 people were able to attend performances. The current capacity is between 1300 and 1400. The Prince's was the last theatre to be built in Shaftesbury Avenue, and is located on the junction between Shaftesbury Avenue and High Holborn. During the First World War, the Prince's advertised itself as ‘The Laughter House where you can forget the War.’ In September 1919, the theatre had considerable success with ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Grover Whalen
Grover Aloysius Whalen (1886–1962) was a prominent politician, businessman, and public relations guru in New York City during the 1930s and 1940s. Early years Whalen was born on July 2, 1886, in New York City, the son of an Irish immigrant father and a French-Canadian mother. They named their son after President Grover Cleveland, who was married on the same day that their child was born. His father, Michael Whalen, was a successful trucking contractor and a Tammany Hall supporter. Grover Whalen attended DeWitt Clinton High School and afterwards studied law. He then joined the staff of John Wanamaker's department store, with which he would long be associated. He married Anna Dolores Kelly in 1913. Whalen ran his father's ash and garbage disposal business for a time before becoming involved in politics, working for the election of John F. Hylan as Mayor of New York. Political appointments After Hylan became Mayor in 1918, Whalen was appointed to be Commissioner of Plants and St ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Francis Hylan
John Francis Hylan (April 20, 1868January 12, 1936) was the 96th Mayor of New York City (the seventh since the consolidation of the five boroughs), from 1918 to 1925. From rural beginnings in the Catskills, Hylan eventually obtained work in Brooklyn as a laborer on the elevated railroad. During his nine years with the company, he worked his way to engineer, and also studied to earn his high school diploma. He continued by earning a law degree. He practiced law for nine years, and also participated in local Democratic politics. In 1917 with the consent of Tammany and William Randolph Hearst, he was put forward as a Brooklyn Democratic candidate for Mayor and won the first of two terms. He was re-elected with a wide plurality, which swept many Brooklyn Democrats into office. His chief focus in office was to keep subway fares from rising. By the end of his second term, however, a report by a committee appointed by Governor Al Smith severely criticized his administration's handling of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pennsylvania Station (1910–1963)
Pennsylvania Station, often abbreviated to Penn Station, was a historic railroad station in New York City, named for the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR), its builder and original tenant. The station occupied an plot bounded by Seventh and Eighth Avenues and 31st and 33rd Streets in Midtown Manhattan. As the station shared its name with several stations in other cities, it was sometimes called New York Pennsylvania Station. The building was designed by McKim, Mead, and White and completed in 1910, enabling direct rail access to New York City from the south for the first time. Its head house and train shed were considered a masterpiece of the Beaux-Arts style and one of the great architectural works of New York City. The station contained 11 platforms serving 21 tracks, in approximately the same layout as the current Penn Station. The original building was one of the first stations to include separate waiting rooms for arriving and departing passengers, and when built, these were ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Abie's Irish Rose
''Abie's Irish Rose'' is a popular comedy by Anne Nichols, which premiered in 1922. Initially a Broadway play, it has become familiar through repeated stage productions, films and radio programs. The basic premise involves an Irish Catholic girl and a young Jewish man who marry despite the objections of their families. Theater and films Although it initially received poor reviews—with the notable exception of ''The New York Times'', which raved and said it would run for years—the Broadway play was a commercial hit, running for 2,327 performances between May 23, 1922, and October 1, 1927. At the time, this was the longest run in Broadway theater history, surpassing the record 1,291 performances set by the Winchell Smith and Frank Bacon 1918 play, '' Lightnin'''. The show's touring company had a similarly long run and held the record for longest-running touring company for nearly 40 years, until that record was broken by '' Hello, Dolly!'' in the 1960s. The touring company's ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Trip To Chinatown
''A Trip to Chinatown'' is a musical comedy in three acts by Charles H. Hoyt with music by Percy Gaunt and lyrics by Hoyt. In addition to the Gaunt and Hoyt score, many songs were interpolated into the score at one time or another during the run, as was fashionable for musicals of the era. The story concerns a widow who accidentally maneuvers several young suburban couples into a big city restaurant and brings romance to them and herself, as in '' Hello, Dolly!'' After almost a year of touring, the musical opened at Broadway’s Madison Square Theater on November 9, 1891, and ran for 657 performances, or just short of two years. This was the longest-running Broadway musical in history up to that time (although London had seen a few longer runs), and it held that record until ''Irene'' in 1919. The show was such a hit that several road companies played it throughout the country simultaneously with the Broadway production, and at one point a second company was even opened in Ne ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Hale Hoyt
Charles Hale Hoyt (July 26, 1859 – November 20, 1900) was an American dramatist and playwright. He was married twice, to stage actresses Flora Walsh and Caroline Miskel Hoyt, both of whom died young. The shock of the death of his second wife contributed towards his own behavior and alcohol consumption which culminated in his own death. Early life Hoyt was born in Concord, New Hampshire. He had a difficult childhood, as his mother died when he was ten years old. He graduated at the Boston Latin School and, after being engaged in the cattle business in Colorado for a time, took up newspaper work, first with the Saint Albans, Vermont, ''Advertiser'', and later becoming musical and dramatic critic of ''The Boston Post''. Career Beginning in 1883, Hoyt turned playwright and wrote a series of 20 farcical comedies (roughly one per year until his death) and a comic opera. Hoyt's plays emphasized individualized characters drawn from the everyday experiences of ordinary people. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Woodrow Wilson
Thomas Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856February 3, 1924) was an American politician and academic who served as the 28th president of the United States from 1913 to 1921. A member of the Democratic Party, Wilson served as the president of Princeton University and as the governor of New Jersey before winning the 1912 presidential election. As president, Wilson changed the nation's economic policies and led the United States into World War I in 1917. He was the leading architect of the League of Nations, and his progressive stance on foreign policy came to be known as Wilsonianism. Wilson grew up in the American South, mainly in Augusta, Georgia, during the Civil War and Reconstruction. After earning a Ph.D. in political science from Johns Hopkins University, Wilson taught at various colleges before becoming the president of Princeton University and a spokesman for progressivism in higher education. As governor of New Jersey from 1911 to 1913, Wilson broke with party bosse ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gaiety Theatre (New York City)
The Gaiety Theatre was a Broadway theatre at 1547 Broadway in Times Square, Manhattan, New York City from 1909 until 1982, when it was torn down. The office building that housed the theatre, the Gaiety Building, has been called the Black Tin Pan Alley for the number of African-American songwriters who rented office space there. It was designed by Herts & Tallant and owned by George M. Cohan. The theatre introduced revolutionary concepts of a sunken orchestra (the previous configuration had the orchestra on the same level as the seats in front of the stage) and also not having pillars obstructing sight lines for the balcony. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frank Bacon (actor)
Frank Bacon (January 16, 1864 – November 19, 1922), was an American character actor and playwright who after years of relative obscurity achieved great success as he entered the twilight of his career. The 1918 play '' Lightnin''', which Bacon co-wrote and starred in, set a Broadway record for the day of 1,291 performances and was still going strong on tour after more than 700 shows when Bacon was forced to bow out due to fatigue. His death from a heart attack followed a week later. Early life Bacon was born on his parents’ farm about five miles west of Yuba City, California, not far from Bogue Station on the old Southern Pacific Railroad line. His parents, Lehella Jane McGrew and Lyddall Bacon, came from Kentucky and were married at Prairie City on October 2, 1853 by the Rev. Alex Graham in a double ceremony with Sarah Emma McGrew and E. H. Heacock.Frank Bacon, Actor, Tired Out, Is Dead ''The New York Times,'' November 20, 1922 p. 1 Bacon was raised in San Jose where h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
