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Without Reservations
''Without Reservations'' is a 1946 RKO Radio Pictures American comedy film directed by Mervyn LeRoy and starring Claudette Colbert, John Wayne and Don DeFore. The film was adapted by Andrew Solt from the novel ''Thanks, God! I'll Take It From Here'' by Jane Allen and Mae Livingston. Plot Successful author Christopher "Kit" Madden travels to Los Angeles to work on the film adaptation of her bestselling book ''Here is Tomorrow''. The film was originally supposed to star Cary Grant as the Army Air Forces pilot hero Mark Winston and Lana Turner, but Grant has withdrawn and the producer wants an unknown actor to play Winston. On a train to Hollywood, Kit meets two Marine pilots, captain "Rusty" Thomas and first lieutenant "Dink" Watson. She considers Rusty the best choice to play Winston, but he is dismissive of her book, as she wrote a political allegory and he does not believe that Grant would refuse Turner for 400 pages. Unsure how he will react if he discovers that she is a famous ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mervyn LeRoy
Mervyn LeRoy (; October 15, 1900 – September 13, 1987) was an American film director and producer. In his youth he played juvenile roles in vaudeville and silent film comedies. During the 1930s, LeRoy was one of the two great practitioners of economical and effective film directing at Warner Brothers studios, the other his cohort Michael Curtiz. LeRoy's most acclaimed films of his tenure at Warners include '' Little Caesar'' (1931), ''I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang'' (1932), ''Gold Diggers of 1933'' (1933) and ''They Won't Forget'' (1937). LeRoy left Warners and moved to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios in 1939 to serve as both director and producer. Perhaps his most notable achievement as a producer is the 1939 classic '' The Wizard of Oz'', of which he was also uncredited as a director. Early life LeRoy was born on October 15, 1900, in San Francisco, California, the only child of Jewish parents Edna (née Armer) and Harry LeRoy, a well-to-do department store owner. Both hi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States Army Air Forces
The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II (1941–1945). It was created on 20 June 1941 as successor to the previous United States Army Air Corps and is the direct predecessor of the United States Air Force, today one of the six United States Armed Forces, armed forces of the United States. The AAF was a component of the United States Army, which on 2 March 1942 was divided functionally by executive order into three autonomous forces: the Army Ground Forces, the United States Army Services of Supply (which in 1943 became the Army Service Forces), and the Army Air Forces. Each of these forces had a commanding general who reported directly to the Chief of Staff of the United States Army, Army Chief of Staff. The AAF administered all parts of military aviation formerly distributed am ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dolores Moran
Dolores Jean Moran (January 27, 1926 – February 5, 1982) was an American film actress and model. Early years Moran was born in Stockton, California, and attended elementary and secondary schools there. She won the Northern California Oratorical Contest and starred in school plays. Film career In 1942, aged 16, Moran, originally named Jacqueline, the daughter of James G. Moran and his wife, Esther Moran was signed by Warner Bros. to a seven-year contract, with her parents' permission. Moran's brief career as a film actress began with uncredited roles in such films as ''Yankee Doodle Dandy'' (1942) as "the Pippirino" (with whom George blows off a date to go out with Mary). By 1943, she had become a pin-up girl appearing on the cover of such magazines as ''Yank''. She was given supporting roles in films, such as ''Old Acquaintance'' (1943) with Bette Davis. Warner Bros. attempted to increase interest in her, promoting her along with Lauren Bacall as a new screen per ... [...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] |
Lisa Golm
Lisa Golm ( Luise Schmertzler; 10 April 1891 – 6 January 1964) was a German actress who emigrated to America and appeared in a number of Hollywood films as a character actress. Golm made her first screen appearance in the 1939 film ''Confessions of a Nazi Spy''. She also featured on American television, appearing on shows such as ''Alfred Hitchcock Presents'', ''The Third Man'' and ''The Twilight Zone''. Biography On 6 November 1918, she married Ernest Otto Ferdinand Golm in Berlin, Germany and later entered the United States at New York City on 3 December 1937. She was naturalized as an American citizen on 24 September 1943, when a resident of Los Angeles. Death Golm died on 6 January 1964, aged 72, in Tel Aviv, Israel from a neoplasm (or tumour). She was buried in the Haifa Cemetery in Israel. She was survived by her sister, Jennie Schmerzler. Selected filmography * ''Confessions of a Nazi Spy'' (1939) * ''Escape'' (1940) * ''So Ends Our Night'' (1941) * ''Journey fo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sam McDaniel
Samuel Rufus McDaniel (January 28, 1886September 24, 1962)Tanner, Beccy (November 7, 1991)"McDaniel Opened Doors; 'Gone With the Wind' Was Actress' Most Famous Film" ''The Wichita Eagle''. Retrieved January 3, 2021. was an American actor who appeared in over 210 television shows and films between 1929 and 1950. He was the older brother of actresses Etta McDaniel and Hattie McDaniel. Early life Born in Wichita, Kansas, to former slaves, McDaniel was one of 13 children.Bogle, Donald (2019)''Hollywood Black: The Stars, the Films, the Filmmakers'' New York: Perseus Books. p. 199. . His father Henry McDaniel fought in the Civil War with the 122nd USCT and his mother, Susan Holbert, was a singer of gospel music. In 1900, the family moved to Colorado, living first in Fort Collins and then in Denver where he grew up and graduated from Denver East High School. The children of the McDaniel family had a traveling minstrel show. After the death of brother Otis in 1916, the troupe began to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frank Wilcox
Frank Reppy Wilcox (March 13, 1907 – March 3, 1974) was an American actor. He appeared in numerous films and television series, as well as Broadway plays. Background Wilcox was the son of Mr. and Mrs. Roger V. Wilcox. He was born in De Soto, Missouri, but the family moved to Atchison, Kansas. Wilcox worked in Kansas City as an oil company's sales manager. Acting career Wilcox joined the Pasadena Community Playhouse. By December 1924, he headed the Frank Wilcox Company, which produced plays in venues that included the Lyceum in Baltimore. In 1927, he became a member of The Lambs Club. Wilcox became a contract player for Warner Bros., beginning with the 1939 short film ''The Monroe Doctrine'', in which he was chosen to portray the American statesman Henry Clay during the early 1820s. He played Abraham Lincoln as a militia captain in another 1939 film short ''Old Hickory'', based on key events in the public career of President Andrew Jackson. During World War II, Wilcox ser ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Louella Parsons
Louella Parsons (born Louella Rose Oettinger; August 6, 1881 – December 9, 1972) was an American movie columnist and a screenwriter. She was retained by William Randolph Hearst because she had championed Hearst's mistress Marion Davies and subsequently became an influential figure in Hollywood. At her peak, her columns were read by 20 million people in 700 newspapers worldwide. She remained the unchallenged “Queen of Hollywood gossip” until the arrival of the flamboyant Hedda Hopper, with whom she feuded for years. Early life Louella Parsons was born Louella Rose Oettinger in Freeport, Illinois, the daughter of Helen (Stine) and Joshua Oettinger. Her father was of German Jewish descent, as was her maternal grandfather, while her maternal grandmother, Jeanette Wilcox, was of Irish origin. During her childhood, her parents attended an Episcopal church. She had two brothers, Edwin and Fred, and a sister, Rae. In 1890, her widowed mother married John H. Edwards. They lived i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Arnt
Charles E. Arnt (August 20, 1906 – August 6, 1990) was an American film actor from 1933 to 1962. Arnt appeared as a character actor in more than 200 films. Arnt was born in Michigan City, Indiana, the son of a banker. He graduated from Phillips Academy and Princeton University. While at Princeton, he helped to found the University Players and was president of the Princeton Triangle Club theatrical troupe. He became a banker after he graduated from college. In the early 1930s, Arnt acted with the University Repertory Theater in Maryland. On Broadway, he appeared in ''Carry Nation'' (1932), ''Three Waltzes'' (1937), and ''Knickerbocker Holiday'' (1938). In 1962, Arnt retired from acting and began to import and breed Charolais cattle on a ranch in Washington state. Arnt died in Orcas Island, Washington from pancreatic and liver cancer. He was survived by his wife, two sons, a daughter, and four grandchildren. Selected filmography * ''Roman Scandals'' (1933) – Caiu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dona Drake
Dona Drake (born Eunice Westmoreland; November 15, 1914 – June 20, 1989) was an American singer, dancer and film actress in the 1930s and 1940s. Drake was mixed race by ancestry. She often presented herself as Mexican and went by the names Una Novella and Rita Novella, typically being cast in "ethnic" white roles including Latin American and Middle Easterners. As Mexican "Rita Rio", she led a touring all-girl orchestra in the early 1940s, also known as "Dona Drake and her Girl Band", among other names for her musical and dance acts. Early life Drake was born Eunice Westmoreland in Miami, Florida in 1914, one of five children of Joseph Westmoreland and his wife, Novella (née Smith). U.S. Census reports on her family history identify her grandparents as one black couple and one couple that was black/white. Career Entering show business in the 1930s, she used the names Una Velon (or Una Villon), Rita Rio and Rita Shaw. Una Villon She began performing in 1932, working under ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thurston Hall
Ernest Thurston Hall (May 10, 1882 – February 20, 1958) was an American film, stage and television actor.Aylesworth, Thomas G. and Bowman, John S. (1987). ''The World Almanac Who's Who of Film''. World Almanac. . Pp. 186-187. Career Stage Hall toured with various New England stage companies during his teens, then went onto London, where he formed a small stage troupe. He also toured New Zealand and South Africa."Katz, Ephraim (1979). ''The Film Encyclopedia: The Most Comprehensive Encyclopedia of World Cinema in a Single Volume''. Perigee Books. . P. 526. At 22 in 1904, Hall was in the first stage production of '' Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch''. His Broadway credits include ''The Only Girl'' (1914), ''Have a Heart'' (1917), ''Civilian Clothes'' (1919), ''The French Doll'' (1922), ''Still Waters'' (1926), ''Buy, Buy, Baby'' (1926), ''Mixed Doubles'' (1927), ''Behold the Bridegroom'' (1927), ''The Common Sin'' (1928), ''Sign of the Leopard'' (1928), ''Security'' (1929), ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frank Puglia
Francesco Giuseppe "Frank" Puglia (9 March 1892 – 25 October 1975) was an Italian-American film actor. He had small, but memorable roles in films including ''Casablanca'' (a Moroccan rug merchant), ''Now, Voyager'' and ''The Jungle Book''. Biography Born in Linguaglossa, Catania, Sicily, the actor started his career as a teen on stage in Italian operas. He emigrated to the U.S. in 1907. He left from Naples on the ship ''Italia''. In New York City he worked in a laundry before joining an Italian language theater group. While appearing on stage, he was discovered by D. W. Griffith, which began an acting career spanning over 150 films. He usually played ethnic types in films, and claimed to have learned English from reading newspapers. He was originally cast as the undertaker, Bonasera, in Francis Ford Coppola's movie ''The Godfather'' (1972), even participating in Marlon Brando's screen test, but he fell ill before filming could begin. He was replaced by Sicilian actor Sal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
