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Ziegfeld Girls
Ziegfeld Girls were the chorus girls and showgirls from Florenz Ziegfeld's theatrical Broadway revue spectaculars known as the ''Ziegfeld Follies'' (1907–1931), in New York City, which were based on the Folies Bergère of Paris. Description These showgirls followed on the heels of the Florodora girls, who had started to "loosen the corset" of the Gibson Girl in the early years of the 20th century. These beauties, decked out in Erté designs, gained many young male admirers and became objects of popular adoration. All of the showgirls looked very similar, both in appearance and in stature. They danced in complete synchronization, and were the only act that was uniform in the Ziegfeld Follies. Many were persuaded to leave the show to marry, some to men of substantial wealth. The Ziegfeld Ball in New York City continued as a social event of the season for years after the last production of the Follies. In 1897, Ziegfeld married Anna Held, one of his Ziegfeld girls, by com ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chorus Line
A chorus line is a large group of dancers who together perform synchronized routines, usually in musical theatre. Sometimes, singing is also performed. Chorus line dancers in Broadway musicals and revues have been referred to by slang terms such as ''ponies'', ''gypsies'' and ''twirlies''. A chorus girl or chorine is a performer in a chorus line (i.e. the chorus of a theatrical production), in contrast to terms such as ''chorist'' or ''chorister'' (a member of a choir). While synchronized dancing indicative of a chorus line (often composed of chorus girls) was vogue during the first half of the 20th century, modern theatre uses the terms " ensemble" or " chorus" to indicate all supporting players in a stage production. These supporting players often also play minor characters, move set pieces, and support the production in other unique ways. History In the mid-1800s, chorus lines of cartwheeling, synchronized dancing can-can girls began sprouting up throughout Paris with e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paulette Goddard
Paulette Goddard (born Marion Levy; June 3, 1910 – April 23, 1990) was an American actress notable for her film career in the Golden Age of Hollywood. Born in Manhattan and raised in Kansas City, Missouri, Goddard initially began her career as a child fashion model and performer in several Broadway productions as a Ziegfeld Girl. In the early 1930s, she moved to Hollywood and gained notice as the romantic partner of actor and comedian Charlie Chaplin, appearing as his leading lady in '' Modern Times'' (1936) and ''The Great Dictator'' (1940). After signing with Paramount Pictures, Goddard became one of the studio's biggest stars with roles in '' The Cat and the Canary'' (1939) with Bob Hope, '' The Women'' (1939) with Joan Crawford, '' North West Mounted Police'' (1940) with Gary Cooper, '' Reap the Wild Wind'' (1942) with John Wayne and Susan Hayward, '' So Proudly We Hail!'' (1943) — for which she received a nomination for Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress — '' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lilyan Tashman
Lilyan Tashman (October 23, 1896 – March 21, 1934) was an American actress. Tashman was best known for her supporting roles as tongue-in-cheek villainesses or playing the vindictive "other woman". She made 66 films over the course of her Hollywood career, and although she never obtained superstar status, her cinematic performances are described as "sharp, clever and have aged little over the decades." Tall, blonde, and slender with fox-like features and a throaty voice, Tashman freelanced as a fashion and artist's model in New York City. By 1914, she was an experienced vaudevillian, appearing in Ziegfeld Follies between 1916 and 1918. In 1921 Tashman made her film debut in ''Experience'', and over the next decade and a half she appeared in numerous silent films. With her husky contralto singing voice she easily navigated the transition to sound film. Tashman married vaudevillian Al Lee in 1914, but they divorced in 1921. She married actor Edmund Lowe in 1925, and her war ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Odette Myrtil
Odette Myrtil (born Odette Laure Clotilde Quignarde; June 28, 1898 – November 18, 1978) was a French-born American actress, singer, and violinist. She began her career as a violinist on the vaudeville stage in Paris at 14. She expanded into acting and singing and had her first major success at 18 on the London stage in the 1916 musical revue ''The Bing Boys Are Here''. She was a staple in Broadway productions from 1924 to 1932, after which she returned only periodically to Broadway through 1960. She also appeared on the stages of Chicago, London, Los Angeles, and Paris several times during her career. From 1923 to 1972, Myrtil appeared as an actress in a total of 28 feature films, most of which were made from the mid-1930s through the mid-1950s. Not a leading lady on camera, she specialized in character roles and was often used for her gifts as a singer. She made only one television appearance during her career: in the Studio One in Hollywood 1953 episode "The Paris Feeli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dorothy Mackaill
Dorothy Mackaill (March 4, 1903 – August 12, 1990) was a British-American actress, most active during the silent-film era and into the pre-Code era of the early 1930s. Early life Born in Sculcoates, Kingston upon Hull in 1903 (although she later would claim 1904 or 1905 as her year of birth, including on her petition for naturalization as a United States citizen, giving 1904 as the year), Mackaill lived with her father after her parents separated when she was around eleven years old. She attended Thoresby Primary School. As a teenager, Mackaill ran away to London to pursue a stage career as an actress. At age 16, she danced in ''Joybelles'' at London's Hippodrome and worked in Paris acting in a few minor Pathé films. She met a Broadway stage choreographer who persuaded her to migrate to New York City, where aged 17 she became active in the ''Ziegfeld Follies,'' dancing in his ''Midnight Frolic'' review. Career By 1920, Mackaill had begun making the transition from "Follies ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mae Murray
Mae Murray (born Marie Adrienne Koenig; May 10, 1885 – March 23, 1965) was an American actress, dancer, film producer, and screenwriter. Murray rose to fame during the silent film era and was known as "The Girl with the Bee-Stung Lips" and "The Gardenia of the Screen". Early life Murray was born in New York City, the second-oldest child of Joseph and Mary (née Miller) Koenig. Her maternal grandparents had emigrated from France while her paternal grandparents had emigrated from Germany. She had two brothers, William Robert (born November 1889) and Howard Joseph (born January 1884). The family eventually moved to an apartment in the Lower East Side. In May 1896, Joseph Koenig, Murray's father, died from acute gastritis due to his alcoholism. To support the family, Mary Koenig took a job as a housekeeper for Harry Payne Whitney. Career Stage Murray began acting on the Broadway stage in 1906 with dancer Vernon Castle. In 1908, she joined the chorus line of the Ziegfeld Fol ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Julanne Johnston
Julanne Johnston (May 1, 1900 – December 26, 1988) was an American silent film actress. Biography Johnston was born and educated in Indianapolis, Indiana, then her family moved to Hollywood. There she took dancing lessons at the Denishawn School and acted with the Hollywood Community Theatre for two years. She also attended the Hollywood School for Girls. Johnston began her career as a solo dancer and toured with Ruth St. Denis during summer vacations from school. In 1924, she was selected to be a WAMPAS Baby Star. Douglas Fairbanks saw Johnston dance in a theater before the premiere of his film ''Robin Hood'', and this exposure resulted in his signing her to be the leading lady in '' The Thief of Bagdad'', with Anna May Wong in 1924. The same year, she was on William Randolph Hearst's yacht the '' Oneida'' during the weekend in November 1924 when film director and producer Thomas Ince later died of apparent heart failure (many conspiracy theories exist about Ince's death) ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nita Naldi
Nita Naldi (born Mary Nonna Dooley; In this reference Naldi's birth name Nonna is mistakenly cited “Donna”. Naldi's birthname in this reference is also incorrectly cited as “Donna”. November 13, 1894 – February 17, 1961) was an American stage performer and silent film actress. She was often cast in theatrical and screen productions as a vamp, a persona first popularized by actress Theda Bara. Early life Nita Naldi was born in a tenement in New York City to working class Irish parents, Julia (née Cronin) and Patrick Dooley, in 1894.“Nina Naldi” 23 Sahara Knights: Rudolf Valentino Film Festival, Rudolf Valentino Society and Publishing, LLC. Retrieved November 6, 2018. Four of her siblings died in infancy, with only her younger brother, Daniel Aloysius, surviving to adulthood. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Louise Brooks
Mary Louise Brooks (November 14, 1906 – August 8, 1985) was an American film actress and dancer during the 1920s and 1930s. She is regarded today as an icon of the Jazz Age and flapper culture, in part due to the bob hairstyle that she helped popularize during the prime of her career. At the age of 15, Brooks began her career as a dancer and toured with the Denishawn School of Dancing and Related Arts where she performed opposite Ted Shawn. After being fired, she found employment as a chorus girl in ''George White's Scandals'' and as a semi-nude dancer in the ''Ziegfeld Follies'' in New York City. While dancing in the ''Follies'', Brooks came to the attention of Walter Wanger, a producer at Paramount Pictures, and was signed to a five-year contract with the studio. She appeared in supporting roles in various Paramount films before taking the heroine's role in '' Beggars of Life'' (1928). During this time, she became an intimate friend of actress Marion Davies and joined the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lilian Bond
Lilian Bond (January 18, 1908 – January 25, 1991) was an English-American actress based in the United States. Life and career Bond was born in London and made her first professional stage appearance at the age of 14 in the pantomime ''Dick Whittington and His Cat''. Later she joined the chorus of ''Piccadilly Revels'' and continued on the stage when she relocated to the United States, where her performances included roles in ''The Earl Carroll Vanities'' and in various productions of the Ziegfeld Follies. Bond began working in films in 1929, initially in the drama ''No More Children'' for Cliff Broughton Productions. Between 1929 and 1931, she co-starred in eight additional films, most notably with Tom Tyler in the 1931 Western ''Rider of the Plains''. In 1932, she was named a WAMPAS Baby Star, along with Gloria Stuart, Ginger Rogers, and other young actresses rising in popularity with theater audiences. From 1932 to 1953, she had roles in 39 more films, ranging from l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Billie Dove
Lillian Bohny (born Bertha Eugenie Bohny; May 14, 1903 – December 31, 1997), known professionally as Billie Dove, was an American actress. Early life and career Dove was born Bertha Eugenie Bohny in New York City in 1903 to Charles and Bertha (née Kagl) Bohny, both immigrants from Switzerland. She had a younger brother, Charles Reinhardt Bohny (1906-1963). As a teen, she worked as a model to help support her family and was hired as a teenager by Florenz Ziegfeld to appear in his Ziegfeld Follies Revue. She legally changed her name to Lillian Bohny in the early 1920s and moved to Hollywood, where she began appearing in silent films. She soon became one of the more popular actresses of the 1920s, appearing in Douglas Fairbanks' smash hit Technicolor film '' The Black Pirate'' (1926), as Rodeo West in ''The Painted Angel'' (1929), and '' The American Beauty'' (1927). She married Irvin Willat, the director of her seventh film, in 1923. The two divorced in 1929. Dove had a leg ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Barbara Stanwyck
Barbara Stanwyck (; born Ruby Catherine Stevens; July 16, 1907 – January 20, 1990) was an American actress, model and dancer. A stage, film, and television star, during her 60-year professional career she was known for her strong, realistic screen presence and versatility. She was a favorite of directors, including Cecil B. DeMille, Fritz Lang, and Frank Capra, and made 85 films in 38 years before turning to television. Orphaned at the age of four and partially raised in foster homes, she always worked. One of her directors, Jacques Tourneur, said of her, "She only lives for two things, and both of them are work." She made her debut on stage in the chorus as a Ziegfeld girl in 1923, at age 16, and within a few years was acting in plays. Her first lead role, which was in the hit ''Burlesque'' (1927), established her as a Broadway star. In 1929, she began acting in talking pictures. Frank Capra chose her for his romantic drama '' Ladies of Leisure'' (1930). This led to additi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
