Arthur Seymour Lyons ''(né'' Efroimsky; 27 May 1895
Minsk,
Russia – 26 July 1963
Hollywood
Hollywood usually refers to:
* Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California
* Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States
Hollywood may also refer to:
Places United States
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* Hollywood, ...
) was a theatrical agent for stage, radio, and film. He was also a one-time film producer.
Career
Lyons was well-known for having been
Jack Benny's manager. His brother, Samuel Theodore Lyons ''(né'' Schleima Efroimsky; 1899–1941), also born in
Minsk, helped catapult
Jack Benny into big-time show business beginning 1929. Arthur Lyons produced the 1948 film, ''
Ruthless.'' Until his brother's death, Arthur and Sam were business partners. As producers, they were Lyons & Lyons. As agents, they were, in the 1930s, Lyons, McCormick and Lyons, then A & S Lyons Agency, Inc. Arthur was agent representative for
Eugene O'Neill,
Cole Porter
Cole Albert Porter (June 9, 1891 – October 15, 1964) was an American composer and songwriter. Many of his songs became standards noted for their witty, urbane lyrics, and many of his scores found success on Broadway and in film.
Born to ...
,
Jerome Kern,
Joan Crawford,
Ida Lupino,
Lucille Ball,
Hedy Lamar
Hedy Lamarr (; born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler; November 9, 1914 January 19, 2000) was an Austrian-born American film actress and inventor. A film star during Hollywood's golden age, Lamarr has been described as one of the greatest movie actresse ...
,
Carole Lombard
Carole Lombard (born Jane Alice Peters; October 6, 1908 – January 16, 1942) was an American actress, particularly noted for her energetic, often off-beat roles in screwball comedies. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Lombard 2 ...
,
Kitty Carlisle, and
Ray Milland
Ray Milland (born Alfred Reginald Jones; 3 January 1907 – 10 March 1986) was a Welsh-American actor and film director. His screen career ran from 1929 to 1985. He is remembered for his Academy Award and Cannes Film Festival Award-winning ...
.
Lyons is credited as
book writer {{unreferenced, date=January 2014
The book writer is the member of a musical's team who creates the book—the musical's plot, character development, and dramatic structure. Essentially, the book writer is the playwright of the musical, working ver ...
and
staging of the
''Chocolate Kiddies'' 1925 European tour.
Family
Lyons was married three times. His second, from 1938 to 1940, was to
B movie
A B movie or B film is a low-budget commercial motion picture. In its original usage, during the Golden Age of Hollywood, the term more precisely identified films intended for distribution as the less-publicized bottom half of a double feature ...
actress Irene Rhodes, ''pseudonym'' of Ila Rae Curnutt ''(maiden;'' 1918–1982). Ila, sometime around 1940, presumably after her divorce from Lyons, became engaged to
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan ( ; February 6, 1911June 5, 2004) was an American politician, actor, and union leader who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He also served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 ...
, which, according to her, lasted 8 or 9 months.
His third marriage – on November 16, 1961, in Los Angeles, to Winnifred L. Gilbert ''(née'' Winnifred L. Murphy; 1909–1991) – his surname on the marriage license was the maiden name of his mother, "Klionsky."
References
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Lyons, Arthur Seymour
1895 births
1963 deaths
Talent managers
Hollywood talent agents