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- Actor
- Soundtrack
As a young man, Kurt Kasznar enrolled in Max Reinhardt's seminars. He came to the US in the mid-30s in "The Eternal Road," in which he played at least 12 roles. In 1941, he produced the New York show, "Crazy with the Heat." That same year, he was drafted into the army, where he was trained as a cinematographer and served in the Pacific. His first major Broadway role was "The Happy Time." Kasznar also played in "The Sound Of Music," "Barefoot in The Park," "Waiting for Godot" and "Six Characters in Search of an Author." He has appeared in many films.- Music Department
- Composer
- Producer
Composer-pianist-arranger Johnny Green was born in Far Rockaway, New York. The son of musical parents, Green was accepted by Harvard at the age of 15, and entered the University in 1924. Between semesters, bandleader Guy Lombardo heard his Harvard Gold Coast Orchestra and hired him to create dance arrangements for his nationally famous orchestra. He gained a thorough education in music, history, economics, and government before returning to pursue a master's degree in the field of English literature. His father interrupted Johnny's education and forced him to become a stockbroker, and with great unhappiness, Johnny tried it for six months. His young bride Carol (to whom he dedicated Out of Nowhere) encouraged him to leave Wall Street and cultivate his many musical talents. She remarked, "We didn't have children, we had songs" (indeed, it was during his first marriage that most of his hit standards were composed, including "I Cover the Waterfront," You're Mine, You," "Easy Come, Easy Go," "Rain Rain Go Away" and "I Wanna Be Loved."). During the lean years, he arranged for dance orchestras, most notably Jean Goldkette on NBC. He was accompanist/arranger to stars such as James Melton, Libby Holman and Ethel Merman. It was while writing material for Gertrude Lawrence that he composed Body and Soul, the first recording of which was made by Jack Hylton and His Orchestra, eleven days before the song was copyrighted. 'Nathaniel Shilkret' and Paul Whiteman commissioned him to write larger works for orchestra, and he scored numerous films at Paramount's Astoria Studios. He conducted in East Coast theatres and toured vaudeville as musical director for Buddy Rogers. During his two-and-a-half years at Paramount Studios, he was able to learn more about arranging from veterans Adolph Deutsch and Frank Tours. In 1934, he returned from London, where he had composed a musical comedy for Jack Buchanan. At the age of 25, he had several hit songs under his belt. William Paley, the president of the Columbia Broadcasting System and an investor in New York's St. Regis Hotel, encouraged John W. Green to form what became known as Johnny Green, His Piano and Orchestra. (Green added, "My arm didn't need much twisting.") His orchestra made dance records for the Columbia and Brunswick companies, in a depressed era when record sales were inconsequential to a song's popularity. In 1935, Green starred on the Socony Sketchbook, sponsored by Socony-Vacuum Oil Co. He lured the young California songstress Virginia Verrill to headline with him on the Friday evening broadcasts. His "regular" cast of vocalists included former débutante Marjory Logan, Jimmy Farrell, and the four Eton Boys, all of whom appeared in films and on stage. Green's piano playing is intricate, and his musical ideas are exceedingly clever. Green was at the top of his field in New York, and he continued conducting on radio and in theatres into the 1940s, until he decided to move to Hollywood and make his mark in the film business. His credits as musical executive, arranger, conductor and composer are lengthy, but include such highlights as Raintree County (1957), Bathing Beauty (1944), Something in the Wind (1947), Easter Parade (1948) (Academy Award), Summer Stock (1950), An American in Paris (1951) (Academy Award), Royal Wedding (1951), High Society (1956) and West Side Story (1961) (Academy Award). Married three times, he had a daughter with actress Betty Furness and two daughters with MGM "Glamazon" Bunny Waters. He was a respected board member of ASCAP and guest conductor with symphonies around the globe, including the Hollywood Bowl, Denver Symphony, the Philadelphia Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic and more. He was a chairman of the music branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences and a producer of television specials.- Actor
- Soundtrack
The career of actor and night club nightclub performer Charles Pierce, "Male Actress," Stand-Up Comic in a Dress, and the "Master and Mistress of Surprise or Disguise" included acting and radio announcing, but as a female impressionist, Pierce has left his audiences weak with laughter, and brightened their lives with his wicked and sometimes irreverent impressions of film stars, including Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Tallulah Bankhead, Carol Channing, Katharine Hepburn and even "Mrs. Olsen" of the Folgers coffee commercials. His career took him to London, New York, San Francisco, Miami Beach, Los Angeles and Chicago. His 1984 show at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion was filmed and broadcast on the Playboy Channel. His engagements at the Henry Fonda Theatre (Hollywood), Ballroom and Village Gate (Manhattan) and the Fortune Theatre (London) were all sell-outs. During his illustrious career, celebrities around the world, including Tommy Tune, Anita Loos, Beatrice Arthur, Eugenia Bankhead (the sister), the Incomparable Hildegarde (with whom he appeared at Town Hall in New York), and Stephen Sondheim have toasted him. In the mid-1990s he retired, having lost several staff members to the AIDS epidemic. He made a few appearances for special events, such as author/actor Charles Busch's highly successful Town Hall drag summit show in New York City, which featured Milton Berle and all the best drag acts. In the last couple of years, Charles gathered together all his scrapbooks photographs, programs, recordings and videotapes and shipped them to the Performing Arts Library of Lincoln Center, New York, and to the ONE Archives at USC in Los Angeles. By May 1999 the materials were catalogued, and are now available to researchers.
Born on Bastille Day in 1926, Charles was named after his grandfather, Dr. Charles E. Pierce, and spent his youth in Watertown, New York. Beginning around 1944, Charles worked at a local radio station WWNY, playing the Hammond organ and acting in radio dramas. In a vintage photo taken at the station, 18-year-old Charles, seated at the organ, is shown looking at the sheet music of "They're Either Too Young Or Too Old," a song Bette Davis sang in the Warner Bros. film "Thank Your Lucky Stars." It was not easy for the critics to describe Charles' unique act, but when they did, he would happily appropriate the description. Apparently it was Herb Caen (in whose San Francisco Chronicle gossip column Charles appeared 50 times) who dubbed Charles a "male actress." When he played the Fairmont Venetian Room in the 1980s, the ads showed Charles as Bette Davis, holding a smoldering cigarette, with the caption, "The Last Drag."
Charles' first stand-up comedy routines were naïvely costumed. In a 1983 Public Radio interview on KALW in San Francisco, Charles said, "Through the years the act has had a lot of phases. I originally started in a tuxedo with a box of props. Then I started working clubs in Florida that required a lot of changes in material, so then I started working more or less in drag, and I say 'more or less' because Florida [laws] were very strict: You could wear black pants, you could wear a black turtle neck sweater, but you could not wear a dress. You could put feather boas on, and hats and gloves and pocketbooks, but you couldn't be in drag. And so we did a lot of pantomimes, and then I would do my 'live' material (maybe 10 minutes) at the end of that show. Eventually we ended up here in San Francisco (When I say 'we,' I refer to my performing partner at that time, Rio Dante), and we 'holed up' at the Gilded Cage for six years. We did a lot of pantomimes, and Mae West's [rock and roll] 'Treat Him Right' was one of them." In this same interview, Pierce admitted he never took the impersonations too seriously, "I've been billed as the 'stand up comic in a dress or 'the grand impostor,'...but it's all for laughs, it's all for fun and comedy."
Through the years, Charles' reputation built up from playing small gay clubs around the country, but San Francisco embraced him as no other town. John Wallraff, who attended the Pasadena Playhouse with Charles in 1947-48 reminisced: "He wanted to be a stage actor. He raced around Hollywood trying to get jobs. He went to a theatre group called Cabaret Concert, doing sketches à la Noël Coward. Back at Pasadena Playhouse, he played in Richard III and played the Ghost of Christmas Past in A Christmas Carol, Pierce also did some summer stock in upstate New York before returning to California. He had gone to see Arthur Blake - who did famous impressions of Bette Davis, Charles Laughton, and Tallulah Bankhead. Charles submitted some material to Blake, but Blake told him he wrote his own, so Charles said 'I'll use it myself!' While Living at Algonquin Hotel in Pasadena, in the early 50s, we went to see 'The Star' with Bette Davis. Charles decided it was fodder for a comedy parody, and performed it for me in his apartment. Charles and I started writing material, such as the Norma Desmond routine. At a Hollywood party, he played for a group that included Harriet Parsons (Louella's daughter), Jane Withers, Franklin Pangborn, and Mary McCarty. Charles did the tux bit in Altadena at Café La Vie, doing stand-up seriously. At various bars, he would improvise. Eventually Ann Dee, of Ann's 440 (San Francisco) saw him in Altadena and signed him up for her club, where Johnny Mathis later got his start."
"He then traveled to Florida, to the Red Carpet (Miami Beach) and the Echo Club. In Miami he met his future show-biz partner, Rio Dante, and they started to do lipsynching. They also created the puppets (The Moppettes), headless puppets Charles would put up to his own face and then perform outrageous dialogue and suggestive poses - with the likes of Shirley Temple, a Singing Nun, and a stripper. Rio Dante and Charles did a gig at the Statler Hotel in Hollywood and the Club Capri. Next stop was San Francisco's legendary Gilded Cage, in 1963, where he played a record six years. He made many appearances on television, but not always in drag: Wonder Woman, Designing Women, Fame (as a bag lady), Wayland Flowers and Madame in Madame's Place, Love American Style, Chico and the Man. Starsky and Hutch, Laverne & Shirley, and the talk shows of Dick Cavett, Merv Griffin, Mike Douglass and Regis & Kathy Lee."
He was selected by playwright Harvey Fierstein to play "Bertha Venation" in the film "Torch Song Trilogy." Pierce rolls his eyes in the dress shop when Harvey Fierstein tells Matthew Broderick that "...if anyone asks, I'm the pretty one." Through the years, Charles had the best musical directors/accompanists in the business, and they all admitted to having learned a great deal about comedy and timing from Mr. Pierce. Those who have accompanied him include Michael Biagi, Michael Ashton, Joan Edgar, Rio Dante, and Michael Feinstein (Backlot of Studio One, September, 1981). That's three Michaels, a Rio and a "real Woman," as Charles used to call Joan in front of a screaming, adoring audience. Joan Edgar, Charles' musical director for seven years, marveled at the way he would constantly work on his act, even up to the final performance. At the end of a three-month run, just before the final show, in his dressing room he remarked, "Darling, you know that line where I say that our theatre curtain used to be Orson Welles' boxer shorts? Well, it would sound funnier if I said, "It was one of Kate Smith's slack suits. You see, the sound of all those consonant 'ks' make it sound funnier... or, how would it sound to say Rosemary Clooney's caftan?"
Billy Saetre, a professional singer/friend of Pierce living in Munich, remarked, "There is a genuine warmth and love of the 'art' of performing that so few folks have anymore. Of course being in the classical branch of performing, I see a completely different side of this silly world, where 'genuineness' is absolutely foreign. There is such a love of humor with Charles, and when he blows a line, or messes up a joke/story, he relishes in his own embarrassment as well as getting himself out of the situation... I remember crying at his last show when he sang "Illusions" (an old Dietrich number). There is something so poignant about him and his connection with an audience... Charles Pierce completes the information from Alpha to Omega. Everything the audience not only wants, but needs to know, is shared. No silly nonsense or mystery there. Gott sei Dank!"
Russ Alley (General Manager of San Francisco's York Hotel and Plush Room 1980-1983) produced more than 500 performances of Pierce at the York Hotel's Plush Room. Alley later went to work at the Fairmont Hotel in SF, as director of Public Relations & Entertainment, for Rick Swig. It was there that Alley convinced Swig to hire Charles Pierce, by showing him that Pierce's revenue had "saved" the Plush Room from closing. Alley remarked, "I had been trying to sell Charles to the Fairmont for years. I showed Swig the numbers, and told him 'Herb Caen will love it.'" And he did. Alley continued, "There will never be another Charles... or a better Katharine Hepburn as 'Eleanor of Acquitaine' (turkey wattle!), Maria Ouspenskaya (one of his Turban Ladies), Bette, Tallulah, those ratty foxes of his from way back.... Dietrich: "I was on a fwight fwom pawwis to Los Angewis and both of my wegs were on the fwight wif me; one in first cwass and the other in coach...", and of course Jeanette MacDonald and that swing. So many great memories."
John Epperson (The Fabulous Lypsinka) remarked, "Charles Pierce, the self-described 'male actress,' was one of the funniest people in the world. He was also incredibly generous. He had many successes at The Ballroom, a nightclub in New York City. In 1991, when the management asked him to PLEASE come back again, he said, 'Call Lypsinka instead.' He was sorely missed by all of his fans for the last several years in all the venues where he was so popular.
At The Plush Room many years ago, he acknowledged his good friend Beatrice Arthur, in the audience, as having the greatest comic timing in the world. He should know: Charles had the second best. People who never saw him as Tallulah and Bette Davis--at the same time--don't know what they've missed. (People who don't know Tallulah and Bette don't know what they're missing!) People who did see Charles' act know they saw a comic mastermind.- A native New Yorker, Joan Castle was attracted to the stage as a child, and the famous talent scout Gus Edwards became her agent in the 1920s. Although Hollywood beckoned in the 1930s, her true love was the stage, and she always gravitated back to Manhattan. In 1930 she was sent to Hollywood to audition for the first science-fiction musical, Just Imagine (1930). The part was eventually given to Maureen O'Sullivan, but Castle became a contract player for Fox Films and appeared in several features. Because of a major studio fire, her first Hollywood films are considered lost: Young Sinners (1931), Hush Money (1931), in which she played Joan Bennett's sister, and Mr. Lemon of Orange (1931), opposite "the world's funniest Swede," El Brendel. In New York she was co-star of several comedy shorts, such as Wrongorilla (1933), opposite Jack Haley, I Know Everybody and Everybody's Racket (1933), opposite Walter Winchell, and Here, Prince (1932) opposite Joe Penner. Her first big break was playing the female lead ("Billie 'Stonewall' Jackson") in the hit Broadway comedy "Sailor Beware" (Lyceum, 1933) produced by her friend H. Courtney Burr. With Burr she had seen the show many times, and happened to be in the theater the night Audrey Christie became ill. She stepped into the part and immediately established herself as a qualified actress. When Christie's contract expired, Castle assumed the role until the show closed in December 1934. In a touring company, she appeared opposite José Ferrer in "The Play's The Thing." During World War II she toured for eight months in the USO show "Nothing But The Truth." The tour, which she called "the happiest time of my career," took her to troops in South America, Africa and Egypt. When Hollywood beckoned again, it was Twentieth Century-Fox, where she had minor parts in a few films in the late 1930s. Her biggest role was playing "Vera Grant" opposite Allan Jones in the Universal feature Sing a Jingle (1944).
Back in New York she replaced Effie Afton in the comic part "Violet Shelton" in "My Sister Eileen", opposite Shirley Booth. During the long run of the successful comedy she married the leading man, William Post Jr., who had also made a few films in Hollywood. The marriage ended in divorce. She subsequently was engaged to Neil Vanderbilt, but married English sea captain William Sitwell of the legendary Sitwell family. During her 18-year marriage to Sitwell they lived in the 11th-century Barmoor Castle in Lowick, Northumberland, and she occasionally appeared on Radio Éireann with the Abbey Players in Dublin. - Edward Duke was educated at British private schools, Balcombe Place and Stonyhurst College. His expulsion from Stonyhurst was in the tradition of other luminaries Charles Laughton and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. When his father was posted in Japan as a cultural diplomat, Duke studied Kabuki Theatre, which became his biggest influence. Before embarking on the usual rounds of regional Theatre, Duke trained at the Arts Educational School of London. In the West End, he was also seen in Why Not Stay for Breakfast? Peg of My Heart (as Alaric), and Filumena (directed by Franco Zeffirelli). In 1980 the Society of West End Theatre voted Edward Duke "Most Promising Newcomer" for his conception and adaptation of "Jeeves Takes Charge" by P.G. Wodehouse. His one-man Jeeves show was directed by Gillian Lynne and opened at London's Fortune Theatre in September of 1980, and subsequently played in Canada, Australia, and Taiwan. In the U.S. his show played in Cleveland, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and ran two seasons in New York, where he was nominated for a Drama Desk Award. His proudest moment came when he was invited to perform the play privately for Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother - who was an avid Wodehouse fan. While at the height of his powers he was stricken with AIDS, which he referred to as his "dreaded inconvenience." His parents predeceased him and a sister and three brothers survived him. The theatre lost a clever, bright, young talent a few months before his fortieth birthday. Thankfully he left behind the memory of full houses laughing at his brilliant comedic performances. His legacy lives on in audio book versions of Wodehouse plays.
- Actor
- Music Department
- Composer
The King's Men quartet comprised Ken Darby, arranger & bass; Rad Robinson baritone; Jon Dodson, lead tenor; Bud Linn, top tenor. As The Ramblers, the quartet was founded in Los Angeles in 1929. The quartet was featured on radio and recorded with The Happy Chappies for Columbia Records in 1930. By June, 1931 the tenor Joe Mitchell was replaced by Rad Robinson, and the name was changed to the King's Men, named for a radio sponsor named King. Their first film appearance was as a singing foursome in the Paramount film Sweetie (1929). This led to other films and radio contracts. When the The Boswell Sisters left Los Angeles station KFWB in 1932, the The King's Men replaced them for two years.
They achieved national prominence on radio and records as a feature of the Paul Whiteman Orchestra. They sang with Paul Whiteman's Orchestra from 1934 until 1937. Whiteman also acted as their agent, and encouraged their musical activities outside his organization. They subsequently appeared on other broadcasts, including the Rudy Vallee program. They were heard, and sometimes seen, in many feature films, including Sweetie (1929), ("My Sweeter than Sweet"), Hollywood Party (1934) ("Feelin' High"), Let's Go Native (1930) (title song), Belle of the Nineties (1934) ("Troubled Waters"), Alexander's Ragtime Band (1938), Murder at the Vanities (1934) ("Lovely One"), and notably The Wizard of Oz (1939), in which they are the off screen voices for the Lollipop Guild.
After leaving the Whiteman band in 1937, Ken Darby was hired by conductor/composer Herbert Stothart at MGM. Darby's first screen credit was as vocal arranger and supervisor for The Wizard of Oz (1939) in which the The King's Men are the off screen voices for specific Munchkins. Darby was the voice of the Mayor of Munchkin Land, while Robinson's voice was heard as Coroner. Dodson and Linn represented the two boys in the Lollipop Guild. Darby's other MGM films included three MacDonald/Eddy pictures. On screen, The King's Men were best remembered as the singing cowboys in sixteen Hopalong Cassidy films. In the film Honolulu (1939), the The King's Men play the The Marx Brothers on ice skates. Darby was subsequently associated with the Music Department at Walt Disney Studios (Dumbo (1941), Song of the South (1946), Make Mine Music (1946), Pinocchio (1940), So Dear to My Heart (1948), Bambi (1942).
For fifteen years The King's Men were regulars on the "Fibber McGee and Molly" broadcasts, and made records with Jim Jordan and Marian Jordan. The King's Men quartet was the basis for the Ken Darby Singers, featured on John Charles Thomas "Westinghouse Broadcasts" and on many Decca phonograph records, such as Bing Crosby's original recording of "White Christmas." Darby went on to win three Academy Awards (The King and I (1956), Porgy and Bess (1959), Camelot (1967)) as Associate Musical Supervisor with Alfred Newman and André Previn. The King's Men and their families remained lifelong friends.- Actor
- Writer
- Additional Crew
The son of stage actor/playwright Arthur L. Jarrett (1884-1960), Arthur Jarrett was a prominent singer in the 1930s and 1940s. Near the end of the 1920s he recorded for Victor and Brunswick with dance orchestras of Ted Weems, Earl Burtnett, Red Nichols, Jimmie Noone and 'Frankie Trumbauer' . He was famous for his high tenor "counter melody" style. He made many feature films and shorts, and introduced such hit songs "Everything I Have is Yours" (Dancing Lady (1933)), "Let's Fall in Love" (Let's Fall in Love (1933)) "Did You Ever See a Dream Walking" (Sitting Pretty (1933)) and "I've Got a Date With a Dream" (My Lucky Star (1938)). He led his own orchestra in the mid-'30s while married to swimmer Eleanor Holm. He starred in one "B" western. He took over Hal Kemp's band in early 1941 after Kemp was killed in an auto accident. Jarrett also appeared on Broadway in "Three After Three" (aka "Walk With Music"). He led orchestras throughout the 1940s before becoming a disc jockey and later a salesman.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Werner Paul Raetzmann was one of seven children born to a German-born father and Wisconsin-born mother. He and one brother decided to change their last name to Richmond. Living in rural Wisconsin, he became an expert horseman as a young man, and this skill would later earn him roles in western movies. He had blue/gray eyes and brown hair, handsome, chiseled features and maintained an enviable physique. A Chicago census from 1910 gives his occupation as a traveling salesman of musical merchandise. Moving to New York City, Warner became a true pioneer of the American cinema, making his first films in 1912. By 1917 he was a regular in the New Jersey studios (Solax Studio in Fort Lee) of Maurice Tourneur. When the film industry moved to southern California, Richmond and his wife also moved to rural Toluca Lake with their only son. He was not a contract player, so he made films, silent and subsequently talking pictures, with every major and minor studio. Included in his many screen credits are short subjects and serials, such as 'Flash Gordon' and many westerns. For 34 years he was steadily employed as a screen actor. His co-stars included Carole Lombard, Pearl White, Mary Astor, Ben Lyon, Theda Bara, Dorothy Gish, Richard Barthelmess, Richard Dix, Hoot Gibson, Tex Ritter, ZaSu Pitts, Spencer Tracy, William Haines, Jason Robards, Sr., Frank Morgan, Gene Autry, John Wayne, William Boyd, Pola Negri and Gabby Hayes. In two different films he portrayed American patriot John Hancock. He made several films under the direction of John Ford, Karl Freund, King Vidor, W. S. Van Dyke, William A. Seiter, Lloyd Bacon, Ralph Ince, Albert S. Rogell, Raoul Walsh, Cecil B. DeMille and Harry Beaumont. He was often cast as a lawyer, judge, father, henchman, and district attorney. In his fourth decade of acting, he suffered partial facial paralysis after a nasty fall from a horse. Following a diligent regime of physiotherapy, he overcame his injury and returned to work in the Hollywood studios.- Young "Sunny Jim" McKeen was featured in 39 "Newlyweds and Their Baby" shorts in the late 1920s, then went on to make a series of six sound shorts on his own. A very blond little boy, he was a contemporary of the child actors such as Allen 'Farina' Hoskins and Jackie Cooper, Davey Lee and Shirley Temple. He died of blood poisoning in 1933, at the age of 8.
- Actress
- Soundtrack
June Mary MacCloy was born in Sturgis, Michigan on June 2, 1909. When she was a child her family moved to Toledo, Ohio. With her radiant smile, her tall, blonde, good looks and unusual voice, she brightened many a film and stage with her talent. After 1940 she became an obscure part of Hollywood and Broadway history. When she was a deep-voiced, 5' 71/2" teenage girl, she was chosen by song writer Lew Brown (of the prolific team DeSylva, Brown & Henderson) to do an impersonation of Broadway star Harry Richman, singing "I'm On The Crest of a Wave" in the ninth edition of George White's Scandals (Apollo Theater, July 2, 1928; 230 performances), starring Richman, Frances Williams, Willie & Eugene Howard and Ann Pennington. She and her mother moved to New York, and before embarking on a film career she was featured in the Parkington unit vaudeville shows, designed by Vincente Minnelli. In 1930 she was signed by Paramount Pictures to make film shorts in Astoria, L.I. Before making any features for Paramount, she was loaned out to United Artists to make her first feature, "Reaching for the Moon" with Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., and Bebe Daniels. She's the memorable, tall, pretty blond with the deep voice, singing 16 measures of "When the Folks High Up Do The Mean Low Down!" by Irving Berlin. That same year, Paramount co-starred her with Frances Dee and Jack Oakie in "June Moon" (based on the Lardner-Kaufman play). Next came "The Big Gamble" (R-K-O Pathe) starring Bill Boyd, with Dorothy Sebastian, Warner Oland and ZaSu Pitts. In the early 1930s MacCloy made at least nine film shorts, including a series of short comedies called "The Gay Girls" with Marion Schilling and Gertrude Short. Three of her shorts were directed by Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, using the name "William Goodrich." In 1932 she appeared with Lupe Velez, Bert Lahr, Buddy Rogers and June Knight in Hot-Cha, Florenz Ziegfeld's last production (Ziegfeld Theater, March 8, 1932; 119 performances). Her featured song was "Little Old New York" (unpublished) by Lew Brown and Ray Henderson. When Hot-Cha closed, June sang on the cruise ship, "S.S. Transylvania, " and spent the rest of the decade performing in Chicago, New York and San Francisco clubs and theaters, with the orchestras of Johnny Hamp, Henry King, Ben Pollock and Griff Williams (with whom she recorded for Decca). Some of these spots included New York's Paramount Theater, Chicago's Chez Paree, and San Francisco's Hotel Mark Hopkins. For Warner Bros./Vitaphone, she made a Technicolor two-reeler with Leon Erroll called "Good Morning, Eve, " directed by Roy Mack (September, 1934). Because of her contralto voice, she felt she was overlooked by radio producers. She suspected, many years later, that film producers may have thought she was a Lesbian. At Columbia Studios, she made "Glamour for Sale" in 1940, with Anita Louise and Roger Pryor. Her last real role was in "Go West" (MGM, 1940) in which she tried to seduce Groucho Marx, and sang a song, "You Can't Argue With Love" (unpublished) in the beer hall. She retired from performing when she married California architect Neal Wendell Butler, with whom she raised two children in Southern California. She met her husband through their mutual love of jazz music. She was widowed in 1985.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Alexander Gray called himself "a bashful man with a stutter." A native of Pennsylvania, Mr. Gray attended primary and grammar school in Baltimore, Maryland. His summers were spent milking his uncle's cows in Lancaster County, PA. No one would have dreamed that this cow-milking boy would become a recitalist, operetta star, Broadway actor, film actor and radio star. Gray showed an early liking of things mechanical and electrical. He first considered singing when he attended Pennsylvania State and sang in its Glee Club and enrolled in dramatic classes. Right after earning his credentials in industrial engineering, he worked his way to Europe as a deckman on the merchant steamer. Upon his return he taught carpentry and wood shop in a private boys' school, and for a time was on the editorial staff of "Iron Age," a trade publication. In Chicago he was an instructor at Northwestern Military and Naval Academy, but studied voice on the side. Opera diva Mme. Louise Homer heard him and she encouraged him to pursue his vocal career seriously. After he won a contest sponsored by the National Federation of Music Clubs, he was paid to sing recitals in different cities. After realizing that concert life was not very lucrative, he took a position as Manager of Advertising and Sales Promotion for the Diamond T. Truck Company of Chicago. During this time he kept up his singing at church.
The longing to sing fully bloomed when Chamberlain Brown arranged an audition for Gray with producer Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr. and composer Gene Buck. They were preparing a new "Midnight Frolic" atop the New Amsterdam Theatre and Gray was engaged to do the singing. After the New York run, Ziegfeld sent out a road company of the "Frolic" headed by Will Rogers, which toured for a year during which time Gray became principal male singer. Then followed the "Ziegfeld Follies" and performances in "Sally" while it was on tour. In 1925 he co-starred in Oscar Straus' musical play "Naughty Riquette" with Stanley Lupino. This led to him playing the lead juvenile on "Tell Me More," with a score by the Gershwins. In 1925 he made his first recordings for Columbia Records. In the mid 1920s, the producers Schwab and Mandel sent for Gray to take the place of Robert Halliday as the Red Shadow in "The Desert Song," one of the most popular musical shows of the decade. He played the entire summer, and when Gray was cast in the Chicago company. Box office records were broken every where. In 1928 soprano Bernice Claire, who had played with Gray on the Albee Vaudeville Circuit, was the understudy for Vivienne Segal in "The Desert Song," and stepped into stardom. Claire and Gray toured in the show (Kansas City, Detroit, Philadelphia, and Chicago) for many seasons. When Jack Warner ordered a screen test of Alexander Gray, arrangements were made with the east coast Vitaphone Studios. Gray asked Bernice Claire if she would perform a duet with him for the test. Warners not only signed Gray to co-star with Marilyn Miller in "Sally," but they gave Bernice Claire leading roles in several musical films, three with Alexander Gray. They became the screen's first operetta team, predating Jeanette MacDonald & Nelson Eddy. While in Hollywood Mr. Gray was engaged to play the leads in complete 2-hour radio adaptations of "Blossom Time" and "The Chocolate Soldier," the latter with composer Oscar Straus conducting. When the vogue for all talking/singing/dancing films became threadbare, Mr. Gray returned to New York where, with his illustrious Hollywood credits, he achieved great success in operetta revivals, vaudeville and radio. Gray also continued his vocal studies with teacher Jean Teslof. Beginning in 1932 Mr. Gray appeared on the Chesterfield Radio Program for seven months, followed by six months of "Voice of America" sponsored by Underwood-Elliott-Fischer Company. In January 1934 Gray gave his first New York recital at The Town Hall. The New York Evening Journal wrote, "His broad experience in musical comedy and radio, together with his earnest study of the classics, gives him the immense advantage of knowing just how to 'sell himself' to his audience. He knows, in other words, what so many singers lack, the value of projecting the meaning of a song, so that it loses nothing when it slides over the edge of a concert stage. In diction, tone production and delivery he was master of the situation to the vast delight of a wildly enthusiastic audience." Following his triumph at The Town Hall, Gray was on the Chrysler Motors Radio Program for eight months. The rest of his career was spent singing in operettas, supper clubs and radio. In theatres across the country, he glided effortlessly between performances (some only 24 hours apart) of "Rose Marie," "The Chocolate Soldier," "Blossom Time" and "Rio Rita."- Actor
- Writer
- Director
After receiving a Masters degree in Business, Milton Miron adopted the name "Sebastian" (inspired by Johann Sebastian Bach). From 1967 to 1971 he was an accountant for legendary rock impresario Bill Graham in San Francisco. In 1970 he was screening independent and vintage movies in San Francisco's Palace Theatre at midnight on weekends. When a group of gender-bending drag queens and their friends started throwing live shows together as an almost impromptu prologue, Sebastian offered to organize and produce their nocturnal fantasies. In the early 1970s the "Cockette" shows became wildly popular with the pot-smoking, acid-dropping free spirits of San Francisco. His management of the Cockettes lasted until 1972. He also directed their only film, Tricia's Wedding (1971), a grossly satirical spoof on the June 1971 wedding of Tricia Nixon and Edward Cox. Miron has also been involved with filmmaking, having made six short films including "Adolph & Eva." He also wrote and directed "Heartbreak of Psoriasis" starring Divine. He owns his own successful tax preparation and accounting business.- Music Department
- Actor
- Composer
A specialist in recreating the hot jazz and dance music of the 1920s and early 1930s. His "Nighthawks" band has been featured in many movies, television shows, National Public Radio broadcasts and concerts in several countries. He has produced and played on many CDs, including the Grammy Award-winning 'Boardwalk Empire.' He plays many instruments himself, and is an expert in the rarely heard bass saxophone. He has provided vintage orchestrations for many important films, especially those of director Woody Allen. He lives in Brooklyn.- Actress
- Soundtrack
As a singer of light opera, Bernice Claire could be called the trailblazer for Jeanette MacDonald. In the year 1930, Claire and Alexander Gray were "the" operetta duo of talking pictures.
Bernice Claire Jahnigen was born March 22, 1909 in Oakland, California, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Adolph Jahnigen (later mistranscribed as Jahnigan). Her distinguished Castlemont High Schoolteacher, Alice Eggers, favorably influenced Bernice. It was Eggers who persuaded Bernice to audition for orchestra leader Emil Polak, who led theatre and radio orchestras in San Francisco at that time. Claire's publicist would later fabricate a teacher-student relationship between Claire and opera great Maria Jeritza. She possessed a remarkably clear and pure coloratura voice and had no difficulty singing demanding roles such as Victor Herbert's "Mlle Modiste," in which she starred in a school production.
She moved to New York in the 1920s, where she met singer Alexander Gray, a veteran of the Ziegfeld Follies. Together they co-starred in operettas such as "The Desert Song." Around 1929 Mr. Gray asked her to accompany him to a screen test for First National-Vitaphone at the time the studios were hastily converting to sound, and bolstering their music departments. The producers liked the team so much, they were both signed. Gray was signed to co-star with Marilyn Miller in "Sunny," and Claire was assigned the starring role in the first screen version of No, No, Nanette (1930). They both moved to Hollywood. Within little more than one year, Bernice Claire made the first screen versions of such hits as "Mlle Modiste" (released as Kiss Me Again (1931)), Spring Is Here (1930) (in which she sings "With a Song in My Heart"), The Song of the Flame (1930) and an original film musical Top Speed (1930) starring Joe E. Brown. When the studios determined that musicals had lost their drawing power, Claire was given a very different role in the prison drama Numbered Men (1930), directed by Mervyn LeRoy. Her co-star was Conrad Nagel. By 1932 Claire returned to New York radio and appeared with many prestigious orchestras, including Rudy Vallee, Erno Rapee and others. Her apartment was located at number 2 West 67th Street, just off Central Park West. The Vitaphone Company continued to use Claire's talent in film shorts, such as The Red Shadow (1932), based on "The Desert Song," with Alexander Gray. In 1934 she co-starred in The Flame Song (1934) with J. Harold Murray in an abbreviated version of The Song of the Flame (1930) (which she had made as a feature in 1930). She also toured in vaudeville and played roles in comedies and operettas, such as "Her Master's Voice." In 1933 she and Alexander Gray sang a duet in Universal's Moonlight and Pretzels (1933). In 1935 Claire co-starred in a British musical film Two Hearts in Harmony (1935), co-starring George Curzon. In the 1930s, her days and nights were occupied with radio and special appearances, including the 1935 San Diego Exposition. In 1937 she was elected "Miss Perfume for 1937" by delegates to the Perfume and Cosmetics Buyers Conference at the Hotel Roosevelt.
With her new dog, named "Jimmy Walker," she moved to a new apartment at 162 East 86th Street in the Upper East Side. On WABC she appeared with Frank Munn in 1935, accompanied by Gustave Haenschen's Orchestra. The following year she was on "Melodiana" for station WJZ. Instead of her being cover girl for the movie magazines, now she appeared on the covers of radio magazines, such as "Tower Radio." Throughout the country, Claire starred in numerous revivals, such as "The Chocolate Soldier," "Naughty Marietta" (Grand Rapids Municipal Opera), "The Fortune Teller," "Robin Hood," "The Firefly," "The Pink Lady," and "Salute to Spring" by Richard Berger (St. Louis Municipal Stadium).
In October 1938, when Rodgers and Hart's "I Married an Angel" was produced in Sydney, Australia, Bernice Claire played the role of Countess Peggy, which was originated by Vivienne Segal on Broadway. She returned to Australia the next year to perform "The Waltz Dream." Back in the U.S.A. she played Lorna Moon, opposite Eric Linden, in "Golden Boy." Into the 1940s Bernice continued to play leading ladies in such crowd-pleasing shows as "Irene" and "The Firefly."
When her first husband died, she felt unable to continue her performing. She and her second husband, Douglas Morris, owned property in southern California, including convalescent homes. During the 1970s and '80s Bernice was honored by local film societies in the San Francisco Bay Area. When her health deteriorated she quietly left her social and professional circles for retirement.- Music Department
- Composer
- Soundtrack
Harry MacGregor Woods' contributions to popular music in the early 20th century are significant and often ignored by scholars. Few composers could boast that their songs lived far beyond the age of most tunes. He could have retired from just his first few hits, but he kept composing successful songs throughout the 1920s and '30s. His compositions include Paddlin' Madelin Home, When The Red, Red, Robin Comes Bob, Bob, Bobbin' Along, I'm Looking Over a Four Leaf Clover, The Man From the South, Me Too, Side By Side, River, Stay 'Way From My Door, What a Day!, When The Moon Comes Over The Mountain (Kate Smith's radio signature), The Clouds Will Soon Roll By, Just An Echo In The Valley, Try A Little Tenderness, What A Little Moonlight Can Do, and several written for British motion pictures "Evergreen" and "It's Love Again," both starring Jessie Matthews. Most of his compositions are known as "independent" songs, not written specifically for a stage show or film. Woods lived in England for three years, during which time he wrote some hugely successful film songs such as When You've Got a Little Springtime In Your Heart, You Ought To See Sally On Sunday, Celebratin', Over My Shoulder, My Hat's On the Side of My Head, It's Love Again and I Nearly Let Love Go Slipping Through My Fingers. Although he wrote words and music to many of his songs, he also collaborated with Mort Dixon and Gus Kahn.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Tamara [Drasin], a native of Sorochintzy, in the Ukraine. Attended elementary school and Hunter College in New York City. After appearing in a 1927 revue called "The New Yorkers" (not the Cole Porter show) she played many Russian Restaurants in Manhattan, notably the Gypsy Tavern and the Kretchma. She also had brief appearances in Broadway shows such as "Crazy Quilt," "Americana" and "Free For All." Later she rose to fame in "Roberta," "Right This Way" and "Leave It to Me," in which she sang "Get Out Of Town." In 1936 she starred at New York's Versailles in a night club act. She was one of 24 casualties of a plane crash in the Tagus River, near Lisbon in March, 1943. Jane Froman survived. In private life was wife of Erwin D. Swann, vice president of Foote, Cone & Belding Ad Agency. Luther Adler delivered the eulogy at her service, attended by 500 mourners on 16 April 1943.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Hal Le Roy's first professional job was in "Hoboken Heroes" at the Lyric Theater, Hoboken, New Jersey, in 1928. He was young, tall, thin as a pole and had a distinctive, dazzling, eccentric style that was acclaimed by audiences and dancers alike. In 1931 he attracted the attention of Broadway producers, who engaged him in the short-lived Broadway show "The Gang's All Here." Later that year he and partner Mitzi Mayfair stole the spotlight from big stars such as Harry Richman and Ruth Etting in the "Ziegfeld Follies of 1931." His unique, eccentric style made him popular in numerous film shorts made in the Brooklyn Vitaphone Brooklyn studios. He was a feature of several Broadway shows, including "The Gang's All Here" (1931, with Eunice Healy), "Ziegfeld Follies of 1931" (with Mitzi Mayfair), "Thumbs Up" (1935, again with Healy) and Rodgers & Hart's "Too Many Girls" (1939, with partner Mildred Law). His biggest feature film was Warner Bros. Harold Teen (1934) in which he performs an elongated solo (to the song "Collegiate Wedding") in the last reel.
He made news in July 1935 when he sued his father for $70,000. Le Roy charged that when he married his dancing partner, Ruth Dodd, his father drew out the money, which had been on deposit (set up by Hal's late mother) in a joint account in 4 banks. The arrangement was supposed to have continued until he was 21. Throughout the 1930s he was given the occasional "spot" in feature films, such as the brilliant college dance scene in Start Cheering (1938).
In vaudeville, he appeared throughout the 1930s and '40s in such venues as Radio City Music Hall, the Capitol Theatre (with the Woody Herman band), the State Theatre (with Smith & Dale) and the Earle Theatre (Philadelphia) with Clyde McCoy's band. He appeared on television and summer stock, including Guy Lombardo's production of "Show Boat" (1956) at Marine Stadium, Jones Beach, New York. In 1966 he directed the off-Broadway show "Summer's Here." He died in 1985 following heart surgery.- After his graduation from University of Indiana, Mr. Hill became a newsman. As one of the New York Sun's star reporters he covered centers of interest around the world. He became a director of newsreels and wrote syndicated newspaper columns. He was fond of riding, golf and his bull terrier. His flair for human interest won him a wide following.
- Actor
- Soundtrack
Jon Dodson's association with The King's Men quartet was his primary profession, beginning in 1930. From 1934 to 1937 The King's Men ('Ken Darby', Arranger & Bass; Rad Robinson, Baritone; Jon Dodson, Lead Tenor; Bud Linn, Top Tenor) were a feature of the Paul Whiteman Orchestra on RCA records and the Kraft Music Hall. They subsequently appeared with many other orchestra leaders, including Rudy Vallee. They were heard, and sometimes seen, in many feature films, including Sweetie (1929) (My Sweeter than Sweet), Hollywood Party (1934) (Feelin' High), Let's Go Native (1930) (title song), Belle of the Nineties (1934) (Troubled Waters), Alexander's Ragtime Band (1938), Murder at the Vanities (1934), (Lovely One) and notably The Wizard of Oz (1939), in which they are the off screen voices for the Lollipop Guild. On screen they were remembered as the singing cowboys of the Hopalong Cassidy films. In the costume party scene of the film Honolulu (1939) the King's Men play the Marx Brothers (Dodson plays Chico). For a few years they were associated with the Music Department at Disney Studios, and are heard in Make Mine Music (1946) and Pinocchio (1940). The quartet was a regular featured on the long-running radio show "Fibber McGee & Molly." The King's Men group was the basis for the Ken Darby Singers, featured on John Charles Thomas' "Westinghouse Broadcasts" and on many Decca phonograph records, such as Bing Crosby's original recording of "White Christmas."- Nadine Dana Suesse (pronounced Sweese) was born into a lively era in music and entertainment in Kansas City, Missouri on December 3, 1909. When Dana grew too tall for ballet, piano lessons were begun with Kansas City teacher Gertrude Concannon. Her first concert was in Drexel Hall, Kansas City on June 29, 1919. The seeds of orchestration may have been planted during her year of organ studies with Hans Feil, who presented Dana in an organ recital on December 17, 1922. Dana had an affinity with the southern side of her family (as a child she visited them regularly) and frequently volunteered Shreveport, Louisiana, as her birthplace (she told one interviewer it was Alabama). Furthermore, while she declared she detested the life of a child prodigy, all through her early career she subtracted a couple of years from her real age. In 1926, Dana and her mother traveled to New York to advance her studies with the great pedagogue Alexander Siloti (at that time one of the four surviving pupils of Franz Liszt), and Rubin Goldmark, a former teacher of George Gershwin. In New York, Dana began experimenting with the jazz idiom. She told an interviewer, "I just kept my ears open and began to understand that there was something very interesting called jazz and popular music. This was an unknown territory to me...I compromised and used my classical training to make a bridge between [classical] and what was new to me." Her composition Syncopated Love Song bridged this gap between "serious" and "jazz" forms. Written in 1928, it wasn't popularized until Nathaniel Shilkret recorded it in 1929. Leo Robin created a lyric, and it soon became the hit song "Have You Forgotten." She was teamed with lyricist Edward Heyman, and wrote two more hits, "Ho Hum" and "My Silent Love." Paul Whiteman, the most famous orchestra leader in the world, was planning another "Experiment In Modern Music," and wanted to introduce modern works, as he had done in 1924 when he introduced Gershwin's Rhapsody In Blue. Whiteman and his arranger, Ferde Grofé Sr., accepted Suesse's Concerto in Three Rhythms without criticism, and Suesse performed it at Carnegie Hall on November 4, 1932. Beginning with Billy Rose's first Broadway show, Sweet and Low (1930) Dana contributed to all of Rose's spectacular revues, including Casa Manana, the Aquacade and the Diamond Horseshoe revues. "The Night Is Young And You're So Beautiful" (written with Rose) won fifth place on Your Hit Parade on the broadcast of February 6, 1937, and stayed on the program for six weeks. Suesse also contributed songs to the Ziegfeld Follies (1934), Earl Carroll Vanities (1935), The Red Cat (1934) and the score to the film, Sweet Surrender (Universal, 1935). Her song "You Oughta Be In Pictures" (lyrics by Edward Heyman) became her most successful song. Incidental music was also written for numerous plays, including The "Seven Year Itch (1952)," produced by her first husband, H. Courtney Burr. Suesse's concertos and other works were featured in Radio City Music Hall, Carnegie Hall, Madison Square Garden and the Metropolitan Opera House. Conductors such as Frank J. Black, Robert Russell Bennett, Frederick Fennell, Arthur Fiedler, Eugene Goossens, Ferde Grofé Sr., Nathaniel Shilkret, Alexander Smallens, Alfred Wallenstein, and Meredith Willson performed her works in concert halls and on radio. She was the only American composer other than George Gershwin to be invited to perform on the now legendary General Motors Symphony concert series of nationwide broadcasts. Suesse aspired to be a lyricist as well as playwright, but her attempts at play writing never achieved success. One comedy, It Takes Two (written with Virginia Faulkner ran a short time to miserable reviews in New York (February, 1947), but that did not prevent Dana from enjoying half of the $50,000 paid for film rights. She took the opportunity to fulfill a lifelong dream, to study composition with a master. She moved to Paris to study with Nadia Boulanger for three years, composing canons, string quartets, rondos, analyzing Beethoven sonatas and re-learning orchestration. After her return to the States, Dana was fascinated with the new progressive jazz sounds created by such pianists as Cy Coleman, Marian McPartland, and Billy Taylor. Frederick Fennell, conductor of the Eastman School of Music, heard about her Concerto in Rhythm (later called Jazz Concerto In D Major for Combo and Orchestra), and requested she play it for him on the piano, after which he insisted he be the first to conduct it. Before a cordial audience of two thousand, Suesse played the solo part as Fennell conducted the Rochester Civic Orchestra on Saturday night, March 31, 1956. The Rochester Times-Union said: "This is melodic music, full of surging pulse and vitality, fashioned as a work of art and possessing some thrilling climaxes." Despite her success in music, Dana still aspired to be more than a composer, and wrote scripts for many plays, with and without music. After Dana's mother and stepfather had passed away, she became disenchanted with Manhattan and the post-War music business. In April 1970, she moved to New London, Connecticut, where she met her next husband, C. Edwin Delinks. In 1974, after three years of marriage, they decided to invest their own money in an all-Suesse symphony concert at Carnegie Hall. Dana engaged the services of conductor Frederick Fennell and attended to a million details. The concert was given on December 11, 1974, with Cy Coleman as soloist with the American Symphony Orchestra. The New York Times reported, "...The highlight of the evening came when Miss Suesse herself joined the Orchestra to play The Blues, which is the second movement of the Concerto she played with Paul Whiteman at her début 42 years ago." A year later the prestigious Newport Music Festival (Rhode Island) presented four of her works in a concert series devoted to women. In 1975, Dana and Ed Delinks moved to Frederiksted, St. Croix, in the Virgin Islands. After a number of health crises, Ed died in a Miami hospital on July 7, 1981. Dana, who still read The New York Times every day, decided there was more to life than white beaches and turquoise seas. She returned to Manhattan in 1982 and rented two adjoining apartments at the Gramercy Park Hotel. A revival of interest in American music made her popular again for interviews and songwriters' concerts. Dana had a few distinct musical favorites. She loved Debussy's only completed opera, Pelléas et Mélisande. She saw it twice in Paris (once with Boulanger) and at least twice in America. The music she would take with her "to a desert island" was Bach's Passacaglia and Fugue in C Minor. Just before Suesse's death from a stroke she was busily writing a new musical, putting the finishing touches on Mr. Sycamore, which had been optioned for off-Broadway, and was looking for a New York home for a straight play, Nemesis.
- Early professional name: Larry Richardson
Larry Rich came from a family that was very active in the theatre. One of five children, Laurence Richardson Jossenberger was born in Fort Worth, Texas. His father, Victor (1872-1962) was a stage carpenter in the Greenwall Opera House at Third and Rusk Streets. Victor later became a film editor in Hollywood.
A Fort Worth newspaper reported that young Larry sold sheet music in the lobby of the local Majestic Theatre, and introduced the patrons to the song "Frankie and Johnny." Larry founded a theatrical stock company in 1909 that performed in many Texas towns. He later went on the road with L.H. Wilson, touring the East, the Pacific Coast, then returning to Fort Worth.
All three boys in the family became players in local stock companies in Texas (Frank North Stock Co.), New Jersey, Missouri and California (Burbank Stock Company). Eventually all the boys used the professional name Rich, derived from their mother's name, Helen Samantha Richardson, and they toured in stock companies. According to an obituary, Larry's mother was known on the stage as Helen Rich. In 1913 Larry, as Laurence Jossenberger, appeared in touring productions, including "One Good Woman" (1913).
Later in the 'teens, Larry (still as Laurence Jossenberger) acted in the nascent film business, working for United Film Co., New Art Pictures Corp., and Pike's Peak Films Company. It was while filming "The Heart Of A Man" (1914), the first production of the Colorado-based Pike's Peak Photoplay Company, that Larry was injured while playing dead on cliff that collapsed beneath him. He was playing what he described as "a Mexican heavy." It was reported that his horse fell on him and broke an arm and a rib. As a result, Larry appeared at film screenings to tell his tale of peril to an audience eager to hear the inside story from a movie star.
On September 26, 1919, while acting in Los Angeles theatres, he married Cheri McIntosh (October 11, 1900-?). One newspaper reported that Cheri had been one of the few Mack Sennett Bathing Beauties who could actually swim. As "Cherri Mack" she had also played in theatre, so they were married at 9:00 PM onstage in a Burbank theatre. By 1919 Larry used the professional name Larry Richardson, and his wife would later be billed with him as Cheri Rich or "Mlle. Cherie."
Larry's brother Philip Jossenberger (1898-1956), who went by the professional name Phil Rich, played with the Garrett Stock Co. in Kansas, and toured extensively in vaudeville before becoming a successful supporting player in Hollywood.
His brother Victor Jossenberger (1896-1965) was known as Bernie Rich. Not only was Bernie active in theatre (scenery, acting, singing), but he had great skill as engineer in the growing field of aviation.
The most successfully member of the family was Richard Lee Jossenberger (1909-1967), known professionally as Dick Rich, who was a prolific actor with over 200 film credits.
Larry's sister, Merle Marie Jossenberger (1900-1961) was married to a musician named Nathaniel Richard Lesnie (1909-1967) and lived most of her life in Hollywood. Nat Lesnie changed his name to Leslie sometime after 1930.
In 1924 Rich was manager of two St. Louis theatres, the Lyric and The Avenue. In 1925, as Larry Richardson, he appeared in Century Studio comedies in support of comics like Wanda Wiley, Edna Marion, and Eddie Gordon. Some of the titles include "My Baby Doll," "Itching For Revenge," "A Taxi War," and "Crowning the Count." Around 1925, Larry created a vaudeville act, and changed his professional name to Larry Rich, and it would stay that way for the rest for his career. Touring coast-to-coast on the Keith Vaudeville Circuit, Larry Rich was known as clown, singer, dancer, master of ceremonies and fronted a dance orchestra of 10 to 14 musicians. He often joked about being mistaken for Paul Whiteman, and being chased down the street for autographs. Ultimately he would surpass Whiteman in girth. In vaudeville he successfully toured the country with his wife, Cheri, the Dean Twins (dancers) and often his brother, Bernie.
In 1928, the Vitaphone Film Corp. featured Larry in a highly entertaining musical short entitled erroneously, "Dick Rich & His Synco-Symphonists." Film shorts of the late 1920s were made in a few days, and it was not unusual for a typo to be made in the credits. Ironically, years later it would be his brother, Dick Rich, who would become a successful actor in Hollywood. The film, now available from Warner Home Entertainment, captures Rich's ebullient and wry sense of humor. He was often compared, physically, to the portly, legendary Paul Whiteman. In the film, he is aided by the Dean Twins and his wife, billed as Cheri Rich. It appears that the family caused confusion with name spelling, as Larry's first name was often in print as Lawrence or Laurence (he signed his name Laurence). His wife's name was spelled in various ways; as Cherri, Cherry, Cherie, McIntosh, Macintosh, MacIntosh. His adopted daughter was billed either as Janee Rich or Shirlee Rich. The name Jane "Cuddles" Shirley appears in the credits of Rich's 1925 film "My Baby Doll."
In New York, Larry and Cheri Rich lived on West End Avenue in 1930, then moved to Jamaica, Queens. While touring in Minneapolis he discovered a local act called the Andrews Sisters. He added them to his show and in January, 1932 introduced them to New York during his engagement at the legendary Hippodrome.
They adopted two children, Larry Rich, Jr. and Jane Shirlee, who appeared in vaudeville with their parents. In 1933 he returned to St. Louis as member of the Municipal Opera, making his debut as "Karp," handyman from Barnum's museum, in "The Nightingale."
Rich often shared the bill with famous headliners, including Dick Powell, Irene Bordoni, Marion Sunshine, Van & Schenck, Carmel Myers, Helen Kane and Ozzie Nelson. His "Musical Monarchs" and "Synco-Symphonists" revues were slightly less than an hour in length. The shows consisted of several varied acts, that could include as many as 40 performers: Rich's orchestra, a tap troupe, a wire-walker, another comedian, a pantomime artist, an aerialist, a gymnast, singers, "The Little Rich Girls" (dancers), and always his wife, Cheri, sometimes billed as a "Parisian singer," or "Miss Pert of Paradise." The fans enjoyed when he stepped down and wandered through the audience, "on a hand-shaking tour," baton in hand.
It was in 1935 that Rich's struggle with heart problems and diabetes led to his cancellation of an engagement in Boston. In a period of six months he had gone from 370 pounds to 170. In the summer of 1935, Rich was appearing at Loew's Paradise Theatre in the Bronx (with his wife and children), when he was suddenly taken ill, and died at home in Jamaica, Queens, Saturday, August 3 from a heart ailment. A Christian Science funeral service was held at Riverside Memorial Chapel at West 76th Street and Amsterdam Avenue. He was buried in Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, New York.
On August 7, 1935, Broadway columnist Ed Sullivan wrote: "Larry Rich, the vaude actor, is dead...So goes the terse announcement that doesn't reveal the grand trouper's courage...He had been ailing from diabetes for some time... Last week, he was booked into the Paradise Theatre...After the first show, an ambulance took him to the hospital...'For God's sake,' Rich pleaded to Manager Jerry Di Rosa, 'Don't cancel me. I need the money desperately'...He came from the hospital to the theatre to play each of twenty-eight shows at the Paradise...Then, his string played out, Larry Rich died...But he died happy...His week's check will go to his widow...Greater love, they say, hath no man...In my box score he's marked 1,000 per cent..." - Actor
- Soundtrack
The Four Eton Boys were educated in small towns near St. Louis, where they all gained dramatic experience in amateur productions. Charlie and Jack Day toured the country for nine years as acrobats, playing the Palace Theatre on Broadway nine times in a single year. In 1923 the introduction of their songs in their act was so successful that they were booked at every variety theatre on Broadway, appeared in the musical comedy Rufus Lemaire's Affairs, and were featured in a two-reel comedy film. After singing with the Four Rajahs and announcing at station KMOX, St. Louis, Art Gentry joined the quartet as lead. Earl Smith left vaudeville in the Middle West for New York night club work, joining the Day brothers at the Nut Club. A popular CBS feature, the Eton Boys enlivened Borden's Forty-Five Minutes in Hollywood and were heard in the Columbia Varieties program. They made Paramount and Warner shorts and toured the Loews Circuit. They recorded for Columbia records and in 1935, they joined the cast of the Socony Sketch Book, the weekly radio series conducted by Johnny Green.- Music Department
- Actor
- Soundtrack
Carroll Gibbons, the composer/bandleader/arranger, was originally from Clinton, Massachusetts. He had worked extensively on the London music scene since his arrival in 1924 with the brassless Boston Orchestra that played at the Hotel Savoy. Gibbons later became the co-leader of the Savoy Orpheans and the leader of the New Mayfair Orchestra (preceding the legendary Ray Noble) for the Gramophone Company, Ltd., makers of "His Master's Voice" records. Gibbons made some return trips to America, but ultimately settled in England and took exclusive leadership of the Savoy Hotel Orpheans, recording hundreds of popular songs between June, 1932 and his sudden death on May 10, 1954. As a composer, Gibbons' most popular songs were "A Garden in the Rain" (1928) and his radio signature "On The Air" (1932) which was appropriated by American band leaders Rudy Vallée (1933) and 'Lud Gluskin' (1936). Gibbons' piano novelties, such as "Bubbling Over" and "Moonbeam Dance" also achieved some success in Britain.- Producer
- Production Manager
- Director
Terry Benes (rhymes with 'tennis') is an Award-winning producer of television documentaries, dramas, and short-form programming. She has had extensive writing experience in and out of television industry, including documentaries, treatments, grant proposals, promotional copy and newspaper journalism. In 1988 she was Executive in Charge of Production for Scholastic Productions, Inc. From 1989 to 1994 she was Manager of Editorial Production for Showtime Networks, Inc. Benes' education includes: A.B. cum laude, Anthropology, Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, PA., Graduate Institute of Film and Television, New York University, New York, NY.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Estrild Raymona Myers, an unlikely show biz name, would become internationally known as "Ramona." Her mother simply wanted to name her after her father, 17-year-old Raymond P. Myers, and the nearest name to it was Ramona. Raymond's wealthy parents believed that his bride, Rachel DeCamp, was below the social level of their teenage son. They annulled the marriage, unaware that fifteen-year-old Rachel was carrying Raymond's child. Rachael and infant Ramona moved across the border to Ashland, Kentucky, where she met her future husband, Charles C. Payne. Ramona told a reporter that her professional début took place at the age of 12 in Kentucky, when she was asked to play with a dance orchestra. The Paynes soon made their home in Kansas City, Missouri, where young Ramona attended school at St. Agnes Academy. According to an old press release, the only black marks on her school record were for sneaking out from time to time to play piano in a Kansas City movie house. At station WDAF she became staff pianist for the Kansas City Night Hawk Frolic where, for a three-year period, she played in the company of many great performers. From there she went to Pittsburgh, Pa., and became 10 of the Twenty Fingers of Sweetness, a program sponsored by Swans Down Sugar on Westinghouse station KDKA. After hearing her on the radio, the renowned bandleader Don Bestor engaged 16-year-old Ramona as featured singer and pianist when he took his recording and stage orchestra on a coast-to-coast tour. Her appearances with Bestor's group led to her own stage act on vaudeville circuits such as Keith, Orpheum and Loew's. In February, 1931 Ramona joined WLW in Cincinnati, "The Nation's Station," along with singer Seger Ellis, where she played on such programs as King Edward Cigar Band, Sohio Night Club and Werk's Bubble Blowers. At this time Paul Whiteman had the most famous orchestra in the world. He was paying Mildred Bailey $350 a week, sweetened by $600 from NBC. In the spring of 1932 Whiteman was doing five shows a day at a theatre engagement in Cincinnati. While relaxing in his dressing room, he tuned in WLW and heard Ramona singing in Spanish. A short time later he tuned in and heard her accompanying an Irish singer. Another time he tuned in and caught her accompanying her own singing. At a meeting arranged with Ramona, Whiteman asked her to join him when he opened in New York. Meanwhile, Mildred Bailey, after singing "We Just Couldn't Say Good-bye" on a Whiteman record, left in a flurry of lawsuits and joined CBS. Ramona stepped in and accepted a two-year contract at $125 a week (about one third what Whiteman was paying Bailey). Whiteman's original intention was to pair Ramona with crooner Red McKenzie, billing them as "Red & Ramona," but McKenzie had plans for his own orchestra. Ramona's recording début was on August 16, 1932, when she recorded "I Guess I'll Have To Change My Plan." The ornate black and gold RCA-Victor label read: "Paul Whiteman & His Orchestra, Featuring Ramona and Her Grand Piano." Over the next five years Ramona would be presented and managed by Paul Whiteman. In concert halls, magazines, movie theaters, auto shows, night clubs, county fairs, films, on records and network radio, she would shine with the greatest names in show business. Ramona's most important radio appearances were on the Kraft Music Hall, which made its début on NBC in 1933. The stars were Al Jolson and Paul Whiteman's Orchestra. Ramona's four years with Whiteman were her most illustrious. Her shapely figure, charming voice and vivacious personality added glamour to the already famous Whiteman cast of characters. She went by one name only, as did the Broadway actress Tamara, the French entertainer Mistinguett and, most assuredly, the incomparable Hildegarde. At some point she married quick-witted horn player Howard Davies, and was known by some as Ramona Davies. In 1936 the Whiteman orchestra was hired by producer Billy Rose to appear in his extravaganza Casa Mañana for the Fort Worth Frontier Centennial Exposition. For the entire summer the orchestra moved to Texas to play the nationally acclaimed show. It was during Casa Mañana that Whiteman hired Ken Hopkins, a handsome young arranger, to write orchestrations. Ramona, recently divorced from Howard Davies, married Hopkins before the year ended. Ramona was one of many performers managed by Whiteman's Artists Management Bureau. She sued Whiteman in 1937 accusing him of charging large fees for her services and giving her too little of it. On February 16, 1937, Justice Joseph M. Callahan of the Supreme Court ruled in Whiteman's favor, and he let her out of her contract early. Joan Edwards, niece of Gus Edwards, eventually replaced her. Ramona sailed to Europe on the luxurious Normandie to reap the benefits of her fame. On October 13, 1937, she began a choice engagement in London, headlining with Jack Harris at Ciro's Club on Orange Street. Ramona's London engagement was supposed to be for four weeks, but it was extended to six months. During her stay she gave a command performance for King George VI and Queen Elizabeth. Ramona returned to New York in 1938, and with her husband Ken's help, she formed a 12-piece all-male band. Ramona soon learned that a national career without Whiteman's help was infinitely more difficult. Competition in Ramona's professional relationship with Hopkins led to his drinking, and their marriage felt the strain. Ramona met announcer Al Helfer (1912-1975) while doing her 15-minute radio show in Manhattan. They were married in Baltimore, Maryland, and Ramona worked until the time their only child, Ramona was born. Ramona's last network radio appearance may have been on ABC's Piano Playhouse on October 19, 1946. The radio network beckoned again from Manhattan, only this time it was not for Ramona and her Grand Piano. Her husband Al was in great demand as a sports announcer. The family was so close-knit the parents moved to Denver to be near daughter Mona when she studied flute and voice at Denver University. By now her love of family had greatly overshadowed her show business yearnings and her husband's radio career surpassed hers. He was celebrated for making the annual presentation, beginning in 1947, of the famous Heisman Memorial Trophy. When Al Helfer retired, around 1969, he and Ramona moved to a house by a golf course near Sacramento, California. After an eight-month bout with cancer, Ramona died in Mercy San Juan Hospital in Sacramento. She was 63.- Writer
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Edward Eliscu was primarily known as a songwriter, son of author Edward Eliscu. Educated at City College, New York, he acted in plays. And subsequently became a lyricist of high caliber and authored libretti for shows and later films. His lyric writing credits include Broadway shows Great Day, The Garrick Gaieties (1930 edition), The Third Little Show, the 9:15 Revue. With Gus Kahn he wrote the lyrics for Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers' first film, Flying Down to Rio, with music by veteran composer Vincent Youmans. As a screenwriter, he also contributed to the script for The Gay Divorcee. In addition to Gus Kahn, his chief song writers collaborators were Ned Lehak, Billy Rose, Vincent Youmans and Jay Gorney. He also wrote television scripts.- Actor
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Rad Robinson's association with The King's Men quartet was his primary profession, beginning in 1930. From 1934 to 1937 The King's Men (Ken Darby, Arranger & Bass; Rad Robinson, Baritone; Jon Dodson, Lead Tenor; Bud Linn, Top Tenor, were a feature of the Paul Whiteman Orchestra on RCA records and the Kraft Music Hall. They subsequently appeared with many other orchestra leaders, including Rudy Vallee. They were heard, and sometimes seen, in many feature films, including Sweetie (1929) (My Sweeter than Sweet), Hollywood Party (1934) (Feelin' High), Let's Go Native (1930) (title song), Belle of the Nineties (1934) (Troubled Waters), Alexander's Ragtime Band (1938), Murder at the Vanities (1934), (Lovely One) and notably The Wizard of Oz (1939), in which they are the off screen voices for the Lollipop Guild. On screen they were remembered as the singing cowboys of the Hopalong Cassidy films. In the costume party scene of the film Honolulu (1939) the King's Men play the Marx Brothers (Robinson plays the wavy-haired Groucho). For a few years they were associated with the Music Department at Disney Studios (Make Mine Music (1946), Pinocchio (1940), and on the long-running radio show "Fibber McGee & Molly." The King's Men group was the basis for the Ken Darby Singers, featured on John Charles Thomas' "Westinghouse Broadcasts" and on many Decca phonograph records, such as Bing Crosby's original recording of "White Christmas." When not singing, Mr. Robinson was the entertainment contractor for the five Howard Hughes hotels, based in Las Vegas.- Arthur L. Jarrett was a stage actor and writer. He was the father of singer Arthur Jarrett and the brother of Daniel Jarrett, Broadway playwright. He played in stock companies all over the US from the 1890s, and appeared in 1955 in the play "The Bad Seed." In 1952, he was seen in "The Shrike" with José Ferrer. He also worked in movies and TV. He co-wrote the plays "My Fair Ladies" (with Marcy Klauber, 1941), "Springtime for Broadway" (same), "Romance on the Rye" (same collaborators, 1938), Moonlight and Pretzels (1933) (screenplay), "Broken Heart Cafe" (1938), "Bundles from Britain" (1941), "So Far So Good" (with Klauber, 1938) and "Obediently Yours" (with Klauber, 1940).
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A lifelong singer, Bud Linn's association with the King's Men quartet was his primary profession, beginning in 1930. From 1934 to 1937 The King's Men (Ken Darby, Arranger & Bass; Rad Robinson Baritone; Jon Dodson, Lead Tenor; Bud Linn, Top Tenor) were a feature of the Paul Whiteman Orchestra on RCA records and the Kraft Music Hall. They subsequently appeared with many other orchestra leaders, including Rudy Vallee. They were heard, and sometimes seen, in many feature films, including "Sweetie" (My Sweeter than Sweet), "Hollywood Party" (Feelin' High) "Let's Go Native" (title song), "Belle of the Nineties" (Troubled Waters), "Alexander's Ragtime Band," "Murder at the Vanities" (Lovely One) and notably "The Wizard of Oz," in which they are the off screen voices for the Lollipop Guild. On screen they were remembered as the singing cowboys of the Hopalong Cassidy films. In the costume party scene of the film "Honolulu," the King's Men play the Marx Brothers (Mr. Linn played Harpo). For a few years they were associated with the Music Department at Disney Studios (Make Mine Music, Pinocchio). The King's Men group was the basis for the Ken Darby Singers, featured on John Charles Thomas' "Westinghouse Broadcasts" and on many Decca phonograph records, such as Bing Crosby's original recording of "White Christmas." When Bud Linn was not singing he was the first Director for the YMCA in Thousand Oaks, California.- Additional Crew
Eric Myers (whose name is frequently misspelled as 'Meyers') is the author of "Uncle Mame: The Life of Patrick Dennis," co-author of "Screen Deco," "Forties Screen Style," and has written for the New York Times, Opera News, Time Out, and Quest, among many other publications. He is a film publicist and lives in New York.- Writer
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Bernice Petkere (pronounced "pet care") was born in Chicago to Canadian parents. She began as a performer in vaudeville. In a 1998 interview she said: "My mother started my aunt and me (I was five) as an act called 'Baby Dolls'...on the Pantages Circuit." As a teenager, Petkere sang with a dance band and became a pianist for Waterson, Berlin & Snyder, an important publishing company. She started writing music in the 1920s. "Starlight (Help Me Find The One I Love)" was her first published song (1931), and Bing Crosby recorded it for Brunswick. She wrote many radio themes when her second husband, Fred Berrens, was musical director at CBS. In the first years of the Great Depression, she created some lovely, haunting hits that were recorded and sung in America as well as abroad. One of her most successful numbers is "Lullaby of The Leaves." It was through lyricist Joe Young that she was introduced to ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors & Publishers), of which she was a member for over six decades. In 1932 composer-publisher Irving Berlin, for whom she had worked as a pianist, invited her to write for his prestigious company. For Berlin she wrote "The Lady I Love," which was popularized by Russ Columbo. Petkere declared, "I never was pals with the other women composers, or even the male ones. I had a private life in Manhattan. I lived at Hotel Pierre. My first husband, Eddie Conne and I lived elegantly...You had to be businesslike about music, and I was. Only a couple of music executives ever got what I call 'fresh' with me, and I let them have it, smack in the face like you never saw. I never smoked and I never drank, do you believe that?" She often wrote the lyrics as well as the music. One of her most successful songs, "Close Your Eyes," was an international sensation in 1933 and is considered a "standard." The on-going play between major and minor chords gives this song a distinct personality. Several of Petkere's songs have this melancholy minor feeling to them. When asked if she was reflecting the tenor of the Depression in her music, she said absolutely not -- it was just her "thing" then. Other Petkere songs include "My River Home," "By a Rippling Stream," "Stay Out of My Dreams," and "A Mile a Minute." Her song "It's All So New To Me" was featured in the Joan Crawford film "Ice Follies" (MGM, 1939). Petkere and her second husband, who died in 1974, moved to Southern California in the late '30s, where she busied herself writing, including story and the screenplay for the film Sabotage Squad (1942). She was a member of ASCAP, Writers Guild of America and Song Writers Guild. She was survived by a sister, Renee Petkere Alvarez and several cousins. She was interred at Hollywood Forever Cemetery on January 12, 2000.- The Ritz Quartet formed within the Broadway musical play "Tangerine" (1921). When the touring show closed in Minneapolis, the foursome landed bookings throughout the Mid-West, which led to vaudeville engagements, night clubs and radio. On the air they appeared with pianists Victor Arden and Phil Ohman, Ethel Merman, Al Goodman and Vincent Lopez. They were featured entertainers at Casa Lopez in New York City. The men who made up the Ritz Quartet were Arthur Herbert, Alex Mason, Neil Evans and Jesse Phillips.
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Peter Yarin is a New York-based pianist and composer involved with both jazz and classical music, and a frequent performer and composer of musical theater. He is the full-time pianist for Vince Giordano and The Nighthawks. As composer, Yarin is collaborating on two original musicals in development: "The Age of Innocence" and "The Masked Zinfandel." He has also composed music for the Japanese musical "Sempo" which premiered in 2008 at Tokyo's New National Theatre and was revived in 2013. Playing solo and with Vince Giordano and The Nighthawks, Yarin's piano work has been featured on many soundtracks, including the TV series Boardwalk Empire (2010), The Knick (2014), Mildred Pierce (2011), Amazon's upcoming "Zelda," the films "Kill Your Darlings" (2013), Bessie (2015), and Carol (2015). He is heard on the Grammy-winning CD, "Music from Boardwalk Empire, Vol. 1" as well as the two follow-up albums, accompanying such artists as Regina Spektor, Elvis Costello, Liza Minnelli, St. Vincent, Rufus Wainwright, and many others. In live venues, he has accompanied Garrison Keillor, Michael Feinstein, Bette Midler and others.- Music Department
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Vee Lawnhurst was a virtuoso pop pianist, a radio pioneer, and made records and numerous piano rolls before she tried her hand at writing popular songs. Although she may have been unaware of it, she shared her birthday with the "King of Ragtime," Scott Joplin (1868-1917). She often performed brilliant duets with other pianists, notably Constance Mering and Muriel Pollack. Despite her claims of timidity, she also sang nicely on records and radio. After the death of her lyric-writing partner, Roy Turk, she formed a team with Tot Seymour, and their publisher (Famous Music) advertised them as "the first successful team of girl song writers in popular music history." 1935 was Seymour & Lawnhurst's best year. They had numerous songs that 'made' Your Hit Parade which began broadcasting in the spring of 1935. "And Then Some" made it to #1 and remained on the program for 11 weeks, "Cross Patch" (6 weeks), "Accent On Youth" (4 weeks), and "No Other One" stayed on for 11 weeks. As a "rhythm" pianist, Lawnhurst had a style marked by its harmonic and rhythmic invention, fluidity and delicacy. Publishers said that she was such a superb demonstrator of her songs, everything she played sounded utterly rhapsodic --- even when the songs were not up to past standards! She gradually stopped performing in public, preferring to write music, and eventually vanished from the public eye, enjoying her retirement in her Manhattan apartment with her Mason & Hamlin piano and happy memories. Her favorite song was Johnny Mercer and David Raksin's "Laura."- The Four Eton Boys were educated in small towns near St. Louis, where they all gained dramatic experience in amateur productions. Charlie and Jack Day toured the country for nine years as acrobats, playing the Palace Theatre on Broadway nine times in a single year. In 1923 the introduction of their songs in their act was so successful that they were booked at every variety theatre on Broadway, appeared in the musical comedy Rufus Lemaire's Affairs, and were featured in a two-reel comedy film. After singing with the Four Rajahs and announcing at station KMOX, St. Louis, Mr. Gentry joined the quartet as lead. Earl Smith left vaudeville in the Middle West for New York night club work, joining the Day brothers at the Nut Club. A popular CBS feature, the Eton Boys enlivened Borden's Forty-Five Minutes in Hollywood and were heard in the Columbia Varieties program. They made Paramount and Warner shorts and toured the Loews Circuit. They recorded for Columbia records and in 1935, they joined the cast of the Socony Sketch Book, the weekly radio series conducted by Johnny Green.
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Rosario Bourdon, the conductor and cellist, had a long and distinguished radio career as well as twenty years service to the Victor Talking Machine Company. Bourdon was educated at Académie de Musique de Québec (where he won first prize), and the Ghent Royal Conservatory, he studied with Joseph Jacob, Albert Beyer, Oscar Roels, Adolph Bogeart, Alphonse d'Hulst, and Paul Lebrun. He received an honorary Mus. D. at the University of Montréal. He concertized in Europe for three years, and toured throughout Quebec. He was a featured soloist at the 1903 Quebec Festival, and then a cellist with the Cincinnati Symphony, the Philadelphia Orchestra (under Leopold Stokowski), and the St. Paul Orchestra (and was also assistant conductor of the latter). He organized the St. Paul String Quartet. From 1911 to 1931 he was music director and cellist for Victor Records. He also conducted frequently on the podium on the Mall in Central Park, Manhattan. Joining ASCAP in 1938, his compositions include "Ginger Snaps," "Dance Bagatelle," "Chinese Lament," "Through the Line," "Love's Lullaby," "March Automatic," "Blue Grass" and "Nina."- Music Department
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Wrote first song words at age ten. At 16 had own orchestra, playing Catskills, Adirondacks, Poconos, also local New York jobs. At 18 started with Witmark & Sons Music Publishers, in Minstrel Department, "producing" shows for fraternal, religious and other organizations, supplying them with songs, skits, and jokes from Tams Library. Transferred to "Professional" departments of various music publishers. Duties included song plugging, rehearsing singers, writing special material, punch lines, gags and skits. His first published songs had lyrics by Spina and music by others. In early 1930s had minor hit songs "Let's Drift Away on Dreamer's Bay" and "We Were Only Walkin' in the Moonlight." A collaboration with Johnny Burke led to many successes in the middle 1930s, such as "Annie Doesn't Live Here Anymore" and "The Beat o' My Heart." Spina adapted the Mexican song "La Cucaracha" from a 6/8-meter song to 4/4. It became a worldwide hit with his treatment. Lyrics were by Johnny Burke. They used the name JUAN Y D'LORAH on the published song, "Juan" being Johnny Burke, and "d'lorah" being Harold spelled backwards. Burke and Spina composed songs for the top orchestra leaders of the 1930s. For Guy Lombardo they wrote "Annie Doesn't Live Here Anymore" (with Joe Young), for Paul Whiteman they wrote "The Beat o' My Heart," and for Fred Waring they wrote "It's Dark on Observatory Hill." Fats Waller recorded several of their songs, including "You're Not the Only Oyster in the Stew." At the Long Island film studios they wrote songs for several short subjects, which featured the talents of Bob Hope, Bert Lahr, Lillian Miles, and Ethel Waters. Burke and Spina went separate ways in 1936, when Burke teamed up with Arthur Johnston for the film Pennies from Heaven (1936). Spina went to Hollywood in 1937 and wrote many film songs with lyricist Walter Bullock. They wrote songs for film stars Jimmy Durante, Shirley Temple, Kenny Baker, George Murphy, Bill Robinson and Alice Faye. Later he wrote for MGM and Columbia. The best known of these songs are "I Love to Walk in The Rain" (from Just Around the Corner (1938), "I Still Love to Kiss You Goodnight" (from 52nd Street (1937)) and "Be Optimistic" (from Little Miss Broadway (1938)). 1940 Spina wrote the book and music for "Stovepipe Hat," a musical legend produced in New York in 1944. In London, Spina wrote directed and recorded 76 of his own compositions with his orchestra and vocalists for BBC radio. Spina returned to lyric writing in 1947 and had a hit with "Cumana" (written with Roc Hillman and Barclay Allan), popularized by Freddy Martin's Orchestra. In the 1950s he wrote, directed and recorded numerous LPs, which utilized the talents of Cesar Romero, Marie Wilson, George Jessel and the Merry Macs. At Capitol Spina wrote for Anthony Quinn's album "In My Own Way." On radio Spina created and produced the Jim Ameche Show, one of the first disk jockey shows with international syndication. On television Spina was involved with many song writer tributes. They were called "Down Tin Pan Alley" (Harold Spina, host) and "And Then I Wrote" (writer, director). In 1950 he had a huge success with the song "It's So Nice to Have a Man Around the House" (lyrics by Jack Elliott) and "Would I Love You, Love You, Love You" which sold over a million records for Patti Page.- Milt Britton started playing vaudeville around 1914. In 1917 he formed a double act (trombone and cornet) with Frank Wetzel, who then changed his name to Frank Britton. Originator of the "slapstick" orchestra, Britton's Orchestra became known in Europe and the USA as "America's Craziest Orchestra" and "The Mad Musical Maniacs." The band's routine was to begin playing a selection in the normal way, then about half way through the song, a musician would stumble and knock an instrument out of another's hand, thereby starting a melee of comedy. Their band played some Broadway shows, made tours of South America and the US, and made appearances in shorts and feature films. They are seen causing mayhem during the title song in Moonlight and Pretzels (1933).
- In 1917, Frank Wenzel changed his name to "Frank Britton" to form a double act (trombone and cornet) with Milt Britton. Originators of the "slapstick" orchestra, Britton's Orchestra became known in Europe and the USA as "America's Craziest Orchestra" and "The Mad Musical Maniacs".
The band's routine was to begin playing a selection in the normal way, then about half way through the song, a musician would stumble and knock an instrument out of another's hand, thereby starting a melee of comedy.
The band played some Broadway shows, made tours of South America and the US, and made appearances in shorts and feature films. They are seen causing mayhem during the title song in Moonlight and Pretzels (1933). . - The Four Eton Boys were educated in small towns near St. Louis, where they all gained dramatic experience in amateur productions. Charlie and Jack Day toured the country for nine years as acrobats, playing the Palace Theatre on Broadway nine times in a single year. In 1923 the introduction of their songs in their act was so successful that they were booked at every variety theatre on Broadway, appeared in the musical comedy Rufus Lemaire's Affairs, and were featured in a two-reel comedy film. After singing with the Four Rajahs and announcing at station KMOX, St. Louis, Art Gentry joined the quartet as lead. Earl Smith left vaudeville in the Middle West for New York night club work, joining the Day brothers at the Nut Club. A popular CBS feature, the Eton Boys enlivened Borden's Forty-Five Minutes in Hollywood and were heard in the Columbia Varieties program. They made Paramount and Warner shorts and toured the Loews Circuit. They recorded for Columbia records and in 1935, they joined the cast of the Socony Sketch Book, the weekly radio series conducted by Johnny Green.
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Jack Denny started his musical career in Montreal, Quebec in 1920. His career as leader of his dance orchestra lasted for many years and was especially popular in the early 1930s. He retired from the band business about six years before his death, and worked as salesman for the Baldwin Piano Company. At the time of his death he was survived by his wife.- The Four Eton Boys were educated in small towns near St. Louis, where they all gained dramatic experience in amateur productions. Charlie and Jack Day toured the country for nine years as acrobats, playing the Palace Theatre on Broadway nine times in a single year. In 1923 the introduction of their songs in their act was so successful that they were booked at every variety theatre on Broadway, appeared in the musical comedy Rufus Lemaire's Affairs, and were featured in a two-reel comedy film. After singing with the Four Rajahs and announcing at station KMOX, St. Louis, Art Gentry joined the quartet as lead. Earl Smith left vaudeville in the Middle West for New York night club work, joining the Day brothers at the Nut Club. A popular CBS feature, the Eton Boys enlivened Borden's Forty-Five Minutes in Hollywood and were heard in the Columbia Varieties program. They made Paramount and Warner shorts and toured the Loews Circuit. They recorded for Columbia records and in 1935, they joined the cast of the Socony Sketch Book, the weekly radio series conducted by Johnny Green.
- Bob Grimes heard the song, "All My Life" on the radio when he was fourteen. It became his favorite song. All his school friends knew this, and would tease him by singing the song outside his window. So Bob told me: "I just had to have this song. The price of sheet music was 35 cents in those days." This left Bob with a hefty 65 cents for school supplies. This 35 cents represented his first sacrifice for a collection that would number over 30,000 songs. His mother found out he had bought "There's a Small Hotel," then "These Foolish Things" and said "Don't you evah bring another piece of music into this here house," words that fell on deaf ears. His enthusiasm for the songs of Hollywood and Broadway is shown by the number of copies he has made for his performer friends over the years.
Grimes was born in 1922 in Longview, in northeast Texas, about 120 miles east of Dallas and about 60 miles west of Shreveport. He was exposed to the accents of Louisiana, Oklahoma and Arkansas. "I had such a horrible southern accent that in school, even the kids laughed at me." Bob's Aunt Annie gave the family her upright piano. In the bench he found treasures he hadn't dreamed existed, Sheet Music! After failing at piano lessons he still got excited to just hold the music in his hands, to read it, to smell it, was like entering the world of show business. Bob's father, according to Bob, Joe had the most marvelous personality in the world. He led the community sing a longs and did all kinds of public speaking. Bob had an obsession with movie star photos and sheet music. His mother's only interest was playing cards and raising a family, and she forbade Bob to spend his money on sheet music. But Bob's sisters loved it and would drive him around, never missing a junk shop. He would bring music home and have his photo taken next to a pile of music on his front step. Now if he did this, the this pile might reach the sixth floor of his apartment building in San Francisco.
When Bob was asked "What are your top ten favorite songs?" he made a list. The list had fourteen songs, then he added, he also had a favorite Gershwin song and a favorite Porter song, and a favorite film song, and a favorite Broadway score, and a favorite novelty song, and a favorite torch song, favorite Kern song and a favorite Arlen song and a favorite Mercer song and ...
When Bob Grimes was eight years old, his brother had a job delivering circulars for the Aladdin Theatre. His brother didn't like the job and so he gave the job to Bob. After several months, the theatre gave Bob free admission for at least a couple of years. Beginning in 1930 Bob saw every "B" movie ever made. His love of film music was born. Before he started collecting sheet music, he wrote to all the stars in Hollywood and asked for their photo. The collection ranged from Renée Adorée to Vera Zorina. In the 1930s no one seemed to know what to do with Bob Grimes. He wasn't being asked to join the football or baseball teams, so his father, Joe, who owned the plumbing and electrical store, ordered sheet music from a music wholesaler for Bob to sell. This was not what his mother had in mind. But his mother eventually couldn't stop him and she later confided, "I wish I had something to enjoy as much as you do."
During World War II Bob Grimes was working in an office in Zamboanga, right on the Basilan Strait, part of the Philippine Islands. Everybody hated it but Bob, who pretended it was his castle. Bob Grimes moved to San Francisco in 1947, leaving his sheet music in Texas, because he was beginning to feel that everyone thought he was nuts for having such a weird hobby. But He couldn't control his urge, and started collecting opera scores, because a friend said he should elevate his taste. After working for a while for the Western Pacific railroad in San Francisco, he took a job with Patrick & Company Stationers. He liked being around people more than sitting at a desk, so he stayed there for 35 years. Soon after moving to San Francisco he started to itch for his music, so his mother happily boxed it and shipped it to San Francisco. She was free of it at last. During Bob Grimes' employment at Patrick & Co. stationers he became well known to the customers as a guest on Jim Eason's KGO radio show, with guests such as Gloria Swanson, Kirk Douglas, Mel Tormé. Bob's distinctive voice was heard from Vladivostok to Valparaiso on KGO radio for twenty years. His voice was so distinctive one day he called the record store, and when the lady who answered learned he was Bob Grimes, she gasped, "You're the Bob Grimes?! Why, you're almost a celebrity!"
Nothing delighted Bob Grimes more than finding a rare piece of musical history. In the Public Library he discovered that there were two title songs copyrighted for the 1936 film San Francisco (1936). The one by Gus Kahn, Bronislau Kaper and Walter Jurmann was accepted and published. The other was written by Walter Donaldson and Harold Adamson, already successful composers of "You" from The Great Ziegfeld (1936) and others. It was never published, so after contacting the Library of Congress and waiting eight months, Bob asked Michael Feinstein (then Ira Gershwin's assistant) to look for it in the files at MGM. It turned up and Michael sang it on the phone to Bob, who was so ecstatic he had Michael repeat it three times. This was the first time the song had been performed in 46 years! For many years, The official song of the city had been the 1936 song 'San Francisco' but in 1969, a film of Tony Bennett singing 'I Left My Heart in San Francisco' against a backdrop of cable cars, was shown at a Board of Supervisors meeting and the Board unanimously adopted the ballad as the official song. At the time there were minor cries and protests, but the matter eventually rested. Bob Grimes threw a fit. One day after appearing on a radio trivia show with Merla Zellerbach and Fred Goerner, Bob brought up the topic. Fred had a radio show on KMPX and held a poll, which resulted in a vote that was ten to one in favor of the 1936 song. [Merla wrote a story about it in 1972 which irritated I Left My Heart's... writers, George Cory and Douglass Cross. Bob received a call from the ballad's composer, George Cory, and he went on a 15 minute tirade, ending with "I hope there's a good earthquake and you're the first one to go!" Controversial writer Warren Hinckle took the Texas steer by the horns and on Thursday, May 3, 1984 the supervisors deadlocked on whether 'I Left My Heart' should be dumped in favor of 'San Francisco.' Nearly 300 people crowded into Supervisors' chambers and downstairs in the Rotunda of City Hall, authorities estimated that 5000 people were inside the building. They cheered and whistled for 'San Francisco.' The highlight of the day was soprano Pamela Brooks, who recreated Jeanette MacDonald's rendition while strolling down the majestic marble staircase.
In 2010, when Grimes was eighty-eight years old, he arranged the sale of his lifelong collection of sheet music to the Michael Feinstein Archive. - Music Department
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Mr. Bunchuk was born in Russia and graduated from the University of Petrograd. He was an accomplished cellist and achieved celebrity as the Musical Director of New York's Capitol Theatre Orchestra and other orchestras. On radio he led the Capitol Grand Orchestra and later the orchestra for Major Bowes Amateur Hour (Bowes was an investor in the Capitol Theatre). Although he made very few commercial recordings, he and his Orchestra starred in a Vitaphone short in the mid 1930s. At the request of Gregory Ratoff, Bunchuk transferred his talents to the West Coast. Shortly before his death at age 48 he was working for Columbia Studios. According to "Variety," a deal was pending for him to take over the "Contented Hour" broadcasts from Chicago.- Actress
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Throughout the 1920s, vaudeville child star Sylvia Froos was billed as "Baby Sylvia." In 1927 she appeared in two talking films six months before The Jazz Singer (1927). Froos began her professional career in Baltimore in 1920 at the age of seven, and soon became a successful Vaudeville singer. Before her, there were no other family members in show business. Her devoted mother traveled the vaudeville circuit with Baby Sylvia. In her teen years, she became known as "The Little Princess of Song," and under that billing made two all-talking short subjects for the Vitaphone Corporation that were released in April 1927 - a half year before the premiere of The Jazz Singer (1927). Her career blossomed in the 1930s when she had her own radio program on NBC. During that period, Froos began appearing as a featured vocalist on other shows with the likes of Al Jolson, Fred Allen, Paul Whiteman, Johnny Green, Harry Richman, as well as many other big name artists of the time. In about 1930, she also began making phonograph records for the Crown and Victor record companies. Among the songs she recorded were "Penthouse Serenade," "You Didn't Know the Music" and "Who's Your Little Who-Zis!" In 1933, Froos appeared -- and received higher billing than Shirley Temple -- in "Fox Follies," which was eventually released as Stand Up and Cheer! (1934) Although originally cast as the sister of Madge Evans in the feature film, Froos ultimately appeared as a musical performer singing two numbers - "This is Our Last Night Together" (to heart throb John Boles) and "Broadway's Gone Hill Billy," which she sang while dressed in a cowboy outfit. According to a story retold by Froos shortly before her death, because of their youth, Froos, Temple and their mothers reportedly went together to the courthouse to secure working papers to appear in the movies. Froos made several other movie shorts for Vitaphone (released through Warner Brothers), Educational (released through Fox), and Mentone Productions (released through Universal). The shorts for Vitaphone included Rambling 'Round Radio Row #2 (1932), Eddie Duchin & Orchestra (1933), and "Soft Drinks and Sweet Music" (1934) with Georgie Price. In "Rambling 'Round Radio Row (1932/I)" Froos plays a celebrated singer who is stalked by cameramen. In her boudoir she sings to her real-life mother. Sylvia's older sister, Betty, made an attempt at a career in show business, and played the Keith Circuit. In order to avoid comparison to her sister, she used the name Betty Fraser. In the mid-1930s, as vaudeville's luster was waning in the United States, Sylvia traveled to England, where the genre was still popular. There, she played at the Victoria Palace Theater and also appeared on television, long before that medium became familiar to American audiences. In the early 1940s, Froos made about half a dozen "Soundies," an early version of music videos, including "Let's Dream This One Out, "Can't Seem to Laugh Anymore" and "The Wise Old Owl." These 3-minute films were produced solely for playing in a Panoram machine, which was a type of video jukebox. Patrons would pay 10 cents and get to hear the song as well as see the performer on a small screen. Froos enjoyed life on the ocean, and appeared on many grand ships. Her last appearance on phonograph records was about 1950, when she performed under the Jubilee label. One of the songs, "A Satchel and a Seck," a parody of A Bushel & a Peck, was sung with a young Allan Sherman, more than 10 years before he gained national prominence with his own song parody, "Hello Muddah-Hello Faddah." Sherman wrote special material, including parodies, for Froos' night club act. In her last years, Froos developed a following among New York musicians and theatrical people; many connected with the Vitaphone Project and the Friends of Old Time Radio Club. Miss Froos was interviewed in the TV documentary Added Attractions: The Hollywood Shorts Story (2002) written by Leonard Maltin and John Griffin for Turner Classic Movies. When Froos' film shorts began appearing on cable TV, it inspired a new bout of fan mail for her later years. Her national Fan Club was based in San Francisco. The year before she died, the Princess of Song could still sing. Andrea Marcovicci encouraged Sylvia to join her in song during her show in the Oak Room at the Algonquin Hotel in NY. Upon hearing Froos' death, singer Michael Feinstein wrote, "Sylvia was a remarkable lady who touched my heart with her kindness and straight forward manner."- Actor
- Music Department
Mike Ponella, trumpeter, received a Bachelor of Music Degree in Jazz Studies from the New England Conservatory of Music. For over twenty five years he has been the lead trumpeter with the Toshiko Akiyoshi Jazz Orchestra, as well as previous lead trumpet/ soloist work for the United Nation Orchestra with Paquito D'Rivera, and also with Slide Hampton + The Jazz Masters.
Ponella plays first trumpet with Vince Giordano and The Nighthawks, which won a Grammy Award for HBO's soundtrack Recording of Boardwalk Empire (2010). As a free-lance musician, he has played for recordings, radio, television, musical theatre and film, constituting a wide variety of musical styles ranging from performances with Dizzy Gillespie to Maestro Anton Coppola.
Ponella is on camera and sound track for Michael Feinstein's American Songbook (2010), and has appeared on radio broadcasts with Garrison Keillor's "A Prairie Home Companion." In August 2013 he was a special guest clinician/trumpeter for a Japan tour, performing his original compositions from his "G.W.B. Shuffle" CD.
In HBO's series, Vinyl (2016), Ponella participated in recording and was trumpet instructor/coach on set.- Casper Reardon was born to a vaudeville family in Little Falls, New York. At the age of five he trouped with his parents. His father, who was of Irish descent, presented him with a small Irish harp on his eighth birthday. His début as soloist was with the Philadelphia Orchestra, under the direction of Leopold Stokowski. As a result of winning a scholarship, he became one of the most brilliant pupils of the illustrious Carlos Salzedo at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia. Graduating in 1926, he became first harpist of the Cincinnati Symphony under Fritz Reiner for five years, and head of the Harp Department at the Cincinnati Conservatory. Newspaperman Edwin H. Schloss wrote (July 19, 1939), 'In Cincinnati, some of Reardon's Southern pupils interested him in jazz and he fell in love with the music of W.C. Handy. He found the percussive harp to be as well suited to Gershwin as to Debussy and the rest is history, mostly made via radio.' On his own, Reardon devised a technique of playing 'jazz.' The precedent for jazz music on the harp had not been explored to a significant degree. It wasn't unusual for a dance orchestra to utilize the harp for texture. (The dance orchestras of Leonard Joy, Richard Himber, Victor Young and Raymond Paige used harp regularly.) Reardon thought the harp had more potential than the usual flourishes and interludes that were expected of him. When he became a regular feature on the powerful Cincinnati station WLW, he used the nom de radio "Arpeggio Glissando," so as to not shock his classical harp students. He moved to New York City in 1931 and immediately created a niche for himself and his instrument. On September 18, 1934, he recorded an unprecedented long harp solo on the Jack Teagarden recording of "Junk Man" for Brunswick Records. Although his name does not appear on the record, determined music lovers soon found out who the swing harpist was. By 1936 he recorded some dance records as Casper Reardon & His Orchestra, for Liberty Music Shop. He became known as the "Swing Harpist." He was immortalized as "Cousin Caspar" [sic] in Alice Faye's film You're a Sweetheart (1937). He was a regular on radio shows such as 'Saturday Night Swing Club' with the orchestra of Bunny Berigan, and was often featured by Paul Whiteman and His Orchestra. George Gershwin featured Reardon on his popular Feenamint broadcast in 1934. Casper Reardon met Dana Suesse in nineteen thirty-nine, through their friend, Gus Schirmer. Suesse told this writer, "Casper told me about having an engagement with the Philadelphia Symphony and wanted me to write something for him. At the time, Young Man with A Horn was a best selling novel." It seemed logical to create a concert piece called Young Man with A Harp. Alexander Smallens, who would always be remembered as the original conductor of Gershwin's Porgy and Bess, conducted the concert at the Robin Hood Dell in 1939 Dana and Casper repeated their Young Man With A Harp on February 25, 1940 with Guy Fraser Harrison conducting the Rochester Civic Orchestra. The program was made up almost entirely of harp and orchestra pieces: Debussy, Couperin, Salzedo and Suesse. The Rochester Democrat & Chronicle (Norman Nairn) boasted there was a "pleasurable evening for a large audience which 'ate up' the swing music of Mr. Reardon. " After these favorable responses, Dana and Casper wanted to make a recording of their effort. What better place to try than their friend, Gus Schirmer, Jr. and his new recording studio. In 1940 Reardon performed with Suesse at a Cabinet Dinner for President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his family. Reardon became ill and died on March 8, 1941. He was 33 years old.
- Named after the King of Spain, pianist Carlos Alfonso Zelaya was the son of José Santos Zelaya, President of Nicaragua from 1893-1909. He was educated in Europe before his father sent him to America to be a general. He was a graduate of West Point, 1910, and served four years in the U.S. Army during World War I. In 1911 he married his first wife, American-born Marguerite Lee, grandniece of General Robert E. Lee. They had a son they named José Santos. As pianist he played with the San Francisco and Minneapolis symphony orchestras. With a repertoire of 300 classical pieces, his performances were not limited to the concert stage, for he also enjoyed bringing classical music to the vaudeville (Keith-Orpheum Circuit) stage. According to the Spokane (Washington) Spokesman-Review (Mar. 4, 1932), "...what is unique about this most affable and rotund Castilian is that he plays classical music and makes vaudeville audiences like it. He has a certain humor, a philosophical way of presenting his music that makes his audiences clamor for more and more." Beginning in 1933 he made sporadic film appearances playing bit parts. His last role was as "Gimpy," the piano player in Macao (1952). He died in North Hollywood on December 14, 1951, the day before the death of celebrated Mexican composer María Grever. He was survived by his second wife, Olga Desmondae ("Des") Rieman (1899-1966), a singer who had been in vaudeville with her first husband, Otis Mitchell. (Zelaya's widow subsequently married famous comic Bert Wheeler.) He was buried at Forest Lawn (Glendale) Cemetery.
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
Mabel Wayne was described by a newspaper as a "...red-haired lass from Brooklyn who wrote Spanish songs." Like many other composers, she spent some time in vaudeville before becoming a writer. Few native New Yorkers can boast such a catalog of Latin-influenced songs, which began in 1926 with "In A Little Spanish Town" followed by "Ramona," "Chiquita," "Little Spanish Dancer," "In A Little Town Across The Border," and "Valparaiso," in addition to songs of a different style, such as "Little Man, You've Had A Busy Day." She composed songs ("It Happened In Monterey") for the 1930 Universal Technicolor film King of Jazz (1930) and wrote for British films, including Dance Band (1935) and Hi-De-Hi (1942).- Beginning in 1925, The Ingenues, an American dance and stage band comprised of 18 to 22 female musicians, headlined for almost ten years, performing to sold-out concert halls and theatres around the globe. With stage sets, costumes, technicians and more than 100 instruments, the group earned the nickname "The Girl Paul Whitemans of Syncopation."
The group evolved from smaller groups led by Beth Vance (born Bessie Frances Israel, 1901-1962), who had been part of several traveling orchestras since she was a teenager. Bess (who would marry in 1922 and use the name Beth Vance) played the Chautauqua circuit under the auspices of the Redpath-Horner Chautauqua company, performing in circuses, county fairs and vaudeville houses. Her groups (The Harmony Belles, Beth Vance & Her Co-eds) ranged in size but started to grow around 1924. Concurrently the Russian-born violinist Harry Waiman (1891-1953) directed a 7-piece group called Harry Wayman and His 'Debutantes' (1928), traveling thousands of miles throughout the Midwest.
By November 1925 Beth Vance's orchestra had grown to 17 members, including veterans of other all-girl bands, and was renamed The Ingenues. A boy tenor, Johnnie Looze and Charleston dancer Helen Dobbin (former member of Doris Humphrey's Dancers), were added attractions. Violin and harp soloists were added, along with two pianos. In February 1926, during their engagement at Pittsburgh's Grand Theatre, The Ingenues orchestra was broadcast on pioneer radio station KDKA. With few exceptions, the orchestra members were born in Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Iowa and Nebraska.
By the end of 1926 the Ingenues acquired a manager and producer Edward Gorman Sherman (1880-1940), who would elevate the group from regional popularity to Broadway and international fame. Ingenues founder Beth Vance was replaced by Marie Novak (1905-1980), who had been the pianist for the Hummingbirds Orchestra in Minneapolis. Around this time the Ingenues grew with former members of Harry Waiman's Debutantes and Bobbie Grice's Parisian Redheads. Vaudeville tours took the Ingenues to dozens of theatres from coast to coast, both in the U.S. and Canada. Mr. Sherman's marketing expertise led to wild civic interest in every town, often resulting in front page stories in newspapers and performances for charities. The critics unanimously praised the Ingenues, which led to an engagement at New York's most prestigious vaudeville house, Keith's Palace Theatre, beginning June 13, 1927.
According to Marie Novak, Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. attended their show three times that first week and prevailed upon them to appear for four weeks with a further offer of a year's contract in his upcoming Ziegfeld Follies of 1927. Previewing in Boston on August 1, 1927, the 21st Ziegfeld Follies boasted all new songs by Irving Berlin sets by Joseph Urban, dances by Sammy Lee, costumes by John W. Harkrider, ballets by Albertina Rasch, and the stars Eddie Cantor, Ruth Etting, Cliff Edwards and Claire Luce. The show opened at the New Amsterdam Theatre in New York on August 6, 1927, and the Ingenues were featured in opulent numbers, including "Shaking the Blues Away" (with the "Banjo Ingenues"), and the sensational "Melody Land" first act finale that featured the entire Ingenues Orchestra along with two-piano team Edgar Fairchild & Ralph Rainger, the Albertina Rasch Girls, and 12 female pianists framing the entire scene. Other numbers included "Ooh, Maybe It's You" (with 10 saxophones) "It's Up to the Band" and "Tickling the Ivories" featuring the Ingenues accordions. Smaller ensembles from the Ingenues (strings, harp) were employed in other scenes, keeping the musicians occupied for 167 Broadway performances, when the show closed January 7, 1928. Shortly after the closing of the show the Ingenues set out on a world tour, including an engagement at Los Angeles Metropolitan Theatre, sharing the bill with the Fanchon and Marco Girls. During their time in Los Angeles they were recruited to Warner Bros. to make two 9-minute shorts for the Vitaphone, The Band Beautiful (1928) and The Syncopating Sweeties (1928), both released nationwide by the summer. Talking pictures were still a novelty when these films were made, and the film captures a sparkling musical moment in entertainment history.
Between 1929 and 1932 the full-sized Ingenues orchestra would tour the world, along with their set builders, electricians and a few mothers. Their appearances in any country would cause much excitement, and they spent many months aboard ships and trains, along with their hundreds of instruments, props and sets. The Ingenues were headliners in Honolulu, Auckland, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth. In one Australian city, the president of the Federation of Music delivered a curtain speech showering the Ingenues with praise and thanking them for inspiring young musicians and creating a new interest in the field of popular music. Their ships took them to Bombay, Cairo, Paris, Monte Carlo, Berlin, Hamburg, London, Tunis, Rome, Johannesburg, Sao Paulo and Buenos Ares.
During the summer of 1929, while in South America they made their only commercial recordings, which were released on the Columbia label in Brazil and never available in the U.S. It is thought that some recordings were made on the stage of Teatros Santana is São Paulo.
Between world tours they continued to headline in vaudeville in the U.S. and Canada, under the auspices of the Publix and RKO Theatre circuits and William Morris Agency, but always under the direction of E.G. Sherman. One member sent her mother a postcard of the electric chair in Sing Sing Penitentiary (Ossining, New York) describing a performance for 1,000 prisoners.
The Ingenues' last major tours were made in 1931 and 1932, after which their appearances faded away like all vaudeville acts. To compound matters, their manager, E.G. Sherman, was seriously injured in an auto accident while travelling to an important Chicago engagement. He was hospitalized for several months. In 1934 a 10-piece Ingenues, again produced by Sherman, played in Muncie, Indiana. A new crop of all-girl orchestras popped up in the 1930s that included Ina Ray Hutton and Her Melodears, Phil Spitalny's and His Musical Queens, and Dona Drake and Her Orchestra. Conversely, another band was Ramona and Her Men of Music. The new female bands were conventional bands playing popular songs for dancing, with the leader acting as the glamorous and sexy center of attention.
No longer headliners, they appeared on the same bill as Harry Rose, Hal Le Roy, Mel Klee and other veterans of vaudeville's heyday.
By mid-1936, the orchestra electrician, Ray Fabing (1896-1975), who was also married to Ingenue member Alyce Pleis (1908-1990), directed a few engagements in the mid-west as "Ray Fabing's Hollywood Ingenues." Apparently they tried unsuccessfully entering the competitive world of swing music, and were featured (with many new faces) in a musical film short entitled Maids & Music (1938) with Ray Fabing playing a band leader. One of the last engagements was at a Mount Morris High School in Freeport, Illinois. In 1938, for a short while the Ingenues were directed by Count Berni-Vici, who had produced an all-girl vaudeville orchestra in the late 1920s.