Wallace Fitzgerald Beery was an American film and stage actor. He is best known for his portrayal of Bill in Min and Bill (1930) opposite Marie Dressler, as General Director Preysing in Grand Hotel (1932), as Long John Silver in Treasure Island (1934), as Pancho Villa in Viva Villa! (1934), and his title role in The Champ (1931), for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor. Beery appeared in some 250 films during a 36-year career. His contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer stipulated in 1932 that he would be paid $1 more than any other contract player at the studio. This made Beery the highest-paid film actor in the world during the early 1930s. He was the brother of actor Noah Beery and uncle of actor Noah Beery Jr.
Phineas Taylor Barnum was an American showman, businessman and politician remembered for promoting celebrated hoaxes and founding the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus with James Anthony Bailey.
Mary Willie Grace Moore was an American operatic lyric soprano and actress in musical theatre and film. She was nicknamed the "Tennessee Nightingale." Her films helped to popularize opera by bringing it to a larger audience. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in One Night of Love.
Johanna Maria Lind (Madame Goldschmidt) (6 October 1820 – 2 November 1887) was a Swedish opera singer, often called the "Swedish Nightingale". One of the most highly regarded singers of the 19th century, she performed in soprano roles in opera in Sweden and across Europe, and undertook an extraordinarily popular concert tour of the United States beginning in 1850. She was a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music from 1840.
Vincent Millie Youmans was an American Broadway composer and producer.
Barnum is an American musical with a book by Mark Bramble, lyrics by Michael Stewart, and music by Cy Coleman. It is based on the life of showman P. T. Barnum, covering the period from 1835 through 1880 in America and major cities of the world where Barnum took his performing companies. The production combines elements of traditional musical theater with the spectacle of the circus. The characters include jugglers, trapeze artists and clowns, as well as such real-life personalities as Jenny Lind and General Tom Thumb.
Maytime is a 1937 American musical and romantic-drama film produced by MGM. It was directed by Robert Z. Leonard, and stars Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy. The screenplay was rewritten from the book for Sigmund Romberg's 1917 operetta Maytime by Rida Johnson Young, Romberg's librettist; however, only one musical number by Romberg was retained.
The Mighty Barnum is a 1934 film starring Wallace Beery as P.T. Barnum. The movie was written by Gene Fowler and Bess Meredyth, adapted from their play of the same name, and directed by Walter Lang. Beery had played Barnum four years earlier in A Lady's Morals, a highly fictionalized biography of singer Jenny Lind. The supporting cast features Adolphe Menjou, Virginia Bruce as Jenny Lind, and Rochelle Hudson.
Madam Satan or Madame Satan is a 1930 American pre-Code musical comedy film in black and white with Multicolor sequences. It was produced and directed by Cecil B. DeMille and starred Kay Johnson, Reginald Denny, Lillian Roth, and Roland Young.
"Pirate Jenny" is a well-known song from The Threepenny Opera by Kurt Weill, with lyrics by Bertolt Brecht. The English lyrics are by Marc Blitzstein. It is one of the best known songs in the opera, after "Mack the Knife".
Henriette Nissen-Saloman, was a Swedish opera singer (mezzo-soprano) and singing teacher.
The Chocolate Soldier is a 1941 American musical film directed by Roy Del Ruth. It uses original music from the Oscar Straus 1908 operetta of the same name, which was based on George Bernard Shaw’s 1894 play Arms and the Man. Unable to come to terms with Shaw, the studio used a story to which it already had rights: the Ferenc Molnár play The Guardsman,. The plot centers on the romantic misunderstandings and professional conflicts between two recently married opera singers, played by Metropolitan Opera star Risë Stevens and Nelson Eddy, who perform excerpts from the operetta during the film. This screenplay was written by Leonard Lee and Keith Winter. The Guardsman—a huge hit on Broadway in 1924— was brought to the screen in 1931, with Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne reprising their stage roles as married actors.
Francia White was an American soprano who had an active career in concerts, operas, operettas, radio, television, and film during the late 1920s through the 1940s. She began her career as a vaudeville performer in her late teens and then began singing in more serious classical music repertoire during the mid-1930s. She drew the attention of Hollywood and began working as a ghost singer for films in 1934. She soon broke into radio in 1935 and was highly active in that medium until 1941. On television she starred on the musical variety show, The Bell Telephone Hour, from 1940-1942. In addition to her radio work, she is chiefly remembered for helping to launch Edwin Lester's Los Angeles Civic Light Opera in 1938 and was one of their main leading ladies up through 1942.
New Moon is a 1930 black-and-white American, pre-Code romantic/drama/melodrama musical film version of the operetta The New Moon, with music by Sigmund Romberg and book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II and others. The original stage version premiered on Broadway in 1928. The 1930 film is also known as Komissa Strogoff in Greece, Nymånen in Denmark and Passione cosacca in Italy. A second adaptation, also titled New Moon, was released in 1940.
Rebecca Sjöwall is an American singer and recording artist.
The Swedish soprano Jenny Lind, often known as the "Swedish Nightingale", was one of the most highly regarded singers of the 19th century. At the height of her fame she was persuaded by the showman P. T. Barnum to undertake a long tour of the United States. The tour began in September 1850 and continued to May 1852. Barnum's advance publicity made Lind a celebrity even before she arrived in the U.S., and tickets for her first concerts were in such demand that Barnum sold them by auction. The tour provoked a popular furore dubbed "Lind Mania" by the local press, and raised large sums of money for both Lind and Barnum. Lind donated her profits to her favoured charities, principally the endowment of free schools in her native Sweden.
The Greatest Showman is a 2017 American biographical musical drama film directed by Michael Gracey from a screenplay written by Jenny Bicks and Bill Condon, and a story by Bicks. The film stars an ensemble cast led by Hugh Jackman, Zac Efron, Michelle Williams, Rebecca Ferguson, and Zendaya. Featuring nine original songs by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul and a score composed by John Debney and Joseph Trapanese, the film is a heavily fictionalized depiction of the life of P. T. Barnum, a showman and entertainer, and his creation of the Barnum & Bailey Circus and the lives of its star attractions.
Judith Vosselli was a Spanish-born actress who appeared on the American stage and screen during the 1920s and 1930s.
Jenny Lind is a 1932 American pre-Code musical film directed by Arthur Robison and starring Grace Moore, André Luguet and André Berley. It is a French-language remake of the 1930 film A Lady's Morals, which also starred Moore but had a largely different cast and crew. Alternative language versions were common during the early years of sound until dubbing became more widespread.
Giovanni Battista Belletti was an Italian operatic baritone. He appeared in operas in Italy, Stockholm, London and Paris, and supported Jenny Lind in her tour of America.
