Lee de Forest was an American inventor, electrical engineer and an early pioneer in electronics of fundamental importance. He invented the first practical electronic amplifier, the three-element "Audion" triode vacuum tube in 1906. This helped start the Electronic Age, and enabled the development of the electronic oscillator. These made radio broadcasting and long distance telephone lines possible, and led to the development of talking motion pictures, among countless other applications.
Oscar Levant was an American concert pianist, composer, conductor, author, radio game show panelist, television talk show host, comedian, and actor. He had roles in the films Rhapsody in Blue (1945), The Barkleys of Broadway (1949), An American in Paris (1951), and The Band Wagon (1953). He was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960 for recordings featuring his piano performances. He was portrayed by Sean Hayes in the Broadway play Good Night, Oscar, written by Doug Wright. Levant appeared as himself in the Gershwin biopic Rhapsody in Blue (1945).
Sammy Fain was an American composer of popular music. In the 1920s and early 1930s, he contributed numerous songs that form part of The Great American Songbook, and to Broadway theatre. Fain was also a popular musician and vocalist.
Lew Fields was an American actor, comedian, vaudeville star, theatre manager, and producer. He was part of a comedy duo with Joe Weber. He also produced shows on his own and starred in comedy films.
Phil Baker was an American comedian and emcee on radio. Baker was also a vaudeville actor, composer, songwriter, accordionist and author.
Phonofilm is an optical sound-on-film system developed by inventors Lee de Forest and Theodore Case in the early 1920s.
Photo-Kinema was a sound-on-disc system for motion pictures invented by Orlando Kellum.
Sammy White(néSamuel Kwait; 28 May 1894 Providence, Rhode Island – 3 March 1960 Beverly Hills, California) was an American vaudeville song-and-dance comedian who appeared in a few films. He appeared with Lew Clayton, as Clayton and White, in the Broadway show Schubert Gaieties of 1919.
Theodore Willard Case was an American chemist who invented the Movietone sound-on-film system.
Nikita Fyodorovich Balieff was a Russian Armenian vaudevillian, stage performer, writer, impresario, and director. He is best known as the creator and master of ceremonies of La Chauve-Souris theater group.
La Chauve-Souris was the name of a touring revue during the early 1900s. Originating in Moscow and then Paris, and directed by Nikita Balieff, the revue toured the United States, Europe, and South Africa. The show consisted of songs, dances, and sketches, most of which had been originally performed in Russia. The revue was enormously successful in the U.S., and one of its legacies is the popularization of the jaunty tune The Parade of the Wooden Soldiers by Leon Jessel.
Monroe Silver was an American actor and singer who was also a comedian and monologist using a Jewish dialect-accent in his performances.
Charles Ross Taggart was an American comedian and folklorist who appeared all over North America as "The Man From Vermont" and "The Old Country Fiddler" from 1895 to 1938.
Hugo Riesenfeld was an Austrian-American composer. As a film director, he began to write his own orchestral compositions for silent films in 1917, and co-created modern production techniques where film scoring serves an integral part of the action. Riesenfeld composed about 100 film scores in his career.
Kid Boots is a musical with a book by William Anthony McGuire and Otto Harbach, music by Harry Tierney, and lyrics by Joseph McCarthy. The show was staged by Edward Royce.
The musical short can be traced back to the earliest days of sound films.
Henry Cass was a British director, particularly prolific in film in the horror and comedy genres. Previously an actor, he was also a prolific stage director of classical theatre at the Old Vic in the 1930s.
Bertram Phillips was a British film director of the silent era.
Bella Donna is a 1923 American silent film produced by Famous Players–Lasky and released by Paramount Pictures. The film is based on the 1909 novel, Bella Donna, by Robert Smythe Hichens which was later adapted for a 1912 Broadway play starring Alla Nazimova. This film is also a remake of the 1915 Paramount film Bella Donna starring Pauline Frederick. The 1923 film was directed by George Fitzmaurice and starred Pola Negri in her first American film.
Love's Old Sweet Song is a 1923 American two-reel short film made in the De Forest Phonofilm sound-on-film process. The film was directed by J. Searle Dawley and stars Louis Wolheim, Donald Gallaher, Ernest Hilliard, and Una Merkel in her film debut.
