Checkers is a play by Henry Blossom. [1] Adapted by Blossom from his 1896 novel Checkers: A Hard Luck Story , the play was performed on Broadway in 1903 and again in 1904. [2] [3] It was adapted into a film twice.
Checkers was originally conceived as a project to feature the talents of William Collier Sr.; an actor who had convinced the novelist to turn the work into a play for him. [4] [5] However, once completed, Collier backed out of the project and the part of "Checkers" went to a then relatively unknown Thomas W. Ross. [4] Ross had tremendous success in the role, and it launched his career. [5] [6] [2] [4]
Checkers premiered at the National Theatre in Washington, D.C., on September 21, 1903. [1] It transferred to Broadway's American Theatre where it opened on September 28, 1903. [2] It closed in after 48 performance in November 1903 to go on tour, but returned in New York City for performances at the Academy of Music in 1904. [3]
Eustace Hale Ball and Lawrence McGill wrote the screenplay. [7]
Guy Wetmore Carryl was an American humorist and poet.
Edith Taliaferro was an American stage and film actress of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. She was active on the stage until 1935 and had roles in three silent films. She is best known for portraying the role of Rebecca in the 1910 stage production of Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm.
Das Dreimäderlhaus, adapted into English-language versions as Blossom Time and Lilac Time, is a Viennese pastiche operetta with music by Franz Schubert, rearranged by Heinrich Berté (1857–1924), and a libretto by Alfred Maria Willner and Heinz Reichert. The work gives a fictionalized account of Schubert's romantic life, and the story was adapted from the 1912 novel Schwammerl by Rudolf Hans Bartsch (1873–1952). Originally the score was mostly Berté, with just one piece of Schubert's, but the producers required Berté to discard his score and create a pasticcio of Schubert music.
Henry Martyn Blossom Jr. was an American writer, playwright, novelist, opera librettist, and lyricist. He first gained wide attention for his second novel, Checkers: A Hard Luck Story (1896), which was successfully adapted by Blossom into a 1903 Broadway play, Checkers. It was Blossom's first stage work and his first critical success in the theatre. The play in turn was adapted by others creatives into two silent films, one in 1913 and the other in 1919, and the play was the basis for the 1920 Broadway musical Honey Girl. Checkers was soon followed by Blossom's first critical success as a lyricist, the comic opera The Yankee Consul (1903), on which he collaborated with fellow Saint Louis resident and composer Alfred G. Robyn. This work was also adapted into a silent film in 1921. He later collaborated with Robyn again; writing the book and lyrics for their 1912 musical All for the Ladies.
Joseph Morris Weber was an American vaudeville performer who, along with Lew Fields, formed the comedy double-act of Weber and Fields.
Frederick J. Jackson, also known professionally as Fred Jackson and Frederick Jackson and under the pseudonym Victor Thorne, was an American author, playwright, screenwriter, novelist, and producer for both stage and film. A prolific writer of short stories and serialized novels, most of his non-theatre works were published in pulp magazines such as Detective Story Magazine and Argosy. Many of these stories were adapted into films by other writers.
The American Music Hall, also known as the American Theater until 1908, was one of the oldest Broadway venues. Located at 260 West 42nd Street, it was designed by the architect Charles C. Haight, with a capacity of 2,065. It opened on May 22, 1888.
Jack Carter was an American actor. He is known for creating the role of Crown in the original Broadway production of Porgy (1927), and for starring in Orson Welles' stage productions, including Macbeth (1936) and Doctor Faustus (1937). He appeared in a few motion pictures in the 1930s and 1940s.
Valerie Bergere was a French-born American actress who had a near fifty-year career in theatre and cinema. She began in the chorus of a touring opera company before acting in repertory theatre productions for nearly a decade. Bergere rose to play leading roles, but found her true success in vaudeville where for some seventeen years she remained one of the top draws in variety theatre. Over her later years Bergere also took on character roles in some twenty Broadway and Hollywood productions.
Dorothy Agnes Donnelly was an actress, playwright, librettist, producer, and director. After a decade-long acting career that included several notable roles on Broadway, she turned to writing plays, musicals and operettas, including more than a dozen on Broadway including several long-running successes. Her most famous libretto was The Student Prince (1924), in collaboration with composer Sigmund Romberg.
Ruth Findlay was an American stage actress active over the early decades of the 20th century.
Charles Morton Stewart McLellan (1865–1916) was a London-based American playwright and composer who often wrote under the pseudonym Hugh Morton. McLellan is probably best remembered for the musical The Belle of New York and drama Leah Kleschna.
The Crossing is a 1904 best-selling novel by American writer Winston Churchill. It was the best-selling novel in the United States in 1904, and includes illustrations by Sydney Adamson and Lilian Bayliss. A portion of the book first appeared in December 1903 in Collier's under the title The Borderland.
Louise Gunning was an American soprano popular on Broadway in Edwardian musical comedy and comic opera from the late 1890s to the eve of the First World War. She was perhaps best remembered as Princess Stephanie of Balaria in the 1911 Broadway production of The Balkan Princess. During the war years Gunning began to close out her career singing on the vaudeville circuit.
The Senator was a popular 1890 comedic play by David D. Lloyd and Sydney Rosenfeld, also made into a 1915 silent film.
Jane Peyton was an American lead and supporting actress whose career did not commence until she was nearly 30. During her time on stage, she appeared in several long-running Broadway plays and successful road tours. Peyton is remembered for her performances in The Ninety and Nine, The Earl of Pawtucket, The Heir to the Hoorah, The Three of Us, and The Woman. Once the wife of actor Guy Bates Post, Peyton retired after 14 years on stage, when she married the writer Samuel Hopkins Adams.
Amy Ricard was an American actress and suffragist.
Checkers: A Hard Luck Story is a novel by Henry Blossom. First published in 1896, the novel is set during the World's Columbian Exposition and follows businessman Jack Preston as he develops a friendship with the horse racing tout and gambler Edward "Checkers" Campbell. Much of the action of the novel takes place at the American Derby in Arlington Park just outside of Chicago, and at a variety of bars and gambling establishments in Chicago. The novel was the basis for the 1924 silent film Gold Heels.
The Yankee Consul, also known as the Lieutenant Commander, is a comic opera in two acts with music by Alfred G. Robyn and a libretto by Henry Blossom. The opera premiered in Boston on 21 September 1903 at the Tremont Theatre. The premiere production was produced by Boston opera impresario Henry Wilson Savage, and starred Raymond Hitchcock as Abijah Booze. The work was staged on Broadway the following year at the 41st Street Broadway Theatre where it ran for a total of 114 performances from February 22, 1904 through July 2, 1904. The opera was adapted into a 1921 silent film of the same name.
Thomas W. Ross was an American stage and film actor. He had a prolific career on Broadway from 1902 through 1944. He first drew critical acclaim for his portrayal of the title role in Henry Blossom's 1903 play Checkers. He first performed the role in the play's premiere at the National Theatre in Washington, D.C. on September 21, 1903, and continued with the work for both its Broadway runs in 1903 and 1904, and on national tour. In 1913 he reprised his role in the silent film Checkers; his first film part. After this, he appeared in more than 25 additional films made through 1944.