Rusholme is an area of Manchester, England, two miles south of the city centre. The population of the ward at the 2011 census was 13,643. Rusholme is bounded by Chorlton-on-Medlock to the north, Victoria Park and Longsight to the east, Fallowfield to the south and Moss Side to the west. It has a large student population, with several student halls and many students renting terraced houses, and suburban houses towards Victoria Park.
Albert Arthur Powell MBE, known as Sandy Powell, was an English comedian best known for his radio work of the 1930s and for his catchphrase "Can you hear me, mother?" He first said this in a theatre in Coventry. Fifty years later, deciding he needed a rest from the business, he again said it in a Coventry theatre, for the last time.
Patricia Phoenix was an English actress who became one of the first sex symbols of British television through her role as Elsie Tanner, an original cast member of Coronation Street, a role which she portrayed from its first episode in 1960 until she quit the role in 1984.
Florence Davenport Rice was an American film actress.
Bernard Arthur Popley, better known by his stage name Bernard Youens, was an English character actor of stage and television, and briefly appeared in radio plays and had cameos in film. He was also a TV announcer and is perhaps best remembered for his portrayal of Stan Ogden in the serial soap opera Coronation Street from 1964 until his death in 1984.
John E. Blakeley was a British film producer, director and screenwriter, the founder of Mancunian Films.
Mancunian Films was a British film production company first organised in 1933. From 1947 it was based in Rusholme, a suburb of Manchester, and produced a number of comedy films, mostly aimed at audiences in the North of England.
William Joseph Patrick O'Brien was an American film actor with more than 100 screen credits. Of Irish descent, he often played Irish and Irish-American characters and was referred to as "Hollywood's Irishman in Residence" in the press. One of the best-known screen actors of the 1930s and 1940s, he played priests, cops, military figures, pilots, and reporters. He is especially well-remembered for his roles in Knute Rockne, All American (1940), Angels with Dirty Faces (1938), and Some Like It Hot (1959). He was frequently paired onscreen with Hollywood star James Cagney. O'Brien also appeared on stage and television.
Robert Coote was an English actor. He played aristocrats or British military types in many films, and created the role of Colonel Hugh Pickering in the long-running original Broadway production of My Fair Lady.
Alfred Junge was a German-born production designer who spent a large part of his career working in the British film industry.
Betty Jumel was a British variety hall entertainer and actress.
Patrick Charles Devery was an Australian professional rugby league footballer who played in the 1940s and 1950s, and coached in the 1950s. An Australian international representative half, he played in Australia for the Balmain club, winning the 1944, 1946 and 1947 grand finals with them. He was also the 1947 season's top point-scorer. Devery then had a successful career playing in England for the Huddersfield club before returning to Sydney where he coached the Manly-Warringah club.
Frank Russell Butler was an American film and theatre actor and later screenwriter, born in Oxford, Oxfordshire, England to parents Frederick Butler and Sarah Ann Hedges. His son, Hugo Butler, also became a Hollywood screenwriter.
Sandy is a popular unisex given name. The male version can be a diminutive of Alexander, Sander, Alasdair, Sandipan, Sandeep, Sanford, Santiago, etc., while the female version can be a diminutive for Sandra or, less commonly, Alisande. Spelling variations include Sandi and Sandie.
Daniel Daly Young was a British comedian and film actor. He featured in a number of Mancunian Films productions often appearing with Frank Randle.
Boots! Boots! is a 1934 British comedy film directed by Bert Tracy and starring George Formby, Beryl Formby, and Arthur Kingsley. It was made by Blakeley's Productions, Ltd. at the Albany Studios in London. The premiere of the film was in Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent.
Dickenson Road Studios was a film and television studio in Rusholme, Manchester, in north-west England. It was originally set up in 1947 in a former Wesleyan Methodist Chapel by the film production company Mancunian Films and was acquired by BBC Television in 1954. The studio was used for early editions of the music chart show Top of the Pops between 1964 and 1966.
It's a Grand Old World is a 1937 British comedy film directed by Herbert Smith and starring Sandy Powell, Gina Malo and Cyril Ritchard. It was made at Beaconsfield Studios. The film's sets were designed by Norman Arnold.
Joseph E. Bernard was an American character actor of the 1930s and 1940s.
Squibs' Honeymoon is a 1923 British silent comedy film directed by George Pearson and starring Betty Balfour, Hugh E. Wright and Fred Groves. It was the last of the silent film series featuring the character, although Balfour returned to play her in the 1935 sound film Squibs. Both Pearson and Balfour were particular favourites of the British film critic, and later leading screenwriter, Roger Burford. In his first article for the magazine Close Up Burford would write "Not long ago a film of the Squibbs series was reported to be on at a small cinema in a slum district. It was a rare chance, and we went at once. We were not disappointed: the film was English, with proper tang; the tang of Fielding or Sterne.' Burford's comments help place the Squibbs films perfectly in British culture between the wars. They were very much working-class comedy, drawing on a vernacular, performative tradition, but at the same time their "Englishness" is characteristic of the kinds of satirical comedies found in the novels of Henry Fielding and Laurence Sterne. That earthy satire, based on everyday life, made these comedies unpalatable to middle class audiences but the Squibbs films were amongst the most interesting, and well shot, films in Britain in the 1920s.
