Broadway Melody of 1936 is a musical film released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1935. In New York, the film opened at the Capitol Theatre, the site of many prestigious MGM premieres. It was a follow-up of sorts to the successful The Broadway Melody, which had been released in 1929, although, there is no story connection with the earlier film beyond the title and some music.
Kiss Me, Kate is a musical written by Bella and Samuel Spewack with music and lyrics by Cole Porter. The story involves the production of a musical version of William Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew and the conflict on and off-stage between Fred Graham, the show's director, producer, and star, and his leading lady, his ex-wife Lilli Vanessi. A secondary romance concerns Lois Lane, the actress playing Bianca, and her gambler boyfriend, Bill, who runs afoul of some gangsters. The original production starred Alfred Drake, Patricia Morison, Lisa Kirk and Harold Lang.
Glynis Johns is a retired Welsh stage, television and film actress, dancer, pianist, and singer. Born in Pretoria, South Africa while her parents were on tour, she is best known for creating the role of Desiree Armfeldt in A Little Night Music on Broadway, for which she won a Tony Award, and for playing Winifred Banks in Walt Disney's musical motion picture Mary Poppins. In both roles she sang songs written specifically for her, including "Send In the Clowns", composed by Stephen Sondheim, and "Sister Suffragette", written by the Sherman Brothers. She was nominated for an Oscar for her work in the 1960 film The Sundowners. She is known for the breathy quality of her husky voice and her upbeat persona.
Lorna Luft is an American television, stage, and film actress and singer. She is the daughter of singer and actress Judy Garland and producer Sidney Luft, and half-sister to singer and actress Liza Minnelli.
James Maxwell Anderson was an American playwright, author, poet, journalist and lyricist.
Alfred Drake was an American actor and singer.
Paul Henreid was an Austrian-born American actor and film director. He is best remembered for two roles: Victor Laszlo in Casablanca and Jerry Durrance in Now, Voyager, both released in 1942.
Maurice Herbert Evans was an English actor, noted for his interpretations of Shakespearean characters. His best-known screen roles are Dr. Zaius in the 1968 film Planet of the Apes and as Samantha Stephens's father, Maurice, on Bewitched.
Janet McTeer is an English actress. In 1997, she won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play, the Olivier Award for Best Actress, and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actress in a Play for her role as Nora in A Doll's House (1996–1997). She also won a Golden Globe Award and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role as Mary Jo Walker in the 1999 film Tumbleweeds, and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Hubert Page in the 2011 film Albert Nobbs. She was made an OBE in the 2008 Queen's Birthday Honours.
Sam Levene was a Broadway, film, radio and television actor who in a career spanning more than five decades created some of the most legendary comedic roles in American theatrical history, including Nathan Detroit, the craps-shooter extraordinaire, in the 1950 original Broadway production of Guys and Dolls (1950), Max Kane, the hapless agent, in the original 1932 Broadway production of Dinner at Eight (1932), Patsy, a professional if not always successful gambler, in the 1935 original and longest running Broadway production of Three Men on a Horse (1935), Gordon Miller, the shoestring producer, in the original 1937 Broadway production of Room Service (1937), Sidney Black, the theatrical producer, in Moss Hart's original Broadway production of Light Up the Sky (1948), Horace Vandergelder, the crotchety merchant of Yonkers, in the 1954 premier UK production of Thornton Wilder's The Matchmaker (1954) and Al Lewis, the retired vaudevillian, in the original 1972 Broadway production of The Sunshine Boys (1972), Neil Simon’s beloved salute to vaudevillians opposite Jack Albertson as Willie Clark. In 1984, Levene was posthumously inducted in the American Theatre Hall of Fame and in 1998, Sam Levene along with the original Broadway cast of the 1950 Guys and Dolls Decca cast album posthumously inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.
Aida is a musical based on the opera of the same name written by Antonio Ghislanzoni with music by Giuseppe Verdi. It has music by Elton John, lyrics by Tim Rice, and book by Linda Woolverton, Robert Falls, and David Henry Hwang, and was originally produced by Walt Disney Theatrical.
Barbara Densmoor Harris was an American actress. She appeared in such movies as A Thousand Clowns, Plaza Suite, Nashville, Family Plot, Freaky Friday, Peggy Sue Got Married, and Grosse Pointe Blank. Harris won a Tony Award and was nominated for an Academy Award. She also received four Golden Globe Award nominations.
Griffith Jones was an English film, stage and television actor.
Lupino Lane was an English actor and theatre manager, and a member of the famous Lupino family, which eventually included his cousin, the screenwriter/director/actress Ida Lupino. Lane started out as a child performer, known as 'Little Nipper', and went on to appear in a wide range of theatrical, music hall and film performances. Increasingly celebrated for his silent comedy short subjects, he is best known in the United Kingdom for playing Bill Snibson in the play and film Me and My Girl, which popularized the song and dance routine "The Lambeth Walk".
George Street Playhouse is a theatre in New Brunswick, New Jersey in the city's Civic Square government and theatre district. It one of the state's preeminent professional theatres committed to the production of new and established plays.
Peter Glenville was an English film and stage actor and director.
Escape Me Never is a 1947 American melodrama film directed by Peter Godfrey and starring Errol Flynn, Ida Lupino, Eleanor Parker, and Gig Young. It is the second film adaptation of the play Escape Me Never by Margaret Kennedy, which was based on her 1930 novel The Fool in the Family. That book was a continuation of her story of the fictional Sanger family of musical geniuses introduced in The Constant Nymph, but there is a disjunct among the books and the films: The Sanger brothers are never mentioned in the 1943 film of The Constant Nymph, and their names are changed in this picture.
Escape Me Never is a 1935 British drama film directed by Paul Czinner, produced by Herbert Wilcox, and starring Elisabeth Bergner, Hugh Sinclair and Griffith Jones. The score is by William Walton. Bergner was nominated for the Oscar for Best Actress for her performance, but lost to Bette Davis. British readers of Film Weekly magazine voted the 1935 Best Performance in a British Movie to her. The film is an adaptation of the play Escape Me Never by Margaret Kennedy, which was based upon her 1930 novel The Fool of the Family. That book was a sequel to The Constant Nymph, which was also about the Sanger family of musical geniuses, but there is a disjunct among the books and the films: The Sanger brothers are never mentioned in the 1943 film of The Constant Nymph. Another film adaptation of Escape Me Never was made in 1947 by Warner Bros.
