The Band Wagon is a 1953 American musical romantic comedy film directed by Vincente Minnelli, starring Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse. It tells the story of an aging musical star who hopes a Broadway show will restart his career. However, the play's director wants to make it a pretentious retelling of the Faust legend and brings in a prima ballerina who clashes with the star. Along with Singin' in the Rain (1952), it is regarded as one of the finest Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer musicals, although it was a modest box-office success on first release.
Webb Parmelee Hollenbeck, known professionally as Clifton Webb, was an American actor, singer, and dancer. He worked extensively and was known for his stage appearances in the plays of Noël Coward, including Blithe Spirit, as well as appearances on Broadway in a number of successful musical revues. As a film actor, he was nominated for three Academy Awards - Best Supporting Actor for Laura (1944) and The Razor's Edge (1946), and Best Actor in a Leading Role for Sitting Pretty (1948).
Buddy Ebsen, also known as Frank "Buddy" Ebsen, was an American actor and dancer, whose career spanned seven decades. One of his most famous roles was as Jed Clampett in the CBS television sitcom The Beverly Hillbillies (1962–1971); afterwards he starred as the title character in the television detective drama Barnaby Jones (1973–1980).
George Balanchine was an ethnically Georgian American ballet choreographer who was one of the most influential 20th-century choreographers. Styled as the father of American ballet, he co-founded the New York City Ballet and remained its artistic director for more than 35 years. His choreography is characterized by plotless ballets with minimal costume and décor, performed to classical and neoclassical music.
Louisiana Hayride was a radio and later television country music show broadcast from the Shreveport Municipal Memorial Auditorium in Shreveport, Louisiana, that during its heyday from 1948 to 1960 helped to launch the careers of some of the greatest names in American country and western music. Created by KWKH station manager Henry Clay, the show is notable as a performance venue for a number of 1950s country musicians, as well as a nascent Elvis Presley.
Arthur Schwartz was an American composer and film producer, widely noted for his songwriting collaborations with Howard Dietz.
Howard Dietz was an American publicist, lyricist, and librettist, best remembered for his songwriting collaboration with Arthur Schwartz.
George Clifton James was an American actor known for roles as a prison floorwalker in Cool Hand Luke (1967), Sheriff J.W. Pepper alongside Roger Moore in the James Bond films Live and Let Die (1973) and The Man with the Golden Gun (1974), the sheriff in Silver Streak (1976), a Texas tycoon in The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training (1977), and the owner of the scandalous 1919 Chicago White Sox baseball team in Eight Men Out (1988).
That's Dancing! is a 1985 American compilation film produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer that looked back at the history of dancing in film. Unlike the That's Entertainment! series, this film not only focuses specifically on MGM films, but also included films from other studios.
AFI's 100 Years...100 Stars is the American Film Institute's list ranking the top 25 male and 25 female greatest screen legends of American film history and is the second list of the AFI 100 Years... series.
Vilma Ebsen was an American musical theatre and film actress best known for dancing in Broadway shows and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer musicals in the 1930s with her brother Buddy Ebsen.
Robert Emmett Dolan was a Broadway conductor, composer, and arranger beginning in the 1920s. He moved on to radio in the 1930s and then went to Hollywood in the early 1940s as a musical director for Paramount. He scored, arranged, and conducted many musical and dramatic films in the 1940s and 1950s and produced three musicals. At the end of his career, he returned to the stage – where he had begun.
Tamara Geva was a Soviet and later an American actress, ballet dancer, and choreographer. She was the daughter of art patron and collector Levkiy Gevergeyev and she was the first wife of the well-known ballet dancer and choreographer George Balanchine.
Walk a Little Faster is a musical revue with sketches by S. J. Perelman and Robert MacGunigle, music by Vernon Duke, and lyrics by E. Y. Harburg.
Russell Brown was an American actor of stage, television, and screen. He also had a career as a journalist, working for several newspapers in the city of Philadelphia. On stage, he is a best known for his Tony Award-winning role of Benny Van Buren in the 1955 Broadway musical Damn Yankees; a role he also reprised on film in 1958. Other highlights of his work in film were his portrayal of Captain Brackett in Rodgers and Hammerstein's 1958 movie version of the 1949 Broadway musical South Pacific, and as park caretaker George Lemon in the classic courtroom drama, Anatomy of a Murder (1959). On television he portrayed the recurring character of Thomas Jones, the father of the title character, in the legal drama The Law and Mr. Jones from 1960–1962.
Once in a Lifetime is a play by Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman, the first of eight on which they collaborated in the 1930s.
The Louisiana Music Hall of Fame (LMHOF) is a non-profit hall of fame based in Baton Rouge, the capital of the U.S. state of Louisiana, that seeks to honor and preserve the state's music culture and heritage and to promote education about the state's unique role in contributing to American indigenous and popular music in the 20th century. The motto of the LMHOF is "honoring and preserving Louisiana's greatest renewable natural resource". Its primary outreach currently consists of a growing online "multimedia virtual museum". The organization actively develops partnerships and programs for collections, exhibitions, education aids and programs and performances. The LMHOF also seeks to stimulate economic growth by promoting the rejuvenation of the state's music industry.
Mildred Davenport was an African-American Broadway performer and dance teacher. She was the first African-American woman to appear with the Boston Pops orchestra.
Lillian "Billie" Yarbo was an American stage and screen actress, dancer, and singer.
