George Wiltshire (also known as George Wilshire, born October 21, 1901 - died December 4, 1976) was an American character actor [1] He appeared on stage, film, and television. He was perhaps best known for portraying Ed Smalls, the proprietor of famed Harlem nightclub Smalls Paradise, in the 1945 film It Happened in Harlem .
Joseph Vernon "Big Joe" Turner Jr. was an American singer from Kansas City, Missouri. According to songwriter Doc Pomus, "Rock and roll would have never happened without him." Turner's greatest fame was due to his rock-and-roll recordings in the 1950s, particularly "Shake, Rattle and Roll", but his career as a performer endured from the 1920s into the 1980s.
Glynis Margaret Payne Johns is a British retired actress, dancer, musician and singer. Recognised as an icon of screen and stage, Johns has a career spanning eight decades, in which she appeared in more than 60 films and 30 plays. She is the recipient of awards and nominations in various drama award denominations, including the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures, the Academy Awards, the Golden Globe Awards, the Laurel Awards, the Tony Awards, the Drama Desk Awards and the Laurence Olivier Awards, within which she has won two thirds of her nominations. As one of the last surviving major stars from the Golden Age of Hollywood and classical years of British cinema, she has several longevity records to her name.
Virginia Mayo was an American actress and dancer. She was in a series of comedy films with Danny Kaye and was Warner Brothers' biggest box-office money-maker in the late 1940s. She also co-starred in the 1946 Oscar-winning movie The Best Years of Our Lives and White Heat (1949).
Audrey Gwendoline Long was an American stage and screen actress of English descent, who performed mainly in low-budget films in the 1940s and early 1950s. Some of her more notable film performances are in Tall in the Saddle (1944) with John Wayne, Wanderer of the Wasteland (1945), Born to Kill (1947), and Desperate (1947).
A semidocumentary is a form of book, film, or television program presenting a fictional story that incorporates many factual details or actual events, or which is presented in a manner similar to a documentary.
Steven Geray was a Hungarian-born American film actor who appeared in over 100 films and dozens of television programs. Geray appeared in numerous famed A-pictures, including Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound (1945) and To Catch a Thief (1955), Joseph L. Mankiewicz's All About Eve (1950), and Howard Hawks' Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953). However, it was in film noir that be became a fixture, being cast in over a dozen pictures in the genre. Among them were The Mask of Dimitrios (1944), Gilda (1946), The Unfaithful (1947), In a Lonely Place (1950), and The House on Telegraph Hill (1951).
Marie Wilson was an American radio, film, and television actress. She may be best remembered as the title character in My Friend Irma.
John Miljan was an American actor. He appeared in more than 200 films between 1924 and 1958.
Leslie Brooks was an American film actress, model and dancer.
Smalls Paradise, was a nightclub in the Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. Located in the basement of 2294 Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard at 134th Street, it opened in 1925 and was owned by Ed Smalls (né Edwin Alexander Smalls; 1882–1976). At the time of the Harlem Renaissance, Smalls Paradise was the only one of the well-known Harlem night clubs to be owned by an African-American and integrated. Other major Harlem night clubs admitted only white patrons unless the person was an African-American celebrity.
It Happened in Harlem is an American musical comedy film directed by Bud Pollard and starring Chris Columbus, Phil Gomez, and Nicky O'Daniel. The film was partly shot at Smalls Paradise and released in 1945.
Gerald Alfred Butler was an English crime, thriller and pulp writer and screenwriter. He was born on July 31, 1907, in Crewe, Cheshire, and worked as a chemist prior to becoming a novelist. He later worked as the director of an advertising firm in London. He was sometimes referred to as the "English James M. Cain".
Three Desperate Men is a 1951 American Western film directed by Sam Newfield and starring Preston Foster, Jim Davis and Virginia Grey. It co-stars Kim Spalding, William Haade, Monte Blue and Sid Melton.
Alphonse Martell was a French actor who wrote and directed Gigolettes of Paris (1933). He portrayed a director in the 1934 film I'll Be Suing You. He often portrayed a waiter as in the 1946 film Falcon's Alibi, in which he is murdered.
Nicky O'Daniel was an American actress on stage and screen. In Caldonia (film) she portrays the title character, a possessive girlfriend who convinces her man not to go to Hollywood for a film production but to stay New York City. She was one of the performers featured in the 1945 film It Happened in Harlem. A soundie titled The Pollard Jump (1946) includes her dancing.
William Lewis Nolte (1889–1965) was a screenwriter and film director in the United States. He directed the musical film The Duke Is Tops released by Million Dollar Productions. It was re-released in 1943 under the title The Bronze Venus. He is credited as a production manager for the 1942 film Thunder River Feud and as a line producer on the 1947 film Shadow Valley. From 1949 until at least 1957 he was an assistant director on several films.
Harlem Hotshots is an American short film from 1940 produced by Sack Amusements. The 20 minute film is a musical. One poster for the film includes a skyline of buildings and street sign for Lenox Avenue and 125th Street. The film was reissued in 1986 as part of Jazz Classics, No. 110; Harlem Harmonies Volume 1, 1940–1945.
Milton Woods was an actor. He was in several films. In 1946, Newsweek described him as the "colored Basil Rathbone". In 1951, Jet reported that he directed of the American Negro Repertory Theater, touring the country in a trailer.
Richard "Dickie" Wells (1908–1949) was an American tap dancer and playboy. Wells was affectionately known as Mr. Harlem. Initially he worked as part of the “Wells, Mordecai and Taylor” Dance Trio performed at locations such as The Cotton Club. Wells parlayed his membership from the Dance Trio into being a nightclub owner.
Wade Crosby was an actor in American films. He was also part of radio programs. He was in several Republic Pictures films.