Goodness, How Sad is a play written by the British actor Robert Morley, which was first performed in 1937. The work was strongly influenced by Morley's affection for provincial theatre. [1]
Robert Adolph Wilton Morley, CBE was an English actor who was usually cast as a pompous English gentleman representing the Establishment, often in supporting roles. In Movie Encyclopedia, film critic Leonard Maltin describes Morley as "recognisable by his ungainly bulk, bushy eyebrows, thick lips and double chin, ... particularly effective when cast as a pompous windbag." More politely, Ephraim Katz in his International Film Encyclopaedia describes Morley as "a rotund, triple-chinned, delightful character player of the British and American stage and screen." In his autobiography, Responsible Gentleman, Morley said his stage career started with managements valuing his appearance for playing "substantial gentleman" roles — as a doctor, lawyer, accountant or other professional member of society.
A British-born Hollywood idol returns to a small seaside town where he had once worked as a struggling actor. The visit awakens nostalgic feelings, and he is cast in a play at the local theatre where nobody recognises him as a famous star. After falling in love with his leading lady, he slowly begins to realise that his attempts to recreate the past are doomed to failure.
Hollywood is a neighborhood in the central region of Los Angeles, California, notable as the home of the U.S. film industry including several of its historic studios. Its name has come to be a shorthand reference for the industry and the people associated with it.
In 1939 the play was adapted into a film directed by Robert Stevenson at Ealing Studios. Renamed as Return to Yesterday the film starred Clive Brook as the Hollywood star and Anna Lee as the aspiring young actress he falls in love with. The film had a slightly troubled production, and wasn't released until March 1940.
Return to Yesterday is a 1940 British comedy-drama film directed by Robert Stevenson and starring Clive Brook and Anna Lee. It was based on Robert Morley's play Goodness, How Sad. The film was made at Ealing Studios.
Robert Edward Stevenson was an English film writer and director.
Ealing Studios is a television and film production company and facilities provider at Ealing Green in west London. Will Barker bought the White Lodge on Ealing Green in 1902 as a base for film making, and films have been made on the site ever since. It is the oldest continuously working studio facility for film production in the world, and the current stages were opened for the use of sound in 1931.
Maurice Auguste Chevalier was a French actor, cabaret singer and entertainer. He is perhaps best known for his signature songs, including his first American hit "Livin' In The Sunlight", "Valentine", "Louise", "Mimi", and "Thank Heaven for Little Girls" and for his films, including The Love Parade, The Big Pond and Love Me Tonight. His trademark attire was a boater hat, which he always wore on stage with a tuxedo.
James Neville Mason was an English actor. Mason achieved considerable success in British cinema before becoming one of Hollywood's biggest stars. He was the top box office attraction in the UK in 1944 and 1945, with notable films including The Seventh Veil (1945) and The Wicked Lady (1945). He starred in Odd Man Out (1947), the first recipient of the BAFTA Award for Best British Film.
Friedrich Robert Donat was an English film and stage actor. He is best remembered for his roles in Alfred Hitchcock's The 39 Steps (1935) and Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939), winning for the latter the Academy Award for Best Actor.
Charles Boyer was a French actor who appeared in more than 80 films between 1920 and 1976. After receiving an education in drama, Boyer started on the stage, but he found his success in American films during the 1930s. His memorable performances were among the era's most highly praised, in romantic dramas such as The Garden of Allah (1936), Algiers (1938), and Love Affair (1939), as well as the mystery-thriller Gaslight (1944). He received four Academy Award nominations for Best Actor.
Ronald Charles Colman was an English-born actor, starting his career in theatre and silent film in his native country, before emigrating to the United States, and having a successful Hollywood film career, he was most popular during the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s. He received Oscar nominations for Bulldog Drummond (1929), Condemned (1929) and Random Harvest (1942). Colman starred in several classic films, including A Tale of Two Cities (1935), Lost Horizon (1937) and The Prisoner of Zenda (1937). He also played the starring role in the Technicolor classic Kismet (1944), with Marlene Dietrich, which was nominated for four Academy Awards. In 1947, he won an Academy Award for Best Actor and Golden Globe Award for Best Actor for the film A Double Life.
Stanley Augustus Holloway, OBE was an English stage and film actor, humourist, singer, poet and monologist. He was famous for his comic and character roles on stage and screen, especially that of Alfred P. Doolittle in My Fair Lady. He was also renowned for his comic monologues and songs, which he performed and recorded throughout most of his 70-year career.
Dame Gladys Constance Cooper, was an English actress whose career spanned seven decades on stage, in films and on television.
Sir Arthur John Gielgud, OM, CH was an English actor and theatre director whose career spanned eight decades, and who, along with his contemporaries Peggy Ashcroft, Laurence Olivier, and Ralph Richardson, dominated the British stage of much of the 20th century. A member of the Terry family theatrical dynasty, he gained his first paid acting work as a junior member of his cousin Phyllis Neilson-Terry's company in 1922. After studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art he worked in repertory theatre and in the West End before establishing himself at the Old Vic as an exponent of Shakespeare in 1929–31.
Frederick George Peter Ingle Finch was an English-Australian actor. He is best remembered for his role as crazed television anchorman Howard Beale in the film Network, which earned him a posthumous Academy Award for Best Actor, his fifth Best Actor award from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, and a Best Actor award from the Golden Globes. He was the first of two persons to win a posthumous Academy Award in an acting category, both of whom were coincidentally Australian, the other being Heath Ledger.
Stewart Granger was an English film actor, mainly associated with heroic and romantic leading roles. He was a popular leading man from the 1940s to the early 1960s, rising to fame through his appearances in the Gainsborough melodramas.
Anna Lee, MBE was a British-born American actress.
Robert Guy Newton was an English stage and film actor. Along with Errol Flynn, Newton was one of the most popular actors among the male juvenile audience of the 1940s and early 1950s, especially with British boys. Known for his hard living lifestyle, he was cited as a role model by the actor Oliver Reed and the Who's drummer Keith Moon.
William Brian de Lacy Aherne was an English actor of stage, screen, radio and television, who enjoyed a long and varied career in England and America.
Herbert Brough Falcon Marshall was an English stage, screen and radio actor who, despite losing a leg during the First World War, starred in many popular and well-regarded Hollywood films in the 1930s and 1940s. After a successful theatrical career in the United Kingdom and North America, he became an in-demand Hollywood leading man, frequently appearing in romantic melodramas and occasional comedies. In his later years, he turned to character acting.
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. He is best known for playing Bill Snibson in the play and film Me and My Girl, which popularised the song and dance routine "The Lambeth Walk".
Robert Alfred Morley is an Australian actor. After appearing in various theatre productions and short films, Morley was cast as Drew Curtis in Home and Away in 2006. For the role, he received a nomination for the Most Popular New Male Talent Logie Award. Morley appeared on It Takes Two in 2007 and following his departure from Home and Away, he joined the cast of The Strip. Morley was cast as Aidan Foster in Neighbours, in 2011 and he starred in the feature film Blinder in 2013. As of 2014, Morley stars as Bellamy Blake on The 100. He also does and has already done charity actions and events.
Sheridan Morley was an English author, biographer, critic and broadcaster. He was the official biographer of Sir John Gielgud and wrote biographies of many other theatrical figures he had known, including Noël Coward. Nicholas Kenyon called him a "cultural omnivore" who was "genuinely popular with people".
Francis Martin Sewell Stokes was an English novelist, biographer, playwright, screenwriter, broadcaster and prison visitor. He collaborated on a number of occasions with his brother, Leslie Stokes, an actor and later in life a BBC radio producer, with whom he shared a flat for many years overlooking the British Museum. It was here that Sewell Stokes did much of his writing in the Reading Room, used by so many distinguished writers over the years.
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