George Simon Kaufman was an American playwright, theater director and producer, humorist, and drama critic. In addition to comedies and political satire, he wrote several musicals for the Marx Brothers and others. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for the musical Of Thee I Sing in 1932, and won again in 1937 for the play You Can't Take It with You. He also won the Tony Award for Best Director in 1951 for the musical Guys and Dolls.
Thomas Woolner was an English sculptor and poet who was one of the founder-members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. He was the only sculptor among the original members.
Sir Cedric Webster Hardwicke was an English stage and film actor whose career spanned nearly 50 years. His theatre work included notable performances in productions of the plays of Shakespeare and Shaw, and his film work included leading roles in a number of adapted literary classics.
Robert Preston Meservey was an American stage and film actor and singer of Broadway and cinema, best known for his collaboration with composer Meredith Willson and originating the role of Professor Harold Hill in the 1957 musical The Music Man and the 1962 film adaptation; the film earned him his first of two Golden Globe Award nominations. Preston collaborated twice with filmmaker Blake Edwards, first in S.O.B. (1981) and again in Victor/Victoria (1982). For portraying Carroll "Toddy" Todd in the latter, he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor at the 55th Academy Awards.
The Dawn Patrol is a 1930 American pre-Code World War I film starring Richard Barthelmess and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. It was directed by Howard Hawks, a former World War I flight instructor, who even flew in the film as a German pilot in an uncredited role. The Dawn Patrol won the Academy Award for Best Story for John Monk Saunders. It was subsequently remade in 1938 with the same title, and the original was then renamed Flight Commander and released later as part of the Warner Bros. film catalog.
Neysa Moran McMein was an American illustrator and portrait painter who studied at The School of The Art Institute of Chicago and Art Students League of New York. She began her career as an illustrator and during World War I, she traveled across France entertaining military troops with Anita P. Wilcox and Jane Bulley and made posters to support the war effort. She was made an honorary non-commissioned officer in the United States Marine Corps for her contributions to the war effort.
In Greek mythology Pygmalion is a legendary figure of Cyprus, who was a king and a sculptor. He is most familiar from Ovid's narrative poem Metamorphoses, in which Pygmalion was a sculptor who fell in love with a statue he had carved.
Henry A. Stradling, A.S.C. was an American cinematographer with more than 130 films to his credit.
Erik Rhodes was an American film and Broadway singer and actor. He is best remembered today for appearing in two classic Hollywood musical films with the popular dancing team of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers: The Gay Divorcee (1934) and Top Hat (1935).
Russell Patterson was an American cartoonist, illustrator and scenic designer. Patterson's art deco magazine illustrations helped develop and promote the idea of the 1920s and 1930s fashion style known as the flapper.
Pygmalion is a 1938 British film based on the 1913 George Bernard Shaw play of the same name, and adapted by him for the screen. It stars Leslie Howard as Professor Henry Higgins and Wendy Hiller as Eliza Doolittle.
Arthur James Johnston was an American composer, conductor, pianist and arranger.
Irving Pichel was an American actor and film director, who won acclaim both as an actor and director in his Hollywood career.
Harry Brodribb Irving, was a British stage actor and actor-manager; the eldest son of Sir Henry Irving and his wife Florence, and father of designer Laurence Irving and actress Elizabeth Irving.
Violet Vanbrugh, born Violet Augusta Mary Barnes, was an English actress who had a career spanning more than 50 years. Despite her many successes, her career was overshadowed by that of her more famous sister Irene Vanbrugh.
Edward Knoblock was a playwright and novelist, originally American and later a naturalised British citizen. He wrote numerous plays, often at the rate of two or three a year, of which the most successful were Kismet (1911) and Milestones. Many of his plays were collaborations, with, among others, Vicki Baum, Beverley Nichols, J. B. Priestley and Vita Sackville-West.
Dangerous Moonlight is a 1941 British film, directed by Brian Desmond Hurst and starring Anton Walbrook. Among the costumes, the gowns were designed by Cecil Beaton. The film is best known for its score written by Richard Addinsell, orchestrated by Roy Douglas, which includes the Warsaw Concerto.
The Irving Family are the descendants of Samuel Brodribb,, a salesman who collected orders for the tailoring department of a local store, and his wife Mary, née Behenna,, the daughter of a Cornish farming family.
Howard Irving Smith was an American character actor with a 50-year career in vaudeville, theatre, radio, films and television. In 1938, he performed in Orson Welles's short-lived stage production and once-lost film, Too Much Johnson, and in the celebrated radio production, "The War of the Worlds". He portrayed Charley in the original Broadway production of Death of a Salesman and recreated the role in the 1951 film version. On television, Smith portrayed the gruff Harvey Griffin in the situation comedy, Hazel.
Lothar Mendes was a German-born screenwriter and film director. His two best known films are Jew Süss (1934) and The Man Who Could Work Miracles (1936), both productions for British studios.
