Dame Gladys Constance Cooper, was an English actress, theatrical manager and producer, whose career spanned seven decades on stage, in films, and on television.
Babes in Toyland is an operetta composed by Victor Herbert with a libretto by Glen MacDonough, which wove together various characters from Mother Goose nursery rhymes into a Christmas-themed musical extravaganza. Following the extraordinary success of their stage musical The Wizard of Oz, which was produced in New York beginning in January 1903, producer Fred R. Hamlin and director Julian Mitchell hoped to create more family musicals. MacDonough had helped Mitchell with revisions to the Oz libretto by L. Frank Baum. Mitchell and MacDonough persuaded Victor Herbert to join the production. Babes in Toyland features some of Herbert's most famous songs – among them "Toyland", "March of the Toys", "Go To Sleep, Slumber Deep", and "I Can't Do the Sum". The theme song "Toyland", and the most famous instrumental piece from the operetta, "March of the Toys", occasionally show up on Christmas compilations.
Lucile Watson was a Canadian actress, long based in the United States. She was "famous for her roles of formidable dowagers."
Mabel Taliaferro was an American stage and silent-screen actress, known as "the Sweetheart of American Movies."
Phyllis Dare was an English singer and actress, famous for her performances in Edwardian musical comedy and other musical theatre in the first half of the 20th century.
Valerie Bergere was a French-born American actress who had a near fifty-year career in theatre and cinema. She began in the chorus of a touring opera company before acting in repertory theatre productions for nearly a decade. Bergere rose to play leading roles, but found her true success in vaudeville where for some seventeen years she remained one of the top draws in variety theatre. Over her later years Bergere also took on character roles in some twenty Broadway and Hollywood productions.
Glen MacDonough was an American writer, lyricist and librettist. He was the son of theater manager Thomas B. MacDonough and actress/author Laura Don. Glen MacDonough married Margaret Jefferson in 1896 in Buzzard's Bay, Massachusetts.
Ida Hawley was a musical comedy actress and soprano singer from Canada who worked in the U.S.
Mabel Hite was a vaudeville comedian and musical comedy actress.
Harry Conor was an American comic actor, best known for playing the role of Welland Strong in A Trip to Chinatown.
Mabel Brownell was an American stage actress and director, active on Broadway in the 1920s.
Grace Hazard, also credited as Grace Hazzard, was an American singer and actress in musical theatre and vaudeville.
Amy Ricard was an American actress and suffragist.
Florence Rea Rockwell was an American actress.
Bessie De Voie was an American actress and dancer of vaudeville and the musical theatre. Her personal life was in the headlines from 1908 to 1910, due to her relationship with Frank Jay Gould.
Bessie Wynn was an American stage and vaudeville actress and singer. She was born in Chicago and sang in church choirs while growing up. At 23 in 1899 she first appeared in the chorus of Papa's Wife starring Anna Held. She continued on Broadway and ultimately appeared in two enormous hit plays The Wizard of Oz(1902) starring Anna Laughlin;, Babes in Toyland(1903-05) with William Norris and Mabel Barrison; and Wonderland in 1905. In 1907 she began appearing in Vaudeville and was a highly paid starrer for the Keith-Orpheum organization. She continued with Keith's in Vaudeville until Keith's folded in the 1930s. She then retired to her own chicken farm but came out of retirement in 1949 for a Palace Theater revival of Vaudeville programs.
Marie George was an American actress, singer and stage beauty who had a successful career first in New York City and later in London, England during the Edwardian era.
Mabel Frenyear was an American actress and chorus girl.
Myrtle McGrain was an American stage actress and model in the first decade of the twentieth century.
Beth Franklyn was an American actress.
