Lynn Fontanne was an English actress. After early success in supporting roles in the West End, she met the American actor Alfred Lunt, whom she married in 1922 and with whom she co-starred in Broadway and West End productions over the next four decades. They became known as "The Lunts", and were celebrated on both sides of the Atlantic.
Eric Blore Sr. was an English actor and writer. His early stage career, mostly in the West End of London, centred on revue and musical comedy, but also included straight plays. He wrote sketches for and appeared in variety. In the 1930s Blore acted mostly in Broadway productions. He made his last London appearance in 1933 in the Fred Astaire hit Gay Divorce. Between 1930 and 1955 he made more than 60 Hollywood films, becoming particularly well known for playing butlers and other superior domestic servants. He retired in 1956 for health reasons, and died in Hollywood in 1959 at the age of 71.
Una O'Connor was an Irish-born American actress who worked extensively in theatre before becoming a character actress in film and in television. She often portrayed comical wives, housekeepers and servants. In 2020, she was listed at number 19 on The Irish Times' list of Ireland's greatest film actors.
Oh, Boy! is a musical in two acts, with music by Jerome Kern and book and lyrics by Guy Bolton and P. G. Wodehouse. The story concerns befuddled George, who elopes with Lou Ellen, the daughter of Judge Carter. He must win over her parents and his Quaker aunt. His dapper polo champion friend Jim is in love with madcap actress Jackie, but George must hide her while she extricates herself from a scrape with a bumbling constable whom she punched at a party raid.
Ib and Little Christina refers to two theatrical adaptations by Basil Hood of the 1855 fairy tale by Hans Andersen of the same name: a play (1900) and an opera (1901).
Viola Tree was an English actress, singer, playwright and author. Daughter of the actor Herbert Beerbohm Tree, she made many of her early appearances with his company at His Majesty's Theatre. Later she appeared in opera, variety, straight theatre and film.
Pomander Walk is a cooperative apartment complex in Manhattan, New York City, located on the Upper West Side between Broadway and West End Avenue. The complex consists of 27 buildings. Four buildings face West 94th Street, and another seven face West 95th Street, including one with a return facade on West End Avenue. The "Walk" itself, consisting of two rows of eight buildings facing each other across a narrow courtyard, runs through the middle of the block between 94th and 95th, with a locked gate at each end. Each building originally had one apartment on each floor. In recent years, some buildings have been reconfigured to serve as single-family homes.
Louis Napoleon Parker was an English dramatist, composer and translator. Parker wrote many plays, developing a reputation for historical works. His 1911 play Disraeli is one of his best known, written as a vehicle for the actor George Arliss who later won an Academy Award for his performance in the 1929 film adaptation, itself based on his earlier 1921 silent film version.
The Living Room is a 1953 play by Graham Greene
While Parents Sleep is a comedy play by the British writer Anthony Kimmins, which was first staged in 1932. It ran for 492 performances during its initial West End run, first at the Royalty Theatre and then transferring to the Garrick. The original cast included Nigel Playfair, Hugh Williams, Jack Hawkins and Diana Beaumont. It was revived again in 1933 for a further 315 performances. Its 1934 Broadway run was much shorter, lasting for only 16 performances at the Playhouse Theatre.
Austen Hurgon was an actor, singer, theatre director and librettist for several successful Edwardian musical comedies of the 1900s and 1910s.
Winifred "Betty" Barnes was an English actress and singer known for roles in Edwardian musical comedy and operetta, creating the title role in Betty, among others. After 15 years on the stage, she retired upon her marriage in 1924.
Madge Lessing was a British stage actress and singer, panto principal boy and postcard beauty of Edwardian musical comedy who had a successful career in the West End in London, Europe and on Broadway from 1890 to 1921 and who made a number of early film appearances in Germany for director Max Mack.
Grand Hotel is a 1931 play by the British-American writer Edward Knoblock. A drama, it is based on the 1929 German novel Grand Hotel by Vicki Baum about guests staying at a Grand Hotel in Berlin.
Scotch Mist is a 1926 comedy play by the British writer and barrister Patrick Hastings. Star Tallulah Bankhead played the centre of a love triangle and was apparently responsible for the play's commercial success despite critical reviews.
Winifred Fraser, née Day, was an English actress. After building a career in supporting roles in London and on tour from 1888 to 1910, she moved to the US, where she appeared in numerous Broadway productions in the 1910s and 1920s, before retiring to England.
The Great Adventure is a play by Arnold Bennett. It was first produced in London in March 1913 and ran for 674 performances. A Broadway production later in 1926 ran for 52 performances. The play depicts the complications that ensue when a famous artist adopts the persona of his dead valet to escape his unwelcome celebrity.
Our Betters is a comedy play by the British writer Somerset Maugham. Set in Mayfair and a country house in Suffolk, the plot revolves around the interaction between newly wealthy Americans and upper-class British society.
Cosmo Charles Gordon-Lennox, whose stage name was Cosmo Stuart, was a British actor and playwright of the late-19th and early-20th centuries. He became known as an actor in the 1890s, but by the turn of the century he had begun to concentrate on writing, usually under his real name. He specialised in adapting French comedies for the British stage, but also wrote original works, often as vehicles for his wife, the actress Marie Tempest.
The Marriage of Kitty is a 1902 comedy play by Cosmo Gordon Lennox. It is an English-language adaptation of the French play La Passerelle by Francis de Croisset and Fred de Gresac which premiered in Paris the same year.
