James Francis Durante was an American comedian, actor, singer, and pianist. His distinctive gravelly speech, Lower East Side accent, comic language-butchery, jazz-influenced songs, and prominent nose helped make him one of the United States' most familiar and popular personalities of the 1920s through the 1970s. He often referred to his nose as the schnozzola, and the word became his nickname.
The Ziegfeld Follies were a series of elaborate theatrical revue productions on Broadway in New York City from 1907 to 1931, with renewals in 1934, 1936, 1943, and 1957. They became a radio program in 1932 and 1936 as The Ziegfeld Follies of the Air.
Helen Chandler was an American film and theatre actress, best known for playing Mina Seward in the 1931 horror film Dracula.
Ronald Neame CBE, BSC was an English film producer, director, cinematographer, and screenwriter. Beginning his career as a cinematographer, for his work on the British war film One of Our Aircraft Is Missing (1943) he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Special Effects. During a partnership with director David Lean, he produced Brief Encounter (1945), Great Expectations (1946), and Oliver Twist (1948), receiving two Academy Award nominations for writing.
Helen Morgan was an American singer and actress who worked in films and on the stage. A quintessential torch singer, she made a big splash in the Chicago club scene in the 1920s. She starred as Julie LaVerne in the original Broadway production of Hammerstein and Kern's musical Show Boat in 1927, as well as in the 1932 Broadway revival of the musical, and appeared in two film adaptations, a part-talkie made in 1929 and a full-sound version made in 1936, becoming firmly associated with the role. She suffered from bouts of alcoholism, and despite her notable success in the title role of another Hammerstein and Kern's Broadway musical, Sweet Adeline (1929), her stage career was relatively short. Helen Morgan died of cirrhosis of the liver at the age of 41. She was portrayed by Polly Bergen in the Playhouse 90 drama The Helen Morgan Story and by Ann Blyth in the 1957 biopic based on the television drama.
Sally Blane was an American actress who appeared in more than 100 movies.
That's Entertainment, Part II is a 1976 American compilation film released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and a sequel to That's Entertainment! (1974). Like the previous film, That's Entertainment, Part II was a retrospective of famous films released by MGM from the 1930s to the 1950s. Some posters for the film use Part 2 rather than Part II in the title.
Charles Powell Walters was an American Hollywood director and choreographer most noted for his work in MGM musicals and comedies from the 1940s to the 1960s.
Howard Close Hickman was an American actor, director and writer. He was an accomplished stage leading man, who entered films through the auspices of producer Thomas H. Ince.
Billy Rose's Jumbo is a 1962 American musical film released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and starring Doris Day, Stephen Boyd, Jimmy Durante, and Martha Raye. An adaptation of the stage musical Jumbo produced by Billy Rose, the film was directed by Charles Walters, written by Sidney Sheldon, and featured Busby Berkeley's choreography. It was nominated for an Academy Award for the adaptation of its Rodgers and Hart score.
The Western Brothers were an English music hall and radio act, who were popular from the 1930s to the late 1950s, performing self-written topical songs which often lampooned the upper classes. Kenneth Alfred Western and (Ernest) George Western were, in reality, second cousins rather than brothers. They first broadcast as the Perfectly Polite Pair in the 1920s, and there was then a long break before they returned as the Western Brothers.
Fanny Foley Herself is a 1931 American pre-Code comedy-drama film shot entirely in Technicolor. The film was the second feature to be filmed using a new Technicolor process, which removed grain and resulted in improved color. It was released under the title Top of the Bill in Britain. It survives in a complete Technicolor copy under that title at the BFI.
Roberta is a 1935 American musical film released by RKO Radio Pictures and directed by William A. Seiter. It stars Irene Dunne, Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, and features Randolph Scott, Helen Westley, Victor Varconi and Claire Dodd. The film was an adaptation of the 1933 Broadway musical Roberta, which in turn was based on the novel Gowns by Roberta by Alice Duer Miller. It was a solid hit, showing a net profit of more than three-quarters of a million dollars.
Double Indemnity is a 1943 crime novel by American journalist-turned-novelist James M. Cain. It was first published in Liberty magazine in 1936 as an eight part serial, and later republished as one of "three long short tales" in the collection Three of a Kind.
Royal Cavalcade, also known as Regal Cavalcade, is a 1935 British, black-and-white, drama film directed by six separate directors: Thomas Bentley, Herbert Brenon, Norman Lee, Walter Summers, W. P. Kellino and Marcel Varnel. The film features Marie Lohr, Hermione Baddeley, Owen Nares, Robert Hale, Austin Trevor, James Carew, Edward Chapman and Ronald Shiner as the Soldier in Trenches. The film was presented by Associated British Pictures Corporation.
The Queen's Affair is a 1934 British musical film directed by Herbert Wilcox and starring Anna Neagle, Fernand Gravey, Muriel Aked and Edward Chapman. An Eastern European President falls in love with the Queen whom he had previously deposed. It was also released as Queen's Affair and Runaway Queen.
Jimmy Godden was a British film actor.
Joseph A. Valentine (July 24, 1900 in New York City, as Giuseppe Valentino – May 18, 1949 in was an Italian-American cinematographer, five-time nominee for the Academy Award for Best Cinematography, and co-winner once in 1949.
Fehmer Christy "Chick" Chandler was an American film character actor who appeared in more than 130 films from 1925 through the mid-1950s. Chandler was known for his starring role as Toubo Smith in the Universal-produced 1955 syndicated television series Soldiers of Fortune.
Noel Francis was an American actress of the stage and screen during the 1920s and 1930s. Born in Texas, she began her acting career on the Broadway stage in the mid-1920s, before moving to Hollywood at the beginning of the sound film era.
