James Francis Durante was an American actor, comedian, singer, vaudevillian, and pianist. His distinctive gravelly speech, Lower East Side accent, comic language-butchery, jazz-influenced songs, and prominent nose helped make him one of America's 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.
Lawrence Mervil Tibbett was an American opera singer and recording artist who also performed as a film actor and radio personality. A baritone, he sang leading roles with the Metropolitan Opera in New York City more than 600 times from 1923 to 1950. He performed diverse musical theatre roles, including Captain Hook in Peter Pan in a touring show.
This is a list of notable events in music that took place in the year 1930.
María Guadalupe Villalobos Vélez, known professionally as Lupe Vélez, was a Mexican actress, singer and dancer.
Karen Morley was an American film actress.
Ernest Torrence was a Scottish film character actor who appeared in many Hollywood films, including Broken Chains (1922) with Colleen Moore, Mantrap (1926) with Clara Bow and Fighting Caravans (1931) with Gary Cooper and Lili Damita. A towering figure, Torrence frequently played cold-eyed and imposing villains.
Palooka is a 1934 American Pre-Code comedy film directed by Benjamin Stoloff and starring Stuart Erwin in the titular role, Lupe Velez and Jimmy Durante, and based on the comic strip by Ham Fisher. The film was adapted by Jack Jevne, Arthur Kober, Gertrude Purcell, Murray Roth and Ben Ryan from the comic strip. The film is also known as The Great Schnozzle in the United Kingdom.
Louise Fazenda was an American film actress, appearing chiefly in silent comedy films.
Wolf Song is a 1929 American silent Western romance film directed by Victor Fleming and starring Gary Cooper and Lupe Vélez. Based on a story by Harvey Fergusson, the film is about a man who heads out west in 1840 looking for adventure and meets a group of mountain men who take him into the Rocky Mountains to trap beavers and cats. The man meets a beautiful Mexican woman in Taos who comes from a proud and wealthy family. They fall in love and elope, and he becomes torn between his love for her and his desire for travelin'. The film contains a synchronized score and sound effects, as well as some synchronized singing sequences. This Pre-Code film is notable for showing Gary Cooper almost entirely nude as he shaves and washes in a river.
Hollywood Party, also known under its working title of Hollywood Revue of 1933 and Star Spangled Banquet, is a 1934 American pre-Code musical film starring Laurel and Hardy, The Three Stooges, Jimmy Durante, Lupe Vélez and Mickey Mouse. It was distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Each sequence featured a different star with a separate scriptwriter and director assigned.
Sweet Kitty Bellairs is a 1930 American historical musical comedy film directed by Alfred E. Green. The film is based on the 1900 novel, The Bath Comedy by Agnes Castle and Egerton Castle. Shot entirely in Technicolor, the film stars Claudia Dell, Ernest Torrence and, Walter Pidgeon and is set in Bath, England in 1793.
Sporting Blood is a 1931 American MGM sports drama film directed by Charles Brabin. The film stars Clark Gable, Ernest Torrence, and Madge Evans. Two other pictures bore this same title, one released in 1916 by Fox and another by MGM in Sporting Blood (1940). Although they, too, centered on horse racing, none of the plots had any direct connection with the others.
The Orquesta Hermanos Palau was one of the most renowned dance bands in Cuba during the early 1930s and late 1940s, following the tradition of local jazz bands started by the Jazz Band Sagua in 1914. These orchestras emerged as an influential sign of the American music in Cuba, to achieving a bridge between popular music genres and the characteristic sound of American jazz big bands.
New Adventures of Get Rich Quick Wallingford is a 1931 American pre-Code crime / romantic comedy film directed by Sam Wood and starring William Haines as a con artist and Jimmy Durante as his pickpocket buddy. The film is based on a series of stories by George Randolph Chester published in Cosmopolitan.
The Side Show of Life is a 1924 American silent drama film produced by Famous Players-Lasky, directed by Herbert Brenon and distributed by Paramount Pictures. The film is based on the 1920 novel The Mountebank by William J. Locke, which had been turned into a play by Ernest Denny.
Strictly Dynamite is a 1934 American pre-Code film directed by Elliott Nugent and starring Lupe Vélez and Jimmy Durante.
Six Lessons from Madame La Zonga is a 1941 American comedy film directed by John Rawlins and starring Lupe Vélez. The film was inspired by the same-name song interpreted by Helen O'Connell and Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra.
Spring Is Here is a 1930 American Pre-Code musical comedy film produced by First National Pictures and distributed by Warner Bros. It was adapted by James A. Starr from the 1929 musical play, of the same name, by Owen Davis, with music by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart. The film stars Lawrence Gray, Alexander Gray, and Bernice Claire.
Alfred Rode was an Italian-born French composer, musician, actor and film director. He was born in Torre del Greco. In 1936 Rode appeared in the British film Gypsy Melody alongside Lupe Vélez, which was a remake of his own 1935 film Juanita. Rode was married to the French actress Claudine Dupuis from 1951.
Hypnotized is a 1932 American comedy film directed by Mack Sennett. The film presents various comic plotlines about a group of circus performers on a transatlantic crossing. The plots include a prize ticket winner being hoodwinked by a crooked hypnotist and his attempts to recover the winning ticket.
