Grease is a musical with music, lyrics, and a book by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey, with additional songs by John Farrar. Named after the 1950s United States working-class youth subculture known as greasers, the musical is set in 1959 at the fictional Rydell High School in Northwest Chicago. This fictional high school was based on Taft High School in Chicago, Illinois, and named after rock singer Bobby Rydell. The musical follows ten working-class teenagers as they navigate the complexities of peer pressure, politics, personal core values, and love.
The Palace Theatre is a West End theatre in the City of Westminster in London. Its red-brick facade dominates the west side of Cambridge Circus behind a small plaza near the intersection of Shaftesbury Avenue and Charing Cross Road. The Palace Theatre seats 1,400.
Dame Florence Marjorie Wilcox, known professionally as Anna Neagle, was an English stage and film actress, singer, and dancer.
Michael Charles Gauntlet Wilding was an English stage, television, and film actor. He is best known for a series of films he made with Anna Neagle; he also made two films with Alfred Hitchcock, Under Capricorn (1949) and Stage Fright (1950); and he guest starred on Hitchcock's TV show in 1963. He was married four times, including to Elizabeth Taylor, with whom he had two sons.
Charlie Girl is a musical comedy which premiered in the West End of London at the Adelphi Theatre on December 15, 1965 and became one of the most successful theatre shows of the day running for 2,202 performances. It closed on 27 March 1971.
Edith Day was an American actress and singer best known for her roles in Edwardian musical comedies and operettas, first on Broadway and then in London's West End.
Beatrice "Binnie" Mary Hale-Monro was an English actress, singer and dancer. She was one of the most successful musical theatre stars in London in the 1920s and 1930s, able to sing leading roles in operetta as well as musicals, and she was popular as a principal boy in pantomime. Her best-remembered roles were in the musicals No, No, Nanette (1925) and Mr. Cinders (1929), in which she sang "Spread a Little Happiness".
Marjorie Browne (1910–1990) was a British musical theatre actress who made occasional films.
Elizabeth Anne Seal is a British actress. In 1961, she won the Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical for her performance in the title role of Irma La Douce.
King's Rhapsody is a musical with book and music by Ivor Novello and lyrics by Christopher Hassall.
The Courtneys of Curzon Street is a 1947 British drama film starring Anna Neagle and Michael Wilding. It is a study of class division and snobbery in Britain in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Goodnight, Vienna is a 1932 British musical film directed by Herbert Wilcox and starring Jack Buchanan, Anna Neagle and Gina Malo. Two lovers in Vienna are separated by the First World War, but are later reunited.
Samuel George Herbert Mason was a British film director, producer, stage actor, army officer, presenter of some revues, stage manager, stage director, choreographer, production manager and playwright. He was a recipient of the Military Cross the prestigious award for "gallantry during active operations against the enemy." He received the gallantry award for his part in the Battle of Guillemont where British troops defeated the Germans to take the German stronghold of Guillemont.
King's Rhapsody is a 1955 British musical film directed by Herbert Wilcox and starring Anna Neagle, Errol Flynn and Patrice Wymore. Wymore was Errol Flynn's wife at the time of filming. It was based on the successful stage musical King's Rhapsody by Ivor Novello.
Florence Eliza Collingbourne was a British actress, singer and stage beauty known for her appearances in Edwardian musical comedies. One of George Edwardes' Gaiety Girls, she took over the title role in San Toy and originated the role of Nancy Staunton in The Toreador.
Lilacs in the Spring is a 1954 British musical film directed by Herbert Wilcox and starring Anna Neagle, Errol Flynn and David Farrar. The film was made at Elstree Studios with sets designed by the art director William C. Andrews. Shot in Trucolor it was distributed in Britain by Republic Pictures. It was the first of two films Neagle and Flynn made together, the other being King's Rhapsody. It was released in the United States as Let's Make Up.
Eunice Crowther was a British singer, dancer, and choreographer, who in the early part of her career worked on stage, before moving on to television work for the BBC in the late 1940s. In the 1950s she became a dance director.
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.
Hermione Harvey, was an English actress and dancer. She was known in the 1950s for starring on the West End stage in London.
Maidie Andrews was an English actress and singer who, in career that spanned six decades, was a child actress and later a stage beauty who appeared in musical comedy including the original London productions of No, No, Nanette (1925) and Cavalcade (1931). The latter years of her career saw her taking roles in television and film.
