Marion Robert Morrison, known professionally as John Wayne and nicknamed The Duke, was an American actor who became a popular icon through his starring roles in films made during Hollywood's Golden Age, especially in Western and war movies. His career flourished from the silent era of the 1920s through the American New Wave, as he appeared in a total of 179 film and television productions. He was among the top box-office draws for three decades, and he appeared with many other important Hollywood stars of his era. In 1999, the American Film Institute selected Wayne as one of the greatest male stars of classic American cinema.
Mae West was an American stage and film actress, playwright, screenwriter, singer, and sex symbol whose entertainment career spanned over seven decades. She was known for her breezy sexual independence, and her lighthearted bawdy double entendres, often delivered in a husky contralto voice. She was active in vaudeville and on stage in New York City before moving to Los Angeles to pursue a career in the film industry.
Christopher Allen Lloyd is an American actor. He has appeared in many theater productions, films, and on television since the 1960s. He is known for portraying Dr. Emmett "Doc" Brown in the Back to the Future trilogy (1985–1990); and Jim Ignatowski in the comedy series Taxi (1978–1983), for which he won two Emmy Awards.
Jean Harlow was an American actress. Known for her portrayal of "bad girl" characters, she was the leading sex symbol of the early 1930s and one of the defining figures of the pre-Code era of American cinema. Often nicknamed the "Blonde Bombshell" and the "Platinum Blonde", Harlow was popular for her "Laughing Vamp" screen persona. Harlow was in the film industry for only nine years, but she became one of Hollywood's biggest movie stars, whose image in the public eye has endured. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Harlow No. 22 on their greatest female screen legends of classical Hollywood cinema list.
Ronald Joseph Livingston is an American actor. He is known for playing Peter Gibbons in the 1999 film Office Space and Captain Lewis Nixon III in the 2001 miniseries Band of Brothers. Livingston's other roles include the films Swingers (1996), Adaptation (2002), The Conjuring (2013); and the television series Loudermilk, and Boardwalk Empire, on which he appeared in the fourth season.
Mae Murray was an American actress, dancer, film producer, and screenwriter. Murray rose to fame during the silent film era and was known as "The Girl with the Bee-Stung Lips" and "The Gardenia of the Screen".
The Commitments (1987) is a novel by Irish writer Roddy Doyle. The first episode in The Barrytown Trilogy, it is about a group of unemployed young people in the north side of Dublin, Ireland, who start a soul band.
Reefer Madness is a 1936 American propaganda film about drugs, revolving around the melodramatic events that ensue when high school students are lured by pushers to try marijuana – upon trying it, they become addicted, eventually leading them to become involved in various crimes such as a hit and run accident, manslaughter, murder, conspiracy to murder and attempted rape. While this is all happening they suffer hallucinations, descend into insanity, associate with organized crime and commit suicide. The film was directed by Louis J. Gasnier and featured a cast of mainly little-known actors.
Souls for Sale is a 1923 American silent comedy drama film written, directed, and produced by Rupert Hughes, based on the novel of the same name by Hughes. The film stars Eleanor Boardman in her first leading role, having won a contract with Goldwyn Pictures through their highly publicized "New Faces of 1922" contest just two years earlier.
Sextette is a 1978 American musical comedy film directed by Ken Hughes and released by Crown International Pictures. It stars Mae West, alongside an ensemble cast including Timothy Dalton, Dom DeLuise, Tony Curtis, Ringo Starr, Keith Moon, George Hamilton, Alice Cooper and Walter Pidgeon.
The Commitments is a 1991 musical comedy-drama film based on the 1987 novel of the same name by Roddy Doyle. It was directed by Alan Parker from a screenplay written by Doyle, Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais. Set in the Northside of Dublin, the film tells the story of Jimmy Rabbitte, a young music fanatic who assembles a group of working-class youths to form a soul band named "The Commitments". The film is the first in a series known as The Barrytown Trilogy, followed by The Snapper (1993) and The Van (1996).
"Frankie and Johnny" is a traditional American popular song. It tells the story of a woman, Frankie, who finds her man Johnny making love to another woman and shoots him dead. Frankie is then arrested; in some versions of the song she is also executed.
William Collier Jr. was an American stage performer, producer, and a film actor who in the silent and sound eras was cast in no fewer than 89 motion pictures.
The International Sweethearts of Rhythm was the first integrated all-women's band in the United States. During the 1940s the band featured some of the best female musicians of the day. They played swing and jazz on a national circuit that included the Apollo Theater in New York City, the Regal Theater in Chicago, and the Howard Theater in Washington, D.C. After a performance in Chicago in 1943, the Chicago Defender announced the band was "one of the hottest stage shows that ever raised the roof of the theater!" They have been labeled "the most prominent and probably best female aggregation of the Big Band era". During feminist movements of the 1960s and 1970s in America, the International Sweethearts of Rhythm became popular with feminist writers and musicologists who made it their goal to change the discourse on the history of jazz to include both men and women musicians. Flutist Antoinette Handy was one scholar who documented the story of these female musicians of color.
Anna Mae Winburn(néeDarden; August 13, 1913 – September 30, 1999) was an influential American vocalist and jazz bandleader who flourished beginning in the mid-1930s. An African American, she is best known for having directed the International Sweethearts of Rhythm, an all-female big band that was perhaps one of the few – and one of the most – racially integrated dance-bands of the swing era.
Virtue is a 1932 American Pre-Code romance film directed by Edward Buzzell and starring Carole Lombard and Pat O'Brien.
Marion Helen Schilling was an American stage and film actress. She was one of the most famous "B" leading ladies of the 1930s.
The 1931 Pittsburgh Panthers football team, coached by Jock Sutherland, represented the University of Pittsburgh in the 1931 college football season. The Panthers finished the regular season with eight wins and a single loss at Notre Dame and were considered the champions of the East. Parke H. Davis, recognized as a "major selector" in the official NCAA football records book, named Pitt as one of that season's co-national champions. The team is also recognized as national champion in 1931 by College Football Data Warehouse and according to a Sports Illustrated study that has served as the historical basis of the university's historical national championship claims since its original publication.
Tongues of Scandal is a 1927 American silent drama film directed by Roy Clements and starring Mae Busch, William Desmond, and Ray Hallor.
Rip Roaring Riley is a 1935 American action film directed by Elmer Clifton and starring Elmer Clifton and starring Lloyd Hughes, Marion Burns and Grant Withers. The film's sets were designed by the art director Vin Taylor. A second feature, it was released in America by Puritan Pictures and in Britain by Pathé Pictures under the alternative title The Mystery of Diamond Island.
