Alfred Damon Runyon was an American newspaperman and short-story writer.
William Clement Frawley was an American vaudevillian and actor best remembered for playing landlord Fred Mertz in the American television sitcom I Love Lucy and "Bub" O'Casey in the television comedy series My Three Sons.
The Big Read was a survey on books carried out by the BBC in the United Kingdom in 2003, where over three-quarters of a million votes were received from the British public to find the nation's best-loved novel of all time. The year-long survey was the biggest single test of public reading taste to date, and culminated with several programmes hosted by celebrities, advocating their favourite books.
Wilfred Van Norman Lucas was a Canadian American stage actor who found success in film as an actor, director, and screenwriter.
William Lee Tracy was an American stage, film, and television actor. He is known foremost for his portrayals between the late 1920s and 1940s of fast-talking, wisecracking news reporters, press agents, lawyers, and salesmen. From 1949 to 1954, he was also featured in the weekly radio and television versions of the series Martin Kane: Private Eye, as well as starring as the newspaper columnist Lee Cochran in the 1958–1959 British-American crime drama New York Confidential. Later, in 1964, he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and a Golden Globe for his supporting role in the film The Best Man.
A topper in comic strip parlance is a small secondary strip seen along with a larger Sunday strip. In the 1920s and 1930s, leading cartoonists were given full pages in the Sunday comics sections, allowing them to add smaller strips and single-panel cartoons to their page.
The Lemon Drop Kid is a 1951 American comedy film based on the short story of the same name by Damon Runyon, starring Bob Hope and Marilyn Maxwell. Although Sidney Lanfield is credited as the director, Frank Tashlin reportedly was hired, uncredited, to finish the film. The story had previously been adapted as a 1934 film starring Lee Tracy, with actress Ann Sheridan in a bit part. William Frawley is featured in both versions.
Helen Mack was an American actress. She started her career as a child actress in silent films, moving to Broadway plays and touring one of the vaudeville circuits. Her greater success as an actress was as a leading lady in the 1930s. She made the transition to performing on radio and then into writing, directing, and producing shows during the Golden Age of Radio. She later wrote for Broadway, stage and television. Her career spanned the infancy of the motion picture industry, the beginnings of Broadway, the final days of vaudeville, the transition to sound movies, the Golden Age of Radio, and the rise of television.
Ben Welden was an American character actor who played a wide variety of Damon Runyon-type gangsters in various movies and television shows.
George Meeker was an American character film and Broadway actor.
Broadway Bill is a 1934 American comedy-drama film directed by Frank Capra and starring Warner Baxter and Myrna Loy. Screenplay by Robert Riskin and based on the short story "Strictly Confidential" by Mark Hellinger, the film is about a man's love for his thoroughbred race horse and the woman who helps him achieve his dreams. Capra disliked the final product, and in an effort to make it more to his liking, he remade the film in 1950 as Riding High. In later years, the distributor of Riding High, Paramount Pictures, acquired the rights to Broadway Bill. The film was released in the United Kingdom as Strictly Confidential.
Edward Quillan was an American film actor and singer whose career began as a child on the vaudeville stages and silent film and continued through the age of television in the 1980s.
Hessy Doris Lloyd was an English–American film and stage actress. She is perhaps best known for her roles in The Time Machine (1960) and The Sound of Music (1965). Lloyd appeared in two Academy Award winners and four other nominees.
Walter B. McGrail was an American film actor. He appeared in more than 150 films between 1916 and 1951. Besides feature films, he appeared in The Scarlet Runner, a 12-chapter serial.
This is a selection of films and television appearances by British-American comedian and actor Bob Hope (1903-2003). Hope, a former boxer, began his acting career in 1925 in various vaudeville acts and stage performances
Cavalcade of Bands was an early 1950s American television series which aired on the now defunct DuMont Television Network.
Mary Treen was an American film and television actress. A minor actress for much of her career, she managed to secure a plain, unassuming niche for herself in the Hollywood of the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s.
Charles Cahill Wilson was an American screen and stage actor. He appeared in numerous films during the Golden Age of Hollywood from the late 1920s to late 1940s.
