ZaSu Pitts was an American actress who, in a career spanning nearly five decades, starred in many silent film dramas, such as Erich von Stroheim's 1924 epic Greed, and comedies, before transitioning successfully to mostly comedy roles with the advent of sound films. She also appeared on numerous radio shows and, later, made her mark on television. She was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960 at 6554 Hollywood Blvd.
Edna May Oliver was an American stage and film actress. During the 1930s, she was one of the better-known character actresses in American films, often playing tart-tongued spinsters.
Johnny Eager is a 1941 American film noir directed by Mervyn LeRoy and starring Robert Taylor, Lana Turner and Van Heflin. Heflin won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. The film was one of many spoofed in Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid (1982).
James Austin Gleason was an American actor, playwright and screenwriter born in New York City. Gleason often portrayed "tough-talking, world-weary guys with a secret heart-of-gold."
Mae Clarke was an American actress. She is widely remembered for playing Henry Frankenstein's bride Elizabeth, who is chased by Boris Karloff in Frankenstein, and for being on the receiving end of James Cagney's halved grapefruit in The Public Enemy. Both films were released in 1931.
Helen Broderick was an American actress known for her comic roles, especially as a wisecracking sidekick.
Olivia Joyce Compton was an American actress.
Stuart Palmer was a mystery novelist and screenwriter. He was most famous for creating the character Hildegarde Withers. In addition, he used the pen names Theodore Orchards and Jay Stewart. for some of his works.
Hildegarde Withers is a fictional character, an amateur crime-solver, who has appeared in several novels, short stories and films. She was created by American mystery author Stuart Palmer (1905–1968).
Klondike Annie is a 1936 American Western film starring Mae West and Victor McLaglen. The film was co-written by West from her play Frisco Kate, which she wrote in 1921 and a story written by the duo Marion Morgan and George Brendan Dowell. Raoul Walsh directed.
Kenneth Macgowan was an American film producer. He won an Academy Award for Best Color Short Film for La Cucaracha (1934), the first live-action short film made in the three-color Technicolor process.
George Archainbaud was a French-American film and television director.
So Big is a 1932 pre-Code American drama film directed by William A. Wellman and starring Barbara Stanwyck. The screenplay by J. Grubb Alexander and Robert Lord is based on the 1924 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name, by Edna Ferber.
Murder on the Blackboard is a 1934 American pre-Code mystery/comedy film starring Edna May Oliver as schoolteacher Hildegarde Withers and James Gleason as Police Inspector Oscar Piper. Together, they investigate a murder at Withers' school. It was based on the novel of the same name by Stuart Palmer. It features popular actor Bruce Cabot in one of his first post-King Kong roles, as well as Gertrude Michael, Regis Toomey, and Edgar Kennedy.
Murder on a Honeymoon is a 1935 American mystery film starring Edna May Oliver and James Gleason. This was the third and last time Oliver portrayed astute schoolteacher Hildegarde Withers; the two previous films were The Penguin Pool Murder (1932) and Murder on the Blackboard (1934). The film was directed by Lloyd Corrigan from a screenplay by Seton I. Miller and Robert Benchley based on the 1933 novel The Puzzle of the Pepper Tree by Stuart Palmer. Palmer's novel, however, did not include Inspector Piper, and has Withers doing the investigating on her own.
Murder on a Bridle Path is a 1936 American mystery film directed by William Hamilton and Edward Killy and starring James Gleason, Helen Broderick and Louise Latimer. This film was the fourth production in the Hildegarde Withers series, and the only one in which Broderick played Hildegarde Withers.
Laugh and Get Rich is a 1931 pre-Code American comedy film, directed by Gregory La Cava, from a screenplay he also wrote with contributions from Douglas MacLean, who also was the associate producer, and Ralph Spence. The film stars Dorothy Lee, Edna May Oliver, Hugh Herbert, and Russell Gleason, and revolves around the antics in a boarding house in the early 1930s, run by Oliver, and the complications caused by her husband.
Forty Naughty Girls is a 1937 American comedy mystery film directed by Edward F. Cline and written by John Grey. The film stars James Gleason, ZaSu Pitts, Marjorie Lord, George Shelley and Joan Woodbury. It is the sixth and final entry in RKO Pictures' series of Hildegarde Withers films. This film was the sixth film in the Hildegarde Withers-Oscar Piper series, and the second film in which ZaSu Pitts appeared as Hildegarde. Before Pitts, Edna May Oliver and Helen Broderick had played the role.
Men, Women, and Money is a lost 1919 American drama silent film directed by George Melford and written by Beulah Marie Dix and Cosmo Hamilton. The film stars Ethel Clayton, James Neill, Jane Wolfe, Lew Cody, Sylvia Ashton, Irving Cummings, and Winifred Greenwood. The film was released on June 15, 1919, by Paramount Pictures.
The Bob Burns Show was an American old-time radio comedy program that starred comedian Bob Burns. The program derived from a character Burns performed for five years on Bing Crosby's Kraft Music Hall entitled "The Arkansas Traveler".
