Otto Abels Harbach, born Otto Abels Hauerbach was an American lyricist and librettist of nearly 50 musical comedies and operettas. Harbach collaborated as lyricist or librettist with many of the leading Broadway composers of the early 20th century, including Jerome Kern, Louis Hirsch, Herbert Stothart, Vincent Youmans, George Gershwin, and Sigmund Romberg. Harbach believed that music, lyrics, and story should be closely connected, and, as Oscar Hammerstein II's mentor, he encouraged Hammerstein to write musicals in this manner. Harbach is considered one of the first great Broadway lyricists, and he helped raise the status of the lyricist in an age more concerned with music, spectacle, and stars. Some of his more famous lyrics are "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes", "Indian Love Call" and "Cuddle up a Little Closer, Lovey Mine".
La Tosca is a five-act drama by the 19th-century French playwright Victorien Sardou. It was first performed on 24 November 1887 at the Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin in Paris, with Sarah Bernhardt in the title role. Despite negative reviews from the Paris critics at the opening night, it became one of Sardou's most successful plays and was toured by Bernhardt throughout the world in the years following its premiere. The play itself had dropped from the standard theatrical repertoire by the mid-1920s, but its operatic adaptation, Giacomo Puccini's Tosca, has achieved enduring popularity. There have been several other adaptations of the play including two for the Japanese theatre and an English burlesque, Tra-La-La Tosca as well as several film versions.
Charles Rudolf Friml was a Czech-born composer of operettas, musicals, songs and piano pieces, as well as a pianist. After musical training and a brief performing career in his native Prague, Friml moved to the United States, where he became a composer. His best-known works are Rose-Marie and The Vagabond King, each of which enjoyed success on Broadway and in London and were adapted for film.
Dame Irene Boucicault DBE, née Barnes, known professionally as Irene Vanbrugh was an English actress. The daughter of a clergyman, Vanbrugh followed her elder sister Violet into the theatrical profession and sustained a career for more than 50 years.
Rida Johnson Young was an American playwright, songwriter and librettist. In her career, Young wrote over 30 plays and musicals and approximately 500 songs. She was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970. Some of her better-known lyrics include "Mother Machree" from the 1910 show Barry of Ballymore, "Italian Street Song", "I'm Falling in Love with Someone" and "Ah! Sweet Mystery of Life" from Naughty Marietta, and "Will You Remember?" from Maytime.
Cleopatra is a 1912 American silent historical drama film starring Helen Gardner in the title role and directed by Charles L. Gaskill, based on the 1890 play written by Victorien Sardou. It was the first film to be produced by The Helen Gardner Picture Players.
The Better 'Ole, also called The Romance of Old Bill, is an Edwardian musical comedy with a book by Bruce Bairnsfather and Arthur Elliot, music by Herman Darewski, and lyrics by Percival Knight and James Heard, based on the cartoon character Old Bill, an infantryman, drawn by Bairnsfather. In the musical, Old Bill intercepts a spy's plan to destroy a bridge, trapping a French regiment after they cross it. Bill saves them by blowing up the bridge before they pass; his actions are misunderstood, however, and he is arrested for disobeying orders and holding an enemy document. After Victoire explains the situation, Bill is released and given a medal.
Winifred Lenihan was an American actress, writer, and director. She studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts before making her debut in 1918. Although she portrayed the would-be eloper Anne in The Dover Road (1921), Anne Hathaway in Will Shakespeare (1923), and the resourceful Mary Todd in White Wings (1926), she is recalled mostly as Joan of Arc in the original American production of Saint Joan (1923).
Blue Jeans is a melodramatic play by Joseph Arthur that opened in New York City in 1890 to great popularity. The sensation of the play is a scene where the unconscious hero is placed on a board approaching a huge buzz saw in a sawmill, which became one of the most imitated dramatic scenes. The play remained popular for decades and was made into a successful silent film in 1917, also named Blue Jeans.
Shelley Vaughan Hull was an American stage actor who also appeared in two silent motion pictures. His Broadway popularity as a suave handsome leading man was continually on the rise until his early death at age 34 in the Influenza pandemic of 1918.
Jules Eckert Goodman was an American playwright and author. He was best known for his plays Treasure Island (1915), The Man Who Came Back (1916), The Silent Voice (1914), Chains (1923), and a series of plays featuring Potash and Permutter written with Montague Glass.
Elanson Henry Lacy, known as Harry Lacy was an American actor, a star in his time best known for playing the role of Jack Manley in the hit play The Still Alarm in the 1880s and 1890s. By 1901, it was reported that Lacy had played the part of Manley in over 1800 performances.
Sydney Rosenfeld (1855–1931) was an American playwright who wrote numerous plays, and adapted many foreign plays. Close to fifty of his creations played on Broadway.
Winchell Smith was an American playwright, known for big hit works such as Brewster's Millions (1906) and Lightnin' (1918). Many of his plays were made into movies. He spent freely but left a large fortune at his death.
The Third Alarm is a 1922 American silent melodrama directed by Emory Johnson. FBO released the film in January 1923. The film's "All-Star" cast included Ralph Lewis, Johnnie Walker, and Johnson's wife, Ella Hall. Emilie Johnson, Johnson's mother, wrote both the story and screenplay. The Third Alarm was the second picture in Johnson's eight-picture contract with FBO.
Andrew Carpenter Wheeler, best known by the pen name Nym Crinkle, was a 19th-century American newspaper writer, author, and drama critic. He was one of the most prolific critics of his day, known for his pungent and fierce criticism.
The Greenwich Village Follies was a musical revue that played for eight seasons in New York City from 1919 to 1927. Launched by John Murray Anderson, and opening on July 15, 1919, at the newly constructed Greenwich Village Theatre near Christopher Street, the show's success has been credited in part to its timing: as a non-union production, it was unaffected by the then-current actors' strike.
The Earl Carroll Vanities was a Broadway revue presented by Earl Carroll in the 1920s and early 1930s. Carroll and his show were sometimes controversial.
Henry de Grey Warter, better known under the stage name Richard Barker, was a British actor, stage manager and stage director. He stage managed many of Gilbert and Sullivan's comic operas and other productions of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, and directed some of them, and in the 1890s directed musicals in New York as well as London.
Paul West was an American playwright, lyricist, newspaper editor, journalist, screenwriter, author, and talent agent. After working as a journalist in Massachusetts from 1888 to 1892, he began his career in the theatre as a press representative for Charles H. Hoyt; followed by a season as the business manager for the opera singer and actress Camille D'Arville and the comedian Frank Daniels. From 1898 to 1911 he worked on the editorial staff The New York Sunday World during which time be began a career as a prolific lyricist for both Broadway musicals and Tin Pan Alley publishers of popular song; publishing more the 500 songs during his lifetime. He also worked as a playwright, penning both plays and the books for several musicals. More than 15 of his stage works were mounted on Broadway between the years 1902–1913. In 1904 his children's book The Pearl and the Pumpkin was published; a work which he later adapted into a 1905 musical.
