Danny Kaye was an American actor, comedian, singer, and dancer. His performances featured physical comedy, idiosyncratic pantomimes, and rapid-fire novelty songs.
Carver Dana Andrews was an American film actor who became a major star in what is now known as film noir. A leading man during the 1940s, he continued acting in less prestigious roles and character parts into the 1980s. He is best known for his portrayal of obsessed police detective Mark McPherson in the noir Laura (1944) and his critically acclaimed performance as World War II veteran Fred Derry in The Best Years of Our Lives (1946).
Ball of Fire is a 1941 American screwball comedy film directed by Howard Hawks and starring Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck. The Samuel Goldwyn Productions film concerns a group of professors laboring to write an encyclopedia and their encounter with a nightclub performer who provides her own unique knowledge. The supporting cast includes Oscar Homolka, S. Z. Sakall, Henry Travers, Richard Haydn, Dana Andrews, and Dan Duryea.
Whoopee! is a 1928 musical comedy play with a book based on Owen Davis's play, The Nervous Wreck. The musical libretto was written by William Anthony McGuire, with music by Walter Donaldson and lyrics by Gus Kahn. The musical premiered on Broadway in 1928, starring Eddie Cantor, and introduced the hit song "Love Me or Leave Me", sung by Ruth Etting. A film version opened in 1930.
Samuel Cohen, known professionally as Sammy Cahn, was an American lyricist, songwriter, and musician. He is best known for his romantic lyrics to films and Broadway songs, as well as stand-alone songs premiered by recording companies in the Greater Los Angeles Area. He and his collaborators had a series of hit recordings with Frank Sinatra during the singer's tenure at Capitol Records, but also enjoyed hits with Dean Martin, Doris Day and many others. He played the piano and violin, and won an Oscar four times for his songs, including the popular hit "Three Coins in the Fountain".
Vera-Ellen was an American dancer and actress. She is remembered for her solo performances as well as her work with partners Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, Danny Kaye, and Donald O'Connor. She is best known for her starring roles in On the Town (1949) with Gene Kelly and White Christmas (1954) with Danny Kaye.
Dinah Shore was an American singer, actress, television personality, and the chart-topping female vocalist of the 1940s. She rose to prominence as a recording artist during the Big Band era. She achieved even greater success a decade later in television, mainly as the host of a series of variety programs for the Chevrolet automobile company.
Michael Kidd was an American film and stage choreographer, dancer and actor, whose career spanned five decades, and who staged some of the leading Broadway and film musicals of the 1940s and 1950s. Kidd, strongly influenced by Charlie Chaplin and Léonide Massine, was an innovator in what came to be known as the "integrated musical", in which dance movements are integral to the plot.
Virginia Mayo was an American actress and dancer. She was in a series of popular comedy films with Danny Kaye and was Warner Bros.' biggest box-office draw in the late 1940s. She also co-starred in the 1946 Oscar-winning movie The Best Years of Our Lives.
"The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" (1939) is a short story by James Thurber. The most famous of Thurber's stories, it first appeared in The New Yorker on March 18, 1939, and was first collected in his book My World and Welcome to It. It has since been reprinted in James Thurber: Writings and Drawings, is available on-line on the New Yorker website, and is one of the most anthologized short stories in American literature. The story is considered one of Thurber's "acknowledged masterpieces". It was made into a 1947 film of the same name, with Danny Kaye in the title role, though the film is very different from the original story. It was also adapted into a 2013 film, which is again very different from the original.
John Morey Downs was an American actor, singer and dancer. He began his career as a child actor, most notably as Johnny in the Our Gang short comedy film series from 1923 to 1926. He remained active in films, television and theatre through the early 1960s.
Steve Cochran was an American film, television and stage actor. He attended the University of Wyoming. After a stint working as a cowboy, Cochran developed his acting skills in local theatre and gradually progressed to Broadway, film and television.
Linda Christian was a Mexican film actress who appeared in Mexican and Hollywood films. Her career reached its peak in the 1940s and 1950s. She played Mara in the last Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan film Tarzan and the Mermaids (1948). She is also noted for being the first Bond girl, appearing in a 1954 television adaptation of the James Bond novel Casino Royale. In 1963 she starred as Eva Ashley in an episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour titled "An Out for Oscar".
Roger Edens was a Hollywood composer, arranger and associate producer, and is considered one of the major creative figures in Arthur Freed's musical film production unit at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer during the "golden era of Hollywood".
Wonder Man is a 1945 supernatural musical film directed by H. Bruce Humberstone and starring Danny Kaye and Virginia Mayo. It is based on a short story by Arthur Sheekman, adapted for the screen by a staff of writers led by Jack Jevne and Eddie Moran, and produced by Samuel Goldwyn. Mary Grant designed the film's costumes.
The Kid from Brooklyn is a 1946 American musical comedy film directed by Norman Z. McLeod and starring Danny Kaye, Virginia Mayo, Vera-Ellen, Steve Cochran, Walter Abel, Eve Arden, and Fay Bainter. Virginia Mayo's and Vera-Ellen's singing voices were dubbed by Betty Russell and Dorothy Ellers, respectively.
Guys and Dolls is a 1955 American musical film starring Marlon Brando, Jean Simmons, Frank Sinatra, and Vivian Blaine. The picture was made by Samuel Goldwyn Productions and distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). It was directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, who also wrote the screenplay. The film is based on the 1950 Broadway musical by composer and lyricist Frank Loesser, with a book by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows, which, in turn, was loosely based on "The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown" (1933) and "Blood Pressure", two short stories by Damon Runyon. Dances were choreographed by Michael Kidd, who had staged the dances for the Broadway production.
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is a 1947 American Technicolor comedy film, loosely based on the 1939 short story of the same name by James Thurber. The film stars Danny Kaye as a young daydreaming proofreader for a magazine publishing firm and Virginia Mayo as the girl of his dreams. The film was adapted for the screen by Ken Englund, Everett Freeman, and Philip Rapp (uncredited), and directed by Norman Z. McLeod.
A Song Is Born, starring Danny Kaye and Virginia Mayo, is a 1948 Technicolor musical film remake of Howard Hawks' 1941 movie Ball of Fire with Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck. This version was also directed by Hawks, based on the story "From A to Z" by Billy Wilder and Thomas Monroe, adapted by Harry Tugend (uncredited) and produced by Samuel Goldwyn and released by RKO Radio Pictures.
South Pacific is a 1958 American romantic musical film based on the 1949 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical South Pacific, which in turn is loosely based on James A. Michener's 1947 short-story collection Tales of the South Pacific. The film, directed by Joshua Logan, stars Rossano Brazzi, Mitzi Gaynor, John Kerr and Ray Walston in the leading roles with Juanita Hall as Bloody Mary, the part that she had played in the original stage production. The film was nominated for three Academy Awards, winning the Academy Award for Best Sound for Fred Hynes. It is set in 1943, during World War II, on an island in the South Pacific.
