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Hallelujah (film)
''Hallelujah'' is a 1929 American pre-Code Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer musical directed by King Vidor, and starring Daniel L. Haynes and Nina Mae McKinney. Filmed in Tennessee and Arkansas and chronicling the troubled quest of a sharecropper, Zeke Johnson (Haynes), and his relationship with the seductive Chick (McKinney), ''Hallelujah'' was one of the first films with an all-African American cast produced by a major studio. (Although frequently touted as Hollywood's first all-black cast musical, that distinction more properly belongs to ''Hearts in Dixie'', which premiered several months earlier.) It was intended for a general audience and was considered so risky a venture by MGM that they required King Vidor to invest his own salary in the production. Vidor expressed an interest in "showing the Southern Negro as he is" and attempted to present a relatively non-stereotyped view of African-American life. ''Hallelujah'' was King Vidor's first sound film, and combined sound recorded ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Al Hirschfeld
Albert Hirschfeld (June 21, 1903 – January 20, 2003) was an American caricaturist best known for his black and white portraits of celebrities and Broadway stars. Personal life Al Hirschfeld was born in 1903 in a two-story duplex at 1313 Carr Street in St. Louis, Missouri, and moved with his family to New York City in 1915, where he received his art training at the National Academy of Design. He married chorus girl Florence Ruth Hobby in 1927; the couple separated in 1932 and divorced in 1943. That same year he married actress Dolly Haas. Haas died in 1994, aged 84. They had one child, a daughter, Nina (b. 1945). In 1996, he married Louise Kerz, a theatre historian (b. 1936). Career In 1924, Hirschfeld traveled to Paris and London, where he studied painting, drawing and sculpture. When he returned to the United States, a friend, fabled Broadway press agent Richard Maney, showed one of Hirschfeld's drawings to an editor at the ''New York Herald Tribune'', which got Hirsch ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Academy Awards
The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment industry worldwide. Given annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), the awards are an international recognition of excellence in cinematic achievements, as assessed by the Academy's voting membership. The various category winners are awarded a copy of a golden statuette as a trophy, officially called the "Academy Award of Merit", although more commonly referred to by its nickname, the "Oscar". The statuette, depicting a knight rendered in the Art Deco style, was originally sculpted by Los Angeles artist George Stanley from a design sketch by art director Cedric Gibbons. The 1st Academy Awards were held in 1929 at a private dinner hosted by Douglas Fairbanks in The Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. The Academy Awards ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blue Washington
Edgar Hughes "Blue" Washington (12 February 1898 – 15 September 1970) was an American actor and baseball player who played in the Negro leagues from 1915 to 1920 as a pitcher and first baseman. Baseball career Washington started his baseball career as a pitcher with the Chicago American Giants in 1915. He remained with Chicago in 1916. He later played with the Kansas City Monarchs in 1920, appearing in 24 documented major league games. Acting career He appeared in 74 films between 1919 and 1957, mostly playing small, uncredited roles as a porter, a bartender, an African native (as in ''King Kong'' (1933) and '' Tarzan's Magic Fountain'' (1949), a cook, a chauffeur, a ship's crew member, a Nubian slave, and a doorman. Some of his characters had names such as "Ulambo", "Sambo" (sambo) and "Hambone". In the 1933 film ''Haunted Gold'', he portrayed Clarence, John Wayne's comic sidekick. He had uncredited appearances in ''Birth of a Nation'' (1915) and '' Gone with the Wind'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eva Jessye
Eva Jessye (January 20, 1895 – February 21, 1992) was an American conductor who was the first black woman to receive international distinction as a professional choral conductor. She is notable as a choral conductor during the Harlem Renaissance. She created her own choral group which featured widely in performance. Her professional influence extended for decades through her teaching as well. Her accomplishments in this field were historic for any woman. She collaborated in productions of groundbreaking works, directing her choir and working with Virgil Thomson and Gertrude Stein on ''Four Saints in Three Acts'' (1933), and serving as musical director with George Gershwin on his innovative opera ''Porgy and Bess'' (1935). Early life and education Eva Jessye was born January 20, 1895 in Coffeyville, Kansas. She was educated at Western University, a historically black university in Kansas, and Langston University in Oklahoma. She later studied privately with Will Marion Cook in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Matthew "Stymie" Beard
Matthew Beard Jr. (January 1, 1925 – January 8, 1981) was an American actor. As a child actor, he was most famous for playing Stymie in the ''Our Gang'' short comedy films of 1930–1935. The role was so well known that he adopted the name Stymie Beard, and was so credited in some later roles, such as his 1978 appearance in ''The Buddy Holly Story''. Early life Beard was born near Los Angeles, California to Matthew Beard Sr. and Johnnie Mae Beard (née Clay). His father was the founding pastor of Beloved Church of God in Christ in Los Angeles. ''Our Gang'' years Beard previously played baby parts in many films, then signed a five-year contract to play in ''Our Gang''. In contrast to Farina, the character he replaced, Stymie was a slick-tongued con-artist who was self-assured, nonchalant, and ready with a sly comment and clever ideas to solve the problems he faced. He could offer sound common sense that helped resolve his playmates' dilemmas. The character's trademark w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sam McDaniel
Samuel Rufus McDaniel (January 28, 1886September 24, 1962)Tanner, Beccy (November 7, 1991)"McDaniel Opened Doors; 'Gone With the Wind' Was Actress' Most Famous Film" ''The Wichita Eagle''. Retrieved January 3, 2021. was an American actor who appeared in over 210 television shows and films between 1929 and 1950. He was the older brother of actresses Etta McDaniel and Hattie McDaniel. Early life Born in Wichita, Kansas, to former slaves, McDaniel was one of 13 children.Bogle, Donald (2019)''Hollywood Black: The Stars, the Films, the Filmmakers'' New York: Perseus Books. p. 199. . His father Henry McDaniel fought in the Civil War with the 122nd USCT and his mother, Susan Holbert, was a singer of gospel music. In 1900, the family moved to Colorado, living first in Fort Collins and then in Denver where he grew up and graduated from Denver East High School. The children of the McDaniel family had a traveling minstrel show. After the death of brother Otis in 1916, the troupe began to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Victoria Spivey
Victoria Regina Spivey (October 15, 1906 – October 3, 1976), sometimes known as Queen Victoria, was an American blues singer and songwriter. During a recording career that spanned 40 years, from 1926 to the mid-1960s, she worked with Louis Armstrong, King Oliver, Clarence Williams, Luis Russell, Lonnie Johnson, and Bob Dylan. She also performed in vaudeville and clubs, sometimes with her sister Addie "Sweet Peas" (or "Sweet Pease") Spivey (August 22, 1910 – 1943), also known as the Za Zu Girl. Among her compositions are "Black Snake Blues" (1926), "Dope Head Blues" (1927), and "Organ Grinder Blues" (1928). Life and career Born in Houston, Texas, she was the daughter of Grant and Addie (Smith) Spivey. Her father was a part-time musician and a flagman for the railroad; her mother was a nurse. She had three sisters, all three of whom also sang professionally: Leona, Elton "Za Zu", and Addie "Sweet Peas" (or "Sweet Pease") Spivey (August 22, 1910 – 1943), who recorded for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hallelujah (1929) Trailer 2
''Hallelujah'' ( ; he, ''haləlū-Yāh'', meaning "praise Yah") is an interjection from the Hebrew language, used as an expression of gratitude to God. The term is used 24 times in the Hebrew Bible (in the book of Psalms), twice in deuterocanonical books, and four times in the Christian Book of Revelation. The phrase is used in Judaism as part of the Hallel prayers, and in Christian prayer, where since the earliest times it is used in various ways in liturgies, especially those of the Catholic Church, the Lutheran Churches and the Eastern Orthodox Church, the three of which use the Latin form alleluia which is based on the alternative Greek transliteration. Etymology Hallelujah is a transliteration of he, הַלְלוּ יָהּ (), which means "praise ye Jah!" (from , "praise ye!" Page H. Kelley, ''Biblical Hebrew, an Introductory Grammar'', page 169. Ethics & Public Policy Center, 1959. . and , "Jah".) [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Memphis, Tennessee
Memphis is a city in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the seat of Shelby County in the southwest part of the state; it is situated along the Mississippi River. With a population of 633,104 at the 2020 U.S. census, Memphis is the second-most populous city in Tennessee, after Nashville. Memphis is the fifth-most populous city in the Southeast, the nation's 28th-largest overall, as well as the largest city bordering the Mississippi River. The Memphis metropolitan area includes West Tennessee and the greater Mid-South region, which includes portions of neighboring Arkansas, Mississippi and the Missouri Bootheel. One of the more historic and culturally significant cities of the Southern United States, Memphis has a wide variety of landscapes and distinct neighborhoods. The first European explorer to visit the area of present-day Memphis was Spanish conquistador Hernando de Soto in 1541. The high Chickasaw Bluffs protecting the location from the waters of the Mississ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nicholas Schenck
Nicholas M. Schenck (14 November 1880, Rybinsk, Russia – 4 March 1969, Florida) was a Russian-American film studio executive and businessman. Biography Early life One of seven children, Schenck was born to a Jewish household in Rybinsk, a town on the Volga River in the Yaroslavl Governorate of Tsarist Russia. With his parents, he and his brothers, George and Joseph, emigrated to the United States in 1892 where they settled in a tenement on New York's Lower East Side. Subsequently, he relocated to Harlem, the population of which at that time consisted primarily of Jewish and Italian immigrants. Upon his arrival in the United States, he and his older brother Joseph worked as a team running errands and selling newspapers while studying at the New York College of Pharmacy at night. They subsequently began working in a drugstore in the Bowery. Within two years they had saved up enough money to buy out the drugstore's owner and opened another store on Third Avenue at 110th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Octavus Roy Cohen
Octavus Roy Cohen (1891–1959) was an early 20th century American writer specializing in ethnic comedies. His dialect comedy stories about African Americans gained popularity after being published in the ''Saturday Evening Post'' and were adapted into a series of short films by Al Christie featuring actors Charles Olden, Spencer Williams Jr., Evelyn Preer, and Edward Thompson. Biography Early life Cohen was born on June 26, 1891 in Charleston, South Carolina, to Octavus and Rebecca Cohen (née Ottolengui). He pronounced his first name ''oc-tav'us, a'' as in ''have''. He received his secondary education at the Porter Military Academy, now the Porter-Gaud School, and graduated in 1908. He went on to Clemson College (later renamed Clemson University) and graduated in 1911 with a degree in engineering. Career Between 1910 and 1912, he worked in the editorial departments of the ''Birmingham Ledger'', the ''Charleston News and Courier'', the '' Bayonne Times'', and the '' Ne ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Crowd (1928 Film)
''The Crowd'' is a 1928 American silent romance film directed by King Vidor and starring James Murray, Eleanor Boardman and Bert Roach. The feature film was nominated at the very first Academy Award presentation in 1929, for several awards, including Unique and Artistic Production for MGM and Best Director for Vidor. Kevin Brownlow and David Gill restored ''The Crowd'' in 1981, and it was released with a score by Carl Davis. In 1989, the film was one of the first 25 selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the United States National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". In February 2020, the film was shown at the 70th Berlin International Film Festival, as part of a retrospective dedicated to Vidor's career. Plot Born on the Fourth of July, 1900, John Sims ( James Murray) loses his father when he is twelve. At 21, he sets out for New York City, where he is sure he will become somebody important, just as his fathe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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