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Out Of This World (1945 Film)
''Out of This World'' is a 1945 American romantic comedy film directed by Hal Walker and starring Eddie Bracken, Veronica Lake and Diana Lynn. The picture was a satire on the Frank Sinatra " bobby soxer" cult. Plot Betty Miller and her Sirens are a struggling all-female band who play at a benefit for an orphanage. The following act is shy Western Union messenger Herbie Fenton, who stuns Betty with his amazing singing voice, performing "Out of This World". In the audience are Bing Crosby's four sons, even though they are not orphans (due to "Dad and his horses"); they recognize the voice right away. Dorothy Dodge, secretary to the orphanage's main benefactor, faints during his performance. A photo of Herbie holding Dorothy up is published in ''Life'' magazine. The next day, Betty gets a much-needed job offer in New York, but it stipulates she must bring her male singer: Herbie. She talks him into signing an exclusive contract for fifty dollars per week, an easy task as he is s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hal Walker
Hal Walker (March 20, 1896 – July 3, 1972) was an American film director. He was known for doing some of the earliest Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis films such as ''At War with the Army'' and '' Sailor Beware'' and some with the team of Bing Crosby and Bob Hope, directing ''Road to Utopia'' and ''Road to Bali''. Early years Walker was born in Ottumwa, Iowa, and was a private in the Marine Corps during World War I. After he was discharged, he drove a taxi in Chicago for two years. He also was a traveling salesman for a company that made dress patterns. Career After beginning in the film industry as an extra and a player of bit parts, Walker worked for years as an assistant director in films, learning the business "from the ground up". His big break came when Crosby, Hope, and Dorothy Lamour urged executives at Paramount Pictures to give him an opportunity to be a director. Walker was nominated at the 10th Academy Awards in the category of Best Assistant Director for the film '' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Life (magazine)
''Life'' was an American magazine published weekly from 1883 to 1972, as an intermittent "special" until 1978, and as a monthly from 1978 until 2000. During its golden age from 1936 to 1972, ''Life'' was a wide-ranging weekly general-interest magazine known for the quality of its photography, and was one of the most popular magazines in the nation, regularly reaching one-quarter of the population. ''Life'' was independently published for its first 53 years until 1936 as a general-interest and light entertainment magazine, heavy on illustrations, jokes, and social commentary. It featured some of the most notable writers, editors, illustrators and cartoonists of its time: Charles Dana Gibson, Norman Rockwell and Jacob Hartman Jr. Gibson became the editor and owner of the magazine after John Ames Mitchell died in 1918. During its later years, the magazine offered brief capsule reviews (similar to those in ''The New Yorker'') of plays and movies currently running in New York City, bu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Olga San Juan
Olga San Juan (March 16, 1927January 3, 2009) was an American actress. Born in Brooklyn, she began her brief film career with Paramount Pictures after being scouted at Copacabana. She performed in several Hollywood musicals in the 1940s and on Broadway in ''Paint Your Wagon'' (1951). Early years Olga San Juan was born on March 16, 1927, in Flatbush, Brooklyn, New York, to Puerto Rican parents. Her family went to Puerto Rico when she was three and then returned to New York City two years later, moving to East Harlem. Her singing career reportedly began when she performed with a group of schoolchildren from New York at the White House for President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. She left high school in ninth grade after her father became ill, performing at venues including El Morocco and the Hotel Astor. Career San Juan was contracted to Paramount Pictures in 1943 after being scouted at Copacabana and performing at the Paramount Theatre. In ''Blue Skies'' (1946), San Juan perf ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lin Crosby
Lindsay Harry Crosby (January 5, 1938 – December 11, 1989) was an American actor and singer. He was the youngest of four sons from Bing Crosby's first marriage to Dixie Lee (his older brothers being Gary and twins Phillip and Dennis). Lindsay began his career singing alongside his three brothers and his father. He was remembered by his friends for having a laid-back, clever wit like his father. Early life Lindsay Crosby was born in Los Angeles, California and named after his father's closest friend and horse racing partner, Lindsay Howard. He was educated at Loyola High School, Los Angeles and after graduating in 1956 he enrolled at Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts but left after only one semester. He then joined the Army and after his discharge in February 1959, he formed a vocal group with his brothers. When he was 21 in 1959, Lindsay inherited $200,000 from his late mother's trust. Singing career Lindsay had sung with his brothers on their father's rad ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dennis Crosby
Dennis Michael Crosby (July 13, 1934 – May 4, 1991) was an American singer and occasional actor, the son of singer and actor Bing Crosby and his first wife Dixie Lee, and twin brother of Phillip Crosby. He was the father of '' Star Trek TNG'' actress Denise Crosby (who was named after him), and of screenwriter/film producer Gregory Crosby (''Hacksaw Ridge''). Early life Dennis Crosby attended Bellarmine College Preparatory in San Jose with his other brothers where he graduated in 1952 and subsequently enrolled at Washington State University at Pullman on an animal husbandry course with his twin brother. He dropped out of the course after two years and was inducted into the Army in January 1955. He was initially posted to Fort Ord, California and then transferred to Fort Riley in Kansas for training with the US 10th Infantry Division which transferred for duty in West Germany in the summer of 1955. When he was 21 in 1955, Dennis inherited $200,000 from his late mother's tr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phillip Crosby
Phillip Lang Crosby (July 13, 1934 – January 13, 2004) was an American actor and singer. He was one of the four sons of Bing Crosby and Dixie Lee; the others were his older brother Gary, his twin brother Dennis, and his younger brother Lindsay. Phillip began his career singing alongside his three brothers and his father. Early life and family Crosby was born in Los Angeles, California. He graduated from Bellarmine College Preparatory in San Jose in June 1952 and went on to Washington State College at Pullman with his twin brother Dennis for a three-year animal husbandry course. It was thought for a time that twins might take over the running of their father's ranch in Elko, Nevada. It had been the custom for many years for Bing Crosby to take his sons to the ranch each summer for several weeks before going on to Hayden Lake, Idaho, prior to their return to school. As children, the twins were exposed to show business in a big way and appeared on Bing Crosby's various radio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gary Crosby (actor)
Gary Evan Crosby (June 27, 1933 – August 24, 1995) was an American actor and singer. His parents were Bing Crosby, of whom he wrote a highly critical memoir, and the singer and actress Dixie Lee. Biography Gary Crosby was born in Los Angeles, California, and graduated from Stanford University. He entered the entertainment business and performed in a harmony singing group, The Crosby Boys, with his three brothers, Philip, Lindsay, and Dennis, during the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s. As a teenager, he duetted with his father on two songs, " Sam's Song" and "Play a Simple Melody", which became the first double-sided gold record in history. He also recorded duets with Louis Armstrong and at least one 45-single with Sammy Davis Jr. He also performed on several variety programs, including ABC's ''The Pat Boone Chevy Showroom'' and NBC's ''The Ford Show, Starring Tennessee Ernie Ford. Radio star In the mid-1950s, he had his own radio program, the ''Gary Crosby Show'' on CBS. The musi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Florence Bates
Florence Bates ( Rabe; April 15, 1888 - January 31, 1954), was an American film and stage character actress who often played grande dame characters in supporting roles. Life and career Bates was the second child born to Jewish immigrant parents, in San Antonio, Texas, where her father was the owner of an antique store. She graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a degree in mathematics, after which she taught school. In 1909, she met and married her first husband, Joseph Ramer, and gave up her career to raise their daughter. When the marriage ended in divorce, she began to study law and, in 1914 at the age of 26, passed the bar examination. She was one of the first female lawyers in her home state and practiced law for four years in San Antonio. After the death of her parents, Bates left the legal profession to help her sister operate their father's antique business. She became a bilingual (English—Spanish) radio commentator whose program was designed to fo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Donald MacBride
Donald Hugh MacBride (June 23, 1893 – June 21, 1957) was an American character actor on stage, in films, and on television who launched his career as a teenage singer (making several recordings in 1907) in vaudeville and went on to be an actor in New York. Biography Donald MacBride was born 1893 in Brooklyn, New York. MacBride appeared in nearly 140 films between 1914 and 1955. His year of birth is given variously as 1889 or 1893 in the standard reference books. Motion pictures Beginning in 1930, like many New York-based, stage-trained actors, he found work at the Paramount, Vitaphone, and Educational studios, all of which had East Coast branches. He is clearly visible as a crowd extra welcoming Groucho Marx in the Paramount feature ''Animal Crackers''. Speaking roles in short subjects followed, establishing MacBride as a comic tough guy or villain opposite Tom Howard, Shemp Howard, Buster Keaton, and other comedy stars. MacBride's fortunes improved when he was featur ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Parkyakarkus
Harry Einstein (May 6, 1904 – November 24, 1958), known professionally as Harry Parke and other pseudonyms, most commonly Parkyakarkus, was an American comedian, writer, and character actor. A specialist in Greek dialect comedy, he became famous as the Greek chef Nick Parkyakarkus on the Eddie Cantor and Al Jolson radio programs, and later on a program of his own. He appeared in eleven films (as Parkyakarkas or a close variant) from 1936 to 1945. He was also the father of comedians and actors Albert Brooks and Bob Einstein (who performed as Super Dave Osborne). Personal life and early career Einstein was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of Sarah (née Klayman), who came from a Jewish family in Russia; and Charles Einstein, a Jewish pawnbroker from Austria, who had an importing business."Radio Comic 'Parky' Dies Amid Laughter." ''Boston Daily Record'', November 25, 1958, p. 30. Einstein attended The English High School in Boston. Einstein first worked as a newspaper ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ray Noble
Raymond Stanley Noble (17 December 1903 – 2 April 1978) was an English jazz and big band musician, who was a bandleader, composer and arranger, as well as a radio host, television and film comedian and actor; he also performed in the United States. Noble wrote both lyrics and music for many popular songs during the British dance band era, known as the "Golden Age of British music", notably for his longtime friend and associate Al Bowlly, including "Love Is the Sweetest Thing", "Cherokee", "The Touch of Your Lips", "I Hadn't Anyone Till You", and his signature tune, "The Very Thought of You". Noble played a radio comedian opposite American ventriloquist Edgar Bergen's stage act of Mortimer Snerd and Charlie McCarthy, and American comedy duo Burns and Allen, later transferring these roles from radio to TV and popular films. Early life and career Noble was born at 1 Montpelier Terrace in the Montpelier area of Brighton, England. A blue plaque on the house commemorates him. He ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Henry King (musician)
Henry King (February 8 1906 – August 8, 1974) was an American orchestra leader and pianist who achieved significant success as a recording artist, hotel bandleader, and as leader of radio orchestras. He was most popular in the 1930s and 1940s. Today he is remembered as the orchestra leader of the Burns and Allen radio program. Biography Henry King was born in February 8 1906. He initially intended to be a classical concert pianist, having studied under Walter Damrosch for six years. Finding pop music to be more lucrative, he organized his first band in the early 1930s. The band was a society band, not a jazz band, and as the band became successful it found engagement at the most prestigious hotels. Over his career, King believed his band to have broadcast more than 5000 remotes. His theme was the Mitchell Parish-Frank Signorelli composition, "A Blues Serenade". King became the band leader of the Burns and Allen Campbell's Tomato Juice Program "Adventures of Gracie" ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
