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Avalon (Al Jolson Song)
"Avalon" is a 1920 popular song written by Al Jolson, Buddy DeSylva and Vincent Rose referencing Avalon, California. It was introduced by Jolson and interpolated in the musicals ''Sinbad (1918 musical), Sinbad'' and ''Bombo (musical), Bombo.'' Jolson's recording rose to number two on the charts in 1921. The song was possibly written by Rose, but Jolson's popularity as a performer allowed him to claim composer co-credit. Originally, only Rose and Jolson were credited, and DeSylva's name was added later. A popular jazz standard, the song has been recorded by many artists, including Cab Calloway (1934), Coleman Hawkins (1935) and Eddie Durham (1936). The Benny Goodman Quartet played the song in their The Famous 1938 Carnegie Hall Jazz Concert, famous 1938 Carnegie Hall concert. The tune remains popular in the gypsy jazz repertoire, having been performed by Wawau Adler and others. The tune's opening melody resembles a part of Giacomo Puccini's aria ''E lucevan le stelle'', from the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Al Jolson
Al Jolson (born Asa Yoelson, ; May 26, 1886 – October 23, 1950) was a Lithuanian-born American singer, comedian, actor, and vaudevillian. Self-billed as "The World's Greatest Entertainer," Jolson was one of the United States' most famous and highest-paid stars of the 1920s, as well as the first openly Jewish man to become an entertainment star in the United States. He was known for his "shamelessly sentimental, melodramatic approach" towards performing, along with popularizing many of the songs he sang. According to music historian Larry Stempel, "No one had heard anything quite like it before on Broadway." Stephen Banfield wrote that Jolson's style was "arguably the single most important factor in defining the modern musical." Jolson has been referred to by modern critics as "the king of blackface performers". Although best remembered today as the star of the first talking picture, ''The Jazz Singer'' (1927), he starred in a series of successful musical films during the 1930 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gogi Grant
Myrtle Audrey Arinsberg (September 20, 1924 – March 10, 2016), known professionally as Gogi Grant, was an American pop singer. She had a No. 1 hit in 1956 with " The Wayward Wind". Life and career Grant was born Myrtle Audrey Arinsberg in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the eldest of six children of Russian Jewish parents, Rose (née Jacobson) and Alexander Arinsberg. At the age of 12, she moved to Los Angeles, where she attended Venice High School. In California, she won a teenage singing contest and appeared on television talent shows. She worked as a car saleswoman in the early 1950s. In 1952 she began to record, using first the name "Audrey Brown" and later "Audrey Grant". She was given the name "Gogi" by Dave Kapp, the head of Artists and Repertory at RCA Victor, who liked to patronize a restaurant called Gogi's LaRue. (Another source says that Grant asked Kapp, "What is a Gogi?" She continued, "His answer was, 'Darned if I know, I dreamed it last night.'") In 1955 Grant ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ann Blyth
Ann Blyth (born Anne Marie Blythe; August 16, 1928) is an American retired actress and singer. She began her career in radio as a child before transitioning to Broadway, where she appeared in Lillian Hellman, Lillian Hellman’s ''Watch on the Rhine (play), Watch on the Rhine'' (1941–42). Blyth signed with Universal Pictures, Universal Studios in the 1940s and made her film debut in ''Chip Off the Old Block'' (1944), followed by a series of musical comedies. Her breakout role came in ''Mildred Pierce (film), Mildred Pierce'' (1945), where she played the scheming Veda Pierce, earning a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Blyth worked extensively in film throughout the 1940s and 1950s, appearing in notable films such as ''Brute Force (1947 film), Brute Force'' (1947), ''The Great Caruso'' (1951), and ''The King's Thief, The King’s Thief'' (1955). After transitioning to theater and television in the late 1950s, she starred in productions such as ''The K ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Helen Morgan Story
''The Helen Morgan Story'', released in the UK as ''Both Ends of the Candle'', is a 1957 American biographical film directed by Michael Curtiz starring Ann Blyth and Paul Newman. The screenplay by Oscar Saul, Dean Riesner, Stephen Longstreet, and Nelson Gidding is based on the life and career of torch singer/actress Helen Morgan, with fictional touches liberally added for dramatic purposes. This turned out to be Blyth's final film role. Another version of Morgan's life story, '' Helen Morgan'', was produced as a live television drama on ''Playhouse 90'', with Polly Bergen as Morgan. Despite requests to delay the television version, it aired five months before the release of the motion picture. Plot Helen Morgan begins her career as a Chicago carnival dancer. She catches the eye of fast-talking, double-dealing Larry Maddux, whose promotion catapults her to fame as a Broadway performer in ''Show Boat'' and a headliner in her own nightclub. Helen is involved in two romantic r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rose Of Washington Square
''Rose of Washington Square'' is a 1939 American musical drama film, featuring the already well-known popular song with the same title. Set in 1920s New York City, the film focuses on singer Rose Sargent and her turbulent relationship with con artist Barton DeWitt Clinton, whose criminal activities threaten her professional success in the Ziegfeld Follies. Although the names of the principal characters were changed, the plot was inspired by vaudeville entertainer Fanny Brice's career and marriage to gambler Nicky Arnstein (both the film's title song and " My Man" were closely associated with Brice), and Brice sued 20th Century Fox for $750,000. The studio settled out of court for an undisclosed amount. Written by Nunnally Johnson (who co-produced with Darryl F. Zanuck) and directed by Gregory Ratoff, it stars Alice Faye, Tyrone Power and Al Jolson, with a supporting cast that includes William Frawley, Joyce Compton, Hobart Cavanaugh, Moroni Olsen, Charles Lane, and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Janie (1944 Film)
''Janie'' is a 1944 film directed by Michael Curtiz, based on a 1942 Broadway play by Josephine Bentham and Herschel V. Williams Jr. The play was adapted from Bentham's 1940 novel by the same name. Plot Janie is a free-spirited teenager living in a small town. But her father, the local newspaper publisher, opposes the establishment of an army camp nearby. Janie and her bobby soxer friends are excited at the prospect of having so many young soldiers nearby. She dates one of them, which makes her boyfriend jealous. Cast * Joyce Reynolds as Janie Conway * Robert Hutton as Pfc. Dick Lawrence * Edward Arnold as Charles Conway * Ann Harding as Lucille Conway * Alan Hale as Professor Reardon * Robert Benchley as John Van Brunt * Clare Foley as Elsbeth Conway * Barbara Brown as Thelma Lawrence * Hattie McDaniel as April * Richard Erdman as Scooper Nolan * Jackie Moran as Mickey the Sailor * Ann Gillis as Paula Rainey * Russell Hicks as Colonel Lucas * Ruth Tobey as Bernadine D ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
You Said A Mouthful
''You Said a Mouthful'' is a 1932 American pre-Code comedy film directed by Lloyd Bacon and written by Robert Lord and Bolton Mallory. The film stars Joe E. Brown, Ginger Rogers, Preston Foster, Allen Hoskins, Harry Gribbon, Edwin Maxwell and Sheila Terry. The film was released by Warner Bros. on December 8, 1932. Plot Joe Holt works for the Armstrong Rubber Goods company and believes that he has invented an unsinkable bathing suit. His colleagues mock Joe behind his back and fool him into thinking that his boss likes the swimsuit idea. Joe travels to California to inherit his aunt's fortune, which he intends to use to finance the manufacture of his swimsuit. However, his aunt died broke. Joe befriends a servant's son, Sam Wellington, and together take a boat to Santa Catalina Island. Socialite Alice Brandon mistakes Joe for a famous swimmer with his same name. She has just parted ways with channel swimmer Ed Dover and wants Ed to lose an upcoming channel race, so she p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Casablanca (film)
''Casablanca'' is a 1942 American romantic drama film directed by Michael Curtiz and starring Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, and Paul Henreid. Filmed and set during World War II, it focuses on an American expatriate (Bogart) who must choose between his love for a woman (Bergman) and helping her husband (Henreid), a Czechoslovak resistance leader, escape from the Vichy-controlled city of Casablanca to continue his fight against the Nazis. The screenplay is based on '' Everybody Comes to Rick's'', an unproduced stage play by Murray Burnett and Joan Alison. The supporting cast features Claude Rains, Conrad Veidt, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, and Dooley Wilson. Warner Bros. story editor Irene Diamond convinced producer Hal B. Wallis to purchase the film rights to the play in January 1942. Brothers Julius and Philip G. Epstein were initially assigned to write the script. However, despite studio resistance, they left to work on Frank Capra's ''Why We Fight'' ser ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
As Time Goes By (song)
"As Time Goes By" is a jazz song written by Herman Hupfeld in 1931. It became famous when it was featured in the 1942 film ''Casablanca'', performed by Dooley Wilson as Sam. The song was voted No. 2 on the AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs special, commemorating the best songs in film (surpassed only by " Over the Rainbow" sung by Judy Garland). The song was covered among others by Rudy Vallee, Billie Holiday, Jimmy Durante, Louis Armstrong, Frank Sinatra, Nancy Sinatra, Natalie Cole, Harry Nilsson, Carly Simon, Vera Lynn, Bob Dylan and Bryan Ferry. It was also the title and theme song of the 1990s British romantic comedy series '' As Time Goes By''. National Public Radio (NPR) included it in its "NPR 100", a 1999 list of the most important American musical works of the 20th century as compiled by NPR's music editors. The song is a popular reflection of nostalgia and often used in films and series reflecting this feeling. Since 1999, an instrumental version of the song's clo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dooley Wilson
Arthur "Dooley" Wilson (April 3, 1886 – May 30, 1953) was an American actor, singer and musician who is best remembered for his portrayal of Sam in the 1942 film ''Casablanca (film), Casablanca''. In that romantic drama, he performs its theme song "As Time Goes By (song), As Time Goes By". Wilson was a drummer and singer who led his own band in the 1920s, touring nightclubs in London and Paris. In the 1930s he took up acting, playing supporting roles onstage on Broadway theatre, Broadway and in a series of modest films. His role in ''Casablanca'' was by far his most prominent, but his other films included ''My Favorite Blonde'' (1942) with Bob Hope, ''Stormy Weather (1943 film), Stormy Weather'' (1943) with Lena Horne and the Nicholas Brothers, and the Western ''Passage West (1951 film), Passage West'' (1951). Early life and career Arthur Wilson was born in Tyler, Texas, the youngest of five children. At age seven, the year of his father's death, he began to earn a living by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
