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Dandridge Sisters
The Dandridge Sisters were an American all-girl singing trio, started in 1934 in Los Angeles, California, and ended in 1940, comprising the sisters Vivian and Dorothy Dandridge together with their friend Etta Jones (not the more well-known jazz vocalist Etta Jones, her namesake). They had a short period of fame traveling around the United States performing for night clubs, theatres, radio shows, and eventually left the U.S. to tour in Europe. Dorothy Dandridge decided to become a solo artist, the band split, and each woman then pursued projects individually. Rise to fame Both Vivian and Dorothy Dandridge originally made up the band The Wonder Children, organized by their mother Ruby Dandridge (also a performer) in Cleveland, Ohio. When they added Etta Jones to the group, they changed their name to The Dandridge Sisters and moved to Los Angeles. They originally began performing as aspiring dancers after studying at the Loretta Butler School of Dance and the Nash Dancing Company ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, cultural center of Southern California. With an estimated 3,878,704 residents within the city limits , it is the List of United States cities by population, second-most populous in the United States, behind only New York City. Los Angeles has an Ethnic groups in Los Angeles, ethnically and culturally diverse population, and is the principal city of a Metropolitan statistical areas, metropolitan area of 12.9 million people (2024). Greater Los Angeles, a combined statistical area that includes the Los Angeles and Riverside–San Bernardino metropolitan areas, is a sprawling metropolis of over 18.5 million residents. The majority of the city proper lies in Los Angeles Basin, a basin in Southern California adjacent to the Pacific Ocean in the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
London Palladium
The London Palladium () is a Grade II* West End theatre located on Argyll Street, London, in Soho. The theatre was designed by Frank Matcham and opened in 1910. The auditorium holds 2,286 people. Hundreds of stars have played there, many with televised performances. Between 1955 and 1969 '' Sunday Night at the London Palladium'' was staged at the venue, produced for the ITV network. The show included a performance by the Beatles on 13 October 1963; one newspaper's headlines in the following days coined the term " Beatlemania" to describe the hysterical interest in the band. While the theatre hosts resident shows, it is also able to host one-off performances, such as concerts, TV specials and Christmas pantomimes. It has hosted the Royal Variety Performance 43 times, most recently in 2019. Architecture Walter Gibbons, an early moving-pictures manager, intended for the Palladium, in 1910, to compete with Sir Edward Moss's London Hippodrome and Sir Oswald Stoll's London ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Big Broadcast Of 1936
''The Big Broadcast of 1936'' is a 1935 American comedy film directed by Norman Taurog, and is the second in the series of ''Big Broadcast'' movies. The musical comedy starred Jack Oakie, Bing Crosby, George Burns, Gracie Allen, Ethel Merman, The Nicholas Brothers, Lyda Roberti, Wendy Barrie, Mary Boland, Charlie Ruggles, Akim Tamiroff, Amos 'n' Andy (Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll), Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, and Argentinian tango singer Carlos Gardel. Glenn Miller appears as part of the Ray Noble Orchestra. Their performance was filmed at the Kaufman Astoria Studios in New York. In ''Glenn Miller and His Orchestra'' (1974), George Thomas Simon noted that Glenn Miller was paid extra by Ray Noble "for working on ''The Big Broadcast of 1936'', so that Glenn's total weekly pay" was $356. The screen appearance of the Ray Noble orchestra was edited down to a very brief scene on the "televisor". The screenplay was by Walter DeLeon, Francis Martin, Ralph Spence, and Julius J. Epst ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gerald Wilson
Gerald Stanley Wilson (September 4, 1918 – September 8, 2014) was an American jazz trumpeter, big band bandleader, composer, arranger, and educator. Born in Mississippi, he was based in Los Angeles from the early 1940s. He arranged music for Duke Ellington, Sarah Vaughan, Ray Charles, Julie London, Dizzy Gillespie, Ella Fitzgerald, Benny Carter, Lionel Hampton, Billie Holiday, Dinah Washington, and Nancy Wilson (jazz singer), Nancy Wilson. Early life Wilson was born in Shelby, Mississippi, and at the age of 16 moved to Detroit, Michigan, where he graduated from Cass Technical High School (one of his classmates was saxophonist Wardell Gray).Peter Vacher"Gerald Wilson obituary" ''The Guardian'', 15 September 2014. He joined the Jimmie Lunceford orchestra in 1939, replacing its trumpeter and arranger, Sy Oliver. While with Lunceford, Wilson contributed songs to the band, including "Hi Spook" and "Yard-dog Mazurka", the first influenced by Duke Ellington, Ellington's recording of " ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jimmy Lunceford
James Melvin Lunceford (June 6, 1902 – July 12, 1947) was an American jazz alto saxophonist and bandleader in the swing era. Early life Lunceford was born on a farm in the Evergreen community, west of the Tombigbee River, near Fulton, Mississippi, United States. The farm was owned by his father, James. His mother was Idella ("Ida") Shumpert of Oklahoma City, an organist of "more than average ability". Seven months after James Melvin was born, the family moved to Oklahoma City. The family next moved to Denver where Lunceford attended high school and studied music under Wilberforce J. Whiteman, father of Paul Whiteman, whose band was soon to acquire a national reputation. As a child in Denver, he learned several instruments. After high school, Lunceford continued his studies at Fisk University. In 1922, he played alto saxophone in a local band led by the violinist George Morrison which included Andy Kirk, another musician destined for fame as a bandleader. Career In 19 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harold Nicholas
Harold Lloyd Nicholas (March 27, 1921 – July 3, 2000) was an American dancer specializing in tap. Nicholas was the younger half of the tap-dancing pair the Nicholas Brothers, known as two of the world's greatest dancers. His older brother was Fayard Nicholas. Nicholas was featured in such musicals as '' An All-Colored Vaudeville Show'' (1935), '' Stormy Weather'' (1943), '' The Pirate'' (1948), and '' The Five Heartbeats'' (1991). Life and career Early years Nicholas was born to drummer and orchestra leader Ulysses Dominick Nicholas, Jr. and pianist Viola Harden in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. By the age of three, his older brother Fayard enjoyed sitting in the audience of the black vaudeville theater where his parents performed, enraptured by the great performers on stage. Immersed in show business, when the Nicholases added a second son to the family, seven-year-old Fayard insisted that the child be named after his idol, Harold Lloyd, the silent-screen comedian. The two ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Porgy And Bess (film)
''Porgy and Bess'' is a 1959 American musical drama film directed by Otto Preminger, and starring Sidney Poitier and Dorothy Dandridge in the titular roles. It is based on the 1935 opera ''Porgy and Bess'' by George Gershwin, DuBose Heyward and Ira Gershwin, in turn based on Heyward's 1925 novel '' Porgy'', as well as Heyward's subsequent 1927 non-musical stage adaptation, co-written with his wife Dorothy. The film's screenplay, which turned the operatic recitatives into spoken dialogue, was very closely based on the opera and was written by N. Richard Nash. In 2011, the film was chosen for inclusion in the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress. The project was the last for Samuel Goldwyn. Due to its controversial subject matter, the film was shown only briefly following its initial reserved seat engagements in major cities, where it drew mixed reviews from critics. Two months after its release, Goldwyn grudgingly conceded "No one is waiting breathlessly for my ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carmen Jones (film)
''Carmen Jones'' is a 1954 American musical film featuring an African American cast starring Harry Belafonte, Dorothy Dandridge, and Pearl Bailey and produced and directed by Otto Preminger. The screenplay by Harry Kleiner is based on the lyrics and Musical theatre#Book musicals, book by Oscar Hammerstein II, from the 1943 stage musical Carmen Jones, of the same name, set to the music of Georges Bizet's 1875 opera ''Carmen.'' The opera was an adaptation of the 1845 Prosper Mérimée novella ''Carmen (novella), Carmen'' by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy. ''Carmen Jones'' was a CinemaScope and DeLuxe Color motion picture that had begun shooting within the first 12 months of Twentieth Century Fox's venture in 1953 to the widescreen format as its main production mode. ''Carmen Jones'' was released in October 1954, exactly one year and one month after Fox's first CinemaScope venture, the Bible, Biblical epic film, epic ''The Robe (film), The Robe'', had opened in theatres. In 199 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Academy Award For Best Actress
The Academy Award for Best Actress is an award presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). It has been awarded since the 1st Academy Awards to an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance in a leading role in a film released that year. The award is traditionally presented by the previous year's Best Actor winner. However, in recent years, it has shifted towards being presented by previous years' Best Actress winners instead. The Best Actress award has been presented 97 times, to 80 different actresses. The first winner was Janet Gaynor for her roles in '' 7th Heaven'' (1927), '' Street Angel'' (1928), and '' Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans'' (1927), and the most recent winner is Mikey Madison for her role in '' Anora'' (2024). The record for most wins is four, held by Katharine Hepburn; Frances McDormand has won three times, and thirteen other actresses have won the award twice. Meryl Streep has received the most nominations i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Academy Award
The Academy Awards, commonly known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit in film. They are presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) in the United States in recognition of excellence in cinematic achievements as assessed by the Academy's voting membership. The Oscars are widely considered to be the most prestigious awards in the film industry. The major award categories, known as the Academy Awards of Merit, are presented during a live-televised Hollywood ceremony in February or March. It is the oldest worldwide entertainment awards ceremony. The 1st Academy Awards were held in 1929. The second ceremony, in 1930, was the first one broadcast by radio. The 1953 ceremony was the first one televised. It is the oldest of the four major annual American entertainment awards. Its counterparts—the Emmy Awards for television, the Tony Awards for theater, and the Grammy Awards for music—are modeled after the Academy Aw ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Soundies
A soundie is a three-minute American film displaying both the audio and video of a musical performance. Over 1,850 soundies were produced between 1940 and 1946, regarded today as "precursors to music videos". Soundies exhibited a variety of musical genres in an effort to draw a broad audience. The shorts were originally viewed in public places on some 5,000 " Panorams", coin-operated, 16mm rear projection machines built by the Mills Novelty Company of Chicago. Panorams offered multiple selections of a constantly changing rotation of soundies, and were typically located in public venues like nightclubs, bars, and restaurants. As World War II progressed, soundies also featured patriotic messages and advertisements for war bonds. Hollywood films were censored but Soundies weren't, so the films occasionally had daring content like burlesque acts; these were produced to appeal to soldiers on leave. Technology Soundies were filmed professionally on black-and-white 35mm theatrica ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Coal Black And De Sebben Dwarfs
''Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs'' is a 1943 ''Merrie Melodies'' animated cartoon directed by Bob Clampett. The short was released on January 16, 1943. The film is an all-black parody of the Brothers Grimm fairy tale ''Snow White'', known to audiences at the time from the popular 1937 Walt Disney animated feature ''Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs''. The stylistic portrayal of the characters is an example of "darky" iconography, which was widely accepted in American society at the time. As such, it is one of the most controversial cartoons in the classic Warner Brothers library, being one of the Censored Eleven. The cartoon has been rarely seen on television since it was pulled from circulation in 1968 and has never been officially released on home video. History In this version of the story, all of the characters are black, and speak all of their dialogue in rhyme. The story is set during World War II in the United States, and the original tale's fairy tale wholesomeness is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
