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Emma Matzo
Lizabeth Virginia Scott (born Emma Virginia Matzo; September 29, 1921 – January 31, 2015) was an American actress, singer, and model for the Walter Thornton Model Agency, known for her "smoky voice" and being "the most beautiful face of film noir during the 1940s and 1950s". After understudying the role of Sabina in the original Broadway and Boston stage productions of '' The Skin of Our Teeth'', she emerged in such films as ''The Strange Love of Martha Ivers'' (1946), ''Dead Reckoning'' (1947), ''Desert Fury'' (1947), and '' Too Late for Tears'' (1949). Of her 22 films, she was the leading lady in all but three. In addition to stage and radio, she appeared on television from the late 1940s to early 1970s. Early life Emma Matzo (Ema Macová in Slovak) was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania,Carole Langer (Soapbox & Praeses Productions, 1996; accessed May 23, 2014), ''Lizabeth Scott 1996 Interview Part 1 of 8'' the oldest of six children born to Mary Penyak and John Matzo (Ján Maco ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scranton, Pennsylvania
Scranton is a city in and the county seat of Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania, United States. With a population of 76,328 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, Scranton is the most populous city in Northeastern Pennsylvania and the Wyoming Valley metropolitan area, which has a population of 562,037 as of 2020. It is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, sixth-most populous city in Pennsylvania. The contiguous network of five City, cities and more than 40 boroughs all built in a straight line in Northeastern Pennsylvania's urban core act culturally and logistically as one continuous city, so while Scranton is a mid-sized city, the larger Scranton/Wilkes-Barre metropolitan area contains half a million residents in roughly 300 square miles (780 km2). Scranton is the cultural and economic center of Northeastern Pennsylvania, a region of the state with over 1.3 million residents. Scranton hosts a United States federal courts, federal court building for the United ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maxwell Anderson
James Maxwell Anderson (December 15, 1888 – February 28, 1959) was an American playwright, author, poet, journalist, and lyricist. Anderson faced many challenges in his career, frequently losing jobs for expressing his opinions or supporting controversial figures. Despite this, he found success as a dramatist and wrote a number of hit plays, including ''What Price Glory'', '' Both Your Houses'', and '' The Bad Seed''. Many of his works were adapted for the screen, and he wrote screenplays for other authors' works as well. Anderson was married three times and had a tumultuous personal life, dying in 1959 after suffering a stroke. His papers and personal effects can be found in various institutions, with the largest collection housed at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin. Background Anderson was born on December 15, 1888, in Atlantic, Pennsylvania, the second of eight children to William Lincoln "Link" Anderson, a Baptist minister, and Charlotte Perrim ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Colton (screenwriter)
John Colton (December 31, 1887 – December 26, 1946) was an American playwright and screenwriter born in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He spent the first 14 years of his life in Japan where his English father was a diplomat. After returning to the US he soon worked for a Minneapolis newspaper. He is notable for adapting, with Clemence Randolph, Somerset Maugham's novella ''Rain'' into a 1922 smash hit play starring Jeanne Eagels. He wrote the original play, ''The Shanghai Gesture,'' produced on Broadway in 1926. He excelled at writing plays dealing with Americans in far-off lands, an experience Colton knew firsthand from his early youth in Japan. With these huge successes Colton was lured to Hollywood, primarily MGM, where he wrote intertitles for some silent films and scenarios for others. In the talking film era he wrote numerous screenplays. Three of his stage plays found motion picture production: ''Rain'' (1932); '' The Shanghai Gesture'' (1941); and, posthumously, '' Un ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sketch Comedy
Sketch comedy comprises a series of short, amusing scenes or vignettes, called "sketches" or, "skits", commonly between one and ten minutes long, performed by a group of comic actors or comedians. While the form developed and became popular in music hall in Britain and vaudeville in North America, today it is used widely in variety shows, as well as in late night talk shows and even some sitcoms. While sketch comedy is now associated mostly with adult entertainment, certain children's television series such have used it, too. The sketches may be improvised live by the performers, developed through improvisation before public performance, or scripted and rehearsed in advance like a play. History Sketch comedy has its origins in music hall and vaudeville, where many brief humorous acts were strung together to form a larger programme. In the 1890s, music hall impresario Fred Karno developed a form of sketch comedy without dialogue, and in 1904 he produced a sketch called ' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blackout Gag
A blackout gag is a kind of joke in broad, rapid-fire slapstick comedy. The term is derived from burlesque and vaudeville, when the lights were quickly turned off after the punchline of a joke to accentuate it and encourage audience laughter. It may use a shock value to define the joke, and may not be initially noticeable to all viewers if it is a very fast joke. "A blackout gag and a moment's silence provide the transition to the next scene" It is distinguished from an iris shot, frequently used in the silent film era, where a black circle closes to end a scene. The term blackout gag can also apply to fast-paced television or film comedy, such as ''Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In ''Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In'' (often simply referred to as ''Laugh-In'') is an American sketch comedy television program that ran for six seasons from January 22, 1968, to July 23, 1973, on the NBC television network. The show, hosted by comed ...'', where there may not literally be a blackout, but a q ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Connecticut
Connecticut ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York (state), New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its capital is Hartford, Connecticut, Hartford, and its most populous city is Bridgeport, Connecticut, Bridgeport. Connecticut lies between the major hubs of New York City and Boston along the Northeast megalopolis, Northeast Corridor, where the New York metropolitan area, New York-Newark Combined Statistical Area, which includes four of Connecticut's seven largest cities, extends into the southwestern part of the state. Connecticut is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, third-smallest state by area after Rhode Island and Delaware, and the List of U.S. states and territories by population, 29th most populous with more than 3.6 million residents as of 2024, ranking it fourth among the List of states and territories of the Unite ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New Haven
New Haven is a city of the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound. With a population of 135,081 as determined by the 2020 U.S. census, New Haven is the third largest city in Connecticut after Bridgeport and Stamford, the largest city in the South Central Connecticut Planning Region, and the principal municipality of Greater New Haven metropolitan area, which had a total population of 864,835 in 2020. New Haven was one of the first planned cities in the U.S. A year after its founding by English Puritans in 1638, eight streets were laid out in a four-by-four grid, creating the "Nine Square Plan". The central common block is the New Haven Green, a square at the center of Downtown New Haven. The Green is now a National Historic Landmark, and the "Nine Square Plan" is recognized by the American Planning Association as a National Planning Landmark. New Haven is the home of Yale University, New Haven's big ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shubert Theatre (New Haven)
The Shubert Theatre is a 1,600-seat theatre located at 247 College Street in New Haven, Connecticut. It is currently operated as a non-profit organization by the Columbus Association for the Performing Arts (CAPA). History Originally opened in 1914 by The Shubert Organization, it was designed by Albert Swazey, a New York architect and built by the H.E. Murdock Construction Company. The theater struggled financially in the 1970's and closed in 1976. The theater building was subsequently acquired by the City of New Haven, and the interior was restored. The Adams Hotel, which was located between the historic theater building and College Street, was demolished to build a modern lobby addition. The theatre reopened under city ownership in 1983, operated by the Columbus Association for the Performing Arts (CAPA). Notable productions For decades, the Shubert was used as a tryout venue for plays and musicals that, if successful, would then move on to Broadway — sometimes with an i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Billy House
William H. Comstock (May 7, 1889 – September 23, 1961), known by his stage name Billy House, was an American actor, vaudevillian and Broadway performer. After devoting most of his career to live performance, he moved to Hollywood where he became a supporting actor during the 1940s and 1950s. According to admirer Orson Welles, the name "Billy House" was likely an invention for use in burlesque theaters. Career overview Breaking into show business as a trumpet player, House worked in circuses, vaudeville, burlesque theaters and radio dramas before adding the occasional Broadway turn and bit part in feature films to his résumé. One of his Broadway co-stars, Pauline Moore, once recalled an incident about his performance in the 1933 Earl Carroll version of ''Murder at the Vanities'': House was also used as a live-action model for the Disney characters of Doc (in ''Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs'') and Smee (in ''Peter Pan''). By the mid-1940s he had begun working more steadil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chic Johnson
Harold Ogden "Chic" Johnson (March 15, 1891 – February 26, 1962) was the barrel-chested half of the American comedy team of Olsen and Johnson, known for his attitud Background Johnson was born of Swedish descent in Chicago to John M. and Matilda C. (née Carlson) Johnson. Career Johnson studied classical piano at the Chicago Musical College. He dropped out to support himself as a ragtime pianist in various Chicago-area cabarets and vaudeville houses. He broke into show business as a ragtime pianist and met his partner Ole Olsen, a violinist, when they were hired by the same band. Following the breakup of the band, they started doing comedy and by 1918 were vaudeville headliners. O&J were given contracts by Warner Bros. in 1930 to appear as the comic relief in a number of musicals including '' Oh, Sailor Behave'' (1930), '' Gold Dust Gertie'' (1931) and a lavish Technicolor version of '' Fifty Million Frenchmen'' (1931). Unfortunately, 1931 saw a backlash against musicals ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ole Olsen (comedian)
John Sigvard "Ole" Olsen (November 6, 1892 – January 26, 1963) was an American vaudevillian and comedian, who was part of the Olsen and Johnson comedy team. Biography Olsen was married twice. He had four children with his first wife, Lillian Clem: John Charles, Robert Clem, Joy, and Moya. They were later divorced. Robert Clem died of miliary tuberculosis at age 2. J. C. Olsen, an actor, died by suicide in 1956. Moya married William P. Lear of Learjet fame in 1942. Ole was involved in a serious automobile accident in 1950 and recuperated at the Lear home. In June 1961, Ole married Eileen Maria Osthoff, a dancer and choreographer whom he had known for eight years. Olsen is remembered for the quote, "May you live as long as you laugh, and laugh as long as you live", which is cited on his headstone. He died in Albuquerque, New Mexico at the age of 70 of a kidney ailment, and is interred in Palm Desert Memorial in Las Vegas, Nevada, in a grave adjoining that of Chic Joh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hellzapoppin (musical)
''Hellzapoppin'' is a musical revue written by the comedy team of Olsen and Johnson, consisting of John "Ole" Olsen and Harold "Chic" Johnson, with music and lyrics by Sammy Fain and Charles Tobias. The revue was a hit, running for over three years, and was at the time the longest-running Broadway musical, with 1,404 performances, making it one of only three plays to run more than 500 performances in the 1930s. Production In 1938, after opening at the Shubert Theatre in Boston on September 10, ''Hellzapoppin'' opened on Broadway at the original 46th Street Theatre on September 22. It was then transferred to the Winter Garden Theatre on November 26, and finally moved to the Majestic Theatre on November 25, 1941. It closed on December 17, 1941, after a total of 1,404 performances. Olsen & Johnson led a large cast of entertainers: the comedy team of Barto and Mann ( Dewey Barto and George Mann); Charles Whithers; celebrity impersonators, the Radio Rogues; Hal Sherman; Wa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
